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“So was that sufficient evidence or do you have a rebuttal?” Sterling finds herself saying after April gently pulls back from their kiss.
It takes a moment before April answers, but Sterling can’t blame her. It was a chaste kiss, even so, Sterling can feel her heart pounding in her ears. Plus, April is looking at her with an expression that can only be labeled as adoration, her eyes shimmering. Look, it’s super hard to concentrate when your beautiful ex-childhood-best friend-turned-enemy-turned-crush is staring at you like that, right after she kissed you.
“You made some great points,” April says, the shimmer in her eyes turning more into a twinkle.
“Hey!” Sterling moves to bump April’s shoulder but she dodges it, laughing, Sterling’s breath catches in her throat: April Stevens laughing is even more beautiful than April Stevens smiling. She looks down at her shuffling feet.
A gentle finger hooks under her chin to lift it up to meet April’s eyes. “I have another proposition. It’s important, so naturally I’ll take the affirmative and you’ll take the negative.”
“Yeah, sure I’ll take the negative. That’s me, great with the opposing side. You could say I’m a master debater. Wait, no that sounds wrong. Master debater, not like masterbate-or. I’ve never done that, not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just never felt the-.” Sterling’s stuttering trails off as April turns to look at her, eyes dark. She knows that look, has seen it on April’s face every time they’ve confronted each other at Fellowship, in the hallways, at church, everywhere really.
“Make out with me.” Sterling’s mouth falls open.
“Pardon?”
April, thankfully, ignores the way Sterling’s voice shoots up half an octave. “While the idea did seem a little...indecent at first, I can’t lie that I’m drawn to the juvenile thrill of it. Besides, I’m always open to an occasional hedonistic indulgence. So, yes, in your godforsaken environmentally-inclined hybrid-make out with me.”
“April…”
The earnest, hopeful look drops off of April’s face so quickly that, for a second, Sterling thinks she imagined it was there in the first place.
“You don’t have to, I just thought...maybe-but if you don’t want to, I get it,” April’s voice is the smallest Sterling has ever heard it as she turns to leave. To be honest, Sterling is still trying to process April’s question, not quite realizing everything that’s happening in front of her. April Stevens wants to make out with her? As in kissing with tongue? Although it never crossed her mind until that exact moment, Sterling desperately wants to know, needs to know if April Stevens kisses with tongue.
Sterling blinks. April is walking away from her, the opposite of what she wants. “April,” she half-shouts. A few birds fly out of a nearby bush.
“April,” she whispers harshly.
The shorter girl doesn’t turn around right away, not until Sterling says her name a third time. “Look, I really do want to…,” Sterling can't bring herself to say it, “continue what we were doing but I promised Blair I’d come pick her up and I’m already super duper late and you know how she is. She’ll probably chop my head off like that one time in 6th grade when I accidentally ruined her favorite school skirt. Ugh, she was so mad at me we didn’t speak for a week. Our mom actually had to come in and-”
April stops her rambling with a look. “This is painful to listen to.”
Sterling lets out a breath. “Thanks, sometimes I monologue Lady-Macbeth style when I get nervous. Obviously not about death and how my husband is incompetant, I don’t have a husband but you know that. Not like I would want Macbeth to be my husband either, he’s so indecisive. Like just kill him, gosh! He’s almost as bad as Hamlet, don’t get me started on his soliloquies. I-”
“Sterl, you’re doing it again.” April is staring at her with an exasperated kind of fondness.
“Oh, sorry.”
Looking around, April takes a step forward. Sterling gets that warm, fuzzy feeling inside her stomach whenever April is close to her. “I make good-girl Sterling Wesley nervous?”
Woah. She tries to ignore the swooping feeling in her stomach. She doesn’t have time to unpack that. Yet. Sterling nods. “I already told you at the arcade my maxilla goes numb whenever I think about you, which is like all the time.”
April grins at her. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your car since your patellas probably aren’t working too well either.”
Sterling is about to object that her patellas and all other parts of her knees are working fine, thank you very much, when April loops her hand on the inside of Sterling’s bicep. It’s gentle, nothing like the biting grip from the debate tournament, but the memory burns red hot through her body. Sterling can’t decide which she likes more.
They walk back to the student parking lot behind Willingham, arm in arm. The parking lot is nearly empty, so Sterling finds the car easily. She turns to say goodbye to April but the shorter girl reaches for her neck to pull her down into another kiss which leads to another and another and they end up making out anyway against the passenger door. Sterling’s resolve to leave and pick up Blair crumbles quickly the moment April’s lips touch hers again.
Kissing April is nothing like she imagined but also everything all at once. With Luke, he was always slow, almost reserved, even when they progressed to more intimate activities. She practically had to beg him to kiss her with tongue. He was sweet and kind, checking in with her, but sometimes (often, if she’s being honest) Sterling just wanted more. April kisses how she debates: intense with a sense of urgency. They've always been competitive with each other, so when April pushes up against her, Sterling tries to meet her there.
She’s content to stay here with April, kissing under flickering street lamps in an empty parking lot, but it seems like April has other ideas. Somewhere between Sterling’ collarbone and the base of her earlobe, April breathes out, “Car.” And well, Sterling has never had a problem taking orders from her.
It's hard finding her keys when April's fingers are playing with the hem of her shirt, but she finds them in the bottom of her bag, next to a flyer for the Willingham Chess Club. Sterling almost drops them when April hooks a finger into her belt loop and pulls her gently, almost imperceptibly forward. Finally, after fumbling her keys, accidentally pressing the alarm button and hearing April's exasperated sigh, Sterling unlocks the car. She sends a quick prayer to God, that one of Blair's heavy metal songs doesn't start blasting as soon as she opens the car and thankfully it doesn't, just the local pop country station and some acoustic guitar. She thinks she recognizes the female voice, but can't be sure.
