Chapter 10: Movie Night
Movie night arrived the way Katie arrived everywhere, with too much stuff and no apology. Joanna came out of her shower to find the sectional already transformed: three blankets layered in a nest, two bowls of popcorn, a bag of peanut butter cups torn open, and Katie sitting cross-legged in the middle of it wearing gray shorts and an old tank top, remote in hand.
"You said don't be weird," Katie said, "so I got regular M&Ms too. For balance."
Joanna had dressed with more deliberation than she wanted to admit. Her hair was still damp, and she'd pulled on a worn tee shirt and a thong and nothing else. She'd stood in front of her drawer for a full minute with a pair of sweats in her hand before putting them back. If this was the trial run, there was no point pretending the trial wasn't happening.
Katie clocked the outfit. Her eyes did a quick pass, unhurried, and then she pointed the remote at the TV like nothing had happened.
"Sit. I picked the movie."
"Which one?"
"Interstellar."
Joanna settled into the far corner of the sectional, tucking one leg under her. "You've seen it like six times."
"And I cry every time, and I'm not ashamed." Katie scrolled to it, then paused. "Also Anne Hathaway is in it, and she is so hot it's distracting."
"That's your reasoning?"
"That's my primary reasoning. The physics is a bonus." Katie tossed her the bag of candy. "Also, I made a stop at the dispensary."
She held up a small tin. Inside were two gummies, each dusted with sugar, each looking harmless and potent.
"One each," Katie said. "Twenty milligrams. It'll take the edge off and make the docking scene hit like church."
Joanna took hers and chewed it while Katie started the movie. The opening shots filled the screen, the corn fields, the dust, the huge sound of it through the soundbar. Katie pulled a blanket over both their legs without asking, her knee settling warm against Joanna's thigh.
They ate popcorn and passed the peanut butter cups back and forth through the first twenty minutes. The gummy was a slow warmth starting behind Joanna's eyes, softening the room's edges. She caught herself watching Matthew McConaughey's face and thinking about nothing at all, which was rare enough to be pleasant.
"We've got about an hour before it really kicks in," Katie said, during a lull in dialogue. "So. Talk to me about the trial run."
Joanna set her popcorn down. Her stomach did something that wasn't entirely the edible.
"I thought about it. Today. At practice." She kept her eyes on the screen. "And I decided if we're going to do it, I want some rules."
"Okay."
"Rule one, we stop whenever I say. Rule two, nobody talks about this at practice, ever."
"Obviously."
"Rule three." Joanna took a breath and reached under the blanket, into the pocket of the hoodie she'd draped over the arm of the couch. She pulled out her silk sleep mask, the one from her care package, and held it up.
Katie looked at it, then at her. "What's that for?"
"It's for me. I wear it." Joanna turned the mask over in her fingers. "I know that sounds crazy."
"It doesn't sound crazy."
"It does a little. But if I'm watching, I'll think too much. I'll be in my head the whole time, doing commentary." She made herself look at Katie. "If I can't see, I can just... feel it. Like at the Wellness Center. That's when it works."
Katie nodded slowly, and to her credit she didn't grin, didn't tease. She reached over and turned the TV volume down a notch, which somehow made the conversation more official.
"Okay. Mask on." Katie set the remote aside. "Anything else? I want the full spec sheet before I start."
"Just... be methodical. Like you said." Joanna's mouth was dry in a way the gummy hadn't caused. "Slow. And don't make it a thing."
"Jo." Katie's voice was steady. "I've wanted my hands on you for two years. I promise I'm not going to rush it."
The way she said it, plain and unashamed, made heat crawl up the back of Joanna's neck. On the screen, someone was explaining time dilation. Joanna had lost the plot entirely.
They finished the movie's first act like that, shoulders touching, the gummy finally settling into her limbs like warm water. Katie refilled the popcorn once. Neither of them mentioned the mask sitting on the blanket between them, but Joanna was aware of it the way she was aware of a ball sitting on a tee.
When the scene on the ice planet ended, Katie muted the TV.
"Whenever you're ready."
