#queerantine

She watches Chloe pick up the dice and then set them down again. “Do we need to talk about what happened?”

“What?” Beca says quickly, but she already knows what Chloe’s talking about.

Chloe kind of shrugs and offers a shy smile. “I don’t know about you, but I really haven’t been able to stop thinking about what we did.”

The statement makes Beca hold her breath as thoughts race through her mind and all ways she could respond and the consequences (benefits?) that could follow. She holds it until she can’t anymore and exhales. “Me neither. Wait, do you mean you can’t stop thinking about it because you wish we hadn’t?”

“No, Beca,” Chloe laughs. “Calm down. I really liked it. It was fun.” She shrugs again and slides her chair back from the table a few inches, something that makes Beca’s heart skip a beat. “It was nice to share that with you.”

“Oh.” Beca feels a smile tug at her lips. “Cool. Yeah.”

“Is this us talking about it?” Chloe asks.

“I thought we just did.”

Chloe leans forward to put her elbows on the table and prop her chin on her folded hands, a move that feels entirely conspiratorial and it makes Beca slide her own chair backward. “I guess that means you were worried I had some regrets?”

It’s Beca’s turn to shrug and she picks at her nails to avoid having to make eye contact. 

“Does that mean you liked it?”

“I mean…yeah,” she mumbles, feeling her face start to heat up.

“Does that mean you’d be open to doing it again?”

That pulls her attention back to Chloe who is looking at her with bright eyes and a bottom lip snared between her teeth, nervous while she awaits Beca’s answer. It takes everything in her to not just dive back into bed and kick off her sweatpants. Instead, she tries to swallow and push her stomach back down in the correct place. “I mean, I guess I wouldn’t be opposed.” She hopes she sounds chill about it. Take or leave it. She’s willing to do it if Chloe wants to do it. Because that’s what friends do for each other.

She watches Chloe sit back at her response, her nails rapping rhythmically on the table.

It’s silent for an ungodly long time.

“Would you maybe want to do it right—”

Beca’s already halfway to the bed. “Turn off the light.”

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

It doesn’t feel like a taboo topic after the second time.

It would be hypocritical if it was; the first time had snuck up out of nowhere fueled by a racy, late-night conversation.

The second time was at 3:00 in the afternoon and turning the light off made little difference in how dark the room was. (It was not dark. At all.) It was a direct proposition that Beca readily agreed to.

She does have to suffer a few minutes of teasing afterward; she came so quickly that she had to lay there with Chloe for several minutes trying not to be obvious about watching while she brought herself to climax.

But after the teasing, they settle into their evening routine of making dinner together while singing along to Beca’s weekly playlist. They eat together at the table and clean the kitchen and collapse their bed back to a couch so they can sit and watch whatever movie Chloe picks to watch on Beca’s laptop propped on a chair in front of them. 

It’s a thing that happened. Twice. And it’s fine.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

It happens again the next morning.

Beca doesn’t even know what—or who—started it.

One second, Chloe was stretching and saying good morning and the next, they’re touching themselves beneath the shared blanket.

She can feel Chloe’s foot resting against her own and the way it moves and flexes with the rising and falling of Chloe’s voice.

Beca forgets to try to be quiet.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

It kind of becomes a thing after that. It’s an activity they share like working on a puzzle, a board game, reading time, or going for a walk. It’s something that gets suggested as one suggests checking out a new documentary.

“This isn’t really something friends do,” she says (for some dumb reason) after she suggests it.

“Says who?” Chloe asks, already lying down in bed.

“I don’t know. Society.”

“Society has collapsed.” Chloe says it so ominously Beca can’t help but laugh. Because it’s true. What are social norms anyway?

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Beca doesn’t let herself think about how normal it’s beginning to feel. When she thinks about the arrangement ending whenever life returns to some version of its former self, it bothers her. She doesn’t like that it bothers her.

So instead, she focuses on the present.

And at present, Chloe’s using Beca’s lap for a pillow while they read on the couch, Beca tucked into one end to give Chloe space to lie down along the rest of it, even though her feet have to perch on the other end of it.

One of her instrumental playlists is going, something mellow and kind of ambient and she’s absentmindedly playing with Chloe’s hair, listening to the way she sighs now and then and the quiet sound of turning pages.

“Bec?”

“Hmm?” She looks down when she feels Chloe’s eyes on her. “Would you mind if I…?” She glances down herself as if Beca couldn’t figure out what she was asking.

It does make Beca hesitate, though. She asked if she could do it. Not if they could do it. It’s never been a solo event. Solo, but mutual.

The very concept turns Beca on. 

“Have at it,” she says, knowing Chloe can see right through her dismissive comment by the way she smirks up at her.

She pretends she’s not watching as Chloe drops her book to the floor so her right hand can slip down the front of the shorts she’s wearing while her left arm rests across her middle.

She pretends she’s not watching the way she can see the movement of Chloe’s hand between her legs, slow, subtle movements that are accompanied by quiet sighs. She’s not watching when Chloe’s other hand slips under the edge of her shirt and begins to inch higher, revealing more and more of her stomach to Beca—not that she’s watching—until Beca catches a glimpse of the lower curve of a bare breast just as Chloe’s hand covers it.  

She pretends she’s reading fastidiously, still playing with Chloe’s hair, paying no attention to the fact that Chloe is masturbating in plain sight right next to her. No, not next to her: on her. Her head is still on her thigh and if she were to do something like moving it to make room for her own hand, Chloe would feel it. So she can’t.

She pretends that her underwear isn’t already soaked-through when Chloe moans, her hand visibly moving faster. She tries to act like she’s not staring, her own book forgotten and being set aside to watch. Tries not to like how when Chloe opens her eyes to look at her and sees her watching, she smiles and closes her eyes and touches herself more quickly.