Sterling throws her bag and her purse in the front seat of the car and turns to face April, their knees bumping together in the cramped back seat of the Volt.
“Hi,” April breathes out shyly, as if she wasn't just pressing Sterling into the car and her hands ghosting over Sterling's stomach. But Sterling gets it. Everything feels bigger, more intense when they're enclosed in the car.
“Hi yourself,” Sterling replies, but with April's face so close to her, she ends up addressing April's lips directly. They're shining with gloss and Sterling is confident her lips must look the same way. She looks up and sees April studying her, amused.
“Am I just a pair of lips to you?” April teases, but Sterling can hear the worry in her voice, the fear. It makes her stomach twist.
“You're so much more than that,” Sterling whispers.“ April you mean so incredibly much to me.” She was going for casual but it comes out achingly sincere. She hears April's breath catch in her throat and briefly, she wonders if anybody has said anything remotely like that to her. Her dad certainly hasn't, Sterling thinks, and the twisting feeling returns to her stomach.
“I still don't know how you do it,” April looks at her, tears shining in her eyes. “You always make me feel so...safe.” Her voice cracks and all Sterling wants to do is hold her. She takes April's hand into both of hers and starts smoothing her thumb over the soft skin of her palm.
“You are. Safe, I mean,” Sterling says it without thinking, so overwhelmed by the truth of the statement. Maybe it's the wrong thing to say after a week of secret making out and Sterling is sure if Blair was here then she'd certainly make a joke, but it's the truth. Still, it's a little nerve wracking to admit to your crush who is also supposed to be your mortal enemy that your feelings are a little more intense than normal crush feelings, even if you don't directly say it.
Sterling gulps and April hasn't said anything, hasn't even reacted to her confession except for her eyes widening. Her mind backtracks and panics and yep that was definitely a bad idea, when suddenly April's lips are on hers. Sterling lets out a surprised “oh” as the force of April surging forward almost knocks her head into the window behind her.
This kiss is nothing like their first kiss, or even the makeout session they had ten minutes ago against the car. There's a hunger and an urgency to the way April's lips press against Sterling's, almost as if she's trying to claim them as her own. The thought of it makes Sterling dizzy. April moves her hand out of Sterling's so she can cup the back of Sterling's neck, pulling her even closer. As much as she enjoys kissing her, the image of April looking so fragile sticks in the back of Sterling's head. She pulls back slowly, gently, until their foreheads are pressed together. Sterling glances at April, who still has her eyes closed, and whispers, “I meant what I said, before,” she can't bring herself to say it again.
“I know, it's just how can I not kiss you after you say things like that,” April's hand moves from the back of Sterling's neck to her cheek, running her thumb slowly across the skin. Sterling feels herself lean into April's touch.
“I kinda want to kiss you every time we see each other,” Sterling admits. “It's like now that I've done it once, I don't want to do anything else.” April giggles and Sterling does too, relieved.
Sterling looks at April as best she can without moving their heads and finds April already looking at her with an intensity that makes Sterling nervous. Then, April loops her arms around Sterling's neck again, effectively blocking everything else out except their faces. Sterling can feel the light puffs of air as April breathes out and she knows the other girl notices how her eyes keep flicking down to her lips.
“So kiss me,” April's voice is huskier than Sterling has ever heard it, her words come out as a command, more demanding than a request. Something that’s been curling in her stomach since April grabbed her arm at the debate tournament and suddenly boils over. It makes her gut and other decidedly...lower parts of her body flutter in anticipation. No, not flutter. Ache. She shivers.
The song on the radio changes, and the part of Sterling's brain that isn't consumed with the need to have April's tongue in her mouth right now, recognizes the song. She heard it earlier when they were trying to figure out the playlist for the lock in. April had put it after “Don't Stop Believin'” after she argued with Hannah B. about the merits of Journey's music. (“Kasey Musgraves doesn't deserve to be next to that hippie trash, Hannah B.”)
Sterling moves to kiss her again, close the few inches that separate their lips, but April moves her head away at the last second. She tries again and April lets their lips touch, just barely. Frustrated, Sterling nudges her nose against April's, trying to connect their lips more. April moves away, a smirk playing across her face. A whine escapes from the back of Sterling's throat, a sound she didn't even know she could make, and April finally moves their lips together.
It's more tame than their initial kiss until Sterling's teeth slip and she accidentally bites down a little on April's lip, causing the other girl to let out a soft, broken moan. Sterling decides April moaning is her new favorite sound and resolves to hear it as much as possible. She bites April's lip again and this time her moan is louder, a little more desperate. She's thankful to be in this car, even if April scoffs at its environmental sensibilities, and not in a place like the Fellowship room where anyone could walk in on them or cramped in a corner of a laser tagging facility as 12 year olds run around them, so she can fully appreciate the sounds that April is making. Sounds that she's helping to make, Sterling thinks excitedly. And suddenly it's a little overwhelming because if you told Sterling a year ago that April Stevens would be moaning her name as they made out in her car, she wouldn't have believed you. Heck, if you told her that a month or even three weeks ago, she wouldn't have believed you.
