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and i, i feel it after midnight
the feelin’ that you can’t fight
my one, it lingers when we’re done
you’ll believe god is a woman
- ariana grande, “god is a woman”
It’s soft, the tap tap tap against Stevie’s apartment door, barely audible, really, yet somehow also demanding. It’s not even really a knock, just a couple brushes of knuckles against wood. Stevie should barely be able to hear it. It shouldn’t pulse through her body like it does, drawing her toward the door.
There comes a point when she wonders what would happen if she could stay still, if she could ignore the hushed sound, roll over in her bed and pull a pillow over her head.
She wonders what would happen if she didn’t do what she always does: unhook the chain, rest her hand on the doorknob, and turn it.
The answer, in the end, is much different than she once suspected.
Alexis breaks up with Mutt (or maybe Mutt breaks up with Alexis, according to David, though he divulged this theory to Stevie quietly and then appeared to feel sort of guilty about it afterward, complimenting Alexis’ choice of bejeweled headband when she walked by them several minutes later), and becomes a fixture in the motel’s lobby.
The first time she swans in, settling on the sofa only briefly before hopping to her feet again to pepper Stevie with questions about what she does when she's alone, and how she feels about spending her time by herself, and why. She leaves shortly after, and Stevie assumes it’s a one-time thing, a blip in their respective routines. Alexis is the member of the Rose family who spends the least amount of time at the motel, and Stevie has no reason to expect that to change.
Except it does.
The next day, Alexis is back, wearing another outfit with about seventeen pieces, including a cluster of jangling anklets and a long, gauzy cardigan, and carrying another magazine from the eighties. She makes herself comfortable on the old sofa with its creaky springs, crossing one leg over the other and flipping the magazine open.
It distracts the hell out of Stevie. She’s accustomed to powering through several pages of an ancient book of crossword puzzles during her shift, or finishing an entire murder mystery, but Alexis makes noise, sighing occasionally, mumbling under her breath as she calculates how many times she answered A, B, and C in a quiz about her seasonal style, and she’s full of movement, a flip of her hair here, a flick of her wrist there. Stevie’s eyes keep darting up from the computer, tracking the contemplative archings of Alexis’ eyebrows, the bounce of her toes in her strappy sandals.
She stays for three hours: when she’s done with the magazine, she swipes up and down and left and right along her phone screen for a while, and then looks up at Stevie. Stevie very purposefully does not look back, busying herself with pressing buttons on her calculator at random and pretending she’s doing very important math.
Alexis gets to her feet in a swirl of fabric, her jewelry chiming quietly. “See you, Stevie!” she chirps as she heads for the door, her warm, wide smile creating crinkles at the edges of her eyes.
It’s not like when David leaves the lobby, those easy conclusions to their banter when Stevie can drawl warmest regards and smile to herself after he goes. Alexis departs and Stevie hasn’t said a word - she’s just sitting in her chair, as silent as she was for the entire time they shared a space, her lips just barely parted in the beginnings of a word she couldn’t identify if you paid her.
Alexis returns the next day, and the one after that, and the one after that. She always has a magazine, and she’s always dressed as though she’s expecting a photographer to spring out from behind Stevie’s desk at any moment. She settles in on the sofa, appears to read her magazine from cover to cover, and then makes a habit of tossing the magazine aside and approaching the desk, where she’ll lean her elbows against the tall counter and say, “Hi!” to Stevie, all blue-green eyes and eagerness.
“Hi,” Stevie replies the first time it happens, and the second, and the third, and every time after that. Every day she thinks about telling Alexis that she’s working, that she’s busy, but she doesn’t. Instead, she submits to Alexis’ line of questioning du jour: what’s Stevie’s favourite colour (blue), who was her first kiss (Eric Bergeron in grade two), does Stevie like those movies about the wars in space or whatever (“Star Wars?” Stevie asks, smirking in spite of herself; yeah, she guesses she likes Star Wars), where does Stevie buy her clothes (Target, mostly) and has she considered a more fitted cut for her denim (no). Sometimes Alexis will lean right over the desk, the front of her shirt gaping, revealing lace trim at the top of bra cups, a floral patterned bralette, a black bikini top, and while Stevie is looking at the computer, internally begging an e-mail to pop up and demand her attention, her cheeks scorching hot, Alexis will tap a square of the sudoku puzzle Stevie’s been struggling with and say, wisely, “It’s a five,” or squint at a crossword clue and inform Stevie, “Ferdinand VII was the Felon King; I dated a descendant once.” She holds up a hand for a high five when the letters fit perfectly, and Stevie gives it to her, the contact between her palm and Alexis’ light and solid all at once.
Three weeks into Alexis treating the lobby like her personal living room, she flings the door open and declares, with dramatic huffiness, that it’s too hot outside to go for her run. She sprawls out across the sofa on her back, pouting, and in spite of the day’s heat and the motel’s only semi-functioning air conditioning, Stevie is absolutely frozen.
Alexis is wearing an outfit suited to a summer run, but apparently unsuited to Stevie’s brainpower, which has gone missing in action. The tank top is tight and otherwise remarkable but the shorts - the shorts. Peachy-pink, made of a textured material that seems to beg to be touched, an inseam that could maybe very generously be described as two inches in length, little slits at the sides - there’s a flutter of fabric as Alexis falls onto the couch, a hint of ass cheek, the cut of muscle along her thigh, sun-bronzed skin and a little red patch that might be a birthmark, and Stevie’s got her jaw clenched and her breath held in her chest and her eyes roving around frantically, desperately, looking for somewhere else to land.
Unaware of Stevie’s internal crisis, Alexis picks up a stray pamphlet and starts to fan herself. “Is it even, like, legal for you to have to sit in here all day when it’s this hot, Stevie?”
“Uh,” Stevie says. “I think it’s warmer outside, and I kind of melt in the sun, so.”
Alexis glances at her, appraising. “I bet you burn easily, poor thing.”
Stevie fidgets under the unrelenting weight of her gaze. “Sometimes.”
“Ooh, Stevie!” Alexis clasps her hands against her chest before beginning to flap them through the air. Stevie wishes Alexis would stop saying her name the way she says it, in two buoyant little chirps, Stee-vee! “Do you want me to braid your hair? It would probably help to have it up off your neck.”
Stevie reaches up and touches her hair, which is loose around her shoulders, the way she usually wears it. She considers letting Alexis flounce over on the long legs perfectly displayed by those damn shorts, closing her eyes as slim, sure fingers take hold of her hair, graze along her scalp -
But no. Stevie didn’t do girlhood the way she’s confident Alexis did, nail painting and hair braiding and slumber party fashion shows. She doesn’t touch people casually, without meaning or intent. She says, “No, thanks.”
With an expression more disappointed than her response calls for, Alexis asks, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” says Stevie, who is sure of nothing at all.
On the slow, guest-free day they play a long game of Tetris together - they make it all the way to level twenty-two, Alexis wagging her finger at the screen and crying, move it that way, move it that way! with the urgency of someone defusing a bomb - Alexis props an elbow on the desk, drags a single finger thoughtfully down the side of the column of her neck, and inquires, “You and my brother… that’s totally over, right? Like, totally-totally?”
Stevie’s eyebrows tick upward. “Extremely over,” she confirms.
Alexis’ smile is slow, enigmatic and mesmerizing. “Hm,” she says, then, “Good.”
“You’re done, right?” Alexis asks. It’s 7:54 p.m., and she’s sitting on the sofa. She whined about being cold until Stevie handed over her flannel, which she’s now wearing over her white eyelet dress, and she’s got the copy of Sharp Objects she borrowed from Stevie in her lap, her finger crooked between pages in approximately the middle of the book, holding her place. Stevie could not begin to explain how this became her life.
“Done what?” she says, focusing on the computer.
“Done with work.”
“At eight,” Stevie confirms, as the clock in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen flicks over to 7:55.
“Awesome,” Alexis says, stretching. “I’m starving. Let’s get dinner.”
“Get dinner,” Stevie says, trying not to sound as incredulous as she feels. “You and me.”
“Yeah! Aren’t you hungry?”
The last thing Stevie ate was a granola bar around five o’clock; she is hungry, but she also can’t quite discern Alexis’ intent. “You and me, together. At the same table. You want to get dinner with me?”
“Yes.” A winning smile spreads across Alexis’ face, but something in her eyes stays solid, almost resolute. “I really do.”
Stevie pokes her tongue into her cheek. After a moment, she says, “I’ll need my flannel back.”
“Fine,” Alexis pouts. She shrugs it off her shoulders and hands it over to Stevie across the desk. “I’ll go get a sweater.”
