Chapter 8: The Morning After
Morning light came through the floral curtains in long, honeyed stripes, falling across the duvet in pools of gold. Lily woke to the weight of two bodies pressed against her, the heat of them bracketing her from both sides. Vanessa's arm was hooked around her waist, palm flat on her stomach, her breath warm against the back of Lily's neck. Megan's face was buried in her hair, one leg thrown over Lily's thighs, her hand splayed across Lily's chest.
She lay still. Her body felt strange in the best way, hollowed out and full at the same time. The ache between her legs was a dull, pleasant throb, and when she shifted, she felt the soreness of her nipples against the thin cotton of the nightgown, the red marks on her hips where hands had gripped her through the night.
She couldn't remember falling asleep. She couldn't remember the moment the kissing had stopped and the holding had begun. There was only a long, dissolving blur of mouths and fingers and the two of them trading her back and forth like something precious, until the world had gone soft and distant and she had simply floated under.
"What time is it?" she asked. Her voice was hoarse, pitched higher than she remembered it being yesterday.
Vanessa stirred against her back. Her arm tightened around Lily's waist, pulling her closer, and she pressed her mouth to the nape of Lily's neck.
"Early," Vanessa mumbled. "Go back to sleep."
"Vanessa. I need to know."
Megan made a sound, low and contented, and nuzzled deeper into Lily's hair. Her hand moved on Lily's chest, thumb brushing over the peak of her breast, and Lily's breath caught.
"I think it's past nine," Megan said. Her voice was rough with sleep. "The light's too bright for earlier."
Lily lay there, held by both of them, and tried to remember what it had felt like to wake up as Scott. The shape of it was gone, like a word on the tip of her tongue that wouldn't come. She used to wake in his bed, in his room, in his body, and there had been a heaviness to it. A wrongness she'd carried so long she'd thought it was normal.
She couldn't feel it anymore.
"Vanessa," she said. "I can't remember what it felt like."
The room went still. Megan lifted her head, hair falling across her face, blinking at the morning light. Vanessa shifted behind her, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at Lily with those dark, patient eyes.
"What do you mean?" Vanessa asked.
"I can't remember what it felt like to be him. Scott. I know the name. I know there was a boy who lived here. But I can't remember what it felt like to be him." She touched her chest, the soft swell of it. "It feels like a story someone told me about someone else."
Vanessa's face changed. Something warm and fierce flooded through it, and she made a small, broken sound before she leaned down and kissed Lily, deep and slow, her hand sliding up to cup Lily's jaw.
"Of course you can't remember," Vanessa whispered against her lips. "You've never been him. Not really. He was just the shell you were hiding in until I could get you out."
Megan watched them, her eyes dark, her lips parted. She reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Lily's face, tucking it behind her ear.
"She's right," Megan said softly. "You were never Scott. You were always Lily. He just didn't know it yet."
Lily's eyes stung. She didn't know why. She blinked and her lashes were wet, and Vanessa was kissing her forehead, her cheek, the corner of her mouth, a rain of small, possessive kisses.
"That's my girl," Vanessa breathed. "God, you're mine. You're so mine."
She slid out of bed and padded across the room, her nightgown falling around her thighs. She came back with the amber bottle and two pills in her palm, and she held them out to Lily on the flat of her hand.
"Double dose today," Vanessa said. "You earned it. You've been so good."
Lily took the pills and swallowed them dry. They went down like a promise.
Vanessa climbed back onto the bed and settled over Lily's thighs, straddling her, her weight warm and familiar. She leaned down and kissed Lily again, slower now, savouring it, and Lily's hands came up to grip her hips.
"No more Scott," Vanessa said against her mouth. "That name is dead. It died the moment you took my pills and started becoming what you were always meant to be. You understand?"
Lily nodded, mouth wet.
"Say it."
"I understand."
"Say the whole thing."
"I'm not Scott anymore. My name is Lily. He's dead. I'm yours." The words came out without any effort, worn smooth by repetition. She meant them. Every syllable of them.
