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The only thing that matters to Deborah Vance is Madison Square Garden.
After reading those pathetic mistimed obits, the show has to be legacy-defining. Going out with the bang of all bangs, whatever it takes to scrub the listless Singapore residency out of everyone’s collective memories, so that Deborah is undeniably a comedy legend when she actually dies, an all-time fucking great.
And if the Garden has to be perfect, then right now, at this moment, in a little minimalist-mansion-farmhouse in Montecito, the only thing that matters is the white chiffon beaded outfit from Carol Burnett’s final show.
So, yes, Deborah pretends that she and Ava are a couple. It’s hardly the most out-there thing she’s done to get ahead. Ava will gripe, but she’s always finding something to be aggrieved at, so what's new there?
It's going fine, for a while. The small talk, Kelly playing the genial host, Deborah playing the gracious guest. Ava is eyeing the trophy wife completely unsubtly, because of course she is, she's an oversexed little shit who wouldn't know tact if it bit her on the ass– but the point is, they're managing.
And then the couch.
Ava thinks she's making some stand about how it's ‘insane to co-opt one's writing partner into a fake lesbian relationship on a moment's notice' or whatever, as if they haven't pulled worse schemes; she thinks she's going to bluff Deborah out of this with the kiss thing, get her to admit that it's a boundary being crossed or whatever.
Like she knows anything about propriety between coworkers! Back when they were still working on Late Night, she once told the writer's room that she had gotten ‘fingerblasted’ at the Denny's just outside Studio City. Apropos of fucking nothing! They were trying to decide where to get an early breakfast!
So, yes, Ava’s bluffing when she asks Deborah to give her a real kiss, the challenge completely clear in her eyes, their faces only a breath apart when she quirks an eyebrow as if to say, you can call it at any time.
Bluffing. From someone who always loses at poker, even when they play for dinner mints on the jet or a tour bus. With a woman who has lived in Vegas longer than she's been alive. Please.
Deborah is competitive, and Ava is stubborn– it’s actually one of her most endearing traits, it reminds Deborah of herself– and so Deborah destroys her every time. Because Ava never knows when she’s outmatched. Her self-confidence would be charming if it wasn’t so foolhardy.
Ava leans in to close the miniscule distance remaining, a mischievous little glimmer in her eyes, the same glint she gets when they’re going back and forth on a riff, trying to see who can make the other break first. And she’s cocky too– when is she not? – Little Miss Bisexual thinks she’s got a leg up on the straight old lady. Except she forgets that Deborah was alive when quaaludes were still a thing, to say nothing of the Cocaine Eighties– and again, this was in Vegas. Deborah’s straight, to her occasional lamentation, but she’s gotten to at least second base with more than one woman in a packed nightclub. She won’t be the one to flinch.
It’s not entirely closed-mouth like the first peck on the lips. Ava teases her upper lip between her teeth just a little, sucking lightly, and if that’s how she wants to play it, fine. Deborah presses back into her, deepening it just a little, taking a long breath in through her nose and catching the smoky-sandalwood of Ava’s perfume.
Annoyingly, she tastes like whatever overly sugary energy drink she’d had on the ride up here– really, what’s wrong with Diet Coke? – but the flare of heat that comes over Deborah when their tongues brush fleetingly is unmistakable. And almost unfamiliar– it’s been a minute since she was kissed like this.
Ava presses in like she really wants this, and Deborah…might…fold a little bit. She wasn’t expecting this to be good, but as they flirt with tongues and teeth, Deborah’s hand stops patting Ava’s thigh exaggeratedly, reminding her to behave, they’re here with a mission and just starts holding there, mid-thigh, nothing too racy, but she drags her thumb up the sensitive inside and it makes Ava’s breath hitch into her mouth.
It really wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was like a bit between them, a game.
Except that it’s physical affection with someone who is obviously very important to her, a strange constant through highs and lows and all the times they’ve fucked each other over. Ava…means something to her– Deborah was willing to give up her lifelong dream if it meant keeping Ava, willing to wade into a freezing ocean with a hundred pounds of drenched fur coat threatening to drag her under the waves when she thought Ava might be drowning– and apparently that meaning, whatever it is, changes things when you’re kissing someone in some sort of deranged game of chicken.
Quiet gasps spill from drugstore chapstick-lined lips– Jesus, Ava is reactive, all of this just from kissing her? It makes the pit of Deborah’s stomach flutter, as does the warm hand at the nape of her neck as Ava toys with the loose hairs there. Things she hasn’t thought of in a long time start bubbling up; after that godawful lesbian cruise, Deborah had asked herself why she'd never tried with a woman. Not seriously, it wasn’t something she ruminated on or anything, their schedule didn’t afford time to think about it.
But it's not just a woman, it's Ava, who has been closer to her than Deborah has let almost anyone get, and apparently that's not nothing when it comes to making a kiss good.
Really good.
She feels a breathless excitement she hasn’t really recaptured since she was, god, like twenty-something, alive and burning up with it as Ava takes her lips, pressing hungrily into her. Under the oh-so-trendy LA lesbian fragrance, she smells like the shampoo Deborah buys for the Vegas house, and something about that feels oddly satisfying. The crush of her (of course) braless chest pressing into Deborah’s arm should feel confining as they shift back towards the arm of the couch a little, the cushion against Deborah’s back more noticeable with someone pressing her into it, but Deborah thinks she feels the stiff point of a nipple brush her arm through a thin silk sleeve and she’d swear it leaves a trail of fire along the skin.
It can’t always be like this with a woman, can it? Surely not. None of those past drug-fueled kisses ever felt like this. Deborah has always struggled to let her guard down with women, they've always been competition, and any woman she would have been kissing would have been a gay woman– after all the jokes she'd made at their expense? Always risky. Ava said the whole thing was something about the patriarchal standards she was raised under, but Ava says a lot of things, all of which can be thought about later, when Deborah doesn’t have Ava Daniels' tongue darting at the seam of her lips.
