Chapter 5: Drunk confessions
The vinyl of the booth squeaked under the weight of another round as Brown’s Bar’s low din swallowed another shift. Jack was holding court with a story about a cat rescued from a maple tree, his hands sketching the frantic climb in the air.
Andy nursed a whiskey, her gaze fixed on the neon B in the window sign, her recent détente with Sullivan sitting uncomfortably between them. The night was a release valve, pressure hissing out in laughter and clinking glass.
“I’m telling you, the thing looked at me like I owed it money,” Jack laughed, sloshing beer on the table. Joseph smiled, the warmth of her own beer mixing with the comfortable fog of camaraderie settling in. She felt loose. Light.
Bella, across from her, tipped her head back to finish her drink. The line of her throat was pale in the bar’s amber light, a vulnerable curve Joseph’s eyes traced before she looked away.
“Another?” Robert asked, already standing.
Andy shook her head. “I’m tapped out. Plus, Sullivan’s agreed to dinner. Probably to discuss hydrant maintenance.” Her tone was dry, but the corner of her mouth lifted. It was progress.
Jack spotted a woman at the bar who’d smiled at his cat story. “Duty calls,” he announced, sliding out. He gave a mock salute and was absorbed into the crowd. The dynamic shifted, the energy settling into something quieter, more intimate.
“Rain check on that refill, Robert,” Bella said, pushing her empty glass away. “I think I’ve reached my limit of Gibson’s heroic cat tales.” She stood, stretching her arms over her head. Her shirt rode up a fraction, revealing a sliver of toned stomach and the waistband of her jeans. Joseph looked down at her own hands.
“Sure you don’t want a ride, Bishop?” Robert asked, pulling on his jacket.
“Nah. I need the air.” Her eyes met Joseph’s a question held in them. “You walking?”
Joseph nodded, her mouth dry. “Yeah. Clears the head.”
They spilled out onto the street, Robert and Andy peeling off toward his car with a wave. The sudden quiet was a shock after the bar’s hum. The night air was cool, carrying the distant scent of the waterfront and garbage from a nearby dumpster.
Bella shivered, crossing her arms over her chest. “Didn’t think it’d be this cold,” she muttered, her breath forming a small cloud. They walked without direction, the click of Bella’s boots on the pavement a steady counterpoint to Joseph’s softer steps.
They turned into a quieter side alley, a shortcut between blocks lit by a single buzzing streetlight half a block down. The shadows were deep, privacy folding around them. The shiver wracked Bella again, more visibly this time, a full-body tremor.
“Here,” Joseph heard herself say. Her hands were moving before her mind could organize a protest. She shrugged out of her battered canvas jacket, the one with the frayed cuffs and the faint smell of smoke that never quite washed out. She stepped in front of Bella, halting their progress.
She draped the jacket over Bella’s shoulders, the gesture feeling both immense and completely natural. She pulled the front closed, her hands smoothing the material over Bella’s arms.
Her fingers lingered on the canvas-covered shoulders. She rubbed them up and down, slowly, twice. A simple gesture to generate warmth. The friction was through the thick fabric, but Joseph felt the solid shape of Bella beneath, the firm curve of her shoulders.
The world narrowed to the space between them, to the feel of worn canvas under Joseph’s palms. Bella had gone perfectly still, her gaze locked on Joseph’s face.
Joseph’s hands stopped moving. They rested there, a bridge of touch connecting them. The alley was silent except for the distant hum of the city.
“Joseph,” Bella whispered. Her name wasn’t a question. It was an arrival. Her eyes were wide, pupils swallowing the green in the dim light. Her breath was shallow, visible in the cool air.
Joseph couldn’t move. She was pinned by the weight of the moment, by the terrifying, glorious precipice she stood upon. The fear was there, a cold whisper in her spine. But it was smaller now, drowned out by the hammering of her heart.
