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"You’re preoccupied,” Reed observes, quiet next to her.
Stella sighs, rolls to face her on the bed. “I’ve just been worried about the investigation. That they’ll remove me as SIO. It’s so late in the game to be making a mess of things now.”
“They won’t,” Reed says. “It’s just for show. Because of the shooting.”
A foot of space and all their clothes still between them, Stella tries to focus on the woman in front of her, on the bed with her.
An unexpected turn of events.
Ten minutes ago: a knock at the door. Stella, melancholy and not prepared to deal with either Burns or Anderson, steels herself for war. Opens.
The sight of Reed is like a welcome, refreshing cascade of water.
“I wasn’t sure if I should come,” she’d said, draping her leather coat across one arm, adjusting the sleeves.
Stella smiled in return, motioned her in. After the door was shut, she moved to the decanter of whisky that she had slowly been draining over the last weeks. “Drink?”
“Thanks.”
She carried her glass nearer to the bed after pouring two and handing one off, before drinking. Smooth and fiery, the first sip warmed her throat, loosened her shoulders. She watched Reed swirl the alcohol around in her mouth, cringing ever so slightly at the bitter taste before swallowing. It made her smile, the innocent inexperience in it.
She was still wearing the same clothes she’d worn all day, but without her heels, Reed stood a few centimetres taller.
They stood quietly, observing each other for several long moments, when Reed seemed to finally find her nerve and break the silence. “Stella, it isn’t too late for us?”
Her heart lurched over a breath and she blurted, “Oh, God, no,” stunned by the overture. She hadn’t expected it - she’d tried to respect Reed’s earlier rejection and continue as before.
It wasn’t, though, and it isn’t, and by mutual agreement they’d ended up on the bed, where the comforter softly cradled their spines, both tired from long days of work. A practical decision, really.
“How are you?” Stella asks, changing the topic from the mess of her own professional life.
Reed laughs. “Okay. Tired, mostly. I’ve been… just working a lot too. Girls are with my mum… I was supposed to pick them up, but it was so late that she put them to bed at hers.”
Stella smiles. “So you came here.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking.”
Stella reaches out, softly runs her knuckles along her cheekbone. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Reed’s smile falters, but she rubs against Stella’s fingers like a kitten. “Rose. My kids. Work. My mother, she tried….” she rolls her eyes, pauses in apparently frustration. “She tried to set me up on a date.”
Stella’s hand falters for a moment, and she’s sure Reed can feel it. As neutrally as she can, she asks, “Tried?”
“Yeah. Didn’t go very well.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s okay,” Reed says, and inches to close the gap between them. Stella slips her other arm under her waist, around her back.
Forehead against forehead, Stella smiles. “I’m sorry that it didn’t work out the way you wanted.”
Reed shakes her head, not breaking contact. “I don’t think it is what I want. Not now.” Her words, her exhales are very close to Stella’s face.
Gently, Stella slips her hand under the hem of Reed’s shirt, to rub the skin beneath her fingers, on the small of her back.
“I just never seriously thought about…. about being with a woman,” she continues.
“I understand,” Stella says, and she does.
“Guess I needed some time to… adjust, maybe, I don’t know.”
Suddenly feeling protective, Stella gently cups Reed’s cheek and jaw in her palm. It takes more than a few days or weeks, she knows, but doesn’t say. Even in the new millennium, having accepted this in others, it isn’t easy to learn and accept in oneself. “You’ll get there,” is the only thing she can think to say. “Slowly, if you need to.”
Against her closed eyes, Reed lets out a deep breath, and slips both her hands on Stella’s waist. “This isn’t your first time, is it?”
Stella smiles. “No, that was a very long time ago.”
“I like you more than anyone in a long time,” Reed says, tilting her head back to make eye contact, when Stella opens hers.
“I like you too,” Stella says, and both of them laugh a little bit. Maybe in relief at the reciprocation, maybe simply in the joy of the connection.
Stella has loved men and women, has been with both, has stopped trying to define and narrow her attractions years ago, but she has always found an easy kinship with women, even when spending a single night.
