CHAPTER RATING: NC-17
NOTE: A wild rating change appears
Chapter 33
Thailand
When They Dim The Light, Let's Begin
Kissing The Old Year Out, Kissing The New Year In…
“Got it!”
Tara dragged her eyes up from the rim of exposed skin bare on Willow’s middle from where her shirt rode up as Willow lifted her arms above her head to move her arms around.
“Hmm?”
“My signal kicked in,” Willow said, slowly lowering her phone into her lap again, “I can book a hostel now.”
“Oh, right,” Tara replied, sitting up a bit straighter. She’d sort of forgotten they were sitting on a bench outside the busy airport. In her mind, they were very much alone, “Hey, um, get us a private room?”
Willow looked over at Tara curiously. They hadn’t actually had a private room since the one in Sydney. Tara hadn’t suggested it and Willow hadn’t either, wanting to show Tara she was committed to everything she had said before. For the most part, she’d actually been pretty happy with it and the way it helped them socialize — Thanksgiving mishaps aside.
“Are you sure? The shared dorms are mega cheap—”
Willow stopped suddenly as Tara’s hand discreetly fell on her upper thigh and squeezed. It was just a subtle movement, indiscernible to anyone but Willow herself, but Willow was quick to understand what the press of fingertips meant.
That had been the one major downside to dorm living; there was always a ‘stop’ point even when they were alone. The way Tara’s hand lingered told Willow she wished to stop no more and Willow was not about to rebuff her. Her voice rose to a squeak as her finger moved around the screen with a tremble.
“Uh-huh. Booking now.”
She tapped into the first option and went through the booking process quickly.
“Got one!” she said, leaping up to check out the map of bus routes on the wall, “Okay, so we need to get a bus going to…”
She felt Tara stand behind her and then her hand come up to guide Willow’s hand off to the side.
“This one.”
“Yep,” Willow nodded, swallowing repeatedly to get some moisture back in her mouth, “Route…”
She stopped and gulped again, audibly this time.
“Route 69.”
Tara’s hand brushed across Willow’s wrist and fell away.
“We better hurry.”
“Hurrying,” Willow chirped, hoisting her bag up so they could skedaddle on down to the right bus stop.
They checked the stop and the address with their kindly bus driver before boarding confidently and finding two free seats together.
“Hey, it’s not too bad. I was kind of expecting old and rickety,” Willow said quietly as she slid in toward the window.
She felt Tara’s hand sneakily clasp hers between them and shot her a secret smile.
“There you go making my heart beat again,” she whispered and they rubbed shoulders knowingly.
The bus set off with a small jerk and lurching sound, making Willow grab onto the seat in front of her.
“Maybe a little bouncy.”
It was ‘a little’ bouncy for five or six miles, at which point the ride evened out completely because the bus whined and groaned to a full stop. They heard that puffing sound again and this time saw the smoke to accompany it.
They shared a pained look.
A couple of hours idling by a Thai roadside later, they jadedly boarded a new bus and remained tense the whole way into the city that they would get there unscathed. Willow followed the route on her phone so they knew when to get off, but they still ended up skidding onto the sidewalk when it barely stopped to let them out.
“Jeez,” Willow muttered, placing a hand on Tara’s back to keep her steady, “You okay?”
“Just tired,” Tara replied wearily, lifting her bag up to head inside the hostel they were dropped at.
Willow went to the desk to get their key, regaining a little bounce in her step.
The bounce was gone as she approached Tara again.
“Funny story…” she said, with a chuckle that shook in her throat, “This place has two locations…”
Tara’s eyes sunk even deeper before closing as her facial muscles tensed.
“Have I told you how pretty you are lately?” Willow said, gnawing on the corner of her lip.
Tara lifted her bag back up from the ground.
“Just tell me where we have to go. My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed.”
They went to find another bus stop to cross the city and had to squeeze themselves onto it. This bus ran without engine congestion but in bumper-to-bumper traffic congestion instead, which felt like the worst of the two right then. With the heat from the sheer volume of passengers pressed into the small space, it was suffocating. Willow was lucky to be pressed into Tara; Tara wasn’t faring as well and was getting up close and personal with the armpit of a Thai businessman.
Neither of them wanted to see another bus for a while when Willow finally pushed Tara to get her attention so they could jump off near to the actual place they had a room booked in.
The city actually seemed quite vibrant but they were basically walking corpses as they trudged down the streets and couldn’t appreciate it.
“I think this is it,” Willow said, stopping at a door to a small, narrow building wedged between two larger building either side and checking the sign, which was just some chalk scrawled on a board stuck to the door, “Uh, yeah. This is it.”
Tara came to the counter with Willow this time, mostly for something to lean on and almost cried with relief when she saw the key being handed over.
The relief was momentarily short-lived as she realized they had to climb up two flights of stairs but finally, they got up there. She recognized the room number and what felt like miraculously, the key worked and the lock opened easily.
Willow let them in, but they had to squeeze through one by one as the door wouldn’t open the whole way with the foot of the bed blocking it.
There was just about enough room for them both to stand between the bed and the wall, but that suited them fine right at that moment; neither wanted to be vertical anyway.
Tara pushed herself out of her worn-to-the-sole flats and collapsed stomach-down on the bed, not to move for the entire night.
Willow didn’t even get her shoes off before joining her.
Willow woke with a grumble.
Already this day felt off.
She rolled over and blinked sleepily; taking in her surroundings, remembering where she was.
Where she wished she wasn’t.
The mattress was a lot lumpier than she remembered falling asleep on. Absent was a big lump beside her that would have made up for it all.
She glanced at the empty spot in the bed beside her and sighed. No morning snuggles for her.
She sat up and pulled her bag onto the bed because there wasn’t enough floor space for both her and it. She undressed from her stiff, crinkled clothing and her nose scrunched when she got a whiff of herself.
“Shower, now,” she said to herself, unrolling her robe and pulling it over her before grabbing her shower bag to head off and find the bathroom.
She guessed its location by the winding line out the door, which she quickly saw was because there were only two showers available for use with the rest boxed off as out of order. After unsuccessfully checking for Tara in the line, she took her place in it, holding her robe close to her body so as not to share any of her stink.
In an unintended and unnoticed show of synchronicity, Willow stepped into the left shower as Tara exited the right, holding her robe closed just as Willow had, though for a different reason. She didn’t have the luxury of modesty, of changing in the shower stall, when there was a line waiting.
She returned speedily to the room with her flip-flops flapping at her heels and knocked at the door.
There was no answer.
She frowned.
She was sure Willow would be up or at least awake; she’d been making her stirring noises when Tara had been heading out the door for the bathroom. Tara had actually wanted to snuggle back up with her but the call of nature had been too strong.
She knocked a little more loudly and pressed her palm on the door but there was nothing.
After a few minutes of awkwardly trying to shrink herself into the wall, she started knocking more insistently.
“Willow?” she called softly, then again a little louder, “Willow?”
“Tara?” Willow’s voice came, but not through the door as Tara expected.
Tara turned around, clutching both sides of her robe together in a fist while the other hand tugged the hem downward so it didn’t ride up. Her eyes widened when she saw Willow.
“I thought you’d be in the room. I left the key.”
Willow’s face took on the same expression.
“I thought you took the key!”
Tara’s head slumped forward with a groan. Willow tossed her hair towel over her shoulder and closed her hand over the doorknob. She turned it, expecting it to be fruitless but at least a show of doing
something, but to her surprise, it opened.
She glanced over at Tara, who hadn’t lifted her head yet and decided to wing it.
“Oh hey, look, I had it.”
Tara looked up and lifted her fist so her palm lay over her heart. She walked in front when Willow held the door open for her and sat on the edge of the bed.
Willow turned the knob a few times as she walked in and shrugged, before stepping over Tara to have a spot to stand in. She started towel drying her hair and felt the last of the cool water droplets evaporate from her skin.
“Did you get any hot water?” she asked Tara.
Tara watched the v shape in the front of Willow’s robe widen and show her a glimpse of breasts from the side.
“About a minute,” she replied after looking away and clearing her throat.
“A minute more than me,” Willow griped, hanging her towel on a hook on the wall.
“Oh, baby, are you cold?” Tara asked sympathetically but not without some throaty undertones.
Willow felt a little shiver at the base of her spine but she wasn’t sure if it was because of Tara’s words or the way she said it.
“It’s not the warmest room in the world…which is impressive because I know how hot it is outside.”
She glanced down at Tara, whose legs had involuntarily parted along with her mouth.
“I-I could warm you up,” Tara offered, her eyes fluttering upward shyly but suggestively, “If you want.”
Willow didn’t think she could look all that attractive right now with her hair likely sticking out at all angles from its lack of brushing and her skin translucent from her cold shower, but there was no denying that Tara’s look was lustful.
