Chapter Text
“I didn’t think we were going out tonight!” Jackie whined. “I don’t have a costume!”
Shauna followed her voice from the kitchen to their bedroom, a beer in hand for each of them. Jackie stood at the center of the tornado she always made when they went out, no matter how much notice they had—rolling hills of discarded clothes, the heels of abandoned pumps peeking out from between them, her makeup bag and all its contents strewn across their bed behind her. And, at the eye of the storm, Jackie in a going out set of underwear—lingerie, really—black and lace and sheer in all the right places. Her makeup was done, or at least it looked done to Shauna, there was no telling when she’d go back in to adjust something at the last second. Her eyes were lined carefully, her lashes painted so long they almost reached her eyebrows, her lips a deep berry red. Her hair was perfectly curled, the ends of it just barely brushing her collarbones.
“You should just wear this,” Shauna smirked. “We have some cat ears somewhere. I’ll paint some whiskers on you.”
Jackie rolled her eyes. She took her beer, the brush of her hand against Shauna’s still enough to set her on fire when she looked like this, and threw back a long sip.
“As if,” Jackie grinned, a little pink working its way onto her cheeks. “You’d be a fucking nightmare all night if other people were looking at me in this.”
“Mmm,” Shauna hummed. She took Jackie’s beer from her outstretched hand and set them both aside on the vanity that Jackie never actually used, braving the wreckage of their entire closet—Jackie went through Shauna’s clothes, too, considered them options to her as much as her own—to step closer to her. “Okay, you’ve got me there.”
Jackie slid her arms around Shauna’s neck. Shauna’s hands found her waist and she leaned in for a kiss. Jackie twisted her face, leaving Shauna to land on her cheek.
“My lip stain is still drying.” Jackie rubbed the back of Shauna’s neck, her fingers massaging the base of her skull. “It’ll rub off on you.”
Shauna nodded, pressing her forehead against Jackie’s temple. Jackie’s perfume was already on—sweet and warm, like apples and honey and cinnamon and something muskier—and Shauna was moments from suggesting that they ought to just stay in when Jackie squealed with excitement.
“Oh!” Jackie pulled away and clapped her hands together. “I know!”
She stretched, reaching for the top shelf of their closest, where the things they never wore but couldn’t bring themselves to donate went to die.
“What’re you—”
“Fuck, I think it’s in the very back.” Jackie went on her tiptoes, every muscle from her calves to her ass going taut. Shauna drew her hand back to give her a light smack, but Jackie spoke again before she could bring it home. “Lift me up, will you?”
Shauna settled for giving Jackie’s ass a quick squeeze instead, pressing a kiss into the crook of her neck before bending her knees, wrapping her arms around Jackie’s hips, and standing up straight.
“Ah! Got it.”
Shauna placed Jackie back on her feet. Jackie turned to face her, smiling brightly, a gold, bejeweled crown held above her head in triumph.
“You’re going as prom queen?” Shauna chuckled. “I bet your old dress is somewhere in there, too.”
(Shauna knew it was, because that was the dress that Jackie had been wearing their first time. The conditions had been perfect—Jackie sour from losing states, Shauna not wanting to go to prom at all because she didn’t have a date, (at least not one she could stomach for that long), Jeff whining when Jackie suggested she tag along with them, Jackie finally pissed off enough to dump his ass for real. One hour spent showing face at the dance, followed by three spent in a clearing in the woods on the other side of town, Jackie laid out beneath Shauna on a picnic blanket. So, naturally, Shauna had folded the green dress carefully the last time they’d organized their closet, secreting it away in the middle of the stack of quilts from her bubbe.)
“Like that would still fit me.” Jackie laughed, fixing the crown on top of her head gingerly. “No, I’ll just be a princess! I have that pink dress, the one I had to wear when I was in my cousin’s wedding. Y’know, with the big sleeves?”
Shauna must’ve crinkled her nose at the suggestion, because Jackie revised her plan without missing a beat.
“Or…something less storybook princessy?” Jackie bent over, one hand holding the crown to her head and the other rummaging through the fabric at her feet. Shauna made good on her desire to smack Jackie’s ass while she was down there and she yelped in surprise, giggling when she straightened up. “Clearly, you want something a little sexier than that.”