It’s Reed who closes the space between their mouths, presses their lips together, softly at first, and then more firmly. Stella returns the pressure, but allows Reed to lead, to feel at ease.
It’s a gentle kiss, an almost shy kiss, and then she leans back on the pillow, still hidden under the bedcovers. “Can you tell me about it?” she asks. “Your first time.”
Stella thinks back. There was so much shame, so much guilt, so much fear and turmoil to overcome back then, and still sometimes now. “We were young. Both been with men before, but we didn’t really know how to be…. with each other. We improvised, mostly. The way sex often is. Learning with your partner.”
Reed leans in for another kiss. “So you can help me learn?” she whispers against Stella’s mouth, kneading her hips through her blouse.
“Of course,” Stella whispers back, and feels her heart struggle to contain itself.
The third kiss is deep, exploring, no longer tentative. Reed tastes a bit like the whisky, smells like faint perfume and shampoo, and feels pliant and warm and present.
(Nothing like the empty pleasures she’s taken from the men she’s recently been with, nothing like their hardness. Stella doesn’t quite subscribe to the simplicity of viewing men as others, as unable to connect, and yet it’s never like this with them, not for her.)
Reed’s hand in her hair, Stella’s knee parting hers. She doesn’t make a move to undress her, but gently pulls Reed’s thigh over her hip, dragging her hand up and down the length of it, through black jeans.
“I wish I’d gone with you,” Reed says, parting and then going in for another kiss, changing her angle.
“It’s okay,” Stella mumbles into the kiss, kisses, who’s counting.
She can feel the vibrations of Reed’s low moan in her mouth, and starts to lose the careful grip on her control, when Reed pulls away gently, though not loosening her hold. “I don’t think I’m ready to….” She’s flushed and looks slightly embarrassed. “We can go slow, you said?”
Biting her lip to hold back her arousal, Stella loosens her hold on Reed’s leg, sweeps her hand up her ribcage instead, up to her face. “Of course.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you’re here.” She’s so glad she’s here.
Reed meets her eyes, Stella’s smile. Stella’s heart starts to slow, and she feels Reed’s breaths evening. “Do you want to go to sleep?” Stella asks, after a minute of silence between them, when they haven’t yet moved out of each other’s arms.
Reed nods. “It’s been a long day.”
“I have spare pyjamas that you can wear.”
“Thank you.”
Slowly, they release each other, and Stella finds sleepware for Reed. In the bathroom, she changes out of her own clothes, removes her make up, brushes her teeth, and feels the day catch up with her. Her eyes are barely open, the adrenaline from the recent excitement leaving her.
Though Stella seldom bothers with many clothes at night, she considers Reed’s comfort, and wears a shirt and silk pajama bottoms.
Back in the bedroom, Reed is wearing a pink cotton top and grey bottoms. The comfortable sight of her makes Stella feel loose and calm.
“I’ve set my alarm clock a little early,” Reed says, looking unsure of herself. “Sorry if it wakes you up.”
“That’s okay,” Stella replies.
They communicate in pauses between sentences, in catching each other’s eyes.
“There’s a spare hotel toothbrush in there for you.”
Reed takes her turn in bathroom, brushing by Stella, catching her fingers with hers.
She turns the bed down and settles under the sheet and blanket, facing the middle of the bed, waits.
A few minutes, and Reed joins her, mirroring her position, her hands tucked under her head. “Goodnight,” she says, and smiles, but doesn’t close her eyes.
Stella turns out the light behind her. They can still see each other in the light filtering in through the window. “Come here.”
She doesn’t want to not be touching Reed, not to be holding her. Reed shuffles closer on the sheets, almost on Stella’s pillow, and settles on bed back as Stella wraps her arms gently around her, drawing her against her chest.
“Don’t worry about the task force,” Reed says, covering Stella’s arm around her stomach with her hand. “Whatever happens, you’ve already saved so many lives he could have taken.”
Nothing seems quite wrong right now, Stella thinks, rubbing her thumbs along Reed’s shirt. “Hm.”
Thank you, she should say, she thinks, but the smell of Reed’s hair, her even breaths send her to sleep.