Joanna's heart was suddenly very loud. She took a sip of water, set the glass down, and then made herself move before her nerve could go. She crawled across the sectional and lay down on her stomach, face-down into the pillows, her head at one end of the blanket nest.
"Now scoot back," Katie said. "I want your hips across my lap."
Joanna walked herself backward on her elbows and knees until her hips settled over Katie's thighs, her butt and legs draped across her roommate's lap like she was over someone's knee. The position was absurd and intimate in equal measure, her bare skin against the soft cotton of Katie's shorts.
"Good?" Katie asked.
"Fine."
"Last chance to chicken out."
"I don't chicken out on the tee box, and I'm not chickening out now."
"Okay." Joanna heard the click of a cap. Lube, she realized, Katie had actually planned that far. "Mask."
She pulled the sleep mask down over her eyes. The world went black, and every other sense got louder. The movie's muted glow she couldn't see but could almost feel. The weight of the blanket. Katie's hands settling on her, one resting warm on the small of her back.
"Just breathe," Katie said. "Homework, right? Twenty minutes."
"Thirty," Joanna said into the pillow. "Rachel said thirty."
"Then we've got time."
Katie's hand slid down, over the curve of her ass, and Joanna felt her whole body tighten and then, deliberately, release. She made herself breathe out, made herself think of Rachel's voice. Relax. Let it happen.
Cool lube, then warm fingers, tracing slow circles at her entrance, not going in yet. Just coaxing. Joanna's hips shifted without her permission.
"Good," Katie murmured. "There you go."
The first finger slid in, slow and careful, and Joanna's breath caught. It was different from her own hand, different from Rachel's, longer reaches, a different angle, a different rhythm. Katie worked it in and out with a patience that felt almost like a golf drill, metronome-steady, and the stretching ache was there but folded inside it was something that made her toes curl.
"Color check," Katie said quietly. "Still fine?"
"Fine," Joanna managed. "More."
Katie added the second finger, easing it in beside the first, and Joanna pressed her face into the pillow as the fullness spread through her. In the dark behind the mask, there was nothing but the slow push and pull, the small wet sounds, Katie's free hand rubbing gentle circles on her lower back.
"See?" Katie said softly. "Told you. Methodical."
Joanna laughed into the pillow, a muffled, breathless sound. "Shut up and keep going."
"I will. But first." Katie's hands left her entirely. "I've been dying to say this for two years and it seems like the moment. Jo, your ass is incredible. Like, genuinely. I've watched you do squats in the team gym and had to leave."
"Katie."
"Compliment delivered under rule two. It stays at practice-free." Then her fingers hooked into the waistband of Joanna's thong, peeling it down over her hips, down her thighs, past her knees. She worked it off over Joanna's feet with a care that was almost formal, and then Joanna felt the fabric sail through the air and land somewhere near the ottoman with a soft slap.
"There," Katie said. "Now you're properly dressed for homework."
Joanna lay there with her bare ass in the air across her best friend's lap, cheeks burning behind the mask. The air felt different on her skin without the fabric, cooler, more honest. She could hear the muted movie, the rumble of the soundbar, Katie's slow breathing.
"God," Katie said, and her hands settled on Joanna's hips, both of them, sliding up over the curve of her ass and squeezing. Not a grab, exactly. An appraisal. Her thumbs pressed into the muscle and worked there for a moment, kneading, the way she might work a knot out of a shoulder after a long tournament round. "I knew it'd be like this. Firm all over. You athletes."
"You're an athlete too."
"I'm aware. I just don't get compliments, apparently." One last squeeze, deliberate, unhurried, and then her hand slid back down, over the wet heat between Joanna's legs, and two fingers pushed in again without any warning or warm-up.
Joanna gasped. Bare, with nothing in the way, it was somehow twice as much. The stretch bit and then bloomed, and her hips tipped back into it before her brain could vote.
"Better," Katie murmured. "I could tell the fabric was bugging you."
It was better. The fingers moved slow, deep, each stroke dragging along the front wall of her, and the ache had stopped being an ache somewhere in the last minute and turned into something that made her toes flex with every pass. She gripped a handful of blanket and pressed her forehead harder into the pillow.
