Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2013-01-22 07:45 am
sophinisba) wrote2013-01-22 07:45 am
Entry tags:
Fic: 25 Merlin femslash drabbles for Kink Bingo
The current mini-challenge at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kink_bingo is Tiny Bingos, and I decided to write a femslash drabble with a different ship for every square on my second card! Featured characters are Gwen, Morgana, Freya, Mithian, Morgause, Vivian, Nimueh, Ygraine, Hunith, Elena, Isolde, Annis, Kara, Enmyria, Sefa, Catrina, Alice, Finna, Lamia, and Sophia. (I'm sorry, Helen and Mary, you are still awesome!) Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flammablehat and the folks on Twitter who cheered me on and prompted me with ideas.
You can Read them on the AO3 with "chapter" headings for the pairing, kink, and content notes (some noncon and dubcon, especially in the first set of 12). Or, if you prefer, you can read them all here without the notes!
1.
After months of keeping secret what she now knows to be her gift, she's letting the forest's magic flow through her freely. After a lifetime pacing in Uther's cage, she's sleeping under the stars. And after five years of pining for a maidservant who probably only cares for men (though it's true Morgana never actually asked), she's is letting Enmyria fuck her arse with three sure fingers and her cunt with a devilish tongue. Morgana grips two sapling tree trunks and doesn't even try to hold back the screams. She's found her people now, and she has nothing to hide.
2.
It's obvious he cares for her, but he never satisfies her, just grunts and thrusts and ruins the view. Nimueh dashes her hand at the water, knowing there's nothing there she wants to see.
But when the king sleeps, when Ygraine lies awake caressing herself through the silk of her nightgown, she casts a dreamy smile up toward the canopy. And it's almost as if she knows, as if she's looking back at Nimueh through the scrying bowl's distance. As if she, too, likes what she sees.
What on earth will that look do to her, once they've actually met?
3.
It's Morgause's hand in her hair, Morgause's teeth at her neck, Morgause's knee forcing Morgana's legs apart. But it's Nimueh's magic that overpowers her.
"I thought you were dead," Morgana gasps.
Nimueh only chuckles and flicks a finger, and Morgana and Morgause go flying in opposite directions. Morgana's back and backside slam against the wall of the cave. Her head throbs and she can't take in air.
After some time it comes to her that Nimueh is still laughing, and Morgause is still clutching a fistful of Morgana's hair.
When she can breathe again, her first words are, "Teach me."
4.
She screams every time because it's agony every time. Cracking bones, claws breaking through skin, that never gets easy, even if it happens every night. But now there's a calmer voice under hers, sweet and steady, singing, "You are powerful, Freya, you are breathtaking, you are my brave girl." When the transformation begins Nimueh grabs her from behind, so when it's done Freya can fly into the night with her mistress riding her shoulders. It hurts just as much as before, but now it hurts like sprinting, like fucking, like Nimueh's nails on her back. Now changing hurts like love.
5.
Queen Annis isn't the first customer to recognise her, but she's the first to acknowledge it. Deliberate as with everything else, she asks, "What are you doing here, Morgana?"
"Putting on a show, just like in Uther's castle. Only here I get to make my own choices and keep my own money."
Annis sighs. "You're not being forced?"
"Mary'd never force anyone. Although, if you want to be my rescuer, I'm happy to play along. Please, your majesty," in a desperate voice, "take me away from this life of degradation!"
Annis chuckls as she bends Morgana's head between her legs.
6.
Hunith lets her cry for two days, gutted, numb. Then she takes her to bed.
"We've all of us lost someone," she says, wrapping a blindfold over Gwen's eyes. "You mustn't let this grief be the end of you."
"He –" Gwen starts, "he covered my eyes. He took me–"
"Hush, child." Hunith stops her mouth with a kiss, then pushes her to lie flat. "Stop talking about him, stop thinking."
Something warm and soft – candle wax? – goes into her ears, and everything is muted; the tender touch at her breast isn't Hunith's hand, or Arthur's hand. It is only feeling.