Tara had always had a habit of looking at Willow and making her feel like she was wonderful.
Feeling goosebumps noticeably distinct from those brought on by the brash spray of cold water, Willow stepped over into Tara’s space. She gasped softly when Tara reached out and tugged the tie free on her robe, leaving it open at the front and her exposed.
Tara then tugged either side of Willow’s open robe, pulling her into her own lap and placing her palms down on Willow’s thighs.
Willow felt herself tingle directly under where Tara’s hands splayed out on her skin; the sensation rising quickly and settling between her legs in a liquid heat she had forgotten was quite so
there.
An inch up and Tara would start to feel exactly what her presence was doing.
Tara looked up at Willow and pulled her closer, spreading Willow’s legs even further.
Willow gulped as their faces got close enough to feel each other’s breath.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Tara returned softly before pressing her lips up against Willow’s.
Willow felt the breath rush from her lungs at first contact and was suddenly very aware of how bare her skin was and how bare Tara’s skin
wasn’t. She pushed back Tara’s robe at the shoulders, who shrugged the material off and tugged the tie free, then lifted her arms to pull them through the sleeves so it sat crumpled beneath her.
Willow moaned as her thighs brushed Tara’s and used her hand to hold Tara’s face and tilt her up to deepen the kiss. Tara responded enthusiastically and lifted her hands to Willow’s butt, holding her there as they scrambled back onto the bed together.
Willow landed on her back with her open robe splayed out around her body. She opened her legs as Tara climbed between them and exhaled shaken breath as Tara’s body slid up against hers.
She was certainly warmed up now.
She sought Tara’s lips again to resume the kiss and moaned again as Tara palmed her breast between them. She brought her hand around to find Tara’s breast too and rolled her nipple until she could feel Tara’s hips jerking in synced response to her movements.
Tara’s mouth fell into Willow’s neck and Willow felt a gentle but definitely noticeable press of teeth into her skin, making her whole body arch unexpectedly.
“Oh, mmmh!”
Tara’s face rose in concern.
“Did that hurt?”
“So good,” Willow panted, wrapping her arms around Tara’s shoulders to pull her back down again.
Tara began suckling on the skin where Willow’s neck met her shoulder, feeling every shudder through Willow’s back from how close they were pressed together.
With Willow writhing more and more, Tara’s thigh ended up between her legs; pressing with the same intensity of her mouth on Willow’s neck.
Willow groaned with almost-satisfaction and Tara answered with her own upon feeling just how wet she’d made Willow. Feeling that un-ignorable strong pull below her stomach, Tara started to aim her kisses lower; leaving messy kisses all down Willow’s body as she grew closer and closer to the apex of her thighs.
With one last press of her lips barely above Willow’s mound, and with Willow taut and on tenterhooks waiting for that first dip between her legs, Tara ducked her head ready to feast on what was offered.
Her mouth was poised, Willow’s legs were spread and Tara’s breath was close enough for them both to notice. Tara smiled up at Willow, who thought she might completely lose it at the way the little, crooked incline made her stomach flip, and slid her palms onto Willow’s stomach, scratching lightly.
“Please, Tara,” Willow groaned; Tara’s short nails on her flaming skin feeling every bit as carnal as if she were touching lower.
Tara felt her own pulse of arousal at Willow’s soft beg.
Her cheeks hot, she dropped her mouth; her tongue out and a millisecond away from contact… when there was a frantic knocking at the door.
Willow groaned again, but it was not with pleasure this time.
Tara looked up and over to the door, then up at Willow, who had her arm thrown over her eyes while her chest heaved with labored breath.
There was another knock and Tara shook her head while sliding off the bed to tie her robe back over her body.
There was another knock.
“I’m coming!” Tara said in frustration.
“I’m not,” Willow grumbled and Tara only had a second to look at her before she suddenly saw the door was opening to an unobstructed view.
“Oh!” she said, leaping forward to stop it, standing in the space between it and the wall, looking at the young man on the other side whose eyes were wide with alarm, “Um, yes, can I help you?”
The man gestured her out.
“Come now! Come now! Must go! Fire!”
“What?!” Tara exclaimed, unsure if she was picking up the pronunciation right.
“Fire!” the man repeated and for the first time, Tara could smell burning.
Willow apparently did too because she appeared behind Tara, her robe also fastened back over her body.
“Tara?”
Tara just grabbed Willow’s hand and pulled her out, following the guy toward the exit where the rest of the hostel was gathered along with nosy passersby.
Once they were sure everyone was out, Tara hid behind a bush and held her robe closed yet again, trying her best to ignore the stares of some ogling men passing by who were more interested in the scantily clad women escaping than the fact that there might be a fire. While she tried to disappear into the foliage, Willow went to try and figure out what the hell was happening (and if all her precious electronics were going to be okay.)
“Someone left oil burning,” Willow said when she’d found Tara again, “It’s contained now though, we can go back in.”
“Why wasn’t there a fire alarm?” Tara asked, eyes flashing with concern.
“Broken, I guess?” Willow suggested, lifting her hand to her face to nibble the skin on the corner of her thumb, “I may have been a little trigger happy when booking this place. I didn’t read the reviews.”
Tara crossed the arm that wasn’t holding her robe closed across her waist self-consciously.
“I don’t think I’m comfortable staying here. It’s New Years’ Eve, people will be crazy. I don’t feel safe.”
“Yeah, I’m 100% with you there,” Willow nodded, “I’ll find us somewhere else. With better reviews. And fire alarms. And locks.”
“Locks?” Tara asked and Willow quickly looked away.
“Hmm?” she said, then moved behind Tara to guide her inside, “Let’s just go pack our stuff, yeah?”
Tara didn’t object and walked forward back into the building. They climbed the stairs up to their room and went to opposite corners to get some clothes on because that was the only area with available space.
“Weird,” Willow said under her breath after a minute.
“What?” Tara asked as she picked out a new shirt from her bag.
Willow lifted her pile of clothing and dropped it piece by piece.
“I just can’t find my bra…I only took it off this morning.”
Tara put her fresh clothing aside and looked through what she’d taken off earlier.
“Um, my bra is gone too,” she said, brow creasing into a furrowed v, “…and the underwear I took off. That’s…weird.”
“Very weird,” Willow agreed.
Tara looked up slowly.
“Did…someone take it?”
Willow suddenly hoisted her bag up onto the bed to check all of her pockets.
“Nothing else is gone…passport, money, laptop, all here…why would somebody just take—”
She suddenly looked up wide-eyed and Tara’s face returned the same look.
“We’re leaving. Right now.”
They both got dressed at the speed of light and left without even leaving the pointless key back to the desk.
They went to the Starbucks at the end of the street to get some iced coffees and breakfast and use the wifi while they planned their next move. If there was anything they could rely on, it was Starbucks being the same in every single country they visited.
Tara played with her muffin while Willow used her laptop to properly vet the local accommodation for them.
“What do you think they’re doing with our…stuff?”
“Best not to think about it, baby,” Willow advised sagely, “Okay, I got us a room in a nice place. They have all the accreditations and good reviews across all the sites. Helpful staff and clean rooms.”
“I’d fork out for a Hilton at this point,” Tara sighed.
Willow chuckled.
“Heh. Someone actually called this the Hilton of hostels on the review site,” she said, before quickly adding on, “Without the Hilton prices. Though it is a little inflated because of the date. You still wanna go private?”
Tara just looked over with an arched eyebrow and a slowly spreading grin. Willow matched it and reached across and tucked her hand into Tara’s.
“I’m sorry I messed up with the room.”
Tara squeezed Willow’s fingers.
“It’s okay. You’ve been amazing planning everything for us. Way better than I could have ever done.”
“Are you kidding?” Willow asked with her own arched eyebrow, “All of this is because of you. You did literally years of research.”
“But you put it all in a spreadsheet we could reference and you get all the best tips from other travelers on social media,” Tara explained, then smiled softly, “Maybe we’re just best when we’re together.”
“That I can toast to,” Willow replied, holding up her iced mocha before taking a large sip through her straw to cool off, “Kinda missing those robes now. Breezy.”
Tara just shook her head and ate a blueberry from her muffin.
They finished their breakfast and Willow packed away her laptop so they could make their way to their new hostel. They didn’t even discuss using a bus this time; it was understood that Willow would order them a cab. Neither felt like trekking across the city again with their all of their belongings as they had yesterday.
Pulling up outside the new building, they noted it was in a lot better shape than where they’d come from. Professional signage was the first promising indication and then the faint, not-overpowering smell of potpourri on their arrival made them both breathe easy.
That was until Willow returned from the desk, looking at Tara with a pained smile.