Vanessa made a sound low in her throat and kissed her again, harder, her hand slipping beneath the hem of the nightgown. Megan shifted on the bed, propping herself up on her elbow, watching them with a dark, possessive smile.
"She's perfect," Megan said. "You made her perfect."
Vanessa pulled back, breathless, and looked down at Lily. Her thumb traced the silver pendant at Lily's throat.
"No," she said. "She made herself perfect. I just told her she could be."
Vanessa's smile turned slow and knowing. She shifted off Lily's hips and reached toward the floor where her robe had fallen the night before. The silk sash came away in her hand, long and rose-colored, and she returned to kneel between Lily's thighs.
"Today," she said, "I want to keep you."
Lily looked at the sash in her sister's hands, a twist of rose silk that caught the honeyed light. Her pulse quickened. "What do you mean?"
Vanessa leaned over her and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "I have you all the time, but I don't have you. Not fully. I want to tie you down and watch you float."
"I can't float. I don't know how."
"You will. That's what this is for."
She took Lily's left wrist and lifted it above her head, laying it against the pillow. The headboard was carved wood, a dark oak from their grandmother's house, and the sash circled the wrist twice before she knotted it. Not painfully. Just enough that Lily couldn't pull free without loud protest.
"There," Vanessa murmured. "Look at you."
Megan had sat up, her dark hair tangled, her naked shoulders catching the light. She watched with her lips parted, thumb pressed against her bottom lip, and there was a hunger in her eyes that made Lily's skin prickle.
"Your turn," Vanessa said, not looking away from Lily. "Come pick a wrist."
Megan moved without hesitation. She crawled across the mattress, her breasts swaying, and knelt beside the bed. She chose Lily's right wrist and used the other end of the sash, this time looping it through the slats before cinching it tight.
"Too tight?" Megan asked.
"No." Lily's voice came out thin. "It's good."
She was pinned. Her arms stretched above her head, bound at the wrists to the headboard, her body open and displayed beneath them. The nightgown had ridden up to her hips. The morning light fell across the soft swell of her breasts in the thin cotton, the silver pendant catching glints.
Vanessa leaned over her and kissed the inside of her elbow. Then the crook of her arm. Then the ticklish softness of her inner bicep, working her way up in a line of slow, damp kisses that made Lily's breath stutter.
"You're going to lie here," Vanessa said against her skin, "and I'm going to tell you everything I've planned for you. Every step of the way. Every change. Every day. And you're going to listen."
"Is that what you want?" Megan leaned in from the other side. Her breath was warm on Lily's shoulder.
"Yes," Lily breathed. "Yes, I want to listen."
Vanessa's hand slid down her ribs, over the waistband of the nightgown, and found the wet heat between her thighs. Lily's hips bucked into the touch; the sash pulled taut around her wrists, and she made a small, cut-off sound.
"Look at you," Vanessa said. "You've been soaking through this nightgown all morning, haven't you? You woke up aching, and you didn't even ask me to fix it."
"I didn't know I could."
"You never have to ask." Vanessa pushed the fabric up, baring her, and Megan made a soft sound of appreciation at what they found. The soft folds, the small pearl of her clit, pink and swollen. "You're mine to use. Both of us. When we want you, we take you. When we're done, we hold you. And you lie here, tied to my bed, and you take everything I give you."
"Everything," Megan echoed, and she ducked down and pressed a kiss to Lily's inner thigh, open-mouthed and wet.
Lily's wrists strained against the silk. She wanted to touch them, to hold their heads, to bury her fingers in their hair, but she couldn't. She was pinned. And somehow, that was the most peaceful she'd felt in months.
"Vanessa," she said. Her voice cracked. "I trust you."
Vanessa's eyes went dark and soft at once. She leaned up and kissed Lily, deep and slow, tasting her, claiming her, while Megan's mouth worked its way higher.
"Then you're mine," Vanessa breathed against her lips. "Today. Tomorrow. For as long as the binding lasts."
"How long will that be?"
Vanessa looked at the rose silk, at the knots, at the two wrists pinned to the carved headboard. Her smile was slow and certain.
"However long I need," she said. "And when that's too long, I'll get a longer one."