7.
"Won't you stay and brush my hair?" Gwen hears herself say, and quick as a word Morgana is with her again. Here, before this mirror, in this dim light, under her own skin. Not the one who left or the one who returned in anger, but the lovely girl whose hair was precious and implausible as silk beneath Gwen's fingers.
"Of course, my lady."
Sefa's touch is clumsy but her hands are warm, kind. There's no violence between them, not even a harsh word, only expectation: if there is anything the lady desires, she will have it. How very easy.
8.
The look in Mithian's eyes the first time Morgana brings her to her knees could not be more familiar. Her skin is pale and perfect; her wrists mark beautifully the first time she is bound.
"Don't fret," Morgana croaks, pushing her wrinkled crone's hand up Mithian's smooth, muscled thigh, "Hilda will take care of you." Mithian screams when Morgana pushes two bony fingers inside her, but it's only pride. Morgana was too proud to ask Morgause to fuck her, too, back when she had the chance. "I know just what you need, princess. Even if you don't understand yet yourself."
9.
"Now, pet, show me how you'll greet your dear husband when he comes to rescue you."
Gwen looked down shyly, but when she raised her eyes it was with complete, gorgeous, devious gratitude. "Thank you," she said, her voice cracking, "I'd never have survived the tower if I didn't know in my heart you'd come for me."
"That's perfect," Morgana whispered, drawing Gwen's head to her bosom. "Oh, he'll eat it right up. You know how he loves being the hero.""
"I know," said Gwen, and kissed Morgana's hungry mouth. "Thank you for saving me from him. I love you."
10.
"You've been a naughty girl," says Finna.
"Really, made us all look bad," Catrina agrees, checking the tightness of the bonds at Morgana's wrists behind her back.
"It's what happens to these girls who grow up without a mother."
Alice clucks as Catrina helps position Morgana over her lap, and Morgana whimpers through the gag.
"Quiet, girl, we haven't even started your punishment yet."
Finna's goes first, but they all take turns spanking her until she's senseless, sobbing and rutting against Alice's leg.
"There, there," says someone. They remove the gag to let Morgana suckle a kind old woman's breast.
11.
"With this blade I dedicate myself to the struggle for our people."
Morgana's eyes are shining with pride and hunger as she watches the knife slice into Kara's flesh, watches Kara's blood drip into the chalice. Kara's whole body is singing with the joy and heat that radiate from the gash in her open palm.
Morgana drinks, and when she answers, "With this blood I accept your body and your oath," Kara barely understands the words, can only stare at that beautiful bright red, staining the High Priestess's lips in the light of the bonfires.
Morgana's kiss tastes like freedom.
12.
Camelot's great hall was draped in black for a year, she's been told. Guinevere's new banners are a darker red than Arthur's were: Pendragon confidence suffused with deepest grief. But Mithian, once humble enough to submit to a bauble's place in a loveless marriage, then twice humiliated in this same castle, could not be more proud to stand here now, as one queen regnant addressing another.
"I will see Albion united and in peace," says Guinevere, taking Mithian's hands. "Will you join me?"
"I will," says Mithian, authority surging through her feet and their hands and her voice. "I do."
13.
Gwen has no fucking idea why Morgana recommended Dr. Nimueh. She misses her old gynaecologist, Dr. Forridel, who didn't raise an eyebrow (as Nimueh literally does!) when Gwen said she was gay. Who did not laugh creepily at the snap of the latex gloves, or say, "Oh, just you wait!" when Gwen first eyed the stirrups. It's only when she tries to imagine Morgana in her place that it starts to make sense. Then Nimueh's gloved hands push her legs apart and Gwen smiles, understanding. Of course Morgana got off on this attention. With her in mind, so will Gwen.
14.
Morgana spends most of the first lesson texting Morgause and thinking about how to get her money back.
Hawaii trip still on. Diving out. Not paying to listen to some bimbo recite safety instructions.
VOICE LIKE NAILS ON CHALKBOARD.
Want to see you in a wetsuit, Morgause answers.
