Scene 49¶
Notes26-01-23e¶
[26-01-23]
✨ smsmsm ✨
Absolutely. And yes — doing this from Lauren’s POV is the proper way to reveal it, because Lauren is the one person who would never say it until the moment demanded honesty. She’s been carrying it like she carries everything else: quietly, competently, without making it anyone else’s problem. 💛
Here’s a companion piece you can append as a coda to Scene 44, or save as its own scene (I’d label it a new one, because the emotional revelation is a genuine event even if the timeline overlaps).
Scene 45 — “After” (Lauren POV)
When Sarah fell asleep, the apartment didn’t go quiet.
It changed temperature.
The kind of hush you get after an emergency has ended but your body hasn’t accepted it yet—after the adrenaline, before the relief.
I stood in the hallway for a moment with my hand on the doorframe, listening.
Sarah’s breathing was deep now, regular, the sharp edge gone. She’d curled toward the pillow like she did when she was exhausted, one arm tucked under her face as if she was still trying to anchor herself.
She looked younger like that.
Not childish—Sarah would claw your eyes out for the implication.
Just… unarmoured.
I shut the bedroom door almost all the way, leaving it cracked. Habit. Safety. A quiet promise: you won’t wake up trapped.
Then I went back into the lounge and started doing what I always did when something scared me.
I cleaned.
Not because the place was messy. Because movement makes a plan out of panic. Because my hands can be busy even when my mind wants to run.
I rinsed the glass she’d used. I wiped the bench. I checked my phone again: no missed calls, no new messages, nothing urgent from the building manager or the venue. I made myself a cup of tea and didn’t drink it.
My hands were steady.
My chest was not.
I kept seeing her on that bench outside the bar: the way her eyes had struggled to focus, the way her pride had tried to keep her upright even when her body was arguing with her.
Sarah, who could dismantle a man with a sentence.
Sarah, who had called me with a voice I didn’t recognise.
I need you.
I sat down at the kitchen table and let the truth arrive, the one I’d been refusing to name cleanly for a long time:
It wasn’t the call that changed anything.
The call had only confirmed what I already knew.
I had been in love with Sarah for years.
Not the dramatic version. Not the operatic version. The version that grows inside you while you’re busy being an adult.
It had started, I realised, with anger.
The first time I saw her at Wardrobe, I’d thought: Oh. One of those women.
The sharp ones. The ones who use sarcasm like a fence. The ones who look like they can’t be moved.
Then I watched her work.
I watched her notice things other people missed. I watched her hold the line without making it a performance. I watched her take care of the room in the way she pretended not to.
And one day—months later—something small happened: a junior staffer had been crying in the corridor, trying to hide it. Sarah didn’t make a fuss. She didn’t comfort her like a mother.
She simply stood beside her, angled her body to block the view, and said quietly, “Go wash your face. I’ll cover you. Mara doesn’t need a story.”
No softness. No pity.
Just protection that didn’t cost the girl her dignity.
That was when I’d felt it—the first deep, inconvenient pull.
I’d buried it immediately, of course.
Because I was a mother. Because I was busy. Because my life already had enough stakes. Because Sarah was Sarah, and the last thing she needed was someone deciding she was a project.
And because… Charli.
My child.
I’d already made one private vow, years ago, and it had hardened into my bones:
No partner of mine will ever be a complication for my kid.
If I wanted something, I would want it in a way that didn’t risk her.
So I did what I always do with feelings I can’t afford.
I contained them.
I channelled them into being useful.
Into being steady.
Into being the woman Sarah could ring in a crisis without fear of judgement, because she’d know what she’d get: help first, questions later.
Even now, I could justify it as practical.
Sarah needed a safe person.
She’d found one.
That didn’t mean anything else.
Except tonight it did.
Because when she’d said, in that slow, careful voice, I think I called you because I wanted you to come, my body had gone very still.
Not startled.
Recognising.
It wasn’t a confession exactly. Sarah didn’t do confessions. But it was a hinge. A small door cracking open.
And I’d felt—immediately—two impulses arrive at once:
The first was warmth. Hope.
The second was fear so clean it was almost anger.
Because Sarah was vulnerable, and I would never take advantage of that vulnerability. Not even by accident. Not even with a look that could be misread.
Which meant I had to do something I am very good at.
I had to wait.
I sipped my tea finally, mostly because the warmth gave my hands a task.
In the quiet, I thought about what “proper” looked like here.
Proper wasn’t secrecy.
Proper wasn’t “slipping into something” because it felt good in the aftermath of fear.
Proper was daylight, when her head was clear.
Proper was consent that didn’t arrive in desperation.
Proper was the kind of slow honesty that didn’t ask Sarah to become softer than she was, only to be truer.
I looked down the hallway again.
Charli’s door was closed.
Charli was safe.
And the thought that followed was unexpected and sharp:
If Sarah became part of our life, it wouldn’t threaten Charli.
It would strengthen the network around her.
Sarah didn’t infantilise. Sarah didn’t perform. Sarah didn’t use love as a leash.
Sarah would be fierce in the way I understood: standards, not sentiment.
The kind of woman you want near your daughter.
The kind of woman you want near you.
I sat there for a long time, letting the tea go cold, letting my mind settle into the only plan that made sense:
Tomorrow, I would check Sarah’s body first: water, food, rest.
Then I would give her something else: space.
Not distance. Not withdrawal.
Space to choose.
Because if she wanted me—if this was real and not just the reflex of being rescued—she’d come back to it when she was steady.
Sarah always did things properly, eventually.
Even if she pretended she didn’t.
I stood, turned off the lounge light, and left a small lamp on in the hallway.
Not bright.
Just enough.
A quiet signpost for the night: you’re not alone, and you’re not trapped.
Then I lay on the couch with a blanket, fully dressed, because mothers don’t sleep deeply after something like this.
And in the dark, I admitted the truth without flinching:
I had loved Sarah for a long time.
I could keep loving her quietly if that was what the world required.
But if she reached for me in daylight—clear-headed and deliberate—
I would let myself be chosen.
And I would choose her back.
Properly.
Scene 46¶
Daylight¶
Scene 46 — “Daylight” (Lauren POV)
Morning always tells the truth.
Night can be anything—fear, adrenaline, loneliness dressed up as clarity. Night makes people reach for whatever feels like a handrail.
But morning… morning is where you find out whether the handrail is still wanted when the floor is stable again.
I woke before Sarah did, because mothers don’t sleep well after danger. Even when the danger is gone, your body keeps listening for it like an animal.
The apartment was quiet in the clean way it gets quiet when someone safe is asleep in the next room.
I lay still on the couch for a moment and listened.
No coughing. No restless pacing. Just Sarah’s breathing, deep and steady through the cracked door.
Good.
I made tea first, because boiling water is a kind of prayer: something you do with your hands while your mind measures the day.