She tries not to think about how she has her hand tangled in Chloe’s hair and how she learned that Chloe likes having her hair pulled and how her fingers start to curl into it until they meet resistance, and then she tightens them further until she knows it’s pulling. 

Chloe gasps and she looks up at Beca again but this time she doesn’t look away, nor does Beca even as Chloe comes with a broken moan and she tries not to think about how she did something she knew Chloe likes during sex because she knew it would turn her on.

She explicitly did something to help her best friend get off—in a different way than they have been—and she doesn’t know what to do with that information.

She removes her hand once Chloe calms down only to have nowhere to put it that doesn’t feel awkward since Chloe’s head is right where it would rest so she has no choice but to return it to its original resting place where it resumes playing lightly. While Chloe is still working on slowing her breathing and is tugging her shirt back into place.

Beca picks up her book again and flips it open to a page—she has no idea if it’s the page she stopped on—and stares at it, her heart pounding and core aching as she tries to act normal because what happened is a totally normal thing for friends to do.

“Thanks,” Chloe says, interrupting her thoughts with her light, airy voice. “That felt awes.”

Beca has to wet her lips before replying, “Cool.”

“B-R-B!” Chloe says as she rolls off the couch to land on her hands and knees on the floor and she pops up with an unfair amount of energy. She disappears into the bathroom and Beca sets down her book again and closes her eyes to breathe.

She doesn’t understand what just happened. She doesn’t know if it was okay, but Chloe doesn’t seem upset by it. In fact, it seemed very much like she liked it. Enjoyed it, even. What Beca does understand is that she wanted to help Chloe get off, and doing so was a turn on.

She has to decide if she’s going to suffer and let her arousal fade or ask for a moment for her own release.

When Chloe returns, almost skipping back to the couch to hop onto it on her knees to kiss Beca’s cheek as though she’d been gone all day and not three minutes, Beca decides to ignore the demands her body is making.

They’re not supposed to be turned on by each other. Not like that.

“I’m so tight from being cooped up all day. I think I’m gonna do some yoga to stretch out. That okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Beca says, relieved that Chloe is going to be doing her own thing for a while so Beca and work on turning down her thermostat. She pauses the playlist so Chloe can put on one of her yoga videos.

But she’d forgotten two important facts, though: 1) that Chloe would change clothes for this (Well, she doesn’t change clothes. She sheds her shirt, leaving her topless while she tugs a sports bra over her head.), and 2) that Chloe would be doing yoga on the floor right in front of Beca.

Chloe and her body, its strong lines and firm muscle stretching and bending, her back to Beca who had intended to use this time to stop being horny and instead she’s struggling to not touch herself while Chloe does all her sexy, slow bending.

It’s torturous.

She makes it an hour after Chloe rolls up her yoga mat before she breaks and asks to have her own moment. Chloe approves and Beca doesn’t even hide under a blanket.

She touches herself—fully dressed, of course, they’re just friends—while Chloe texts on her phone from the other end of the couch.

She doesn’t dare open her eyes to check, but she knows Chloe isn’t really texting. She can’t hear her thumbs moving over the keys or the messages sending and receiving, and Chloe never turns off that irritating sound that Beca’s learned to tune out over the years.

She can sense Chloe’s eyes on her and she can feel how much wetter that makes her.

She’ll deal with the reasons behind that later.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

She kind of starts to stop caring about whether or not something she does is okay after that. 

Chloe seems to have come to a similar decision and Beca actually gawks the first time Chloe takes off her shirt completely during one of their simultaneous sessions.

Chloe winks at her as she does it—she winks at her—and Beca struggles to control how quickly she’s going to come.

She’s learned that coming with Chloe is infinitely better than coming without her.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“This is so depressing,” Beca says as she crosses off another day on the wall calendar, marking the days since the lockdown began. They’ve reached Week 6 and though there are glimpses of hope of a return to normalcy on the horizon, they still have a long way to go.

“We just have to keep trying to focus on good things and not the bad,” Chloe chirps from the bed. She had yet to get up, having declared it a day of rest because, apparently, it was Sunday.

Beca couldn’t keep track of days anymore if not for her phone or the calendar. “Yeah, I guess,” she says, letting the pen that hangs, affixed to a string on the nail that holds up the calendar, drop to the wall. She knows there are much worse scenarios she could be in. One of them is having their dear roommate Amy present throughout this ordeal.

“Now make me a coffee and then come cuddle,” Chloe says and Beca doesn’t have to look to know she’s making puppy eyes at her.

She can never resist that. Not that she would want to.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“What are we doing for this day of rest?” she asks once they both have cups of coffee on their respective nightstands, along with buttered toast Beca had decided to make for them.

They’re both propped up in bed in their pajamas, having stolen Amy’s pillows a few weeks ago to cushion them against the metal rails in the structure of the pull-out couch. The new flatscreen television and AppleTV Beca had broken down and ordered online sometime in Week 4 sits somewhat precariously on a stand they fashioned out of overturned chairs and Chloe’s underbed shoe storage container. They haven’t owned a television since they lived in Atlanta; there’s really no room in the apartment for one when three people are there, but with just the two of them they made it work.

“Well, since you’re feeling said—”

Beca feels a little defensive. “I’m not feeling sad.” 

“It’s okay to feel down, Bec,” Chloe says with a gentle pat to Beca’s leg. “Let’s do something that you want to do.”

Something about Chloe’s suggestion makes Beca’s mind wander, but she knows Chloe is referring to normal platonic activities.

Not certain other normal platonic activities they’ve been engaging in that result in simultaneous orgasms.

