The knock on Lily’s door snapped her out of her trance.

“Coming!”

Lily scrambled to the door, depositing Discipline and Punish on the already-burdened nightstand along the way. She pulled the door open and was met with a sight of a tall Desi woman in a tattered graphic tee. She gave the woman an involuntary once-over.

Maria was four inches taller than Lily, if you counted the platform boots she never took off (which Maria did). She was a femme and looked the part, adorned with layers of tarnished mixed-metal jewelry and dark brown hair cascading down her back. The two hadn’t seen each other for more than a week—Maria was too busy with a research project she had been working on. Lily had thus been pleasantly surprised when, just as she was preparing for bed, Maria had asked to come over. It was late, almost midnight. Lily’s eyes absently wandered lower. Despite the hour, Maria was wearing black jean shorts that cut off just bel—

“Eyes up here, darling.” At some point, Maria’s smile had become a smirk.

Lily flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t—”

Maria’s giggle was convivial as she dropped her bag and threw herself onto the bed with a sigh. “I’m just joking, love,” she said. With a wiggle of her eyebrows: “You can look.”

Lily stood awkwardly. “Right,” and then, after a pause, more quietly, “right.” She cleared her throat, watching Maria roll onto her back and watch her with hooded eyes. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was only wearing a nightdress. “So… why did you want to come over?”

Maria looked like Lily had just kicked her cat (which Maria kept in her room, obviously, dorm rules notwithstanding, and was black, obviously, to complete the witch ensemble). “I missed you, duh. Does a girl need a reason to want to see her best friend?”

Lily always felt slightly off-balance talking to Maria, who always projected effortless sociability and endless confidence, even if Lily knew better. Sometimes, she wondered if that was what she enjoyed about her friendship with Maria, that the latter was so forceful in her social presentation that the terms of their interactions could never be up to Lily, whether she wanted them to be or not. There was a lot of relief in just letting someone else’s way of being in the world wash over you.

At some point in her pondering, Lily realized she had failed to answer. “No, of course you can! It’s really nice to see you, you’ve been so busy this week.” Lily supplied a smile which, while genuine, was slightly uncomfortable; she’d never been any good at producing them on demand. Maria grinned, forgivingly—she knows me so well—and patted the bed next to her. Lily clambered over her to flop down on the far side of the bed, relieved at the prospect of a topic change. She looked back to see Maria peering at the stack of books on her nightstand.

“It feels like this pile keeps getting bigger—do you ever finish one of these?”

Lily rolled her eyes at the teasing look Maria was flashing her over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I love learning. You know your nightstand is empty because you spend your nights scrolling on Instagram Reels, and not because you read faster than me, right?”

At some point in the tirade, Maria had turned onto her side. She was staring at Lily, propped up on her elbow, lips just slightly parted. Her eyes were relaxed, as if their resting state was appreciating Lily’s face. Lily met her gaze and found her next insult slipping off her tongue. The thing was—well, Maria was objectively beautiful. She had high cheekbones, strong features, and fuck, her eyes. Lily had often thought that if she was into girls, she’d probably be in love with her. The thought was jarring. Lily blinked, her eyes refocusing on the smile that had started to curl across Maria’s lips.

“You’ve been staring more than usual lately, pretty girl. See something you like?”

Lily huffed, looking away. “You know you’re pretty, Maria. It’s not my fault—you know I don’t mean anything by—and wait a second, you were staring at me first!”

Maria’s lips twitched, a shrug in miniature. “Maybe I see something I like.” The words hung in the air between them for a moment as Lily tried to work out how to respond.

Maria broke the tension with a laugh. “You can’t blame me for teasing, can you? You fluster so easily,” she asked, a shade of mockery in her tone. She reached out and tucked a small strand of Lily’s curly hair behind one ear. “Don’t worry, love. I know you’re not into girls.”

She half-sang the last phrase. Lily probably would have found it endearing. Would have, if she could still think, could still focus on anything except for the sharp, cold spear of pain piercing her body. It started at her heart, spreading outward in fractalline patterns like ice forming on the surface of a lake. Lily suppressed a pained hiss. She was about to open her mouth to tell Maria, to ask if her psychology classes had ever mentioned sudden, unexplainable pain.