“You couldn’t have done that earlier?” Stevie asks as Alexis heads for the door. She gets a smirk and a series of eye movements she guesses are supposed to constitute a wink in response.
Judging by how sweaty Stevie’s palms are by the time Alexis returns to the lobby in a long cardigan, the handle of a purse hooked into the crook of her elbow, dinner should be awkward, and strange, and overwhelming. Walking toward the café, she doesn’t have any papers to shuffle in a performance of busyness, and she can’t disappear into the back to ‘check on something.’ Alexis has taken up permanent residence in Stevie’s days, but on the sidewalk, her heels clacking while Stevie’s Chucks shuffle, it feels like the first time she’s really been alone with Alexis, just the two of them, with no desk in front of Stevie in case she needs to dive for cover.
The wind flirts with the skirt of Alexis’ dress, and Stevie grips desperately onto the cuffs of the sleeves of her flannel shirt, half-wishing the ground would swallow her whole, but then Alexis just… starts talking, like she has every other day, from her perch on the sofa or leaning against the desk, and it’s okay. More than okay - it even becomes comfortable, almost.
From the other side of the booth they share at Café Tropical, Alexis shares stories with Stevie - not her typical outlandish stories, but ones that don’t feature celebrities or involve dramatic twists: the time, when she was six, that she coloured in her freshly-manicured pink nails with a black sharpie because she was upset with her mother; the first time she ever visited an elephant sanctuary, looking into the eye of a creature much larger than herself and seeing something she recognized but couldn’t name; how she cried in the movie theatre the first time she saw Almost Famous. Stevie offers stories of her own in return, without a second thought: the field trip to a chocolate factory in third grade, when she sneaked out of the building with a knapsack full of samples and tried to run away; about the first time she ever got high, with Mutt Schitt, in the boys’ locker room in the high school; about the first summer she worked at the motel, when she could feel time slowing down around her.
Alexis listens attentively. She pokes at the salad she ordered with the tines of her fork, and eventually starts stealing fries from Stevie’s plate. Stevie pushes her plate closer to the center of the table, and Alexis smiles at her, a generous, sparkling thing.
“Aw, Stevie,” she says. “Sharing is caring!”
“Shut up,” Stevie says, stifling a laugh. She looks down, but not before she watches Alexis’ tongue dart toward the corner of her mouth, licking away the tiniest smear of ketchup on her pink lip.
“Stevie!” Alexis says, flinging open the door to the lobby. “I have, like, an emergency!”
“What is it?” Stevie asks, glancing behind Alexis, like the emergency might have followed her in. “David? Your dad?”
“What? No.” Alexis props her elbows on top of the desk and rests her chin atop her folded hands, batting her lashes in a way that’s very obviously meant to be beguiling. “The Savage x Fenty fashion show is tonight.”
“The… what?”
Alexis lets out an impatient little huff. “Rihanna’s lingerie line! Her annual fashion show! It’s on tonight, and it’s on channel nineteen!”
Stevie runs her tongue over her teeth, trying to find the emergency between the lines of what Alexis is telling her. She gives up, and asks, “And what’s… the emergency?”
“The emergency,” Alexis says, “is that our TV only gets channel nineteen, like, when the moon’s half-full or whatever. Same with the TV in Mom and Dad’s room.”
“Oh,” Stevie says. “Yeah. The cable’s always been like that here. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can fix - ”
“Do you have a TV?” Alexis interrupts.
“Do I have a TV?” Stevie repeats, her brain still processing the fact that there’s not an actual emergency to be concerned about here. “Uh, yeah.”
“Do you get channel nineteen?”
“I… do, yeah.”
“Oh, Stevie, yay,” Alexis says, bouncing on the spot. “Do you think I could come over to your place tonight to watch the show? It’s at nine. Please? I would totally owe you.”
Stevie has no plans for the evening, and the image of Alexis sitting across from her at the café, eating her fries and giving Stevie every ounce of her bright-eyed attention, is still fresh in her mind, lingering, so she says, “Sure, I guess.”
“You’re a lifesaver, babe!” Alexis gushes. “I’ll see you tonight,” she adds, and then, before Stevie can react, she reaches across the desk and boops Stevie’s nose.
She flounces out of the lobby happily, a spring in her step, and Stevie watches the old, tired door slowly shut itself behind her, recovering from the whirlwind that is Alexis.
More and more, she’s enjoying being caught in the storm.
Alexis arrives at Stevie’s door at quarter to nine, carrying a six-pack and a tote bag that appears, judging by the Twizzlers and Pringles and M&Ms poking out, to be stuffed with snacks. “Hi!” she says, brushing past Stevie into the small foyer-esque area of her apartment. “I didn’t know what you liked to eat, so I got options.”
“Thanks,” Stevie says as she shuts the door. The pile of snacks is both considerate and excessive, which aligns pretty well with the version of Alexis she’s getting to know.
“Of course, girl,” Alexis says, setting everything down on Stevie’s table. “You’re the one doing me a favour.”
“It’s a pretty simple favour.”
“Still counts!” Alexis says, and then, in a startlingly smooth motion, knocks the cap off a bottle of beer using the edge of the table and holds it out to Stevie.
Stevie can feel how high her eyebrows have risen on her forehead. As she accepts the bottle, she says, “I - I didn’t know you - ” She pauses, swallows. “I wouldn’t have guessed you drank beer.”
Alexis smiles at her, lips slowly curving up and then slanting outward into a fully-fledged grin. It feels more like a wink than any of her actual attempts at winking do. “I like a little bit of everything,” she says, opening a beer for herself, too. She gives the tote bag a small shake. “Pick your poison.”
Stevie grabs the Pringles - sour cream and onion - because they’re near the top. Alexis pulls the Twizzlers out. They’re one of David’s favourite snacks, too, a thought that gives Stevie the strangest, prickly feeling in her cheeks, like the skin there has fallen asleep.
Alexis makes herself comfortable on Stevie’s small, red couch, legs tucked up beneath herself and under the skirt of her denim dress. Stevie hands her the remote, and Alexis turns her attention toward the television, which is so small that Stevie’s beginning to think she should have warned Alexis that she wouldn’t be able to watch the fashion show in big-screen high definition.
But Alexis doesn’t complain, just changes the channel to nineteen and pats the sofa. “Sit, Stevie.”
Stevie hesitates, holding the can of Pringles in both hands. Her television is adjacent to her couch rather than across from it, and Alexis has taken a seat on the side of the couch furthest from the screen. Stevie will have to sit between Alexis and the TV, directly in Alexis’ eyeline for however long a fashion show lasts.
She takes a sip of her beer to buy herself time, and then looks curiously at the label on the bottle. Stevie’s used to being handed cans or bottles of Moosehead or Keith’s, but of course that’s not what Alexis drinks. The beer’s French, Blanche de Chambly. It’s not as hoppy as the beer Stevie typically drinks; wheatier, more citrusy, made even a little spicy. It seems right, as a beer that Alexis would bring. It’s good.
“Stevie,” Alexis says, soft and prompting. She’s looking at Stevie with such openness in her face, her head tipped to the right, looking like she’d listen to absolutely anything Stevie has to say, like she’d hear it and just take it in, even if it was, please leave. Like David, her face seems to have inherited from Moira the ability to wear a thousand different expressions. Stevie doesn’t know if she’s ever seen Alexis’ face so still, so receptive.
“Sorry,” she says, dropping down onto the couch. She lifts her bottle up slightly. “This is good.”
Alexis looks like a cat who’s just feasted on canary. “I’m so glad you think so!” she says exuberantly, tearing open the package of Twizzlers.
The fashion show starts, and Stevie ends up pleasantly surprised. It’s not only a parade of tall, slender white women who look like Heidi Klum (or like Alexis, her traitorous brain supplies). People of various shapes and colours and sizes strut down the runway, accompanied by Rihanna songs, in lace and silk and semi-sheer materials, and Stevie shoves Pringles into her mouth and avoids the temptation to tap her toes against the floor.
“That’s so cute!” Alexis says ten minutes later, as a model walks confidently toward the camera in a juniper-green bustier and thong. She’s been nibbling on a single strand of licorice, and she stops as she examines the TV screen seriously. “It’s actually, like, really similar to a set from last year’s collection.”
“Huh,” Stevie says, for lack of anything more coherent.
“I have it,” Alexis divulges, rolling what remains of her piece of licorice between her fingers. “Actually - ” She peeks down the front of her own dress. “I’m wearing it.” Still toying with the Twizzler, she asks Stevie, guilelessly, “Wanna see?”