Because her guard is already down with Ava, who is beautiful and makes Deborah laugh like nobody's been able to in decades and just might be the closest friend she's ever had.
It’s electric, and Deborah lets herself go with whatever this is, because it’s definitely not a bit anymore, not when Ava is muffling quiet, needy sounds into the crush of their lips. She lets herself want it, to wrap her lips around Ava’s tongue, her lips, whatever she can get, drawing her partner deeper.
She even starts to let Ava push her farther back, beginning to recline into the couch, hearing what might be a ‘fuck’ except it’s too quiet to tell as Ava moves from her lips to scatter hungry, impatient kisses along her jaw, trailing to her neck in a way that makes Deborah’s pulse soar, and then–
Monica (who Deborah is already ambivalent at best on) makes a quiet noise that might be a snicker, seemingly amused by Ava’s enthusiasm, and Deborah remembers where they are. Gently, she tries to push Ava away, getting a needy little whine in response that almost makes her say fuck it, but she is not going to let her much younger writing partner give her a hickey in front of Kelly fucking Kilpatrick and so when Ava darts forward, drunk off her skin and wanting more, Deborah is firm, nudging her harder. It’s not surprising, really, that Ava is an impatient little brat, and certainly it’s flattering to be wanted like that.
But Kelly fucking Kilpatrick.
Ava looks at her, pupils shot wide, an uneven flush over her cheeks and neck, almost pouting at the interruption, and that is…
Something.
It’s something.
Yes.
It is a something that now is most definitely not the time to puzzle out. To unpack, as Ava would put it, because they are here for Carol Burnett’s jumpsuit and that is it.
<><><>
The rest of the night is not so…agreeable.
Deborah suffers through endless indignities– the way her younger ‘lover’ is shamelessly flirting with the trophy wife, and worse, the way that blonde airhead is eyeing her Ava like a piece of meat; conversations about eating ass– is it any wonder Ava looks so sickly all the time? – and rope bondage, which Deborah is half tempted to pursue because it might allow her to throw in a gag for the redheaded pest. And then, after the ass conversation, the way Ava’s eyes are glued to Monica’s unnecessarily perky behind as they walk to the hot tub.
Oh, and there’s the sheer affront of Ava insinuating she would be a passive lover, which is worst of all– she’d be a ride Ava wouldn’t survive, were she lucky enough to spend a night with Deborah, for one, and– Honestly. Like she would let a twenty-nine year old tell her what to do in bed?
(Much later, Ava will explain that she has confused the concepts of topping and domming, but right now, Deborah is insulted and sulking about it and she wouldn’t particularly care to hear it either way.)
Monica and Ava continue to flirt in the hot tub, too, and every time the ditz trails her fingers up Ava’s arm, Deborah would swear she can physically feel her blood pressure rising. It’s infuriating. Here she is, the old sentimental fool, thinking the kiss with Ava had such an effect because they occupy a special place in each other’s lives, and then there’s Ava, throwing herself at any pretty girl who gives her attention.
She’s young; isn’t it to be expected? All about instant gratification, and if Deborah was being fair, why shouldn’t she be? She’s at the age where she can just have fun and not have to worry about what things mean or their consequences or feelings. Kelly’s airhead wife is probably the same, in addition to her apparently rampant sex drive. And Deborah is not. No, Deborah is not young or easy; a woman who’s been told by men all her life that she’s difficult in so many ways, but more prescient to the moment right now, difficult in bed. There’s a reason so much of her old act was about how men couldn’t get her off– for whatever reason, her body is uncooperative and finicky and it’s easier to just fake it half the time anyway. That overly libidinous tramp wouldn’t have the same issues. Instant gratification with some sapphic sexpot, or a harried, mutual frustrating encounter with a woman who has hardly any idea how to reciprocate? Not a hard choice.
It feels as though a door has shut when she didn’t know it was open, didn’t know it could be open.
They fight, which is hardly news; bickering is a fixture of her life every time Ava lives with her, which has happened more often than Deborah thinks is probably normal for colleagues. Sometimes it’s comforting, matching wits with an equal, sharpening them in silly little fights that mean nothing and they really only get into for the sport of it. And other times, like tonight, it doesn’t…sit right. It lingers, it festers.
When this all started, years ago, Deborah never apologized. Not to anyone, really, but certainly not to the twenty-five year old brat all but squatting in her guest room. Ava has…changed that about her. Made her a better person– she’s admitted as much, in quiet one-offs and asides, because they are both people with fundamentally warped ideas of intimacy and they communicate better through punchlines and bits than the frugal few earnest conversations they do have.
So she waits up for Ava, to say…something like an apology. Probably not everything, but enough of it to patch things up, because after four-ish years of their probably codependent relationship, they’ve worked out that balance.
Except Ava doesn’t come back to bed.
(Well, tub. Is that petty, at this point? It might be. Something else to discuss-without-discussing.)
Deborah goes to the kitchen to find her stray partner and comes across a tableau that makes her see red. That…floozy, sitting atop the kitchen island in her silk pajamas, leaning in, breaths commingling with Ava’s. Strawberries and crème fraîche at her side– oh, real original, god, Deborah’s straight and she could do a better job seducing a woman! If she wanted to. But that’s the last thing on her mind right now, she’s so very angry.
Ava– her Ava– is standing there in a stupid Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt and no pants, about to kiss this married woman, and when she realizes they have an audience, she looks away guiltily. It only serves to fan the flames; she should feel ashamed, this is– it’s obviously wrong, for reasons Deborah can’t fully explain, but no, Ava should not be kissing this idiot.
They both bristle on the way back to the room; god knows Ava has been stewing on the Miraval thing and she wears her emotions shallow under the skin. Not that Deborah can claim to be some paragon of composure, right now, chest tight, breathing agitated. It feels like she swallowed hot coals, it has every single second Ava has flirted with that woman but it’s only reached fever pitch in the last couple minutes.