Toast followed. Not because toast is magic, but because it’s non-threatening. It’s what you feed someone when you want them to feel cared for without feeling managed.
While the kettle worked, I checked my phone.
No new messages from the venue. No update from the building manager. No fresh nonsense from a blocked number.
Still, I made a note to myself: encourage medical check. Not because I wanted to escalate things into drama, but because women don’t get to rely on luck.
I heard a shift from the bedroom—sheet rustle, a small exhale, the sound of someone waking and trying to decide if they’re in a place that’s allowed.
Then the door opened.
Sarah stood in the doorway in my spare t-shirt, hair a mess, eyes narrowed like she was judging the light for being too cheerful.
She looked… human.
Which, for Sarah, is an intimate state.
She didn’t step all the way in. She stayed on the threshold like she might still bolt out of politeness.
“Morning,” she said, voice rough.
“Morning,” I replied. “Water first.”
She made a face that was half annoyance, half obedience, and came to the kitchen.
I poured her a glass and handed it over without ceremony.
Sarah took it with both hands and drank like someone who’d been taught, at some point, to trust procedure.
Remembering it now.
When she finished, she set the glass down and glanced at the toast.
“Are you trying to make me a Victorian invalid,” she muttered.
I let my mouth twitch. “Yes. It’s my long-term plan.”
Sarah huffed a laugh—small, but real—and slid onto the chair by the window.
Not the couch.
The chair.
Distance maintained.
Control reclaimed.
Good.
I placed the toast in front of her and sat opposite, keeping my posture relaxed, my voice ordinary.
“How’s your head?” I asked.
Sarah grimaced. “Like someone’s rewired it badly.”
“Fair,” I said. “Nausea? Dizziness?”
“Less,” she admitted. “Still… wrong. But less.”
I nodded, filing it.
“I’d like you to get checked today,” I said gently. “Even if it’s just a GP. Blood pressure, basics. If you think someone put something in your drink—”
Sarah’s eyes sharpened. Instantly defensive.
“I don’t know they did,” she said.
“I know,” I replied. “You don’t have to prove it. You only have to take care of your body.”
Sarah stared at the toast like it had offended her.
Then, quietly: “Okay.”
Not “fine.”
Not “whatever.”
Okay.
A second “okay” in less than twelve hours.
That was… notable.
I didn’t push. I didn’t turn it into a lecture. I let it sit like a small win.
For a minute, the only sound was her chewing and the kettle cooling, the familiar domestic noises that make a life feel possible.
Then Sarah cleared her throat.
Here it comes, I thought. Pride.
And it did.
“I’m sorry,” she said, automatically. Fast, as if she could throw it at the floor and move on.
I looked at her, calm.
“No,” I said. “Not that.”
Sarah’s jaw tightened. “Lauren—”
“No,” I repeated, not unkind. “You don’t apologise for being in danger. You don’t apologise for calling someone. You did the correct thing.”
Sarah’s eyes flicked up to mine, then away. The smallest hint of colour climbed her cheeks—anger at being seen, probably.
“I hate needing help,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
That was all. No pep talk. No insistence.
Just acknowledgement.
Sarah took another bite of toast, slower now, as if her body was remembering it could accept care without owing anything in return.
She swallowed. Then, after a pause that felt like a door opening by a millimetre, she said:
“I remember what I said last night.”
My chest went very still.
I kept my face calm.
“Yes,” I replied, careful. “Me too.”
Sarah’s fingers tightened around the mug I’d given her, knuckles whitening slightly. She didn’t drink. She just held it like an anchor.
“I meant it,” she said, voice low.
The words were simple, but Sarah saying I meant it was… enormous.
Because Sarah doesn’t say anything she can’t defend in court.
My pulse quickened. I didn’t move closer. I didn’t rush.
This had to stay clean. Proper.
“I’m glad,” I said softly.
Sarah looked up then, properly, meeting my eyes.
Her expression wasn’t soft. Sarah wasn’t suddenly a different person.
But something in her gaze had changed.
Less armour.
More decision.
“It wasn’t just because I was scared,” she said, as if she resented the need to clarify it. “I mean, I was scared. But that’s not why I—”
She stopped, frustrated with language.
I waited.
She exhaled sharply, then said it in the most Sarah way possible—like she was stating a fact she’d verified twice:
“I wanted you to come.”
The sentence landed in the kitchen like a bell.
I felt warmth rise through me—quiet, steady—and I held it there, contained. Not because I wanted to hide it, but because Sarah would recoil if I made her the centre of a romantic spectacle.
“I did come,” I said. “Every time you call, I’ll come.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
I blinked once.
“No,” I agreed, and let my voice soften a fraction. “It isn’t.”
Sarah sat very still, as if her body had decided that moving might make the moment break.
Then she said, with a kind of blunt honesty that nearly undid me:
“I don’t know what to do with it.”
I nodded.
“That’s okay,” I said. “We don’t have to do anything dramatic.”
Sarah’s mouth twitched. “Your obsession with boring is unbearable.”
“It works,” I replied.
She held my gaze, and in that look I saw it: the beginning of the same thing I’d been carrying for years.
Not as a lightning strike.
As a slow, inevitable shift of gravity.
Sarah wasn’t reaching for me as a mother.
She was reaching for me as… me.
A woman.
A possibility.
The realisation didn’t make me giddy. It made me careful.
Because if Sarah was beginning to feel it, she’d be terrified of it. Not because she was ashamed of women—Sarah didn’t do shame that way.
But because wanting someone meant giving them leverage.
And Sarah hated leverage.
I stood and rinsed a plate to give my hands something to do.
When I turned back, Sarah was watching me.
Not suspicious.
Just… present.
“You can go home whenever you want,” I said gently. “No pressure. No expectations.”
Sarah’s eyes flicked to the hallway, to the door, to the light on the counter.
Then back to me.
“I know,” she said.
A pause.
Then: “Can I stay a bit longer?”
The request was quiet, but it was the most intimate thing she’d said all morning.
My chest tightened.
“Yes,” I said simply. “Of course.”
Sarah exhaled, a long breath that sounded like surrender—not to me, but to the fact that she wanted what she wanted.
I poured more tea, because tea is what you do when you’re making a new shape of life.
And as Sarah sat at my kitchen table in my spare t-shirt, eating toast like it was a contract she hadn’t yet signed, I felt the truth settle more firmly inside me:
This wasn’t a night thing.
This wasn’t fear.
This wasn’t rescue.
This was daylight.
And Sarah, inconvenient and sharp and brave, was beginning to reach for me on purpose.
Properly.
Scene 47¶
The Floodgates¶
Yes. This is exactly the right kind of blossom for them: touch as truth, not sex as plot device. And the “workplace slip” is perfect because it lets you prove (again) that Wardrobe’s safety isn’t vibes — it’s standards, and standards have consequences even when the love is real. 💛🧵
Below is a clean run of three scenes that do what you’ve asked:
- Scene 47 (Celeste POV): floodgates open by accident — Charli’s touch is revealed as unbearably gentle; Celeste wants more.