Bella’s hands came up from her sides. They didn’t push Joseph away. They came to rest lightly on Joseph’s wrists, her touch cool at first, then warming quickly against Joseph’s skin. It wasn’t a restraint. It was an anchor.
Slowly, giving her every chance to pull back, Bella guided Joseph’s hands downward from her shoulders. She brought them to her own waist, pressing Joseph’s palms flat against the soft cotton of her shirt. Bella’s own hands slid up Joseph’s forearms, a slow, deliberate caress over the tattoos there.
The touch was electric, a live wire straight to Joseph’s core. She felt the heat of Bella’s body through her shirt. She felt the shallow rise and fall of Bella’s breath under her hands. The need to be honest swelled, a terrifying wave about to break.
“There’s something,” Joseph choked out, her voice raw. “I need to—”.
“Later,” Bella breathed, her words a feather-light brush against Joseph’s lips. She rose up on her toes, her gaze never wavering. “Whatever it is.”
She closed the last inch.
The kiss was soft at first, a tentative press of warmth. Then it deepened, Bella’s mouth opening against hers, her hands sliding up to tangle in Joseph’s dark hair. Joseph’s world exploded into pure sensation.
The taste of Bella, of whiskey and something citrus, flooded her. The feel of Bella’s lips moving against hers, insistent and sure. The small sound Bella made in the back of her throat, a vibration Joseph felt in her own chest. She kissed back, clumsy at first, then with a desperate hunger she didn’t know she possessed.
Her hands tightened on Bella’s waist, pulling their bodies flush together. There was no space for thought. There was only this crushing heat, the frantic beat of their hearts slamming together through layers of clothing.
Joseph kissed her as if she were drowning and Bella was air. She kissed her to forget every whispered shame, every moment of loneliness. It was a confession without words, a plea and a promise tangled together by the meeting of their lips.
Bella broke the kiss with a gasp, her forehead resting against Joseph’s. Her breath came in quick, warm puffs against Joseph’s face. Her eyes were dark, dazed. “Whoa,” she breathed, the word a shaky laugh.
Joseph’s own breath was ragged. She was shaking. The enormity of it all came crashing back. She had kissed her captain.
“Your place,” Bella said, her voice husky. It wasn’t a question. It was a decision. Her thumb stroked the line of Joseph’s jaw. “It’s closer.”
This was it. The second the talking stopped. The moment hands would move beyond shoulders, beyond waists. Joseph’s fear surged, icy and paralysing. The Frankenstein suit felt suddenly sewn shut, impossible to remove.
She looked at Bella’s kiss-swollen lips, at the trusting, hungry light in her eyes. Bella thought she knew who she was taking home. A pang of guilt, sharp and sickening, lanced through Joseph. She could ruin this perfect moment. Or she could lie by omission, for a little while longer, and maybe find heaven before the hell she knew was coming.
She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the quiet alley. She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
The ten-block walk was a wordless trance, a fragile bubble suspended in the late-night quiet. Bella had slipped her hand into Joseph's, their fingers interlacing with a calm, finality.
Joseph focused on the mundane rhythm of their steps, the rough texture of the sidewalk, the way the streetlights painted shifting patterns on Bella's focused profile. Sirens pulsed somewhere far away, a faint echo of their other life, irrelevant now.
Her apartment building loomed, a nondescript brick box. Joseph felt the metal of her keys dig into her palm where she’d been clutching them like a lifeline. The sterile hallway smelled of disinfectant and old carpet, a world away from salt air and smoke. At her door, her fingers, usually so precise with equipment clasps, betrayed her.
The key refused to find the slot. She jammed it, withdrew it, her breath hitching. "God, just—," she muttered, a frustrated curse swallowed by the silence.
Bella gently took the keys from her trembling hand, her fingers brushing Joseph's, a quiet, stable force. "Let me."
She unlocked the door with a soft click.