Want to see you naked, Morgana texts, smirking bored.
Then Sophia puts on the gear.
BRB leaving you for scuba instructor.
She pictures Morgause's cool smile. Then she pictures Morgause in black latex, Morgause with webbed hands and feet, alien mask over her eyes. Morgana can barely breathe.
Help.
She needs lessons.
15.
It doesn't work if she can get away, but it's no fun if she can't move at all. So Gwen strips her to her bra and panties and uses two sets of cuffs (with Vivian it has to be the fuzzy pink and purple ones) to bind her wrists together and tether one foot to the bed. Vivian's adorable, rolling around on the bed, laughing, gasping, batting ineffectually at Gwen's hands like a kitten without claws. "Stop!" she shrieks, over and over, but she never says red, and Gwen never lets up until Vivian wets the sheets warm and dark.
16.
"Oh, my father would kill me if I lost my virginity before I got married," Vivian pants, thrusting her cunt against Morgana's tongue. "That's why I'm so grateful that you're willing to help me out. Give a girl some practice – Ahh!"
It's not a hard bite, just enough to snap her out of her chattering.
If Morgana shoved her hand up inside, past any barriers Vivian had left, would she consider it sex? Maybe with a strap-on. Huh.
Well, no matter, Vivian's gorgeous and gasping now, and Morgana goes back to work with her mouth, intent on taking her apart.
17.
"No!" Gwen shouts. "Bad kitty! You stay right here and let me hold your –"
But Freya snarls and twists away, scratching Gwen's naked thigh with her sharp nails. Three marks begin to show immediately. Two of them, Gwen guesses will bleed. Excellent.
Freya's off licking herself in the corner. Gwen creeps up behind and grabs her around the waist, declaring, "I'll get you, Freya! I'm gonna cuddle you if it's the last thing I do!"
Freya fights but Gwen is stronger, holding her down until Freya gives up, limp and laughing, and lets the nice lady kiss her pretty head.
18.
"Hang on, sweetheart," says Enmyria, with the needle poised over Freya's wrist, "this is gonna hurt like hell."
Freya grits her teeth, because the urge to punch her in the face is strong. So she doesn't have a lot of sexy tattoos (yet). She doesn't have Enmyria's swagger or Isolde's biceps or Kara's steely gaze.
Freya ran out of meds three weeks after her parents kicked her out. If she can survive these headaches while living on the street, she can handle anything.
"Just hold my hand," she murmurs, carefully displaying the apprehension Enmyria expects, "and I can take it."
19.
Vivian saw it in a porno and bought it with her own (father's) money so Elena could wear it.
"It's what real lesbians do – the pretty ones, anyway. And you're pretty but a little more mannish than me, so…"
"Okay," said Elena, who hadn't been called mannish (to her face) before but couldn't say she minded.
"And you should boss me around!" Vivian encouraged. "Talk a little dirty, say 'I'm gonna fuck you so hard.'"
Elena wasn't sure she could boss or growl as well as Vivian, but she could fuck her, yeah, "Just like a real lesbian," she promised.
20.
After blowing a week's paycheque on new trainers so she could look good on her first group run, Gwen falls head over heals for the girl who does it barefoot. She regrets nothing.
"If you look at evolution, at our history as a species, it only makes sense," says Elena as Gwen tongues the edge of the callus on her heel. "Our ancestors weren't wearing Nikes when they chased down the woolly mammoth, were they?"
Gwen's never much gone in for emulating cavemen, but Elena's tough and salty and strong and Gwen just hums, wanting to taste all of her.
21.
Being as poised and clever and beautiful as Vivian can be exhausting, and no one understands that better than Mithian, the second most perfect girl in the school (according to Vivian's comprehensive list).
There's no one else Vivian would trust to smudge her lipstick and then kiss her lips, to mess up her hair, then pet it with proper reverence. So after sharpening her tongue all day on the losers and wannabes who need to be put in their place, Vivian lets it go dull and limp behind the rag Mithian stuffs in her mouth. They lie together, at rest.