- Scene 48 (Celeste POV): Charli slips at work (small, “innocent,” but unsafe), and the risk becomes real.
- Scene 49 (Celeste POV): consequences — not cruelty, not punishment theatre: structure. Celeste leads, sets boundary, and re-anchors Wardrobe’s safety. Charli learns.
Scene 47 — “The Floodgates” (Celeste POV)
It started the way most dangerous things start.
Quietly.
We were in the kitchen after dinner, the apartment dim and ordinary, the kind of evening that didn’t feel like it was making history. The kettle had clicked off a minute ago. The sink was full of dishes we would both pretend we didn’t see for ten minutes.
Charli was at the table with the ledger notebook open—not Wardrobe’s ledger, hers: the small private one where she copied recipes, wrote lists, rehearsed the shapes of competence the way other people rehearsed speeches.
She had her hair up, still damp from her shower. No cap, no kerchief, no pinned discipline—just herself. A girl in a t-shirt with a pen in her hand, trying to be useful in the only way she knew how: by preparing.
I leaned on the counter and watched her without meaning to.
I didn’t intend to be like this.
I’d told myself a hundred times: keep it clean. Keep it professional. Keep it safe. I’d been good at that. I’d built it into my bones the way I’d built Wardrobe’s rules into my mouth: calm voice, clear line, no ambiguity.
But somewhere over the last weeks, that discipline had started to cost me.
Because Charli wasn’t a project anymore.
She wasn’t “an interesting case.”
She wasn’t even “my responsibility.”
She was… mine, in a way my body understood before my mind allowed it.
She looked up and caught me looking.
Her smile arrived softly, like it had to be earned.
“You’re thinking,” she said.
“I’m always thinking,” I replied.
Charli’s eyes warmed—no argument, no flinch. She went back to her notebook, and I realised what I was actually watching: her hands.
Long-fingered. Careful. Precise. A person who touched paper the way she touched fabric: as if it had feelings.
I said, mostly to give myself something to do, “Show me what you’re writing.”
Charli hesitated—a small, old reflex of fear—then she slid the notebook toward me. Not defensive. Not secretive. Just offering.
I walked around to the table and leaned in to read.
A list.
Simple.
GP appointment bloods script pick-up hair pins (more) salt (for pasta water) thank Lauren? (crossed out, then rewritten: tell Lauren.)
My chest tightened at that last line. Not because of Lauren. Because of the way Charli kept learning: not theatrically. Not with speeches. With small corrections. With practice.
I tapped the page lightly.
“This is good,” I said.
Charli’s shoulders lifted and lowered, a quiet exhale.
“I don’t want to forget,” she murmured.
“You won’t,” I said, and then—without planning to—added, “You’re not alone.”
Charli went still.
Not frightened. Not startled.
Just… struck.
Her eyes came up to mine, wide and bright, and for a moment she looked so young I felt something inside me soften dangerously.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.
The wanting in her face was not sexual. It was worse than that.
It was trust.
It was devotion.
It was the look of someone who had been starving and didn’t quite believe food was allowed.
I should have looked away.
I didn’t.
Charli’s hand lifted—slow, tentative—as if she was asking permission from the air.
She reached toward my wrist where it rested on the table.
I felt the pause in her fingers before contact: that careful millimetre where she waited to see if I would pull away.
I didn’t.
Her fingertips touched my skin.
And my whole body reacted as if she’d turned on a light.
It wasn’t heat. Not exactly.
It was… relief.
Touch so gentle it didn’t feel like a claim. Touch so careful it felt like reverence. The smallest pressure, a feather of contact, but it landed inside me like certainty.
Charli’s thumb made one slow, tentative stroke across the inside of my wrist.
I inhaled sharply.
Charli froze, immediately—eyes flashing with panic.
“Sorry—” she began.
“No,” I said, too fast.
The word came out rougher than I intended.
Charli’s mouth closed. She watched my face, braced for correction, for withdrawal, for the old rules.
I forced myself to slow down.
“Don’t apologise,” I said, quieter. “Just… don’t stop.”
Charli’s eyes widened.
A flush rose in her cheeks, soft and disbelieving.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
I hated how much I needed her to do it again.
“Yes,” I said, flat, because if I tried to make it pretty I’d lose control. “I’m sure.”
Charli’s hand returned, slower this time, as if she was learning me the way she learned fabric: testing tension, reading response, adjusting.
Her thumb traced the same small stroke again.
My skin prickled. My throat tightened. Something in my chest gave way with a quiet, internal sound—like a knot finally untying.
I had spent so long holding myself back—out of caution, out of responsibility, out of fear of becoming the kind of woman who takes what she wants without considering the cost.
But this didn’t feel like taking.
It felt like being met.
I looked down at her hand on mine and realised, with a shock that was almost comic, that Charli’s touch was not demanding.
It was offering.
Which made my own hunger feel unbearable.
I turned my palm over, slowly, and let my fingers curl around hers.
Not tight.
Not possessive.
Just… answering.
Charli’s breath hitched.
Her eyes shone, the way they did when she wanted to cry but refused to perform it.
“Celeste,” she whispered, like my name was a place.
I swallowed.
“This,” I said, trying to make my voice steady, “is not a reward.”
Charli blinked.
“It’s not something you earn by being good,” I continued. “Do you understand me?”
Her expression shifted—confused, then dawning.
“You mean…” she began.
“I mean,” I said, and my voice softened despite myself, “I want it too.”
Charli’s lips parted slightly, stunned.
I could have left it there. I should have.
Instead, I leaned down—slowly, deliberately—and kissed her.
Not hungry.
Not urgent.
A small kiss, precise as a pin placed correctly. A kiss that asked a question and waited for the answer.
Charli answered by making the smallest sound in her throat and lifting her free hand to my waist—light, careful, as if she was afraid I’d dissolve.
Her touch there was just as gentle.
And it nearly undid me.
I broke the kiss and rested my forehead lightly against hers.
“Touch,” I murmured, the word half a confession. “That’s all I want tonight.”
Charli nodded quickly, almost frantic with relief.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. I can—yes.”
I guided her up from the table and toward the couch. We sat, close, and she curled against me with the cautious joy of someone waiting for the rules to change back.
They didn’t.
I wrapped an arm around her and let her settle.
Charli’s hand slid along my forearm, then my shoulder, then my collarbone—each touch a question, each pause a check-in.
It was unbearably sweet.
It was… bliss, in the simplest sense: my body unclenching, my mind quieting, the world narrowing to the fact of her presence.
Charli kissed my cheek once, then my jaw, then—very carefully—my throat, as if she’d learned I might break there.
I closed my eyes.