“You’ve given me that look far too often in the last 24 hours,” Tara said warily.
Willow released a balled fist.
“Right place, wrong time…room isn’t ready.”
Tara sighed.
“Of course it isn’t.”
“We did just book it,” Willow tried to reason optimistically, “We can leave our stuff though. Go out and explore. Spend the day together…”
Tara’s face slowly softened into a smile.
“That would be nice.”
“Here, let me take your bag,” Willow offered chivalrously.
Willow took the bags to the desk to put them in the left luggage closet then returned to Tara with a bit more bounce in her step.
They linked arms and headed back out, stopping almost immediately at a 7-Eleven to buy water, with their usual water bottles still packed with their luggage.
“Forgot how sweaty the plastic is,” Willow said as the bottle rolled around in her sweaty palm, “Bad for the environment
and my frustration levels.”
Tara offered to take it but Willow just knocked it back and tossed the bottle instead.
They found their way to the train system, a vast improvement on the bus system, which used elevated rail lines to navigate the greater city. It was comfortable and had a bird’s eye view the whole way into the metropolis.
“I’m always blown away by all the high-rise buildings…the tallest building in Sunnydale is the church with the bells,” Tara said as she looked around, and up, in awe.
“Which one?” Willow joked, then tapped Tara on the upper arm, “Hey, that’s a good idea, actually. Let’s go visit one of the temples.”
“Oh, I’d love that,” Tara replied sincerely.
They found their way to the most ornate temple in the city, a building that enveloped their whole eyeline with colorful monuments and statues.
They stood staring for a moment until a man approached, grinning and offering leaflets offering them a shopping tour.
“Oh, no thank you,” Tara said politely, but he kept pushing the flyer in her face and Willow had to intervene and walk them away.
“Come on, let’s check it out inside.”
They joined the line of other tourists and Thai people waiting to worship.
Willow closed her sweater when she spotted people up ahead stepping aside to lower their sleeves or being turned away for being in shorts. Once inside, they were met with opulent designs; murals of mythological creatures and mosaics of Buddha against gold walls. Every surface was covered in unique Thai and Buddhist art and was overwhelming but beautiful.
“There’s a goddess named Tara in Buddhism,” Willow read off a plaque, then smiled over, “Sounds right to me.”
“My mom told me she named me after the goddess Tara,” Tara replied quietly and respectfully, “She knew it from Wicca, so there must be some kind of cross-pollination of the religions.”
“There usually is,” Willow replied with a chuckle, then frowned, “Wait, Wicca? I thought she was a Christian.”
“Religion of necessity, I think?” Tara replied with a slight shrug, “She said her mom dabbled and she always wanted to explore it too but didn’t feel comfortable.”
“Your mom wants to be a witch?” Willow asked, eyes lighting up, “That’s so cool.”
“Not the dancing naked kind,” Tara joked, before a line furrowed in her brow, “I don’t think.”
Willow smirked and lowered her voice between them.
“I could be persuaded to convert if we could be the dancing naked kind.”
Tara ducked her head without a word but raised her gaze after a moment with a look that silently said a lot more.
They walked further down the hallway, where Tara stopped to admire a huge mosaic of mirrored glasses until she noticed Willow had an extra pep in her step beside her.
She turned and leaned in quietly.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?”
Willow tried to still her body by hugging herself.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I know your pee dance. You should go find somewhere,” Tara said kindly but insistently.
Willow nodded once.
“Meet you back here?”
“Okay, sweetie,” Tara agreed, rubbing her hand down Willow’s back and off her body.
Willow walked off with purpose, keeping an eye out for any signs that might direct her where she needed to go.
She wound up shimmying back through the entrance line to get outside, where crude designs of men and women guided her to a huge line of waiting people to access a small building with likely few facilities.
Willow grimaced.
This was becoming A Situation™.
She whipped out her phone and did a quick search for bathrooms but it wasn’t the most accurate of findings. A public toilet did pop up but it was still at least 4 or 5 blocks away.
She hurried along the streets with a hyper-focus ahead; her legs crossing and uncrossing every few seconds like she was following an exercise regime along the sidewalk. Though the looks she received from locals all seemed to be accompanied by an eye-roll that screamed ‘American’ so maybe it wasn't all that unusual.
She finally turned down the right street but all she saw was a tin shed on grass that had an open doorway and a sign proclaiming it to be ‘free toilet’.
Operating under the idiom of ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ Willow skidded inside and was momentarily relieved to find stalls. She pulled her sleeve up over her hand to push open the door and gulped as she was faced with a seat barely elevated off the ground and a raised pool beside it filled with murky water. On closer inspection, there was also the filthiest bucket she could imagine beside it.
With no choice, she unbuttoned her pants and called back her best ‘hide and seek’ squatting skills from her youth to keep herself steady.
Don’tfall-don’tfall-don’tfall-don’tfall-don’tfall-don’tfall-don’tfal-don’tfallWith overdue relief, she soon realized there was a very distinct lack of anything resembling toilet paper around. Standing quickly lest she risk the most heinous swirly of her life, she sheepishly huddled away from the toilet and took her phone out to text Tara.
What felt like hours of trying not to breathe through her nose later, Willow heard a rustling outside, then the sweet, sweet voice that solved almost every problem for her.
“Willow?”
“Yeah!” Willow called back, knocking gently on the door she was behind, “I’m sorry I made you leave the temple. Could you get it?”
A roll of toilet paper was passed under the stall, which Willow grabbed and held in revere to her chest.
“It’s okay, I was finished anyway. It was getting pretty hot in there,” Tara called back.
Willow used the bare minimum paper on herself so as not to cause a block and have to spend longer in there, then unwound plenty of tissue to use as a buffer between her and the bucket she was expected to flush with.
“That’s just a byproduct of you being in the room.”
“Are you trying to charm me from your bathroom stall?” Tara asked, her crooked smile apparent in her voice.
A moment passed before Willow spoke again, very aware of the dichotomy of what she was doing and what she was saying.
“Is it working?”
Another beat.
“Yes.”
Finally, Willow was able to free herself from the stall and came out to Tara standing nearby, also careful not to touch anything, clutching the rest of the opened pack of toilet paper.
“What do you have all that for?”
“I had to buy some at the 7-Eleven. They don’t sell it by the roll,” Tara replied, then smiled softly, “I was able to buy a little goddess statue for my mom by a street vendor, though. I-I think he probably ripped me off, but he's just trying to feed his family too y'know?”
“It can be our gift to the next unfortunate woman who comes in here,” Willow suggested.
“The statue?” Tara asked, brow furrowed.
“The toilet paper,” Willow replied with an amused grin as she took the paper and left it by the stall door.
She walked to the sink and tried to figure out the best way to negotiate the taps without leaving her hands germier than before.
“You know there’s a fancy shopping mall like a block away, right?” Tara said, taking a step toward Willow and folding her hands in on herself again.
Willow looked over with a pout.
“I do now!”
“And you literally passed a bunch of McDonalds and stuff to get here?” Tara said sympathetically but quite pointedly.
“I just searched public bathrooms,” Willow frowned as she shook her hands free of water, then continued defensively, “My brain space was taken up with not wetting myself!”
She approached Tara, who was already taking out a small bottle of hand sanitizer from her bag, which Willow applied liberally and gratefully.
“I’m sorry I have so many bathroom-related emergencies.”
“Getting you toilet paper is the, um, most favorable outcome when you tell me you have a bathroom emergency,” Tara replied kindly, “Do you want to go back to the temple or check out the shopping mall with the better toilets?”
“To shop or to pee?” Willow questioned with one arched eyebrow.
“Mostly the first and the second if necessary?” Tara offered reasonably.
Willow nodded surely.
“So normal mall procedure then.”
She leaned in to kiss Tara’s cheek in gratitude and couldn’t help nuzzling for a moment.
“You smell so good I forgot how much it stinks in here for a second,” she said softly, but quickly moved back and pulled a face, “But seriously, I haven’t smelled anything this bad since Xander hit puberty. Let’s get out of here.”
She grabbed Tara’s hand to pull her back outside. Polluted city air had never felt so fresh.
Tara showed Willow the little statue she’d bought and Willow squeezed her hand affectionately.
“My Tara is prettier.”
Tara blushed lightly and packed it away again.
“I want to get a postcard and send it to my mom before we leave.”
They walked to the mall and decided they were hungry purely from sweat loss, so stopped to get lunch before checking out the stores. Both felt slightly disconcerted that they could have easily been in a mall at home, albeit a much grander one than Sunnydale had to offer. The temple had been difficult to navigate but felt like a real experience of the local culture. This was very westernized.