And then Maria’s voice, or some fabricated echo thereof, rang out in her head, and she forgot to remember, and remembered to forget.

She shook her head, feeling suddenly disoriented. What were they talking about? Maria was still smiling, but the smirk had transmuted into something smaller, more mischievous. Like she knew something Lily didn’t. Lily opened and closed her mouth, faintly resembling the fish she studied in her marine biology classes.

Maria eventually rescued her, as she always did in social predicaments, even those she engineered. “So which of these did I interrupt your alone time with?” she asked, gesturing at the stack on the nightstand.

“Foucault, Discipline and Punish—I’ve only just started, but it’s really interesting so far—” she cut herself off: Maria was smirking at her.

“’Discipline and Punish’, huh?”

Lily thumped the bed in light-hearted anger (the better option, really, because Maria had told her before about the types of things she did with her girlfriends and it seemed like a bad time to start thinking about how fucking hot—). “Honestly, Maria. You have such a one-track mind. It’s not doing those ‘predatory lesbian’ stereotypes any favors.”

She regretted it as soon as she said it, worried Maria would be offended, but a glance revealed that the woman was still smiling easily. “You’ve just been looking so cute lately, darling. It’s almost a year now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Lily, mollified, “next week. But you still—you still shouldn’t, because I’m—I’m not into…” She trailed off, some corner of her lizard brain strangely refusing to sign off on the final word.

“Not into girls.” Maria finished the sentence for her. The feeling came quicker this time. It dug into Lily, ripping and tearing and freezing and shattering. A thin, pained, strangled whine slid from between Lily’s lips, and if she was aware of anything except the feeling of every vein and artery freezing solid, she would have seen the way that Maria’s eyes lit up, ravenous, at the sound. And then, in an instant, the pain was gone, and Lily could breathe again, and she could tell Maria that—

That she had forgotten to remember, and remembered to forget.

The moment of reorientation passed more quickly this time. “Right. And I’m not comfortable with…”

Maria interrupted her, uninterested in the finer details of her protest. “But how do you know? I mean, last I checked, you haven’t actually been with any women. Maybe you’d like it. Maybe you’d like it more than being with men.” Lily opened her mouth to respond and then closed it. How did she know? She knew, of course, but it was hard to explain. To figure out that you were into a gender, you just needed an example; what could serve as proof that you weren’t? There was a joke about NP and co-NP here. Evelyn would love it. She was getting distracted (distracting herself, a voice supplied). What was she trying to explain? Oh, yes, how she wasn’t into—

“I don’t know, how do you know you’re not into guys?”

“I tried dating them. It sucked,” Maria responded, with a wry laugh. Right. She and Maria had bonded over their shared efforts at playacting in high school: Lily at being a boy, and Maria, who had transitioned young, at being straight. But still—

“Okay, but not every lesbian ever sleeps with a man. Would you say they don’t know, too?”

Maria scowled. “It’s different. The entire fucking planet is telling us that we have to be into men and that we can’t be into women. It’s completely asymm—”

“So, what, you’ll keep teasing me about this—you won’t believe me—until I kiss a woman?” Lily couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Maria was smiling again, but it didn’t seem tinged with malice this time. “Until then, or until you can tell me you’re not into girls without looking like someone’s burning one of your mass market paperbacks right in front of you.” She punctuated the jab by waving Ender’s Shadow in front of Lily’s face, pretending to be blind to the wave of agony passing over the woman. She waited, patiently, as Lily convulsed.

But then the stinging subsided, and Lily forgot to remember, and remembered to forget.

At some point in her teasing, Maria had inched closer and closer to Lily; now, as she leaned forward slightly, their breaths were almost mingling. Lily’s eyes, against her will, flicked down to Maria’s lips. Then back up. And then down again. Fuck, she was beautiful. Lily, seized by the sight, almost wished she was into girls. She wasn’t stupid; she knew Maria was flirting with her—maybe had been flirting with her for a while. It had been hard, for a while, to recognize when people were interested in her, but she’d been told she was pretty enough times that she was starting, just starting, to believe it.

All this to say: Maria having a crush did not seem categorically impossible. In that moment, Lily realized that if she had a choice, she would have wanted to reciprocate. A shame, then, that she didn’t.

