#swynalice

GEM: This was the farthest he’d ever gone. 

They were at Alice’s big, empty house. Their steps echoed along the marble floor, but Alice didn’t seem to care, so Gem didn’t either. He let Alice lead him by the hand, his fire a dead, ashen thing inside of him. As they moved beneath the chandelier beneath the grand staircase, Gem whistled low and that echoed too. 

As much as he wanted to, they didn’t linger. 

Alice whisked him up the stairs, down a hallway and another--a maze of rooms--until they were in what he assumed was her bedroom. He didn’t get much of a chance to look around. Instead, they picked up right where they left off at the club. Their lips crashed together and they moved further into the room clumsily, Gem’s bare hand splayed against her back. (He’d abandoned his gloves in the cab. They were hanging limply from his back pocket.) 

“Swanky place you got here,” Gem murmured when the kiss broke so they could catch their breath. He’d learned this part in the last few weeks. The ebb and flow of a kiss--the breath and the lack of it and how it could make you as dizzy as a tab of acid dissolving on your tongue. It was just as addictive as a feeling too. 

“You’ll have to give me a tour.” He ducked his head back down, sucking at the soft, sweet-smelling spot on her neck just beneath her chin. 

ALICE: The good news about Alice’s parents never being home was that she could always bring home whoever she wanted to hook up with. Actually, even if they were home, she could probably bring someone back and they wouldn’t even notice.

The person in question tonight was Gem Morey, which Alice thought was quite funny, considering she’d gone to school with one of his older brothers. She’d graduated by the time he burned down part of the secondary, and then he’d come back to town and he seemed to stir up intrigue wherever he went. Alice liked mysterious people, and she was no stranger to returning to town after being gone for a bit, so when she spotted him at Pixies, she’d gone up to talk to him and batted her eyelashes.

One thing led to another and now he was kissing the corner of her neck, and she tilted her head back, giggling a bit. 

“Hmm, I suppose we’ll start with my favorite place.” 

She reached to tug his collar, and stumbled backwards, dragging him down on the bed with her. It was a bit of a mess in here, but the lights were off and you couldn’t really tell.

Besides — Gem Morey was not here to judge the clothes on her floor or the paintbrushes strew across her desk. She knew what he was here for and that’s exactly why she’d brought him back.

She leaned up to kiss him again, a hand snaking up the back of his neck and tangling in his thick dark hair. 

GEM: This was the farthest he’d ever gone.

With a girl. On her bed. 

His knees hit first and he braced himself on one of his hands, the other still caught behind her back. The action had startled him and had tensed for a second, waiting for fire--for Alice to start screaming. But nothing happened. Alice was still giggling, squirming under him, her body warm, his body hot but not in a way that was dangerous. 

Before he could think, Alice’s lips were on his again. Probably for the best. He needed to focus on that and not the nervous thundering of his heart. Still, his brain tried to work out what went next. Probably--shirts, right? That would make sense. 

They were still awkwardly on the edge of the bed, so Gem wrapped his arm back around Alice and moved her up. They tripped and stumbled, kissing and laughing until her head hit the pillows. Then, Gem’s hand skated down the side of her body. His fingers slipped under the hem of her shirt, touching her lovely, soft skin, just above her hip. Gem had never touched a girl--anyone--there before. The headrush was dizzying and he felt it flood through the rest of him. He felt her stomach twitch against his touch and he wondered how else he could make her squirm. His hand moved a little higher and then, suddenly--

Gem stopped, breaking the kiss. He glanced at Alice, glad for the dark, so that she couldn’t see the way he was blushing. “Uhm--can I?”  

ALICE: Well, well — wasn’t Gem Morey quite the gentleman?

Alice had not been expecting that. Gem seemed like the type of bloke who would like to do it in the dark, shady back corner of a bar, or get real rough with the biting and what not. Alice didn’t really mind those types of guys, except when she did. Sometimes their bravado annoyed her and she just wanted to snog someone and not have them be weird about it.

So, she was thankful that Gem was not that type of guy. He surprised her, with that little question, and she let out a breathy little giggle.