They have a pitched argument about nympho trophy wives and jumpsuits and whether or not Deborah is a liar and open fucking marriages (which is making a lot of sense, she’d thought Kelly might be going blind not to see that her wife was trying to fuck Deborah’s. Well, Ava’s not her wife. Her– whatever Ava is to her.)
And then it comes out.
“Well, we are monogamous!”
“What?” Ava’s face scrunches up in wild disbelief.
“That's what works for me!”
Head cocked, Ava just blinks at her like she’s lost her mind, staring. And damn her eyes– hazel is such an obnoxious color, oh, look at me, I change colors depending on the lighting, I can be green or brown or an unnecessarily captivating slate-gray-blue–
The eyes upon which Deborah currently fixates go wide. Very wide.
And that’s the really annoying part of being with Ava. Deborah’s let her see too much, now she thinks she knows her (and damn it all, she kind of does, which is worse). The look she’s giving is pure Ava Daniels Pop Psychology, she reads one listicle and suddenly she’s got a masters in psychiatry, like she understands what’s going on with Deborah.
Ridiculous. Right now, Deborah’s not entirely sure she understands herself.
“Dude, we’re not fucking together!” Ava huffs, throwing her hands up. “I’m not Frank, and she’s not Kathy! Why the fuck is our fake relationship suddenly concerned with the sanctity of marriage?!”
Damn her. “Why the fuck would you kiss me like that, Ava? Huh?” Deborah jabs forward, her voice a hiss. “I’m not like you, I don’t just go around– just – tonguing people’s asses all slapdash!”
“Slapdash? Dude, are you fucking serious right now–”
“Ava, I swear to god, you know how I feel about being called dude–”
“You’re jealous!” Ava snorts disbelievingly. “You, Deborah Vance, are jealous. Of your fake girlfriend kissing–”
Deborah takes a step forward. Their eyes don’t break the stare for a second.
“Oh my god, you’re…jealous.” Ava says more quietly, blinking hard, brow furrowed like she’s trying to put the pieces together.
It feels like she should argue that of course she’s not, why would she be jealous? She would’ve, in the past. To protect some notion of not being…like that, if nothing else. But Deborah doesn’t.
“You were jealous of her?” It’s a question now, not a jeer or a taunt. Ava’s looking up at her with soft eyes, still riddled with confusion, like this hasn’t been laid out cleanly for them to see, over the past twenty-four hours if not the past year or so.
“Why did you kiss me like that, Ava?” Deborah asks, imploring with her eyes, voice a soft murmur as she rests her hands on Ava’s arms, the skin warm and magnetic. She needs to know. It can’t just have been a bit, Deborah wouldn’t know what to do with herself if it was.
Ava’s eyes dart away for a second, and then she squares her shoulders. “To prove a point, at first. This whole thing is psycho.” She chews on the inside of her mouth. “...and you’re fucking hot.”
“Oh, sure, of course you find me so attractive, that’s why you’ve been lusting after that…that bimbo this whole time,” Deborah scowls, because not-picking-fights is not a strong suit of theirs, but Ava shakes her head.
“Don’t fucking do that. It’s– god, okay, we need to have a talk about internalized misogyny–”
God, she is anything but a closer. For a split second, Deborah wonders just how many sexual or even romantic moments Ava’s talked herself out of. And yet, she finds it kind of endearing.
(Which means she may need to go in for another CT scan, because the doctors hadn’t mentioned anything about a mass pressing on her brain, but there must be something wrong with it. When the hell did that happen, that she finds Ava’s lectures sweet, that she’s charmed by the younger woman’s compulsive inability to just stop saying things?)
“Later. Say it again.”
“I feel like I’ve never hidden the fact that I think you’re fucking hot, so I don’t know–”
Deborah kisses her first this time. Christ, she must be losing her mind, chasing the high of kissing a woman however many years her junior (really, she can’t even think about that, she’ll either lose her nerve or get depressed) but then Ava moans softly into her mouth and who gives a fuck about the rest of it? She wants Ava, more urgently than she’s wanted anyone else in a long time, and Ava wants her back.
She backs them up toward the bed when Ava stops her with her uninjured hand. “Deb, wait– let me–” She tries to shift them around, it’s clear she’s trying to be chivalrous and guide things since Deborah’s never slept with a woman, but at the same time, it’s kind of preposterous. One of her arms is in a cast. The arrogance of youth.
“What, so you can call me a– what was it, pillow princess again?” Deborah’s surprised at how genuine the laugh is; Ava has a way of pulling those out of her. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re in a cast, you’ve only got one working arm! Let me, you know,” she gestures abstractly, “figure it out.”
And if she wants to be the one doing the…doing because she’s afraid of her own shortcomings, nobody needs to know. Ava deserves better than an aging lover whose body doesn’t work right. She can just imagine the crestfallen look on the redhead’s face when she finds out that Deborah just can’t climax with someone, despite all the work Ava would no doubt put into it because she’s just as much an overachieving perfectionist as Deborah herself. No, it’s better if Deborah is the one giving.
If only Ava would let her.
“But you don’t– you haven’t–” She raises her eyebrows curiously, “–wait, have you slept with a woman before? Because I've always thought your Melissa Etheridge bit felt a little like, personally motivated–”
Pain in the ass, making fun of her at a time like this. Deborah huffs irritably. “So tell me what to do, Einstein. You want me to believe you aren't a mouthy, bratty little bottom anyway?”
Ava’s cheeks pinken, and then her brain seems to catch up and she cackles a bit as Deborah lowers her to the bed. “Oh my god, how is this real, who told you these words–”
Deborah rolls her eyes as she shrugs out of her smoking jacket– the drape of the silk feels like it’s getting in the way and she might be as impatient as Ava right now. “Oh, shut up, Ava, I have a million gay fans, I know some things. And besides, you were totally into that. Should've heard the wimpy little sound you made.”