“Well, there are just so many options; I’m overwhelmed with choices,” she says dryly, though she manages a smile when Chloe nudges her shoulder with her own. “I guess let’s watch a movie. You always pick good movies; find something sad. And no mocking me if I cry.”

“I would never,” Chloe says, and Beca knows in her heart that she won’t.

Beca doesn’t cry...well...maybe she tears up a little at the end of The Notebook but no one could blame her for that.

It helps, though. She hasn’t had her usual time alone to get mad or sad about things in life and it’s all been weighing on her. It’s nice to lean into Chloe’s side when she invites her in to cuddle and be sad without having to talk about it. Chloe’s always been that way, intuitive enough to know when to push Beca to talk about her feelings and when to simply be a quiet presence.

Beca knows Chloe is starting to coddle her when she announces she’s making breakfast for dinner. It’s Beca’s favorite. And she indulges in it for the evening; it’s incredibly comforting to feel cared for when everything feels scary and uncertain. It’s nice to have someone she loves set a mug of hot cocoa in front of her, piled high with spiraling whipped cream, and be laughed at when she intentionally gets it on her nose while taking a sip.

It’s soothing to crawl into bed and feel Chloe move in behind her to start playing with her hair.

Chloe never asks Beca to talk about whatever might be on her mind, and Beca knows Chloe is there to listen if she does want to talk.

But for now, she wants to settle heavily into the bed and sigh as Chloe’s fingernails scratch over her scalp and down the back of her neck to make her shiver. She wants to close her eyes and feel the warmth from Chloe’s proximity and listen to her quiet breathing and forget about everything else.

It’s so easy to sink into it. Chloe’s fingertips feel so nice where they trace the shell of her ear and the sensitive skin behind it. Where they swirl in slow patterns down her neck and along the back of her shoulder until they’re lightly dancing down the length of Beca’s arm where they play with her fingers, Beca parting them to let Chloe’s fit in the empty spaces. They stay that way for a moment before the journey reverses.

Beca can feel the way goosebumps rise on her arm and she hears Chloe’s quiet chuckle at Beca’s physical response.

It’s not the only physical response she’s experiencing, however.

For as nonspecifically sad as she’s felt all day, Chloe doting on her to try to lift her spirits or at least comfort her, especially now while Chloe is quite literally petting her, Beca’s finding it all to have the unfortunate side effect of sexual arousal.

Admittedly, they have been sharing several normally private moments. It’s felt a lot like “What Happens in Self-Isolation Stays in Self-Isolation,” and they’ve each prompted such moments multiple times. Not that Beca’s been officially counting or comparing, but she’s fairly certain she’s been masturbating more often in this situation, with Chloe, than she ever did before it by herself.

There’s not much else to do, though. She can only handle so much video entertainment per day and she’s limited on how much work she can do with only having her laptop and a couple of small pieces of equipment at home. It’s a distraction and a fun one that feels good during and after. One that she’s starting to want to experience more and more frequently.

Like now, for example, as Chloe’s fingernails graze over the soft skin below her ear with her body fitting so closely to Beca’s.

She clears her throat. “Chlo?”

“Hmm?”

“I need a moment.”

It’s become their code after too many stuttering, vague hints. It’s non-threatening and otherwise innocuous but they both know what it means.

She hears Chloe hum and her touch disappears, only to return a few seconds later. “Okay.”

Beca’s acutely aware that Chloe is still touching her and not moving away to give her space, something to-date they have almost always done. Except for that one time that Beca pulled Chloe’s hair.

The fact that she’s not retreating after accepting Beca’s request makes Beca’s heart race. Chloe hasn’t touched her while doing it. Not really, not more than the most casual of touches, almost accidental. It’s not like when Beca was playing with her hair; they’re much closer now. Beca can feel Chloe against her back and the way she fits into the bend at Chloe’s waist.

The closeness makes Beca’s face hot and her palms sweat and as desperate as she suddenly finds herself to seek out relief, she’s incredibly nervous. She must be tense because she feels Chloe’s fingers massage the sides of her neck.

“I can move?” Chloe asks quietly.

Beca doesn’t know how to answer.

Then, hesitantly, “...Or I could stay?”

Beca hesitates, too, and then decides that this situation, the entire scenario they’ve found themselves in is an alternate reality and societal rules and norms don’t matter anymore. 

She nods and feels more than hears Chloe sigh, warm breath drifting across her bare neck and ear and it makes every hair on Beca’s body stand on-end and makes her heart race.

She has to shift a little and she can feel Chloe behind her with every move she makes. She’s not positive, but she thinks Chloe might have moved closer than she had been because she even feels her knee behind her own as she shifts her legs apart enough to fit her hand between them.

She doesn’t bother with any type of build-up. What had been given to her for relaxation had been all the foreplay she needs and she slips her hand down the front of her shorts and underwear and feels how wet she really is.

Beca must react to her own touch in some way because she hears Chloe sigh behind her and feels the way the massaging of her neck turns lighter, more heavy touching than massaging.

She feels what few boundaries that still exist between them be reduced even further when she starts teasing her clit while Chloe’s fingers dance along her shoulder and arm. It’s the same arm Beca’s using to touch herself and the further Chloe’s hand travels down her arm, the quicker it makes her breathe.

Chloe shifts behind her, hips pressing forward into Beca and it forces the moan she’s been holding back to escape and she hears Chloe echo it in her ear.

It doesn’t happen just once. Chloe does it again, and again until it’s a rhythm that has Beca almost riding her own hand with how their hips are moving together. She knows that Chloe knows what she’s doing. Beca had confessed something to her and she knows Chloe didn’t forget. She’s doing what she’s doing because she knows Beca likes it.

Chloe feels so hot behind her and the hand she has on Beca is restless as it travels up and down her arm and Beca has the distinct thought that it feels like it’s a caged animal pacing to be released, trapped within the boundaries of only touching neutral areas of Beca.

