In My Dreams, Visit Me

by Cetaceous

Summary:

Dessa and Jen own a business together. They live in neighboring apartments. They have the same bedtime. More often than not, their REM cycles match. They are both, as is well-established fact, wizards. Something was bound to go wrong.

The first thing Dessa sees upon breaching her apartment door is herself—lounging in the bay window, smoking a cigarette. Practically down to the nude but for a few scant scraps of black lace, her thick-framed reading glasses, and, bafflingly, a watch. She eyes the make: Timeless, by Savrona. Expensive, and notably lacking in taste. The final few tired vines of sunset wrap around her pale skin, tickling the edges of her tattoos, a reflected orange glow hiding her eyes.

 

“Well, this is a surprise,” says the other Dessa, sounding wholly unsurprised. She makes no move to adjust her sultry posture.

Honestly, Dessa is not in the fucking mood. This nonsense is the kicker to a long, trying day at work, in the middle of a long, trying week, capping off two long, trying months.

 

Not because of the actual work, of course. The cases they’ve been taking on are invariably disasters, no question about it. But Jen’s skills in tracking, evidence-gathering, and putting-it-in-writing are usually sufficient to save their behinds from the roaring hellfire of legal liability. Also, once, Jen began a sentence with, “okay, this is probably a stupid idea, but maybe” and then proceeded to rattle off a detailed deduction of the exact solution to an active case. The case was to figure out who poisoned a fifth-grader’s pet guinea pig (answer: the fifth-grader), but still, Dessa was impressed.

 

What Jen lacks PI-wise, Dessa is able to make up for with common sense, money sense, levelheadedness, dashing good looks, a willingness to threaten people while Jen isn’t looking, and an occasional bullet to the head, for medical purposes. This pool of humble, modest skills has kept their business mostly above water, at least so far. Most of their time is actually spent on paperwork, which Jen takes to with typical neuroticism and a horrifying array of color-coded sticky notes. Dessa follows suit with grudging acceptance, and only for consistency’s sake; in her opinion, no kind of paper should be that disgustingly yellow.

 

That’s all well and good. No, Dessa’s days have instead been soured by—she’s mature enough to admit it—intense and enduring sexual frustration.

 

Dessa has always understood that when you ““like”” someone (not her preferred word choice) it’s best to be direct. This is why she had identity documents forged for the both of them, rented them the swankiest side-by-side apartments she could find in Seqeva City on a fugitive’s budget, and signed herself onto Jen’s detective agency pet project without asking. She’s essentially been screaming, ‘I want to spend all my waking hours with you, and live around you for however long I have left to live,’ at the top of her lungs. How much more direct—more, urgh, romantic—could one possibly get?

 

Not to mention all the flirting. Talking about “Spicy Jen,” showering her with such effusive praise as “not bad” or “I hadn’t expected that from you,” making unsubtle references to her own board-certified manual technique (the tremors matter less outside the operating room)—at best it earns her some verbal stumbles and a quick and clunky conversation change.

 

Whatever. By now Dessa is half-resigned to a short, frustrating life wherein she never gets to kiss that rambling witch-mouth quiet. Instead of trying even harder to fight for a seemingly lost cause, she simply wastes up to half an hour per day glaring at the subject of her affections, imagining Jen pinned between their frosted glass office door and Dessa’s own body.

 

She’s making her peace, but in the meantime, her tolerance for non-Jen-related inconvenience is shockingly, no pun intended, low. Which brings her back to the issue at hand: her saucy doppelganger, her insouciant intruder.

 

“Okay, spill,” she demands, in lieu of greeting. “Who are you and what’s going on? Be quick, I don’t want to have to put a bullet hole in my own window.”

“Irritable, are we, hmm?” drawls other-Dessa, slowly stretching her arms above her head in a way that throws the tendons in her neck into shadowy relief, and makes her tits look… prominent. “No need for that. We’re all friends here.” An extremely questionable statement.

 

She rises to her feet in one smooth motion, looking lithe and somewhat catlike. “I’m actually waiting for someone, but in the meantime—would you like a drink?”

 

Keeping the cig between two fingers, she saunters over to Dessa’s small metal alcohol cart, nestled between a bookshelf and the apartment’s outer wall. Taking a small fancy-looking tumbler, which Dessa knows is only faux-crystal because she’s the one who bought it(!), the impostor pours herself some of the bitterest, most expensive gin from the shelf. “I have this, whiskey, rum, vodka, a few wines—D.S.R. import, although I must admit they aren’t stunning…”

 

She trails off, throwing a glance at Dessa over her shoulder. Her mouth looks like it’s perpetually hinting at a smirk, and the sight of her own bare back is absurd enough to momentarily derail her thought process.

 

“Uh.” She frowns. “Could I just have a water—hold on, don’t change the subject.”

Dessa palms at her holster, groaning under her breath when she realizes the revolver is somehow gone. Gone? How does that happen? That’s like, exactly what a holster is supposed to prevent. “What are you doing in my apartment? And why are you… why are you me?”

 

Her double turns around, leaning back on her elbows on the edge of the cart. “Honey, this is my apartment. And isn’t it obvious?” She makes a graceful gesture towards the doorway through which Dessa had just entered, surrounded by little broken chunks of wood and leading out into dull gray nothingness. “You’re dreaming.”

 

 

[Intertitle:

INSIDE

DESSA’S

BRAIN]

 

 

Goddamnit. Of course she’s dreaming. Was Dessa so utterly consumed by childish angst over her adorable coworker that she failed to notice when the hallway she walked in from didn’t even exist? Also, why else would she explode her own front door?

 

“That still doesn’t explain you,” Dessa retorts, moving further into the room. She can’t decide whether to try maintaining her usual aloof posture, or to instead loom threateningly over her under-dressed interlocutor, so she opts for a half measure of both, standing rigid in the center of the plush cream carpet. “I can’t think of any reason why I would be dreaming about… weird, sexy myself? no offense, you do look great.”

“None taken. You as well, the suit’s quite sharp.”

Dessa looks down at herself. Silk shirt, dark waistcoat, black slacks. “I’m always wearing this. But thanks.”

Dream-Dessa smiles lazily. “I know. You’re welcome.”

 

Answers appear frustratingly unforthcoming, so Dessa refers to her one prior point of reference for this sort of thing. “I don’t suppose you’re from the future?”

A haughty scoff. “God, no. Plot contrivances like that never happen.”

 

A circumstance of which Dessa was a participant like eight scant weeks ago, never happens? Okay. That clinches it—something is not right here. This other Dessa is off. The watch, the underwear choice, the, um, ‘personality.’ She seems to genuinely like gin, and now she doesn’t remember the only other time Dessa has had a conversation with herself?

 

“Can you hang tight for a second? I need to check something.”

At this, dream-Dessa stretches again, running one arm up the other before bringing it around for a flirty hair tousle. It seems the sexiness is only semi-conscious, or perhaps completely involuntary—Dessa wonders if this is yet another extremely rare medical disorder she’s developed. “Of course. It’s not like I have anything better to do; this whole thing has been off-script since you walked in.”

 

“Uh, okay, sure. Great,” Dessa says, only half-listening. As confidently as she can manage, she strides off to the bathroom, shutting the door behind herself. Frantically, Dessa begins patting herself down, checking all of the various pockets and places one might be able to stash a small, soft object on her person. In the months since the dreams started—the other ones, half-memory and half-nightmare, the kind this odd scenario has unexpectedly replaced—Dessa had trained herself to take a token with her into the world of sleep. Its presence has an anchoring effect, and with effort she can sometimes use it to push against or even end a dream. A vital tool for a restless sleeper.

 

She can’t find it.

 

 

 

“This isn’t my dream,” Dessa says, matter-of-fact, leaning against the jamb of the now-open bathroom door. Both of her socked feet (may as well get comfortable, for however long this bizarre interlude lasts) are planted firmly on the tile. “Someone else thought this garbage up, and then, somehow, I got unceremoniously dumped into it instead. Am I correct?” She crosses her arms, putting on what she hopes is a cool, untouchable stare.

 

“I will admit,” hums dream-Dessa, trailing her fingers along a metal skull situated on a side-table in the hall. “When you burst through the door, I was expecting Jen.”

 

Fuck! Jen!

 

Dessa slips her fingers beneath her lenses to rub at her eyelids. God, it makes sense, though. This strange Dessa clone obviously doesn’t match Dessa’s own self-perception at all—but compared to the image Dessa presents to the world, she comes a lot closer. Not all the way there; something else is different even from that, a twist putting Dessa on edge without her being able to quite pinpoint it. Perhaps it’s the overt, cloying eroticism?

 

“That was the plan, yes,” dream-Dessa says, interrupting Dessa’s musings and also making her realize she had said ‘Fuck! Jen!’ out loud.

 

Dessa’s eardrums feel like they are about to pop. “Jen Kellen. Is having a sex dream about me??” she blurts, a desperate and redundant outburst.

 

“No, Jen Kellen was going to have a sex dream about me—er, you. Us?” dream-Dessa scratches the side of her face with a manicured fingernail. “But now, it seems like you’re having it instead. The apéritif to the sex dream, anyway. I doubt we’re getting to the meal.” The other Dessa pauses to give her a nice, efficient up-and-down. “Unless you want to.”

 

“No, thanks. Jen Kellen-!” Dessa switches self-soothing tack, and begins massaging her temples instead. “But, why would she – I mean–” This is so, so strange.

 

“And she’s hardly.” Dessa takes a slow, careful breath in through her nose, and then lets it out. “I mean, I’ve been, let’s be honest, lesbianically throwing myself at her, and all I get is blushing and deflection.” Dessa stalks out of the bathroom and begins pacing the hall, while dream-Dessa observes placidly. “Clearly she doesn’t, you know, ‘like’ me like that, so why was she about to have a dream about—fucking—fucking me?”

 

Dream-Dessa gives the ornamental skull’s nasal aperture a poke, then shrugs, sexily, somehow. The cigarette from before glows softly on the edge of an adjacent ashtray. “Maybe it’s random. Pure happenstance. Dreams don’t always have to mean something. Plus, I mean, I doubt Jen is getting out much, aside from the detective work.”