Stevie blinks - once, twice, and then three times. Alexis has that utterly open look on her face again, and Stevie just knows, somehow, that if she said uh, no, thanks, or even if she laughed, Alexis would just smile and keep eating her licorice like a rabbit and never speak of it again.
But Stevie doesn’t do either of those things.
Very slowly, and almost without meaning to, Stevie nods. She swallows, hard, and says, “Okay.”
Alexis sets the Twizzler aside, holding Stevie’s gaze, and undoes the buttons that line the front of her dress from its neck to her waist, revealing, in tantalizing pieces, a lacy bustier that pushes her breasts up and together. It’s pink, not green, and the colour emphasizes her tan, the soft summer freckling over her skin. Stevie’s eyes follow the movement of her fingers and then snap back up to Alexis’ face, like she wasn’t supposed to be looking.
“Hey,” Alexis says softly, clearly having spotted the panic in Stevie’s eyes. “Stevie. If you don’t want - ”
Stevie reaches out, an abrupt action that seems to startle Alexis, and peels the spaghetti-style strap of Alexis’ dress down off her shoulder, revealing even more golden skin. She says what she’s been trying not to feel around Alexis for weeks now: “I want.”
Alexis releases a little breath, like she hadn’t let herself exhale while she waited for Stevie. “Me, too,” she says, and promptly pulls the strap off her other shoulder, lifts her hips, and shimmies out of her dress.
Stevie lets her eyes trace down Alexis’ body, over the boning in the lower part of the bustier, the small pink triangle of fabric between her thighs, the high cuts at the sides of her panties that lead to nearly-nonexistent pieces of fabric at her hips. She reaches out, brushing her fingertips over lace that’s rough to the touch, and skims her hand upward, her palm against Alexis’ breast.
Biting her lip, Alexis shuffles closer on the couch, and then her hand is on Stevie’s cheek, her thumb brushing softly, and then - and then they’re kissing, Alexis’ lips on hers, and Stevie sinks into it, lets her mouth be coaxed open, lets herself be explored. Alexis’ other hand skims, almost innocently, along Stevie’s arm, from the bottom edge of her t-shirt sleeve down to her wrist and all the way up again. Stevie’s skin erupts in goosebumps, and her teeth sink into Alexis’ bottom lip.
Alexis makes such a pleased sound at that, a little approving mewl from her throat, that Stevie shifts closer, too, removing any remaining distance between them, her thigh pressing against the calf Alexis has curled up on the sofa. She knows her mouth probably tastes like chip seasoning and she should be worried about that, but she’s not, she’s just greedy for the way Alexis’ mouth tastes, faintly like faux-strawberry flavour and like the rush of the first bite of a summer peach, syrupy and uncontainable.
Stevie lets her hands roam, fingers flexing against Alexis’ rib cage, feeling the weight of her breasts, moving downward until she encounters the bare skin of Alexis’ thigh. Alexis touches Stevie’s thigh in turn, hand moving up until the very tips of her fingers disappear under the hem of the old Adidas shorts Stevie wears around the house in the summers. When Alexis leans back a little, Stevie follows her, not quite ready to break the kiss. It makes Alexis giggle, a sound Stevie could swear tastes sweet, and those long, nimble fingers of Alexis’ make their way to the drawstring on Stevie’s shorts.
“Can I?” Alexis murmurs into her mouth. In response, Stevie just kisses her again, fiercely, tongue and teeth and thirst.
Somehow Alexis manages to pull Stevie’s shorts off while simultaneously continuing to kiss her senseless. The shorts end up on the floor. Stevie’s underwear is unremarkable, blue-and-white striped cotton, but Alexis’ thumbs stroke along the fabric at Stevie’s hips like she enjoys the oft-worn, oft-washed feeling.
“I want to touch you,” Alexis says. Her voice is so quiet that Stevie draws closer, her fingers digging lightly into the side of Alexis’ ass.
“Then touch me,” Stevie says, with something close to her usual sarcastic edge, but it just makes Alexis smile, a smile that Stevie gets to feel against the swell of her breast when Alexis yanks at the neckline of Stevie’s loose-fitting shirt and digs her teeth into soft flesh, her other hand pressing between Stevie’s legs, gentle as anything, a contrast so sharp that Stevie gasps and arches her back and feels as though her brain short-circuits.
Alexis gets Stevie out of her panties, kisses her way up along Stevie’s neck, and explores Stevie with her fingers, slow and thorough. Stevie gasps again as two of Alexis’ fingers circle slowly around her clit, and Alexis kisses her, catches that gasp in her own mouth. She watches Stevie’s face, her eyes hooded, covetous, and works Stevie with her hand until Stevie’s got one hand fisted in her own shirt and the other in a white-knuckle grip on Alexis’ arm. Stevie gets close, so close, riding delicious waves of pleasure, so close, her legs spread and her thighs tense. She manages to choke out, “I’m - ” and Alexis gives her a small, encouraging nod, speeding up the movement of her fingers.
“Yeah, Stevie,” she whispers. “Yeah.”
Stevie’s mouth stretches open, a soundless cry. Alexis brushes kisses over each of her lips, and Stevie comes apart against her fingers, quaking with it, Alexis’ eyes, gone such a dark blue, fixed on her face.
“Stevie,” Alexis says. Her voice sounds higher, tight in her throat. “God. God, that was gorgeous, you’re gorgeous - ”
As she catches her breath, Stevie considers grabbing her clothes from the floor, but she looks at Alexis’ face, at Alexis’ pink tongue running along her mouth, and thinks, fuck it. She kisses Alexis’ collarbone and puts her hands on Alexis’ waist - and it becomes abundantly clear, very quickly, that she has no idea how to get Alexis out of her lingerie. She tugs on a tie that appears to be decorative, and there are more clasps than she was expecting hidden among the lace.
“Here,” Alexis says, on a breath of a laugh that pulses between Stevie’s legs. With some contorting, she gets out of the bustier, then slides off her thong, and - and Alexis Rose is naked on Stevie’s couch.
Stevie’s known from the very first day the Roses showed up at the motel - because she has eyes - that Alexis is beautiful, all that blonde hair that she flips artistically, those long legs on display in three-inch heels, the shimmer of her eyes, the sway of her hips when she walks. She also expected - again, she has eyes - that Alexis would look every bit as good naked, but it’s somehow staggering, still, to be proven correct.
Alexis touches her hand, and Stevie realizes she’s not moving. She flips her hand over beneath Alexis’, instinctively, and squeezes. Alexis squeezes back. Alexis is breathing shallowly, her small breasts, nipples pink and hard, rising and falling rapidly. “Will you kiss me?” she asks.
“Fuck, yeah,” Stevie says, leaning in so quickly that her words are half-muffled into Alexis’ mouth. Alexis makes another one of those satisfied sounds, and Stevie shifts on the sofa until Alexis’ breasts press against hers. Even through her t-shirt and her bra, she can feel the heat of Alexis’ skin.
Alexis spreads her legs a little and touches herself, her knee pressing into Stevie’s thigh. She whimpers against Stevie’s lips. Stevie brushes her thumb up and down along the side of Alexis’ breast, and sinks her other hand into Alexis’ hair at the back of her skull, holding Alexis steady in the kiss even as she whimpers again, her body shifting against Stevie’s, building toward something.
Slowly, Stevie brushes her hand down over Alexis’ abs, which jump under her touch, and lets her hand find its way to where Alexis’ is moving between her legs, fucking herself hard and fast with her fingers. Alexis moans when Stevie’s hand slides over her own, fingers brushing along Alexis’ folds, feeling out the rhythm she’s set for herself. Alexis is hot and slick, dripping wet for this, for Stevie, and then Stevie’s moaning, too, gulping in a breath and exhaling, “Alexis…”
Alexis’ mouth breaks away from hers, her head tipping to rest against the back of the couch, and Stevie watches her come, takes in the flush on her cleavage that creeps up her neck, her swollen lips, the way she’s grinding against the heel of Stevie’s hand, the sharp, gasping sounds of her orgasm that take the rough shape and form of Stevie’s own name.
Stevie leans back into the sofa, too, her shoulder pressed to Alexis’. Alexis ghosts her fingers along the outer edge of Stevie’s thigh idly, not asking for anything, just touching for the sake of touch. Stevie feels herself press into it, almost greedily, and she looks around for something to distract herself from how she wants more, all of that all over again.
Her eyes fall on their discarded clothes, and then drift to the TV. “You - ” She licks her lips, which suddenly feel dry. “You missed most of your show.”
Alexis turns toward her, a lazy, sated smile on her lips. “Stevie,” she says. “That’s, like… totally okay.”
After a second, she starts to laugh.
Stevie does, too.