“Confirmed,” Willow said as she met back up with Tara after using the bathroom again, “Much,
much better toilet facilities here. Soap and hand dryers and everything. That’s what I get for thinking with my bladder.”
“I think we should go back out onto the streets and see if we can find more local stores,” Tara suggested.
“I like air conditioning but I love you,” Willow mused fondly, “Let’s do it.”
Tara smiled back and they headed back out into the balmy but bustling streets to wander aimlessly and enjoy the atmosphere.
They spent the afternoon exploring, finding a river cruise to sail down and learn a little more about the history and then did a tuk-tuk ride downtown at sunset, just for the novelty for it.
Strolling down a street filled with food vendors in every available corner, Willow pointed out a particular hanging delicacy.
“Will you eat that?”
Tara tried to keep a neutral, respectful look on her face.
“Do you want me to?”
A grin played on the corner of Willow’s lips.
“Well, yeah, kinda. I bet it’s garlicky. You’ve had it before.”
“Not that piece,” Tara replied, folding her arms over her chest.
Willow shrugged.
“Close enough. I’ve seen you devour a drumstick.”
Tara’s brow line creased and she nodded across the street.
“I’ll eat the chicken feet if you eat the deep-fried frog.”
Willow’s face fell.
“How could you even suggest that?”
Tara’s face took on the grin Willow lost.
“
I bet it’s garlicky.”
Willow stuck out her tongue and pointed at another stall.
“Try that, then.”
Tara grimaced.
“What, you’re not going to eat it?” Willow teased Tara, bumping her shoulder playfully, “Oh, who’s the fussy eater now? Come on, try it.”
“No, Willow,” Tara said quietly but insistently, “No way.”
Willow relented, at least partially.
“At least try a cricket if you won’t try the scorpion.”
Willow paid for a little baggie of fried crickets and held it out open for Tara.
Tara picked one up and held it in her palm.
“Poor little cricket,” she said sympathetically, then thrust her hand out, “You eat it.”
Willow’s nose scrunched.
“I don’t know if it’s kosher.”
“You just ate a stick of pork!” Tara protested.
Willow grinned.
“It was delicious, too. Plus its cute little name; ‘moo ping’. Who doesn’t feel good when you smile every time you say what you eat?”
Tara just cocked her head and Willow dropped the smile.
“Okay, okay, I’ll eat it.”
Defiantly, she scooped up a whole handful and emptied it into her mouth. She had to crunch a little but it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Mostly salty.
“It kind of tastes like bacon bits!”
Tara cautiously tried one but decided that one was enough.
“I don’t think cricket mac’n’cheese would catch on.”
“Not with that attitude,” Willow countered and they shared a smile together this time.
They continued to stroll as the stars got higher in the sky. Eventually, they seemed to land right bang smack in the center of the nightlife; all bustle and neon lights.
They walked through a night market, and though it seemed mostly full of knock-offs and cheap souvenirs, there was some pretty art too. Throughout, they passed bars with bikini-clad women outside trying to coax passersby in. They walked quickly past the first few, but then the bars became so close together that speeding by one just made them walk faster toward another.
Eventually, they were all but shoved into a bar. It was small with neon signs and waitresses walking around in bikinis, so exactly the same inside as out.
Barely anyone was there.
One woman approached them before they even reached the bar, in a pink summer dress that seemed positively puritan in comparison to everyone else working there. She didn’t even try to offer them a table downstairs.
“Burlesque show. Upstair. I take you.”
“Burlesque?” Willow asked, reaching a hand behind her neck to hold it, “That’s like the…”
She imitated jazz hands but quickly stopped, blushing when she realized she wasn’t making sense.
“I’ve never been to one,” Tara said with a frown.
“Me either,” Willow replied, then glanced over at Tara, “You wanna go?”
Tara shrugged unsurely and the girl gestured at them and started to walk away.
Naïvely, they followed her upstairs.
They passed through a curtain and everything darkened, with just a red spotlight on a nearly-empty stage. There was just a Coke bottle sitting in the middle of the light.
They passed a stocky lady with a lockbox sitting at a table near the curtain, with a guy standing behind her that definitely had done a class or two of Muay Thai.
The room was tiny and smoky and filled with everyone from frat boys to an older Asian couple, sitting close together with their hands in each other’s laps.
Willow was pressured to make a drinks order so ordered two beers but was starting to feel uneasy. Tara began coughing from errant smoke coming from nearby.
Two beers were dropped to their table and Willow held hers, uncomfortably warm, in her hand.
She started to look over to Tara to see what she thought of the place when a woman came out of the stage completely naked. There was no clapping or fanfare or anything but abject horror from Willow as the woman squatted over the bottle and suddenly the cap on the cola bottle popped off.
Willow’s stomach lurched.
“Tara, this isn’t a burlesque show,” she hissed, scratching her arm as she felt her skin begin to crawl at the seediness that felt heavy in the air.
Tara’s eyes were wide toward the floor; her whole body tense.
“W-we should leave,” she said plainly but clearly as repulsed as Willow.
“Right behind you,” Willow replied, standing and pushing Tara to stand with her.
They strode back toward the exit and Tara hung at the curtain while Willow tried to pay off the beers they hadn’t even drunk.
The lady with the lockbox stared Willow down as she approached, her eyebrows knitting together into one. She demanded a sum of money Willow was sure she misheard.
“Huh? No, we only ordered a couple of beers.”
The woman started gesticulating loudly and Willow felt her mouth go dry with fear. She emptied her wallet but the woman demanded more.
“I don’t have that kind of cash on me,” she said with a helpless tone.
This did not seem like the kind of place that accepted Apple Pay.
Thinking quickly and with the large-muscled Thai man standing forward threateningly, Willow threw her thumb in Tara’s direction.
“I’ll just check with her, okay?”
The lady gave one curt nod and Willow sidled up to Tara, heart beating out of her chest.
“Tara, I need you to just nod at me and hold onto your bag,” she whispered, putting a hand there too so it seemed like she was asking for money, “Now turn around and sprint out of here; turn left. Don’t talk. I’ll be right behind you. Keep running.”
Tara’s eyes flashed with alarm and Willow held her gaze insistently.
“Trust me.”
Her hand tightening around the strap of her belt and with her fingers starting to tremble, Tara turned on her heels and ran as instructed. She heard Willow’s footsteps, at least she hoped they were footsteps and not other body parts, hitting the steps. Milliseconds later there was some yelling and then the sounds of the street as she broke outside.
With one look over her shoulder to see that Willow was tailing her as promised, she turned left and weaved through the market until she met its end.
She backed up against a wall to catch her breath and immediately started to look around desperately for Willow.
She realized she’d cut through a group of people releasing lanterns and watched as light floated up into the sky upon their release. The glow radiated downward and Tara was finally able to pick out the face she wanted to see most, searching desperately as well.
“Willow!”
Willow’s eyes flung toward Tara and she jogged over, throwing her arms around Tara’s body and heaving into her as her breath finally caught up.
“What the heck just happened?” Tara panted, gripping the back of Willow’s shirt in her fist.
Willow threw an arm back where they came from.
“Eyebrows had Mr. Beefy’s intimidating chest hair all up in my face…because that’s as high as my face reached!”
“Willow, don’t call them names,” Tara chastised softly.
“They were trying to extort us!” Willow exclaimed, feeling the thump of her pulse right down to her toes, “I thought they were going to tak—”
She suddenly stopped and looked straight over Tara’s shoulder.
“What?” Tara asked, looking over blankly at the row of vending machines, “What is—where are you going??”
Tara spun around as Willow marched past her and stabbed a finger at the glass of a vending machine, the type Tara had hoped she’d seen the last of in Tokyo.
“That’s. Our. Underwear.”
Tara looked bewildered.
“What? No, it’s probably just—”
“That’s our panties!” Willow screeched, slightly hysterical as she shook the machine.
“What are you doing?” Tara exclaimed, throwing her hands up and taking a step back.
“Getting them back!” Willow replied indignantly, before looking over sheepishly at Tara, “Do you have any money?”
“It’s probably a coincidence,” Tara said, trying to ease the situation.
Willow pointed at the middle of the top row.
“I can see my name sewed in!”
Tara got far closer than she was comfortable and gasped softly as she saw two pairs of underwear she recognized.
“Oh my god.”
She scrambled to get some coins from her wallet and handed them over to Willow. Willow vended both pairs and retrieved them in their crude plastic packaging.
“At least you know what they were doing with them now.”
“You’re right. It was better not thinking about it,” Tara replied, her cheeks so pale they stayed white even after she realized people were watching them seemingly buy used panties, “Remind me to keep my underwear locked up with my phone from now on.”
Willow turned one pair over in her hand.