"You're doing great, by the way," Katie said. "Your breathing's way better than I expected."
"I've been practicing."
Katie laughed quietly and kept the rhythm going. Then she said, casual as weather, "Question. When Rachel makes you cum from penetration, I'm assuming it feels like this." Her fingers curled inside Joanna, hard, and held there, pressing that swollen spot with the pads of her fingertips. "Right?"
The sound Joanna made wasn't a word. The pressure bloomed outward, deep in her pelvis, that same building fullness Rachel had coached out of her, and she rode it for a second, then two, before Katie eased the curl back into a steady stroke.
"Right?" Katie repeated, amused.
"Yes," Joanna said, and she was laughing, actually laughing, her face buried in the pillow, because it was absurd and it was happening and it felt so good she couldn't stand it. "Yes, that's exactly, oh my God, that's exactly what it's like."
"Huh." Katie sounded genuinely pleased with herself. "Good. That means I'm calibrated."
"Where did you learn to do that?"
"Rachel. The other Rachel. Two years of sessions, Jo. I paid attention." Her fingers slid deeper, slow, all the way in, and held. "Also you're giving me a lot of feedback data right now. Your whole body's talking."
"What's it saying?"
"That you like it when I do this." She curled again, shorter this time, a flick of pressure, and Joanna's back arched off the blanket on its own. "Yeah. That."
Joanna pressed her hips back down, chasing it, mortified and past caring. In the dark behind the mask everything narrowed to the slow push and pull inside her, the wet sound of it, Katie's warm palm resting against her skin. Her thighs had gone loose across Katie's lap. Her thoughts had gone loose too.
"You are so tight," Katie said, and there was real wonder in her voice, like she was narrating a discovery. "Like, genuinely tight. Two fingers is a project. Rachel wasn't exaggerating."
"Thanks," Joanna said into the pillow. "Very flattering."
"I'm serious. It's not bad, it's just, wow, this is going to take a lot of work to loosen up. Weeks. Maybe months of daily practice." Katie's tone was doing something between a coach's assessment and a rumor of smugness. "Good thing you have a study partner."
"You're enjoying this way too much."
"Obviously. This is the best Tuesday of my life." Her free hand stroked down Joanna's spine, unhurried, and settled at the small of her back. "Honestly though, all this tightness. Some cock couldn't hurt either. Just saying."
Joanna turned her head enough to speak clearly. "Excuse me?"
"I'm just saying. It's a known fact. Not a prescription." Katie worked her fingers in and out, slow and patient, metronome-steady. "I'm your study partner, not your matchmaker. But if some tall guy with a decent swing ever asks you out, I'd encourage an open mind."
"You're unbelievable."
"I'm thorough. Rachel said be thorough." Then her fingers curled and stayed, pressing, and whatever Joanna was going to say came out as a long, shaking breath instead. Katie leaned down close, her mouth near Joanna's ear. "Twenty more minutes, Jo. Just feel it. I've got you."
Katie's fingers picked up speed, a little more pressure behind each stroke, and Joanna's hips started moving with them, a slow roll she couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted to.
"You're loosening up," Katie said. "Feel that? Third week of this and you'll be taking three no problem."
Joanna meant to answer something neutral. Instead what came out was, "Do you remember Will?"
The fingers didn't stop. If anything they got more deliberate.
"Will." Katie's voice went up half an octave with recognition. "Freshman year Will. Yeah, I remember. Shorter guy, dark hair, not an athlete but real smart. Business major, always wore those weird little collared shirts."
"That's him."
"Didn't he spend sophomore year in Germany? Some exchange thing?"
"Yeah." Joanna's breath caught as Katie's fingers sped up again, a faster rhythm now, stroking over that swollen spot with every pass. She gripped the blanket and made herself keep talking. "Stuttgart. He sent me postcards for like a month and then it just stopped."