At least five minutes pass after Stevie hits snooze on her alarm during which she’s certain it was all a dream, one she could sink back into, wrapped up under her comforter, Alexis’ legs, hands, mouth, breasts -
Stevie’s eyes fly open, even though her alarm’s not going to start blaring again for another four minutes. She sits up, shoving her sheets aside, and stares at her couch.
“Holy shit,” she says, quietly, to her empty apartment.
It wasn’t a dream. There’s still a pile of unopened snack food on her kitchen table, and it wasn’t a dream. She had sex - unexpected, gratifying sex - with Alexis.
And now she has to get up, get dressed, go to work, and act like she didn’t.
She’s nervous as she pulls into her usual parking spot, butterflies in her stomach, sweat on her palms. She doesn’t know if Alexis will install herself on the lobby sofa today, like she usually does. She’s beginning to think she should’ve worn her yellow-and-navy flannel instead of her green-and-black flannel. Are they going to go back to being acquaintances now; was it a let’s-never-speak-of-this-again thing? Or is Alexis expecting something of her? Stevie hates expectations. She curses herself, wishing she’d thought to ask questions before Alexis left, instead of just letting herself be kissed goodbye.
The lobby is empty when she walks in. It’s like her apartment: so much is exactly the same as it’s been for years, but the smallest additions alert her to the way things have shifted. There’s a recent copy of Vogue on the old, scratched-up coffee table; a stretchy, flowery headband abandoned on one of the sofa cushions.
She tries to distract herself by fucking around with a spreadsheet full of formulas someone else set long ago. It works fairly well for about an hour, which is how long it takes for Alexis to throw open the door and saunter in.
“Hey,” she says, practically gliding to a stop by the desk. She’s clearly just finished up a run, dressed in one of her matching workout outfits.
Stevie tries to loosen her death-grip on the ancient computer mouse. “Hey.”
Alexis leans into the desk. She looks exhilarated, effervescent. In the morning light, her eyes are so unbearably beautiful. Tapping her fingers against the wood, she says, “I just wanted to see if… you were good! Today. Are you good today?”
There’s something about the rapid tattoo of her fingers that makes Stevie think she’s nervous, too. For some reason, that loosens the knot of anxiety in her chest, and her lungs fill with the fresh-cut-grass smell that wafted into the lobby after Alexis. She can feel her mouth form a smirk; suddenly, the holy shit feeling she woke up with is a good one. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m good.”
Alexis smiles, and then quickly bites into the inner part of her bottom lip to quell it. “Cool,” she says. “Cool. So. D’you have plans tonight?”
If Stevie were the type to play coy, maybe she’d say yes, make up some imaginary commitment. But she’s not the type, and she doesn’t have plans, and - it shouldn’t be hot, the sheen of sweat on Alexis’ skin, the flyaway hairs at her temples, the lingering harsh, laboured quality to her breathing. But it is. It’s hot, and Stevie wants it, wants her, just like this, in her apartment, in her bed. She wants it so badly it burns low in her belly, a kind of wanting that won’t be ignored.
“No,” she says. “No plans.”
“Great!” Alexis chirps. She gives Stevie one of her ridiculous, double-eye winks, taps the top of the desk one last time, and practically skips out of the lobby.
Stevie allows herself to check out Alexis’ ass, and then blinks at the bright screen of the computer. Great gives her very little to work with, but it does give her an answer to some of her most pressing questions.
It wasn’t a one-time thing. Alexis wants it to happen again, and so does she.
And it’s going to. Tonight.
Stevie does her dishes when she gets home, and makes a half-hearted effort at dusting. She doesn’t give into the temptation to change her flannel shirt, but she does change her underwear, pulling on a black pair with lacy edges. It’s her custom to take off her bra the minute she walks through her apartment door, and she doesn’t bother putting it back on.
She’s not sure when Alexis will arrive, so she eats leftover lasagna and reads a few pages of The Edible Woman while feeling hyper-alert to every single sound she hears outside her door. Eventually, she tosses her book aside and manages to relax as she watches Law & Order: Criminal Intent. She stretches her legs out on her couch and leans her head against the same spot Alexis’ head rested when she came. Stevie squeezes her thighs together, and orders herself to concentrate on the predictable plot.
Alexis doesn’t show up until it’s almost eleven p.m. Stevie would be tired if she wasn’t so keyed up with anticipation. Her heart vaults up into her throat when she swings open the door to reveal Alexis in a sheath-style dress that looks exceedingly easy to remove.
“I brought wine,” Alexis says by way of greeting, holding a bottle aloft. “Sauv blanc. That good?”
Stevie opens her mouth and then snaps it shut again. She searches Alexis’ face, her body language, for a sign that her question has a second, hidden meaning - a sign that David told his sister about the conversation he once had with Stevie about the ‘wines they drink.’ She can’t spot any clues, though: there’s nothing impish or secretive in Alexis’ expression, and no extravagant winking like there had been earlier, at the motel.
So she says, simply, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s… really good.”
“You have a corkscrew?”
Stevie nods, and retrieves it, along with the two wine glasses she owns - they’re technically white wine glasses, which David pointed out to her with a solid ten minutes of teasing. Alexis uncorks the bottle and then waves a hand above its neck, wafting the scent of the wine toward her or something. There’s no wine being sold in the vicinity of Schitt’s Creek that warrants that kind of response, but still, it’s kind of charming. It makes Stevie laugh, which makes Alexis smile with a cute little wrinkle in her nose, like she knows she’s the reason Stevie’s laughing but she doesn’t mind.
“To you, babe,” Alexis says. She takes a single, perfunctory sip of her wine, and then one of her hands is pressing into Stevie’s lower back, the other cupping Stevie’s cheek.
Stevie, who’s still holding her wine glass, startles before she feels herself melt into Alexis’ touch. “You don’t waste time,” she comments wryly, but it comes out soft.
“Do you wanna waste time?” Alexis asks, and Stevie’s bluff is officially, completely called.
“No,” she says. She blindly sets her glass down on the table and runs a hand along the curve of Alexis’ waist. Her dress is thin, the fabric soft and delicate. Stevie wants to get beneath it. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.”
“Mm, totally,” Alexis agrees, and then she bends to press a kiss to Stevie’s lips. Stevie leans into the kiss, and into Alexis, nudging Alexis slowly backward, toward her waiting, recently-made bed.
One hour later, Stevie’s being forced to reconsider how she feels about the way Alexis says her name, her head between Alexis’ strong thighs, mouth on her cunt, tongue moving in bolder strokes, learning how Alexis tastes, discovering what it’s like to have Alexis’ wetness smeared down her chin. When Stevie falls out of Alexis’ mouth on the heels of just like that, oh god, don’t stop - yeah. Stevie likes it.
She really, really likes it.
Alexis stops spending quite as much time in the lobby - she seems to be going for longer runs and doing other things with her time that Stevie hasn’t asked about - but she tends to pop in at least once a day, sometimes briefly, to twirl a lock of hair around her finger and nod aggressively along with Stevie’s responses to being asked about her day, and sometimes for a couple hours, settling in with a magazine and reading out quiz questions or creating a manicure station for herself on the table. Whenever she breezes out again she says, “Later, Stevie!” in the tone of a promise.
David walks in once right as she’s leaving. Alexis’ shoulder bumps his, which makes him huff, and then he gives Stevie scrunched-up what’s going on? eyebrows. She widens her eyes at him in response: how should I know? Something like guilt seizes in her stomach, but she tells herself she’s only barely lying. She hardly knows what’s going on, and she definitely couldn’t explain it.
All she knows is that Alexis keeps showing up at her place, close to midnight, an incongruously sunny smile spread across her face.
All she knows is that she craves it, the soft tap of Alexis’ knock, the hands that get her naked moments later, the smell of sex in the air and of rich-girl shampoo on her pillowcases, the way Alexis likes to boop nose-against-nose when they’re tangled together, post-coital, her eyes closed and Stevie’s open, confirming for herself yet again that she’s wide, wide awake.
She asks about the tattoo after the sixth night. She’s perched on the edge of her bed in a Tragically Hip tour t-shirt that she’s slept in for years, watching Alexis fuss with the tie at the waist of her linen shorts, as if anyone in Schitt’s Creek is awake at three in the morning to criticize her outfit.
“What does it mean?” she says, when Alexis turns to pick up her silky shirt from the floor.
Instinctively, Alexis’ fingers brush the bottom of her back. Stevie was surprised to discover the tattoo - it seemed, for some reason, like something she should’ve known about, exposed to her by a story from David or through the semi-translucent material Alexis seems to favour in her summer dresses. She was busy finding and memorizing Alexis’ moles and birthmarks and little scars; the stark black ink at the base of her spine, 太熱了。, was unexpected.