“You have to admit, it’s a pretty impressive turnaround time from acquisition to sellable product. Their business model is efficient,” she said, then quickly looked away at the non-verbal response she received from Tara, “Or not.”
Tara opened her mouth but before she could speak, she felt a drop of water hit her nose. In the time it took her to look up, the clouds had opened and torrential rainfall was beating down on them; the kind of rain that soaked them to the bone almost instantly. Tara covered her head with her sweater, which was actually Willow’s she’d borrowed earlier, and shouted to Willow.
“I think the universe is telling us to get out of here.”
Willow grimaced in return.
“It’s supposed to be dry season!”
They set off in a run back toward the hostel and Willow whipped out the underwear to use as a rain guard over her.
“Seriously Willow?!” Tara shrieked.
“I don’t have anything else!” Willow retorted, already picking up pace ahead of her, “You have my sweater!”
Finally drudging into their hostel, Willow threw herself against the reception desk wearily.
“We’ll take whatever room is available. It doesn’t matter how many people it’s sharing with. Anything with a bed. Anywhere warm. I’ll take a blanket on the floor at this stage.”
The polite Thai girl behind the desk asked for her reservation number and offered a friendly smile.
Willow pulled out her phone, and inadvertently the panties she’d stuffed in there.
“Uh…” she started, blushing profusely as she pocketed them again and submitted to the embarrassment as she held the email open to read, “This is it.”
The clerk took it all in her stride and typed into the computer then nodded once.
“Room you ask for not available.”
Willow’s facial muscles tensed, but the clerk continued without noticing.
“We prepare better room, same price,” she said popping under the desk again before returning with a woven basket filled with various goods, “Please accept gift for delay.”
Willow did a double-take in surprise at something actually going right.
“Oh. Thank you.”
The desk clerk slid a key across.
“Bags already in room. Please enjoy stay.”
“Thank you,” Willow replied, snatching it they lest something descend and take it from her.
She held the basket by her leg and walked over to Tara, who held a hand up before she could even speak.
“Let me guess, the sprinkler broke and our whole room is flooded? Or an elephant broke free and stampeded the whole place? Or the rest of our clothes have been stolen to—”
“We have keys and goodies,” Willow interrupted happily, holding up the basket to show her.
Tara inhaled a soft breath.
“Oh.”
“Oh,” Willow repeated, smiling brightly as she brushed their hands together by their sides, “May I take you to our room?”
Tara just nodded silently and let Willow’s hand swing down to hers so they could turn the corner toward the room.
Motivational quotes were embossed on each door and proverbs from all over the world were decorated on the walls in both English and Thai, which was a nice mix of cultures. It was impeccably clean; the soft carpet of the hallway felt plush even with shoes on.
Willow flashed the key at the sensor to let them in and felt some tension leave her when she spotted their bags in the corner, as promised. The room was easily double the size of the one they’d left, with room for the double bed, locker, closet rail and plenty of space to move between.
The temperature was ambient but Tara, the more soaked of the two, went straight over to the heater and turned it on full blast to try and dry out.
Willow backed up against the door to close it and dropped the basket at her feet. She watched Tara rub her hands together above the swell of hot air for a moment before deciding she was just too drenched for it to make any difference and started to strip down to her underwear.
Willow watched Tara’s clothes peel away from her damp skin with just the glow of the moon peeking in the window showing the shimmer against her muscles.
Willow’s eyes roved in a trance for a moment before she pushed herself away from the door and strode over in a few steps, taking Tara’s cold hands in her own. They grew warm from a sudden rush of blood through her skin.
“Maybe we should try body heat.”
Tara felt her fingertips tingle as Willow linked theirs together and gently tugged her back toward the bed. Willow’s hands moved up to Tara’s neck and Tara let out a sound between a hiss and a moan as those warm palms burned her skin so much she was sure she heard a sizzle.
They bumped awkwardly against the bedframe, making Willow glance over her shoulder and painfully away from Tara’s lips.
“I’ll just turn on a light,” Willow said, dropping her hands and making Tara feel the loss acutely.
Tara ducked her head for a moment and caught her breath, then sat on the bed and scooted back to sit against the headboard. She wrapped her hand around the post, appreciating something to hold on to. It had been a while since she’d known anything between the pillow and a wall.
She watched Willow’s outline feel around for a switch, then realized there was one just beside her.
“There’s a lamp,” she called out, reaching out to pull the cord and letting the room flood with low, soft light.
Willow turned back around and smiled at Tara’s form, warm in its glow.
“That’s… really nice.”
She took a step forward before she paused again, her eyebrows shooting up.
“Oh! Um…”
She strode over to her backpack and began zipping and unzipping the pockets while Tara tried to stop from feeling self-conscious as she lounged in her underwear.
Finally, Willow pulled out her travel speaker and Tara could see her fingers were shaking as she set it down and brought her phone out to connect. The panties again decided to peek out with it and Willow finally stuffed them safely back into the pocket she’d just vacated instead of the trash can.
It was a funny story; Tara would laugh about it one day too and they’d have the souvenir. She was definitely going to wash them before repackaging them though. With bleach.
Her thumb ran along the screen of her phone and the recognizable notes of their playlist began to play, low like the light. Willow popped up again, wringing her hands around in front of her as she faced Tara.
“Can I do anything else?” she offered, eager to please.
Tara made a circle with her palm on the bedspread beside her.
“You can get up here.”
Willow’s smile grew impish and she sprung onto the bed with a soft bounce. She climbed over Tara, who shifted downward and slid her hands behind Willow’s neck, bringing their foreheads together to touch.
Willow’s damp clothes against Tara’s bare skin felt abrasive and scratchy but Tara could feel their noses brushing and their breath mixing and the moment their lips fell against each other there was nothing in the world but that sweet sensation.
For a minute or two anyway, until those lips gave way to tongues and both sets of hands were pulling Willow’s shirt out of her pants and over her head.
Tara’s palms slid across Willow’s spine, warm now and getting hotter with each caress of skin.
“Oh Willow,” Tara breathed into Willow’s neck as her mouth left kisses there.
Her fingers slid downward, lapping at the waistband of Willow’s capri pants and dipped beneath to where she expected more light fabric but was met with bare skin.
“Are you not wearing any panties?” she asked, breath labored and pupils dilated with desire.
Willow looked over her shoulder at Tara’s hidden hand.
“We got dressed in such a rush…” she said, slowly turning her head back to Tara’s face, “I guess I forgot.”
Tara’s lips parted and her tongue poked out to lick them.
“Oh, okay,” she said as if her lower half hadn’t just turned to pure liquid, “M-Mustn’t be very comfortable.”
A slow grin spread across Willow’s face.
“Can you help me with that?”
“Yes,” Tara nodded resolutely and quickly tugged her hand away from Willow’s butt and brought both around to undo the button.
Willow moved off to the side so Tara could see what she was doing and lifted her hips when Tara kneeled to pull the pants off.
Tara’s hands spread on Willow’s thighs and her chest flushed as her gaze focused between Willow’s legs. She stared for a moment at the damp display of red hair, then dropped her head to kiss just above.
As Willow took in a sharp breath, Tara started moving upward back toward Willow’s face.
Her hands delved behind Willow’s back and with an accommodating arch, she unhooked Willow’s bra. With a finger pulling on either strap, she pushed it down Willow’s arms and off her body. Her mouth landed on the swell of Willow’s breast, kissing in a circle as she rose toward the dusky nipple, rippling tauter with each press of lips against skin.
Willow’s teeth dug into her lower lip when Tara’s tongue swirled around her nipple. She gasped sharply when she felt a graze of teeth rake against her sensitive skin, shooting sparks straight between her legs and making her body hop off the bed.
Her fingers ran through Tara’s damp hair which still managed to feel soft and silky and then stretched down to free the clasp of her bra.
She fumbled for a moment but slipped all three hooks out, feeling Tara’s bared breasts press into her stomach as it fell away completely.
She pulled at Tara’s neck once just to feel them rub against her again, then again more insistently when the scream of her lips to be bruised with kisses became too loud to ignore. Tara’s mouth stayed open as her head left Willow’s breast to answer the call; her tongue slipping between Willow’s lips as soon as it was able.
Willow’s body arched up into Tara and she rolled them over in one surprisingly graceful movement. Well, until her head knocked against Tara’s head a bit too forcefully.
“Shit!”
“It’s okay,” Tara panted lightly.
She placed two fingers either side of Willow’s face and tapped them gently. She smiled, then let out a little giggle.
“C’mere.”
Cautiously Willow let their faces be brought together again.
After Tara released a little laugh into her mouth, it was infectious and they giggled together between kisses and getting hands lost in each other’s hair.
“Sorry,” Willow mumbled after a few minutes and brushed her thumb over the spot on Tara’s forehead that had been bonked.