She held up one of Shauna’s favorite dresses—navy blue, straps so thin Jackie couldn’t wear a bra under it, silhouette so tight Shauna could see every curve of Jackie’s body perfectly, hem so short Shauna usually covered Jackie’s lap with her jacket when she sat down in public.
“You should wear whatever you want,” Shauna answered, in too much of a rush to maintain any sort of cool exterior.
“See, you’re saying that,” Jackie unlatched her bra and let it drop to the floor, “but it’s like I can totally read your thoughts right now, Shipman,” she stepped into the dress, “and your thoughts,” she slipped her arms through the straps, “have always been, like, so much louder than your words.”
The zip of Jackie’s dress was loud and sudden—Shauna had been too busy looking at Jackie’s thighs to notice her hands tugging at the closure until she heard it.
“Fuck,” Shauna exhaled. She ran her hand through her hair to free her face from the added warmth of it. “I mean,” she tugged Jackie close by her hips, until they were flush against her own, “if my vote counts for something, I’ll probably always choose this dress.”
Jackie gripped the collar of Shauna’s work shirt, dragging her in until she could whisper against her lips, “Your vote counts for everything.” Shauna tried to kiss her but she dodged it again, pulling just out of reach. “Now, help me pin this crown on.”
“Okay, ready, baby?” Jackie blinked up at Shauna from her seat at the kitchen table, where Shauna had just finished placing long bobby pins through the teeth of the cheap crown and into Jackie’s hair at her direction.
“Jax,” Shauna tilted her head to the side, “when would I have possibly gotten ready? We’ve been getting you ready since I got home from work.”
“I was sort of hoping you’d wear this,” Jackie pouted, swiveling sideways in the chair, her legs pressed together carefully out of habit, to face Shauna fully. “I never get to look at you in your work clothes for very long.” Jackie managed to sneak her pointer fingers into two of the loops on Shauna’s slacks, even with her belt taking up much of the space. “It’s hot.”
Jackie Taylor—soon to be Jackie Shipman, Shauna reminded herself with a little thrill when she saw the emerald glinting on her ring finger—of wear the boob dress fame had a thing for Shauna in black dress pants and a white button-up?
“Yeah?” Shauna raised her brows. She felt her cheeks heat up, something about Jackie looking up at her from below, something about her in that dress while Shauna was in business casual, something that made Shauna think about bending Jackie over her desk. “You’ve, uh, never mentioned that before.”
“I know damn well I’ve told you how hot you are in your work clothes before,” Jackie argued.
“Well, yeah…I mean, you call me hot all the time.”
Jackie nodded enthusiastically, so bright and cute and pure that Shauna had to fight against the urge to bow her head and kiss Jackie’s forehead, forcing herself to instead spit the rest of her thought out.
“But…like, do you mean you, um, think that it’s extra…” Shauna knew that she was blushing a bright red now, nervous suddenly, as if flirting with Jackie was something to be anxious about, when it had been her baseline behavior since before she’d even known what it was. “Are the clothes part of it? Is it…me dressed like…this?”
“Oh, big time,” Jackie said easily, sensing none of the turmoil that Shauna was suddenly experiencing.
(Why there was turmoil, she wasn’t quite sure, but something was brewing in her while Jackie simply ran her hands down the seams of Shauna’s trousers, from hip to knee and back up again.)
“Okay,” Shauna nodded. “Okay, yeah. I’ll—” she cleared her throat, “I’ll wear this. What am I going to say my costume is, though?”
“Hmmm,” Jackie tapped her finger against Shauna’s hip in thought, “well, mine's a total stretch, too. So…I don’t know, if I’m a Princess, maybe you’re a knight?”
“A knight?” Shauna snorted with laughter, taking Jackie’s cheeks between her hands to stop her from frowning. “With no armor and no sword, yeah?”
“We have knives!” Jackie tried to sound serious, but her cheeks turned up in a smile under Shauna’s palms.
“A knife? That’s a little more…town butcher than knight,” Shauna chuckled. “I think we’re losing the thread here.”
Jackie shrugged and grinned harder. “You’d make a sexy town butcher! Brick storefront, little apron, the whole nine. I think the thread is perfectly intact.”
“I’m not bringing a knife to Van and Taissa’s halloween party.”
