The Stars and the Cookie Jar

   The backs of her knees brushed the couch, and she shivered: for the touch, even of fabric, and for Violeta, who stood looking at her and not touching.
   Words slipped like startled creatures through her mind, what's...? and am I not...? Raissa sucked on her lip, and stayed silent. She regarded Violeta, taller and paler and striking, even barefoot on a floor woolly with dust. There was a scar, a raised double white line, in the shadow of Violeta's left breast; it marked time for her breathing. She was breathing shallowly and quick.
   "Your hair," Violeta said. "Oh, please."
   Raissa's eyes unclouded, slowly. She reached back, with one hand, flicked two pins out and tugged. When the braids came down she meant to unweave them, in a hurry, heedless and pulling; Violeta touched her wrists, stilling her, and combed Raissa's hair loose. It fell over her shoulders and down to her waist, curling across her bare skin and Violeta's.
   An indrawn breath with sound threaded through it, before Violeta kissed her. The sudden brush of skin on skin made Raissa arch up, blushing, and she had to slide one ankle behind Violeta's to keep her balance. Violeta's mouth tasted, at the edges, of sugar and tea; she kissed slowly, with her eyes open, with her hands stirring beneath the weight of Raissa's hair.
   "I want," Raissa began, but the words had all gone. The blush burned again in her cheeks, fever-heat, warm as Violeta's calloused right hand, clever left. Her own fingertips wandered at Violeta's shoulder, at the narrowing curve of her back, but she was no braver than that.
   "Yes."
   A shift in balance, a shift in the world. Raissa fell backward, too startled to shout, and landed on the sofa. Her long hair tangled in her eyes, and instead of Violeta's skin there was velveteen, ancient, going different ways; and she was so far back in the couch-springs that her toes barely brushed the floor. She was silent, mortified, and then she tucked aside her hair.
   Violeta knelt between Raissa's legs, gazing up with narrowed eyes dark-blue as smoke. She smiled, and the smile held hunger. One of her hands was resting where Raissa's thigh curved, for balance; she looked at her ease, and so lovely, Raissa had to glance away.
   Quick and darting hot, a tongue at the arc of her knee drew Raissa's attention back. She watched, red-mouthed, shivering, she saw more than felt the kisses pressed along her thigh; though when Violeta's copper hair fell forward, to brush her own black curls on white, she closed her eyes.
She thought Violeta asked, or pleaded, something. Something like kisses, like madness, like fire; a hand moving in her, and Violeta's kisses, when she half rose to hold Raissa, to keep her from shattering, tasted of salt.
   Beloved, beautiful, a voice to steady, a hand to gentle her as she tensed and begged. Violeta's lips at her throat, the line of teeth starting a thousand fires under her skin; Violeta's fingers inside her, thumb stroking and circling, until she could not breathe. Raissa keened, and Violeta caught the cry in her mouth. It was enough to make her fall.