Her hand fell away and downward, pushing the front of Tara’s panties against the wetness laying there.
Tara let out a whimper and tried to push her hips up against Willow’s hand.
“Forgiven…” she moaned, her eyelids fluttering open and locking with Willow’s, bashful and yet spilling with desire, “B-But only if you don’t stop…”
Willow knew her pupils must be as blown as Tara’s; her vision was actually hazy with the lust she could feel pouring out and between them. She watched Tara’s smile slope up on one side and suddenly she couldn’t get her hands around Tara’s panties fast enough.
She slid them down Tara’s smooth legs, where they dangled off an angle before falling off a foot pointed downward. It joined the floor in being a closet for the rest of their forgotten clothes.
She cupped her hands around Tara’s hips and gently pulled Tara down before lying between her legs and pressing kisses to the crease of her thigh.
Tara’s legs spread and what was Willow to do? She could resist everything except temptation.
She sank her lips right into Tara, licking her length slowly.
Tara felt Willow moan against her clit and returned the noise, though it got stuck in her throat as a guttural groan fought to be released first.
The urgency passed down and Willow began to lavish her with deep kisses, making Tara slicker and slicker with each flick of the tongue. Tara could feel her inner muscles pulling and yearning and she wasn’t sure if Willow could feel the ripples or was just that in sync with her, but she felt two long fingers plunge into her right at the moment she wasn’t sure she could stand the emptiness a second longer.
Her hand shot back to grab a slat in the headboard.
Yes, she was definitely grateful to have something to hold on to.
“Oh yes,” Tara breathed, rolling her hips up into Willow’s mouth.
Her knuckles were white on the headboard and her chest turned red. The flush continued downward, though only produced a fuller pink. Her insides were swelling with heat but the air felt cold above her; the absence of any weight on top of her making her feel hollow.
Her fingers fell away from the wood and her hands reached down to squeeze Willow’s shoulders.
Willow glanced up and saw Tara’s pleading eyes. Her hand stilled for a moment as she lifted herself back up Tara’s body to kiss her. Tara moaned at her taste on Willow’s lips and wrapped her legs around Willow’s hips to encourage her to plunge those fingers even deeper.
Willow focused on the steady pump and gentle curl of her fingers as her own hips desperately fought for some friction to relieve the hot thump radiating from her middle.
Tara listened to the groans spilling out near her ear and turned her head to kiss Willow’s neck.
“Willow?” she panted softly, unsure if those noises were veering too far into pain territory.
Willow paused and rested her forehead on Tara’s. Their noses bumped against each other as sweat kissed each other’s brows.
“Can you…c-could you…”
Tara felt Willow’s arousal brush against her belly, leaving a wet patch. The heat could have burned a hole right through her.
“Yes!” she moaned in both exquisite enjoyment and answer.
She unhooked her legs and let them roll onto their sides. She brushed her palm against Willow’s triangular patch of red hair as she slipped a hand between her legs. Her fingers glided easily against Willow’s lips and were engulfed, making them both groan together.
Willow had to close her eyes to dull her senses enough to be able to focus on the give and take but Tara didn’t want to make it easy as her mouth started to suckle on Willow’s neck.
“Oh god,” Willow moaned, her other hand stretching behind Tara’s neck and her fingers weaving into the sheet.
Their hips rolled toward and away from each other in a different tempo but even rhythm; their bodies shifting closer and closer together with every wave.
Tara pulled Willow’s ear lobe between her teeth which caused a delightful jerk in Willow’s wrist that Tara felt deep inside her. Willow’s fingers pressed deep enough to open the floodgates and she felt the heat start to swell tightly in her belly. She found Willow’s mouth again and kissed her with all of that intensity.
Her hips thrust forward more insistently and her hand slid over Willow’s hand to guide her into pressing against her clit, which was hopping for attention.
“I got it,” Willow breathed into Tara’s mouth, taking over the movement and feeling a shudder quake through her as Tara returned the hand movement on her, “Oh wow.”
Tara chuckled, deep and throaty and Willow pretty much came on the spot. She threw her head back and groaned loudly. Tara kissed Willow’s bared throat and buried her face into Willow’s neck as her own orgasm washed over her.
Their legs had tangled enough to lock them together but there was just enough space between them to allow their slowed (but not completely stopped) arms separating their hips to elongate their shared blissful moment.
There was a crackle of noise but neither moved much except for Willow to sluggishly open her eyes. They found the window where shots of color were exploding in vibrant bursts.
“Are those really happening or are they in my head?” she asked hazily.
Tara looked over her shoulder as a spherical break of green and blue fireworks erupted in the sky.
She turned her head back and kissed Willow, murmuring against her lips.
“Happy New Year.”
Willow smiled against Tara’s mouth and gingerly lifted both hands to cup her face.
Tara wrapped her arms around Willow’s waist and pulled their bodies flush together. Their lips vibrated through each other’s moans and softly parted.
Tara kissed along Willow’s shoulder blade and looked over at the basket sitting by the door.
“Is there any food in that hamper they gave us? We haven’t picked up any supplies yet…”
Willow threw her leg out and tried to curl her toes around the handle. Despite impressive pinky dexterity, she failed in her effort but was able to push it along the floor enough that she could reach out for it.
“Let me see…toiletries…tea…snacks!”
She started flicking through the little brightly colored packs.
“Dried mango, lychee candy, oolong tea, roasted green peas…spicy dried anchovies. Might give those a miss.”
“I’ll try them,” Tara offered and Willow looked at her with a nose scrunched in disgust.
“Not if you want to kiss me you won’t.”
Tara pulled the bag open and picked out one of the little crunchy critters inside, popping it into her mouth.
Willow’s lip twitched.
“Okay, I’ll try not to take that personally,” she said, her nostrils flaring before she plugged them, “That’s seriously fishy.”
“They don’t taste so strong,” Tara commented with an amused smile.
Sardines on toast had been a regular dinner growing up before her mother went back to nursing school, so she’d never minded strong fishy tastes, but this was a lot milder than the waft upon opening might indicate.
Willow didn’t look convinced so Tara leaned and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
“See?” she said, smiling as she pulled back.
Willow pressed her lips together for a moment as if to remember the pressure of Tara’s lips against hers. The kiss had not been unpleasant, but the stench from the open bag was ever-present.
“I love you,” she said sincerely, before looking over pointedly, “Or should I say, chan rak ter.”
“You snuck that one in,” Tara grinned, “I saw it at the temple too and was waiting for you to use it.”
Willow answered with the same grin.
“Chan rak ter but that stuff still stinks.”
Tara shrugged and ate another one.
“I like them. They’re like pork rinds but fishy and seasoned.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Willow replied, deadpan.
“You wanted me to eat a scorpion earlier,” Tara challenged.
“I wasn’t gonna kiss you right after!” Willow shot back.
Tara casually picked up another anchovy and popped it into her mouth.
Willow started to pout.
“Your defiance is very sexy and now you’ve put me in a very tough predicament.”
Tara looked across the bed through fluttered eyelashes.
“You want to kiss me too much to resist?”
Tara’s seductive look with those sultry eyes under those thick eyelashes was bad enough but with the sheet half strewn around her naked body and her hair still lightly mussed — Willow already felt sticky between her barely-dried thighs.
She squirmed under the blanket and tried to cover by making it seem she was crossing her legs.
“I am pretty used to having this feeling, so I have that going for me,” she said with some forced aplomb.
Tara rolled up the bag of anchovies and left them back in the basket.
“Luckily, there’s a compromise.”
“I do accept kisses in various other places with no taste buds,” Willow offered graciously.
“No,” Tara laughed, then cast her eyes down Willow’s body in a quick glance, “Well…”
Her gaze settled back on Willow’s face.
“Got a mint?”
Willow struggled to break Tara’s gaze long enough to pick up a little pink and white wrapper from their hamper.
“Uh, I have a lychee candy.”
Tara took it, tore the wrapper and popped the candy in her mouth.
Willow watched Tara’s tongue roll the candy, feeling like one of those fireworks had been set off at the base of her spine.
She took in an inward breath as Tara swooped down to kiss her and released it as a moan back into her mouth.
“How’s that?” Tara asked softly, pulling back just an inch.
“Sweet,” Willow breathed and closed the gap again quickly.
She tried to push Tara onto her back but they collided into the hamper still sitting behind them.
“Ugh,” she said, picking up the basket and pushing it off to the floor again, “Sorry.”
She scooted back toward Tara, her hand floundering above for a moment before it settled on Tara’s hip.
“Sorry,” she repeated.
Tara reached up and brushed some hair away from Willow’s face.