The rose silk held her wrists above her head, and Vanessa's mouth worked its way down her body in a line of wet, dragging kisses. Megan's lips found her inner thigh, her tongue tracing the sensitive skin, and Lily's hips rolled into the sensation. Time went soft. The morning light slid across the ceiling, and somewhere in the middle of it, Megan crawled up her body and kissed her, slow and deep, while Vanessa's fingers worked between her thighs.
She floated like that for what felt like hours. Bound, worshipped, emptied. Every time she thought she couldn't take more, one of them found a new way to make her want it. The sash stayed taut. Her wrists ached sweetly. She came twice more, maybe three times, losing count in the haze of it.
Then the floating began to fade.
It happened slowly. The warmth receded like a tide pulling out, leaving her skin shivering and thin. Something tightened in her chest. A hollow ache at the base of her throat, small at first, then growing. She knew what it was before she could name it. The same hunger that had been waking her at odd hours, the one that made her mouth water when she saw the amber bottle.
"Vanessa," she said. Her voice came out thin.
Vanessa lifted her head from Lily's stomach, her lips glossy with slick. Megan propped herself on an elbow, dark hair tumbling across her face.
"Something wrong?"
"I want more." Lily's wrists strained against the silk. The craving swelled inside her, sharp and urgent, a physical ache that eclipsed the warm soreness between her legs. "Vanessa, can I have more pills?"
Vanessa's eyebrows lifted. She sat up slowly, her hand trailing up Lily's ribs as she went.
"You already had your double dose this morning."
"I know. I want more anyway." The words tumbled out, desperate and unfiltered. "Please. Vanessa. Please give me more."
Megan made a low sound, her smile curving. She reached for the amber bottle on the nightstand and held it up, letting the light catch the glass.
"She looks hungry," Megan said. "Look at her. She's shaking."
Lily was. She could see it, the fine tremor in her fingers where they were bound above her head. The hollow at her throat pulsed.
Vanessa took the bottle from Megan and turned it in her hands, slow, thoughtful. Her eyes were dark and soft, and there was something ravenous in the way she looked at Lily, at the bindings, at the craving plain on her face.
"You want me to feed you more," Vanessa said. "Why?"
The question landed in the quiet of the room. Lily's mouth opened. The truth came up smooth and easy.
"Because I feel wrong without them." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I feel like I'm disappearing. Like I'm turning back into him. And I can't. I can't go back. Please, Vanessa. Please give me more."
Megan exhaled, a long, shaky breath. She looked at Vanessa, her eyes bright with something between awe and hunger.
"How can you say no to that?"
Vanessa didn't answer. She unscrewed the cap of the amber bottle and shook two pills into her palm. Then she looked at Lily, at the tears tracking down her cheeks, at the desperate bow of her body.
"Ask me properly," Vanessa said. "Beg."
Lily sobbed against the pillow. Her wrists strained at the rose silk.
"Please, Vanessa. Please let me take them. I'll do anything. I'll take as many as you want. I'll never stop. I'll be so good. I'll be whatever you need me to be. Just please. Please don't let me turn back."
Vanessa's breath caught. She moved up the bed in one fluid motion, straddling Lily's chest, and pressed the two pills to Lily's lips. Lily took them, mouth trembling, and swallowed dry.
The heat came back almost instantly. It flooded up from her belly like honey, spreading through her limbs, loosening the ache in her chest. Her eyes fluttered shut.
"There," Vanessa breathed. She bent down and kissed the corner of Lily's mouth, tasting the salt of her tears. "That's my girl. You'll never turn back. I'll feed you for as long as you need. I'll dose you until the craving is the only thing you know how to feel."
Lily's hands flexed against the silk. The warmth swelled. She turned her face into Vanessa's palm and kissed it.
"I want more," she whispered. "Tomorrow. I want more tomorrow, too."
Vanessa's smile was a slow, gleaming thing. Megan leaned in from the other side, pressing her lips to Lily's shoulder, her teeth grazing the skin.
"You'll have it," Vanessa said. "You'll have everything."