Sterling moves her hand to rest on the underside of April's jaw, pressing half against her skin and half against the collar of her shirt. Soon after, it slides over April's upper arm and Sterling nearly implodes because holy shit, she's known that April, unlike her, exercises on at least a semi regular basis, but the way April's bicep is flexed firmly against her hand (almost as if she's doing it on purpose) is absolutely devastating to Sterling's libido. What had April said to her at the debate tournament two weeks ago when Sterling asked her how she knew the dirt on Craig Wu? That she lifts weights? The image of April, sweaty and out of breath, as she does some generic weight lifting routine with dumbbells (listen, Sterling doesn't claim to know anything about sports, fantasy or otherwise. Blair was always the sporty twin out of the two of them.) sends Sterling's brain into overdrive.
April pulls back abruptly, surprising her so much that Sterling lets her mouth gape open, stupidly, at the loss of contact.
“I have this intense urge to ravage you,” April says and Sterling's mind goes completely blank. Vaguely, she remembers Blair showing her a meme that said something like “no thoughts. head empty”, and that's pretty accurate, she thinks. As soon as she remembers she should probably respond, April’s confidence is already crumbling off of her face.
“Sorry, that was...that was too much,” April mumbles. She doesn’t meet her eyes and Sterling wants to scream. Sure, she was a little confused at first, but only because she never thought that she’d hear April propositioning to her like that. Well, not in real life at least. (She has several fantasies of April pushing her up various surfaces-her bedroom door, the Fellowship couch, the supply closet she touched herself in, the counter at the yogurt shop, to name a few)
“No, you could do that,” there’s a buzzing in her chest and Sterling can’t tell if it’s from kissing April uninterrupted for more than 10 minutes or the preposition to be sexually destroyed by her. Either way, she’s not about to pass up the opportunity to continue or for it to happen in the future.
To her immense relief, April’s face lights up as she smiles at Sterling. She leans in and kisses Sterling and it’s the softest kiss she’s ever experienced. When she pulls back, April’s eyes are filled with nothing except for adoration. “But then we’d have nowhere to go.”
Her heart stutters and she needs to remind herself how to physically breathe and screw one week of making out, Sterling falls a little bit in love with April Stevens.
To be honest, her mind is still a little bit hazy from April’s earlier statement and combined with this revelation, Sterling doesn’t know how to answer her, except to tuck her hair behind her ear so she can lean in and keep kissing April. Now it’s her turn to push against April, guiding her back against the reclined backseat.
Sterling had kissed people horizontally before (well, Luke), but with April, like everything else she had experienced, it’s all-consuming. Somehow, they were able to lower themselves while still kissing. Something, if she’s honest with herself, she’s secretly proud of. Historically, April’s always been the more coordinated one out of the two of them. And now, under her, April looks up at her with a different intensity, something like a submission, like Sterling’s meant to be revered, worshipped.
“You’re beautiful,” Sterling says. It slips out, but it’s true. Beneath her, April’s a vision: her hair is fanning out like a halo, and Sterling faintly thinks of the stained glass angels at their church, her normally light blue eyes are dark, dark, dark, Sterling doesn’t think she’s ever seen April’s pupils that large. Distantly, she remembers how April told her “you're the first” with a smile in the middle of a crowded arcade and that memory alone emboldens her. She's the first person to kiss April, the first one to make her feel these feelings, these wants, needs. She's the only one that has made out with April in the back of a car, made her moan someone else's name. No one else has seen April the way she has, pretty and blushing and wanton, and that knowledge is intoxicating. (The novelty of seeing her blush doesn't go unnoticed. It's nice, Sterling thinks, for her words and her actions to be the cause of April's darkened cheeks. For her to be the flustered one, for once, instead of Sterling tripping over her words and staring at her mouth in Bible Study.) She's always been the proper and poised one, never really speaking out unless she has to. Sterling's never been one to be interested in power; she's content with staying in the background as Blair takes the reins. Now, as she leans over April, who's looking at her like she wants to be given the world, it feels like she's being engulfed in power and she revels in it.
The little light coming into the car from the streetlamp glints on something shiny, metallic. Her eyes track down to April’s silver cross necklace, where it’s lying contentedly on April’s heaving chest, stuck in the hollow of her throat. Half of its chain is caught on the collar of the perfectly pressed white long sleeve, hidden from view. Sterling swallows and if her eyes track a little lower (thankfully April is a little less frugal buttoning her shirts than Sterling is) to the button responsible for denying her eyes the gentle swell of April's breast, who's to blame? Sterling can see how heavy April's breathing is and suddenly, she’s feeling a little light-headed herself.
She doesn't know what happens next, except there's a pull in her stomach to feel, to touch, and she's tired of ignoring it. Sterling brushes her thumb along April's collarbone until she reaches the metal cross. It's cool, compared to the burning heat of April's skin, and Sterling plays with it, allowing the cross to fall through her fingers absentmindedly. She glances up at April after a few minutes and it looks like April could shoot laser beams out of her eyes with the intensity of her stare focused all on Sterling's fingers.
Her eyes flicker from the cross to a random freckle on the underside of April’s jaw. Briefly, she wonders what it would be like to taste the skin there, and god, she wants, before remembering now she can. Sterling leans in and presses an impossibly light kiss to her neck and April shudders. She pulls back to meet eyes with April, but her eyes are already closed. A self satisfied smirk plays across Sterling's face and she wishes April could see it. Sterling notices April's hand, fallen away from her arm after she pulled back, and interlocks their fingers. She squeezes April's hand gently and feels her squeeze back, just barely. Then, Sterling takes her other hand and cups the left side of April’s jaw, her finger brushing over her chin and ghosting over her bottom lip, and pushes it softly to the left, so she can have easier access to kiss up and down the length of April’s neck.