Alexis pulls on her shirt, tucks it neatly into the waistband of her shorts, and fluffs her hair. “My tattoo?” she says, like she doesn’t know exactly what Stevie’s talking about. “Oh, it’s just… it says ‘Stevie Nicks.’ In Cantonese.”
Stevie’s head jerks back a little from the shock of it. “You - what do you - that’s my - do you even like Fleetwood Mac?”
“Um, Stevie,” Alexis says, assuming her you-poor-thing expression. “Literally everyone likes Fleetwood Mac?”
Stevie stares up at her and manages to ask, finally, “Why in Cantonese?”
Alexis brushes her fingers through Stevie’s messy hair, skimming along the shell of her ear. “Because I was in Hong Kong when I got it.” She drops down to sit next to Stevie on the bed, bumping Stevie’s elbow with her own. “And I was twelve. It doesn’t say ‘Stevie Nicks,’ it says ‘that’s hot.’”
After a beat of staring at her, Stevie huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “You got me,” she says with a shake of her head.
Alexis elbows her again. “If I ever get a tattoo for a Stevie, I promise it’ll be you.”
It’s a sweet but frivolous thing to say, so Stevie doesn’t let herself feel anything other than amusement. “Twelve,” she says. “In Hong Kong.”
“Back when I modelled,” Alexis says with a shrug.
“Do you - I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s… hot,” Stevie says, noting Alexis’ sudden, delighted grin. “But have you ever thought about having it removed?”
Alexis gives it a single beat of sincere thought, and then says, “No,” with another shrug. She looks right at Stevie, their faces so close together, their bare knees touching. “You have to live with all of yourself. You can’t really remove anything.”
With a sizable amount of effort, Stevie manages to muster up something close to a smile. “I guess,” she agrees. Her throat feels like it’s swelling.
Alexis kisses her forehead and then her lips. “Bye, babe,” she says, and pushes up off the bed.
Stevie watches her go to the door, and then stands by her window and watches Alexis walk down the street, her heels clacking against the pavement, puncturing the quiet of the town.
Tap tap tap on Stevie’s door, right in the depth of the night, and Alexis gets her off like no guy ever has. She teases with soft, dancing fingers, unclasping Stevie’s bra and then taking a long, luxurious moment to kiss her. She traces her tongue along the pressure marks that the band leaves on Stevie’s rib cage, sucks hickeys onto the undersides of Stevie’s breasts, making her writhe. She flicks her tongue against Stevie’s nipple and then blows to make her shiver, hides her smirk against Stevie’s skin when Stevie pulls her hair, hard. She takes a nipple between her forefinger and thumb and twists her fingers just so, just barely, and Stevie gets so wet for her, so fast, her hips canting upward, her hand pressing between her legs. Alexis removes her hand with a chiding cluck of her tongue, and Stevie whines.
Her breathing becomes shuddery, and then Alexis takes Stevie’s nipple in her mouth, teeth raking just enough to hurt, to make Stevie gasp. Alexis moves her tongue in the same patterns, with the same firmness, that she uses against Stevie’s clit, strokes her tongue purposefully over the very tip of Stevie’s nipple, draws circles around it, and Stevie can almost come just like that, gasping and whimpering and fisting the sheets in her hands, her hips grinding against nothing as she chants, “Lex, Lex, Lex - ”
Alexis always seems to know when she’s ready to sob from the want of it all, from the way her orgasm is just out of reach, and she’ll replace her mouth with her twisting fingers again and bury her face between Stevie’s thighs. It takes about two seconds of sucking on Stevie’s clit to take her entirely apart, keening, her needy fingers making tangles in Alexis’ soft hair, biting into her pillowcase to keep from crying out when Alexis slides two fingers inside her and makes her come all over again, before she’s even begun to catch her breath.
When she does manage to pull air into her lungs with something approaching steadiness, she pushes herself up on her elbows and kisses Alexis’ wet mouth, savoring the way Alexis’ hands on her thighs alternate between soft, soothing touches and aching, needy grasps, and then she’ll lean into Alexis until their positions are reversed, and Alexis is the one spread out on the bed, her head at its foot. She starts with teasing, too, because Stevie gives as good as she takes, her mouth on the soaked-through fabric of Alexis’ panties, her fingers snapping at the waistband but not making any move to pull downward, not yet.
“Stevie,” Alexis moans, grinding against Stevie’s nose nudging her clit. When Stevie finally pushes Alexis’ underwear aside to seek her orgasm in earnest, Alexis’ feet slide between the bars of Stevie’s headboard, her toes curling around them when she comes.
By nature, Stevie is something of an insomniac; she can’t remember a time in her life, not even in her early childhood, when she found it easy to fall asleep. But now, with Alexis showing up at her door, it’s like her body’s given up on sleep altogether, her mind always preoccupied with the waiting of it all, her ears constantly tuned in to the wooden instrument that is her door, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before it hums to life under the force of Alexis’ knuckles.
Sometimes she feels halfway resentful about it, especially when it’s been a long day and her shoulders are sore from the way she tends to hunch in her chair, or when she sleeps through her alarm in the morning and spends her day stifling yawns. Those late-night knocks make her feel like Alexis’ dirty little secret, reached for only when the rest of the town is fast asleep, and some part of her feels angry about that, about being treated as a fucking source of shame - but then Alexis is in her doorway, and in her bed, and on her couch, and pinning Stevie tightly against the edge of her kitchen counter, leaving a linear bruise across her back that will hang around for days, and Stevie melts under her touch, into her arms, and - in spite of herself - forgets all her bitterness. In the quiet of Stevie’s apartment, the solitude, Alexis’ eyes go deep ocean blue, and Stevie - she sinks.
Sprawled out on her mattress, still feeling boneless from her orgasms, she watches Alexis get dressed, noting absently that one corner of the fitted sheet has been tugged off at some point. Alexis pokes her head through her shirt and seems to study Stevie. The smile on her face edges toward fondness, and she toys with her necklaces, rearranging them to her liking. Stevie almost shivers at the memory of the A Alexis wears around her neck pressing into her own skin.
“What’s your middle name?” Alexis asks, holding onto that A for an extra few seconds.
“What?” Stevie asks, pulling her attention away from Alexis’ busy fingers.
“Your middle name,” Alexis says patiently. “What is it? Mine’s Clare.”
“Um. Maureen. After my aunt.” Stevie props herself up on her elbows. “Why?”
Alexis shrugs and lets go of her necklace. “I just wanted to know,” she says, and she bends down to kiss Stevie. Her hair falls in soft curtains on either side of their faces, enveloping them both in the scent of her perfume.
Around David - at the motel, at the café, on one evening at The Wobbly Elm - Alexis acts so normally, so casually, with the gentlest, easiest hints of greater familiarity, complimenting Stevie’s clunky boots even though she herself is wearing a pair of sandals that tie up her calves, teasing Stevie for ordering a whiskey called Caribou Crossing, poking at Stevie’s shoulder with a finger she might typically use for a nose boop. David will occasionally shoot her a look that straddles bafflement and annoyance, but everything about Alexis is so faultlessly nonchalant that she never allows him an opportunity to interrogate her about it.
It’s when Alexis is in the bathroom at the bar (she tried to tug Stevie along, but David grabbed Stevie’s arm with enough force to keep her from leaving her chair), that David narrows his eyes critically at her, searching her face far more attentively than Stevie is comfortable with.
“I told you,” she says, trying to distract him, “that I’m not taking off my jacket.”
“Well, I can’t take mine off, either, Stevie; an outfit has elements,” he tells her, shifting his shoulders beneath his leather jacket. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”
Stevie pokes at the ice in her drink with the stir stick. “What’s the point?”
David’s eyebrows arch; he’s clearly unimpressed with her evasiveness. “Are you… friends, with my sister?”
She slides her eyes toward him and says, flatly, “What.”
He turns in his chair to face her directly, and repeats, “Are you friends with my sister?”
Stevie scoffs a laugh. “No,” she says. Friends is not the right word for what she and Alexis are, for how they are together. Friends is the word for what she has with David, the sense of kinship, of bone-deep understanding, of insults that mean I’d do anything for you. What she has with Alexis is simultaneously, paradoxically, both so much lighter and so much heavier than that. “We’re not friends.”
“She seems to think you are.” When Stevie shrugs, David’s eyebrows do an intricate dance. “So she’s wrong, then?” he asks, each word clipped with precision.
Stevie pushes her glass away. Her mouth tastes sour. “Guess so,” she says.
