Chapter 9: The Mistaken Kiss
The bedroom had gone black as a shut eye. Whatever hour it was, the moon was buried behind clouds or curtains, and the only sound was the slow, sleeping breath of the two women who bracketed her. Lily lay between them, wrists still bound to the headboard, the rose silk a dry rasp against her skin. The double dose had faded into a warm, humming afterglow, and the ache between her thighs had gone soft and distant.
She was awake. She had been awake for a while now, and she couldn't say why. The craving had quieted. The heat had banked. What was left was a strange, hollow alertness, as if her body was waiting for something.
Then Vanessa stirred.
Lily felt it more than heard it, the shift of weight on the mattress, the rustle of sheets. Vanessa's hand moved in the dark, reaching out, and her fingers found warm skin. It wasn't Lily's skin. Lily was on the far side of the bed, her body thrumming with quiet attention as she watched the shape of Vanessa's arm cross the space between them.
In the pitch black, Vanessa's hand found a shoulder, a jaw, and she pulled the body against her. Her mouth found Megan's.
The kiss was slow and searching. A sleepy, fumbling thing that started wrong and then went right. Lily heard the wet sound of lips parting, the soft breath that escaped into the dark, and her chest went cold.
She thought it was me, Lily thought. She reached out in the dark and found me.
But she hadn't. She had found Megan. And Megan, half-asleep, her body responding to the touch with a soft, instinctive moan, was kissing her back.
"Mm," Megan murmured, her voice thick with sleep. "Lily. You're so warm."
Vanessa didn't answer with words. She made a low sound and deepened the kiss, her hand sliding up into Megan's hair, pulling her closer. The bed shifted under them. The creak of the old mattress was loud in the silence.
Lily's bound hands curled into fists. The silk pulled taut. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Another moan rose from the dark, and this one was unmistakably Megan's. Lily heard the wet slide of tongues, the swallowed gasp, and then Vanessa's voice, husky and sleep-rough, a word she couldn't quite make out. It was too low, too intimate, meant for a mouth that wasn't Lily's.
She's calling her my name, Lily thought. And Megan is letting her.
The jealousy came up her throat like bile. Cold and sharp. It curdled her stomach and made her pulse hammer in her ears. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rip her wrists free and shove them apart, to make Vanessa see her, to remind her who was bound to the headboard, who had taken the pills, who had begged.
But her body wouldn't move. The hormones had turned her limbs to water. All she could do was lie there, pinned by the silk and her own weakness, and listen to the two of them kiss in the dark, each of them certain she was holding Lily.
Vanessa's hand slid down. Lily heard the rustle of fabric, the sharp intake of breath as fingers found skin. Muffled, deeper sounds followed, the rhythmic push of a palm against wetness, and Megan's breath began to hitch.
"God," Megan whispered. "Yes. Right there."
A moan, half-smothered by a kiss. Then more. The wet sounds grew louder. Vanessa's breathing had gone ragged, and there was a hunger in her voice when she finally spoke.
"You're mine. Say it."
Lily's blood went cold. Those words. Those were her words. Vanessa had whispered them to her a hundred times, in the light and in the dark, and now she was spending them on the wrong body in the blackness, not even knowing it.
"I'm yours," Megan breathed. "Fuck, yes."
Lily's jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached. The rose silk bit into her wrists. She was shaking, her whole body trembling with a fury she couldn't name, and still she couldn't speak.
Then Vanessa shifted. Her hand moved up from Megan's heat to her face, and she kissed her again, soft this time, almost tender.
"I love the way you taste," Vanessa murmured against her mouth.
Megan laughed, breathless. "You love the way I taste, but you still haven't figured out whose mouth you're in."
The words dropped into the dark like a stone. Vanessa's hand froze. The kissing stopped.
The silence stretched, thick and heavy, and Lily felt the air change. Vanessa's head lifted. There was a stirring on the other side of the bed, a rustle of sheets, and then the mattress dipped as she let go of Megan entirely.
"Lily?" Her voice was thin and wrong.
Lily's throat burned. The words came out cracked, barely a whisper. "You reached for me. You grabbed her, but you thought she was me."
The dark was a wall between them. She couldn't see Vanessa's face, couldn't read the expression in her eyes, but she felt the weight of the stillness.
"Lily." Vanessa's hand found her arm, then her cheek. Her fingers were damp. "I didn't mean. I was half asleep, I thought."
"You kissed her like you kiss me." Lily's voice broke. "You said the same words. You told her she was yours. And she let you."
"Lily, no." Vanessa moved in the dark, crawling over Megan's legs, and then her body was over Lily's, her mouth at Lily's temple, her hands framing her face. "I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. I thought it was you. I only ever want you."
Megan sat up on the other side. Lily heard her voice, softer now, a little careful. "She didn't mean anything by it. We both thought it was you."