Lily scooched back. “Maria, I don’t know if I’m comfort—”

Maria inched forward. “Yeah?” Her look at Lily’s lips was far less fleeting, and Lily suddenly found it rather hard to breathe. Lily scooted backward again, now at the edge of the bed. There was nowhere to go, and—there it was: Maria had moved forward again.

“Oh—okay,” said Lily, hoping the tremble in her voice would go unnoticed. “You—you can, but you have to promise to stop if I tell you I don’t like it. And to not tease me anymore afterwards.”

“I can what, exactly?” asked Maria, with poorly feigned innocence.

“You can kiss me.” Lily’s voice, for once, did not betray her.

“Love,” Maria breathed, voice sickly sweet, “who said anything about me kissing you?”

Lily’s ears went hot. And just as she was about to scramble off the bed and stutter through a lie or an apology or some nonsensical combination of both, Maria wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, tangled it in her hair, and pulled her in gently but firmly until their lips met.

The kiss was rough and possessive; their teeth knocked against each other once, and Lily winced. When it weakened, Maria pressed forward again to resurrect it. Lily’s hands, whether out of habit or a sublimation of still-subconscious desire, found rest on Maria’s waist. Her mouth opened, responding to Maria’s enthusiasm, and the other woman took advantage by slipping her tongue into Lily’s mouth. She briefly considered responding in turn, but before she could decide not to, Maria nipped at her bottom lip and pulled back.

Lily looked at her—pupils blown out, cheeks flushed—with a faint sense that she was more or less looking in a mirror.

Maria’s tone was smug. “God, I fucking knew—"

“O—okay, so,” Lily interrupted her in a panicked tone she could not quite justify. “Now I’ve tried it, so—so you can stop teasing me.”

Maria stared at her, bewildered, and her frustration sparked into flame. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Lily sat up, indignant, and Maria mirrored her. “You said you’d listen! I’m telling you now that I know for sure now! I’m not—not into,” and then, much more quietly, as if volume would save her from what came next, “girls.” Something deep inside her, battered and bruised, flinched at the words. She frowned. Why did it feel so awful to say that?

“Right, because straight women love making out with other women. With tongue,” Maria scoffed.

Lily defended herself valiantly. “Have you seen how they behave in clubs when there are men around?”

Maria just stared at her, unimpressed with the deflection; Lily, despite herself, had to suppress a smile.

“Okay, fine. Bad comparison. But you kissed me! And—and if it’s a test, obviously it won’t be a very good one if it’s a shitty kiss, is it?”

Maria looked at Lily like she was from another planet. “You’re fucking impossible. You’re seriously telling me you didn’t like that? Look in a mirror! You’re redder than you’ve ever been in your entire stupid life!”

“I’m red because I just kissed my incredibly attractive best friend, Maria. Any girl, straight or gay, would be exactly the same.”

“God, you’re even useless like a lesbian.” Maria muttered. She and Lily stared at each other, panting, until Maria started leaning in again.

“Maria!” Lily gasped, and it must’ve come out breathier than she intended, because Maria’s eyes darkened and she leaned closer still. Paralyzed, Lily could only watch, and let her eyes flutter shut—habit, of course—as Maria’s mouth met hers again. This kiss was shorter, but more desperate: Maria begged with lip and tongue despite all Lily’s attempts to rebuff her.

Maria pulled back. “You—you enjoyed that. I’ve kissed straight women—people who weren’t attracted to me—before. Hell, I’ve kissed men before. This—this is not what it looks like to kiss someone you’re not attracted to. It’s just not.”

“People can react in diff—” Lily started, but she was soon interrupted twice over: first, by Maria’s hurled “holy fuck, shut up”, and second, by being tackled onto her back, her wrists gathered and pinned above her head as Maria straddled her hips and stared down at her.

Lily squirmed under Maria’s gaze, but Maria only tightened her hold. “You know what, pretty girl? I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose. I’m starting to think you’re not protesting because you don’t want it. I think you’re protesting because you want—really fucking want—me to take it whether you want it or not.”

Lily opened her mouth to respond, but Maria only took the action as an opportunity for another domineering kiss, before continuing to coo condescendingly at her. “It’s such a shame, really. Because you might as well be screaming it at me. I can see it in your innocent pleading little eyes, in the way that you stop squirming every time you forget you’re not supposed to like this, in the fact that you’re hard right now.”