They crossed the threshold into the dim, tidy space. The familiar scent of leather cleaner and pine from her one sad little plant greeted her. It felt foreign. The door swung shut behind them, sealing out the world. The latch engaged with a solid, echoing thud that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards.
In the sudden, near-total darkness, broken only by the orange glow of a streetlight filtering through the blinds, time stopped. Joseph could hear the ragged sound of her own breathing. Before she could reach for a lamp, before she could think, Bella moved.
Bella’s hands fisted in the fabric of Joseph's shirt, a firm, decisive pull that brought their bodies crashing together. The momentum carried them sideways, Bella's back meeting the wall beside the door with a soft thump. The sound was startling in the quiet apartment.
Bella stood on her toes, bridging the last of the height difference, and closed the distance.
She kissed Joseph, and this was nothing like the gentle press in the alley. This was all hunger, a direct and consuming claim. It was whiskey and need, a language spoken with lips and teeth and a soft, desperate sound from the back of Bella's throat.
A jolt of pure, undiluted heat shot through Joseph, melting the ice in her veins. Joseph kissed her back, her own hands finding the familiar slope of Bella’s waist.
Bella’s tongue traced Joseph’s lower lip, a question demanding an answer Joseph gave without thought. The world outside her apartment ceased to exist. There was only the wall solid at her back, the heat of Bella pressing against her front, and the dizzying spiral of sensation.
Bella’s hands were under her shirt now, palms skating over the tight muscles of Joseph’s stomach, fingers tracing the line of her ribs. Every nerve ending was on fire, a live wire sparking under her skin.
Joseph’s own hands moved from Bella’s waist, sliding up the curve of her spine, feeling the knobs of her vertebrae through the thin cotton. She kissed her harder, deeper, trying to lose herself in the taste, the feel, the obliterating now. Her body, traitorous and alive, responded with a fierce, single-minded urgency.
A wave of heat pooled low and tight in her gut. The familiar, dreaded pressure built, an insistent throbbing against the confines of her jeans. Joseph felt her cock harden.
It was a physical fact, a betrayal of her deepest shame. The Frankenstein suit wasn’t just in her mind; it was here, now, pressed against Bella’s hip. A jolt of pure panic severed the feverish connection. She broke the kiss with a gasp, tearing her mouth away.
She pulled back a fraction, just enough space for a sliver of cold air between their bodies, so Bella didn’t feel how hard she was.
Bella’s eyes were hazy, her lips parted and swollen. “What?” she breathed, her hands stilling on Joseph’s skin. “What’s wrong?”
Joseph’s mind raced, scrabbling for any reason but the real one. The whiskey. The darkness. The dizzying want. They were all true, but they were lies of omission. She looked at Bella’s flushed face, the trust there, and felt like a fraud.
“You’re… we’re drunk,” Joseph said, the words clumsy in her mouth. She leaned forward and kissed her again, a brief, desperate press, trying to seal the lie with contact.
Her hands at Bella’s waist slid up her back, holding her close even as she was mentally pulling away. “I can’t take advantage of you.” she mumbled against Bella’s lips, the saintly excuse tasting like ash.
Bella went still. She leaned her head back against the wall, studying Joseph’s face in the jagged orange light from the window. Her breathing was still uneven. A slow, knowing smile touched her mouth, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“That’s the gear grinding again,” she said softly, her voice husky. “I can hear it.” She brought a hand up, cupping Joseph’s jaw. Her thumb stroked the stubbled skin. “I’m drunk enough to want you. Not too drunk to know I do.”
“Bella—” Joseph started, the confession a tidal wave behind her teeth.
“Stop.” Bella’s command was gentle, final. She pushed off from the wall, taking Joseph’s hand. She led her away from the entryway, through the dark living room, toward the faint grey rectangle of the bedroom door. “No more thinking. No more protocols.”
They crossed the threshold. The bedroom was neater than the rest of the apartment, the bed made with sharp, hospital corners. Bella turned to face her. In the deeper darkness here, her features were softened, her green eyes almost black.
