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Joan is as methodical about them as she is about anything.
The day after Sam first kisses her — slow and warm and soft, until Sam can feel sparks on every inch of her skin — Joan emails her the names and phone numbers of a half a dozen other therapists in the city.
“I know you haven’t been my patient for a while, but I want to be sure you know that you can work with someone else if you’d like,” Joan writes, “especially if we’re going to keep doing this.”
There’s a line break and Sam imagines she can feel Joan’s hesitation and exhilaration in it before the next sentence. “I would like to keep doing this.”
It’s signed, “Yours truly,” and Sam can’t stop grinning at the words. It's not exactly effusive, but it's more than enough to give her butterflies.
The day after they first fool around — Sam pulling Joan down on top of her on Joan’s too-small couch, rucking up Joan’s pencil skirt until she can press her thigh between Joan’s legs and hear her gasp sharply at the friction — Joan drags her to a local clinic so they can both get tested for a bunch of STIs that Sam hasn’t even heard of since high school health class.
“You know I’ve never been with anyone before, right?” Sam says in the parking lot.
Joan takes her hand. “It’s always better to be safe, Sam,” she replies, and Sam can’t exactly argue.
Their results come back negative for everything — the only possibility Sam had been prepared for given her lack of experience and Joan’s absolute insistence on such precautions.
Joan’s systemic about sex, too, when they finally get to it. The first time Sam gets into Joan’s bedroom, she’s flushed and frantic with how much desire she can feel under her skin. She doesn’t even know how to articulate exactly what she wants; she wants everything. Anything Joan will let her have.
She catches Joan by the shoulders and pulls her into a desperate kiss. Joan matches her pace for just a moment before pulling back. She gently pushes Sam until she backs into the edge of the mattress.
“Why the rush?” Joan asks, then presses a trail of soft kisses across Sam’s cheek. She slides one of her hands under the hem of Sam’s shirt and traces a small circle on her back. The warmth of her touch makes Sam shiver. “We have all night.”
They don’t take all night, but they do fuck slowly and carefully. Sam is hyperaware that Joan is specifically taking her time to make it as good for Sam as she can.
That’s how it is between them. And it is good. It’s not even that it’s good until it’s not, or anything like that — it’s great, actually, it’s excellent, and it doesn’t ever stop being excellent. It’s just that sometimes Sam wants something….different.
“Different how?” Joan asks when Sam finally mentions it. She's just come from work, and they're standing in the cramped kitchen of Sam's apartment.
“I don’t know,” Sam says, picking at her nails. “More...adventurous?”
“Sam,” Joan laughs, and Sam knows what she’s going to say next before she says it. “You travel through time. How is that never enough adventure for you?”
“It’s not like I’m having sex in the fifteenth century,” Sam bristles. She expects Joan to laugh again, but instead she just quirks her eyebrows.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” she says. “So, you want to try what? Bondage?”
That’s basically the opposite of what Sam was expecting to hear; she promptly swallows her entire tongue. Joan does laugh now, cups Sam’s face with both of her hands and presses a kiss to her cheek.
“God, you’re so lovely when you blush like that,” she says, and if it were possible for Sam to go even redder she would.
“You only said that to see how I’d react,” Sam accuses.
Joan hmms an admission as Sam turns her head and catches Joan’s lips in a real kiss.
Joan indulges her briefly before pulling away again. She brushes one of her thumbs across Sam’s cheek, and looks at her consideringly. Sam thinks, for just a moment, that she’s going to suggest something more seriously, but Joan just tilts her head to the side and says, “Well, when you figure out what you want, let me know. I’m not going anywhere.”