Wh—what the fuck, Maria was right. When did that happen?

Lily bit her lip, looking up at Maria through her eyelashes. Maria was wrong. Wasn’t she? She didn’t secretly want this. Did she? She reflexively questioned herself for a moment before deciding. No, of course not. Maria’s forcefulness was making her doubt herself, but you didn’t need to exhaust yourself thrashing to feel dispreference. Besides, she might not have been particularly enjoying herself, but it wasn’t, like, traumatic.

“I love that I can literally watch you resolve to keep pretending,” whispered Maria, pressing open-mouthed kisses to her neck as Lily swallowed a whimper—sue her, anyone would, the sensation alone—

By now, Lily’s nightdress had ridden up above her stomach, exposing her boxers. Maria seemed transfixed by the sight. Lily realized what she was looking at with a rush of embarrassment—and something sweeter—and began struggling again. But estrogen and a sedentary lifestyle had not equipped her with the strength needed to push Maria off—certainly not with gravity and leverage on her side. Maria’s eyes gleamed as she watched Lily’s futile attempts at escape, and Lily’s heart stuttered at the thought that Maria was enjoying watching her fail. It certainly seemed that way; Maria was shifting less than innocently atop her.

“God,” Maria whined, her petulant tone catching Lily off guard “now I need to get you to admit that you’re a lesbian and a masochist.”

Lily stilled, shocked. “I’m not a masochist!”

“Mmmm, are you sure?” Maria pretended to give it a second’s thought. “I mean, there’s definitely other stuff going on, too. Clearly something with humiliation—I can tell you love being weaker than me—and maybe degradation, too—you have to be trying to rile me up at this point. But I didn’t do anything to make you get hard whenever I say you’re not into girls. That’s all you.”

Lily’s eyes rolled back into her head, and this time—as if she’d received permission from her subconscious—the pained gasp came out sounding a little more like a moan, and she felt herself get just a little bit harder. Maria, for her part, looked like she was salivating.

But still, even still, Lily forgot to remember, and remembered to forget.

Lily shook her head, thinking furiously. She, of course, had already known she was a sub—a particular folder of bookmarks could testify to that. Maybe that was why she was feeling so… strange about Maria pinning her down. It wasn’t that she was attracted to Maria, she decided; it was just that Maria was doing the sort of things that she would want a man—preferably one as beautiful as Maria was—to do to her.

“Oh god,” Maria groaned. “I can almost hear you thinking up the stupidest closet-case excuse ever. Stop thinking about other fucking people,” she shook Lily’s shoulders, as if she could read her mind.

“Look,” said Lily, surprised by her own sternness, “I’ve played along for long enough. I did the experiment, I let you do… whatever this is,” she looked Maria, draped over her, up and down, “and now I think it’s time for you to stop. I am not. into. gi—” Halfway through the final word, her tongue betrayed her, locking up. A dull pain sparked in her chest: something like heartburn, but of ice, not fire. A wicked smile spread across Maria’s face.

“Not into girls?”

Lily’s hips bucked, and she shivered with delight at the feeling of her nerves being set ablaze.

“Not into girls.”

The first wave had hardly ebbed when the second crashed ashore. With no time to forget, the connection between Maria’s words and the pain began to form in Lily’s conscious mind. She looked up to see a cruel, feverish expression painted on Maria’s face.

“Not into girls.”

She had time to speak, to protest, to beg Maria to stop torturing her. But the fire of pain and the fire of arousal burned as one, and instead of asking her to stop, she stared at Maria with begging eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Shame burned through her body, overlapping with the physical sensation.

“M—Maria,” a dry voice croaked; it was a moment before Lily realized it was hers. “Please—please.”

For a moment, the face she looked up into was once again her best friend’s. Maria gasped with concern. “Lily, shit—fuck. I didn’t realize—I didn’t mean for it to hurt so much—fuck, are you okay?”

For a moment, a wonderful and terrible moment, Lily thought Maria would stop. That Maria would realize she had gone too far, and it would end. Maria would let her forget, and they could just be friends again.