“You said you wanted to be in-bounds,” she whispered, her fingers finding the hem of Joseph’s shirt. She pulled it up, over her head, and let it fall to the floor. The cool air hit Joseph’s bare skin. “So be here. With me.”
Joseph stood frozen, exposed. She watched Bella’s eyes travel over her torso, over the tattoos and the lean muscle, the same way she’d looked at her across the apparatus floor. There was appreciation there, a quiet hunger. But no shock. No revulsion. Not yet.
Bella reached for her own shirt, pulling it off in one smooth motion. The streetlight caught the pale slope of her shoulders, the simple black lace of her bra. She was breathtaking.
The sight short-circuited Joseph’s panic, replacing it with a staggering wave of want so potent it hurt. She closed the distance, her hands finding Bella’s hips, pulling her in.
This time, there was no frantic force. It was slower, deliberate. She kissed the hollow of Bella’s throat, felt the frantic pulse there against her lips.
She kissed a path along her collarbone, her hands mapping the taut lines of her back. Bella’s head fell back, a soft sigh escaping her. Her fingers threaded into Joseph’s dark hair, holding her close.
“See?” Bella murmured, her voice vibrating under Joseph’s mouth. “No advantage. Just this.”
Joseph believed her, for one suspended, perfect second. She let her hands slide lower, her fingertips dipping just beneath the waistband of Bella’s jeans. Bella arched into the touch, a sharp intake of breath.
Then Bella’s own hands moved, unbuckling Joseph’s belt with a soft shush of leather. The sound was a detonation in the quiet room. Joseph’s whole body locked. The panic returned, not as a wave, but as a vise. The fabric of her jeans felt like a dam holding back a truth that would destroy everything.
Bella’s fingers paused on the button. She felt the rigidity in Joseph’s muscles, the way her breathing had stopped. She looked up, searching her face.
“Joseph,” she said, her name a question in the dark.
“I need to tell you something.” Joseph said.
The words felt too loud, cracking the fragile intimacy of the dark room. Bella’s hand didn’t move. Her gaze, however, sharpened. She was listening with her whole body.
The way Bella was looking at her made it hard. She couldn’t form a word. Bella’s expression was so open, so patiently waiting. It wasn’t lust or command there now, but a deep, quiet focus that was infinitely worse. It demanded truth.
Joseph’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. A soundless, agonized exhalation. She shook her head, her eyes burning. She was failing.
“What is it?” Bella whispered. Her thumb stroked a slow, absent circle on Joseph’s hip bone. “If you can’t tell me,” she said, her voice dropping to a husk, a suggestion so intimate it was barely audible, “show me.”
Joseph’s cock throbbed at her words.
It was a violent, involuntary pulse of need, a traitorous surge of blood that made her dizzy. The dichotomy was excruciating—the fear and the want, fused into a single, aching point of pressure. A low, guttural sound escaped her, part agony, part surrender.
She groaned, her head dipping down until her forehead rested against Bella’s shoulder. The scent of her skin, sweat and bar smoke and Bella, filled her senses. She was shaking.
“Hey,” Bella murmured, her free hand coming up to cradle the back of Joseph’s neck. “Hey, just breathe.” She held her there, an anchor in the storm. “You don’t have to show me anything.”
But the permission had been given. The dam had a crack. The words were still impossible, but her body, trembling and eager, was another language. Shame warred with a desperate, clawing hope.
Slowly, with a effort that felt physical, Joseph reached down. Her fingers found Bella’s wrist where it rested against her stomach. She didn’t push it away.
She guided it. Downward, over the tense plane of her abdomen, to the unbuttoned waistband of her jeans.
Bella’s breath stuttered. Understanding flickered, but not the full picture. Her fingers curled, not retreating, letting Joseph guide their path.