Lily turned her face away from Vanessa's mouth, but Vanessa chased it, pressing her lips to Lily's jaw, her cheek, the corner of her eye.
"Look at me," Vanessa whispered. "Please."
"It's too dark. I can't see you."
"Then feel me." Vanessa took Lily's bound hand and pressed it to her own chest, where her heart hammered against the ribs. "Feel that. You know that's yours. You're the only one who makes it beat like that."
Lily's fingers curled against the thin cotton of Vanessa's nightgown. The jealousy was still there, coiled in her chest, but under it something else was stirring. A different kind of hunger, more desperate than the craving for pills.
"If you want me," Lily said, "then prove it. Don't touch her again. Not like that. Not ever."
The dark held still. Then Vanessa made a sound, low and broken, and she pressed her mouth to Lily's, not gently this time. The kiss was Claiming. Possessive. A hunger that had been waiting all night to be set loose.
"I won't," Vanessa breathed against her lips. "I swear it. She was never anything but a tool to keep you. You're the one I want. You're the only one."
Megan let out a breath that Lily couldn't read. She heard the rustle of sheets as Megan lay back down on her side of the bed, and the silence settled like dust. Lily let herself be kissed, let Vanessa's hands learn her body all over again, and she felt the cold jealousy slowly burn away. But it didn't vanish clean. Some of it stayed, a small, hard stone in her chest.
And she knew, in the dark, that she would remember the sound of Vanessa kissing the wrong mouth for a long time.
The cold stone in her chest stayed put, even with Vanessa's mouth still on hers, even with the kiss turning slow and warm and apologetic. Vanessa's hands moved over her, tracing the curve of her hip, the softness of her belly, trying to make up for something that couldn't be fixed with touch alone. Lily let her. She let herself be held, let Vanessa's body press against hers in the dark, and pretended the sound of the wrong mouth was already fading.
It wasn't.
Vanessa's breathing evened out first. The weight on Lily's chest went slack, the fingers at her hip going loose and heavy. She was asleep again, or nearly, her face buried in Lily's hair, her legs tangled through Lily's.
Lily lay still. The dark pressed in. The silk bit at her wrists. She was just starting to think the night could end, that the jealousy would dim with the sunrise, when she felt the mattress shift.
A hand found her arm. Then her shoulder. Megan's voice came out of the black, barely a breath, so close to Lily's ear that the hair on her neck stood up.
"You're shaking," Megan whispered. "It's not cold in here."
Lily's mouth opened. No sound came out.
"I let her kiss me." Megan's breath was warm on her neck. "I was awake the whole time. I felt her reach out, and I knew she thought she was reaching for you. I let her do it anyway."
The words landed like stones. Lily's pulse hammered in her ears. She turned her head toward the sound of Megan's voice, blind in the dark.
"Why?" The word came out cracked.
"Because I wanted to see what you'd do. What you'd feel." A pause. The sheets rustled as Megan shifted closer. Her fingers traced down Lily's arm, slow and deliberate, stopping at the silk binding her wrist. "You're jealous of me. I saw it. I felt it. You're tied to this bed, you're full of her pills, you've given her everything, and the one time she touches another mouth, you burn."
Lily's throat tightened. "She said she was sorry."
"Oh, she is. She's sorry she got caught." Megan's thumb stroked the inside of Lily's wrist. "But she'd do it again. You know that. She'd pick me up out of the dark and kiss me wrong a hundred times if she thought I was you. Because that's what she wants, Lily. Not you looking at her. You, wanting her, needing her, so desperate you burn when she touches someone else."
Lily's breath came shallow. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want you to know the truth. She's not yours. You're hers. There's a difference." Megan leaned in, her lips brushing the shell of Lily's ear. "And I'm the only one who sees it. I'm the only one who would give you a way out."
The payphone number. The shred of paper, torn up and gone. Lily's hands curled into fists against the silk.
"It's gone. She tore it up."
Megan's laugh was a soft, breathy thing. "You think that was the only one I had?"
The dark held still. Vanessa stirred in her sleep, mumbling something low and formless, her arm tightening around Lily's waist. Neither of them moved until her breathing evened out again.
"If you want out," Megan whispered, "you'll find me. When you can't take her kisses anymore, when the pills aren't enough, when you want a mouth that actually knows whose it's on, you'll find me. And I'll be there."
Her fingers let go of Lily's wrist. The warmth of her receded, settling back into her side of the bed.
Lily lay in the black, her chest heaving, the small hard stone in her heart cracked clean through the middle. Vanessa's breath was warm on her neck. Vanessa's hand was splayed across her belly. But all Lily could feel was the ghost of Megan's thumb on her wrist, and the shape of a promise she didn't know if she'd ever be brave enough to keep.