That night, Ray, the only person in Schitt’s Creek working for Uber, drives them back into town. Ella, the fifth-grade teacher at the elementary school, sits in the passenger seat; in the back, Alexis is squished between David and Stevie. Stevie keeps her hands clamped between her own knees to resist the temptation to reach out and touch her.
Ray stops at the motel first, and Alexis and David squabble as they shuffle out of the car, arguing about whether Alexis purposefully poked her brother with her sharp stiletto heel.
“See you tomorrow, girl,” Alexis says as she closes the door. Stevie understands immediately what she means - there’ll be no knock on her door in an hour or two.
Ray pulls out of the motel parking lot and heads for Ella’s street. Stevie tilts her head and rests her temple against the cool glass of the window, reminding herself that there’s no reason to feel disappointed.
She can get a good night’s sleep. It’s what she’s wanted for days.
Two days later, on Monday night, the quiet rapping on the door comes after two a.m. Stevie figured she’d be spending the night alone, and she’s asleep - but apparently not very deeply, since the knocking pulls her, forcefully, right out of her dreams.
She pads over to the door in her bare feet, running a hand over her hair in an attempt to smooth out any particularly disastrous sections. She squints against the hall light when she opens it, and it takes a moment for Alexis to come into focus.
“You were asleep,” Alexis murmurs. Her thumb finds a pressure mark from a crease in a pillowcase on Stevie’s cheek and traces over it.
“It’s late, Lex,” Stevie replies, her voice raspy from slumber.
“I know, babe.” Alexis slides her hand down the side of Stevie’s neck. “But I wanted to see you.”
Stevie nods a little. She rests her hands against Alexis’ hips and tugs her inside, kicking out a foot to nudge the door shut behind her. “Hi,” she says, still blinking sleepily.
“Hi, baby,” is Alexis’ soft response, and she cups Stevie’s face in both her hands, bending to kiss her. Stevie presses up onto her toes as she kisses back, her hands circling Alexis’ wrists loosely. Alexis steps out of her shoes, and they move slowly, together, further into Stevie’s apartment.
Stevie manages to get them turned around so that when she gives Alexis a gentle push, Alexis ends up sitting on the foot of her unmade bed. Her hands reach out like she’s going to pull Stevie into her lap, but Stevie drops to her knees on the floor instead. Alexis’ knees part easily, making room, but she puts her hands back on Stevie’s face and just kisses her again. The unhurried pace Alexis is setting feels almost dreamlike, her mouth so pliant against Stevie’s, her skin still holding onto a hint of the late-night chill in the air.
Alexis’ dress cinches at the waist and then flares out; it’s as easy as anything for Stevie to slip her hands under it. She’s surprised to find a pair of cotton shorts beneath, as though Alexis just threw the dress on over top of her pyjamas. She smirks lazily, still just a little drowsy, and breathes against Alexis’ lips: “You’re gonna make me work for it?”
“Stevie,” Alexis sighs, pulling back. In the darkness, the corners of her mouth look pinched and sad.
“I don’t mind,” Stevie assures her. She’s slipped a hand into the shorts, has her knuckles running lightly over Alexis’ underwear.
Alexis runs her tongue over her top lip, looking at something beyond Stevie’s head. “I don’t know if I want to do this.”
Stevie’s body stiffens, stills. “Oh,” she says. So this is it, this is how it ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.
But then Alexis says, her eyes still fixed somewhere else, “Can I stay here? I’m just - I guess I’m not that horny today? And, like, I’m kind of PMSing. But could I… ”
Stevie sits back on her heels and repeats Alexis’ words in her head. “Sure,” she says after the silence has begun to stretch out between them. “We can… hang out, I guess? Um. Watch Netflix?”
Alexis’ chin drops. To her lap, she says, “No, I mean… ”
Stevie tilts her head, trying to catch Alexis’ gaze. She tries to keep her budding irritation out of her voice - why did Alexis come over, and wake her up, if she didn’t want to fuck? - as she prompts, “You mean…?”
“I mean… can I sleep here? Just… sleep.”
“Oh,” Stevie breathes, her frustration dissolving. She touches Alexis’ calf, a silent apology. “Uh, yeah. I mean - sure. Sure you can.”
Alexis looks at Stevie through her lashes. “Thanks.”
Stevie nods, and gets to her feet. Alexis stands, too, undoes the side zipper on her dress, and peels it off. Her cotton shorts are white-and-yellow striped, and she’s naked from the waist up. “I’ll get you a shirt,” Stevie tells her. She rifles around in her dresser and finds a t-shirt from her frosh week at Western University, stained with paint splatter since she typically wears it when she has to do a project at the motel. “This okay?”
“Yeah,” Alexis says, offering Stevie a tiny smile before she takes the shirt and tugs it on. It’s long on Stevie, but it meets up with Alexis’ sleep shorts at her hips pretty perfectly.
“Okay,” Stevie says. “So…” She waves a hand vaguely toward the bed.
“Which side’s yours?” Alexis asks, because despite all the orgasms she’s given Stevie, they’ve never slept together in her bed.
“The right,” Stevie answers, trying to straighten out the blankets.
“Further from the door,” Alexis says quietly. “Smart.”
“Do you - do you want the right?”
“No,” Alexis says hurriedly. “No, no.” She lifts the sheet and slips underneath it on the left side of the bed. “This is totally fine.”
“Okay,” Stevie says uncertainly. She gets into the bed, too, and lays down on her back, her hands folded against her stomach. She hasn’t turned on any lights, so there’s no lamp to flick off to signal that it’s time to go to sleep. “Goodnight, I guess?”
“Goodnight,” Alexis replies.
There’s a beat of quiet during which neither of them moves, and then suddenly Alexis inches over, across the foot of empty space between them, and curls in close to Stevie, her arm across Stevie’s hips, her hair in Stevie’s face, her head on Stevie’s pillow. She plays footsie, rubbing the bottoms of her feet along the tops of Stevie’s. Stevie rests her hand on Alexis’ arm, her thumb rubbing Alexis’ skin instinctively. Alexis purrs like a happy cat, and hooks her leg around Stevie’s.
Even as her eyelids grow heavy, Stevie contemplates grumbling about all the unnecessary touching, but the words never make it out of her mouth. She falls asleep to the slow, soothing cadence of Alexis’ deep breathing, and she wakes up alone.
Stevie figures she knows what’s going on. She typically tries to dump before she can be dumped, but she’s been on the receiving end of a breakup enough times to know what it feels like. Alexis came over at the goddamn witching hour to end things, but backed out when she saw - something. Maybe how pathetically quickly Stevie responded to her knock.
She curses herself for opening the door last night. She curses herself for ever opening the door to Alexis late at night. She doesn’t know what she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all. She has to ask herself: in what other way was this thing with Alexis ever going to end?
She resolves not to let it happen again. She won’t open her door, not anymore. There’s no need for some awkward, cringing conversation during which Alexis will peer down at her with unbearably sincere sympathy in her eyes. It can just taper off to the nothing that was between them before, Alexis’ things vanishing from the lobby, the scent of her fading from Stevie’s sheets.
And yet.
Every time the door to the lobby of the motel swings open, and every time her clock ticks over from 11:59 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., Stevie takes a sharp breath in, her lungs filling with anticipation.
Alexis manages to evade her at the motel (and, okay, maybe Stevie’s doing a little evading too, constantly finding things she needs to ‘check’ in the back). When they run into each other, finally, it’s at the café. Stevie’s sitting in a booth by herself, nursing her third cup of coffee for the day and morosely eating a piece of pudding pie. Alexis sweeps in wearing a dress patterned with butterflies, her hair pinned up in an intricate style. She looks so out of place that it hurts Stevie, right between her ribs. It seems impossible that she and Alexis even know each other, never mind that they know how to wreck one another with their hands and their mouths.
Alexis orders a smoothie from Twyla, all smiles and dancing hands flicked downward at the wrist. Twyla smiles back at Alexis, and Stevie loses the ability to hold her fork: it clatters against her plate, and then bounces off, landing on her shirt instead, leaving a smear of pudding. Great.
Everyone turns toward the sound of the small commotion she’s created. Twyla says, “I’ll get you a new fork!” and Alexis braces one hand against the countertop, swiveling slightly to look at Stevie, one of her brows tilting upward elegantly.
“Oh,” she says. “Hi, Stevie.”
Stevie dabs at her shirt with a napkin. “Hey,” she says, and adds, belatedly, “Alexis.”
Twyla hurries out from the kitchen, fork in hand. “I’ll take it over, Twy,” Alexis says blithely. Twyla hands it to her, and Alexis heads for Stevie’s booth, sliding smoothly onto its other side.