She wants to tell Chloe to touch her.

She wants to twist her shoulders and roll over and drag Chloe’s hand between her legs the way she’s been imagining it for so, so long.

Instead, she digs her fingers into the pillow and works those of her other hand faster against herself.

Chloe’s hand finally breaks away from Beca’s arm and she feels it on her hip, holding her as they move together. Chloe’s moaning, too, and Beca can’t tell if she’s doing anything to touch herself or not; she’s too caught up in the way it feels to have Chloe’s hips rolling into her ass again and again to help Beca fuck herself faster and faster until Beca’s crying out in ecstasy and teeth sink into her bare shoulder as Chloe’s muffled moan rings out behind her, shuddering together.

She doesn’t realize until her breathing begins to slow that Chloe’s hand is no longer on her hip. It’s on her wrist. Which is under her shorts. In her underwear. Any lower and Chloe would be able to feel how wet the experience has made her.

Beca wonders if it had gone on much longer if Chloe would have been the one to push further and cross that final boundary line.

She wonders what that means, that Chloe has pushed so far already. If it’s just the passion of the moment or if it’s something more.

The lips that touch her shoulder over the sore mark make her think that maybe, just maybe, it could be something more.

“God, Beca,” Chloe whispers and Beca feels her hand move with uncertainty, like Chloe’s fighting with herself what to do until it’s retreating and her body scoots back an inch or two to let cool air in between their overheated bodies. “You are so…” She doesn’t finish the sentence but Beca feels her forehead press against the back of her head as she exhales heavily. There’s a hand in her hair, too. It’s not doing anything with purpose, but she feels it.

She wants to ask how Chloe was going to finish her sentence, but instead, she hears a quiet, “I love you.”

Chloe tells her she loves her all the time. Daily. Multiple times per day, even. When Beca refills her water bottle, or brings her her phone that she left on the counter, or cracks an especially good joke.

It sounds different this time. Something about it makes her brain—and heart—respond to it and she feels the beginnings of the panicked need to flee set in until she realizes she has nowhere to flee to. She is home. With Chloe. Where she will be for the foreseeable future. Where time is fake and rules don’t exist and there’s no such thing as “normal” and she gets to play house with the only person she’s ever wanted to play house with.

The panic recedes and she removes her hand from her shorts where it had remained while they cooled off and uses it to reach for Chloe. It’s her only free hand; she’s laying on her right arm. She doesn’t even think about—or maybe she doesn’t care—how her fingers are still wet when she finds and grabs Chloe’s forearm to wrap it around her waist.

Chloe’s breath catches and if it’s from the demanded embrace or from the way Beca’s fingers slip against her skin for a brief moment, there’s no way to know. Chloe doesn’t say anything; she just tucks her own fingers between Beca’s waist and the bed.

“I love you, too,” Beca allows herself to reply.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“Do you think this is what it’s like in frat houses?”

“What?” Beca asks before biting her lip and moaning.

“Guys jerking off everywhere all the time.”

She feels herself grimace and tries instead to focus on how little of Chloe is concealed by her panties and hand. “Why are you making me think about that right now?”

Chloe laughs and Beca watches her fingers speed up. “Because we’re doing this at the table in the middle of breakfast. Feels like a guy thing. Also, your tits are super great.”

Beca just arches an eyebrow at her. So maybe she is topless at the table because she decided she’d take off her shirt when Chloe said she needed a moment in the middle of pouring syrup on her French toast. Maybe they’re both kicked back in the uncomfortable metal folding chairs they use for eating (because the slightly nicer, sturdier ones are the base for their TV stand) touching themselves. Maybe Chloe hadn’t put on any shorts or pants that morning and her legs are parted and she’s watching Beca watch her.

“That was definitely a guy thing to say.”

Maybe they’re having a normal, platonic conversation while they fuck themselves. There’s a lot of things that have happened in the past seven weeks that Beca would have never thought she would experience. Repeatedly and shamelessly masturbating with her friend ranks high on that list of “will nevers.”

“I’m admiring them in a super gay way, don’t worry,” Chloe says before her breath hitches and her hips start to try to move.

“That’s fine, then,” Beca says.

There’s no more talking after that.

Not until Chloe’s moaning out curse words and Beca’s just moaning.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“Why don’t we just go for it?”

“Go for what?” Beca looks up from her hand of Uno cards; it’s overstacked thanks to Chloe managing to drop three Draw Fours on her and she’s trying to plot out the best plan of attack to dump the numerous yellow cards she’s collected onto the pile in the middle of the bed between them.

“Need a moment,” Chloe says almost dismissively and gains Beca’s full attention.

“Okay...what do you mean by, ‘Why don’t we just go for it?’”

“I don’t know. Like, we’re always trying to somehow still be modest but we’re literally watching each other.” Chloe shrugs and it shouldn’t look as innocent as it does considering the topic of conversation. “It’s like porn. But still with clothes.”

Beca can’t help but smile; it’s all so absurd. “I was literally topless at the breakfast table yesterday. And you weren’t wearing pants.”

“I know. But like, why were you wearing pants? Why was I still wearing my hoodie?” Chloe tugs at that same hoodie now and Beca fully expects her to remove it, though she does not. “Why are we even pretending that we have any shame at this point?”

“Oh, my God,” Beca laughs. “So you just want to be naked.”

Chloe shrugs. “Well, yeah. If you’re my porn, I want to see you.”

“I’m your porn?!” Beca blurts, in disbelief, really, that this is even a real conversation. 

Chloe tilts her head and appears hurt. “Am I not yours?”