Sterling can feel April's heartbeat racing, almost careening out of control, where her index and middle fingers are resting against her carotid artery. When she feels it physically speed up as she kisses April's neck, the buzzing in her chest returns and she feels drunk on it. Everything about April is electrifying from the way Sterling can taste a combination of her perfume and her shampoo on her skin to how her legs shift beneath Sterling's weight. She wants to try something but doesn't know if April will like it but also April had seemed to like everything else she was doing, so Sterling ducks her head and slowly drags her teeth against April's pulse point.
The effect is instantaneous: April grabs the nearest body part she can find (which happens to be Sterling's arm) and squeezes, making Sterling groan, the force of April's grasp and the memory of touching herself the first time it happened at the debate tournament goes straight to her clit. April squirms under her and Sterling vaguely realizes April is wearing a skirt so she doesn't have full range of motion with her legs. April moves her hand from Sterling's arm (completely unaware of the disastrous effect it has on Sterling) to fist the hair at the base of her neck. In any other circumstance it would hurt, she thinks, but the burn only heightens the sensation between her legs. Wait, does this mean she’s into hair pulling? She’ll have to ask Blair about it later, but remembers with a sinking feeling, she can’t ask her or else Blair’s twin powers will alert her that Sterling is hooking up with someone who is decidedly not Luke Creswell. Also, a girl. More importantly, the girl being April.
“That was...wow. I never thought you’d have it in you, Wesley. What does that good little church girl do on her weekends?” April teases her. Which Sterling takes notice of, she’s realized that the more comfortable April is, the more likely she is to tease Sterling. Not that she minds, but nothing can really prepare her for April to call her a “good little church girl”. Gosh, she’s learning so many new turn-ons tonight. Or maybe they only turn her on because April is the one saying them to her.
“You don’t need me to remind you that you’re the exact way Miss Fellowship Leader,” Sterling teases back, sitting up. Maybe it’s because she knows if April is teasing her then she’s actually praising her or the way her last name sounds so good when April says it, but it gives Sterling a boost of courage. “Besides, my weekends are innocent, but you don't wanna know what I think about in Bible Study.”
It still sounds silly as she says it, but it must do something for April because before Sterling has even registered moving, April has flipped them and is straddling one of her legs.
“Oh,” she’s a little dumbfounded.
“I teach self defense to expectant mothers and divorced wives with too much time on their hands at my gym on the weekends,” April shrugs, like it’s not the hottest thing Sterling has ever heard. Like it doesn’t prompt a hundred more questions into her head.
They both seem to realize their positions have switched at the same time. April glances away, shy again, but Sterling just drinks in the image of her messy hair (somewhere in their escapades April’s ponytail had fallen out) and shining eyes. If she thought April was beautiful before, it’s nothing to how April looks now in the half-darkness: her skirt bunched up right under her mid-thigh, shirt wrinkled, and necklace askew. When Sterling presses her thumb to the bare skin of April’s thigh, just above the knee, the shorter girl jumps and accidentally knees Sterling right between her legs, hard.
“Not the baby maker,” Sterling is able to wheeze out before she folds over in pain. It takes April six solid minutes to stop laughing, but she starts again when she makes eye contact with Sterling again, who laughs so hard she snorts, which makes April laugh even harder.
Still giggling, April cups Sterling’s face and kisses her, but ends up laughing again, so it’s more like April’s lip bumps Sterling’s. It doesn’t bother her though. She’d do anything to keep April laughing like this, even if it has Sterling doubled over from pain on the literal inside of her vagina. Sterling kisses her and they have a proper kiss, April melting into it easily. However, when she swipes her tongue across Sterling’s bottom lip, the temperature inside the car rises considerably, like when Blair insisted on making cookies all day for her lacrosse fundraiser in the middle of July. Sterling involuntarily moans when April's tongue touches hers and she learns, yes April Stevens does, in fact, kiss with tongue.
“Do you think we could lay down? I think my left hand is nearly asleep,” Sterling concedes after a while. It’s true, the fuzzy static feeling is slowly moving up her wrist. She tries to shake it out but it only gets worse.
“Here, let me,” April says. She takes Sterling’s wrist and turns the inner part of her arm up to the sky.
“What are you…” Sterling trails off as April’s face gets closer and closer to her arm, When she’s about three inches away, April plants a big, sloppy kiss dead center of Sterling’s palm. The tingling in her hand immediately shifts to the concentrated point where April's lips are still touching Sterling's palm.
“Wake up, Sterling’s hand,” April lets out a giggle and a crooked grin, the same grin Sterling has seen a thousand times over the years, though not again until recently, and the déjà vu of it all forces all of the air out of her lungs.
This April reminds her of the April when they were younger, more mischievous, a little less reserved, love a little more freely given. Sterling remembers the glances they would sneak to each other, in class after both getting the highest score on spelling tests, under the covers at sleepovers, long after Blair had fallen asleep and impossibly close, before Sterling lost her.
A hand on her cheek brings Sterling out of her spiraling thoughts. She's still propped up on her elbows, until April nudges her shoulder and guides her down onto the seat.
“Careful,” Sterling mutters. “I'd rather not have to endure brunt force trauma twice in one night.” April rolls her eyes but kisses her quickly.