"Oh my God, the postcards. I remember you reading them out loud at breakfast." Katie laughed, low, and shifted her weight so she could reach deeper. Her fingers sank all the way in and dragged back out, slow-fast-slow, an unpredictable pattern that kept Joanna's whole body guessing. "So why are we talking about Will right now? Because I promise you, whatever he did, I'm doing it better."
"You are," Joanna said into the pillow, and it came out embarrassing and honest. "Actually, that's kind of the point."
"Meaning?"
"He's the one I broke it off with. Because he came inside me without asking."
Katie's rhythm stuttered for half a second, then resumed, steady, maybe a fraction gentler. "Wait. He just did it? Mid-hookup, no conversation?"
"Yeah. I was on the pill, so it wasn't even a scare thing. It was that he decided for me. I said stop and he didn't hear me, or didn't want to. I remember lying there after and just feeling like something had been taken." The words came easier than Joanna expected, maybe because she couldn't see Katie's face, maybe because her body was busy being flooded with the opposite feeling, warmth and patience and hands that stopped the instant she said so. "Anyway. Different time."
"Good," Katie said, and there was nothing smug in it, just flat certainty. "You should have thrown him off the balcony."
"I thought about it."
Then Katie curled her fingers hard and held, and Joanna's whole train of thought derailed. Her thighs shook across Katie's lap. A sound came out of her that was mostly yes.
"Still with me?" Katie asked. "Or do you want to talk about a guy while I do this?"
"No. Stay here." Joanna's voice was rough. "I'm here."
But her mind had gone somewhere anyway, and after a minute she said it out loud.
"I've gotten over it, you know. Like, actually over it. It's been two years and I've had, whatever, a number of sessions with Rachel that rewired my whole relationship with the word inside." She laughed breathlessly into the pillow. "And you. This helps too."
"I'm a healing modality," Katie said. "They should bill insurance."
"I'm serious, Katie." Joanna lifted her head off the pillow enough to be heard clearly. "Maybe I'll go see him. Will. When he's back, whenever he's back. Message him. See what happens."
The fingers inside her went still, deep, and she felt Katie lean down, her hair brushing Joanna's shoulder.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure that I'm over it. Whether I want anything from him, that's a different question." Joanna pressed her hips back, an unmistakable signal, and the fingers started moving again. "Right now I just want to finish my homework."
"Good answer." Katie picked the pace back up, faster than before, two fingers pistoning in and out with a wet, rhythmic sound that the muted movie did nothing to cover. "One more question and then I shut up."
"Make it quick."
"Would you actually sleep with him again, or just see him?"
Joanna thought about it while her body wound tighter, the pressure building in her pelvis again, that fullness she recognized now from the Wellness Center floor. Katie's thumb had found the outside too, pressing slow circles while the fingers worked inside, and the double sensation made it hard to hold a thought.
"Maybe sleep with him," she said, panting a little now. "But on my terms this time. I'd tell him the rules first. And if he broke one, he'd never see me again."
"There it is." Katie's voice was warm and a little rough. "That's the Jo I know. You'd have him sign a waiver."
"I'd bring a clipboard."
"You're so hot when you're litigious."
Joanna laughed, and the laugh broke apart into a moan as Katie hit a rhythm that was exactly right, deep and fast and relentless, her thumb circling tight. The pressure in her pelvis crested. She clutched the blanket, teeth in her lip, riding toward something big.
"Katie, I think I'm..."
"Push into it. Let it go."
She did. The orgasm rolled through her in long waves, clenching around Katie's fingers, her hips jerking across Katie's lap, cries muffled by the pillow until she turned her head to breathe. Katie slowed but didn't stop, working her through it, steady and patient, until the shuddering tapered off and Joanna went limp and boneless across her thighs.
For a while there was just the movie's muted rumble and Joanna's own heartbeat in her ears.
"So," Katie said eventually, easing her fingers out slow and wiping them on a towel that had clearly been staged in advance. "Will. Stuttgart. Message him?"
"Yeah." Joanna didn't lift her head. Her voice was sleep-thick and completely untroubled. "Maybe I'll message him."
"That was the most confident maybe in history."