It’s kind of fun, really, seeing how flushed and flustered she can make Ava, trailing her fingertips under that awful shirt. Deborah’s not…unaware that Ava has perky tits, she’s noticed her partner in a bikini before and envied the youthful indifference to the whims of gravity. But now she wants to touch them, to see how Ava reacts when she does.
“Okay so I might be into mean women, sue me–”
They both snort, which fades into a slow, covetous kiss as Deborah straddles her lap, leaning down to kiss her into the mattress, the plush white duvet seeming to enfold her.
“Don't threaten me with a good time, honey. Now shut up and tell me how to fuck you,” she demands as she finally lets the teasing circles she’s drawing around Ava’s nipples turn into real, solid pressure, tracing over the peak and loving the way it draws a full-body shudder.
“How am I supposed to shut up and tell you–” Ava tries to be snarky, but her composure is really failing her, teeth digging into her bottom lip to bite down a moan, “–you’re, uh, really mixing messages there–oh, shit–”
“Go on.”
“Okay, so obviously, I’m digging the stuff you’re doing with my boobs–”
“Boobs? Christ, are you a teenage boy?”
Ava rolls her eyes, until she doesn’t, because they’re squeezing shut when Deborah tweaks a nipple just a little. “Fuck, fine, my tits, whatever! It’s good, it’s– fuck, keep doing that. Foreplay, we, uh, like foreplay– god why are you so good at this?” She arches up into Deborah’s hands wantonly.
The Hard Rock Cafe tee, which had gone mostly out of mind as Deborah adjusted to the idea of having a woman– having Ava– underneath her, ready and willing, is now taunting her. Deborah tells herself it’s really just for aesthetic reasons as she strips it off, not because she…
…wanted to see how far down Ava’s chest the flush on her cheeks and neck had spread. Very far, as it turns out, the (ungodly) pale skin now dusted a soft pink. Her tits rise and fall rapidly, she’s practically squirming in the bed, and there’s…something about it. Men don’t– or maybe it’s just the men she sleeps with, but they’re never so openly needy about it.
“You are…so fucking pretty,” she muses, and then because she can’t help herself, “...why do you dress like you poached Sandler’s stylist half the time?” It’s something she’s genuinely wondered, even if now’s probably not the perfect time.
The sound that escapes Ava is half-moan, pitching down into a groan, “Fucking hell, Deb, the first half was good–” Her hips rock needily underneath Deborah’s perch, “–y’know, if our roles were switched, I wouldn’t be wasting valuable sex-time saying you looked like a post-menopausal Ric Flair–”
“Who?”
“Jesus, wrong audience, just pretend I said Liberace–”
They both break into stupid gut laughter, since apparently they’re such deranged workaholics that they can’t stop workshopping bits even in bed together, and Deborah’s so, so fond of Ava that she has to just kiss her more and more and more.
It’s still so good, kissing her. Ava’s lips are soft and plush, fresh strawberries lingering on her tongue, she pulls Deborah in so eagerly that all (okay, most) of the usual insecurity vanishes, Deborah doesn’t have to feel like she has to compensate for the lines on her body or the wrinkles in her face or any of the other things that haunt her with casual lovers, Ava’s seen her at her least composed a dozen times over and apparently still wants a woman almost thrice her age so fervently that Deborah can let go of some of the worry.
They part to breathe, and Ava smiles up at her, small, a little lopsided, and very soft. “Hey.”
“Mm?”
“You wanna try again and not say anything stupid?” The grin turns a corner on teasing, a mischievous glittering in Ava’s eyes.
“Me? I’m the one saying stupid things? You said you were, and I quote ‘digging the stuff I was doing with your boobs’, Ava!” Because she can, and because she’s stupidly charmed by this extremely annoying woman, Deborah darts down to snatch Ava’s bottom lip between her teeth, tugging at it.
Ava shrugs breezily, still smiling like she’s drunk on this. “I kinda tend to ramble around hot people, you didn’t notice that by now?” She leans up to chase Deborah’s lips, her free hand pulling her back down into a softer kiss. “Fine, yes, I contributed to the stupid. From the top?”
That sounds good. Deborah hums her approval into another kiss, mirroring Ava’s earlier actions, along the line of her jaw– and this part’s so much better, she’s definitely going to have to rethink the pattern of stubbly men in her life if nothing else, and down to her neck.
“Fuck, Deb, you feel so good,” Ava sighs, as Deborah seals her lips around the beating pulse under her jaw, mimicking what had happened earlier. As she trails kisses down, she cups Ava’s breast lightly, teasing again with her thumb; the soft, warm weight in her hand is really something she could get used to, especially when it makes Ava twitch and moan her name like that.
She decides to get her mouth involved too, that’s always a crowd-pleaser. Well, older, wealthy men in Vegas don’t typically seem to know what to do with a woman’s breasts, for all the attention they end up paying Deborah’s cleavage, but there have been a few that had very talented mouths, so she knows it can be good.
Exhaling lightly over the nipple she hasn’t been focusing on, Deborah takes a moment to revel in Ava’s shudder, in the way the flesh pebbles up under her breath, and then darts her tongue out to trace the areola. Fingers weave through her hair needily, and Deborah’s first instinct is to fire off a line about the size of Ava’s hands (which really, aren’t that big, but it gets her going every time and she’s cute when she’s a little irritated) but mixing business and pleasure didn’t go so well for them earlier and she decides they’ll have to try another time if they want to riff during. When she’s more familiar with the terrain, so to speak.
“Oh, shit, are you sure you haven’t done this before? This is so not how I imagined it–”
Pinching the other nipple between thumb and forefinger and tweaking lightly, Deborah looks up to find Ava furiously red, the sex-flush completely overpowered by mortification. “Well, this, I’ve just got to hear,” she hums, amused, before leaning down to flick her tongue over a pointed peak, putting on a little bit of the Late Night interview voice unintentionally, “so, Miss Daniels, how often do you imagine having sex with me?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Ava’s head slumps back into the pillow, biting her bottom lip as she pushes her chest forward for Deborah’s mouth, making these soft, desperate sounds that are just addictive. “I, uh– fuuuucck, Deb, feels so– so good– I, um, might’ve had a dream or two.”