 

Stopping her pace, Dessa sighs, and begins to drift reluctantly back to the sitting room. “Very true. But still, it feels wrong. For me to have this intimate knowledge of her own psyche, while she might not even have the faintest idea.” She sits heavily on the couch, and the other Dessa follows suit.

 

“I hear you, sister. I, for one, thought I was going to get laid tonight, and now I’m witnessing my real-world self have a minor emotional crisis, while I have to reckon with the fact that I’m simply a low-fidelity copy projected by someone else’s oversexed subconscious.” Dream-Dessa lays herself across Dessa’s lap, gazing at the ceiling. “If that’s not an ugly twist of events, I don’t know what is.”

She flicks her gaze to the side, making eye-contact. “I’m not too stressed about it, mind you. Mostly that’s just what I could bring up in order to commiserate.”

She tries to link her fingers with Dessa’s own, which she quickly and carefully moves aside.“Hmph,” the imitation Dessa pouts.

 

Dessa takes the opportunity to divest her doppelganger of that horrible watch, which she now understands as Jen’s closest approximation of a stylish designer accessory she thinks Dessa might wear. She’ll have to figure out a way to casually clue Jen in on the existence of Aera Fortu’s Wayfounder model the next time she sees her.

“Oh god. Jen. I’m going to be face-to-face with Jen in about,” she checks the tacky watch, taking it on unwarranted faith that it displays real time, “four hours.” The other Dessa ‘mmm’s sympathetically.

 

Dessa takes off her double’s glasses, too, and folds them onto the coffee table. “Honestly… this is probably for the best. I’m a mature adult. I’ll be able to handle it. If Jen had actually had this dream, she’d barely be able to talk to me.”

Both Dessas chuckle. “She’d blush so hard she’d turn red.”

“When you think about it, really think, I’ve done her a favor by intercepting this dream. Imagine all the embarrassment saved, for everyone involved.” She thinks for a second. “And I bet this incident won’t have any unforseen consequences.”

 

 

[Intertitle:

THE

NEXT

DAY]

 

 

“...to Dessa? Earth to Dessa? What’s going on in there?” Jen is standing in front of Dessa’s desk, having vacated her own adjacent one. Her hands rest casually on her hips; Dessa’s palms feel sort of itchy thinking about hands on hips.

“Lots of things are going on. You’ll have to repeat your question.”

 

Jen gives an adorable huff. Sometimes it’s easy to forget she’s actually older than Dessa, let alone a former soldier. The way she moves through the world is so… bright. “I was asking if you know anything about mongeese.”

“The correct plural is ‘mongooses,’” Dessa says automatically. “No, I don’t know anything about them.”

 

Jen frowns. “Then how do you know it’s mongooses? Also, that sounds dumb, and I don’t believe you.” Even her frown is cute. Dessa wants to smooth out that crease between her eyebrows with a thumb. She wants to pat Jen’s cheeks. She wants to grab her face. She wants to—ooh, she needs to stop thinking about that.

 

“I used to be an ace at bar trivia in med school. I’d go once a month, when I could carve out the time, and I’d usually win. You pick up lots of miscellaneous garbage with that kind of hobby.” Dessa realizes that she’s been staring intently into Jen’s warm brown eyes while she’s been talking, and waits a deliberate moment before looking away, so it seems more natural. “Also, you develop good intuition. What’s this about, anyway?”

 

Jen stares at Dessa, and then seems to deflate a little, bringing one hand up to scratch at her hair. “I was just—oh, hm.” She frowns a little more—still cute, but edging on too sad. “I, uh, forget.”

 

For the first time Dessa notices the shadows under her eyes. Approximately 3 tints purpler than usual, an estimate Dessa is very normal for being able to make. Maybe Jen didn’t sleep too well last night; Dessa can certainly relate. It was like the exact moment she fell asleep on the couch in her weird clone dream, her alarm went off in the real world, plunging her headfirst into the day groggy and unrested.

 

“Don’t look at me like that,” says Jen, probably interpreting Dessa’s silence as bemusement. “I had a good reason for asking. Something, um, case related? It just kinda. Left.” Jen makes a walking-off motion with her fingers.

 

“I can only imagine.” Dessa smirks. “Can’t focus on work while we’re talking?” She leans forward on the desk, resting a few fingers against her jaw, semi-consciously channeling some of last night’s other Dessa.

 

Jen narrows her eyes at the blatant line. “Yes, it’s your fault. You distracted me.”

Oh, this is a little new. Dessa soldiers on. “And I did it on purpose, too.” She makes a show of examining her own nails. “Chasing your concentration underground, like a venomous snake fleeing from one of its natural predators, the noble mongoose.”

 

The storm witch cracks into a fit of giggling. “Why are you such a liar?”

“I said I don’t know anything about mongooses. Compared to what I know about human anatomy, a fun fact or two is less than nothing.”

 

Jen falters for a second, cheeks flushing just slightly. “Anatomy, huh?” she says, crossing her arms under her… chest. Dessa clears her throat.

“Yes. To be a surgeon, you have to know everything that makes a person tick. Biologically speaking.”

“Right.”

 

They look at each other for a tense moment, and Dessa has the brief sense that she has never, in fact, known what makes anybody tick. Despite the strange energy of their conversation, Jen still looks tired, shoulders uncharacteristically slumped. Something in Dessa’s chest twists at that, and suddenly getting Jen to stand tall seems exponentially more important than whatever task she had previously been pretending to pay attention to.

 

“Okay. I’m going to distract you some more. Put on your coat.” Dessa leans over towards the other desk, pulling Jen’s trench coat off the back of the chair and tossing it her way.

 

“Dessa?”

“We’re playing hooky. Don’t let the boss know.” Slipping her arms into the sleeves of her own coat, Dessa shrugs it on and stands smoothly, striding past Jen without a second look. “Coffee or ice cream?”

The lightness in Jen’s tone is audible as she says, “Coffee ice cream!” and hurries to catch up.

 

As they exit the building into the street, loud and sunny in the late afternoon, light bouncing off of metal, glass, and stucco, a horrible thought occurs to Dessa. Jen had perked up when they talked, sure, but the rest of the day she’d seemed somewhat under the weather, no pun intended. Their office had been suspiciously devoid of useless chatter that morning, and Dessa had already noted before Jen’s wan look and drawn posture. Is it possible… is it possible that instead of Dessa just getting Jen’s dream, Jen had also gotten

 

 

[Intertitle:

THAT NIGHT

JEN’S BR-]

 

 

but no. surely not

 

 

[Intertitle:

-BRAIN]

 

 

Jen is experiencing what might genuinely be the worst pain of her entire life. Her face is so bruised one of her eyes is swollen shut, and that feeling barely even registers. Weeping cuts run up and down her arms, ropeburn stings the front of her throat. Her entire back feels fried—literally fried, like someone shoved her down onto a giant sizzling pan, and god, the room she’s in kind of smells like it too.

 

It’s windowless, with a solid steel door and an aluminum table bolted to the floor, to which her hands are cuffed. Not the usual cell. They bagged her, shoved her around a little, brought her here. Could have been minutes or hours ago, it hardly matters anymore. Not after the enervation charms, the heat manip. All the spells they’ve used to slowly, surely, rip Jen to pieces. Jen’s damp hair drips saltwater down her face and neck, making all her wounds sting. Leftover from the horrible minutes during which this room turned into a fucking aquarium. She spent something like twenty minutes after that coughing up silty dregs, and breathing right now compares unfavorably to swallowing glass.

 

“Just say you’ll do it,” a dark blob standing before Jen’s remaining bleary eye says. “That’s all we want, and then this can stop. Say you’ll do it.”

Jen chokes back a wail. She would be crying if she could. “I can’t,” she croaks. “Please. I can’t. I would but I can’t—”

A thick glove slams against the side of her head, steel and leather cutting into her. “Stop fucking lying. We know who you are.”

 

“No. Nono. Swear.” her own voice sounds raspy and half-dead below the ringing in her ears. “I would I would but I just can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything else. I’m so sorry. P- please.”

It’s impossible to think, like this. There are things she knows, things she should know but can’t access. They want Banks, not Jen. Jen doesn’t know how she knows that. She doesn’t know who that is. Banks can bring people back from the dead. This is what they want from her, and they won’t believe they’ve got the wrong person.

Banks – Dessa Banks. The name wells up in her like a prayer. Dessa, Dessa. The face to the name- a mystery. Help me, Dessa.

 

“She’s still not cooperating,” says the dark blob—the Reactor goon. Jen has to make herself remember where she is, who these people are, so that if—so that when she gets out of here, she can absolutely ruin their lives. There’s a radio crackle, a pause. “Okay. Roger.”

 

Jen hears the radio click off, and then the soldier turns back to her. “Bad news.” When he speaks, the voice is distorted through the mask. “You’re important. I’m sure you know this. We need you.” Jen is shaking her head, but he’s ignoring her, fishing around in his pack. “So no one’s allowed to put you out of your misery. You know what that means?” Jen keeps shaking her head, as vigorously as she can with the stiffness in her neck. Quick as a flash, he grabs one of Jen’s hands, slams it against the table. “It means, this is going to hurt for a long time.” and then he stabs a knife straight down, through the meat of her hand out to the underside of the table. The blade is serrated; she can feel that, as it cleaves two of her knuckles apart. She screams, unable to believe the nauseating sight of her hand splitting like a sagging tree, blood spurting up like a fountain

 

And then she jolts up in bed, clutching the injured hand in the other. No, not injured. Not a scrape on it, though it throbs faintly. The witch is hyperventilating; she forces herself into a box-breathing exercise, willing her racing heart to slow down. 3:23 a.m., says her alarm clock. Only a couple hours after she had finally managed to fall asleep.

 

Last night—last night had been so scary that she’d been dreading unconsciousness, Even though she hadn’t been expecting another dream quite as bad. She’d gotten a worse one. The feeling of that blade was far too vivid.

 

During each dream, she’d been too disoriented to remember anything of the last few months, but once she wakes up it all comes back immediately. Jen knows exactly what’s happening (though the “why,” an ever-important element to the diligent investigator, is missing): She’s dreaming about Dessa’s imprisonment in the Reactor blacksite.

