 |
|
|
|
|
Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: R
Pairing: Jess/Jules
.
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones and why you think so.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: For the contrelamontre forbidden love challenge; done in forty-five minutes.
Summary: Jules doesn’t quite cope.
***
Showering in the dorm was tricky even without considering timing. First there was the shower shoes, and remembering to look out for vomit splatters in the corner because for some reason, everyone figured it was easier to rinse last night’s hang-over down the shower drains instead of flushing it. Then there was remembering everything else; Jules’ room was nearly at the other end of the hall, and so if she happened to forget her towel or her shampoo, she had to risk a run back. It shouldn’t have been any worse than in the locker room, but in the locker room she didn’t have to worry about boys ambling around, begging Jesus for her towel to slip.
All right, that wasn’t so bad. They were single-minded jerks, but it was kind of flattering. Whenever Jules’ mom called up wanting to know about the American “scene,” Jules didn’t have to lie in order to reassure her, and that meant no lingering queasy feeling in her stomach. Timing, on the other hand, had no upside.
Early morning was a no-go because there were either footie drills or the morning jog Jules resorted to in order to wake up (coffee gave her headaches). Late morning, the janitors had usually taken over the bathrooms. Then there wasn’t time till after dinner, but it seemed like everyone wanted to take a shower then. That was when Jess preferred taking hers, when she hadn’t gotten a chance to after practice.
Jess had been shy even back in England, always hanging back and showering after the rest of the team. At first, she’d done the same in California, but inch by inch she’d loosened up till she had stripped down and shoved in with the rest. Soap suds cream against her skin, the film tinted like the froth on top of a cappuccino latte. She’d tried to keep herself turned towards the wall, but the jokes that flew thick about the showers kept her head twisting to laugh over her shoulder so that eventually she had just faced however it seemed natural. Some girls flaunted themselves, making jokes as crude as men’s about other men’s dicks, but Jess didn’t. If her breasts happened to round beneath her moving hands, nipples playing peek-a-boo with her fingers, then they just happened to do that. If the dark tapering hairs between her legs rumpled between the rivulets of water in temporary sensuous curls, then they just happened to do that. If when she stepped out, her hand was slow in draping a towel over the smooth slope of her arse, then that just happened. Accidentally. That was all.
And if Jules’ face grew warmer than the hot streams of water and her head swam with the steam-sea of the room, if her hands pressed harder and higher between her legs and nicked her clit with her nails, then that didn’t just happen. It didn’t.
Jess would never go for it. Worse yet, her family would have every reason to whisk her back to the safety of her arms, and Jules’ mother would just—she’d—something explosive, anyhow.
So Jules took her showers late at night, when sometimes the water ran lukewarm because so many others had been there before her. Then, there was no one around to hear her breath come a little short, maybe. Or the slap of her hand against the wall for balance while her fingers rubbed hard, harder, hardest. Rough enough to chafe the skin, and God, that’d be a bad thing to have to explain to Jess.
Jess, Jess, Jess. Girl that just matched Jules so well, that could tell stories in smiles and that could cut deeper than even Jules’ mother, who supposedly knew her best. Long legs with the scar that always rippled the suds oddly, long black hair that only came down in the shower, silky and wet fanning over her back.
The water was still cool, but it steamed right off Jules’ skin. Dribbled into her throat and make her choke, but didn’t stop the rapidfire clicking of memories through her head or the fast uneven pressure of her hand. Her clit was sore and aching and the feeling was spreading through her, making her knees droop dangerously toward the floor. Jules climbed the wall one-handed, hooked her fingers over the top and hung there, spray beating her breasts while a name beat her mind and her other hand forced her legs farther apart.
She made a last-ditch effort to think boys’ chests, biceps and thighs, but those only flowed to brown calves and long black eyelashes and Jess who was with Joe who was with Jess who wasn’t—with—Jules.
Late at night, there weren’t feet shuffling impatiently outside of the stalls. So Jules could lie against the stall wall and let her legs hang so unladylike apart, let the tepid warm do a half-arsed job of washing her clean. Just like she was doing a half-arsed job of being a friend; she’d gotten a boyfriend to take her mind off Jess—it wasn’t too fair to him, but he spent most of his time eying Jules’ breasts so she figured they were even—but all it seemed to do was to focus her thoughts on what wasn’t there.
The irony didn’t bite so much as coat her all over in an invisible, nasty stickiness that seemed to linger long after Jules finally mustered the strength to reach for the soap.
***