“You don’t have to keep saying sorry,” she said softly, her lips sloping up on one side, “It's okay if we bump into each other. It's understood under the, um, first subsection of the ‘bump and grind’ contract.”
She blushed and ducked her head.
“I, uh, believe.”
Her fingers curled the ends of Willow’s hair, who closed her eyes and let it relax her.
“I just feel so stupid sometimes,” she admitted, subconsciously pulling Tara closer by the hip, which was a good thing as she had spoken so quietly it was only just audible between them.
Tara gently brushed her hand down Willow’s arm.
“Why do you feel stupid, love?”
Willow smiled at ‘love’ and relaxed a little more.
“Habit of a lifetime,” she said wryly.
Tara’s eyelids flickered with emotion and she offered a comforting caress to Willow’s face.
“Would you want me to feel stupid if the roles were reversed?”
Willow shook her head and Tara placed a quick, soft kiss on Willow’s lips.
“Your new year's resolution should be to treat yourself the way you'd treat me.”
Willow had never considered that method. It had merit.
“Okay. I’ll tr—” she paused and blinked once, really considering the vow she was making, “I will. I’ll do that. Will you help me? Remind me?”
“I will,” Tara returned sincerely, glancing down at her fingers drawing a lazy circle on Willow’s hip before moving up to meet Willow’s eyes again, “What should mine be?”
Willow slid her hand behind Tara’s neck, splaying her fingers there and letting her thumb brush the soft hair at the nape.
“Quit looking so pretty all the time and distracting your girlfriend.”
Tara looked down and chuckled silently, then reached up to hold Willow’s arm in place.
“Seriously.”
Willow inhaled and exhaled a slow breath as she thought about what was being asked.
“Well, last year…when I was such a mess…you offered one that stayed with me. And even though it terrified me at the time…it taught me that doing something that scares you opens you up to becoming a better person. And being a better person leads to a better life… if you have the balls to jump into it,” she said, her breath catching behind her words, “So, on that note…”
She turned her head in on the pillow and kissed Tara softly.
“Do what makes you happy.”
Tara felt Willow’s lips press against hers tenderly again and closed her eyes.
She’d almost forgotten saying it but she remembered now; sitting on the balcony, kissing Willow under the stars, promising to move forward. Things had turned chaotic moments later, but here they were. They’d moved forward, and backward and up and down and sideways and diagonal, but always together even when physically parted.
Willow sighed, pulling Tara back into the moment.
“My parents are probably waking up right now…getting ready for their party…planning on how to avoid questions about their delinquent daughter and her lack of accomplishments.”
“Delinquent?” Tara questioned with a raised eyebrow.
“Not going to college is a crime in the Rosenberg family,” Willow replied wryly, “I may as well have gotten probation for a year for an actual crime than to defer a year.”
Tara brushed her fingers over Willow’s arm.
“Well here’s an accomplishment…it’s only been a new year for a little bit and you’ve already made my resolution come true.”
Willow’s brow creased unsurely and Tara looked across the small gap between them adoringly.
“You make me happy…what is it you call me? Doofus?”
Willow’s smile pushed up either side of her face.
“No…” Tara continued and Willow’s smile started to falter, “You make me something more than happy. You make me feel seen. You make me feel known and loved for it. You make me feel safe and secure. You make me feel special. What's a word better than happy?”
Willow bit inside her bottom lip to stop the giggles that suddenly threatened to bubble out.
It was no use; the urge was too strong and they burst forward along with the one-word thought in her mind.
“Gay!”
Tara immediately joined in with the laughter and they convulsed into each other.
“You make me so gay,” Tara chuckled as she recovered, wiping her eye quickly with a finger.
Willow took in some steadying breaths and released the last few giggled from deep in her belly.
“You were always gay though,” she countered, before adding on quickly when she saw the start of an arched eyebrow, “I just mean, you were always so much surer of your sexuality.”
Tara considered it and slowly nodded.
“I told you about my realization journey. It wasn’t an instantaneous thing. But I had less trouble with it than you, yes.”
“I don’t mean coming out, I mean…” Willow started, then quickly closed her mouth again, “Never mind.”
“No, tell me,” Tara replied, her confusion evident in her too-quick phrasing.
Willow raised an arm and gesticulated aimlessly with her hand.
“You were always so much more…” she started, stopping only to start again quickly, “You knew what you were doing. When we…”
She pushed out a breath of frustration at her own lack of coherence.
“You knew what you were
doing.”
Tara’s eyebrow lifted as she understood what Willow was referencing. It didn’t match with her own feelings but she was careful not to deny Willow’s feelings and tried to counteract the insecurity.
“Remember what your report cards used to say? I do because they were always framed in your hallway,” she joked, her lopsided smile turning sultry as she danced her fingers up Willow’s arm, “‘Attentive…dedicated…always picks things up on the first try’.”
Willow tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I mean,” she started, unsure if she should voice how she was feeling and realizing she would want Tara to tell her if she was feeling this way. Starting her new year as she meant to go on, she took a deep breath before continuing, “I just feel like the…the junior partner.”
Tara’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but not without sympathy.
“Do…I act like…the big knowledge woman?”
“No,” Willow replied quickly.
Tara frowned.
“Is that no spelled Y-E-S?”
Willow glanced downward.
“S-O-R-T of.”
She saw the twitch of hurt flash on Tara’s face and her heart sank.
“Not on purpose! Just…how you are. It seems to come easy. The only time I felt confident was when I did all that research that time before we got back together in Sydney. And I think most of that was the adrenaline of seeing you again. And you…you just seem to know. I just seem to…flounder. It’s like a horizontal science fair.”
Tara breathed softly for a few minutes, processing.
“Well… I-I'm not the expert. I mean, I've only had the one partner,” she said, adding on pointedly, “You.”
She blinked and turned her head.
“Except…”
Willow’s face suddenly fell but Tara was already looking away thoughtfully.
“I probably allowed my mind to wander more than you. Thought about it more…did ‘more than think’ about it… more. I’m saying ‘more’ a lot.”
Willow’s heart started to calm down a little as she pieced together what Tara was saying.
“Think super hard?”
“Think…” Tara clarified, her teeth dragging over her lip, “With my hand.”
Tara could see the moment where the last puzzle piece connected in Willow’s mind.
“Oh!”
She remained wide-eyed and silent, making Tara's fingers twitch nervously.
“I-It’s not a bad thing.”
“No, of course not!” Willow replied swiftly and with a continued resolute nod of her head.
Tara’s gaze fell, her hand falling away from Willow’s body.
“Good from… time to time.”
She dropped off lamely and awkwardness bubbled between the small space between them that suddenly felt like a huge chasm.
Willow looked up, down again quickly and then slowly up, reticent.
“Do you still…”
Tara blushed despite herself.
“I-I have, yes.”
Willow gnawed inside her lip.
“Is it…is it because we…we haven’t since, well…Fiji?”
Tara’s mouth promptly opened.
“Will—”
“I know it probably doesn’t even count because of what happened,” Willow continued in a flash, grimacing suddenly, “God, did you even…?”
The pain tumbling around her tummy could be seen on her face.
“Did you, y’know… finish?”
Tara’s mouth promptly closed.
“…just now?”
“No,” Willow shook her head quickly, “On the beach.”
Tara needed a moment to catch up with the jump.
“Oh. No. Not before they…showed up.”
Willow's eyes turned into a squint.
“So you haven’t since…” she paused and her eyes closed fully. She swallowed audibly, “…Sydney?”
“Well…” Tara replied, clearing her throat again.
“Right,” Willow replied softly, “Just not with me.”
Tara placed two fingers on Willow’s cheek, turning it in to face her and shook her head.
“Not with anyone else, Willow. Come on now.”
Willow nodded softly and let out a silent sigh before casting her eyes toward Tara again curiously.
“Where?”
“In the shower,” Tara answered honestly, before adding on quickly, “Only if it was a fully enclosed one.”
She felt the hair on the back of neck stand uncomfortably at Willow’s silence.
“And n-not if there was a line or anything. Does that bother you?”
Willow’s gaze quickly shot back up to Tara.
“No, no. God no. Sorry. I’m being childish. It’s totally okay, not that you need my permission. I just…haven’t,” she said lamely, her eyes flicking away and then back to Tara with a sunken vulnerability, “But…do I …is it ‘cause we can’t or…am I not doing enough? Should I have tried harder? Snuck you away somewhere?”
Tara sat up and took Willow’s hand between hers.
“Willow, no,” she replied emphatically, “It’s a separate thing. Well… I guess sometimes it’s out of necessity when we can’t be together, yes. But it’s not because you lack in anything. And it’s okay to just want to…be alone with yourself sometimes. In addition to. One is not a reflection of the other. Sometimes we watch a movie together and sometimes you just want to chill out and watch stuff on your own, right?”