Then Maria saw the damp spot on the front of her underwear. She saw the wetness beginning to drip through. And she saw Lily’s length straining against its prison, harder now than at any point before. “Lily,” Maria asked slowly, her tone settling somewhere between friend and tormentor, as though she hadn’t quite decided which to be. “What exactly are you begging for?”

And Lily tried to lie, she did, but she had been lying for so long and so deeply and she was so, so tired.

And so, in a shaky, trembling voice, she told the truth.

“M—More.”

In an instant, the twisted, devilish light returned to Maria’s eyes, now resolute in its sadism. Lily shivered at the transformation. “Fine,” she said. “But when you beg me to stop, and I don’t, I want you to remember that this is all. your. fault.” She hissed the final words, squeezing Lily’s wrists until they hurt. “You deserve this.”

Lily felt the words strike home, deep in her bones. She deserved this. And then Maria continued.

“Not into girls.”

“Not into girls.”

“Not into girls.”

The triggers came more quickly now, blurring into each other. Lily was thrashing, but Maria held her down.

“Not into girls.”

Lily came, shaking, Maria’s name on her lips and icy pain—sweet, sweet pain—thrumming through her body. She came, and everything melted away, and there was just bliss and satisfaction and Maria’s voice, frenzied, repeating her mantra again and again.

But eventually, Maria stopped. And after a moment, Lily forgot to remember, and remembered to forget.

When what was left of her brain could form memories again, the first thing she saw was Maria’s face, looking down at her with faux concern. “Hey, pretty girl, you spaced out for a second there. Thinking about something?”

Maria was still straddling her, but she’d released her grip on Lily’s wrists. Lily furrowed her brow, trying to remember. She’d been… trying to get Maria to stop teasing her? But why would she do that? a voice asked. It always feels so good when—

“I… don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired. It’s late—I was going to sleep before you got here.”

Maria pouted at her. “Really? I just got here.”

Lily caved. “Ugh, fine. I’ll push my alarm back an hour.” She looked up at Maria pointedly, who returned a quizzical look.

“What?”

“You need to get off so I can go get my phone.”

“Oh,” Maria laughed. “No, that’s okay. You can set your alarm later. I’m not moving.” She shifted, and Lily hissed from the sensation. Why was she so sensitive? Maria snickered. “Did you like that?”

“No!” protested Lily, reflexively. The guilt pushed her to speak again. “Dude, you need to stop. The bit’s gone too far.”

Maria narrowed her eyes, tapped her lips thoughtfully for a moment. Lily squinted at her, confused. What did she have to think so hard about? Maria seemed to come to a conclusion.

“Fine.” She let out a single laugh carrying a quiet note of derision. “One last thing.”

“Maria, oh my g—”

“Nope.” Maria cut her off. “No whining. This one’s easy. I just need you to say something.”

Fine. This she could do. It’d probably be embarrassing, but it was far from the first game of this sort Maria had made her play.

“What do I need to say?”

Maria pulled her phone out from the back pocket of her shorts. “I’ll type it out. You can just read it.” She opened her Notes app and quickly tapped in a few words before turning the screen around to Lily. Lily read the text and then looked up at Maria with a look of half-lidded disappointment. It was just five words, juvenile in their simplicity.

I am not into girls.

Lily scoffed. “Seriously? That’s all you could think of?” Maria stared her down, impassively, and Lily decided not to press the issue. “Fine by me—it’s your choice.” She raised her hands, palms up.

“I… am… not…,” she began, pausing sarcastically after each word for dramatic effect, “into…,” she waggled her eyebrows at Maria, trying to stay serious, “…girls—fuck!” She gasped.

The final word had set off a wave of heat, starting at her heart and spreading outwards, roiling under her skin. Even her underwear and nightdress seemed suddenly restrictive. She felt a bead of sweat form on her forehead. But then Maria giggled, and Lily’s desire to win was just strong enough to let her tamp down the feeling. It seemed impossible, but… Maria had laughed like she’d known Lily was going to be affected in that way.

“H—how did you know that was going to happen?”

Maria’s smile was warm, suddenly. Gentle. “I didn’t. I just had to hope.”

Lily, despite the blush that had formed at the tenderness of Maria’s smile, wasn’t satisfied. “Did you… do something to me? Was this, like, one of your fucking psychology experiments?”