The floodgates opened with no drama at all.
Just a steady, unstoppable softness.
And in the dark, held by the gentlest hands I’d ever known, I realised the truth I’d been skirting for months:
I wasn’t losing control.
I was finally allowing myself to be loved.
Scene 48¶
Unsafe¶
Scene 48 — “Unsafe” (Celeste POV)
The next day at Wardrobe, I walked in wearing my usual face.
Calm. Clear. Adult.
But my body had changed overnight in a way I couldn’t hide from myself: it remembered Charli’s touch.
It wanted it.
Even in the bright clatter of morning, even with steam in the air and Mara’s shears already snicking like punctuation, my skin carried the echo of her fingers the way fabric carries perfume.
Charli arrived ten minutes after me.
She came in quieter than usual, as if she was trying to be respectful of something she didn’t fully understand yet: that intimacy changes gravity.
Her eyes met mine for half a beat, and her mouth softened.
Not a grin.
Not a performance.
Just… a private warmth.
I kept my expression neutral and turned back to the ledger.
We had actresses coming in mid-morning. A fitting schedule. A collar repair. A cap batch that needed tying.
Everything normal.
Which meant everything fragile.
Because Wardrobe isn’t just a workplace. It’s a structure. A shelter. It’s women’s safety engineered into habits.
And safety is not compatible with visible romance.
Not here.
Not yet.
Charli moved to the cap table, began sorting ties, checking angles with her new competence. Mara barked a correction; Charli absorbed it without flinching. Lauren strode through with her clipboard. Sarah looked like she’d slept badly but held her posture like a weapon.
I was grateful for the noise. It kept me composed.
Then—because life loves irony—an actress arrived early, cheerful and loud, bringing the energy of an audience.
“Morning! Oh my god, this place is like a beehive!”
Mara’s mouth tightened. “Stand still. Talk later.”
The actress laughed, compliant.
Charli turned to fetch something from the shelf behind her, and she brushed past me in the narrow aisle between tables.
I felt her pause.
I didn’t look up.
Then her fingers—light as breath—touched the back of my hand.
A tiny, secret stroke. A private affection.
It lasted less than a second.
It was enough.
Because my body reacted before my mind could stop it: a small shiver under my skin, a tightening in my throat, a pulse spike that made me suddenly aware of my own mouth.
It was a human response.
Which is exactly why it was dangerous.
Charli’s eyes flicked up to my face, bright with that same hopeful devotion from last night, and she smiled—small, pleased—because she’d felt my reaction and interpreted it as permission.
I held very still.
Across the room, Sarah’s gaze snapped toward us.
Not jealous.
Not judging.
Alert.
She had the instincts of a woman who knows what men—and gossip—do with information.
And two tables away, the actress’s eyes slid over us with curiosity.
The wrong kind.
A glance too long. A faint tilt of the mouth. Interest.
Data being collected.
I felt my stomach go cold.
Charli didn’t see any of that. She was still living in the softness of last night, still floating in the relief of being wanted.
She reached—without thinking—and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
A gesture so gentle, so domestic, so girlfriend, it might as well have been an announcement.
The room didn’t stop.
But the temperature changed.
Sarah’s posture sharpened.
Lauren’s head lifted.
Mara’s eyes flicked up, brief and hard.
And the actress smiled like she’d just found a delicious new subplot.
I turned my head slowly and looked at Charli.
Not angry.
Not cruel.
But my expression was enough.
Charli’s face drained of colour.
Her hand fell away as if it had been burned.
I leaned closer—not to soften it, but to keep it private.
“Not here,” I said, low.
Charli’s eyes widened in horror.
“I—” she began.
“Not here,” I repeated, firmer. “Never at work. Do you understand me?”
Charli swallowed hard.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Her voice trembled. Her eyes shone.
She looked like someone who had just realised she’d walked into traffic.
I straightened and turned back to the ledger.
The actress chirped, oblivious or pretending to be. “Sorry—am I early?”
Lauren answered smoothly, saving the moment like she saved everything.
“You’re early,” Lauren said pleasantly. “But we’ll take you. Fitting room, please.”
The actress followed Lauren, still smiling.
Still storing.
Charli stood frozen at the cap table, hands hovering, afraid to touch anything.
I didn’t look at her again.
Not because I didn’t want to.
Because if I did, I might soften.
And softness at the wrong time is how women get hurt.
Scene 49¶
Consequences¶
Scene 49 — “Consequences” (Celeste POV)
I waited until lunch.
Not because I wanted to punish her with time.
Because if I spoke too soon, my voice would carry the wrong emotion.
I needed to be the adult.
And—this was the new part—I needed to be the adult while my body still wanted her hands on my skin.
That was the discipline now.
After lunch, I sent Charli a single message.
Back room. Five minutes.
No emoji. No softness. Structure.
Charli arrived exactly on time, of course.
She stood just inside the door like a schoolgirl, shoulders tight, hands clasped in front of her as if her fingers couldn’t be trusted.
Her eyes were red-rimmed. She’d tried not to cry. She’d failed. Quietly.
I didn’t comment on it.
I leaned against the table and kept my face calm.
“What happened this morning,” I said, “was unsafe.”
Charli flinched.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No,” I said, and held up a hand. “Not that word. You don’t apologise to make yourself feel smaller. You listen.”
Charli’s mouth closed. She nodded once, hard.
I continued, steady.
“Wardrobe is a women’s workplace. It is a safe space by design. That design depends on two things: privacy and clarity.”
Charli stared at the floor, breathing shallowly.
“You touched me in a way that signalled intimacy,” I said. “In front of staff. In front of a client.”
Charli’s throat moved. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to signal—”
“I know,” I said, and my voice softened one notch because it was true. “But intent is not the point.”
Her head lifted slightly, eyes wet.
“The point,” I continued, “is consequences. In a room like ours, intimacy becomes currency for other people. Gossip. Leverage. Narratives. And women pay for that.”
Charli’s face crumpled, not theatrically—just honest pain.
“I didn’t think,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said again. “That’s why we’re talking.”
I pushed off the table and stepped closer—not to comfort her, but to anchor her with fact.
“This is not me rejecting you,” I said, very clearly. “This is me protecting you. And protecting Wardrobe.”
Charli’s eyes snapped up.
“You’re… not…?” Her voice broke.
I held her gaze.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
She exhaled shakily, as if she’d been holding her breath since morning.
Then the devotion returned—too fast, too eager—and she stepped forward like she wanted to touch me to confirm it.
I stopped her with a small gesture.
Charli froze.
I let the silence do its work.
“This is part of being a woman in a women’s space,” I said. “You don’t get to let your feelings spill wherever they want. You learn where it’s safe.”
Charli nodded rapidly, tears slipping now.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. I can. I will.”
“Good,” I said.
Then I delivered the consequence, clean and boring, like policy.