Willow nodded slowly, understanding that.
“It just never feels like when you do it. It was more like…eating when you feel sick from hunger because you know it will make you feel better…even though actually eating is a struggle.”
Tara frowned, circling her thumb around Willow’s wrist.
“Oh honey, it shouldn’t be like that. That sounds kind of…traumatic, honestly.”
Willow looked at Tara vulnerably.
“What should it be like?” she asked earnestly.
Tara blushed and smiled, somewhat nervous and entirely candid.
“For me, it’s satisfying and makes me feel good about myself and just totally relaxes me. It’s very different from being with you, which is a whole experience unto itself. It makes me feel so close to you like I want to cling to forever. Like I want you to take me and know me and own me. Alone…it’s just nice to feel in control of myself for a bit. Be lost in my own fantasy.”
Willow nodded and squeezed Tara hands appreciatively for being so honest.
“I guess…I spent a long time feeling pretty shitty afterward. ‘Cause I would think about you. And that made me feel guilty. So I just got it over with quickly when I had to,” she explained, then added on quickly, “But I stopped crying when we got together…slowly. But it’s still like…like scratching an itch. Not anything amazing. I haven’t even tried since I was on my own in Melbourne that time, though.”
Tara felt a small lump form in her throat.
“Y-you cried after? Because you felt bad that you were thinking about me?”
“Not since we…” Willow trailed off and smiled sheepishly, “But it’s still not like with you.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Tara replied sagely.
Willow looked down and shrugged.
“I think I’d be boring.”
“You’re definitely not boring,” Tara replied resolutely.
Willow looked up with sparkling eyes and Tara moved Willow’s hand onto her thigh with a crooked grin.
“Sounds like you might just to get reacquainted with yourself.”
Willow blushed all over again.
“I’d just feel so awkward. Like I’m not doing it right,” she said, then frowned, “Okay, I’m starting to see the pattern of insecurity.”
Tara gnawed on the corner of her lip.
“If you want, we could do it together…work out the kinks. Or the um…logistics.”
“You’d do that?” Willow asked, surprised.
Tara nodded.
“Of course. I love, um, getting you…there. But I don’t want you to feel like I’m the gatekeeper of your orgasms. You know my body. You deserve to know your own.”
Willow looked down at Tara’s hand still holding hers over her thigh and puffed out a deep breath.
“Okay. In the ‘treating myself as deserving' theme, this definitely qualifies. So…okay. Let’s do it.”
She jumped on the spot and looked at Tara expectantly.
“Right now?” Tara guessed off the look.
“Um, yeah?” Willow asked, an eyebrow lifting unsurely, “I mean, my refractory period is pretty much zilch.”
“Okay then,” Tara smiled and chuckled to herself, whispering under her breath, “Attentive and dedicated.”
She laid back down and Willow followed suit; settling her back against the mattress.
She moved her hands over her stomach and turned them awkwardly in place. She glanced over at Tara.
“It’s hard to be so naked.”
“And nude, too,” Tara replied softly, insightfully.
They lay in motionless silence for a moment before Tara spoke up again.
“You know, I felt guilty at first too.”
Willow’s head turned on the pillow, her eyebrow arching.
“You did?”
Tara nodded easily.
“Not because you were a girl…because you were my best friend.”
Willow’s eyes lit up.
“You thought about me?”
Tara turned her head to look at Willow as if to say a polite ‘duh’. Her cheeks flushed pink.
“I couldn’t look you in the eye for a week after the first time. I would tell myself it wasn’t you I was thinking about; that it was just a woman’s body with no head who just happened to be a redhead.”
Willow’s brow creased in confusion.
“I thought you didn’t picture a head—OH!” Willow shut herself up and stared up at the ceiling wide-eyed, “Wow.”
She only lasted a minute before looking back to Tara curiously.
“Did you…a lot?”
Tara’s shoulders shifted beneath her.
“Well, my mom works nights a good bit and Donny would be out drinking…I had the house to myself a lot,” she reasoned surely, then closed her eyes and smiled, “The first time I swear I thought SWAT teams were about to break through the window and catch me.”
She opened her eyes toward Willow, grinning.
“Then it was like a naughty little secret. I liked to read some erotic stories…the ones with good spelling, anyway. They gave me ideas and stronger fantasies…so I figured out what I liked with a little experimentation. That may be what you were recognizing…I didn’t know what I was doing…I just knew what I liked.”
Willow’s chest was flushed and hiding a steadily thumping heart.
“I’m glad I didn’t know you were reading dirty stories across the street. I think I would have imploded.”
She glanced downward at Tara’s body as if just remembering she was still naked.
“Kinda getting me going actually.”
“Yeah?” Tara asked encouragingly, moving just a little closer so the outs of their thighs brushed, “How would you normally start?”
Willow closed her eyes and lifted her hand into the air. After a brief hesitation and slight false start, she brought it straight between her legs.
“Have you ever tried…taking the scenic route?” Tara suggested softly.
Willow cracked an eye open uncertainly and Tara took in a soft breath. She let her hand slide across her own belly and slowly crept up toward her breasts. Willow mimicked her movements and felt her body start to respond.
After a few squeezes, her nipples hardened and Willow started to get it. She’d never made herself
feel all over her body before. It has always been swift and localized and definitely didn’t have this delightful anticipatory tingling.
Watching Tara do the same to herself definitely wasn’t hurting.
Her hand drifted south at the same pace as Tara’s and as soon as she found her clit again she started rubbing hard, desperate for some contact. Her body was tight and hot from all of the build-up.
Almost immediately she felt Tara’s hand cover hers and slow it down. She whimpered.
Why was Tara torturing her? Didn’t she say the whole point was being in control? She wasn’t in control when Tara’s hand was taking over!
Then almost immediately, she felt Tara angle her hand and give her some relief again by making her do two forward rolls fast and one long one back again with three fingers. Willow thought she must have stained the sheet with the intense warm gush that flowed out of her.
She groaned for the entire length of the back and forth movement. It was a perfect loop of pleasure around her abdomen and dipping lower; over and over and over again.
“There you go,” Tara whispered and kissed Willow’s cheek.
Willow felt the wisp of Tara’s lips on her skin and then she was gone; her hips swaying out of bed and out of the room.
Through a curtain Willow hadn’t even noticed was there before.
She heard a shower start to run and realized their room upgrade included a private bathroom. She really must have had the get-a-roomy eyes to not have noticed that before.
She stared at the curtain for a moment, imagining Tara stepping under the spray. Throwing her head back. Running her hands down her body…
Her eyes closed again, mind flashing with all kinds of fresh images and she felt shots of pleasure shoot to her toes when her fingers picked up their pace again.
She’d felt this before, with Tara, but she was starting to understand what Tara meant about the indulgence of it just being for you. For something that had felt so out of her control for so long, getting comfortable with herself was a whole new layer of relief.
Though admittedly she was still really focused on the physical one starting to push her over the edge.
In the end, it wasn’t the blinding fireworks and emotional eruption that sleeping with Tara was, but it was
good and comfortable and satisfying and she retained a sated smile on her face as her arms bent under her head. She lay nude feeling no need to hoist up the covers.
A few minutes later, Tara appeared back from behind the curtain in a towel with her hair very lightly spritzed with water. She smiled at Willow and laid down beside her wordlessly.
Willow slipped her hand into Tara’s and returned a soft smile.
They looked at each other silently for another minute or so before Willow squeezed Tara’s fingers and spoke up just enough that she could be heard between them.
“Thank you, Tara.”
“Thank you,” Tara returned and leaned in to kiss Willow’s cheek again, lingering as Willow nuzzled.
Tara lifted Willow’s hand to her mouth and kissed her fingers.
“How’d it go?”
Willow grinned in a way that managed to be both bashful and proud.
“Pretty good.”
“Cool,” Tara replied, her eyes creasing happily, almost looking like a wink.
“Cool,” Willow returned evenly, nodding to herself.
She bit inside her lip, looked down at Tara’s thighs peeking out from the towel and back up at Tara’s face.
“So…did you?”
“Maybe,” Tara replied coyly.
“Cool,” Willow nodded again, fixing her gaze up on the screen.
Her lips flared through a long breath, then her head turned back to Tara. After a micro-second she suddenly pounced on top of Tara, giggling.
“Oh, come on, tell me! You knew I was!”
Tara writhed against the attack, matching Willow’s laugh.
“Use your imagination!”
“It’s all worn out!” Willow protested, poking Tara in various points through her towel.
They bounced and laughed together for the rest of the night, behind a door adorned with the words:
‘Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage’.
And inside a wall that told them:
'สุขอื่นยิ่งกว่าความสงบไม่มี'