Cate Blanchett Supremacy

A body collects a lot of scars over a lifetime. Bernie’s own has more than most. She treasures every single one of Serena’s. Knows them, as intimately as she knows any part of her.

She kisses the old burn mark on Serena’s left palm, and the place on her thumb where someone else’s kitchen knife once slipped (not Serena’s own, of course, Serena neither cooks, nor misses when holding a knife). She draws Serena’s fingers into her mouth, after that. One, then two - catching them between teeth and tongue. She doesn’t have to look up to know that Serena will be watching her, that particular glazed look in her eyes, and her cheeks beginning to flush.

Bernie likes to take her time. Still revels in the freedom of being able to, somehow, like it’s the greatest of gifts. When she makes it - gradually, lavishing attention on one scar at a time, each mark, each line, each beautiful imperfection - when she makes it to the long thread across Serena’s lower belly, faded with time but no less lovely for it, and kisses her there, Serena is breathing hard; little low, needy sounds escaping her. She tangles her hands in Bernie’s hair and gasps, “Bernie, please.”

Bernie grins against her skin. She knows Serena’s impatience so very well by now, has learned how to find the precise point at which to give in. She pauses there, nips at Serena’s inner thigh, hard enough to leave a tiny mark of her own, and Serena whines for her, exactly the sound she hoped to hear.