Joseph pressed Bella’s hand against the prominent, rigid outline in her boxer briefs. The contact was electric, blinding. A choked sob lodged in Joseph’s throat. There it was. The secret, made physical under Bella’s palm.
Bella went perfectly still. For three heartbeats, there was only the feel of her hand, warm and still, through the thin cotton.
Bella’s fingers flexed. A cautious, curious pressure. She shifted her hand, her touch becoming not a shock, but an exploration. Her thumb traced the length of the shaft through the fabric, a slow, thoughtful stroke.
Joseph whimpered, the sound ripped from some deep, untouched place.
“This?” Bella finally asked, her voice remarkably even. Her hand didn’t move away. “This is what’s had you thinking in circles? Since the coffee shop? Since the cliff?”
Joseph could only nod, a jerky, miserable motion. The heat of her own humiliation was a furnace in her cheeks.
“Okay,” Bella said softly. The word wasn’t an absolution. It was an acknowledgment. A data point, as she’d say. She leaned in, her lips brushing the shell of Joseph’s ear. “Does it feel good when I touch you here?”
The question, so clinical and so carnal at once, shattered Joseph. “Yes,” she gasped.
“Good,” Bella breathed. She kissed her then, deep and slow, a counterpoint to the tentative movement of her hand.
She kissed her then, deep and slow, a counterpoint to the tentative movement of her hand. The kiss was an anchor, a tether to something solid as the world tilted on its axis beneath Joseph’s feet. Bella’s thumb continued its slow, maddening sweep, the pressure just shy of what Joseph desperately needed.
A current of pure, undiluted sensation raced up Joseph’s spine, short-circuiting her thoughts. The fear was still a dull roar in the back of her skull, but it was being drowned out by a louder, more immediate static. Her hips stuttered forward a fraction, a tiny, involuntary plea.
Bella broke the kiss, her lips trailing to the corner of Joseph’s mouth. “Yeah?” she murmured, her breath hot against Joseph’s skin. Her hand stilled. “Tell me.”
“Don’t stop,” Joseph choked out, the words ragged. It was all she could manage. Shame and need were twin fuels burning in her gut.
Bella kissed her again, harder this time. Her free hand came up to cradle Joseph’s jaw, holding her in place. The hand on her cock resumed its motion, firmer now, a confident rhythm through the frustrating barrier of cotton. Joseph’s knees threatened to buckle. She braced a hand against the wall behind Bella, her fingers splaying against the cool plaster.
The sensation was too much and not enough. It was a lightning strike contained, a promise held just out of reach. Every nerve was alight, screaming for contact. Her body was betraying her in the most profound way, reacting with an eager, desperate honesty her mind had never allowed.
Joseph broke the kiss, groaning as Bella’s hand stroked over the fabric once. “Ohhh, Bella.” She groaned, the name a prayer and a surrender.
Bella watched her. She watched the struggle play out on Joseph’s face—the clenched jaw, the fluttering eyelids, the raw vulnerability. Her gaze was assessing, but not cold. It was like she was reading a map in a language she’d just discovered.
She finally slipped her hand under the waistband.
Her fingers were warm, her touch shockingly direct on bare skin. Joseph shuddered, her head thrown back. A strangled sound escaped her, part relief, part terror. “God. Fuck.” She moaned, breathless.
Bella’s hand wrapped around her, a firm, knowing grip. The feel of it, skin on skin, was catastrophic. It was the cliff’s edge, the zero-visibility soup, the moment the roof groans before it gives way. Every cell in her body focused on that single point of contact.
She could feel something in her stomach. A knot. What was happening? The pleasure was a physical wave, building with each stroke of Bella’s hand, but the fear was a counter-rhythm, a cold undertow. “I don’t kno—”
Bella cut her off. She leaned in, her mouth close to Joseph’s ear. Her hand never stopped moving. “You know,” she whispered, the words low and sure. “You feel it. Just let it happen.”