22.
It wasn't that she was In The Closet before she met Isolde, just that her other relationships were with guys, and she's Just Gwen, she's not the type to make announcements about her identity. So now here she is, at age twenty-eight, blushing and giggling because a pretty girl's holding her hand on the street.
Once they're on the bus, Gwen keeps facing forward, but she's positive the lady across the aisle and the teenagers two seats behind are staring. Speculating, judging.
Her heart is pounding when she kisses Isolde's cheek. Her cunt is throbbing when she squeezes Isolde's thigh.
23.
Lamia is skinny and sour-faced, with nothing of the muscle and charisma that make Morgause, Nimueh and Annis all look so natural with a whip in their hand. But the men are tripping over each other for the chance to kneel before her, and Gwen's curiosity won't let her hang back observing this time.
"Who gives you authority here?"
"It's in my nature, that's all," the girl simpers, while Leon attempts to stare Gwen down.
And Gwen, who carries no tools or weapons while touring her own club, bends before her and bares her back. "Show me," she commands, "please."
24.
Gwen's been psyching herself up all week to face sneering hipsters. She's not prepared for the open, steady gaze of the woman who's now asking for her ID, wasn't expecting this much light, this much weathered white skin and unstyled red hair.
"I'm twenty-three," she says, fumbling for the right card.
"Just policy. You sure you want to do this? Not just trying to impress some girl?"
Gwen swallows, recalling the twist of Morgana's lips and her voice ("Nimueh sure was happy when Freya got her tongue pierced").
"I want this for me," she says, unprepared for this much honesty.
25.
"It's just so… girly."
Mithian laughs, running her fingers over the low neckline of her own dress, the hot skin of Elena's chest. "When's the last time you wore one?"
"Think my parents gave up trying when I was around ten. Ugh, I don't know how you can stand it! I could never go out in public like this."
"I'd never ask you to, baby. Mmmm, but you look so hot right now I could scream."
"Shhh." Elena catches Mithian's hand, bringing it slowly and deliberately to her bare knee.
"Only here," Mithian promises, and Elena nods.
"Only for you."
kink_bingo is Tiny Bingos, and I decided to write a femslash drabble with a different ship for every square on my second card! Featured characters are Gwen, Morgana, Freya, Mithian, Morgause, Vivian, Nimueh, Ygraine, Hunith, Elena, Isolde, Annis, Kara, Enmyria, Sefa, Catrina, Alice, Finna, Lamia, and Sophia. (I'm sorry, Helen and Mary, you are still awesome!) Thanks to 
flammablehat and the folks on Twitter who cheered me on and prompted me with ideas.You can Read them on the AO3 with "chapter" headings for the pairing, kink, and content notes (some noncon and dubcon, especially in the first set of 12). Or, if you prefer, you can read them all here without the notes!
1.
After months of keeping secret what she now knows to be her gift, she's letting the forest's magic flow through her freely. After a lifetime pacing in Uther's cage, she's sleeping under the stars. And after five years of pining for a maidservant who probably only cares for men (though it's true Morgana never actually asked), she's is letting Enmyria fuck her arse with three sure fingers and her cunt with a devilish tongue. Morgana grips two sapling tree trunks and doesn't even try to hold back the screams. She's found her people now, and she has nothing to hide.
2.
It's obvious he cares for her, but he never satisfies her, just grunts and thrusts and ruins the view. Nimueh dashes her hand at the water, knowing there's nothing there she wants to see.
But when the king sleeps, when Ygraine lies awake caressing herself through the silk of her nightgown, she casts a dreamy smile up toward the canopy. And it's almost as if she knows, as if she's looking back at Nimueh through the scrying bowl's distance. As if she, too, likes what she sees.
What on earth will that look do to her, once they've actually met?
3.
It's Morgause's hand in her hair, Morgause's teeth at her neck, Morgause's knee forcing Morgana's legs apart. But it's Nimueh's magic that overpowers her.
"I thought you were dead," Morgana gasps.