She feels her mouth hanging up and snaps it closed. “Yeah, I guess so.” Chloe’s more than her porn. She’s every single fantasy she’s ever had rolled up into one being. “I feel like I should feel guilty about that.”

“Why?” Chloe tosses her entire hand of cards onto the discard pile and Beca knows they’re finished playing Uno. “I told you I like being watched.”

“Yeah, but you’re my friend.” Beca regrets it the moment she says it. They’ve developed an unspoken agreement to stop applying traditional principles to themselves while in the situation we are in.

She sees it on Chloe’s face, the disappointment. Followed by determination. “Take off your shirt. Give me your cards.” She’s already gathering up the game, aligning the cards to stuff them back into the box and Beca surrenders her own.

She surrenders her shirt, too, as requested, and watches as Chloe steals glances at her while she finishes putting away the game until she’s tugging her hoodie over her head to toss it on the floor. 

“Well?” Chloe asks, thumbs hooked under the waistband of her flannel pants. “Yes or no?”

Beca can’t believe it’s even a question, but she knows she’s the one who threw in the wrench of hesitation. “Yeah,” she says with a nod as she shifts to remove her own sweatpants.

It’s not that they’ve never seen each other naked before; they see each other naked all the time. But this is different; this time, they’re in bed wearing nothing but underwear because Chloe wants to look at Beca’s nude body while they masturbate together.

Beca’s the first one to start slipping her underwear off her hips and down, and she’s painfully (achingly) aware that Chloe’s watching her do it, so she jokingly spins them around her finger to toss them across the room. It succeeds in making Chloe laugh, which she desperately needed to hear after their tiny hiccup. “Well, if I’m your porn…” she says, finding unexpected confidence under Chloe’s appreciative gaze.

Chloe nods and Beca watches her slip her own underwear down to drop them to the floor.

“What kind of porn are you looking for?”

She truly, genuinely doesn’t know where it’s coming from. It feels like she’s been somehow possessed by an alternate version of herself, but maybe it’s just who she is in this strange alternate reality they’ve found themselves in. She’s sitting in bed, naked, across from her equally naked roommate, hugging her knees to her chest but finding herself wanting to part them to let Chloe see.

But Chloe’s eyes are on Beca’s, and they are suddenly so, so dark. “What do you mean?”

She does part her knees a little, then; the intrigue and excitement of performing in some way creeping up on her like a shot of tequila. “What are your search terms?” she says, arching an eyebrow at Chloe. She lets her own eyes wander a little after the question, at how soft Chloe’s breasts look and how stiff her nipples already are. She doesn’t let herself look lower, though; she can see enough.

She hears Chloe take a breath and hold it and she knows she’s trying to get a read on Beca and what their shared intentions are.

“Vibrators.”

Beca feels her eyebrows shoot up and she sees the surprising but still welcome concern on Chloe’s face that came with her answer. She wants Beca to be okay with it and Beca knows if she’s not, Chloe will let it go.

But Beca is okay with it. She is like, so okay with it. She’s been using her hands for so long because she was too shy to ask Chloe about trying something else. Which might be why she decided to take them down this path. “Okay,” she says, having to turn around and bend down to fetch her personal toy from its drawer next to the bed. She hopes it’s charged; she hasn’t had it plugged in for weeks.

“Okay?” Chloe sounds surprised and is wide-eyed when Beca turns back, purple vibrator in-hand.

“If I’m your entertainment,” she says, “then...consider me on-demand.” It might have sounded corny but just saying the words turned her on. She’s suddenly aroused by the concept of sexually performing to satisfy Chloe’s desires. She’s aroused by the concept that Chloe wants to watch her for sexual gratification.

Chloe seems to deflate, but it’s from the way she’s exhaling and almost closing in on herself before she’s closing her eyes burying her fingers in her own hair and Beca can see the way she’s tugging on it before she flat-out groans. “Lay down,” she says after a few more seconds and looks up as soon as Beca starts moving.

It makes Beca’s pulse race to hear Chloe tell her what to do. It makes her wet, too, and she knows wetness is going to be streaking her thighs soon. “Tell me what you want,” Beca says. She wants Chloe to simply answer, ‘You.’

Instead, Chloe says, “Turn it on and tease yourself,” as she moves onto her knees to crawl over until she’s kneeling at Beca’s feet.

Beca notes that she’s not kneeling primly with her hands folded in her lap; her knees are parted and even though she’s a few feet away, Beca can...yeah, she can look and see the contours between Chloe’s legs, and her hands are resting on her thighs. 

Her thumb finds the power button easily and presses it. It buzzes to life and she feels herself grow instantly wetter, both at the sound and the way Chloe’s breasts rise and fall more quickly when her breathing speeds up. And perhaps because Chloe’s telling her what to do.

“Tease myself?” she questions even as she starts to move the toy down, not quite recognizing her own voice.

Chloe nods and Beca can see the way her fingernails are pressing into her thighs. The way there’s already a light pink flush on her chest.

Beca’s not quite ready for how intense the vibration feels after not experiencing it in so long, despite having it on the lowest setting. The tip of it grazes between her legs and she tries to gasp and moan at the same time, resulting in a somewhat embarrassing choked sound and her eyes slamming closed.

She doesn’t have time to deal with being embarrassed, though. Not with the way Chloe sighs, “Oh, wow.”

Beca’s scared her heart might pound right out of her chest. Or give out altogether. “Like this?” she asks as she teases the vibrator against her clit, touching it and removing it, slipping it up and down and taking it away. She suddenly becomes extraordinarily self-aware that Chloe’s eyes are surely fixed between her legs.

It makes Beca want to part her legs further than the little she had when she laid down. So she does. She inches them wider until she bends her left knee to be able to open herself comfortably.

Chloe’s voice makes it to her ears. “Just like that.” The sound of Chloe moaning quietly also makes it to her ears and she forces her eyes open to look.