 

Though likely with a few embellishments—or at least, she hopes. As far as she and Dessa have been able to figure out, the site is now abandoned, with Reactor personnel on the run or in hiding. But right now, a nasty shiver forces its way down her spine just at the thought of being in the same country as that horrible place. Maybe that’s the “why”; maybe coming back to Liboli was a mistake.

 

Jen’s first impulse once her heartrate finally drops below 120 bpm is to go knock on Dessa’s door, just one number down the hall. She’s sure the necromedic would be a great comfort, in her own prickly way. Honestly, even just her presence would be a balm. Jen remembers her dream self, aching for Dessa to come rescue her without even knowing how she knew the name.

 

As soon as she acknowledges this desire, though, she suppresses it. It’s far too late in the night to make her coworker grumpy over what ultimately amounts to two bad dreams. Worse, these dreams are about Dessa’s actual trauma. The thought of begging Dessa for comfort over a bad knockoff of her real-life experience fills Jen with such shame that it makes her want to never bring it up. She can’t allow herself to do anything that might jeopardize Dessa’s respect.

 

Though, in truth, Jen already wonders what the surgeon sees in her at all.

 

She throws the covers off. Time to make a coffee, and hope she can survive until the weekend.

 

 

[Intertitle:

TWO

WEEKS

LATER]

 

 

Okay, so, Dessa is getting the idea that Jen having a sex dream about her was not a meaningless one-off incident. Her primary clue to this effect being: it has now happened half a dozen times. Not every night, not even most nights (falling short of that threshold by one or two), but definitely enough times that Dessa has to admit to herself it’s probably not random.

 

Another clue is that the things they do together while awake have begun bleeding into the dreams, sometimes in pretty blatant ways. For instance:

 

Incident 1.

Upon discovering that Dessa does not own a TV, Jen insists she come over next door for Movie Night. (Jen does, in fact, pronounce Movie Night with the capitals.) Without thinking, Dessa wears her old ribcage-decal hoodie from college—an utterly embarrassing shade of pink, but sue her, it’s fucking comfortable—and the moment Jen lays eyes on it after opening the door to her apartment, her face transforms into an expression of pure delight.

 

Jen also insists that they sit together on her couch for the film. It’s a ratty secondhand sofa that sags in the middle, forcing them to either cling to the armrests or give in and cuddle up, which obviously they do. Dessa half-suspects the entire existence of the couch is just an excuse to let Jen warm her icy fingers in the soft magenta fabric of her sweater.

 

Upon returning to her own place, Dessa is unable to recall a single detail about the movie they had just spent two and a half hours watching, including the title. More to the point, though, sleep that night finds her already standing in a bedroom beside a smirking dream-Dessa, wearing the exact same hoodie and matching pink underwear. Dessa thinks the outfit frankly ridiculous, and makes her opinions known as she rifles through her dream-dresser, attempting to find a spare pair of pajama pants. Eventually she’s forced to accept that she is not going to find ones that aren’t pink.

 

Incident 2.

Dessa and Jen made plans to go to the gun range over the weekend, and Dessa has been anticipating it eagerly. That day, she, uh—well, okay, perhaps she inadvertently butches it up a little with her outfit. Well, not-so-inadvertently. On purpose, one might even be tempted to suggest. When she and Jen meet in the hall before heading out, the witch’s wide eyes flick from the hat, to the belt, to the boots, back up to the belt. Lingering quite a bit on the belt. Looking back up to the hat again, meeting Dessa’s eyes, blushing. Dessa forces herself, with difficulty, not to read into any of those expressions. Jen does fluster easily, after all. Then Jen offers a tentative, “yeehaw?” promptly and efficiently demolishing the moment.

 

The range is wizard-friendly, with about a 4:1 split between non-enhanced firearm enthusiasts and active wand-users. Jen practices outdoors on a group of test dummies with a few of her more forceful spells, and then Dessa runs drills with her revolver in the indoor range, hallucinating the whole time that she can feel the witch’s gaze sliding over her skin. Dessa is, in fact, trying to show off for Jen—without necessarily looking like she’s trying to show off—and it seems to work; she lands tight clusters on target despite the shaking in her extremities, and even gets the occasional head-shot. Her companion is quick every time with high-fives once Dessa’s pistol is safely stowed.

 

Maybe the showing-off works a little too well. Jen is quiet on the bus back, and shortly after Dessa’s head hits her pillow that night, she finds herself face-to-badge with Sheriff dream-Dessa. She’s on her knees in some kind of stereotypical frontier jail, staring down the business end of a rather protuberant accessory hitched to the other woman’s hips, the straps wrinkling the fabric of her trousers. (These dreams appear to have ever-shortening setups, with more and more blatant artifice. In the moment, Dessa worries vaguely that the next dream will deposit her mid-coitus.)

 

Now, in real life, Dessa does not own such equipment. But after once again politely declining dream-Dessa’s offer to, you know, it would be fine, only if you wanted of course, but no one else would ever have to know, it’s just a fantasy, and, I mean, who knows, it could be pretty hot if you think about it—Dessa wakes up, walks thirty-three minutes north to the 24 hour sex shop, makes very normal, very brave eye contact with the bored clerk, and then finally purchases a harness and a couple dildos.

 

She spends most of the return trip daydreaming about being on top of Jen, being behind Jen, lacing her fingers in Jen’s hair, popping her thumb into Jen’s mouth, running her knuckles across Jen’s vertebrae like a piano glissando. At one point she is so deep inside her fantasy (and, coincidentally, inside her fantasy Jen) that she almost jaywalks directly in front of a delivery truck. Back home, though, she stares at her impulse buys laid out on the bed with her arms crossed. With distance from the dream, it all seems rather silly. What are the chances she’ll actually have reason to use any of this?

 

Not high, that’s for sure.

 

Although, well— surely not zero, either.

 

Okay, fine. Dessa has no goddamn clue whatsoever where she stands with Jen anymore. Is Jen actually attracted to her? Does Jen know she’s attracted to her? Has Dessa been acting strange around Jen as a result of the dreams? Probably not, at least not outwardly. Hopefully not.

 

Another recent memory springs to the forefront of Dessa’s mind as she sits on the edge of her bed, running a hand along the sheets that have, over the past fortnight, seen dream-Dessa in a fair number of compromising positions.

 

“Hey, Dessa?” Jen leans against the fence, white paint flaking off of decade-old metal pipes beneath her forearms. Dessa stands a few meters away, arms crossed, looking down the gentle slope ahead of them. A lazy creek winds its way around the outskirts of Seqeva, its usually clear water muddy from a rare desert rainstorm. Hardy ironwoods and acacias line the stony banks, the fragile greenspace smoothly blending into arid red in the distance.

“Yes?” Jen had held Dessa’s hand for most of their walk around the small city park. Internally, Dessa had been panicking, but the witch hadn’t said anything, so she hadn’t either.

“I need to tell you something.” Dessa’s heart rate doubles. “Er, I mean, I guess I don’t need to, I just want to. Um,”

“By all means.” Dessa glances over, but Jen is still fixed on the slow foaming curl of the water.

“It-” she stops. “It really means a lot to me—all this.” Finally, she looks over, meets Dessa’s eyes. “Coming with me to Liboli. Joining my agency. Making it so I’m not… alone, here.” It feels like Dessa’s heart rate has doubled again, even though she knows that that’s medically unlikely. Either that, or she’s undergoing imminent cardiac arrest. “I want you to know that I love-”

Oh god. Oh my god. Dessa can’t believe this is happening. Is she about to-

“-solving cases with you,” Jen finishes, and smiles winningly. She pushes herself off the fence, flecks of paint sticking to her star-studded arms, and wraps Dessa into a tight, confusing hug, arms trapped at her sides. “I’m so glad we’re friends.”

 

Friends? Friends?! Dessa snatches up a pillow from her mattress, fluffs up a corner, and then bites into it angrily. And then freezes in a sudden lightning strike of out-of-body self-awareness. Who the hell is she, Rion? She delicately extracts the patch of damp cotton from between her teeth. Next, she should probably use this pillow to smother herself.

 

What mortifying dreck. No way Jen is thinking anywhere near as much as Dessa about meaningless nonsense like this.

 

 

[Intertitle:

LIKE,

THE NEXT DAY

OR SOMETHING]

 

 

For the past two weeks, Jen has been experiencing near-constant emotional whiplash.

 

Each night she has the worst nightmares she can ever remember having: a few about getting threatened and beaten and interrogated, a couple about losing fingers, several about getting tortured by every single kind of mage her mind can conjure. No pun intended. In between are calmer ones, where Jen just sits in her cell—Dessa’s cell—and licks her wounds, with the looming presence of more hurt just beyond the bars.

 

Those dreams can honestly be even more unsettling. Not scary, but haunted, almost. Like someone was there just before Jen, and their presence lingers. The first one of them she had, Jen found this small trinket hidden under the cell’s minimalist bedding: a red-and-blue felt heart. Anatomically correct, at least as far as Jen was able to tell, which was reasonably but not exceptionally far. It fit easily in the palm of her hand, and it’s been present somewhere in every cell dream since the first. A few times, she held it and swore she could feel it beat.

 

Anyway, Jen’s getting off-track. At night, she has nightmares, but during the day…

 

Look, overall Dessa’s blunt attitude hasn’t changed. But at the same time, Jen feels like she’s been weirdly—weirdly nice to her, of late. During work hours, she piles on veiled compliments, offhandedly praising everything from Jen’s outfit to her problem-solving skills. Outside of them, she spends more and more time with Jen, the two of them either exploring what the city of Seqeva has to offer, or relaxing together in one of their apartments. And Jen can’t fully enjoy any of it, because she’s so fucking tired, and every time they part she dreads falling asleep.

 

To a certain degree, their bonding moments have begun to blend together, with Jen more remembering the affect than the content. A few days ago, they’d gone to a park—beautiful, she knows that much—and they’d walked, talked, and all-in-all enjoyed each other’s company. However, Jen can’t remember a single word she’d said to Dessa the whole time. Hopefully nothing embarrassing. Jen is still avoiding telling Dessa about the dreams, shamed and intensely fearful of a dismissive response. But she can totally imagine herself blurting something out while basically dead on her feet.