Nimueh only chuckles and flicks a finger, and Morgana and Morgause go flying in opposite directions. Morgana's back and backside slam against the wall of the cave. Her head throbs and she can't take in air.
After some time it comes to her that Nimueh is still laughing, and Morgause is still clutching a fistful of Morgana's hair.
When she can breathe again, her first words are, "Teach me."
4.
She screams every time because it's agony every time. Cracking bones, claws breaking through skin, that never gets easy, even if it happens every night. But now there's a calmer voice under hers, sweet and steady, singing, "You are powerful, Freya, you are breathtaking, you are my brave girl." When the transformation begins Nimueh grabs her from behind, so when it's done Freya can fly into the night with her mistress riding her shoulders. It hurts just as much as before, but now it hurts like sprinting, like fucking, like Nimueh's nails on her back. Now changing hurts like love.
5.
Queen Annis isn't the first customer to recognise her, but she's the first to acknowledge it. Deliberate as with everything else, she asks, "What are you doing here, Morgana?"
"Putting on a show, just like in Uther's castle. Only here I get to make my own choices and keep my own money."
Annis sighs. "You're not being forced?"
"Mary'd never force anyone. Although, if you want to be my rescuer, I'm happy to play along. Please, your majesty," in a desperate voice, "take me away from this life of degradation!"
Annis chuckls as she bends Morgana's head between her legs.
6.
Hunith lets her cry for two days, gutted, numb. Then she takes her to bed.
"We've all of us lost someone," she says, wrapping a blindfold over Gwen's eyes. "You mustn't let this grief be the end of you."
"He –" Gwen starts, "he covered my eyes. He took me–"
"Hush, child." Hunith stops her mouth with a kiss, then pushes her to lie flat. "Stop talking about him, stop thinking."
Something warm and soft – candle wax? – goes into her ears, and everything is muted; the tender touch at her breast isn't Hunith's hand, or Arthur's hand. It is only feeling.
7.
"Won't you stay and brush my hair?" Gwen hears herself say, and quick as a word Morgana is with her again. Here, before this mirror, in this dim light, under her own skin. Not the one who left or the one who returned in anger, but the lovely girl whose hair was precious and implausible as silk beneath Gwen's fingers.
"Of course, my lady."
Sefa's touch is clumsy but her hands are warm, kind. There's no violence between them, not even a harsh word, only expectation: if there is anything the lady desires, she will have it. How very easy.
8.
The look in Mithian's eyes the first time Morgana brings her to her knees could not be more familiar. Her skin is pale and perfect; her wrists mark beautifully the first time she is bound.
"Don't fret," Morgana croaks, pushing her wrinkled crone's hand up Mithian's smooth, muscled thigh, "Hilda will take care of you." Mithian screams when Morgana pushes two bony fingers inside her, but it's only pride. Morgana was too proud to ask Morgause to fuck her, too, back when she had the chance. "I know just what you need, princess. Even if you don't understand yet yourself."
9.
"Now, pet, show me how you'll greet your dear husband when he comes to rescue you."
Gwen looked down shyly, but when she raised her eyes it was with complete, gorgeous, devious gratitude. "Thank you," she said, her voice cracking, "I'd never have survived the tower if I didn't know in my heart you'd come for me."
"That's perfect," Morgana whispered, drawing Gwen's head to her bosom. "Oh, he'll eat it right up. You know how he loves being the hero.""
"I know," said Gwen, and kissed Morgana's hungry mouth. "Thank you for saving me from him. I love you."
10.
"You've been a naughty girl," says Finna.
"Really, made us all look bad," Catrina agrees, checking the tightness of the bonds at Morgana's wrists behind her back.
"It's what happens to these girls who grow up without a mother."
Alice clucks as Catrina helps position Morgana over her lap, and Morgana whimpers through the gag.
"Quiet, girl, we haven't even started your punishment yet."
Finna's goes first, but they all take turns spanking her until she's senseless, sobbing and rutting against Alice's leg.
"There, there," says someone. They remove the gag to let Morgana suckle a kind old woman's breast.