She thought it was cute. She wanted to kiss him again, because of how cute she found it.

Instead, she just reached to touch the side of his face.

“Yes, you may,” she said, and she sat up a little on her elbows. “I can help you, if you like. I know the ribbons get a bit complicated in the dark.” 

And she started to undo the top part of her blouse, snaking her finger around the yellow ribbon that cinched the fabric together. 

GEM: Fuck, fuck. Gem hadn’t thought about that.

Y’know the actual--act of taking off Alice’s shirt. Women’s clothes were fucking complicated. There was ribbons involved? He had just kind of thought there would be a zipper somewhere. 

Alice sat up. Gem’s mouth had gone a little dry. His hands were a little sweaty. Which was weird, because sweaty usually meant fire was far behind, but his fire had been a dead, ashen thing in his chest for weeks now. He wouldn’t be doing this otherwise. He couldn’t, because the idea of a girl with her shirt off made Gem want to burst into literal flame.

Instead, he just sat up too, so that he was kind of awkwardly sitting on her thighs, though he kept most of his weight on his knees. His eyes watched in the half-dark as Alice untangled the cute ribbon. He couldn’t remember what color it was. In the light it looked like a smokey grey. When she dropped her hands, he lifted his own--hoping that she didn’t notice they were trembling a bit. He wasn’t even sure why, maybe because he wasn’t used to adrenaline without the accompaniment of fire. 

The ribbon was soft and smooth between his fingers. He worked with both hands to pull it meticulously through each loop, until the parts it was keeping together, fell open, exposing her lovely, smooth skin. Gem’s eyes flicked back to Alice. She was still just smiling prettily at him, so he gently pushed the shirt off her arms, exposing her breasts. 

The first thing he thought was that they didn’t look the way they did in porn. Which--yeah, duh. Gem had read plenty of feminist manifestos, he knew all that shit was fake. And he thought they were perfectly nice anyway. The curve of them was as soft as ripples of water. Should he tell her that? No. That’d be fucking weird. 

Don’t be fucking weird, Gem. 

The second thought he had (well, third, because don’t be fucking weird was definitely second) was: what was he supposed to do with them? Touch them? He wanted to, obviously. But how? 

He raised a hand and brushed the back of his knuckles against the side of her breast. The skin was softer than the ribbon. He hadn’t thought that could be possible. His gaze went back to her face with some effort and he leaned in and kissed her again. As soon as he did, he got a little bolder, his own arousal, the blood rushing through him, stirring him on. 

His hand grasped her breast more firmly, squeezing it--just to see what would happen--as he pushed her back into the pillows again.

ALICE: Alice let out a breathy sigh when Gem caressed her. She stretched all out on her bed, before hooking one leg around his hip so that she could drag their bodies closer towards each other. She kissed him again, one hand trailing down his side. 

If there was anything strange about the way Gem was acting, Alice did not notice. Sure, he was a little more timid and gentlemanly in the bedroom than she expected, but that was perhaps her own misjudgement than anything else. After all, people were often very different when their clothes were off than when they were parading around.

And speaking of —

“Let me help you with your shirt,” said Alice, since that seemed to be the theme of the evening and it was quite turning her on for some reason. “I do think we’ve got rather too many clothes between us now, don’t you?” She nipped a little at his ear, then reached a hand for the bottom of his shirt, her fingers brushing the bare skin of his hip. 

GEM: Alice pulled him down, her leg wrapping around him. Their groins connected and Gem’s head went dizzy again at once. He felt jittery, like he was going to jump right out of his skin--and he couldn’t tell if it was in a good way or not. He’d never been this close to someone, never touched someone like this; without any fear of what he might do to them. (Though, yeah, he was still a little afraid just, er, cause he wasn’t really sure what he was doing, but that wasn’t the same kind of nauseating, paralyzing fear.) 

The kissing stopped and Gem blinked. He wanted to keep kissing. His cock was hard in his jeans, pounding insistently. It made it hard to think. 