She holds the fork strangely, straight up, right in front of her. Half an inch of movement and its tines would touch her lips, which are a bright magenta shade, a colour that would get smeared over the edges of Stevie’s mouth and maybe even down her neck, if they were to kiss. Which they are not.
Alexis lays the fork down on Stevie’s plate. “Here you go.”
“Thanks,” Stevie says.
Alexis tents her fingers and then rests her chin against them. “How’s your pie?”
“It’s… fine.”
The expression on Alexis’ face - the same face Stevie’s seen cracked open, approachable, perceptive - is inscrutable. They stare at each other. Stevie knows that her own face is probably just as shuttered as Alexis’. She has to swallow past the lump in her throat, and hopes the force of it isn’t visible enough to give her away.
“Very berry smoothie!” Twyla calls from the counter. “We had flax seed today,” she tells Alexis, looking delighted.
“Amazing, Twy!” Alexis chirps, hopping up out of the booth. She glances at Stevie, just briefly. “Bye,” she says.
“Bye, Lex,” Stevie replies.
Halfway through a step toward the counter, Alexis appears to freeze. It only lasts for a second, though, and then all her attention’s focused on Twyla again, her voice perhaps a touch too loud and a smidge overenthusiastic as she asks about what ingredients made it into her smoothie.
Stevie holds onto her mug of coffee with both hands, and doesn’t bother finishing her pie.
The next day is unseasonably hot for early September, the sun beating down, the humidex high, and Stevie feels restless. Even though she’s in the middle of reading The Price of Salt, she can’t just keep sitting at the desk. Her feet keep tapping, her knees keep bouncing.
They’re not expecting any check-ins, so she heads into the back room beyond the staircase, where they store linens. She’s known for a while that she needs to go through them, sorting top sheets, fitted sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers, creating new sets from the items that are still in good shape and discarding those that are worse for wear. It’s not a particularly entertaining task, but at least it gives her something to do with her hands, with her energy.
About half an hour in, when she has a decently-sized ‘keep’ pile on the go, she hears the sound of the door opening into the lobby. It could be a guest, but it’s more likely Roland or a member of the Rose family. She hopes it’s Johnny, since his requests are usually quick and easy to deal with.
She sets down a badly-folded fitted sheet and heads back into the hall that leads to the lobby. She’s only taken a few steps when she realizes her path is blocked. By Alexis.
“Hey,” she says, startled. Her eyebrows climb up on her forehead, a silent, sarcastic, can I help you? It’s a defense mechanism of sorts, an old one that engages naturally, that declares, I’m already bored of you, before you’re bored of me.
“Hey,” Alexis echoes, one hip cocked as she looks at Stevie. Her dress is pale blue with a splotchy white pattern reminiscent of clouds, and it’s ridiculously, excruciatingly short. If she shifted her legs just right, Stevie would be able to see the moles that kiss high up on her thighs.
They look at each other for a moment, until Stevie’s fingers start to twitch with the impulse to tuck her hair back behind her ears, and she caves, asks, “What’s up? Do you need towels or something?”
Alexis’ lashes flicker. Abruptly, her pose in the hall looks less self-assured and more like it was manufactured with careful attention to detail. “Towels,” she repeats, flatly.
Stevie’s beginning to feel like she could crawl out of her skin. She hates this, hates being caught off-guard, hates the weird note in Alexis’ voice, hates the way it feels like there’s a fist squeezing shut in her stomach as she takes in the expression on Alexis’ face, not quite as indecipherable, now, as either of them would like. “What - ” she starts, but Alexis cuts her off, head tilted and brows furrowed tightly, like she’s really, genuinely trying to puzzle something out.
“Do you want to give me towels, Stevie?” she asks. It sounds like an entirely different question.
No is the obvious answer. Stevie opens her mouth, but it doesn’t come out.
Alexis moves closer, hem of her blue dress fluttering. “I don’t want towels,” she says, low enough that Stevie finds herself tipping forward, onto her toes, to make sure that she can hear each word. “I want… ” In an impossibly smooth movement, Alexis steps forward, closing the distance between them, and nudges Stevie, using one shoulder against Stevie’s shoulder and one hand against her hip, through a ninety-degree turn, and then, in what feels like the space of a heartbeat, she has Stevie pressed back against the wall and a hand pressed between Stevie’s legs. Her voice is a hiss by Stevie’s temple when she finally finishes her sentence: “This.”
A gasp spills out of Stevie’s mouth, her hands grasping at Alexis’ upper arms. Against her will, her hips press down, seeking more. Alexis’ hand and the seam of her jeans combine to create a pressure against her clit so delicious that she has to grit her teeth to keep from whimpering.
“Unless you don’t want this,” Alexis murmurs. She moves her hand up to the button of Stevie’s jeans, toying with it but making no move to do what Stevie is abruptly desperate for her to do and actually unbutton and unzip.
“Fuck off,” is all Stevie can manage to breathe.
Alexis laughs. It’s a sweeter sound than Stevie was expecting - not triumphant or knowing but just happy. “You don’t want me to fuck off, Stevie,” she says, kicking off her heels so that their height difference isn’t quite so dramatic. “You want me to fuck you off.”
Stevie would like to glare at her - that’s not a thing, that’s not something people say - but she can feel that her eyes are wide, and they don’t seem to want to narrow. As she tilts her chin up for a kiss, she murmurs, “Lex…”
Alexis doesn’t give Stevie the kiss she’s wordlessly asking for, but she does finally undo her jeans, her fingers nimble but slow-moving, like she’s making sure Stevie has a chance to change her mind, if she wants it. Button undone and zipper slid open, Alexis gives the waistband of Stevie’s jeans the slightest downward tug and then slips her hand into Stevie’s faded black cotton panties, long fingers moving confidently. Stevie can feel the quiver in Alexis’ exhale from the three little huffs of breath that brush along the highest point of her cheek. She’s already so wet for this, and Alexis teases, sounding vaguely distracted, “That’s all it took, hm?”
“Lex,” Stevie says again, the frenzied way she’s feeling seeping into her voice this time. Alexis leans her upper body back a little, fingers still stroking lazily along Stevie’s folds, and Stevie watches the blue blaze fade out of her eyes, watches them lighten into a soft, balmy shade, the colour of an early summer sky.
“Okay,” Alexis says quietly. Her nose nudges Stevie’s before she gives her a kiss, soft, not at all urgent. “I just - ” She takes her hand out of Stevie’s underwear, and Stevie makes a needy noise in the back of her throat, her hands landing in a feverishly tight grip on Alexis’ hips, the blue dress bunching between her clenched fingers. That’s the only thing she has time to do before Alexis is saying, with unequivocal simplicity, “I missed how you taste,” and sucking her middle finger, slick with Stevie, into her mouth.
Stevie takes a shuddering breath at the sight. An expression she can’t name passes over Alexis’ face as she pulls her finger from her mouth, and then half a second later her index finger is on Stevie’s bottom lip, spreading the taste of Stevie’s cunt over her own mouth.
It’s obscene. Stevie’s tongue darts out along her lips to taste herself. She’s so turned on she could cry.
Alexis’ hand steals back into Stevie’s panties as she starts to nip and suck at Stevie’s mouth. Stevie doesn’t need to be coaxed close to orgasm, and Alexis’ fingers work over her clit, finding just the rhythm she likes when she’s almost there. Stevie gasps, “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck - ” and then she’s coming, every nerve in her body alight, biting her tongue to keep from making noise, Alexis’ lips still brushing over hers.
Stevie closes her eyes, drawing in a deep breath as she comes back to herself. Alexis’ breath is hot on her ear, punctured by a soft whimper, the scrape of her teeth over Stevie’s earlobe. She’s grinding against Stevie’s thigh, and the friction of her underwear and the denim of Stevie’s jeans seems to be working for her, judging by the way she presses her open mouth against the juncture of Stevie’s neck and shoulder.
Letting go of the fabric of Alexis’ dress, which she’s wrinkled badly in her fists, Stevie settles her hands on Alexis’ bare hips beneath it, feeling the rhythm in the way Alexis is rocking against her.
Stevie can’t help herself; turnabout’s fair play. “That’s all it took, huh?” she asks smugly.
Alexis surprises her by mewling, “Yes.” Hips moving faster, she tells Stevie, just above a whisper, “I’m gonna come.”
“Yeah.” Stevie moves one hand around to the small of Alexis’ back and slips the other out from under her dress, cards her fingers through Alexis’ hair, runs gentle fingers down her spine. Alexis comes with a soft sob of pleasure, buried in Stevie’s neck.