11.
"With this blade I dedicate myself to the struggle for our people."
Morgana's eyes are shining with pride and hunger as she watches the knife slice into Kara's flesh, watches Kara's blood drip into the chalice. Kara's whole body is singing with the joy and heat that radiate from the gash in her open palm.
Morgana drinks, and when she answers, "With this blood I accept your body and your oath," Kara barely understands the words, can only stare at that beautiful bright red, staining the High Priestess's lips in the light of the bonfires.
Morgana's kiss tastes like freedom.
12.
Camelot's great hall was draped in black for a year, she's been told. Guinevere's new banners are a darker red than Arthur's were: Pendragon confidence suffused with deepest grief. But Mithian, once humble enough to submit to a bauble's place in a loveless marriage, then twice humiliated in this same castle, could not be more proud to stand here now, as one queen regnant addressing another.
"I will see Albion united and in peace," says Guinevere, taking Mithian's hands. "Will you join me?"
"I will," says Mithian, authority surging through her feet and their hands and her voice. "I do."
13.
Gwen has no fucking idea why Morgana recommended Dr. Nimueh. She misses her old gynaecologist, Dr. Forridel, who didn't raise an eyebrow (as Nimueh literally does!) when Gwen said she was gay. Who did not laugh creepily at the snap of the latex gloves, or say, "Oh, just you wait!" when Gwen first eyed the stirrups. It's only when she tries to imagine Morgana in her place that it starts to make sense. Then Nimueh's gloved hands push her legs apart and Gwen smiles, understanding. Of course Morgana got off on this attention. With her in mind, so will Gwen.
14.
Morgana spends most of the first lesson texting Morgause and thinking about how to get her money back.
Hawaii trip still on. Diving out. Not paying to listen to some bimbo recite safety instructions.
VOICE LIKE NAILS ON CHALKBOARD.
Want to see you in a wetsuit, Morgause answers.
Want to see you naked, Morgana texts, smirking bored.
Then Sophia puts on the gear.
BRB leaving you for scuba instructor.
She pictures Morgause's cool smile. Then she pictures Morgause in black latex, Morgause with webbed hands and feet, alien mask over her eyes. Morgana can barely breathe.
Help.
She needs lessons.
15.
It doesn't work if she can get away, but it's no fun if she can't move at all. So Gwen strips her to her bra and panties and uses two sets of cuffs (with Vivian it has to be the fuzzy pink and purple ones) to bind her wrists together and tether one foot to the bed. Vivian's adorable, rolling around on the bed, laughing, gasping, batting ineffectually at Gwen's hands like a kitten without claws. "Stop!" she shrieks, over and over, but she never says red, and Gwen never lets up until Vivian wets the sheets warm and dark.
16.
"Oh, my father would kill me if I lost my virginity before I got married," Vivian pants, thrusting her cunt against Morgana's tongue. "That's why I'm so grateful that you're willing to help me out. Give a girl some practice – Ahh!"
It's not a hard bite, just enough to snap her out of her chattering.
If Morgana shoved her hand up inside, past any barriers Vivian had left, would she consider it sex? Maybe with a strap-on. Huh.
Well, no matter, Vivian's gorgeous and gasping now, and Morgana goes back to work with her mouth, intent on taking her apart.
17.
"No!" Gwen shouts. "Bad kitty! You stay right here and let me hold your –"
But Freya snarls and twists away, scratching Gwen's naked thigh with her sharp nails. Three marks begin to show immediately. Two of them, Gwen guesses will bleed. Excellent.
Freya's off licking herself in the corner. Gwen creeps up behind and grabs her around the waist, declaring, "I'll get you, Freya! I'm gonna cuddle you if it's the last thing I do!"
Freya fights but Gwen is stronger, holding her down until Freya gives up, limp and laughing, and lets the nice lady kiss her pretty head.
18.
"Hang on, sweetheart," says Enmyria, with the needle poised over Freya's wrist, "this is gonna hurt like hell."