“Okay, fair.” Jackie pulled Shauna’s wrists gently, guiding Shauna’s hands in front of her. She unbuttoned Shauna’s sleeves and rolled them up carefully, until they sat just beneath her elbows. “You’re an off-duty knight, I’m an off-duty princess. We’re, like, going to the local pub on our night off, or whatever.”
“Our night off, huh?” Shauna took Jackie’s hands and pulled her to her feet. “Your story telling could use a little work.”
“Whatever,” Jackie worked the top three buttons of Shauna’s shirt open, “that’s your job. Besides, nobody’s going to care if it makes sense. They’ll be too distracted by how fucking good you look.”
Jackie finally kissed her, letting Shauna slip her tongue between her lips, letting her wrap her hands around the sides of her rib cage and squeeze, letting her sink into it just enough to feel her heart start to pick up.
“I don’t know,” Shauna said when Jackie pulled away, “I’m pretty sure Tai’s not going to be charmed out of giving me shit.”
“Who cares,” Jackie shrugged. “They’re the ones who decided to throw a party at the last possible second because we’re too young to be this old.”
“We don’t have to go,” Shauna repeated, for the third time that day.
“I want to,” Jackie answered. “We are too young to not do something for Halloween.”
Shauna didn’t quite feel that way, especially not when staying in meant fucking Jackie within an inch of her life, but she nodded anyway. “Should we head out then?”
“In a minute. I was just thinking…” Jackie’s lips quirked to one side—her trademark slightly nervous, very mischievous smile.
“Yeah?” Shauna grinned back at her, all the tension easing out of her shoulders. She buried her face in the crook of Jackie’s neck, sucking gently, nothing hard enough to mark her…for now. “Tell me what you were thinking.”
“I was thinking,” Jackie’s voice was breathy. She held Shauna in place with a hand buried in her hair, “that it could be really hot if you…wore the strap, like…to the party.”
Shauna froze.
Her brain short-circuited.
Something warm and overwhelming rushed through her, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to fuck Jackie or interrogate her.
A strangled noise came out of her, something between a squeak and a moan. Jackie clearly couldn’t decode Shauna’s feelings any more than Shauna could, because suddenly she was stammering through an explanation.
“I mean, we probably won’t be there all that long and I just, um, thought you’d want to after anyway, because you always do when I dress like this, but if—if you’re not into it that’s totally okay. Seriously. Lottie just, like, told me about Nat doing it once and I thought it sounded…fun?”
Shauna still didn’t know what she was feeling, but she did know that Jackie would not be left wishing that Shauna would do something that she knew another fucking woman had done.
(Shauna also knew that she wanted to shove Jackie’s dress up just enough to pull her underwear aside as soon as fucking possible.)
“Yeah,” Shauna nodded into Jackie’s neck, her tone lower and her words stickier than usual. “Yeah, I can do that.”
There was the kind of drunk they usually got with their friends now—a polite buzz, usually from one too many glasses of wine, lifting early enough for them to take a car home at a reasonable hour—and then there was this kind of drunk. Sloppy drunk, in a way that would’ve felt out of place in Taissa and Van’s fancy new house—the one that Van had affectionately dubbed Chez Sell-Out, with a wink and a poke to Taissa’s ribs—if Shauna had the wherewithal to feel any kind of way about anything but Jackie.
It was late. The more conservative crowd—most of Tai’s law school friends, some of Van’s coworkers—had already departed. It was rowdy and warm and loud, and they were dancing. Shauna had Jackie’s back flush against her, jutting her hips forward to hear Jackie’s little gasps every time the strap pressed against her. Her hands roamed over Jackie’s thighs, her fingertips sneaking beneath the hem of Jackie’s dress without lifting it for anyone else to see. Jackie’s head was thrown back and she had one arm up, gripping the back of Shauna’s neck to force Shauna’s lips against the skin of her own. Her other hand was fisted into the thigh of Shauna’s slacks, holding her there, as if Shauna had any fucking intent to move.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t really dancing. Maybe it was swaying just enough to justify the way that Jackie was grinding her hips back, back, back, the movement jerking the strap side to side, giving Shauna the barest taste of friction, so painfully fucking close to where she needed it—
“Bathroom,” Jackie panted suddenly. Shauna hid her groan against Jackie’s neck. “Now.”