They’re motionless for a moment, pressed together, the pattern of their inhales and exhales syncing up. Stevie’s not sure who moves first, but Alexis is tugging her dress down, rearranging her hair, and sliding her feet back into her shoes as Stevie readjusts her soaking-wet underwear, pulls up her jeans, and does them up again.
Alexis breathes out tremulously, tucking her hair back behind her ears. “Well,” she says. “Seems like you’re busy, so.” She walks backward down the hallway, her eyes on Stevie’s face, turning at the very last moment.
Stevie doesn’t realize she’s been holding her breath until she hears the door to the lobby shut. Air bursts out of her as she stares at the ugly beige wall in front of her in disbelief. She presses a palm against the wall behind her, trying to steady herself.
There’s a damp patch on her jeans. She presses her thumb against it, feels the wetness against her skin, and her cunt throbs. She drops her hand to her side, curling her fingers into a fist, and tips her head back, where it collides with the wall with a faint thunk.
Just after midnight, there’s a knock on her door. It sounds hesitant, tentative pauses between each of the three taps. Stevie’s angry with her heart for the way it starts to pound, a Pavlovian response. She doesn’t budge from where she’s laying in her bed, stubbornly refusing to move even a single toe, clutching a pillow like it’s an anchor that will keep her there.
There’s a second set of knocks. Stevie’s jaw tightens.
Alexis gets the message. She doesn’t knock again. Stevie hears her footsteps moving down the hall, growing fainter and fainter as she gets farther away.
She gets out of bed and moves across her apartment, the floor cool beneath her bare feet. Standing by her window, arms crossed firmly over her chest, she watches Alexis walk down the middle of the empty street, moving through the yellowed patches of light from the streetlamps, her head bent, her ponytail loose and drooping.
Stevie thought she’d feel proud of herself. She thought she’d feel empowered by making what is, undeniably, the right decision.
Instead, she feels like shit.
Alexis shows up at her door again two nights later, after having been conspicuously absent from the motel during Stevie’s shifts. Stevie’s almost asleep when Alexis knocks, and in her drowsy state, she goes so far as to push off all her blankets before she remembers that she’s not going to get up. She’s not.
But Alexis knocks again, and again, and again. The knock itself never gets any louder or any more demanding, but the fourth time, Alexis calls, in that stupid, stupid ways of hers, those sweet, stupid, tender syllables, “Stevie?”
And that - no matter how much of her willpower she gathers - Stevie can’t ignore.
With a groan, she gets out of her bed and stomps her way over to the door, flinging it open. Alexis exhales audibly when they come face-to-face, like she’s relieved.
There’s something different about Alexis’ hair. It’s loose, and a little frizzy, like she let it air-dry after a shower. She says, “Hi,” like that one word alone means a million things.
“Hi,” Stevie says. She steps aside to let Alexis in.
Once she’s inside, Alexis slides her feet out of her sneakers. She’s wearing a multicoloured, multi-textured miniskirt, but the t-shirt she’s got tucked into it is so simple: ivory, scoop neck, capped sleeves. Something about it makes her look exposed, stripped down to her barest bones, not as sleek and polished as she typically is. For some unknowable, unspeakable reason, Stevie is so fucking into that shirt.
“Thanks for opening the door,” Alexis says, toying with the ends of her hair.
Stevie makes an annoyed sound in her throat. “Would you have left if I hadn’t?”
There’s something wounded in Alexis’ wide eyes. “If that was what you wanted.”
Stevie sighs, some of the fight seeping out of her. “Alexis… I don’t think I can keep doing this.”
“Yeah.” Alexis’ lips twist. “I pieced that together.”
And just like that, Stevie’s defensiveness rears its head again. “Okay, no, let’s not - you can’t pretend it’s just me. You’re pulling away. The last time you came over, we didn’t even - ” She gives her head a shake, trying to clear it. “And before that, you were treating me like - like your… I don’t know. Your secret.”
Alexis’ mouth falls open; without meaning to, Stevie notices that she’s not wearing lipstick. “I’m treating you like my secret?”
Stevie frowns, surprised by the question. “Uh, yeah. You come over here in the middle of the fucking night, Alexis.”
Alexis’ hands fly through the air. “Because I thought that’s what you wanted! Stevie, it took me, like, weeks to hang out with you alone. And then you seemed totally fine with the late-night thing and - and I’m not the one pulling away. You’re the one who told David we’re not even friends!”
Stevie takes a sharp breath and draws her lower lip into her mouth. Alexis’ words sit in the air around them, accusatory, for a long moment, until she asks lowly, “You… heard that?”
“Yeah.” Beneath a veneer of anger, Alexis’ hurt is obvious. “I heard that.”
“Well - we’re - ” Stevie flounders for a moment and then says, helplessly, “We’re not friends, really. We’re just… two people who’re fucking.”
“Fuck off, Stevie,” Alexis says, softly, without any real outrage. “Of course we’re friends. I know all this stuff about your childhood. I know what you keep in your fridge. You loan me your dark, angsty books. I know your schedule. Stevie, we did crosswords together.” She takes a step closer, looking into Stevie’s face so seriously. “We’re totally friends. Friends… with benefits.”
“Friends with benefits,” Stevie repeats, trying to reconcile that label with everything they’ve been doing and finding that it’s not an impossible fit.
“Yeah,” Alexis says forcefully. “Friends with really fucking amazing benefits. And…” Her fingertips trace along the scooped neckline of her shirt, and Stevie’s eyes follow their path greedily. Alexis shrugs one shoulder and says, “Exclusive benefits. At least, for me.”
“Um.” Stevie rolls her lips together. “For me, too.” She pauses, looking at Alexis’ t-shirt, at the halo of frizz around her head. She thinks of their first night together in her apartment, Alexis’ oh-so-open face, the combination of kindness and confidence in her hands. Looking back on it all, Alexis has been honest with her, and easygoing, and brave. Stevie probably owes her reciprocation, on all counts. “Exclusive benefits. That sounds - it sounds like a relationship.”
“Ew, Stevie!” Alexis says, with some flailing of her hands, but she’s smiling, just a little, and Stevie spots something shy in the sliver of it.
“Gee, thanks,” Stevie says wryly. Her shoulders, which were inching up toward her ears, drop down again. “Ew is the reaction I try to inspire.”
Alexis steps closer still. “You know, Stevie,” she says. “I read a lot of magazines.”
“I do know.”
“Yeah. There are a lot of articles about how you should be friends with the person you’re in a relationship with. So I don’t think you can start throwing around the R-word unless you admit we’re friends.”
“I wasn’t throwing - I wasn’t trying to suggest, or like, propose that - ”
“I hope not,” Alexis teases. “I’ve been proposed to in the middle of a fight before, and it did not end well.”
Stevie rolls her eyes. She reaches out, clasping a little portion of the fabric of Alexis’ shirt between her fingers, and tugs, pulling Alexis right into her space. “We’re not fighting.”
Alexis smiles. “We’re not?”
“Not anymore, I don’t think?” Stevie says, looking up into Alexis’ face, trying to communicate I’m sorry with her eyes.
“Mm, good.” Alexis gives her shoulders a pleased shimmy. “And what are we, Stevie?”
“Friends,” Stevie says. “With benefits. Exclusive benefits.”
Alexis beams and runs her hand over Stevie’s hair. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like a secret,” she says.
“I didn’t mean to make you think I wanted a secret,” Stevie replies.
Wrinkling her nose, Alexis says, “So not cute on either of our parts. Do not love that journey for us.” When Stevie huffs out a laugh, Alexis smiles even harder, and sinks her fingers into Stevie’s hair. “Love the destination, though,” she murmurs, and Stevie pushes her body against Alexis’ as they kiss, both of them seeking more, seeking control.
“Stay,” Stevie breathes, as Alexis strokes a hand over her hip and then grabs her ass. “Stay here tonight.”
Alexis taps the tip of her nose to Stevie’s. “Mm, on one condition, babe.”
“What?” Stevie asks, hands already seeking the clasp of Alexis’ bra.
“You have breakfast with me in the morning. At the café.”
Stevie thinks about Alexis across from her in a booth in the morning, in that skirt and that shirt, her hair in disarray, the obvious implications, the way gossip flies in this town, and finds that the idea doesn’t terrify her as much as she thought it might. Instead, it makes her feel warm, like she’s already got a cup of coffee in her hands. “Okay,” she says.
“Okay,” Alexis agrees, and plants another heady kiss on Stevie’s lips. Stevie gets so lost in Alexis’ mouth, so lost under her hands, that she doesn’t even know how she ends up on her back on her bed, and then her whole world narrows, exquisitely, to exclude everything but yes.
fin.