Chapter 8: Liberation
The last bottle of wine died around eleven. Becca had fallen asleep sitting up, a cushion over her face, while Hannah told the story of the first time she'd suspected something, which was apparently a road trip in first year involving Izie humming the Cyberpunk theme in the car.
"You hummed it," Hannah said, jabbing the air with her glass. "For forty minutes. Nobody hums a video game soundtrack for forty minutes unless they have feelings about it."
"They were road-trip feelings," Izie said.
"You were humming it about the sunrise."
"Okay, fine, I was humming it about the sunrise."
Zoe laughed into her wine and felt the evening settle over her like something warm. This was what she'd never had. A girlfriend's friends pouring wine and telling embarrassing stories, and nobody whispering, nobody checking the door.
Hannah caught her looking and pointed at her with her glass. "You're getting misty. That's disgusting. Do it in front of Becca so she has to see it too."
"I'm not misty."
"She's misty," Hannah told the room, which was Becca, snoring under a cushion.
They helped stack the bottles by the door, and Hannah hugged Izie at the threshold, an awkward one-armed thing that lasted a second longer than awkward.
"Library at five tomorrow," she said. "Bring your girlfriend, I don't care. You're not getting out of the study group because you came out."
"I would never."
"You absolutely would."
Then the corridor took them, Zoe and Izie, past a kitchen where a girl doing dishes nodded at them like it was nothing, because now it was nothing, up two flights of stairs to a door with a small whiteboard on it. Someone had drawn a heart on the whiteboard. Neither of them had done it.
Izie looked at the heart, then at Zoe, and a grin broke over her face that Zoe had never seen before, loose and a little drunk and entirely unguarded.
"Somebody drew a heart on my door."
"Somebody did."
"I love my door now." Izie pushed it open and pulled Zoe through by the wrist.
The room was the same minimalist thing it always was, white walls and grey bedding, but the city light came through the sheer curtains and turned everything honey-colored. Izie kicked the door shut behind them and stood there with her back against it, still holding Zoe's wrist.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"Sorry. I just wanted to say it somewhere with no audience." Izie laughed at herself. "I've been performing all night. Not performing. Being. God, wine."
"You're drunk on something," Zoe said. "I don't think it's the wine. It was cheap."
"I'm drunk on this." She lifted their joined hands, turned them in the light. "I'm drunk on walking down a hallway holding your hand and nobody caring. Do you know how long I've wanted nobody to care?"
"How long?"
"Since I was fifteen." Her voice went quiet. "It's better than I imagined it. That's the stupid part. I imagined it being scary, and instead there's a heart on my door."
Zoe stepped in closer. The city glow put a rim of light on Izie's hair. "It was a good night."
"It was the best night of my life, and then it ended, and I brought you home." Izie looked at her, and something steadier came into her face under the giddiness. "Stay the night?"
"Okay."
"Not just to sleep. I want..." Izie stopped, exhaled, started again. "Every time we've done this, you've taken care of me. You led. Even this morning, even in the rain, you were the one who knew what to do and I just held on. And tonight I want to be the one. I want to take you apart. Will you let me?"
Zoe's mouth went dry in a way that had nothing to do with wine. "You don't have to ask like that."
"I do, actually. I've been practicing it in my head since the common room."
"With the wine?"
"With the wine, yes."
"Then yes." Zoe's voice came out lower than she meant it to. "Whatever you want. I'm yours."
Izie smiled, slow, and kissed her. Not the hallway kisses from before, quick and triumphant. This one started at the corner of her mouth, patient, and turned her head with two fingers on her jaw until the angle was perfect, and then stayed there, deepening by degrees, Izie's tongue tracing her lower lip until Zoe opened for her. Zoe made a small sound into it and felt Izie smile against her mouth.
"Good," Izie murmured. "That sound. I want all of those."
She walked Zoe backward across the room, unhurried, until the backs of Zoe's knees found the bed. She pushed the jacket off Zoe's shoulders, one shoulder at a time, and dropped it over the desk chair, the way Zoe always tossed it over things, a small private joke Zoe felt rather than saw. Then her fingers went to the hem of Zoe's shirt and lifted, and Zoe raised her arms, and the cool air hit her stomach and then Izie's warm mouth was there, pressing an open kiss just below her ribs.
"I've thought about this," Izie said against her skin. "Every time you've had me, I've thought, I want to know what she looks like. When it's her turn."
"I look like a mess."
"You look like mine." Izie unhooked her bra with one hand, a skill she'd clearly been keeping in reserve, and slid the straps down Zoe's arms. She leaned back to look, and the look itself was touch, Zoe's nipples tightening under the weight of it.
"Don't stare," Zoe said, blushing hard.
"I'm staring. I have thirty-one witnesses now saying I'm allowed to stare." Izie pushed her gently back onto the mattress and followed her down, mouth closing over one breast while her hand took the other, thumb circling until Zoe arched off the bed. "Oh, you like that."
"You know I like that."
"I want to hear how much." She sucked, slow and deliberate, tongue flat against the peak, and Zoe's hand flew to her hair and gripped. "That's it. God, I've wanted to make you do exactly that."
"Izie."
"Here's what's going to happen." She kissed down Zoe's sternum, unhurried, one rib at a time, her hands sliding the waistband of Zoe's jeans open. "I'm going to take my time. You've always rushed to get me there first. Not tonight. Tonight you don't get to be in charge of anything, including how fast."
"That's not fair."
"No," Izie agreed, working the zipper down tooth by tooth, watching Zoe's face the whole time. "It's really not."
She drew the jeans down Zoe's hips, over her thighs, the violet cotton underneath already damp in the center, and Izie's breath caught audibly at the sight.
"Look at you," she said, hoarse. "Look what talking to my friends did to you."
"Shut up."
"Never again. I'm never shutting up about anything ever." She hooked her fingers in the cotton and drew it down slow, over the knees, off the ankles, and dropped it on the floor, and then she settled between Zoe's thighs like she'd been assigned a seat, kissing the inside of one knee, then higher, then the other knee, avoiding the center on principle.
"Izie, please."
"Please what? Use words. I want to hear you say it. I've never made you say it."
Zoe covered her face with one hand. "Eat me out. Please. I need your mouth."
Izie's answering groan vibrated against her thigh. "There it is." She kissed higher, higher, and then licked her once, a single slow stripe through the wet heat of her, and Zoe's hips bucked off the bed.
"Oh my God."
Izie did it again, slower, her hands pinning Zoe's hips down to the mattress, and Zoe's hand found the sheets and twisted in them. The city light lay in a gold band across the ceiling. Somewhere below, the sorority house hummed with its ordinary noises, and Izie worked her tongue in long, patient strokes, circling, teasing, dipping into her and dragging back up to press flat against her clit until Zoe was making sounds she didn't recognize as her own voice.
"You taste so good," Izie breathed against her, and slid two fingers in, curling, finding the spot Zoe always had to guide people to, except she didn't have to guide her at all. "I've been paying attention."
"I can tell."
"Good girl." She sealed her mouth over Zoe's clit and sucked, fingers working, and Zoe's whole body pulled taut like a wire.
It built fast and she fought it, because Izie had said take my time, but Izie felt it and pulled back, fingers stilling inside her, lips swollen and shiny.
"Not yet," she said. "I told you. I'm not done with you."
"You're killing me."
"Mm." Izie kissed the trembling inside of her thigh, then climbed up her body, unhairing sweat from Zoe's stomach with her mouth, until they were face to face. Her fingers curled slowly, keeping Zoe on the edge, her lips at Zoe's ear.
"Can I try something?" she whispered. "I've been thinking about it since the car."