Freya grits her teeth, because the urge to punch her in the face is strong. So she doesn't have a lot of sexy tattoos (yet). She doesn't have Enmyria's swagger or Isolde's biceps or Kara's steely gaze.
Freya ran out of meds three weeks after her parents kicked her out. If she can survive these headaches while living on the street, she can handle anything.
"Just hold my hand," she murmurs, carefully displaying the apprehension Enmyria expects, "and I can take it."
19.
Vivian saw it in a porno and bought it with her own (father's) money so Elena could wear it.
"It's what real lesbians do – the pretty ones, anyway. And you're pretty but a little more mannish than me, so…"
"Okay," said Elena, who hadn't been called mannish (to her face) before but couldn't say she minded.
"And you should boss me around!" Vivian encouraged. "Talk a little dirty, say 'I'm gonna fuck you so hard.'"
Elena wasn't sure she could boss or growl as well as Vivian, but she could fuck her, yeah, "Just like a real lesbian," she promised.
20.
After blowing a week's paycheque on new trainers so she could look good on her first group run, Gwen falls head over heals for the girl who does it barefoot. She regrets nothing.
"If you look at evolution, at our history as a species, it only makes sense," says Elena as Gwen tongues the edge of the callus on her heel. "Our ancestors weren't wearing Nikes when they chased down the woolly mammoth, were they?"
Gwen's never much gone in for emulating cavemen, but Elena's tough and salty and strong and Gwen just hums, wanting to taste all of her.
21.
Being as poised and clever and beautiful as Vivian can be exhausting, and no one understands that better than Mithian, the second most perfect girl in the school (according to Vivian's comprehensive list).
There's no one else Vivian would trust to smudge her lipstick and then kiss her lips, to mess up her hair, then pet it with proper reverence. So after sharpening her tongue all day on the losers and wannabes who need to be put in their place, Vivian lets it go dull and limp behind the rag Mithian stuffs in her mouth. They lie together, at rest.
22.
It wasn't that she was In The Closet before she met Isolde, just that her other relationships were with guys, and she's Just Gwen, she's not the type to make announcements about her identity. So now here she is, at age twenty-eight, blushing and giggling because a pretty girl's holding her hand on the street.
Once they're on the bus, Gwen keeps facing forward, but she's positive the lady across the aisle and the teenagers two seats behind are staring. Speculating, judging.
Her heart is pounding when she kisses Isolde's cheek. Her cunt is throbbing when she squeezes Isolde's thigh.
23.
Lamia is skinny and sour-faced, with nothing of the muscle and charisma that make Morgause, Nimueh and Annis all look so natural with a whip in their hand. But the men are tripping over each other for the chance to kneel before her, and Gwen's curiosity won't let her hang back observing this time.
"Who gives you authority here?"
"It's in my nature, that's all," the girl simpers, while Leon attempts to stare Gwen down.
And Gwen, who carries no tools or weapons while touring her own club, bends before her and bares her back. "Show me," she commands, "please."
24.
Gwen's been psyching herself up all week to face sneering hipsters. She's not prepared for the open, steady gaze of the woman who's now asking for her ID, wasn't expecting this much light, this much weathered white skin and unstyled red hair.
"I'm twenty-three," she says, fumbling for the right card.
"Just policy. You sure you want to do this? Not just trying to impress some girl?"
Gwen swallows, recalling the twist of Morgana's lips and her voice ("Nimueh sure was happy when Freya got her tongue pierced").
"I want this for me," she says, unprepared for this much honesty.
25.
"It's just so… girly."
Mithian laughs, running her fingers over the low neckline of her own dress, the hot skin of Elena's chest. "When's the last time you wore one?"
"Think my parents gave up trying when I was around ten. Ugh, I don't know how you can stand it! I could never go out in public like this."
"I'd never ask you to, baby. Mmmm, but you look so hot right now I could scream."
"Shhh." Elena catches Mithian's hand, bringing it slowly and deliberately to her bare knee.
"Only here," Mithian promises, and Elena nods.
"Only for you."