Maria stroked her cheek. “In a sense. Would you like to know?”

Lily stared at her in disbelief. “Yes?” she answered, her tone making it clear she thought the answer was obvious.

Maria leaned in, stopping an inch from her ear. “Then remember,” she said, and snapped her fingers.

And then, suddenly, Lily could remember. She remembered Maria using the trigger. She remembered the orgasm, trapped under Maria’s weight. And she remembered that she’d seen Maria, late at night, every day this week. Each night, Maria had told her, as if it was the first time, that she needed a test subject for her research project. Each night, Maria had brought her under, reinforced her trigger, told her to forget, and left before she awoke. And, even before that, she remembered the fight they had the week prior, where Maria begged her to stop trying to make it work with men she would never love, and Lily, in a moment she'd regret until Maria erased it from her mind with the rest, accused her of trying to keep Lily for herself.

“What the fuck…?” Lily was too shell-shocked to even feel betrayed. “How is that even—I didn’t think that was real.”

Maria grinned proudly. “Well, it is. And I learned how.”

“Jesus.”

Maria squinted at her suspiciously. “You seem oddly calm about this.”

Lily shrugged. “I don’t know. The memories are there, but it’s like… I’m watching them through frosted glass. Like watching myself play a character in a movie.”

Maria, incorrigible as ever, picked up the unintentional innuendo. “A ‘movie’, huh?”

Lily was too tired to give Maria the reaction she was looking for; after being brainwashed into coming from pain alone, the concept of ‘porn’ had sort of lost its shock value. Instead, in a resigned tone, as if she knew what the answer would be, she asked Maria if, for the last time, she would finally get off.

“For a while, I wasn’t sure whether you really wanted me to get off or not. But now I know.” Her tone was triumphant. “I knew the moment you reacted that way to your trigger: you don’t. And that means, Lily, that until you tell me to stop and fucking mean it, you’re mine.”

Lily’s mouth fell open against her will. When she said it like that, why did it—why did that feel so—

“Oh. You liked that, didn’t you? You like it when I claim you.” A wicked smile spread across Maria’s face. “You’re mine, Lily. You belong to me. This body—this beautiful body that you’ve worked so hard to mold—you did it for me, so I could pin you down and put you exactly where you belong.”

A moan tried to worm its way out of Lily’s traitorous mouth, and she snapped her mouth shut. But Maria seemed to have no intention of slowing down. While Lily was focusing on trying to not give herself away, Maria had been sliding up to place her mouth by Lily’s ear. Now there, she practically purred her final line.

“Trannies like you belong to dykes like me.”

At that, Lily could not longer hold back. A sound too shameful to name rung from her like a bell, its echoes taking the form of little gasps and whimpers she could no longer suppress as Maria whispered the mantra again and again until it seemed to ring perpetually in her ear. At some point, she’d wrapped one hand around both of Lily’s wrists, leaving the other free to skate along Lily’s ribs and over her bare stomach. It erred downwards momentarily, and Lily’s length twitched. She dragged her eyes up to Maria’s face, her hope that Maria hadn’t noticed quickly fading.

“Say it,” Maria demanded. “Say it and I’ll touch you.” Lily’s hips bucked. It was becoming harder and harder to deny that the movement was a conscious one.

“Say what?” Lily begged, knowing what the answer was but wanting to delay it for as long as possible.

Maria half-sang her response. “You know what. Say it.” She pressed her palm against Lily’s length for an instant, and Lily’s heart jumped into her throat. “Say it!” Maria hissed, the mirth gone from her voice.

Lily met her gaze and felt something crack in her at the sight, straight out of her now-accessible memories, of the deliciously frenzied look on Maria’s face. She was a dam trying to hold back a tsunami, not out of fear of the water, but because the effort of temporary denial made the inevitable failure sweeter. She realized, in that moment, that Maria was right: she had wanted the choice taken away from her. But Maria, perhaps out of moral principle but more likely because of their shared competitive streak, was refusing her that relief. Oh well, thought Lily. No choice in having a choice is silver medal enough, and then she could hold back no longer.

”Fuck,” she gasped, and Maria’s eyes lit up. “Fuck, please Maria, please, I need it so badly, please please please please please!”