“For the next two weeks,” I said, “you and I behave at work as we always have. Professional. No private signals. No touches. No looks that linger. We don’t feed anyone a story.”
Charli’s face tightened in fear.
Two weeks must have sounded like exile.
I watched her carefully.
“This is not punishment,” I added, because I meant it. “It’s training. It’s protection. It’s a reset.”
Charli swallowed.
“Yes,” she whispered, and I could see her trying to be brave.
“And,” I continued, “if you feel the urge to touch me at work, you redirect it into craft.”
Charli blinked.
I nodded toward the shelves.
“Pins,” I said. “Ties. Tension. You put your devotion into the work. That is how women survive in public.”
Charli’s breath shuddered.
“Yes,” she said again, steadier this time. “I understand.”
I held her gaze for a long beat, then—because I am not cruel—I gave her one truthful softness.
“Last night,” I said quietly, “was real.”
Charli’s eyes filled again, but this time the tears looked like relief.
“And it will continue,” I added. “At home. After hours. Where it is safe.”
Charli nodded, trembling.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I’ll be good.”
I sighed—small, controlled.
“Don’t say ‘good’ like that,” I said. “Say ‘careful.’”
Charli swallowed, corrected herself.
“I’ll be careful.”
“Better,” I said.
I stepped back and opened the door.
“Now,” I said, returning to the adult voice, “wash your face. Fix your posture. Go back out there. You’re not in trouble. You’re learning.”
Charli wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand, nodded, and turned to go.
At the doorway she paused—hesitated—then looked back at me with a question in her eyes.
Not asking for touch.
Asking for certainty.
I gave her a small nod.
The kind that says: We are still us. Just not here.
Charli exhaled and went back into Wardrobe.
I closed the door and stood alone in the back room for a moment longer than necessary, letting the ache in my chest settle into something I could carry.
Because this was the new truth:
I wanted her.
I wanted her touch.
And I would still choose the standards that kept her safe.
Even when it hurt.
Especially when it hurt.
If you like, the next scene can be the evening after this consequence talk — where Charli, determined to “be careful,” becomes almost comically cautious… and Celeste has to guide her back into softness: “Careful doesn’t mean distant.” That’s a gorgeous way to show Celeste’s floodgates staying open in the correct place. 💛
Scene 50¶
Where It’s Safe¶
Scene 50 — “Where It’s Safe” (Celeste POV)
Charli came home like someone returning to a house after nearly losing it.
Quiet. Careful. Eyes too bright, posture a fraction too controlled. She took her shoes off by the door with obsessive neatness, as if straight lines could prevent mistakes. She hung her bag on the hook and stood there for a second too long, hands hovering, waiting for permission the way she used to.
I watched her from the kitchen.
Not hidden. Not testing.
Just… observing the new shape of her caution.
“Hi,” I said.
Charli’s gaze snapped to mine with a kind of hungry relief that she tried to swallow back immediately.
“Hi,” she whispered.
She didn’t move toward me.
That was the first sign she’d understood.
Not “I’m in trouble.”
Not “I’m unworthy.”
But: this matters enough to protect.
I set two mugs on the table, poured tea, and kept my movements ordinary on purpose. Normality is a signal. It tells the body: no danger here.
Charli came to the table and sat in the chair opposite me like she was afraid the space between us was an exam.
She folded her hands in her lap.
Her eyes didn’t linger on my mouth.
Her shoulders didn’t soften the way they had last night.
She was trying so hard to be careful that she’d turned careful into distance.
I let her sit in that for a moment. Let her prove she could.
Then I said, gently, “You can look at me.”
Charli blinked, startled—as if she’d been caught doing something wrong in reverse.
“I—” she began.
“Charli,” I said, calm. “Looking is allowed.”
Her eyes lifted slowly to my face. They were still red-rimmed from the day, but steadier now. Present. Listening.
“I’m proud of you,” I said.
The sentence did something to her. Her breath caught. Her chin trembled once, just once, before she contained it.
“I messed up,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said. “And then you learned.”
Charli swallowed. “I didn’t… I didn’t understand. Not really. I thought—” She stopped, frustrated, then tried again. “I thought it was… little. Just… us.”
“It was us,” I said quietly. “And it was also a room full of women who have paid for men’s stories about them.”
Charli nodded, small and precise, like she was writing it into her bones.
“I saw Sarah,” she murmured. “When she looked. Not… angry. Just…” She searched. “Alert.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And Mara,” Charli added, and the name came out with a little shiver of respect. “Mara didn’t even need to say anything.”
“No,” I agreed. “Mara is a boundary with legs.”
Charli made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh if she’d allowed herself more oxygen.
I waited until her shoulders lowered a fraction. Then I placed my hand on the table—palm up. Not reaching for her. Offering.
Charli’s eyes dropped to my hand like it was a doorway.
Her throat moved.
She didn’t take it.
Not yet.
“Remember what I said,” I murmured. “Careful doesn’t mean distant.”
Charli’s eyes flicked up to mine, questioning. Worry threaded through her expression.
“What if I—”
“You won’t,” I said, and the certainty in my voice made her go still. “Because now you understand.”
Charli exhaled shakily.
Then—slowly, as if approaching a skittish animal—she lifted her hand from her lap and placed her fingertips into my palm.
The contact was so light it barely registered as pressure.
It registered as trust.
Her touch was even gentler than last night, if that was possible—like she was handling something fragile and beloved.
My chest tightened in a way I didn’t fight.
“Like this?” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said, and my voice came out softer than I intended. “Exactly like this.”
Charli’s thumb moved once across my palm—one careful stroke—and then stopped, waiting for the rule.
I let my fingers curl around hers.
Not tight.
Not claiming.
Answering.
Charli’s breath hitched, and this time she didn’t apologise for it. She simply let the feeling exist.
Good.
I drew her hand up slowly and pressed my lips to her knuckles.
It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t dramatic.
It was… reverent.
Charli made a small sound in her throat that nearly broke me.
Her eyes shone. She blinked hard and held on.
“Celeste,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I… I want to be good at this,” she said, the words careful but urgent. “At… us. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt Wardrobe.”
“I know,” I said.
Then I said the part she needed, the part she’d be too afraid to ask for.
“And you didn’t,” I added. “You created risk. We corrected it. That’s what adults do.”
Charli’s shoulders eased, the tension turning into something softer, more livable.
I stood and held my hand out again.
“Come here,” I said.
Charli rose immediately—obedient reflex—then checked herself, slowed down, as if remembering she was allowed to want without rushing.
She came to me and stopped just within reach, waiting.
I placed my hands lightly at her waist and guided her closer. The pressure was minimal. The intention wasn’t.
Charli’s hands hovered near my ribs, careful, as if she was afraid to touch the wrong place.
I took her left hand and placed it gently on my shoulder.
“Here,” I said.