"I have good session energy right now." Joanna reached up and pushed the mask onto her forehead, blinking against the TV's glow. The room came back in pieces: popcorn, blankets, Katie's face above hers, flushed and pleased and trying not to look pleased. "Don't gloat."
"I'm not gloating." Katie absolutely was. She pulled the blanket up over Joanna's bare hips and dropped a light, friendly smack on her ass. "But for the record, thirty minutes, two fingers, and one orgasm. That's a productive study session."
Joanna stayed draped across her lap another minute, deciding whether to move. On screen, someone was floating through silence toward a spinning station.
"Rewind it," she said. "I missed the whole third act."
Katie fumbled for the remote and scrubbed the movie back to the start of the third act. Joanna made herself slide off Katie's lap, tugging the blanket around her hips, and then, before she could think better of it, she shifted sideways and let her head settle against Katie's shoulder.
Katie went very still for a second. Then her arm came up around Joanna's shoulders, easy and unremarkable, like they'd done this a hundred times.
On screen, the airlock was filling with water. Joanna watched it without really watching it, her body still humming low and slow, every limb gone heavy in that post-orgasm way that no stretching session alone had ever managed.
"I didn't intend to orgasm tonight," she said.
"I know."
"It wasn't my intention either, I swear. It just happened."
"Yeah." Joanna's eyes stayed on the screen. "It just happened."
Katie's thumb moved once against her shoulder, a small absent stroke, and neither of them said anything else for a while. The movie swelled around them. The docking scene came and Katie quoted it under her breath, quiet enough that Joanna could pretend she hadn't heard, and Joanna found herself smiling into the fabric of Katie's tank top. She smelled like popcorn and the apartment's lavender diffuser and, faintly, like the two of them together.
The gummy had settled fully now, wrapping the room in warm gauze. Joanna's thoughts drifted loose and slow. The third act played out in pieces she'd seen before and never really registered, the water, the station spinning, Anne Hathaway's face doing something luminous and sad.
"She is really hot," Joanna murmured.
"I told you." Katie's voice was low and pleased. "Distracting."
"It's the jawline."
"It's everything. Watch, in this next part."
They watched. Katie's arm stayed where it was, and somewhere in the middle of the long cold silence on the ice planet, Joanna's hand had found its way to Katie's knee without her noticing, just resting there, and she decided not to make a thing of it. It was nice. Warm. Safe in a way she hadn't expected the night to be after everything.
The movie hit its final stretch. Joanna blinked slowly, fighting the pull of sleep, and turned her head slightly against Katie's shoulder.
"Did you have a session today?" she asked. "With your therapist?"
"Yep. Morning session." Katie's chest moved under her cheek as she laughed softly. "And he went down on me, too. So, a good day all around."
"A good day all around," Joanna repeated, and heard how slurred it came out.
"See? The program works." Katie's voice was getting further away, or maybe just softer. "You, me, everybody."
The credits music started, that organ swell that always made Katie sniffle, and Joanna felt her do the small wet laugh she did when she was trying not to cry at a movie she'd seen six times. Joanna patted her arm once, clumsy and fond, and gave up on keeping her eyes open.
"Hey, Jo."
"Mm."
"We're gonna have to move to beds at some point."
"Later," Joanna said into her shoulder.
"Okay. Later."
Katie reached down somewhere below the blanket and pulled another one up over both of them, tucking it awkwardly around Joanna's shoulders without dislodging her. Her arm stayed curled where it was. On the screen the credits rolled on, names Joanna would never read, white light flickering across the dark room, across the empty popcorn bowls, the torn candy bag, the sleep mask abandoned on the arm of the couch.
The weed took the last of the evening away in slow increments. Joanna drifted in and out, half aware of Katie's breathing evening out under her ear, of the soundbar's idle hum, of the city lights beyond the balcony glass. At some point Katie pressed her lips to the top of Joanna's head, quick and light, a kiss on her forehead that she only half registered and would half remember in the morning.
Neither of them moved again.
They slept like that, tangled in the blanket nest, the movie playing itself out to an empty room, the ocean dark and quiet six stories below.