They picked the upstairs guest bathroom. The one at the very back of the house, where they were least likely to be disturbed by another couple seeking refuge.
Shauna hoisted Jackie up on the counter. She dropped to her knees, her mouth fucking watering for her, and pressed Jackie’s thighs open.
“Fuck,” Shauna hissed.
Jackie smirked. She leaned back, her weight in her hands perched just behind her hips, looking so fucking casual it threatened to drive Shauna completely insane.
“When the fuck did you manage to take them off?”
“Mmmm,” Jackie reached down the front of her dress, pulling a handful of black lace from between her breasts. Shauna snatched the underwear from her, bringing the fabric to her nose just long enough to inhale once, before stowing them in her pocket. “When I was getting you drink number three. Or maybe four or five.”
Shauna swore under her breath. Jackie propped one foot on the counter, her hips open wide enough for Shauna to see just how fucking wet she was. Shauna pitched forward, overcome with the need to taste her, but something hard hit her chest.
The bottom of Jackie’s shoe—just the flat part, Jackie carefully avoiding digging into Shauna’s sternum with the sharp stiletto of it. She pushed Shauna back, until she was forced to sit on her heels. Shauna whined, throwing Jackie’s ankle over her shoulder and turning her head to press her lips to her calf automatically.
“You’ve been teasing me all fucking night,” Jackie said, her voice raspy and deep, tenfold more intoxicating than any of the liquor on Van and Tai’s bar cart. “And you think you just get to take whatever you want?”
“What do you want, baby?” Shauna widened her eyes, blinking at Jackie as innocently as she could. “Whatever you want.”
Jackie slid her leg further around Shauna’s neck, using it like a hook to drag Shauna closer. So close Shauna could smell her, could almost fucking taste her. But when Shauna opened her mouth and tried to close the mere inches of space between her lips and Jackie’s cunt, Jackie took her jaw between her thumb and her finger and jerked her head up.
“Get off your knees and fuck me.”
Their phone was too fucking loud. Since when was their phone that loud? Shauna peeled her eyes open—fuck, since when was the sun that fucking bright?
Jackie pulled her pillow over her head, clamping it down over her ear, and groaned.
“Babyyyy!” She reached for Shauna blindly, her hand flailing until she landed a gentle hit on Shauna’s arm and zeroed in on her target, tapping Shauna’s bicep over and over. “Make it stop.”
Shauna grunted, rolling onto her back. She lifted the phone out of its base and clicked it on.
“Hello?” she mumbled into the receiver.
“You left something at our house last night.”
“Taissa?” Shauna yawned. “What the fuck time is it? I’ll get it later, why’d you have to wake us—”
“I was iffy about hosting, you know,” Tai continued, as though Shauna hadn’t interrupted at all. “So did not want to deal with a mess, but I decided we could because we hired a cleaning service for this morning. Great idea, right? Put the house back together before I even have to stress about it.”
“I…guess?” Shauna asked hesitantly. Jackie abandoned her pillow earmuff, scooting closer to Shauna until she could lay her head on her chest. Shauna wrapped an arm around her waist, securing her against her side. “But did you need to fucking call me to tell me that?”
“No, Shauna. I needed to call you to tell you that this morning I was handed a fucking strap-on dildo and asked whether I wanted it to be put back where it was found, in the goddamn potted plant in the guest bathroom!”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Jackie slid a thigh over both of Shauna’s and everything came back to Shauna in flashes: Jackie undoing Shauna’s belt, shoving her pants lower on her hips. Jackie spitting on her fucking hand and pulling the strap free from Shauna’s underwear. Shauna pounding into Jackie so hard her back kept thunking against the mirror, threatening to crack the glass. Jackie’s little mewls and moans, promptly turned screams that Shauna had to muffle with a hand clamped over her pretty mouth.
Shauna cleared her throat. “I mean, like…okay? What does that have to do with—why…why did you call me about—”
“Why did you leave your silicone dick in my fucking monstera plant?”
“It’s not—I didn’t—I—”
Jackie wrapping her legs around Shauna’s back to hold their hips flush as she rode out the orgasm, the strap buried so fucking deep inside of her. Shauna whining, begging to taste her, and Jackie smiling wide as she undid the harness. Jackie asking Shauna how bad she wanted to taste her, circling Shauna’s clit at the same she pressed the strap—coated in her, dripping with her—between Shauna’s lips.