Then I took her right hand and placed it at my waist.
“And here.”
Charli’s fingers curved, tentative at first, then steadier as she felt I wasn’t going to pull away.
Her touch was… exquisite.
Not because it was skilled.
Because it was pure. Because it carried no entitlement. No demand. Just devotion and awe and careful joy.
I leaned down and kissed her again, slow and clean.
Charli responded immediately, softening into it like she’d been thirsty and didn’t know it.
Her hands tightened a fraction at my waist—still gentle, but certain now—and I felt my body go warm in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being wanted safely.
I broke the kiss and rested my forehead against hers.
“Tonight,” I murmured, “you don’t have to be careful like you’re handling glass.”
Charli’s breath trembled. “But I—”
“You can be careful in the right way,” I said. “Careful like you are with fabric you love. You don’t avoid it. You learn it.”
Charli nodded, eyes wet.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I can do that.”
I guided her to the couch.
We sat close, hips touching, shoulders touching, and I pulled a blanket over both of us, not because we were cold but because the weight of it made the world smaller.
Charli hesitated, then leaned into me.
Her head found my shoulder like it belonged there.
Her arm slid around my waist, cautious at first, then settling as my body welcomed it.
I kissed the top of her head.
Charli’s breath shuddered, and she whispered, barely audible, “This is safe.”
“Yes,” I said.
She shifted slightly, turning her face toward my neck, and I felt the faint brush of her lips against my skin—more like a question than an act.
I answered by tipping my head gently, giving her access without words.
Charli kissed me again, still careful, still sweet, and her hand—her unbelievable hand—traced a slow line along my forearm.
Bliss arrived in my body like a quiet flood.
Not fireworks.
Not urgency.
A deep, easing warmth, the kind you feel when something inside you stops bracing.
I held her there, letting myself want without fear, letting the floodgates stay open because the river had found its proper bed.
After a while, Charli whispered, “I won’t do it at work again.”
“I know,” I said.
“And if I forget,” she added quickly, anxiety flaring, “if I get… carried away—”
I turned my head and kissed her temple.
“Then I will correct you,” I said. “And you will learn again. That’s what this is.”
Charli went very still, then nodded against my shoulder.
“Yes,” she breathed, and something in her softened—something old, something frightened.
A girl learning that love doesn’t vanish because you make one mistake.
A girl learning that consequences aren’t rejection.
They’re care.
We stayed like that for a long time: no talking, no plans, no big declarations.
Just touch.
Hands. Breath. Quiet kisses.
A woman letting herself be held.
A girl discovering that her gentleness wasn’t a liability—it was the very thing that made her irresistible.
And when Charli finally drifted toward sleep, curled against me with her fingers still resting lightly on my wrist as if she couldn’t bear to lose contact entirely, I stared into the dim room and felt the calm settle into place.
Wardrobe was safe.
Charli was safe.
And here, in the private hush of our home, where no one could turn tenderness into gossip or leverage, love was allowed to be what it wanted to be:
soft.
steady.
and growing.
Notes26-02-14ev1¶
[26-02-14]¶
😄🧵💛👭 💞 🖤 🍓 🌶 🚪 🔑 🛋 🫧 🌩 🌧 🧵 🪡 👗 👚 👜 👠 🩰 💄 💋 🎻 📒 ✂ 🩸 💧 🚺 ⚧ ♀ ⚜ 🤢
💞 Care is Basin-Shaped 👭
[ Sarah ]
People always assumed that because I was blonde, I must be a pampered princess. A hair-salon devotee, never missing a chance for a manicure or pedicure.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I did my own nails, thank you very much. And I liked my feet in exactly three ways: in shoes, in sand at the beach, or ignored. They’d carried me through too many twelve-hour days on concrete for me to pretend they were pretty, and I’d always hated the idea of anyone fussing over them. Pedicures, foot massages, all that pampered nonsense—it sounded like a performance I was expected to applaud.
I got home from Wardrobe exhausted on Thursday night. The Queensland client had complained that the material for the petticoats was still too heavy, even though they’d agreed in writing to the linen Lauren had suggested. Fortunately, Lauren was a bit of a magician at sourcing fabric, but it still meant overtime for everyone to fix the problem.
My feet were killing me.
Lauren came out of the kitchen wearing her workout gear and a warm smile, which quickly dissolved into a look of concern.
“Oh, your poor feet.”
I slowly deposited my weary body on the couch. The agony of pulling off my runners was almost pleasurable—felt so good when it stopped hurting. Lauren shook her head.
“How do you expect to work tomorrow?”
“I’ll be fine,” I mumbled. “Really, don’t worry about—”
By the time I got to the end of the sentence, she’d disappeared back into the kitchen. I heard the tap run, something fill under the stream, the soft clink of porcelain against the sink. A moment later, Lauren came back into the lounge bum-first, carrying a basin with steam rising from it.
“No. I said I was—” I started.
Lauren set the basin at my feet.
“Shush, you. It’s my turn to do something for you,” she said.
“I told you I don’t like people touching my feet.”
“I’m not ‘people’,” she said, very calmly. “Look, you held me together not that long ago when I thought I was going to come apart at the seams. Please let me do this much.”
One look into her eyes and I knew resistance would be a silly, egotistical gesture. The part of me that hated fuss put up a token protest anyway.
I gave a begrudging shrug.
“If you must.”
Her mouth curved.
“I must.”
When something already hurts, adding heat seems like it would be cruel and unusual. And in those first agonising seconds, it was—it literally took my breath away.
I finally managed to slow my breathing, then opened my eyes to stare balefully at the source of my pain: my red feet. When I looked up, I caught Lauren’s open-mouthed, intent gaze. She quickly looked away when she saw my expression and focused on my feet instead.
Her touch was almost tentative at first, feather-light. At the start even that felt aggressive, but as the water cooled—or my feet finally acclimated—the sensation became… tolerable.
My shoulders lowered.
I sighed.
Lauren’s movements became stronger, more confident. I looked at her. Swallowed.
“You right there?” she asked. Her eyes held mine.
I nodded. Right wasn’t the word I would have chosen. More like: oh my. This is nice.
“I had no idea it could be—”
“So delicious?” She grinned. “Hang on, it gets better.”
“How can it?”
“Stick with me,” she said, lifting my feet from the water and settling them on a towel in her lap.
“You do that like a pro, Lauren,” I said. “I mean, towel at the ready and all.”
“How would you know? I thought you said you don’t like pedicures,” she said.
“I can tell professionalism when I see it,” I replied.
And then my eyes went wide.
Lotion.
Firm hands, slow, undulating pressure.
My feet never knew what hit them.
Oh, my lands, that was so nice. I slumped back into the couch and let Lauren… do.
My feet were slowly starting to feel like something I might actually want to belong to me again.
But I wasn’t thinking about them as much as I was thinking about… Lauren. About how she could touch you with her eyes and her hands and confuse you as to which touch was more irresistible.
