Chapter 20
THEN: DIANA
“Okay, so where did you go, what’s happened?”
Diana looked up from where she sat on a plush loveseat in the Blacksmith’s family room.
She and Julia were each wearing a variation of the same velvet dress, the only time of the year Julia would be caught wearing one.
Julia’s was green and Diana’s was red. They’d escaped the party downstairs with Greggory and his secret boyfriend, Alistair, up to the family room, only to have the boys run off to somewhere more private, leaving Julia and Diana alone.
“Sorry, I am just thinking, worried about Maggie,” Diana said.
It was partially true. Their parents forcing them to go to the Blacksmith’s annual holiday party meant that Maggie hadn’t been able to come over as she often did.
Diana was just thankful the party was on a Thursday and wouldn’t interfere with their usual weekend arrangement.
Diana had asked Maggie several times if her parents hated that she was almost never home these days, and she always shook her head and stated that her dad barely noticed and her mom was happy about her ‘spending so much time with a Blake’.
“I swear if you were a dude she’d hope you’d get me pregnant,” Maggie had joked.
Diana could try, but they hadn’t ventured further than oral, and that’s mainly where Diana’s mind was these days.
It had been her first time going down on a vagina, and the whole experience was explosive.
Maggie had widened her knees and opened like a flower, and Diana couldn’t get enough.
It was certainly different from what she had experienced with Jay, not more or less, just different, and exhilarating.
The way Maggie had fallen apart, practically melted in her mouth…
“Diana! Okay you need to tell me what’s going on because you have been in la-la land all evening.
” Julia’s voice was closer, and Diana looked up to find her sister’s face inches from hers and she bent down.
Seeming satisfied that she’d finally grabbed Diana’s attention, Julia held her gaze for a beat more before she flopped down on the loveseat next to her.
“Sorry, I’m distracted.”
“Yeah no shit, I have been asking you what you want to watch for like ten minutes,” Julia snorted. Diana looked up and saw that she’d put on Home Alone. “It was this or Die Hard,” Julia said when Diana met her gaze, “so what’s on your mind—you know, aside from it being Maggie related.”
Diana had never held anything back from her sister before, and had definitely wanted to talk about what had happened weeks ago and what had since continued to happen.
It was just that these days she was spending more and more time with Julia and Maggie.
Taking a deep breath and knowing they had a few hours at this stuffy party, Diana figured now was as good a time as ever.
“So Maggie and I, well we are together,” Diana began.
“Well I figured that out long ago,” Julia said, and then, as if doing her expert mental sibling math she said, “wait, oh my god, did you both have sex?”
Diana let out a nervous laugh. “I mean yes? We’ve done mouth stuff.” Diana looked up at Julia, who grinned back at her like she was the older sister. In some ways, she was.
“Mouth stuff,” Julia said, chuckling, but by the look in her eye, Diana knew her sister knew what she was talking about. She paused again and then her eyes grew wide as she asked, “Wait, is this your first time going down on a vagina?”
Diana couldn’t help but look around the room to make sure they were still alone before she nodded and laughed nervously.
“How was it?” Julia asked conspiratorially.
“Fucking awesome,” Diana said.
“Better?” Julia asked.
“The same I think? I mean obviously different, but I think what mattered more was the person I was doing it with?” Diana said, turning her eyes up in thought for a moment and then looking back at her sister, who was nodding with a serious look on her face.
“Well, yeah I guess for you it would be the same. I mean you like women and have now experienced two different women. Good for you.”
Diana let out a shaky breath. “You know Jules, you sound like you’re the older sister sometimes. I am almost afraid to ask how many women you’ve experienced.” Diana was surprised to see her baby sister’s face flush.
“Actually? I know I am a flirt, but I haven’t really done more than making out and some hand stuff.” Diana was surprised by this but then thinking back through their conversations, realized Julia had never talked about oral sex or anything beyond.
“So, then, tell me everything,” Julia said.
“Once again, I am not telling you the nitty gritty details about my girlfriend’s body,” Diana said warningly.
“Of course not, like I said with Jay, I have to look them in the eye, I don’t want to know all the nitty gritty, just like, how it was, and if you have any tips for your baby sis?”
Diana thought for a moment. “I don’t know, I’d say the same as always?
Go slow at first and listen to her body.
” Julia nodded like Diana was imparting some ancient wisdom.
Diana felt her face flush. “Um, just like, I know you haven’t done it before but like,” and now Diana’s flush deepened because she was going to reveal more about the bodies of the only women she’d slept with,“when Jay and I, well I kinda was able to grind into her, you know?” Diana looked at her sister’s warm hazel eyes that looked far away and then came back to her with a flicker of understanding.
“You want to know if you can do the same with Maggie?” Diana breathed a sigh of relief at not having to go into more detail. She knew Jay wouldn’t care, and hadn’t cared. Jay had always been comfortable in her body, even if it had been considered “male”.
“Yeah I mean, I feel like I am a little out of my depth here,” Diana said.
Julia nodded and again Diana was struck with affection for her sister and how serious she was taking the whole conversation, how grateful she was to have this.