She wants to see what this is doing for Chloe. 

But she’s not ready for it. She’s not ready to see Chloe on her knees, still very, very nude, with one hand between her legs and the other playing with her nipple. She’s not ready to see the way Chloe’s fingers are moving over a visible clit and the way it all glistens in the dim light and how Chloe’s eyes are fixated between Beca’s legs.

It makes her moan and her hips roll, pushing her clit against the vibrator to make her moan again. She watches Chloe’s hips roll, too, in response.

“Keep going,” Chloe says, voice low and unfamiliar like Beca’s own. Her hips don’t stop rolling, though. She sets a slow pace and Beca starts to follow it, holding the lightly vibrating toy against herself.

She doesn’t think she will be able to last very long; she’s not sure she’s ever been as turned on as she is in this exact moment. She can feel how wet she is and how easily the vibrator slides against her. Worse, she’s starting to be able to hear it.

She wonders if Chloe hears it, too, because she says, “Now fuck yourself with it.”

Beca feels like someone threw a bucket of hot coals on her body. Everything is suddenly on fire and all she can do is whimper at the request. She feels as pathetic as she feels powerful, though. She’s ultimately in control, even if she’s allowing Chloe to tell her what to do, and the trust and surrender that encompass that make for a heady experience.

She honestly can’t believe she’s doing it, but she does it. She even manages to open her eyes to keep them fixed on Chloe as she tilts the vibrator and slides it down to her entrance and back up a few times to coat it with wetness before she’s slipping it inside herself, each inch making her have to try harder to not just break into orgasm until it’s fully buried.

Beca already feels like she’s out of her mind, and Chloe doesn’t seem too far behind. She watches as Chloe’s hand dips further between her legs and she knows Chloe’s slipping her fingers into herself like Beca’s doing with the vibrator.

She clenches around the toy and it makes her hips jump.

“Oh, my God, Beca,” Chloe moans and Beca watches her start fully riding her hand, her free hand flailing for a few seconds before it lands on her own knee.

Beca knows she needs something to stabilize herself. She almost tells Chloe to just crawl forward and straddle her face and hold on to the back of the couch.

The thought of it makes her drag the vibrator out and she hears Chloe’s empathetic moan at the sight, which only makes Beca wetter still. She presses back in and Chloe moans again.

Beca moans, too.

It kills her to do it, but she can’t keep her head lifted any longer to watch Chloe. She won’t be able to keep herself from coming if she’s fucking herself and watching Chloe doing the same. Not like this. This is all so raw and visceral. It’s never felt like this. Not with Chloe. Not with anyone.

She doesn’t wait for Chloe’s instruction. Her thumb finds the correct button at the base of the toy and presses it to turn up the vibration strength, immediately groaning at the added stimulation.

“Just like that,” Chloe breathes and Beca feels herself swell with pride at the knowledge that Chloe likes it. “You look so good.”

It makes Beca part her legs wider and her foot bumps Chloe’s knee in the process. It seems to make both of them pause for a brief second and Beca decides to leave it there. She chooses, again, to touch Chloe in some way while they do this. While she pumps her vibrator in and out of herself steadily.

“God, you’re so wet, I can see it,” Chloe groans.

Beca just nods and brings her free hand to herself to tend to her now-neglected clit. She rubs it with precision and the combination draws a particularly sinful moan out of her. She’s going to lose it soon, especially if Chloe keeps moaning the way she is. Beca can feel her, too. She can feel it in the way the bed moves and how her leg shifts against Beca’s foot how fast Chloe’s hips are moving.

It spurs Beca’s on, too, and she works the toy more quickly, thumbing the button to kick it up again, desperate for more of everything. She almost shudders with the new intensity and has to clench against it to hold off once again, just holding it deep inside herself until the urge to come lessens.

“Don’t stop,” Chloe says and she sounds so desperate Beca almost comes just from that.

Instead, she nods and starts thrusting into herself only for— 

“Are you fucking kidding me,” she groans, dragging the vibrator out of herself.

“What? What’s wrong?” Chloe asks, sounding so breathless.

Beca looks at her and memorizes it all; Chloe’s never looked so aroused and positively wild and Beca’s pretty sure she probably looks much the same. Then she looks at the toy and clicks the power button, only for it to not respond. No light. No buzz. Nothing.

“It died.”

Chloe’s, “What?” is an airy laugh, almost like she can’t believe it.

“It hasn’t been charged in two months,” she explains. Then feels like there are way too many words being shared. “I can still…” she finishes, moving it back between her legs, intending to use it like a simple dildo instead.

“No,” Chloe says and Beca’s shocked when her hand, the one holding the vibrator, is suddenly in Chloe’s grasp, her hand around Beca’s around the base of the toy. Her other hand is still between her legs but she’s no longer moving her hips.

Beca swallows hard. She knows something is going to happen. It looms with inevitability and has been for weeks. Or months. Years, maybe. She thinks the moment might have finally arrived.

“Lesbians.”

Beca has to shake her head to clear her thoughts. “What?”

“My search terms: lesbians.”

Beca just stares at her. She’s trying to prepare herself but it feels impossible.

“Lesbian sex.”

She hears herself whimper and somehow feels heavier, like she could sink into bed at any moment.

“Lesbian sex best friends.”

Beca’s entire stomach flips. “That’s what you want to watch?” she manages to say.

Chloe’s nod is tentative, almost shy despite what’s been transpiring between them for the last many minutes.

Beca feels herself nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

She watches the way Chloe rushes forward and she drops the toy somewhere in the bed so she can drag her nails down Chloe’s back the second she’s on top of her, hips between Beca’s open legs.

Chloe stops short, though. Her lips are hovering millimeters from Beca’s. 