“Fuck you make such beautiful sounds,” whispered Maria, and then, slightly more forceful: “but that’s not what I asked you to say.”

Lily swallowed, and then spoke. Just as before, when she told Maria she could kiss her, all the tremble had suddenly vanished from her voice. “Trannies like me belong to dykes like you. I belong to you, Maria. I belong to y—” and then she was cut off by a moan, for Maria had finally—finally—given her what she wanted.

Maria began with just a palm resting on Lily’s boxers, but Lily felt impossibly sensitive. She almost choked when Maria’s long fingers wrapped around her length through the thin cloth. She looked up from the intruding hand to see Maria, studying her face with zealous fervor.

“God, your reactions. I can just,” she punctuated the word with a squeeze, savoring the way Lily’s back arched, “and you’ll do that.”

“I don’t know—I don’t know why I’m so sensitive,” Lily gasped out (she knew).

“Yes, you do,” Maria responded, as if she could read her thoughts. “No more lying, or I’ll stop. Tell the truth, and I’ll reward you.” It was a tempting offer; the light, flitting touches Maria was gracing her with were maddening. She longed, more than anything, for the dissolution of that final physical barrier, and she knew that Maria knew it too. But her hands were still pinned, and she found she no longer had the will to try and free them. “Say something true,” Maria echoed. “Say something true and I’ll take it off. Come on. I know that brain never stops whirring.”

But for once, Lily felt like it had. She was so overloaded with sensation and emotion and desire that it had all melted from words into some primordial neurological soup. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. And that was the only thought she could articulate, faintly, beyond her own hearing. Not, however, beyond Maria’s hearing, if her expression of triumph indicated anything. She immediately released Lily’s hands—which somehow felt no freer to move than before—to slide her boxers down slowly with both hands.

With one hand, Maria gathered the liquid desire pooling at her tip and began to stroke. The other found itself caressing Lily’s cheek, a thumb drifting to run over her lower lip. Lily’s hips began to rise and fall in time with Maria’s motions as the woman desperately chased all the stimulation Maria would provide. Her panting, which had been irregular since their first kiss, was too brought into synchronicity. The wave of lucidity let her realize that Maria was still speaking to her.

“You have no fucking idea how long I’ve wanted this. Wanted you. Do you know how hard it was to hold myself back? To wait and watch while those fucking men took you for granted? To listen to you deny yourself? All while I knew I could make you happy—could make you feel like this.” Maria’s tone was furious, but her ire was not directed at Lily. It was her anger, Lily realized suddenly, anger that Maria had carried for her while she was too lost to let it burn in herself. Maria was hate-fucking the world, with Lily standing in as synecdoche. The thought that Maria was fucking the world through—out of—her was oddly warming; a dazed smile formed on Lily’s face.

Her distraction was forcefully interrupted by a long swipe of Maria’s tongue against the underside of her clit. A second, this time shorter, and then Maria found a rhythm, lapping at Lily’s length while wandering hands mauled her breasts. The sensation was at first euphoric, but Lily slowly became frustrated with its gentleness as she felt her arousal ebb. Her clit had lost much of its feeling since she started HRT. Ordinarily, it was no issue: most of the men she’d slept with had tried to pretend it didn’t exist. But with someone finally paying it attention, it felt like such a waste to—

Maria rolled her eyes, slipping off Lily and walking to her dresser. “You tell a girl to stop nuking her T, and what does she do? Keep taking spiro so I don’t even get to make her come in my mouth.” She opened the sock drawer—of course she knows where I keep it—and pulled out the wand Lily usually used. She waved it at Lily. “Will this do, pretty girl?”

Lily nodded meekly, watching as Maria plugged in the wand. This time, Maria chose not to straddle her legs, instead slipping in just behind Lily to wrap her arms around her. She flicked on the wand, exploring Lily’s shaft with the rubber tip, and Lily felt the flame within her roar to life again. She whimpered as Maria set a cruelly slow rhythm, her hips bucking as she tried to squeeze every ounce of pleasure from each stroke of the wand. Maria had fallen silent, fixated on carefully and deliberately uncovering each of Lily’s buttons, but she didn’t mind; it was an opportunity to spill some of the truths she’d been avoiding.