They readjust so Sterling is lying back against the seat, which is down as far as it can go (not quite horizontal but a strange 25 degree angle) and April is leaning over her and she wants more. Wants April's body to be flushed completely against hers and all of its implications. However, nothing is happening and April seems to be hovering over her. From the way her left eyebrow raises an imperceptible amount, Sterling knows April feels out of control. It's not that she's nervous, just hesitant. (Maybe it's because Sterling has watched, glanced, and studied April for years that she knows every expression the other girl makes and what it means. Lifted eyebrows means unimpressed, often used when Franklin speaks in class. A tight smile means she would rather not be bothered, used mostly at lunch or study hall. And when she flares her nostrils, Hannah B. has often just said something so outstandingly stupid that April needs to take a breath to compose herself before her answer, so as to not yell at Hannah and destroy everyone eardrums in a 15 foot radius in the process. The only other person she can do that with is Blair, and well that's more of a twin thing. Sterling's never considered it before, that she still knows April so well, even after years of not talking, other than muted interactions in the hallways. And how easy it felt to fall back into talking with April, spending time with her. There's an outstanding normalcy to it.)
“You okay?” She asks. “We don't have to do anything if you're not comfortable.” She means it. As much as Sterling wants to continue, the idea of forcing April into doing something that she's not comfortable with makes her stomach physically sick. All she wants to do is make April feel safe, loved.
April swallows above her. It feels almost like she's about to give a speech. “All those times at the debate, when I pulled you away, I wanted…” her words come out not reserved but measured, like she's thinking about each word before she says them. April switches tactics. “I mean, I was angry with you but it was more than that, I wanted a moment where it was just us, without anyone else around. And then we were alone, and all I had was this excuse to be close to you, to touch you.”
There's that word again. Want. And instantly Sterling understands what April is actually trying to say, what she's asking her. Does Sterling want this, does she want April just as much as April wants her? She wants verbal reassurance that Sterling is here, unbidden. Sterling might have hooked up with Luke in his truck a few times (not that April needs to hear about that, especially now) but it always lacked the emotional depth compared to when she was with April. Even their first kiss (and the relief that came with April kissing her back) made her feel like she was on fire, but with emotions. Sterling understands April's doubts (she's had some of her own) on whether she would stay, if April was important enough to stay for. She wants this, wants April to know she wants this more than anything in the world.
“April, you don't need an excuse to touch me,” she says. It takes a second, but then Sterling realizes how provocative and sensual that sentence actually sounds. Not that she's opposed to it, but she's never been good at flirting, let alone sexy flirting. That was one of the reasons why she appreciated how young she and Luke were when they started dating. There's no reason for flirting, of any kind really, when you're that young. Even as they went into high school, they had been together so long there was not really any flirting; they were just Luke and Sterling. Luke wouldn't even kiss her until halfway through freshman year, even after she asked him about it for months. She thinks back to quoting John 3:16 and Peter when she lost her virginity with Luke. Okay, that was a little mortifying to think about but it worked. But she wants it to be different with April, she wants to be better, she just doesn’t know how.
“I mean if you want to you can, I'm not saying you have to. I just didn't want to presume and you know consent and everything. I know they didn't really teach us that in health freshman year but they also tell us about lesbians and well, I mean”- Sterling gesticulates in the space between their bodies- “but yeah I’m like so into consent and-”
“-Do you want me to touch you?” April interrupts her. Good, she deserved it. With only about half of the light from the streetlamp coming into the car, it’s a little hard to see, but she can feel April’s eyes trailed on her lips. Sterling can half see April’s expression right now and fills in the blanks with her mind and it’s absolutely predatory.
“Do you want me to touch you?” April repeats but slower, pronouncing each word. Each word settles somewhere between her throat and between her legs. Sterling notices her voice is dangerously close to slipping into something April calls her “Debate Voice” and Sterling doesn’t know if her or her underwear can survive it.
She tries to speak, but for no reason at all, her mouth feels extremely dry so no sound comes out. Sterling blinks and nods enthusiastically, her head kind of feeling like the Jimmy Carter bobblehead her dad keeps on his desk. (Ew, Sterling stop thinking about Dad right now) She licks her lips absentmindedly and April zeros in on the movement. If she knows April at all, she doesn’t think the other girl will accept her non-verbal answer (for consent but also teasing reasons). What she’s not prepared for, though, is April looping two fingers under the dainty silver ‘S’ necklace she always wears and pulling the chain taught. It’s not strong enough to support the weight of her neck and head, but the movement and April’s fingers compel her to lift her head anyway. Their faces are centimeters apart from each other and Sterling thinks April is going to kiss her but April just lingers, eyes focused on Sterling’s lips. She can feel her breathing getting more and more uneven, the longer April holds her there. She moves to kiss Sterling but swerves at the last second and buries her face into the crook of Sterling’s neck.
Several things happen next and she's a little embarrassed how her body reacts, but then again it's April who is doing them, and Sterling orgasmed from just the thought of her, so she really shouldn't expect anything else. First, April's lips graze the outer shell of her ear and her hips jolt up unexpectedly. It would be fine, except in the cramped car there's little to no extra space for April or Sterling to put their legs, so naturally with April straddling her, her hips frame Sterling's leg. Her other leg, the right leg, is bent at an odd angle, out of the way. When her hips cant upwards against April's toned leg, the friction has Sterling gasping for air. And suddenly she realizes she's wet. Incredibly and embarrassingly so. Sure, she got wet with Luke, but this? She can feel how soaked she is against her underwear, it's probably (definitely) ruined. April's leg is still pressed into her center and she's sure April can feel the heat radiating from her. She can't help it and clenches around April's leg again, and above her April shudders and rolls her hips involuntarily downwards.