The command unspooled something deep inside Joseph. The gears ground to a halt. The thinking, the endless circular dread, simply stopped. There was only the hot, slick friction of Bella’s hand, the cadence of her own broken breaths, the solid press of Bella’s body keeping her upright.
Tension coiled, tight and unbearable, in the base of her spine. The knot in her stomach pulled taut. Her fingers dug into the plaster wall. A high, thin whine escaped her clenched teeth.
Bella felt the change, the imminent fracture. She shifted her grip, her thumb sweeping over the head of Joseph’s cock. “That’s it,” she breathed, her own voice thick. “I’ve got you.”
The words broke her.
The release was a thunderclap, violent and total. White light erupted behind her eyes. Her body bowed, rigid, every muscle locking as the world dissolved into pure, shuddering sensation. A raw, guttural cry tore from her throat, muffled against Bella’s shoulder as she collapsed forward.
Bella held her through it, her hand gentle now, her other arm wrapped tightly around Joseph’s trembling back. She held her as the waves crashed and receded, as Joseph’s harsh sobs turned into shaky, spent breaths.
Slowly, the room seeped back in. The feel of the wall under her splayed fingers. The smell of their mingled sweat. The overwhelming, bewildering warmth of Bella’s body supporting her entire weight.
Joseph was hollowed out. Scoured clean. The secret was out, laid bare in the most physical way possible, and the world hadn’t ended. Bella hadn’t recoiled. She was still here, her heartbeat a steady drum against Joseph’s chest.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Shame began to seep back into the void, cold and slick. What must Bella think? What had she just done?
As if reading her mind, Bella gently extracted her hand. She didn’t pull away. She simply rested her damp palm against Joseph’s lower back, a grounding weight. She leaned her cheek against the side of Joseph’s head. They stood like that in the dark, in the silence, for a long time.
Finally, Bella spoke, her voice quiet but clear. “So that’s the big secret.”
Joseph flinched. The words were neutral, impossible to read.
“All that fear,” Bella continued, her fingers tracing idle circles on Joseph’s back. “All that distance. For a body that works just fine.” She let out a slow breath. “Christ, Joseph. You carried a kid out of a fire today. And you were scared of this?”
It wasn’t disgust. It wasn’t anger. It was a baffled, weary kind of wonder. Joseph finally found her voice, though it was wrecked. “It’s not… normal.”
“Says who?” Bella’s response was immediate, a soft challenge. “Feels pretty normal to me. Felt… good.” She paused. “Did it feel good for you? Not just the… finish. But before. The touching.”
Joseph nodded, her face still buried. “Yes.”
“Then that’s the only data that matters.” Bella shifted, leaning back just enough to look at Joseph’s face. Her eyes were searching in the gloom. “You thought I’d what? Be horrified? Think you were some kind of freak?”
The word, spoken aloud, made Joseph recoil. She didn’t answer.
Bella’s expression softened. She used her clean hand to brush a strand of sweat-damp hair from Joseph’s forehead. “You’re just a person. A person who got dealt a different hand.” She shrugged one bare shoulder. “I don’t play cards. I just know who I want at my table.”
The metaphor was clumsy, utterly Bella. It was the least romantic thing anyone could have said. It was also the most profoundly accepting. Joseph felt the cold knot of shame begin, for the first time in her life, to truly loosen.
She looked at Bella, really looked at her. At the concern in her eyes, the set of her mouth, the quiet, steady certainty. This woman had just held her through a personal earthquake. She hadn’t run.
“Your turn,” Joseph whispered, the words barely audible.
A slow smile spread across Bella’s face. It was tired, genuine, and held a spark of the heat from before. “Is that an order, Lieutenant?”
Joseph managed a shaky breath. “A request.”
Bella nodded. She took Joseph’s hand, the one that had been braced against the wall, and guided it to the button of her own jeans. “Then stop thinking,” she said, her voice dropping to a husk. “And catch up.”