 

Honestly, there are a lot of things Jen desperately hopes her tired brain won’t let her do on impulse. Currently she is, cue internal screaming, leaning her whole body against Dessa’s side as they walk back from their most recent date. Um, platonic date? Not-a-date? ‘Hang’ doesn’t seem right. Jen guesses that it’s technically correct for what they’re doing, but every time they go out together it kinda does feel like a date. Maybe that’s just what it feels like to do stuff with a very good friend? Jen hasn’t had too many good friends in her life.

 

Then she recalls the existence of Zan, less than a hundred miles away on the coast, and discards that idea. Probably this date-feeling is reserved for hangs with very good friends whom one is also constantly fighting back the urge to kiss directly on the mouth, with tongue.

 

Oof. Jen is so gay.

 

The definitely-just-a-hang-even-though-it-seriously-could-have-been-a-date-instead was at a trendy bookstore-cafe combo sitting at the edge of Westshore, a big, steadily gentrifying neighborhood near their home. Between the cafe and their apartment building is a moderate stretch of disused industrial sprawl, long warehouses and sandstone-walled factory buildings interspersed with shiny open-concept businesses that all presumably opened within the last ten years.

 

The coffee had been good, smooth and not too bitter, although definitely on the expensive side for their budget. They’d each gotten a book, and Dessa had insisted on paying, despite the two of them having shared finances in basically every sense but the pedantic. Jen had selected the first mystery thriller she saw with an eye-catching enough cover, while Dessa had decided on a thick, drab volume entitled “The Practicing Non-Practitioner: An academic analysis of charms, hexes, rituals, and other generalized magicks, for those without a craft,” by L. P. Langlorn. This book, it must be said, did not even have a cover design at all, but Dessa had claimed it could be useful for her as a wizard lacking any formal training. Just the idea of trying to read a dry, 40-year-old academic text in her free time makes Jen’s eyes glaze, but she admires Dessa all the more for it.

 

Both of their books are currently tucked under Dessa’s right arm, with her left wrapped lightly around Jen’s waist. Jen is being really, really normal about that, to the degree that she hasn’t actually commented on the contact at all.

 

Just as Jen’s thoughts reluctantly turn back to the rest of the evening, and the inevitable restive sleep lurking on the horizon, they pass by a telephone pole with a loud black-and-white flyer stapled to it:

 

SPARKLE PIT

 

Sets by:

Fuzzbug                

Blister Party

                DJ Uncle

 

09/06, doors at 11 — Blue Bin

20+ — Cover 5$

 

“Hey,” Jen says, holding Dessa back and pointing at the sign. “Blue Bin—isn’t that where you found that missing student’s ex last month?”

“Yes.” Dessa looks unmoved. “It was dark, and very loud.”

“Do you want to go to this, maybe? With me? I’ve always wanted to go out dancing, but I was admittedly never very cool and the idea felt way too intimidating.” Left unsaid: the event is tonight, and it would be an activity to keep Jen awake.

 

Dessa rolls her eyes. “You wouldn’t have to worry about being ‘cool.’ No one there will be nearly as cool as they think they are.”

“So will you go?” Jen looks at her with a tentative smile. “It might be fun. Even if the music isn’t very good.”

Who calls themselves ‘DJ Uncle?’

The former surgeon looks at the poster, then at Jen, then at the poster again. She sighs. “Well, we’re off the clock. I suppose it’d fine to go, for a little bit. But if anyone recognizes us, we’re leaving.”

“Yes! You’ve got a deal.” Delaying the inevitable is Jen’s favorite. Especially if it involves Dessa.

 

 

[Intertitle:

THAT NIGHT

“BLUE BIN,”

APPARENTLY]

 

 

Being at the club for the first time in your mid-thirties is not as scary as Jen had been expecting. Actually, she’s having quite a lot of fun, even more than she had hoped for. Despite not having a single, tiny clue how to dance, she’s currently getting into the pounding double-time banger playing out of the speakers with embarrassing vigor. If she had to guess, her level of enthusiasm would be pegged somewhere between the dour-looking punks reluctantly bobbing their heads, and the teenagers with fake IDs shedding glitter onto the dancefloor.

 

As she flails her arms in a sketchy approximation of the beat, she steals a surreptitious glance at her semi-willing dance partner. The moment they’d paid the cover and slipped inside, Jen had dragged Dessa’s stiff form into the middle of the throng, skipping the bar entirely. Now, Dessa stands stock-still (except for the occasional grudging foot-tap), hands jammed into the front pockets of her deliciously tight black jeans as she glowers out from beneath her hoodie at anyone who intrudes upon their personal space. Which is a lot of people.

 

Jen can’t help but be immensely charmed; Dessa is truly so cute like this, and it means a lot that she was willing to come along even though this isn’t her scene. Also, it’s nice being able to fantasize so vividly about slipping a hand into Dessa’s back pocket and giving her firm butt a little squeeze.

 

The current song’s outro smoothly slides into a slower, bassier hit, and Jen moves up in front of Dessa. She takes the opportunity to just breathe, then places her hands lightly and respectfully around Dessa’s shoulders. “We don’t have to stay, if you’re not having fun,” Jen says, raising her voice to be heard over the music. “I just wanted to get a taste, and I’ve had that now.” Although, if Dessa does want to leave, it will mean Jen has to go to bed.

 

But Dessa just holds her gaze, then shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. I like watching you…” Dessa trails off, and Jen’s heart lurches. All of a sudden, she feels the music’s dirty pulse everywhere, humming in her bones, her head, underneath her skin. Almost involuntarily, she slides her palms up Dessa’s back, pulling herself closer.

 

“Uh-!” Dessa’s eyes widen, but neither of them looks away yet. “Have fun. That is. I like seeing you have-” she clears her throat- “fun.” The lights are low, flashing, distracting. Enough that Dessa might not notice that Jen is in the process of licking Dessa’s chapstick off with her eyes.

 

“Dance with me?” Jen asks. Her voice is too quiet in the packed club, but she thinks Dessa understands. Slowly, she brings her arms up to hold Jen’s lower back. The sensation of Dessa’s smooth hands pressing into Jen’s tight top is more deafening than any sound, and she wishes desperately for Dessa’s solid grip to go just a bit lower.

 

Jen tries to sway them to the music, but the song has other ideas. In her effort to match the mood of the sound, Jen finds herself pressing right up to Dessa’s chest, warm even through the thick hoodie. The two of them are knee-bumpingly close, sweating in the oppressive mist of body heat. “Is this okay?” Jen murmurs. Dessa makes eye contact once more, nods. In response, Jen sucks in a breath, pauses, and then burns with a surprise rush of bravery. Ever-so-carefully, Jen moves her lower body close, then rolls her hips.

 

The look they share in that moment makes Jen feel like she’s about to explode. Dessa’s fingers clench tightly, digging into Jen’s flesh, making her gasp, before suddenly Dessa rips herself away. “I’m going to get a drink,” she blurts, loud enough to be audible. Her voice sounds deep and gritty. “Do you. Ahem. Want anything?”

 

Disappointed, cheeks flaming, Jen can only shake her head. What just happened?

Dessa nods. “I’ll be back soon.” Within seconds, her tight pants and beautiful ass have disappeared into the crowd.

 

The incident puts a serious damper on Jen’s mood. Things felt like they were going so well; Jen can’t help but think it was her fault for pushing too hard. Half-heartedly, she resumes moving to the beat, but her enthusiasm has officially dropped below head-bobbing punk level. For lack of anything better to look at, Jen takes in the space and the people around her more closely. The venue is obviously a former industrial space, rusty and sandy with boarded windows and high rafters. Now that Dessa isn’t with her as a buffer, the vibe is actually kind of scary. Not that Jen is afraid. She’s defenestrated hundreds of armed goons out of spaces just like this one, she can handle fifteen minutes alone at a dance party.

 

As soon as she finishes thinking that thought, Jen sees The Guy.

 

He’s dressed in fucking tac-gear, which is what first catches her attention. The crowd parts like in a movie, and she gets a perfect line of sight to his thick, waterproof trousers loaded down with utility pockets and about a dozen places to stash a weapon. A harness that’s just begging for an ammo belt wraps around his torso, the muscle-tank beneath it the only off-theme component of his outfit. Below his hard shell helmet is a full-face gas mask. And worst of all: its large, blank eyeholes are staring directly into Jen. He’s not dancing at all.

 

Shit. Shit Shit. This was all a setup, says some paranoid part of her brain. A setup for what, exactly, she can’t say. Without warning, Jen is right up on the verge of freaking the fuck out. Scratch that, she is freaking the fuck out. Her body just hasn’t caught up yet. Flashes of horrible things blink in and out of her mind’s eye. Serrated blades. Dead stares. Strange symbols burrowing into her skin, making her cry out. Buckets of shit. Ears ringing. Worms. She didn’t think she was this fragile. But Jen is already throwing herself through the crowd, heedless of the partygoers having to literally jump aside or get knocked to the floor.

 

Quickly, the whole environment starts reminding her of the dreams. The dancing mass seems to disappear before her eyes, being replaced with sinister blacksite soldiers and the inside of a torture cell. Without turning to look, she’s almost certain The Guy is coming after her. Coming at her from all sides. Anyone here could be- Jen stings all over with phantom pain from the dreams. If Jen doesn’t get the fuck out right now, she might never be able to leave. She has to find Dessa and get out of here, ASAP. Her heart is racing so fast she can’t take it. Dessa. Where is Dessa? Dessa-

 

A beautiful arc of whiskey refracts the club’s colorful lights as Jen runs headfirst into the very woman she’s looking for, knocking the two plastic cups she was holding out of her grasp. Dessa lets out a muffled ‘oof’ at the contact. The moment Jen sees that shock of white hair flowing out from underneath her hood, she starts grabbing desperately at Dessa, fingers tangling in her clothes.

“Oh my god. We have to leave. Now. Please.”