She's never felt this turned on before, so explicitly horny, she feels like a teenage boy. Sterling remembers when Tommy Adkins got a hardon in algebra class, Blair had screamed when she saw it, and it was the talk of the school for weeks. (Later, Tommy transferred to the local public school for unknown “personal reasons.”) Sterling was always curious what he was thinking about, somehow she didn't think PEMDAS was doing it for him. She’s thankful it’s late and dark and afterhours, in an empty parking lot where no one can see them, or else Sterling doesn’t know what she would do.
“Come on, Sterling. Use your words,” April breathes into her ear, effectively shutting down all parts of her brain that aren't shouting April, hips, touch, now. The wheels in Sterling’s 4.0 GPA, 1520 SAT score brain grind to a halting stop. She’s a little nervous again, but it helps that April's head is buried into her neck, breathing hotly on her earlobe. Sterling focuses on the grab handle above her and stutters out, “Um, I want you to touch me.”
April hums in agreement and the vibrations against her skin makes it tingle. Sterling moves her hand where it was resting firmly but safely on April’s waist, to the base of her neck. She scratches her nails against the skin there and April hums again, appreciatively, Sterling has always admired April’s hair, even a little jealous of it at times. April would walk into school and her hair would always be perfectly straight, slicked back in an improbably tight ponytail. Sterling’s hair was manageable at best. She had to straighten it every morning or else the Georgia humidity would make it curl into waves by 3rd period. Plus, sometimes she didn’t know if she could really pull off a half-up, half-down. April’s hair looked good no matter what she did to it. Last week, she remembers how April came into Spanish with her hair in a French braid and she missed half of Señora O'Reilly's lecture about their upcoming midterm, mesmerized by April’s braid. Sometimes, Sterling fantasizes about dragging her to the nearest supply closet and trying her best to make April’s hair as unkempt and disheveled as possible. Now, it pools around Sterling’s head, the soft hairs tickling her chin and filling her senses with the smell of April’s shampoo.
“Duly noted,” April’s voice is low and hot in her ear and Sterling can’t help the honest to God, whimper that escapes her mouth. Her mind flashes back to the second day of building Solomon’s Temple with April in her dad’s garage. How April’s response to her offhand comment about Plus, you did what I told you, which felt good, sent an electric pulse through her body. Her hand flexes on the back of April’s neck, tightening her grip for just a second before relaxing it.
“Jesus, fuck,” Sterling doesn’t mean to swear but she sends a quick prayer of forgiveness to God, she think He’ll forgive her in a time like this.
April pulls back to look at Sterling, the teasing glint in her eye returning. “You shouldn’t use an expletive so close to His name, Sterling. Some might consider that blasphemy.”
As she says the word blasphemy, April grips the middle of Sterling’s leg, just an inch into her inner thigh and squeezes. Her hips jump again, but mostly because she hadn't expected to feel April’s hand on her thigh, fingers splayed out against her khakis, burning a hole in the fabric. She imagines April moving her hand, just slightly, to the top of her thighs, gliding over the dimple caused by her hip bone. If she lets herself indulge a little more, April’s fingers graze over the top of her jeans, moving over the latch in her belt buckle.
“April…” she mumbles.
“That’s better.” April chuckles against the tendons in her neck.
“I swear, April if you don't kiss me or at least do something then I will- ” it turns out whatever threat Sterling has planned, she doesn't get to say it because April kisses her hard. It's the most effective way April has found to shut her up, and Sterling can't say she minds. She returns her hand to its familiar spot in April's hair, gives an experimental tug, and April gasps into her mouth. Results confirmed, no need for further study: April likes her hair being pulled. She files it away into a very specific folder concerning April, one that she only tries to think about when she's in the shower or in her bed at night, and certainly not when April recites an inane quote from the Bible in Fellowship or when she responds to Señora O'Reilly in perfect Spanish.
“Let me know if anything is too much” April tells her earnestly, bringing their faces close and resting their foreheads together. Sterling is confused until she feels April's fingers plucking at where her shirt is tucked into her pants. She's not actively trying to untuck the shirt, just leaving her fingers there, like she's trying to build up the courage to move them, until Sterling gives her the okay. Sterling has to take a breath, actively put in effort to get oxygen into her brain, before nodding to April and saying, “I will. I promise.”
She tries not to think about all of the promises she's broken to April over the years and something in her chest tightens painfully when she remembers the promise they made to each other, about no more lies, no more secrets. And how April doesn't know her biggest secret, how she's actually a teenage vigilante who puts away criminals for a living (well, Bowser refuses to pay them more than 2000 dollars a month, much to Blair's chagrin), criminals like April's dad, which she really should have known it was April's dad, even though there are like, a million John Stevens in the greater Atlanta area. But then April pulls her shirt out of Sterling's pants and puts her hand on her stomach, and even though April's hand is warm, she shivers, and then she stops thinking at all.
Continuing to maintain eye contact with April as her hand traverses Sterling's bare stomach is nothing short of a religious experience. Just like everything else she does, April is devastatingly thorough in her exploration. When Sterling thinks she's going higher, her hand just swoops back down, tracing patterns near her belly button. The soft hairs on her skin seem to be gravitating to her touch like plants to sunlight. It's interesting to have April's hands on her and not feel any of the insecurities she had when she was intimate with Luke. Sterling knows she doesn't have rock hard abs like April (She's been witness to April in gym class the past few years. Sterling will admit lately she's snuck quick, furtive glances in April's direction when they have gym together every Tuesday and Thursday.) and Blair is definitely the athletic twin, but she's not bothered when April passes over her stomach, doesn't feel like she has to tense her muscles. Maybe it's because they're both girls, April's body is familiar to her as her own, but different enough that Sterling wants to spend the next several years figuring out all of the differences.