“Whatever. You’re the worlds worst fucking liar, Shauna, you know that?”
Jackie was asleep again, snoring softly, the way she always did when she’d had too much to drink the night before.
Shauna scrunched her face in embarrassment. “How’d you know it was mine?”
Shauna coming hard around Jackie’s fingers. Jackie tossing the strap aside (clearly not paying any attention to where it might land) in favor of pressing down on the top of Shauna’s head until Shauna dropped back onto her knees. Jackie sucking her slick fingers into her mouth and groaning, at the same time that Shauna finally buried her tongue inside her.
“Your girlfriend is loud as hell,” Tai scoffed. “It wasn’t exactly an Agatha Christie novel.”
“Fiancé,” Shauna corrected automatically.
Tai laughed. It was kind, not sharp, and it broke the tension. “Oh my God, you’re a fucking piece of work.”
“And you had to call me to tell me that? At—” Shauna lifted her head to glance at the alarm clock on Jackie’s nightstand, “fucking ten AM?”
“If I had to suffer about it this early, so the fuck do you.”
It was hard to tell for sure if they were having more sex, because their sex life had never really slowed down once it started ten years ago. The slowest it had ever been was that first year, when the Jeff bombshell had dropped, when they’d been at separate schools in separate states. But Jackie had forgiven Shauna, and Shauna had begun to understand Jackie—the real Jackie, not the Jackie she sometimes made up in her head—and Jackie had transferred to University of Rhode Island, and they’d become them.
Becoming them meant Shauna learning that she wasn’t the only one with a high sex drive, that it wasn’t weird for women to want it just as much as men, or at least it wasn’t weird to Jackie and Jackie was the only one whose opinion mattered on the topic.
So Shauna couldn’t really tell, but a little part of her felt like Jackie had been just slightly more enthusiastic about fucking her right after she got home from work. Jackie had been very into leather belts and dress shoes and menswear. Into this sort of honey, I’m home moment—pinning Shauna against the door and dropping to her knees in front of her, yanking her slacks down just enough to eat her out with such enthusiasm that Shauna looked down to find her head bobbing in a way that transfixed her.
It was hot. Fucking…unbelievably so.
But Shauna wasn’t sure that she was that. She could’ve worn dresses to work, yeah, and she did choose pants almost every time. Maybe she was more…this. More…more masculine. She’d been trying it on for size and she sort of liked wearing boxers instead of panties, layering a sports bra and a tank top under her flannel, instead of something with underwire and a camisole.
But the more into it Jackie seemed, the more pause it gave Shauna. She couldn’t commit to this. She didn’t know if this was a forever thing, and suddenly she was boxed in. All because what, one night Jackie had batted her lashes all pretty and asked her to wear the strap to a party all sweet and she’d agreed? And now her forever fucking fate was sealed?
It was suffocating.
Shauna was getting the very beginnings of the same overwhelming feeling she’d had in high school—of Jackie expecting her to act a certain way, dress a certain way, be a certain way. She was fighting it tooth and fucking nail, because Shauna thinking that about Jackie—assuming that about her—had almost fucking torn them apart for good. Shauna knew if she asked Jackie about it Jackie would deny it. She’d say that she didn’t care, that she just wanted Shauna to be happy, but Shauna knew herself. She needed to see it to believe it.
So, in anticipation of their first real date night since Halloween, Shauna went dress shopping.
“Another round?” the waitress asked, adding their empty glasses to the tray of dishware she had balanced on her hip.
“Sure, thank—”
“No,” Jackie cut Shauna off forcefully, smiling at their waitress in a way that would mask her sharpness to anyone but Shauna. Her foot found Shauna’s under the table, tapping to drive the message home. “No, just the check, please. Thanks so much.”
Jackie had been undressing Shauna with her eyes all night, seemingly unworried about hiding the long, sweeping glances. But it was her hand on Shauna’s thigh in the cab ride home—under her dress and over her tights, low enough to be safe territory for public, high enough to be a promise—that cemented it.
Jackie was just as into Shauna when she swung to this end of the spectrum.
Maybe more into her, actually.