Shirt. Yeah. That was fine. He could do that. His hip twitched as her warm fingers touched the skin there and he leaned back so she could help him pull off his shirt. 

Back to kissing. 

Their chests touched, all of Alice’s warm, sticky skin pressed against his. It was a distracting feeling. Not bad necessarily--just weird. He felt his skin crawling. Half his instincts were shouting at him to jump away, while the other half wanted to know what it felt like to be pressed inside someone else. His head was buzzing.

His hand went back to her breast again, squeezing it as he moved against her, wanting friction. When the heat rose in him again he broke the kiss, panting a little. He glanced down at her, unsure of the…next steps. 

“Do you, uh--mind if I take my trousers off?” 

ALICE: When Gem broke away from the kiss, Alice felt a little dazed. She liked when kissing did that, sent her into a bit of a tizzy where her head was spinning and her lips tasted like the other person. She liked feeling simultaneously super aware of her body, but also completely out of it, like she was floating above it and all around the room.

It took her a second to process what Gem had said and then she nodded, a smile spreading across her face.

“Not at all,” she said. Reaching for the waistband of his trousers, she added, “Let me help you there.”

Slowly, she ran her fingers on the lower planes of his stomach, lower and lower till her hand brushed the outline of his cock. She reached to unbuckle his jeans, her fingers skirting on the small slip of newly exposed flesh.

Gem Morey was beautiful. In the dim light, she could see the sharp lines of his face and body. His hair was so dark, like spilled India ink. If she drew him, that’s how she’d do it — sharp ink lines that spilled into something else. Something not as polished. Something a little messy. 

She tugged his trousers lower, till he was just in his boxers. She took a moment to admire him, before placing a hand on either side of his waist and leaning up to kiss him again. 

GEM: Alice touched him and Gem didn’t know what to do. He stayed very still, heart in his throat, hands clenching the covers on either side of her head. Was it normal to feel like you were gonna explode? Gem didn’t know. The feeling was too much, overwhelming in a way that made him want to pull away entirely. He didn’t, because that would be stupid. And weird, probably. And it’s not like he didn’t want this. He really, really did. 

His trousers fell to his knees and he shimmied out of them. It was a little weird and awkward as he peeled himself out of them, but Alice just smiled and giggled in that cute way of hers and--everything was fine. He was fine. This was fine. 

They kissed, their tongues tangling together. Gem put his hands on Alice’s hips too, his thumbs in the divots of her hips. His fingers trailed inwards until he got to the waistband and then, he pulled them down too--thankfully it was more straightforward than the shirt. Her panties were thin, flimsy, and small. He glanced down, but in the dark, with his shadow cast over her, he couldn’t really see anything. He didn’t want to stare and make her uncomfortable, or look like a weirdo, so he peeled his gaze back up to her face and kissed softly at the spot under her jaw. 

His hand moved down her side, over her thigh. It paused there for a moment, his thumb on the edge of the fabric. When she didn’t pull away, he moved his hand. The fabric was already wet which surprised him. He wasn’t sure why. Logically, he knew how all of this worked but thinking about a girl being wet for him was…weird. He touched her lightly, realizing this part he…definitely didn’t know what he was doing. 

“Is--this, uh--alright?” he asked, his words breathy. It felt like the whole room was on fire. Gem would know. 

ALICE: Alice’s eyes were closed, her head tilted back slightly. Gem was — well, fine really. Most boys didn’t get it right on the first try, though just the feeling of his fingers against her knickers was enough. She didn’t answer right away and instead took his hand in her own, so that she could press his fingers against the fabric of her panties. The friction of their hands together made her toes curl a little bit.

It was nice. Slow and soft and very unexpected from how she thought the evening was going to go. Who knew Gem Morey was so kind and attentive in bed? Alice certainly didn’t. 

She decided to return the favor and slipped her other hand into his boxers, her fingers encircling his cock. She always found it amusing how penises turned from soft squishy things to something hard and heated — not that she’d say that out loud,  because she knew it would immediately kill the mood. Instead, Alice let out a little moan as she tugged along his length and gently ran a thumb over the tip, before starting to move her hand faster. 