Overcome with a fervid desire to kiss her, Sterling surges upwards to press her mouth against April's, but the momentum is too much and knocks them both off balance. April's hand, the one that's under her shirt, jostles around and ends up brushing the underside of Sterling’s bra. Goosebumps erupt where April’s fingers are resting against her skin. They both freeze; this is uncharted territory. Nothing prepares her for what April does next.
It's not exactly cold in Georgia in early November, but most days the humidity lets up so the weather is almost pleasant. However, what the weather does not account for is April’s hand moving over Sterling’s bra, with a confidence that makes her dizzy, and cupping her breast. Sterling feels her nipple straining against the fabric, knows April must be able to feel it too, and she arches into her hand as the temperature of the car rises at least fifteen degrees.
“Fuck,” Sterling whimpers again and this time, April doesn’t reprimand her, just looks at her with a wide-eyed amazement she’s sure is mirrored in her own expression. April presses into her again, this time with a delicious amount of pressure, and Sterling’s hips stutter, jerking up against April’s thigh. Her nipples have never been this hard and it’s only made worse when April tweaks them with her thumb and forefinger, sending another jolt of pleasure through her body. She wonders if it’s possible to orgasm from thirty minutes of making out and a well-placed hand on her breast. She might set a new world record tonight, how embarrassing would that be?
It certainly feels like April is trying to get her there; she’s always been a skilled multitasker, something Ellen praises her often for, so Sterling really shouldn’t be surprised when April starts to kiss her pulse point again. This time, it’s not the slow, fluttering kisses April had pressed into her skin before, but a combination of tongue and teeth that has her gasping for air. April moves down lower, to the conjecture of muscle where her neck and shoulder meet, pushes her shirt out of the way and sucks into the skin, hard. Sterling moans so loudly she’d be concerned about people hearing her if it wasn’t 10 pm on a Wednesday night in the empty student parking lot. April swirls her tongue lightly across her tender skin and Sterling wonders, hopes, if the skin is already smarting, fading into a bruise. The idea of having a physical marker on her body, even if no one else will see it, sends a thrill down her spine. Sterling knows she's her own person and doesn't belong anyone (she's a feminist, duh), but she likes the feeling of April claiming her with a reminder on her skin. (The tingling in her stomach whenever she'd watch Alice Swan in the Twilight movies with Blair makes much more sense now.)
The combination of sensations is almost too much, from April's thumb rubbing tight circles around her left nipple that she can feel in her bones even over the fabric of her bra to the wonderful pressure her leg provides, nestled comfortably between Sterling's thighs. With April's lips on her neck, Sterling feels how frantically her heart is pounding against her chest, in her ears. She can also, shamelessly, feel it in her clit, rapid and erratic. Every movement from April's leg causes more and more friction for Sterling to rub up against. And she wants to, set her hips jerking into a bruising pace until she falls blissfully over the edge, but she doesn't think April would want her essentially humping her leg and she's too much of a bumbling idiot to know how to ask. So she sticks to controlling her hips (for the most part, she fails when April goes back to matching the pace of her fingers against her nipple with the intensity of her mouth on the same bruise. Sterling thinks privately April is concentrating on the one spot for the sole purpose of making a bruise. To make Sterling hers. She wants to tell April she is hers. Maybe she always has been.) and controlling her breathing when April kisses a path along her jaw and back to her lips.
Although, Sterling can only take so much. It's only after April's thumb is resting innocently on the top swell of her breast and she realizes her legs are shaking (are they supposed to do that??), Sterling lets out a frustrated groan, blowing the extra air in her cheeks out in a huff. April hasn't really touched her, below the belt or even completely under her bra, and this girl is going to be the death of her. She’s confused why April stops moving suddenly, her thumb stopping its mindless figure-eights on her chest. Oops, maybe she accidentally said that last thought out loud.
“You know the French refer to orgasm as the little death, la petite mort?”
Sterling gapes at her.
“Tu n'es pas encore là-bas, au paradis,” April continues because of course she knows French and all of its sexy, guttural consonants. Because April has made it a point to test Sterling’s self-control as much as possible, starting by grabbing her arm at the debate tournament. April flirting with her in English? Overwhelming to say the least. Recently, since Sterling kissed her in Ellen's office, it’s not so much the charged banter she’s used to having with April, but more just talking openly about their feelings for each other. It still makes Sterling’s stomach drop, in the best way, but it’s gentler in a way she can only assume is from her spoken recognition of her feelings to the other girl. April, to her credit, is also softer than Sterling has ever witnessed. Sometimes, she catches April’s eyes on her, (once in Spanish the other day and earlier today at their meeting, when Sterling advocated for the snack menu to include Cheerwine), a smile softening the usual façade she has on at school.