 

Before Dessa can utter a word, Jen is pulling her forward, liquid from the cups seeping into their clothes. “Jen,” Dessa says. “Jen, wait. Jen!” Feeling resistance, Jen stops, panic welling up inside her. “The exit is this way,” Dessa barks, and then starts leading Jen in the other direction, shielding the witch from the packed crowd. Just as they push out of the door into the comparatively bright moonlight, Jen gets once last glance inside, spotting The Guy immediately. He had been heading towards the bar.

 

 

 

It takes Jen a while to calm down: first, a few minutes spent shaking in Dessa’s arms outside of the entrance to Blue Bin, then another ten or fifteen quietly sobbing into Dessa’s hoodie as they begin the walk home. Whatever discomfort had caused Dessa to leave Jen on the dancefloor seems to have disappeared; now she holds Jen tightly against her side. At one point, Jen makes a token effort to pull away, but Dessa just tightens her grip.

 

Finally, after what feels like an hour of putting one foot in front of the other, Jen is able to take a deep breath without worrying that she’s a hair-trigger away from babbling incoherently. “Are you ready to tell me what’s wrong?” Dessa asks, giving Jen’s waist a reassuring squeeze. Her voice is softer than Jen has ever known it to be before.

 

Another breath. “I’ve been.” She starts, then has to fight back another well of tears. It’s not even that Jen is still sad or scared, just that there’s so much feeling inside of her that’s all trying to claw its way out of her through the seams. “I’ve been… scared to tell you. Worried I’ve been making a big deal about nothing. But…”

Seconds pass. The streetlights are sparse on this stretch of pavement, and Jen nestles as close as she can. “I’ve been having these, um, dreams, lately.”

Dessa stops in her tracks, spine going rigid. Jen jerks to a halt.

“What dreams.” Her tone is hard again, and Jen winces.

“Uh, that’s the thing. They’re kind of, hmm, um, how do I say this-”

“Jen. Please. What kind of dreams.”

“Shit. I think I’ve been dreaming about the blacksite.” A pause. “About your time in the blacksite.”

 

“God-damnit!” Dessa spits, causing Jen to recoil. She wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, but she wasn’t expecting this vitriol from Dessa either.

 

Seeing the reaction her words have elicited in Jen, Dessa draws a deep breath, carefully moving back into Jen’s space. Warily, Jen lets her. “Jen, honey,” (Honey??) “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at-”

Her jaw shuts with an audible clack. “Nevermind. it’s not important. Just-” a heavy sigh. “Please tell me, next time? Next time you have any problem, like or unlike this one. I… care. About you.”

 

Despite the circumstances, a warm fuzzy sensation envelops Jen’s chest. Dessa cares about her. Not only that, but she’s willing to say it out loud. That’s big.

 

As they turn the corner by their building, Jen stops them again. “You had a reaction, though. When I told you what the dream was. Why?” Minutes before, Dessa had brought Jen into another embrace, but here they separate to lean against the fence outside the building’s plaza. Side by side.

“Because, those used to be my dreams. They stopped a few weeks ago, and I’m guessing that’s when they started for you.”

 

A shiver runs down Jen’s back. Dessa’s eyes are intense on her, but that’s not the only reason. Their dreams… swapped?

 

“Geez. How does that happen?”

Dessa turns away, fishing in her pocket for a pack of cigarettes. She takes one out, but doesn’t light it, just lets it hang off her lips. “No idea.”

 

For a few moments, all the two of them do is lean back, letting the uncomfortable metal bars press into their shoulders as they look up at the moon. Jen sidles up to Dessa once more, leaning her head on her arm. Now that most of the adrenaline has faded, her brain is starting to let her contemplate Dessa’s lips again. Jen’s been trying to get Dessa to quit for most of a month, but damn if she isn’t sexy with something in her mouth.

 

“I do have an idea for something that might help, though,” Dessa finishes, pushing off the fence and holding out her hand, which Jen takes. “Come on, let’s go up.” Pushing open the unlocked door to the courtyard, Dessa gets her keys ready with the other hand, getting past the front entrance in short order. Waiting for their building’s ancient, rickety elevator gives them another opportunity to discuss. “Have you found anything odd in any of these dreams?” Dessa asks. “Something small. Out of place. Feels like it doesn’t quite belong?”

 

“Yeah, actually, a little felt heart. Only in some of the dreams, but it did seem like something Reactor wouldn’t leave in a cell on purpose.”

 

Dessa snaps her fingers, just as the elevator dings, groans, and begins its belabored opening process. “Exactly it. That heart was mine. When the nightmares started getting bad for me, I trained myself to bring it with me as a grounding object.” They get in the elevator, Jen hitting the button for the 6th floor.

“So you had it in real life first?”

“Yes. That’s part of the plan. I’ll give the real heart to you, and hopefully when you go to sleep tonight you’ll be able to concentrate on it to bring yourself back.”

“Makes sense,” Jen says, although truthfully she’s not sure it does. Dessa’s the one who has the emotional connection to this object, and intuitively it seems like that would be important.

 

Another thought occurs to her. “You said the nightmares got bad? When did they start?”

In response, Dessa laughs, a dry, humorless chuckle. “Soon after you broke me out. What they did to me in there- it was bad. As I’m sure you now have some idea of.”

“I do.” Jen huffs. “I still don’t agree with it, but now I really get why you shot Liv.”

 

“Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t caved and brought her back,” Dessa admits. “You’re the one who cares about doing the right thing. I just wanted these nightmares to go away.” The medic won’t quite meet Jen’s eyes as they walk towards their rooms. “And now they’re plaguing you instead. That’s hardly fair. I should have—I should have-”

 

Jen gives their clasped hands a quick squeeze. “I’m still glad you brought her back. You didn’t need any more weight on your shoulders.” Like Jirin Wexler. Jen still thinks about that, sometimes. She didn’t know, couldn’t have known, but either way it’s a man dead because of Jen, with the blame still unjustly saddled upon Dessa’s shoulders.

 

Dessa ducks into her apartment, and then pops back out a minute or two later, with a little red and blue lump resting in her palm. “Here.” Jen cradles it in both hands. The texture is just like she expected from the dreams, its colors even more vivid. “I figure you can just go to bed as usual, armed with this.” Shifting the token to one hand, Jen starts unlocking her own door.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just- be in the other room?” Dessa says, with a nearly undetectable quaver to her voice. “Read on the couch? I don’t think I’d be sleeping anyway.” She seems shy when Jen glances over, shifting from foot to foot.

Smiling to herself, Jen waves her in. “Make yourself at home.”

 

While Jen gets ready for bed, holding the heart in her off-hand all the while, Dessa settles herself on the couch, pulling out “The Non-Practicing Practitioner,” and digging in as if it were light reading. Jen likes this snapshot of Dessa relaxing on her shitty old couch far too much. For a second she can pretend that this is their shared space, and that they’re both taking a languid break to wind down before… bed.

 

By the end of her usual nightly process, Jen is yawning with every third step, tired enough to fall asleep on her feet despite the active threat of a nightmare. She walks out into the living room one last time, giving Dessa a sleepy smile. “All good in here?”

Dessa snaps her head up. “Yes. All good. Sweet dreams?”

“Very funny,” Jen drawls, crossing her arms, then laughs anyway despite herself. She lingers in the doorway just a little more, then takes a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”

 

 

[Intertitle:

WHEN I SAY THE MAGIC WORD,

YOU WILL FORGET ALL ABOUT

THE AUTHOR BEING TOO LAZY

TO WRITE THIS PART.

ABRACADABRA!]

 

 

“Well, that didn’t work.” The words are dry, but the voice behind them is notably shaky. Dessa looks up from her surprisingly riveting text—who knew the philosophy of metastable action-potent ritual constructs was so complex?—to find a nervous, red-eyed Jen, lids swollen from tears. Her heart does a pathetic little flop at the sight.

 

“Aw, sweetie,” Dessa says, kicking herself even as the words leave her mouth. Sweetie? They have one big emotional bonding sesh and Dessa’s already graduating to cliché pet names? Wait, had she already been calling Jen pet names and just hadn’t noticed until now? But Jen either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, instead flinging herself onto the couch, and, by proxy, Dessa’s lap. Never entirely sure of the best way to offer emotional support, Dessa simply holds her friend close.

 

“The heart was there,” Jen finally says. “But I couldn’t remember what it was for. I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t believe it could get me out of there, and so the dream just-” She breathes in through the nose. “-happened to me anyway.”

 

There goes Dessa’s last chance at avoiding a dangerous level of intimacy with her inappropriate girlcrush. It’s soaring out the window as they speak. “Well. There is one more thing we could try.” The reluctance in Dessa’s voice is audible enough to make herself cringe.

“Yeah? What? I’m willing, whatever it takes.” Damn. Dessa is screwed.

 

“To begin with, I think this dream mix-up started due to proximity.” She brings a hand down to Jen’s cheek, the other one nuzzled into her stomach. “We live right next to each other. Perhaps some opportunistic factor caused the nightmares to switch from me to an easier target, as if it were an illness.”

“Are you calling me easy?” Jen’s eyes are still a little red-rimmed, but her face has mostly dried off by now.

“Shush. Anyway, I was thinking-”

“Always a dangerous p-

“Shush. The adults are talking.” Dessa glares downwards at Jen’s brave grin. “I was thinking that, if we achieve even closer proximity, we might be able to join the same dream. With both of us there, I have no doubt we’d be able to shut it down.”

 

Jen is no longer smirking. In fact, she looks a little wide-eyed. “Are you saying…?”

 

“We’ll have to sleep together, yes.” A corner of Jen’s lip twitches. “No, not like that.” As much as Dessa would like for that to be the case, yes indeed. “What are you, twelve? Be serious.”

 

“I sure hope I’m not twelve, given that- actually, no, nope. Not finishing that joke.” Jen brings a hand up to cover her face. “Oh god, fuck, okay. Getting serious. I’ll have you know I’m officially on board for Operation Sleep Together.” She coughs. Dessa clears her throat. “Operation, uh, Share The Bed? Operation Cuddle Buddies? Come on, work with me here.”

 

“I don’t think we need a mission name, you silly goose,” Dessa says, regrettably. Silly—Holy shit. What alien sucked Dessa’s brain out of her skull with a straw and pumped hot pine sap in its place? “Er, right. Anyway. Are you still tired?”