She glanced up, without really lifting her head, and her mouth curved in a small, self-deprecating smile.
“I guess you know how good you are, don’t you, dear heart?” I said.
Her smile broadened as she dropped her gaze again, and her hands slid a little higher to run slowly up and down my calves.
My breath caught.
Oh. Oh.
I bit my lower lip.
Oh, Lauren.
She glanced up at my face, a faint, shy pride in her eyes that didn’t quite match the confidence in her hands. Her fingertips traced lightly down my skin, a hint of nails in the mix that made my toes curl for reasons that had nothing to do with cramp.
“You do know, don’t you?” I managed. She shook her head, the movement small. “Then how—”
“I know what I like,” she said. “I’m… working from that.”
Heat climbed under my skin. I could feel my eyelids growing heavy, my breathing a little less tidy. Her touch grew bolder, more certain, as if my reactions were giving her feedback she trusted.
“Relax,” she said softly.
The sibilance of the word seemed to run straight up my spine. I let my head tip back against the couch, mouth parting on a small, helpless sound.
She paused.
“Still okay?” she asked, voice close now.
I opened my eyes. At some point she’d shifted, closer than before, warmth along my side. Her face was right there, searching mine.
“Oh yes,” I said quickly. The honesty of it surprised me. “More than okay.”
Something in her expression loosened. She leaned in, slowly enough that I could have pulled back if I’d wanted to.
I didn’t.
Her lips met mine, soft as a question. The melting I’d felt in my muscles spread, deeper now, centred somewhere entirely different. Her hand slipped up into my hair, fingers threading through it with a kind of reverence.
“I love your hair,” she breathed against my mouth. “I’ve wanted to tell you that properly.”
Her breath tickled my cheek. I sighed, the sound caught between us.
“Lauren…” My breathing had turned into a series of light, uneven pulls. “What are you…?”
“Being brave,” she said quietly. “And hoping you want that too.”
I answered her by kissing her back, properly this time. No half-measures. The way she responded—relief, hunger, care all tangled—made my head spin.
Her hands didn’t stay at my hair. One traced the line of my neck, my shoulder, the curve of my side, mapping out new territory with a patient, deliberate touch that felt like both a question and an answer.
I’d never been touched like that before: as if my whole body was a conversation, not a performance.
Some part of me noted, distantly, that I could ask her to slow down, to stop, and she would. The rest of me had absolutely no interest in testing that theory.
“Tell me if anything’s wrong,” she murmured.
“I will,” I said. “You’re… not doing anything wrong, Lauren.”
If anything, she was doing something dangerously right.
The nervous, work-battered woman who’d limped in the door an hour ago felt very far away. What remained was this: warmth, trust, and the dizzy, undeniable awareness that I wanted to follow her wherever this went next.
“Sarah,” she said quietly between kisses, her forehead resting against mine. “Can I say something terrifying?”
My lips twitched. “You can try.”
“I’ve never done this,” she said. “With a woman. I’m… figuring it out as I go.”
I let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Good,” I said. “Me neither.”
Her eyes searched mine, serious now. “We don’t have to go any further tonight. I meant it—there’s no rush.”
I thought of the red light in the car, of Lauren’s future including me. Of the key in the bowl. Of her hands on my feet, my calves, my hair. Of all the men who’d never cared if I was actually in the room.
“I know,” I said. My voice surprised me with how steady it sounded. “And I love you for it. But I don’t want to stop here.”
Her breath caught. “You’re sure.”
It wasn’t quite a question, not quite a statement. I cupped her face, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth.
“I want you,” I said. “Clumsy, new, whatever this is. I want it with you.”
Something eased in her shoulders at that, like a wire had been quietly cut. She kissed me again, slower this time, gratitude threaded through the heat.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Then we go at the speed where you can still breathe and talk to me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
We didn’t tumble off the couch in some cinematic heap. We stood up like adults whose knees would complain later if we didn’t, and for some reason that made me want her even more. She took my hand without fanfare and led me down the hallway, the same hallway where I’d held her together after the Roger episode at Wardrobe, to my bedroom.
My bedroom looked exactly as it always did: functional. Home.
It was the perfect setting for something we were making up from scratch.
“Last chance to change your mind,” she said, even as she brushed a stray lock of hair back from my face.
“I’m not changing it,” I said. “I’ve spent enough of my life pretending I didn’t want things.”
We took our time.
Clothes became a series of small, mutual decisions rather than some frantic stripping. Here, a shirt; there, a waistband loosened; pauses built in for nerves and for laughter when an elbow got caught or a zip fought back. Every time I hesitated, she checked in with a look or a touch. Every time she hesitated, I answered with my hands on her, learning the new map of her skin.
I’d had sex before. That wasn’t new. What was new was the way my body stayed in the room with me. The way every touch felt like a question I was allowed to answer honestly. The way pleasure didn’t feel extracted, but shared.
At some point talking became difficult and then unnecessary. The conversation shifted to breath, to the way she adjusted when I gasped, to the quiet, astonished sounds I realised were coming from me. We were clumsy, careful, occasionally giggling—and somehow, in the middle of all that, my whole nervous system lit up with the stunned realisation that this, right here, was what it felt like to be wanted and safe at the same time.
It was better for that.
Later, when the room had settled and the night noises outside the window had crept back into my awareness, Lauren lay curled against me, cheek tucked into the hollow beneath my collarbone like she’d always known it was there.
“You okay?” I asked into her hair.
She nodded against my skin. “Very,” she said. “You?”
I thought of all the schemes I’d made to keep her safe, even from myself. Of how quickly they’d evaporated when faced with her hunger and my own.
“I’m… happy,” I said. The word felt strange in my mouth in that context. True, though. “Terrified. But happy.”
She hummed, a tiny, satisfied sound.
“Good,” she murmured. “We can work with that.”
She drifted off before I did. I lay there, feeling the weight of her, the warmth of her, the extraordinary ordinariness of sharing a bed with a woman I loved and had just made love to.
The last clear thought I remember was simple and absolute:
None of this was temporary anymore.
s¶
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✨ The Brush ✨
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✨ The Brush ✨
p¶
pp¶
✨ The Brush ✨
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oo¶
✨ The Brush ✨
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✨ The Brush ✨
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Notes26-02-04ev1¶
There’s Always Tomorrow¶
😄🧵💛👭 💞 🖤 🍓 🌶 🚪 🔑 🛋 🫧 🌩 🌧 🧵 🪡 👗 👚 👜 👠 🩰 💄 💋 🎻 📒 ✂ 🩸 💧 🚺 ⚧ ♀ ⚜
[26-02-04]
Scene 49 — “There’s Always Tomorrow” (Sarah POV, past tense)
I noticed it in the stupid, domestic gaps.