GEM: Gem blinked when he felt Alice’s hand on his, pressing his own harder against her. He hadn’t thought--well, okay. If that was what she wanted. She just seemed so…delicate. But, he did as she commanded with her touch, rubbing her harder. He was so focused on that, he didn’t even notice her other hand until it was around his cock. 

His lips paused on hers as he sucked in a breath. She didn’t stop there, though. Her hand moved along his shaft, sure and quick. She moved over the head and it was like a shot of lightning through his veins. His whole body clenched and he groaned into her mouth, his forehead pressing against hers, their noses brushing. 

The hand on her had gone limp. The other had twisted into the sheets next to her head. His hips jerked into her touch on instinct. 

“Ah, I--” Gem choked on his words, unable to think. Unable to warn her--

His orgasm slammed into him before he could do anything, making a mess of his pants and Alice’s hand. He grunted into Alice’s neck, his head bowed as his muscles tightened and then released all at once, leaving him half laying on top of her, bewildered and twitching as the little eddies of pleasure made their way out of his system. He felt heavy, full of sand--

“Shit,” he cursed, hauling himself off of her, worried that he might be crushing her. He rolled onto his back, the sheets twisting around his legs as he stared up at the dark ceiling, catching his breath. The cool wetness in his pants was the first thing he felt when he came back to himself and his face heated. He reached up to rub a hand through his hair and then he sat up and looked over at Alice.

“I--” he tried again, but he didn’t know what to say. “I--sorry. I dunno…” he said helplessly. 

ALICE: It took her a second to register what had just happened. She blinked in surprise, her eyelids fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. And she felt the hot, sticky mess on her hands and saw Gem jerk away from her suddenly.

And he was — apologizing?

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” said Alice. Her voice was soft and she sat up, reaching for the tissue box on her nightstand so that she could wipe her hands. She looked at Gem in the darkness and even though she couldn’t make out much color, from the way his voice sounded, she would not be surprised if his cheeks burned red. 

“It’s alright. Happens to everyone, I promise.” She leaned back on the bed. “Honestly, I find it flattering. Means I did a good job, doesn’t it?” She winked. “But seriously — don’t beat yourself up over it, yeah?” She turned over on one side, propping her head up with her hand. She was still topless and only in her knickers, but Alice didn’t think that was such a big deal. She tilted her head towards him and thought about gently brushing his hair out of his face, but something about Gem reminded her of a feral cat — he might snap her hand out of defense if she didn’t give him the space he needed to get comfortable. 

“You can stay if you want. Or leave, if you’d prefer. I won’t be offended either way.” 

GEM: Happens to everyone?

Gem let out a snort, because even he could keep in the amusement at how much of a lie that was. He couldn’t stand being pandered to. Even if it was probably better than someone making fun of him. Or being a bitch about it. Still--Gem couldn’t even look at her as he turned to the side of the bed and searched around in the dark for his shirt.

“Yeah, right,” Gem said, clearing his throat as he pulled his shirt over his head. 

He wasn’t beating himself up over it. He just felt like he was going to die of absolute mortification. It didn’t matter if his fire was dormant in his chest, he was gonna light this place on fire just with pure embarrassment. He found his pants next and pulled them on. It briefly crossed his mind that he probably shouldn’t just leave her…unsatisfied, but who was he kidding? He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. 

So, he just finished getting dressed.

“Yeah, uh--no thanks. I’ll--see you around.” 

He didn’t even think to threaten her not to tell anyone, because he just wanted to get out of there. In the dark halls, he got turned around twice--considered knicking a pretty crystal vase he came across, but figured leaving it was probably better karma. Hopefully, even if she did spread it around, no one would believe her, considering everyone just assumed that being a dick and handsome went hand and hand with sexual prowess. He’d coasted on that his entire adulthood. 

If she did, he’d--handle it. Probably. Somehow. For now, he just wanted to go home and crawl in bed and try to forget the way her skin felt and how lonely he was.