That is interesting. It’s not entirely unexpected, it’s impossible not to notice things when in almost-constant proximity to someone for four years, there have been little things here and there. Looks that last a beat too long, compliments a little too heartfelt, the period where Ava would glare at Marty like she was Deborah’s personal guard dog every time they touched– she really did take some of the residency-related squabbles to heart, or at least that’s what Deborah assumed at the time.
“Have you?” She hollows her cheeks out, sucking the pert nipple into her mouth until Ava whimpers and starts running her fingers through– pawing at, really– her hair mindlessly.
“DJ’s birthday, I– I had a dream the night before. S’why I wore that dress. Kiki did my makeup, even. Wanted to look hot for you.”
That hits her like a hammer. It’s the eagerness, Deborah thinks. The approval seeking, and the possibilities that come with it. “You did. That was the off-shoulder dress with the sweetheart neckline?”
“I think I got a little wet when you told me I looked pretty that night. I wanted you so bad.”
Deborah grins wickedly, and then closes her teeth lightly over the nipple and tugs. Ava arches up off the bed with a moan they almost definitely heard down the hall, hips bucking erratically. “It really did bring out your collarbones. I remember thinking, idly, that you could eat sashimi off of them, they looked so…defined.” Really, it was just a passing thought at the time, because Deborah is (mostly) straight, but it isn’t hard to twist it into a more lustful sound.
“Ohmygod.” It’s all one breathy exhale, too turned on to pause between words, then a nervous laugh. “You hang out with way too many rich Vegas freaks. And, uh, I would totally let you do that, if you wanted to.”
Pulling away from the nipple with one last exhale to watch Ava shiver at the cold air, Deborah slides up the bed to lean over her lover more closely. “I think you’d let me do whatever I wanted to you, isn’t that right, Ava?”
(She’s relieved, it isn’t that different from dirty talking to a man, except thus far she hasn’t had to stroke anyone’s ego or do a breathy little voice. And dirty talk, she’s made a career off of.)
Ava nods, way overeager, but it’s got a charm to it. Desperate looks good on her.
“So, this dream. Tell me about it.” Deborah muses, dragging a finger along one of the aforementioned collarbones, scraping just a little with her nail. They are pretty, but not half as much as the way the skin is so flushed under her touch, Ava’s arousal burning under the skin. “In your wild, lurid fantasies, what was I doing to you?”
It should not be possible for Ava to go any redder, but she does. “...we, uh…it was morning, and I, um…”
“Oh, come on, Ava! I’m not a prude!” She leans in, kissing Ava softly, once, twice, and then thrice for good measure, sucking on her kiss-swollen bottom lip every time she leaves. “You’re almost entirely naked in my bed. Tell me what you want, and you might get it.”
(God, hopefully it’s not butt stuff.)
“No, ugh, it’s just,” Ava squeezes her eyes shut like it’ll make the embarrassment go away, “okay, in the dream before that party...we just kinda…woke up in bed together. And you kissed me– it was a really, really good kiss, it was like, slow and sweet and perfect. But then my alarm went off.”
Of all the things, Deborah had not been expecting something so…romantic. “And that made you…you know, go full makeover with Kiki? It wasn’t a sex thing?”
Ava half buries her face in the pillow, and it seems no amount of kisses to her jaw and neck will bring her back. “Ugh, no, look, it was just after your surgery and we’d gotten all close and, I don’t know! You were a heinous bitch to me back then, but you were hilarious and smart and we were clicking, we were starting to get each other and – is it so crazy that it would’ve been more than a sex thing?”
She said ‘would’ve been’, but when Deborah looks into her eyes, wide and hopeful and looking back anxiously, it kind of seems more like ‘could be’.
“No, I–”
“Really, though, Deb, you know I’m like, all about hookup culture, Gen Z-style casual flings and shit– totally casual, like, if you’re just looking to get this out of your system, I can so do casual–”
“Is that what you want?”
Ava holds her stare and she swallows so loudly it feels like it echoes off the wall. “I can give you that.”
Of course she’s difficult. Stubborn, complicated, infuriating– they wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have made it nearly this long if Ava wasn’t…Ava. “No, honey, what do you want? Is this…all of this…more than a sex thing?”
Her eyes are so wide. Like going up on stage for the first time with a new routine, not knowing if it’ll completely bomb, that mix of terror and nervous excitement and anticipation on the edge of a cliff, waiting to jump, hoping the parachute works. Deborah cups her cheek, tucking strands of hair behind her ear in what she hopes is a reassuring gesture.
When Ava answers her after an endless seeming silence, her voice is rough. “Deborah, you gave up the number one show in late night for me. You said you loved me, live on nationwide TV. And– and I know that wasn’t how you meant it, but…yeah, it’s not just sex for me. I don’t have a word for what you mean to me, but it’s– I would want it all.”
She looks terrified. Understandably so; even for a compulsive oversharer, Ava is rarely this sincere. It’s a kind of vulnerability Deborah would have never been able to broach first, the sort of thing she wasn’t capable of before Ava came into her life.
And Deborah’s afraid too. She isn’t gay– she’s not sure how to label this, what it might be, how it will even work– but all she knows is that what she has with Ava is something utterly irreplaceable. “Ava, honey, I do love you. And you’ve kind of become…my everything, somehow. This isn’t a no, but I…god, there’s a reason I never remarried. I’m not good at this whole, you know, deal. Even without it being…us, and everything that goes with that.”
Glassy eyed, Ava shakes her head, lips pursed defiantly. “Deb, I know that. I’ve lived with you on and off for like, years now. You can be cruel. Petty. Selfish. You have what verges on narcissistic tendencies, and you’re a maniacally obsessive workaholic. And we work, because I am all of those things too. I already know what you’re like, Deborah, and I fell for you, not in spite of it, but because of it. We fit together. We actually make each other better, which is like, insane for a codependent relationship that should probably be in the next DSM.”