“Maria, fuck, you feel so good, please don’t stop please never stop, don’t let me go I’m never going to fuck any of them again, it’s only you please Maria please I need more I’m yours I’m yours none of them could ever make me feel like this!”

With each half-babbled confession, Maria sped up slightly, and Lily began to unravel. Her hips stuttered, but it hardly mattered: the apex was an inevitability under Maria’s steady hand. It built and built, each unforgiving rub the swipe of a scribe’s pen, rewriting each facet of Lily’s self-understanding. It began to blur together, trust and sensation and base animal pleasure. And then, finally, a voice pierced through the haze.

“Come for me, Lily.”

And Lily did, tipping over the edge with a gasp and Maria’s name on her lips. The sensation seemed to stretch out, an eternity in an instant, but it eventually began to fade, and as it did, Maria pressed the wand down harder, harshly drawing sensation bordering on the painful. Lily jerked forward reflexively, but a firm arm around her waist kept her in place.

“You can give me another,” Maria purred, “can’t you?” Lily shook her head, eyes widened even though Maria couldn’t see them. Maria laughed, a low, dark sound that made the prospect of going again seem much far-fetched than before. “You’ve been protesting quite a bit today, Ms. I’m Not Into Girls, but I still don’t quite believe it. You’re so unconvincing, I’m starting to think it’s on purpose.”

And then she pulled Lily back down top of her, and, together, they began to ascend the cliff anew.

Some time later, during the wee hours of the morning, Lily came back to herself to the sensation of hands softly running through her hair. Even if she’d forgotten the last few hours, the care alone—practiced fingers avoiding separating curls—would have alerted her to the hands’ possessor. She looked down to see Maria’s head resting against her chest, eyes closed, as her fingers played with the curls spilling over Lily’s shoulder. Lily smiled, letting herself sink even further into the position. After a moment, Maria seemed to sense the shift, opening her eyes and propping herself up on her chin. A self-satisfied grin dawned across her face.

“Not into girls, huh?”

At some point since Maria revealed the truth, the trigger’s effect had changed. A faint wave of pleasure resonated through Lily, just enough to make her smile slightly more dopey, but it came with none of the pain.

“Oh my god, of course you’d immediately start gloating.” Lily huffed. “This is a pretty emotional moment for me. Pretty insensitive of you.”

“My apologies, madam.” Maria’s tone was steady—light, even—but Lily could tell she was uneasy about something. She was, in all honesty, far from settled herself, but Maria had poured so much of herself into this; Lily could quiet the roiling storm within her another time.

Lily touched her shoulder. “Love, what’s wrong?”

Maria’s eyes were watery. “Was—was that okay? I feel like I just—I don’t know, I feel like I forced it on you and I didn’t even think about what it would to do you to—and now I’m worried I’ve just ruined our—"

Lily took Maria’s chin in one hand, a small feeling of triumph blooming in her at the role reversal, and dragged her gaze up to meet Lily’s. “I wanted it, Maria. I wanted it so badly. You were right.”

Maria scoffed shakily. “Yeah, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know for sure and I did it anyways.”

Lily shrugged. “Sure, I mean, that was probably wasn’t the safest way to obtain consent. But that just means that next time we’ll talk about what we’re comfortable with beforehand. As shades of grey go, it’s not a particularly dark one.”

Maria laughed wetly. “Next time?”

Lily smiled. “Mhm. Next time. Don’t worry, I’m very good at pretending to be straight.” She brought her free hand up in a half-hearted flex. “Twenty-one years of experience.”

Maria smacked her shoulder—“you’re such a dork”—and then buried her face in it. Lily held her there, feeling Maria’s tears dry and her breath still, as they drifted off to sleep in each others’ arms.

Lily’s alarm woke them both at 07:30. She blinked her eyes open, preparing to shut off the alarm, when she caught sight of the girl curled up in her arms. Maria was shifting, sleepily grumbling at the sound of the alarm Lily had forgotten to turn off. Lily hastened to shut off the sound, but it was too late.

“Lilyyy. It’s so early. I want to sleep,” Maria whined.

“Sleep then, pretty girl,” Lily replied.

Maria’s response was a half-audible grumble, something about “you’re a pretty girl” and “stealing my line”, but she was already asleep. Lily followed soon after.