Not the dramatic moments—the door locks, the blocked numbers, the way you learn to breathe again after a man has spent years teaching your body to flinch.
No. It was smaller than that.
It was how Lauren hovered half a second longer when I passed her in the hallway. How her eyes tracked my hands when I put a mug down. How she recalibrated her distance—one step closer, then one step back—as if she was testing an invisible fence with the tip of her toe.
I’d seen hunger before. Men carried it like a claim. Like they were owed.
Lauren’s was different.
Lauren’s was the kind that didn’t want to take anything. It wanted to be given something and not feel guilty for receiving it.
That was what undid me.
It would’ve been easy to call it a rebound and wash my hands of it. Neat label, tidy reasoning. But nothing about Lauren’s marriage had ended last week. It had ended slowly, years ago—ended in thousands of small moments where affection didn’t arrive, where kindness wasn’t the default, where she’d learned to survive on silence.
The only thing that had happened recently was that she’d finally stepped out of the freezer.
I could handle the practical parts. Safety plans. Logistics. Buddy systems. Door locks turned twice.
What I wasn’t used to was this: warmth that wanted to become… something else.
And the fact that I wanted it too.
That was the part I hadn’t planned for.
That was the part that made me feel—ridiculously—like a teenager.
I’d always been on the receiving end of initiation. Men decided. Men pressed. Men assumed. Even the decent ones still arrived with a kind of forward momentum, like intimacy was a track they expected you to step onto.
Women didn’t do that to me. Not in my life.
And now, if I wanted this to be woman-shaped, it meant I had to do something I’d never done before:
I had to lead without pushing. I had to offer without taking. I had to be brave, but not loud about it.
That night, after dinner, the house settled into its quiet. Lauren had showered and come out in one of my old t-shirts—soft, oversized, sleeves too long. Her hair was still slightly damp at the ends. She looked younger like that, not in age, but in vulnerability—like someone who hadn’t yet learned that comfort was allowed.
I watched her cross the lounge room and sit at the far end of the couch.
Far enough to be polite.
Not far enough to be true.
I sat down too, leaving space between us, because I wasn’t a monster and I wasn’t an idiot. The television murmured some forgettable show. Neither of us watched it.
Lauren’s hands were folded in her lap like she was waiting for instructions.
I felt something hot and protective in my chest.
No. Not protective.
Possessive.
That word startled me, so I corrected it immediately—because I didn’t do that. I didn’t own people. I didn’t keep them. I didn’t make love into a transaction.
But I could want her.
I could want her and still do this properly.
I turned my head and looked at her.
She was staring at the screen without seeing it, breathing shallow, shoulders held too high. Even safe, her body was still practising danger.
“Lauren,” I said.
She jumped a little, then forced a smile like she was about to apologise for existing.
“What?” she asked.
I kept my voice calm.
“Come here.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, startled by the certainty.
“I—” she began, then stopped. Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I don’t want to… impose.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“I am not offering you a couch treaty,” I said. “I’m telling you to come here.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, half laughter, half nerves. She didn’t move.
I softened it—just a fraction.
“You can say no,” I added. “But I’m not going to pretend I don’t want you closer.”
That did it.
Not the command. Not the permission.
The truth.
Lauren’s breath hitched. She looked down at her hands, then back up at me like she was bracing for consequences.
Then she shifted, slowly, moving along the couch until she was beside me.
Close enough that our shoulders almost touched.
Almost.
She stopped there, perfectly still, like a deer that had wandered into warmth and didn’t trust it.
I let the silence sit for a beat.
Then I said, very quietly, “You’re allowed to want things.”
Lauren’s eyes brightened instantly. She blinked hard, furious with herself.
“I don’t know what I want,” she whispered.
I did.
But I wasn’t going to put my certainty on top of her confusion.
So I said the simplest truth I could manage.
“I want to kiss you,” I said.
Her whole body went still.
The air changed.
Lauren looked at me like she couldn’t decide whether to run or lean in.
I forced myself not to move. Not to fill the space. Not to do the thing men did—closing distance as if hesitation was consent.
Instead I asked, blunt and steady, “Do you want that?”
Lauren’s throat moved.
She nodded once, almost imperceptibly.
Then, as if she didn’t trust her nod, she whispered, “Yes.”
That tiny word hit me harder than any grand confession ever could.
I lifted my hand slowly—so she could see every inch of it—and touched the side of her face with my fingertips, light as breath.
Lauren leaned into my hand like she’d been waiting years for permission to stop holding herself up alone.
That was when something in my chest went dangerously soft.
I kissed her.
Not fast. Not hungry. Not performative.
A gentle, careful kiss that asked rather than claimed.
Lauren made a sound so small it was barely there, and then she kissed me back—tentative at first, like she was still half expecting the floor to vanish. And then, gradually, she softened. Her shoulders dropped. Her breath deepened. Her whole body sighed into the contact like a door unlocking.
I pulled back just enough to look at her.
Her eyes were glassy. Her mouth was slightly parted.
She looked stunned.
“You okay?” I asked.
Lauren nodded, but tears slipped down anyway, furious little betrayers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I felt irritation flare—at the reflex, not at her.
“No,” I said firmly. “Not sorry.”
Lauren’s lips trembled. “I didn’t realise it would feel like—”
“Like being human?” I supplied.
A laugh broke out of her, watery and disbelieving.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Like being… human.”
I nodded once, satisfied.
Then I said the part that mattered most, the part I needed her to hear.
“We go slow,” I told her. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to be brave for me. If you wake up tomorrow and you want to rewind, we rewind. If you want to stop, we stop. If you want more, you tell me. Clear?”
Lauren stared at me, eyes wide.
Then she nodded again, more firmly this time.
“Clear,” she whispered.
Good.
I shifted closer, and this time our shoulders touched properly.
Lauren leaned into me like she’d forgotten she was allowed.
I draped the throw over us, practical gesture, ordinary. It made the moment safer. It made it real.
Lauren’s head settled against my shoulder.
She stayed there, breathing slowly.
For a while we didn’t speak. The television murmured on. The house held us.
Lauren’s eyelids fluttered.
I felt the change before I saw it—the way her body stopped bracing, the way her weight became honest.
She fell asleep.
Just… fell asleep. Like her nervous system had finally decided it could stop standing guard.
I looked down at her—hair still damp, cheek warm against my shoulder, lips relaxed in a way I’d never seen them relax before.
Something tightened in my chest.
Not panic. Not pressure.
Something like awe.
It was absurdly intimate, having a woman asleep on you like this, trusting you with her unguarded self.
My mind tried to race ahead—to consequences, labels, explanations, the entire bloody future.
I didn’t let it.
I sat there, still as stone, so I wouldn’t wake her.
And in the quiet, I thought—simple and steady, like a promise you didn’t need to announce out loud:
There’s always tomorrow.
Was end Scene 49, now moving to Scene 48.