“And you would just be okay being with a…semi-closeted, semi-straight woman who isn’t going to know how to– to do any of this?”
“I’ve been patient with you this long, haven’t I? We fuck up all the time. And we’ve fixed it every time. I– I get this is scary; I was going to take all of it to my grave, but instead we’re here and–” She exhales, quiet and resigned, “–just don’t run from me, okay? You don’t have to feel the same. We don’t have to do any of this, but I know your instinct’s gonna be to push me away and–”
“I thought we were done doing that.” Deborah says quietly. And then, because she’s afraid and she can’t help it, she tries to inject some levity into her voice. “I mean, did I miss a memo? We made it past me basically banishing you from Vegas after the special, your itemized list email of my numerous flaws, me suing you, baby’s first blackmail attempt, everything that led up to the beach– I’d come to terms with thinking you were like a bad penny. I’m never getting rid of you.”
“Romantic.” Ava laughs wetly, and Deborah wipes away the almost-tears that had welled up in the corners of her eyes. “I, uh, don’t know what you wanted from tonight, but we don’t have to do this anymore. Obviously, now that you know, things are…”
“I want to,” she says, and means it. It scares the shit out of her, but Deborah means it. “I want– I love you, Ava. I think that could be in more ways than one. And I don’t know how this works going forward, but I’m willing to try and find out.”
Wiping her eyes a bit, Ava nods. “Okay. Um, just…gimme a second. Get cleaned up and stuff. Post-cry face, ew, am I right?”
<><><>
The en-suite faucet shuts off, and Ava comes back out, drying her face with the Hard Rock shirt. They really need to have a conversation about skincare, it’s going to leave her face all irritated and–
She slumps down on the bed with a nervous smile. “Y’know, this would’ve made great material for those eighties shows you did where you had so many bits about those big ol’ lesbos. You could’ve done the whole ‘women be having feelings while I’m trying to get laid’ bit that every male hack had in rotation, but from a woman, whoa, suddenly we’re breaking new ground!” She laughs, but it’s forced, strung with an anxious energy.
Deborah cups her cheek, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, half because she thinks it’ll help Ava, half to reassure herself that she didn’t ruin this. “Honey, relax. We’re okay.” She does her best impression of a hacky guy from back then. “I mean, I know a woman’s pussy is all complicated and shit, but surely, no one can fail at having gay sex three times in a row, am I right?”
Ava snickers, then kisses her back. “Stupid.” She smiles, soft and earnest. “But honestly, I’d watch? I think dumb-guy-voice lesbian might like, get those jokes from tired and unfunny back around to kinda good, in an ironic way? Might need a little workshopping, but, uh, yeah. Gimme your take on how hard it is to find the clit.”
Instead, Deborah lays on her side, pulling Ava down gently so they’re lying face to face. “We really don’t have to do anything tonight, though. Do we really want our first time to be in Kelly Kilpatrick’s guest room?”
Lips pursed thoughtfully, Ava nods. “I mean, not ideally, but…”
“But?”
“It’s stupid, but…until I freaked myself out about ruining this, tonight was really fun. I mean, yeah, okay, we failed to uh, consummate the first time because my pro wrestler joke bombed, but that just felt like…we were still us. And then you got me really, really turned on, and we almost had one of those emotional connections I’m always yammering on about. If…I’d been brave enough to say something way earlier instead of springing it on you in bed, this could’ve been a great time. So, uh, yeah, I guess I don’t feel like the mood’s completely dead? If you’re not up for it, that’s totally chill, but like…I just like being with you, Deb. I don’t wanna go to sleep ‘cause I just like spending time with you.”
“I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to be in the same breath as the words totally chill,” Deborah says, as fondly as one can be while deadpan, “and I agree with the sentiment if not the phrasing.”
“Plus, you got me like, insanely wet and really, if I’m gonna be taking these panties off anyway, it’s like, why not?”
“Is that so?” She gives Ava a questioning look, ‘are you sure you want to try again?’ in all but words.
The meaningful nod Ava returns also speaks volumes. “Feel for yourself, babe.”
So, third time’s the charm, it seems, and they’re going for it once more. She lets Ava guide her hand under the hem of damp cotton briefs, taking an exploratory swipe with the pads of her fingers, tracing up Ava’s slit and–
Fuck. Oh, to be young and still producing all the right hormones and naturally lubricating so easily. “Christ, Ava.”
“It’s kinda like this all the time with you now. Like, I wasn’t kidding– when you told me I looked pretty, I got a little turned on. From an innocent compliment! Any time you’re even a little suggestive with me, it’s like, a whole situation.” She eases her head back into the pillow as Deborah continues tracing her opening, seeing what gets what reaction. “Thank god you didn’t wear the longer acrylics for this trip, I want you inside me at some point tonight.”
It’s tossed out there so casually, like it doesn’t completely send Deborah’s stomach into gymnastics. Her lips fall open inadvertently, a quiet exhale escaping.
Ava grins, wicked and eager. “Okay, so you’re into that, check.”
“It made me–” Deborah closes her eyes for a moment, feeling so atypically turned on it kind of makes her dizzy, blood rushing when normally it’s content to stroll casually. “I thought about the time you said sometimes you needed penetration to… to come, and then I was, ah…thinking about that.” I was thinking about what you’d feel like coming around my fingers, she thinks, but can’t vocalize. Fuck. It may be the single most arousing memory she can recall with such diminished blood capacity in her brain
“Oh shit, that’s– yeah, yeah, that’s definitely working for me. I want to fuck you so bad, since y’know, you’ve had this mental fixation on my hands for so long, but– that sounds really good.”
“Like I said before, honey, tell me how you want me to fuck you.”