It was hard to quantify those things, but Shauna definitely needed to consider it as a possibility, because Jackie had all but jumped her when they’d walked through their front door.
She had Shauna backed against the small entry table, her lips on Shauna’s neck and her hands on Shauna’s chest.
“So fucking pretty,” Jackie mumbled as she trailed her lips lower, pressing quick kisses across Shauna’s cleavage like she couldn’t decide where to start.
Her knee slotted between Shauna’s thighs and Shauna whined, gripping her hips to tug her closer.
“Yeah?” Shauna panted. “You—fuck—you like this?”
“Like it?” Jackie chuckled and it was laced with a scoff, like she couldn’t believe Shauna felt the need to ask such silly questions. “Love it. So fucking hot.” She trailed her hands up Shauna’s thighs until they disappeared beneath Shauna’s dress. “Turn around.”
Shauna tried to force Jackie’s lips off of her neck and onto her own but Jackie was determined, sucking and biting and marking Shauna in an expansive way that she hadn’t since they were fucking teenagers, unable to control those impulses.
“Fuck.” Jackie finally gave in, nudging her nose against Shauna’s.
Shauna gripped her hair and tugged her closer, felt the force of their teeth behind the kiss and knew they’d both be sore and bruised in the morning. Jackie's tongue slid against Shauna’s for just a few precious moments, before she remembered that she’d been set on something else.
“Turn around, baby,” Jackie begged. “Please.”
Shauna groaned her distaste at releasing Jackie, but she turned to face the wall for her, gripping the table and meeting Jackie’s eyes in the mirror that hung above it.
Shauna had never been one to over or under state her looks. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that she was pretty. Nothing out of this world, but enough that people were a little nicer to her, a little more interested in her. Slightly curvier than some people thought was ideal, but she believed it when Jackie told her that she loved that about her, and that was all that mattered.
Jackie was, of course, the most beautiful woman on the fucking planet. Also a simple fact, in Shauna’s book. Also undeniable.
They looked good together. Shauna bent forward enough that her breasts were almost spilling out the top of her black dress, the only thing holding them in the tightness of the fabric. Her hair perfectly mussed, almost like she’d done it intentionally with a brush and hairspray. Her face painted, her eyes lined with black, her cheeks and lips red. She’d carefully applied it herself, taking twice the time that Jackie needed to do her makeup for her, but coming out with results she was happy with.
Jackie behind her, just the top of her dress visible—yellow, with straps thick enough to hide those of the push-up bra that Shauna knew she wore beneath it. Her makeup lighter than Shauna’s—dusty mauve on her cheekbones and her lips, a shimmery shadow across her eyes that served to make them look even wider. Her hair half out of the ponytail she’d fixed it in, thanks to Shauna’s wandering hands.
They looked curated, like a pair of models posing for an art class much more sophisticated than anything the closest college, Wiskayok Community, would offer. Brown might’ve had something like this—female sexuality in art, or whatever the fuck.
Shauna heard her tights rip before she even realized what Jackie was doing. Her underwear were pushed aside and she was full suddenly, Jackie’s fingers sinking into her with practiced ease and curling at just the right angle. She cried out, gripping the table harder, bending over further, knocking their tray of mail to the floor with her elbow. Jackie pressed closer against her, leaving just enough room for her hand between their bodies, and tugged at Shauna’s earlobe with her teeth, careful to avoid pulling at the silver hoop she was wearing for the first time in a year.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” Jackie whispered. “My beautiful girl.”
Shauna had wanted Jackie to think that the dress was hot.
She really had.
She’d been hoping for a certain outcome, right? One that meant that she wasn’t locked in to this more masculine role forever, one that meant that Jackie was attracted to her no matter what. But now Shauna was starting to worry that she couldn’t slip back into the place she’d once worried she was trapped. That Jackie thought her foray into wearing slacks and undershirts and fucking packing at a party, which was a whole other confounding issue that she really couldn’t dig into mentally just now, was a phase. Maybe Jackie had just been pretending to be into that, biting her tongue and hoping that Shauna would snap out of it, and that was why she’d been so excited by Shauna dolled the fuck up in a dress and heels that had left blisters lining the sides of her feet for a full week.
Shauna couldn’t figure it out. There had to be an answer. It had to be staring her in the fucking face, but she just couldn’t see it yet.