 

In response, Jen yawns loudly. “Uh, yeah. Think so.”

Dessa yawns right back. “Well, let’s get on with it.”

 

The spatial negotiations take alarmingly little effort. All Dessa has to do to get into pajamas is take off her pants, which Jen courteously turns her back for, even though the room is already dark. Then Dessa is fitting her front to Jen’s back under the covers. They fit from head to toe, even the bends in their knees connecting like puzzle pieces. Jen clasps the felt heart to her sternum with both hands, and Dessa places one of hers over them as well. As they settle in, another small, warm weight makes itself known on top of Dessa’s feet. Darrell, probably feeling left out.

 

“Hey,” Jen says quietly into the shadows, “Before we try this for real. I was wondering: what’s your connection with the heart?”

Dessa lets herself enjoy the easy pace of Jen’s breathing as it slowly syncs up with her own. “To be a doctor, you have to pass a lot of tests, get a lot of pieces of paper. I received this from an ex, on the day of my first medical board certification.” Dessa takes a quick breath. “An, ah, ex-girlfriend. Just my girlfriend at the time, of course.”

The silence in Jen’s bedroom is briefly crushing, but only a short wait later, Jen mutters, “s’ nice.”

 

“You’re not surprised? About the…?”

Jen breathes a laugh. “Nope. ‘m not surprised.” She tilts her head back, bumping it lightly into Dessa’s chin. “Go to sleep, ladykiller.” No pun intended. “We’ve got a dream to crash.”

 

 

[Intertitle:

INSIDE

DESSA’S

BRAIN.

AGAIN]

 

 

Some time passes before Dessa realizes that there’s been a shift. Eyes shut tight, it still feels like they’re curled up in Jen’s bed. Except, somehow, they’ve swapped places. Dessa is now the little spoon. This isn’t enough to rouse Dessa’s suspicions, not until she feels a hand slip underneath her shirt, rubbing up and down. Edging closer to the waistband of her underwear with each stroke. Even this wouldn’t be enough to finally drag Dessa into alertness, if she wasn’t able to recognize by touch that it is not Jen’s hand.

 

Dessa’s eyes snap open. Quick as a flash, she’s rolling over, pinched eyebrows locked and loaded, pinning down who else but… “Hello, Dessa.” She attempts to cram as much disdain as possible into her voice.

“To you as well, Dessa,” says dream-Dessa, voice a warm and seductive counterpoint to her own icy irritation.

“Do we do this regularly, Hm? Fondle innocent young women while they’re half-asleep?”

“Yes, if that’s what Jen wants. It seems you’ve simply been caught in the crossfire.” Dream-Dessa shifts uncomfortably under her, although her lazy, confident expression never wavers. “Would you mind letting go of my wrist? Your grip is quite strong.”

A little flick of tongue pokes out of dream-Dessa’s mouth when she says it, causing real-Dessa to narrow her eyes suspiciously. “Stop flirting with me.”

 

Dream-Dessa just laughs. “I can’t do that, darling. I am literally a wet dream.”

Inadvisably, Dessa considers the real-world implications of that. Jen, cradled in her arms, squirming with unconscious arousal as they both slumber away. Grabbing one of Dessa’s hands in her sleep, maybe. Dragging it down her stomach…

Wait. Jen. She’s not here. “Fuck,” Dessa mutters to herself. “It didn’t work.”

 

But what can she do? The only idea she has is to get her dream token and hope. The heart—where is it?

 

“Ah,” dream-Dessa pipes up. “Looking for this?” She uncurls one of her hands, revealing the soft felt object nestled snugly into the webbing between her fingers. “You can have it, provided you unhand me first.”

“God. You’re nothing like me,” Dessa snaps (without really knowing why this is so important for her to say), then lets go of a wrist to snatch up the heart, lunging to the foot of the bed as soon as she has it. Idly, she notices that there’s no dream-Darrell here to disturb.

 

Holding the object gently to her chest, Dessa is somewhat clueless as to what comes next. She hadn’t gotten to the dream magic section of ‘Non-Practicing’ yet. For lack of a better plan, she closes her eyes, tuning out dream-Dessa’s salacious babble, and visualizing what she knows about the other dream. The images come too easily: cracked, beige stone, steel bars, a spartan cell. Dozens of threateningly dressed guards. The quiet-yet-stifling background chatter of the blacksite: the mechanical whir of turrets, digital chirps and beeps, radio crackles. A smattering of unidenifiable high-pitched whines. Booted footsteps on the stone.

 

She imagines a lonely, confused Jen, sitting on the unfurnished bedframe, wishing for Dessa. Needing Dessa. ‘Is that you?’ ‘Are you there?’ ‘Dessa?’ “Dessa?”

 

Wait, that voice was actually there. Her eyes fly open. “Jen.” It worked. There they are, sat side by side on a bed, in the place where Dessa spent days suffering, and even more nights replaying and permuting that very suffering in her mind. Until she made an exit from it herself.

 

Jen flings her arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re here. When you didn’t show up at first, I was so worried---the plan, everything, it was slipping away from me.”

For a while, they just hug it out. Thankfully, no guards have come by to check on them yet. But finally, reluctantly, they both pull away. “Okay, so, uh, what now?” Jen asks, a slight furrow in her brow. In response, Dessa holds up the heart.

 

“Usually, I would just hold this, focus on it until the dream slipped away into something else. But given that the heart didn’t pull us together initially, I don’t trust that it would do so now.” She closes her eyes again, humming briefly under her breath. “So we’ll be making our escape the old fashioned way.” Dessa concentrates as hard as she can, closing her other hand into a fist just as she feels a weight slide into existence under it.

 

She’s holding her medbag. Jen gasps. “Woah. That was cool. Like a,” she scratches her chin. “a magic trick?”

Dessa chuckles. “It was a magic trick. Just wait.” Rummaging in the bag, Dessa grabs Jen’s wand and tosses it to her, palming the eldritch key next and then waiting a few moments. “Okay. Ready?”

 

“Ready.”

 

Dessa waves the key at the opposing wall outside the cell door, the corners of her mouth twitching as she sees the familiar green nothing burst into death-life, devouring the sandy brick that used to be there.

“Let’s hit it.” She waves her hand again, and the two of them fall into darkness.

 

The moment the two wizards stumble out the door, hand in hand, they book it as fast as possible. Alarms start blaring, soldiers in body armor and heavies in riot gear popping out from behind every door and box and corner. The facility is like a maze, more so even than in real life, the dream world throwing in whole extra wings and floors to the madness. But despite all that, their escape feels like flying. Jen moves so fast once she’s free, buoyed on friendly winds. No one can touch her, getting blasted into the wall hard enough to crush a car if they even try. Not even bullets. Nothing, except Dessa.

 

Honestly, Jen has it pretty well in hand—all Dessa needs to do is watch her back and help with navigation. Once, they get backed into a corner, but Dessa handles that with Gary as a distraction, and then another Death’s Door.

 

And then, before they even know it, they’re out. In the dream, the desert sun is bright above the horizon, shimmering in the heat like a mirage. Dessa could have sworn, looking through the boarded-up windows inside, that it was night out. But it’s day now. Jen takes a few tentative steps, then turns, smiles. When Dessa glances over her shoulder, the facility is gone. In its place, just red and white rolling dunes.

 

It happens smoothly and without thought. One moment Jen is looping her arms loosely around the back of Dessa’s neck, and the next Dessa is leaning down to slide her lips sweetly along the witch’s own. The friction is light, moist. Dessa moves her mouth just to test how Jen’s top lip feels nestled between the both of hers. Like a magnet, her body pulls forward, their fronts pressed flush against each other. Jen tilts her head up to maintain the contact of their slightly parted mouths. Around them, even the desert begins to fade: first to orange, then to grey, then to nothing at all.

 

 

[Intertitle:

LET’S CALL THIS

NEXT PART THE

‘DENOUEMENT’]

 

 

Dessa and Jen more or less wake up kissing, and it’s immediately so much dirtier. Something about the inherent tactile grit of real life.

 

To be fully accurate, approximately two seconds pass between the pair waking up and the pair beginning to suck face. Which is, incidentally, the amount of time is takes for Jen to roll over in Dessa’s arms and mash their mouths together.

 

Briefly, their kisses are almost at cross-purposes with each other, Dessa trying to get her teeth around Jen’s bottom lip, with an idea to feel how the soft flesh shifts between them as she slowly pulls off, and Jen trying insistently to get her tongue down Dessa’s throat. Very insistently trying this. Dessa groans, at first in displeasure, and then very much in pleasure, as their tongues slide over each other inside Dessa’s mouth and she suddenly realizes this was the correct idea all along. Jen brings her hands up to Dessa’s jaw, gently adjusting the angle of their kiss before firmly locking it in place. The heart she had been holding is now all but forgotten somewhere in the sheets.

 

Eventually Dessa realizes that they need to breathe—or at least, she does; if Jen asphyxiated, it would be a fixable problem—and reluctantly pulls away. Once there’s enough distance between their faces for Dessa’s eyes to focus, they snap to Jen’s lips. They’re swollen red, and smeared all over with saliva. God, how had they not done this before?

“God, how have we not done this before?”

“Honestly?” Jen starts, sounding distinctly winded. “I kinda thought you didn’t like me.”

What? How is that possible? Dessa’s only response is to goggle at Jen’s words.

 

“Or, like, we had a whole frenemies thing going on? Like you liked me enough to incorporate with me, but found me too annoying to snog? The forging a passport thing could have been something you’d do for anybody—Okay, nevermind, I hear it. I get it now.” The witch looks appropriately chagrined, but Dessa finds she enjoys Jen’s ‘thoroughly kissed’ look much better. She leans in once more to rectify the situation.

 

Dessa’s fingers are in the process of walking from Jen’s shoulder blades down to her lower back when a loud screech interrupts them. More like a ‘mrrrowl,’ actually. Panting, they turn and look down towards the foot of the bed, where an extremely irate Darrell is committing a double homicide with his stare. Dessa has never seen an animal look so scandalized. If she didn’t know better, it almost feels like the cat is telling her, ‘I expected better from you’ when they lock eyes. She feels intensely judged.