It’s Beca who lifts her head to kiss her.

It feels like fire.

It’s hot and aggressive and Chloe’s hips are already rolling against Beca who worries for a quarter of a second that this might be over way too fast before she stops caring about that. Chloe’s on top of her, hips grinding against Beca while they devour one another’s kiss and it’s all Beca can do to hold on, to wrap her legs around Chloe’s waist and bury her hands in her hair and meet Chloe’s tongue stroke for stroke.

“I want to touch you,” Chloe says against her lips and all Beca can do to respond is nod because Chloe’s sucking on her tongue.

She feels Chloe’s weight shift and she knows why. Chloe needs her hand because she’s going to touch Beca.

Beca also has to drop her legs back to the bed again and she feels Chloe shift until she’s straddling Beca’s thigh, hot wetness pressing against it to make Beca moan. She can’t believe she’s feeling that part of Chloe on her body. She can’t believe that Chloe’s trying to distract Beca with the way she’s kissing her as if Beca won’t notice that her hand is skating down her body, touching but not lingering on her breasts before swiftly moving between her legs.

“Fuck, Chloe,” she whines, on the edge of orgasm once again.

She can feel Chloe working herself against her thigh and it only makes it all the more difficult for Beca to hold on. She digs her nails into Chloe’s shoulders to hold on as Chloe’s fingers move over her with a level of reverence Beca really doesn’t have the patience for right now.

“You’re so wet,” Chloe breathes into her mouth before kissing her again, fingers moving through that wetness until they’re starting to work in circles against her.

Beca doesn’t stand a chance and she knows it.

She just holds on and tries to focus more on how Chloe feels working herself on Beca’s thigh than she does on the way Chloe’s playing with her clit. 

She can hear herself but it’s almost drowned out by Chloe’s own desperate moans. Beca wants  to hear more of it so she turns her face away, not because she doesn’t want to kiss her anymore but because she wants to hear her. And it’s getting increasingly difficult to breathe.

Chloe moaning her name in her ear is what does it.

Her climax hits her hard and with little warning and she hears a, “Oh, my God, yes,” moaned, too, and she knows Chloe’s coming with her. She knows because she can feel it in how arousal is dripping down the outside of her thigh just like her own is dripping between her legs. She knows because she’s heard Chloe come so many times in the past month she knows every nuance of her voice and breath and the way her body almost shakes with release and she can hear that and feel all of that now.

It lasts for so long Beca’s not sure she’s not coming twice back-to-back. She doesn’t care what it is, though. She just holds on to Chloe and lets the pleasure and ecstasy wash over her again and again until Chloe’s laying heavily against her. 

Her face is in Beca’s neck and she can feel her there kissing it tiredly, the occasional graze of a tongue drawing a shiver out of her.

Her hand is still between Beca’s legs. It’s at rest but Beca is acutely aware of its presence until it’s retreating. She feels it dragging up her stomach, can feel the wetness that travels with it, and her breath sticks in her throat when she feels those same wet fingers find her left nipple to start teasing it.

It makes her jaw drop; it’s so sensual and sexual and her back arches into the touch.

Chloe lifts her head at her movement and looks down at her, the first eye contact they’ve made since they kissed. Beca can see there’s a question of some kind in her eyes; she hopes it’s a question that Beca wants to respond to in agreement. But for now, she just wants Chloe to keep touching her.

“That feels…” Her voice cuts off when Chloe’s fingers pinch and then pull until her wet nipple slips from Chloe’s grip. “Oh, my God.”

“Good?” Chloe says with a lazy smile.

Beca nods and melts into the kiss that Chloe presses to her mouth. She’s just settling into the kiss when Chloe ends it and moves away. She’s about to be disappointed when Chloe’s other hand sneaks under her chin to push it up and away so Chloe can kiss her throat. Beca feels a mark being left and she’s thrilled she won’t have to worry about anyone at work seeing it.

Chloe keeps moving, though, and her heart starts to race again as her lips travel over her collarbone until they’re moving up the hill of her breast.

Beca knows what’s coming but no fantasy could prepare her for what it feels like for Chloe to take her nipple into her mouth, tongue moving over it languidly. A moan follows and it’s Chloe’s, not Beca’s. Beca’s is stuck in her throat.

“I can taste you,” Chloe exhales when she lets Beca’s achingly hard nipple slip from her lips. “So good.”

Beca’s moan finally finds its way out at those words and she brings her hand up to push her fingers into Chloe’s hair again. “Don’t stop,” she says, breath already quickening.

She’s certain she’s never been so aroused before. She’s also certain she’s never had sex like this in her life. She hears Chloe’s agreement to not stop, though it’s little more than a hum as her tongue and lips play with Beca’s nipple, teasing and sucking and nipping gently to make Beca gasp.

She’s quickly desperate again and she’s about to ask Chloe for more when she has the stark realization that she hasn’t touched Chloe at all. Not more than her back and shoulders and hair.

If Chloe notices that Beca’s working her arm between their bodies, she doesn’t react to it. Beca knows she’s hyper-focused on what she’s doing; her nipple is so over-stimulated that it’s almost starting to hurt but she never wants Chloe to stop sucking on it. Not for anything. She wants her to do it forever.

She has to push her own hips down into the bed to be able to fit her hand between her leg and Chloe.

It doesn’t allow for fanfare or gradual teasing but Beca doesn’t care. What she cares about is the surprised-sounding moan that comes from Chloe, even with Beca’s nipple still in her mouth, and the way her hips lift to give Beca’s hand more room. What she cares about is how slick and hot Chloe is and that she’s finally touching her, finally hearing what she sounds like because of the way Beca’s fingers brush over her clit.