Sterling thinks to Spanish class, where April has the perfect excuse to lean an extra inch closer to her, to teach her how to roll her ‘r’s, and pretend they're both not staring at each other's mouths. (“Proper technique is crucial, Sterling.”-she has to fight to stop thinking about another scenario where April’s tongue and technique would be needed.) She’s distracted enough in that class already, staring at the back of April’s high ponytail and trying to smell the sweet-scented shampoo she’s come to recognize. Sterling still gets A’s on every assignment but lately it’s been taking her twice as long to do her homework because she has to teach herself the concept she missed in class because her brain was tuned to April, sitting in front of her. Not to mention, now they’re somehow paired up every class period, despite Sterling’s Oscar-worthy protestations and loud complaining, so April tries to slip in lines similar to inviting Sterling to take a night swim with her. She’s able to respond coherently about half the time, thankful Blair is often busy teaching Luke how to conjugate verbs or explaining how Chloe, still, has worms. Once she passes out the classwork for the day, Señora O'Reilly doesn’t usually leave her desk, too engrossed in her wild ideas for her telenovela. It leaves April forty-five uninterrupted minutes to wreak havoc on Sterling, pronouncing her perfect Spanish in an exaggerated accent she knows makes Sterling squirm. So yeah, April flirting with her in Spanish is almost unbearable.
April flirting with her in French? Sterling’s jaw drops as soon as she starts speaking and she’s sure she’s .02 seconds away from imploding into a million horny pieces. Blair will have to clean the splatter of her body chunks and organ mush from the inside of their car as their mom cries and their dad reads the morning paper with the breaking news headline: “Local Girl Explodes When Crush Speaks Two Sentences of French to Her; What You Need to Know About the Lesbian Agenda.”
“You know French?” She chokes out.
April looks extremely pleased with herself, “Sterling, my ten year plan includes attending a prestigious university, preferably Ivy League, just God forbid not on the west coast” -she shudders in disgust- “intern a law firm, in between getting my law degree, and work my way up the ladder as an international human rights lawyer on the global scale. Why wouldn’t I know three out of the five most spoken languages in the world?”
“That’s hot,” Sterling doesn’t mean to blurt it out, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind, with April on top of her. She thinks of her own dismally non-existent plans post-high school. College, obviously, but even with her fantastic SAT score, she doesn’t know what she wants to study, where she wants to go, other than her school not being too far away from Blair, wherever she ends up going to school.
April laughs. “That’s all you got out of it?”
Sterling bites down her first response. They both know it’s more than that. No one else at Willingham seems to be on their level academically and April was right when she said Luke, at best, lacked substance. They’ve always been competitive with each other, who gets the best grades, who volunteers in the most clubs, everything involving Fellowship, and it always fueled the fire between them with something extra, more potent. Sterling senses it in their banter when April responds to her with whip-like speed and precision. It becomes a game to both of them, who responds with a better insult, a more obscure reference, a concession then a rebuttal, and Sterling realizes she's basically been in their own kind of debate with April for the past six years.
“You have aspirations and you know who you are and where you want to be. I happen to find that sexy and admirable,” she says. The word brave goes unspoken between them.
April looks down at Sterling through her eyelashes and it's easy in a way Sterling never imagined. She wonders, again, if they could have had years of this instead of the glares, the pointed silence alternating with harsh words, all of the pain between them.
There’s a hand cupping her cheek. “You’re getting all blinky again,” April’s face falls again, her voice getting softer with nerves, “did I do something?”
“No, no,” Sterling gives her a quick, reassuring kiss, “ I just didn’t realize how late it had gotten. My parents will kill me if I’m past curfew on a school night.”
To her credit, the statement is partly true. With it nearing quarter to eleven, Sterling needs to start thinking how she’s going to get home. Willingham is almost a twenty minute drive from her house, but if she goes through the suburbs then it easily cuts three minutes off of her drive, rolling stops at stop signs be damned. But she can’t bring herself to voice the real reasons she was lost in her thoughts. Their new relationship, if Sterling can even call it that, is precarious at best and she doesn’t want to spook April with the intensity of her feelings. It’d be too much, too soon, and Sterling doesn’t want to lose April just after she got her.
“I suppose you're right.” April deflates on top of her.
They both move to get up to collect their bags and Sterling nearly falls over when the seam of her pants rubs against her body. Yeah, she’s definitely gonna have to take care of that when she gets home. She briefly panics when she can’t find her phone, but April finds it smushed in the crevice between the seat and the door. It’s dead, which is weird because it was almost fully charged when she left the lock-in meeting.
Sterling climbs into the driver’s seat and April rolls her eyes, actually getting out of the car to get to her seat. She insists on driving April back to where her Jeep is parked in the north lot. The drive over is comfortable, they’ve fallen into a content kind of silence save for the few directions April gives her as if Sterling hasn't gone to the same campus for the past two years. Sterling says nothing, she knows April likes giving out orders, likes being in control, and they both know Sterling is all too happy to follow orders.
She gets out of the car when April does because it's the chivalrous thing to do and it's what Luke used to do for her after their dates. Her eyes haven't adjusted to the bright street lamps, so Sterling blinks as April puts her bag in the Jeep. When she's done, April steps into her space so confidently and close that Sterling reflexively looks around for any cars. This parking lot is completely empty, which relaxes her, she's not quite used to this self‐assured April, the one who doesn't think twice about interrupting her personal space. Only coming up to Sterling's collarbones, April fiddles with straightening the collar of Sterling's polo, her hand smoothing out the fabric. Sterling doesn't miss the way her hands linger a little too long on her body, her hand splayed flat against the top of Sterling's chest. From the way April tuts under her breath, she imagines her clothes and general appearance is equally as wrinkled and tousled as April looks across from her. (She thinks of the word debauched, one of the words Blair had giggled at when they were studying for the SAT.)
Sterling takes in the image of April haloed in the moonlight, her hair frazzled and out of control, lips kiss‐swollen and shining, the lip gloss smeared more around her lips than on them.
“I wish we could just stay here,” she trails off. The thought becomes too big before she can finish her sentence. (The idea forever streaks through her head.)