 

“Okay, that’s it, mister!” Jen says. “Shoo! Get out of here!” Despite her firm tone, Jen makes no actual move to shoo Darrell from the room, so Dessa assumes that responsibility falls to her. The moment she gets one hand within paw’s reach, however, Darrell bats it away, hisses, and jumps to the floor to walk primly out of the room. “He’s such a jerk,” Jen mutters as Dessa returns to the bed, having closed the door behind him. “Seriously, come on, little dude. Let mama get some!” A second after the words leave her mouth, Jen freezes and blushes in a rapid one-two. “Uh. Please forget I said any of that.”

 

“I absolutely will not.” Dessa smirks. “Get some what, exactly? I’m interested to hear more.”

Jen, unimpressed, gives Dessa a look.

 

Then, somehow, it transforms into something different: a Look, a Gaze. One might even call it a Smolder. Dessa stops smiling. Fuck her, this is actually happening. Fuck. Jen likes her likes her. Dessa is about to go to bed with—in the euphemistic sense, not just the literal—the very woman she’s been crushing on for months, at varying levels of stubborn denial.

 

The witch slides her palms up Dessa’s arms, slowly, raising hairs in their wake. Then, just as slowly, she traces them down Dessa’s back, dragging the hem of her shirt up to press into bare skin. At her jolt and hitched breath, Jen leans forward, brushing her lips over Dessa’s ear. “Dessa,” Jen whispers, breathy, moving her fingers back and forth, right above her ass. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you. How bad I’ve needed you.” Her tongue flicks out to loop around inside the shell of Dessa’s ear. For a brief, very intense moment, Dessa wishes that instead of necromancy, her craft was making clothes disappear. But then Jen’s words catch up to her, and she stills.

 

“Jen.”

 

When that doesn’t get a response, Dessa clears her throat, raises her voice, tries again. “Jen. Um. About that ‘not knowing’ thing.”

 

The air feels tense as Jen draws back, but she keeps her hands on Dessa’s skin, under Dessa’s sweatshirt. Palms splayed. The touch is both grounding and extremely distracting. “Uh oh. That tone of voice doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong? Talk to me?”

 

“Uh. Shit, this is hard. Okay. You know how, when you told me about the dreams, I reacted… big?”

Jen’s brows furrow slightly, but other than that, she looks sweet, open. “Yeah.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t mad at you. I was mad at me.” Dessa holds up a hand to head off whatever Jen was about to say. “I was mad at myself, because I should have known. Because while you were having my dreams, I was having—I was having yours.”

 

At this, Jen does draw back her hands, folding them carefully in her lap. Her brow creases a little more, and is Dessa just imagining that hint of hurt in her expression? “I told myself that bringing it up would just cause us both embarrassment, but really I think I was afraid of how you might react if I told you. What it might put between us. But that was wrong of me, and I knew it. I should have—I should have just-”

 

“Dessa,” Jen says softly. “What were these dreams about?”

 

Dessa tries to shove her hands in her pockets, before remembering that she doesn’t have pockets right now. Instead she opts to clench them into fists on top of her thighs. “They were all sex dreams. About me.”

 

“Oh,” Jen says. Just ‘Oh.’ That’s worse than a bad reaction, in Dessa’s book, because now she has no idea where she stands. With nothing else to do, she barrels forward, outlining the whole story from the first long conversation she had with dream-Dessa, through to her most recent appearance. Still, as the coward she truly is deep down, Dessa shies away from specifics, and particularly specifics about what she’s done in real life as a result of the dreams. The harness currently sitting in the bottom drawer of her dresser comes to mind. Instead, she paints a broad picture of her weird, sexy counterpart, and her own morally questionable arc of resolving never to bring any of this up with Jen.

 

Eventually, Dessa finishes her explanation, and then it's just them breathing, sitting face to face on her mattress. Inside, she's anxious, filled with restless energy, but she forces herself to wait patiently for Jen's reaction. She really hopes Jen won’t think she’s weird, or hate her forever. Dessa feels like the unpopular middle school goth all over again.

 

Finally, Jen speaks up, letting the words out like a sigh. “Okay, then,” she says. “Okay. That’s… a lot.”

 

“I know.” Dessa casts her gaze downwards into her own lap, like a dog getting told off.

 

“So you knew I was into you this whole time and didn’t hit me up?”

“It was wrong, I kn—say what?”

When Dessa looks back up, Jen is staring at her like Darrell: I expected better from you. “You could have been fucking me through the mattress for two weeks, and you decided to keep this to yourself?”

Dessa was completely unprepared for the direction this conversation is going. “Uh!” Very articulate, Dessa. Thank you, Dessa.

“You really think you know what I want from you? A handful of dreams, and you know what I want?”

Jen’s stare has turned fiery, challenging. “Um, well, when you put it like that-”

“Then prove it,” Jen says, leaning back onto the pillows. From this angle, Dessa can see intimately the thick muscle of Jen’s abs, the generous shape of her breasts stretching the thin material of her cotton T-shirt. The nipples on said breasts are also making their presence definitively known. “Tell me what I want.”

 

Dessa feels herself pulled forward towards her, like gravity. They lock eyes, and her skin buzzes with taut anticipation. Despite the hard expression she’s trying to put on, Jen looks so trusting, breath puffing through her gently parted lips, eyes wide and open and sparkling. Dessa’s mouth waters just imagining getting to touch her tanned skin everywhere.

 

“I think you want me—” Dessa starts, and stops; her voice feels almost too gravelly to speak. “you want me to—” Fuck, why is this so hard? Dessa tries not to clear her throat as she reaches out and starts feeling the shape of Jen’s curves with her hands. The moment they make contact, she feels feral. She feels like she can feel all the blood in her body rushing to her crotch, even though that is physically impossible.

 

“Yeah, Des?” She can hear the impatience in Jen’s voice. “Use your words, tiger.”

Fuck. “I think you want me to eat-” compelled into motion before she even finishes her sentence, Dessa lunges forward, tugs Jen's lower lip between her teeth, sliding her tongue along the captive skin— “you-” clamps down around an earlobe and pulls, wringing a sharp squeal out of her lovely witch— “alive.” And here, she punctuates the statement, sealing her lips against the skin beneath Jen's ear and sucking, hard. At this, Jen releases a strangled whine, escalating in volume when Dessa's mouth remains firmly attached to her neck. Her thighs tense under Dessa, arms coming up to scrabble helplessly at Dessa's back. “Holy shit, Dessa, oh my f-fffucking god-”

 

Finally, Dessa lets her go, pulling back to stare at the quickly darkening skin. The faint imprint of Dessa's incisors lingers there. Jen's hands remain clutched around Dessa's back, her shoulders, and she's panting a little.

 

“Sensitive?” Dessa asks, with rhetorical smugness.

“You have no- hmngh!!” This last bitten-back noise is the result of Dessa coming down to nip again at that tender bruise. Who knew bursting blood vessels could be so much damn fun?

Her sudden sense of victory is short-lived, as in short order Jen manages to yank Dessa off balance. “Get back down here, you toothy monster.”

In this situation, Dessa can certainly do as told. She gets back down there.

 

Now that Dessa has started biting Jen, it feels like she can’t stop. She sucks bruise after bruise into Jen’s neck, jaw, shoulder, the hollow of Jen’s throat—that place makes her feet kick. She bites into Jen’s lips after they kiss, open-mouthed and sloppy. At some point they get each other back up to a sitting position, Jen high up on Dessa's thigh, their hips close. Jen is trying to pull Dessa’s sweatshirt off, but Dessa has other ideas, trailing her hands down to Jen’s ass, grabbing ahold of each cheek through the soft flannel of her PJs. Dessa kneads her fingers, feeling the cheerful give of Jen’s warm fat and muscle, and Jen pauses her futile attempts to tug at Dessa’s sweater to instead buck forward into Dessa’s thigh.

 

This is the point at which Dessa notices a few possibly correlated oddities: one, Jen’s ass is moving quite freely under her grasp, and two, there is a distinct wet spot all around the seam of her pajama bottoms. Dessa can feel the second even through the additional layer of her own—

“Underwear?” Dessa asks tersely. “None??”

 

Jen blushes, her hips twitching forward again. She bites her lip, probably to make up for the fact that Dessa is currently using her own mouth to gape in horny awe. “A girl can hope, can’t she? And, I mean, it seems...” Jen then trails off, rocking herself back and forth on Dessa’s leg. Her mouth opens into an ‘o’ shape. “God, how much do you work out?”

 

“Enough,” Dessa breathes. Then, “I need you in the nude approximately five minutes ago.”

 

“Okay, Ms. bossy,” Jen says, but helps Dessa peel her top off. When she goes for Jen’s waistband, though, the witch interrupts. “Ah-ah. You too. Sweater, off, now.” Before Jen is even done making the request, Dessa is pulling the whole ensemble off with one hand, chucking it into the corner of the room, a.k.a. oblivion.

 

“Wow,” Jen says, instantly fixated on Dessa’s not-all-too-impressive breasts, and that is all the warning she gets before Jen is clasping the skin at Dessa’s waist and sucking one of her nipples into her mouth. Jen is so much softer than Dessa—in so many ways, but particularly in this one: no biting, no teeth. Just moist lips, the wet glide of tongue, and the soft pressure of suction. Usually Dessa isn’t very sensitive here, but with Jen’s mouth—it’s making her toes tingle. She tries to fight back the most shameful sound her vocal chords have ever produced, fails, and then whimpers out loud at around 70 decibels. Jen responds with an answering whine directly into her tit, which causes an odd ripple of sensation through her body.

 

After this brief interlude on Dessa’s boobs, Jen’s focus shifts once again, this time lower. She runs her fingers along the waistband of Dessa’s now fully uncovered boxers, allowing one or two fingernails to dip beneath. The way this is going, Dessa is going to have to bring up a few very important boundaries very soon, but she doesn’t want to put on the brakes just yet.

 

“I was really surprised to see these,” Jen says, looking up coyly into Dessa’s eyes.

“I know,” Dessa replies, trying to keep her breathing under control. Every time she saw the other Dessa’s underwear, it had been some frilly, lacy bullshit. “Although you really shouldn’t have been.”