Chloe’s teeth connect again and it makes Beca hiss. “Other one, maybe?” she says with a gentle tug on Chloe’s hair that generates another moan from Chloe.

She’d almost forgotten Chloe likes her hair being pulled. Almost. She glances down and almost feels faint at the look of ecstasy on Chloe’s face, eyes closed and face flushed and lips parted as she moves. She doesn’t even open her eyes as her hand cups Beca’s other breast to push it up to bring its nipple to her lips.

It’s been so deprived compared to the other that Beca can scarcely breathe from the contact. She can’t take her eyes off it though. Can’t look away from how it looks to have Chloe’s hair between her fingers, to have Chloe’s hand on her breast, to have her nipple in Chloe’s mouth.

It’s so mesmerizing she forgets she’d had other plans until Chloe moans and pushes herself against Beca’s fingers.

Beca can feel her need and she tucks two fingers together and reaches to find Chloe’s entrance and she lets Chloe be the one to move to take them inside, which she does with a moan that makes Beca’s breast slip from her lips but she recaptures it quickly.

Beca probably should have expected it given their position, but feeling Chloe’s hips starting to move, makes Beca feel dizzy. Chloe’s riding Beca’s fingers and worshiping her breasts and Beca’s so turned on she doesn’t know how to ask for what she needs, but she doesn’t have to. Chloe stops holding up Beca’s breast, adjusting her own angle to be able to continue reaching it, and slips that hand between Beca’s legs again, not hesitating to push into Beca’s body.

“Fuck,” she exhales as she drops her head back to the pillow, unable to watch any longer.

She curls her fingers and feels Chloe do the same, the pace picking up again quickly.

“Beca,” Chloe whimpers, her forehead resting against Beca’s chest as they fuck each other, Beca’s hand in her hair to hold on.

Beca can only moan and writhe and try to keep her fingers inside Chloe who is starting to move so hard and fast against her that it’s making it difficult. They slip out a few times but when it happens, Chloe stops and waits for Beca to find her again before she’s riding her again.

Chloe’s hand isn’t very focused, either, but Beca doesn’t need it to be. It’s inside her and Beca can do the rest of the work as she works her hips against it, listening to Chloe moaning her name again and again like it’s a curse word until she feels Chloe quivering from within, and a rush of heat, and Chloe’s hand pushes hard against her so she can grind against it and then they’re coming together. Again.

Beca tries to listen to the way they sound together but it’s hard to think about anything but the pleasure rippling between her legs and the way it feels for Chloe’s cunt to clench around her fingers again and again.

“Oh, my God,” Chloe groans once they’re both still. She’s cautious and courteous about the way she detangles herself from Beca, who is so spent she feels like she could fall asleep in two seconds, until she’s sprawled on her back next to Beca.

“You okay?” Beca manages to ask because Chloe hasn’t stopped making sounds.

“I think I’m still coming,” Chloe says with a weak laugh followed by a quiet moan. “Oh, my God, Beca.” Another sigh. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fucking great,” Beca says after heaving a sigh and letting her head loll to the left to look at her. “God, that was so good.”

She hadn’t really meant to say that out loud. There hasn’t been time to figure out what the afterglow mood was going to be, if it would be okay to acknowledge things a certain way.

“That was the best sex I’ve ever had,” Chloe says, followed by another laugh and a groan that has her bringing her hands up to cover her face.

Beca feels her entire body blush. “Seriously?”

Chloe turns her head and peeks at her from between her fingers. “You’ve had better?”

Beca feels herself smiling. “No,” she says. “But I thought you might have.”

Chloe’s hands fall away; she’s smiling, too, and she shakes her head. “Nothing like that.”

Beca knows she’s smiling way too big but she can’t help it. “Cool.”

“Yeah,” Chloe laughs. “Cool. I can’t feel my legs.”

Beca blushes again but this time it’s accompanied by pride; she likes that she made Chloe feel that good. She lets her eyes roam over Chloe’s body, spent and on display next to her and she drinks it in until something in her periphery catches her eye. She has to tilt her chin to see, and then she laughs.

“Dude, my nipples are like, permanently hard now.” They’re both still standing at firm attention, much more than their normal state of arousal.

Every filter she’s ever put on herself over the years feels absent now and it’s freeing. She feels free.

Chloe nods. “It’s a good look on you.”

Chloe meets her eyes and they both fall quiet. Beca wonders if it’s healthy, or even humanly possible, to become so aroused so quickly so soon after such a hard release but Chloe’s looking at her like she feels the same way.

Chloe even starts to move but Beca puts up her hand to stop her. 

“Just...I need a moment.” She needs to finish gathering herself before Chloe destroys her again.

“But we don’t have to do it that way anymore,” Chloe says with a smile, her hand lacing with Beca’s to pull until Beca’s the one turning onto her side and moving until she’s sitting astride Chloe’s hips.

“No?” Beca asks, using her position to arch and stretch her back, something she notices Chloe watching appreciatively.

“This is much better,” Chloe replies, her hands moving lazily over Beca’s thighs and waist until they’re gently cupping her breasts. “But I do still want to watch you fuck yourself with that when you recharge it,” she adds with a nod of her head to the right where Beca’s dead vibrator lays somewhere all but forgotten.

It warms Beca and she smiles as she bends down, intending to kiss her, but she stops short. “Only if I get to fuck you with it, too.”

“Deal,” Chloe whispers against her lips.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

The next morning, Beca decides to stop crossing dates off the calendar marking the days they’ve been home. She takes the calendar off the wall entirely and shoves it into a drawer.

She’d rather not be reminded of the passage time.

Not when Chloe’s in bed waiting for her to return with their traditional cups of coffee after staying up all night.

Beca’s never been more physically exhausted in her life.

She hopes the feeling never goes away.