A muffled whimper escapes Ava’s lips. “Jesus, okay. So first of all, uh, really into the ‘honey’ of it all when you say it kinda bossy like that, like I don’t know if I imprinted on like, a teacher or–”
“Okay, doctor, spare us the psychoanalysis,” Borrowing a context clue, Deborah takes a gamble, “be good and tell me how to get you off, Ava.”
That’s a hit. Ava rolls onto her stomach a little, dragging her hips against the bed almost unconsciously. “You’re gonna fucking kill me, Deb, Christ. Uh– inside is good. I like– I like to stay there a while and add the clit towards the end.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it honey?”
She’s nearly thrown off her confident-sounding game when she pushes a finger tentatively inside and feels Ava around her for the first time. As Ava gasps, her walls actually contract around the digit, clinging like warm silk. Fuck. And yes, Deborah’s explored different methods of self-pleasure, pussy isn't some completely alien concept, but goddamn if it isn't a whole other ballgame when it's someone else’s, and her muscles are fluttering like that because Deborah’s touching her.
“Yes, like that, I can take another, though. Normally I appreciate a lady working me open nice and slow, but I am so fucking ready for you, Deborah, please–”
Deborah does as Ava is begging her to, adding a second finger, crooking it slightly; she knows there's a thing her more skillful lovers have done in the past, even if she's never had hands-on experience with another woman she's pretty sure she can find it–
“Fuckfuckfuck–” Ava’s voice breaks off into a pitchy whine, hips jerking erratically like she's trying to ride Deborah’s fingers but can't quite figure out the angle lying on her side.
Deborah pulls her into a messy, longing kiss because she can and that’s a rush, sucking Ava’s lip into her mouth like she's aiming to bruise it. “Such pretty sounds, honey,” she croons into the flushed skin of Ava’s neck, getting a wicked glee out of the teasing, “don't tell me you're already close?”
Ava grunts, hooking her chin down on Deborah’s shoulder as these body contractions seem to keep wanting to fold her in half. “You've been sorta-edging me for like, at least an hour, so…”
“And you've been taking it so well,” she purrs. “Haven't you?” The clenching of Ava’s soaking cunt is coming harder with each stroke, each time Deborah scissors her fingers open at the entrance just a little to stimulate the nerve endings there, she's dripping onto the sheets and her breathing is ragged now.
“Why haven't we been sleeping with each other the whole fucking time?” Ava whimpers, “you're so fucking good at this.”
And, well, Deborah isn't a performer for nothing. She wants to be the best at everything she does, and she certainly doesn't mind hearing it, especially not when she's coaxing the words out of a beautiful woman she adores. She feels a rush of wetness underneath the silk pajama pants she's still wearing, allows herself to imagine Ava’s hands on her, in her, and it pours lighter fluid on the flame of her want. Later, she thinks. Ava needs this more.
“You feel so good, hon,” and she just looks into Ava’s eyes, her free hand sweeping auburn strands out of the way, cradling Ava’s cheek between kisses, “I’m– I don’t think this would feel right with anyone else.” The admission slips out, because Ava always manages to sneak past the walls she puts up, and it’s only half of what Deborah’s feeling in the moment, she’s never been great at just saying these things but she’s so glad it’s Ava.
It could never be anyone but Ava, not anymore.
“I love you, Deborah,” Ava breathes, curling closer, her skin heated even through the top Deborah’s still wearing because Ava’s been more important than getting her own pleasure this whole time, and the words make her nervous, she hasn’t said them during sex since probably…Frank, and so she pulls Ava into a kiss that she hopes will communicate that she could be there too, that maybe it’s not as easy for her to give her heart away so openly, but Ava still has it and Deborah will get to the point where she can say that, too.
“Can I unbutton this?” Ava nudges at the buttons of her top enthusiastically, and then seems to catch herself, “I mean, totally chill– sorry, just pretend I said it’s alright– if that’s not comfortable with you, totally body-posi here, but if you’re not ready– I just wanna feel close to you. Skin contact while we’re tangled up like this, y’know?”
And okay, yes, maybe putting Ava first wasn’t the only reason she preferred to stay covered in front of her younger lover. But it’s really hard to say no to those pleading puppy eyes. “Can you?” Deborah asks wryly as she undoes the top button with only-slightly trembling hands, because really, Ava’s laying on her functioning arm and how is she going to manage buttons from that angle, one handed–
“Holy fuck.” Ava seems genuinely awed in a way that might make even Deborah’s jaded heart flutter a little, and she forgets all about pressing skin to skin, it seems, content to trail eyes and fingertips down the newly exposed sliver of desert-tanned flesh. “How are you so fucking gorgeous? How is that allowed?” She mutters under her breath, quiet and disbelieving.
Deborah strokes her fingers inside Ava lightly, starting to thumb over her clit in the light, even circles that work for her (personal preference is all she really has to go on– Ava seems a little too drunk on the sex to give any instruction) and they press together again. She can see the appeal of it now, the intimacy of having Ava wrapped in her free arm, feverish skin soaking heat into her even if Deborah hasn’t removed the silk pajama top all the way. The softness of her, plush and inviting. Their faces barely a breath apart, looking into each other’s eyes when the pleasure isn’t causing Ava to bury herself in Deborah’s neck, all fraying moans and starved, open mouthed kisses.
She realizes she’s been murmuring ‘you feel so good’ over and over, her hand gliding up Ava’s back to stroke through the silky tangle of her hair, thumbing over the peach fuzz at the base of her neck, pressing loving kisses to the crown of her head as Ava quivers in her embrace, the sounds spilling from her lips wavering as her pleasure grows.
“Deb, I love you, I love you, I’m so fuckin’ close, just– fuck, a little harder on my clit?” Ava whines, clenching needily around the fingers inside her more and more, curling into Deborah’s neck and mouthing mindlessly at the sensitive parts of her throat.