“Well I don’t know everything. But I have heard of this thing called scissoring from Anna and her friends.
Doesn’t sound like it’s for everyone but if you can get it right, apparently it’s phenomenal.
” Julia went into more detail about the mechanics and how it required getting creative, while Diana listened intently.
She wanted to make it good for Maggie. She wanted to make everything good for Maggie.
She wanted to create a space where Maggie could just be and never worry. A place where she would only smile.
“How was last night?” Maggie asked, pulling her long hair up into a ponytail as they sat on her bed.
They were both showered and in pajamas for the night.
Diana felt heat run through her body; the move was always a sign that Maggie planned on getting her hair out of the way for some activities in Diana’s bed.
“You know, the usual,” Diana said, and she felt herself smile in anticipation despite her nerves. Tonight was the night
“I have no idea what rich people do,” Maggie said. There was no bitterness in her voice; she said it as if she were just stating a fact.
“It was boring, all I kept thinking about the whole time was you.” Diana relished in the way Maggie’s face lit up.
“Oh? What part of me?”
Diana laughed and said, “More like about you, you—and maybe us.”
“What about us?” Maggie said, turning to straddle Diana. Diana loved this side of Maggie, who became bolder and bolder each time they were together. It was like she knew she was getting more and more of the whole Maggie every time, the Maggie that wasn’t careful or afraid.
“Like how I feel about us,” Diana said.
Maggie leaned down and kissed Diana lightly on the mouth.
“How do you feel about us,” Maggie asked, her voice more serious and her eyes less lustful and more alert.
“Mags, I want to give you everything and anything. I think—I think I’m falling in love with you,” Diana said honestly.
She’d done it before, so she knew when it was happening again.
This time though, it felt intense, and there was an assuredness to it that made her feel ridiculous at just seventeen.
“In love with me?” Maggie asked. Her body stiffened. “But you don’t know everything, Diana. You don’t even know where I live.” Diana realized that this was true. Their time at the orchard had become so much of their world that where Maggie lived hadn’t come up.
“Well, where do you live? Take me there sometime,” Diana said, and she held onto Maggie, who gently began to pull away.
“Diana, come on, you don’t, you don’t love me, you just, trust me I’m—”
Diana felt a small pit forming in her stomach, but she wasn’t going to let Maggie tell her how she felt.
She placed both of her hands on Maggie’s reddening face and forced her to look at her.
“I know we are young, I know I don’t know everything, but I want to.
I want to know everything there is to know about you, Mags.
If you’ll let me. I have been in love before Mags, I know what it feels like, and I know that this time, something about it is different.
” As Diana finished saying the words, she knew they were true.
It wasn’t about more or less, but it was different.
“Different how?” Maggie asked.
“I feel like, when I am alone with you, and have you in my arms, a piece of myself I didn’t even know was missing has come back to me.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Maggie burst into tears. “Diana, I live in a trailer with my mom and my dad who is definitely an alcoholic. And no one knows, because if they did, if they knew the trash that I—”
Diana silenced her with a kiss, and then pulled back and held her girlfriend in her arms. “Maggie, I don’t care about what everyone else does.
Like I said, you’re like a piece of me that has come back to me.
I don’t really care about where you’ve been now that you’re here, back with me.
I just want to know because I want to know you. ”
Maggie rested her head on Diana’s and took a shaky breath. She’d stopped crying, and Diana wiped away her tears while placing soft kisses on her face.
“I have never felt this way, about anyone, or ever,” Maggie said quietly, and the way she said it sounded like a confession that cost her something to say. Then she said, “But this is real?”
The question shook Diana. She hated that Maggie even had to ask.
“Yes, it’s real, and I want to show you, if you’ll let me?” Diana said, pulling away to look Maggie in the eyes, putting all the meaning she could into her gaze.
“Does that mean you’ll finally fuck me?” Maggie asked, and the bluntness would have caught Diana completely off guard if she hadn’t seen the genuine look in Maggie’s eyes.
“What do you mean, finally?”
“You had sex with your ex-girlfriend but not me, and I didn’t know if it was because…” she trailed off.
“I wanted us to take our time, this was all new to you and I didn’t want to rush you, it has nothing to do with how I feel about you. Mags, you’re stunning inside and out, of course I want to touch you in every way possible.”
“Then do it, please, I want you everywhere, I don’t want to know where I end and you begin,” Maggie said, her voice and eyes clear. Maggie bent down and slowly kissed her while Diana reached up and pulled her hair out of her ponytail.
Breaking her lips from Maggie’s, Diana said, “I want you completely, completely bared, let me show you how I love every inch of you,” and she once again captured Maggie’s mouth with her own and then rolled so that she was on top of Maggie.
When they were spent, wrapped up in each other, as if afraid to have anything between them for a second, Diana ran her hands along Maggie’s scalp as she heard her breath even out.
Diana had meant what she said about Maggie feeling like a piece of herself returned to her.
But she also knew in that moment, she’d lost a piece of herself to Maggie forever.