Jen frowns. Oops, that was a little mean. No choice but to commit. “wouldn’t you expect the most no-nonsense-”

“some nonsense-”

“no-nonsense, devastatingly competent-”

“keep going-”

“innately sexy woman you know-”

“true, but I will point out that there isn't much competition-”

“to wear something both efficient and practical?”

Jen’s adorable thinking face comes on, doing really unhelpful things to Dessa’s blood pressure. “Uh, I guess not?”

 

Dessa scoffs. “Please. Consider the utility. Imagine what I could fit inside these, for instance.” Way to soft-launch an idea, Dessa.

But Jen sucks in a breath. “Ooh, I’m imagining it, yeah.” Bending down, she traces another few lines along the band, and then fully presses her face into Dessa’s underwear, inhaling loudly and clutching her hips, hard. Okay, the enthusiasm is certainly turning Dessa on, but that’s quite enough of that particular line of inquiry.

 

Dessa drags Jen back up her body. “Naughty girl,” she says, letting the words sink in. Then: “take your pants off, or-” Dessa pauses to think for a second about what the possible consequences could be. “Or I’m going to find a knife and do it for you.” Oops. That was probably too intense? But Jen just nods hurriedly, shifting around on the mattress until she’s finally able to divest her final article of clothing.

 

And, oh. She was not ready for the sight of Jen wearing nothing at all. She looks—

She looks like a statue whose sculptor had to take breaks every thirty minutes to masturbate. She looks like every celebrity crush Dessa has never admitted to having. Every centimeter of her body looks so fucking grabbable that Dessa can’t take it; she wants to stuff Jen into her mouth like a slice of cake. To top it off, no pun intended, the full, untamed bush between her thighs makes Dessa drool like a hound. Perhaps literally drool—her face has gone numb, so she wouldn’t be able to tell. A surgeon’s salary says Jen smells heart-stoppingly erotic down there.

 

“Uh, Des?” Jen says, softly, shyly.

“Hmm?” Dessa can’t stop following Jen’s curves with her eyes.

 

“Do you, um. Like what you see?”

 

“Do I like-” Dessa repeats, dumbly. “Do I—fucking hell, Jen. God. On me, right now. Fuck.”

She doesn’t wait for a response, pulling Jen towards her, turning her around so that her bare ass is planted firmly in Dessa’s lap. Jen’s legs are parted to either side of Dessa’s close-together ones.

“Baby-!” Jen has time to exclaim, before any subsequent attempts at verbal communication are cut off by Dessa sinking her teeth into the scruff of Jen’s neck. Like they are both cats, and Dessa is trying to get Jen to stay still to be fucked. Jen grunts, tries to squeeze her thighs together, and then moans, actually moans, when she is unable to.

 

For the finishing touch (in a strictly idiomatic sense—Dessa is nowhere near finished), she takes Jen’s hands and wraps them around the headboard, indicating in no uncertain terms that she is to keep them there. Jen nods her assent so forcefully that Dessa anticipates her getting a neck-ache tomorrow. Provided all of the neck biting wasn’t enough for that already.

 

Cooperation assured, Dessa molds herself to Jen's back, wrapping one possessive arm around her while letting the other one roam Jen’s body like it’s possessed by the horny sculptor from five similes ago. She has half a mind to make Jen go crazy, testing and teasing her, tugging on her nipples until Jen begs Dessa to finally touch her clit, while the other half thinks she should rub Jen off immediately and then not stop until Jen starts crying. While she attempts to resolve this internal impasse via logic and reason, her fingers go on their own adventure, pinching every bit of skin they can find, scraping their nails across the smooth flesh. Each touch wrings a little quiver or gasp out of Dessa’s captured witch.

 

“I could do basically anything to you, couldn't I?” Dessa muses. “and you'd like it.” She's half talking to herself, so horny there's practically no filter between her brain and her mouth. Regardless, Jen responds with a gasp and a choked, “yes-!” The need in her voice is so desperate that Dessa, despite herself, starts trying uselessly to rub up against the body in her lap, even though the angle isn’t right.

 

Eventually realizing that she will not be able to make a decision on her own, Dessa leans forward, nipping at Jen’s earlobe once again. “How do you want it?” she rasps, rubbing one of her hands gently but firmly along Jen's throat, feeling her heartbeat and the embarrassing little sounds she's trying so hard to keep contained. “Nice and slow...?” she drags a deliberate fingernail down Jen's body, over the peak of one breast (eliciting a quick shudder) and skating by her navel.

 

“Or fast and mean?” she finishes, dragging her fingers through thick hair and cupping Jen right between her thighs. Ohhh, fuck. The squelch her fingers make when then press into Jen is easily audible. Dessa is three seconds away from not waiting for an answer.

“Fast and mean! Please,” Jen pants, hips squirming against Dessa's hand, already greedy for more stimulation. “If you go slowly I think I'll literally die.”

“I’d be able to work with that,” Dessa says, letting out an amused huff at the displeased hiss of 'Dessa!' that her words earn. “But as you wish. Inside?” Dessa thinks she knows what Jen will say already, but it is polite to ask.

“Fuck. Yes, Dessa, inside.” So Dessa pushes two fingers inside.

 

Former profession notwithstanding, Dessa has always believed that this is the best way to have your hand touch the interior of another human being. Jen is so hot here; Dessa can feel almost all of her 37 internal degrees. And Jen’s body squeezes around her like it wants to keep her there forever. Sliding her fingertips against Jen’s walls, Dessa uses the heel of her hand to push against Jen’s clit. The witch shivers, sighs.

 

This whole experience has Dessa feeling crazy. She presses her face to the back of Jen’s head and snuffles, sucking in the smells of soap, skin, and unscented shampoo, soft strands of hair brushing the tip of her nose. Bringing her hand down from Jen’s throat, she starts tracing tight circles on her stomach, little lines up and down her side. As she feels Jen’s abdomen flex beneath her fingertip, Dessa takes a moment to wonder why they call shampoos ‘unscented’ when they obviously still have a recognizable scent. Would ‘soap-scented’ really be so repulsive to advertisers? What about, ‘no added scents’? Anyway—the point is, Dessa’s sure Jen would smell delicious, even with bare, unwashed curls. In fact, the worst, horniest part of Dessa’s brain is desperate to know what Jen’s body smells like after a few days with no shower.

 

Dessa notices that Jen’s movements have become small and arrhythmic, her abs tensing uncontrollably. Little puffs of breath roll past her lips. Is she- is she… laughing? Jen removes one of her hands from its diligently maintained place on the wall, trying to stifle the outburst with the back of her hand. “Des-AH! Dessahaha, stopp- my tummy is super super ticklish!” She continues giggling. Dessa, slightly miffed, brings both of her hands to rest. “S-sorry. Hah. I wasn’t able to concentrate.” She turns in Dessa’s hold, gives her a quick peck on the jaw. “I should have warned you.” Jen gives her a wry smile. “But you can keep going now.”

 

Dessa leans down and growls against Jen’s neck, clutching against Jen’s hip possessively with the hand not currently soaking in pussy. “Oh, I can, can I?”

“Uh, yes? Did I say something wr- eep!”

 

This squeak is because Dessa has now freed her other hand, with an accompanying obscene wet sound. But it could equally be for what she does next: with an arm around Jen’s midriff, Dessa tackles her backwards onto the crumpled sheets, using the element of surprise to get over her on all fours before Jen can react. One of her knees slots between Jen’s legs, which the witch instinctively tries to clamp together, gasping at the smack of skin that sounds instead.

 

A second later, Dessa pulls Jen all the way to her, forcing her core against her muscled thigh. The storm witch barks out one final laugh (mostly out of shock, no pun intended) and then groans, rolling her hips and trying to press even closer.

 

Dessa guides Jen with her hands, helping her rut against her. The medic feels magnificent, basking in the debauched sounds her delightful witch is making, as well as the miasmatic aura of sex and exertion. Jen glows in the lamplight, soft shadows shifting over her face, her breasts. The warm glow traces the flutter of her eyelashes and the wet, shiny part of her lips. Frankly, she looks magical. Pun intended. She keeps helping Jen hump her leg like an animal, leaning into it, positioning a thumb so that Jen’s clit rubs against it when she bucks forward. Every time either one of them makes a sound, it just comes out as either a sharp gasp or a guttural moan.

 

“Dessa, look,” Jen whispers, eyes fixed on the place where their bodies connect. Around that spot, Dessa’s skin glistens, the soft, clear hair on her leg slicked down with moisture. Jen herself looks sticky too, in the creases at the tops of her thighs, and in her dense curls, damp and filmy with fluid. They both stare, feeling the smooth, wet motion, and then Jen pulls Dessa into a crushing embrace, barely any room left between their bodies anywhere. She gasps in Dessa’s ear, the heels of her feet pushing dents into the mattress, movements suddenly sharp and jerky. “Fuck,” she chokes out, short fingernails digging painfully into Dessa’s back, and then after a few more moments she relaxes.

 

Dessa responds with an answering cuss—fuck, indeed—doubting her ability to form anything more coherent. She lets herself stretch out, release the tension in her limbs, tilting her mouth down to nibble idly at the end of Jen’s collarbone. Idle minutes pass, the two of them embracing in the horribly messy nest of blankets formed by their activities. Dessa is the most content she’s been in a long while, longer than she can hardly remember. Just this. Getting to touch Jen, getting to be around her in every way. This is what Dessa is sticking around for.

 

At some point, Jen starts massaging her hands down Dessa’s body, her intent clear despite the obvious languor of her limbs. But Dessa just gently bats her fingers away once they reach her rear. When Jen responds with a whine, Dessa nips quickly at Jen’s throat, and then vocalizes a ‘grrr’, which is apparently enough for her to get the message. They’ll talk about it tomorrow, she’s sure.

 

After a long while of cuddling, contented sighs, and soft, even breathing, Jen falls asleep, and Dessa follows suit soon after. For once, neither of them have anything to dream about.

 

Notes:

Can you believe that when I started writing, I thought this was going to be at most 4k words and contain no sex?

Please leave a comment if you agree with my vision for sexy butch dogwoman Dessa, or if you are wrong. Either way.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has been leaving comments! Know that every time I get a new one it makes my day.