“Do it,” Deborah blurts, surprised by her own greedy eagerness, “you’re so good, honey, you’re my good girl, I want to feel you come for me, Ava, I just want to make you feel so good–” The words just kind of spill out without too much consideration, just that she thinks Ava will be into it and it’s true and–
Ava collapses when the orgasm hits.
She muffles a startlingly loud, throaty sound into Deborah’s shoulder as her body goes taut, cunt sucking Deborah’s fingers in as Ava clenches around her; Deborah can feel the contractions rushing through Ava’s body as she climaxes and being pressed together so tightly definitely was a phenomenal idea because Deborah experiences every shockwave that runs through her partner, the way her body crumbles and quakes under the pleasure. It’s a viscerally intimate feeling; she’s never felt so connected to someone else’s orgasm, so satisfied to have brought it out of her.
“That’s it, honey,” she murmurs, working Ava through it with one hand, petting her hair with the other, “you did so good, just like that, I’ve got you.” The praise seems to extend the twitchy little jerks of Ava’s body, so she keeps pouring the words into the crown of her hair with every gasp and shuddering breath.
Finally, Ava’s hand grips her wrist, and Deborah lets her fingers go still, but she doesn’t withdraw the ones inside, enjoying the feeling of Ava’s velvet heat around her.
“Oh my god.” Ava groans contentedly. “Holy shit. That was, uh…fucking nuts. I think I need to, like… get a Liquid IV or something.” Instead, she kisses Deborah insistently, clinging to her lips as they meet, languid and drawn out. “You’re– you’re…oh my fucking god, it’s like I’ve forgotten how to talk.”
“That’d be a first.” Deborah chuckles into the next press of their lips, ignoring Ava’s dramatic huff.
“Keep talking, babe, ‘cause like, once I put my brain back together, I’m gonna make you come so hard you can’t walk.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” It’s kind of a deflection as she presses a softer kiss to Ava’s now-reddened, almost bruised lips. Damn, they really went at it, she hadn’t realized. “Really, sweetie, don’t worry about it tonight. That was– that was nice, taking care of you. And with the arm…” She waves a hand absentmindedly. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere. You live with me, for god’s sake, we’ve got plenty of time once you’re healed.”
And she’s nervous, too. Somehow, she doesn’t think the fake moans she’s pulled out with men because she’s difficult and they can’t get her off would quite pass muster with Ava, who is overeager on the best of days and just wants things to be good for Deborah. Disappointing her would be like shooing the dogs, with their big sad puppy eyes, off the bed when she’s going to sleep. And there’s a reason Deborah usually asks Josefina to do that for her.
Nerves makes her quippy. “I am starting to see the appeal of all of this…you know, gay stuff, now. That was quite the reaction.”
Ava blushes a little bit, which is charming. “Yeah? You coming around to the queer side now? I’m sure Damien would be thrilled to draft your coming out post. Probably want to have a launch party at, like…shit, what’s the Vegas equivalent of the Abbey? I don’t really do nightlife anymore, I can’t believe I don’t know the trendy gay bars there! God, am I becoming a square now that I’m pushing thirty?”
“Jesus, honey, don’t start with that. And obviously, I’m still straight as can be,” she hams it up, because a big part of the Deborah Vance stage persona is a wink and a nod toeing the line of queerness– it’s just usually been queer men she gravitates towards, specifically, “you’re just a very, very significant asterisk on that.”
In the middle of a kiss to the corner of Deborah’s mouth, Ava groans. “I should’ve asked for way more than a thousand bucks that first day, putting up with your bullshit.” She pulls back, eyes tender. “Love you, though, like, for real. And I’m recovered enough, so uh, come sit on my face? I cannot have it be said that I’m a pillow princess.”
Deborah freezes up a little, which annoys the fuck out of her, because her whole thing is that she doesn’t do that. Obviously Ava notices, because she gives this heart-melting little encouraging smile that Deborah would find extremely, infuriatingly patronizing from anyone else.
“Or we don’t have to– I don’t want to rush you into anything,” she adds, stroking lightly over Deborah’s cheek in an attempt to soothe. (It is sweet.) “I just love you a lot, and I really do enjoy, like, giving pleasure. I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel, that’s all.”
Ava’s eyes search her face for an indicator either way, and then her mouth falls open in quiet realization. “Oh, shit, okay, is this like a thing where you think because men have struggled to get you off, it’s a you thing?”
Maybe it was a mistake to have the insightful little shit digitize forty years of Deborah’s stand-up routines, after all. She sighs. “I…am difficult, honey. And it– you know…it doesn’t get easier as you get older, either.”
Ava kisses her almost chastely, sweet and reassuring. “Deb, you know I love you, but like, your type in men mostly fucking sucks, honestly. The guy in Memphis seemed like a real eater, though, but besides that. Like, I just know Marty doesn’t know how to handle a woman like you.”
The cockiness of it all is kind of like waving a red flag in front of a bull. “Oh, and you do?”
“C’mere and find out,” Ava says with a lazy grin, and maybe it’s just how stubborn she is about trying to make this happen, to make Deborah feel good, that gives her a flutter of hope. And it was very arousing to fuck Ava like that, maybe it’s not impossible.
Fuck it. She’s taken so many gambles on Ava, and they’ve all paid off.
Deborah goes for it.
<><><>
She wakes the next morning, loose-limbed and very satisfied, with Ava tucked into her side, cuddling her. When’s the last time that happened? It’s nice– it’s fucking great, actually, Ava’s going to have an even more enormous ego about all of this, but she knows what she’s doing with her tongue and those hands. Even with one of them in a cast. It was a damn good night, the post-orgasm bliss hasn’t quite left yet, and to Deborah’s delight, they’ll be home soon and they can do this every night. Ava loves her. She loves Ava. It’s gonna be a whole media thing when they eventually go public, but it’s not like she can get blacklisted again. Nowhere to go but up, and she’ll have a true partner at her side for the entire climb.
And then it hits her.
“Fuck, we still have to figure out how to get that goddamn jumpsuit.”