After her independent fit of mania, Calliope had realized she wasn't quite sure what she should do with herself. So she went, and stood against the hard, cold wall, and people-watched, awkwardly. She ran a hand through her hair. She never had before. But it was at this moment, she thought, she could use a drink.

But then a voice came beside her.

"Sorry leaving you waiting," came Jasmine's voice feathered. Calli's gaze flitted to her. She was back in the clothes she had donned earlier in the evening.

Calli gave her a meager smile. Jasmine gave her a much broader one. The shorter woman's ice-blue eyes surveyed the crowd of people dancing and writhing together. Then they fell back on Calliope's with a flicker of vulnerability, and her smile softened.

"Dance with me," she shot simply. Calli's cheeks flushed and she swallowed.

"D-dance?! I-" she flustered, giving an awkward sort of half-laugh. "I-I can't..."

Jasmine gave a laugh with a flippant gesture to the crowd. "Nobody can, sweetie."

"You can," Calli shot back with a pout. Jasmine scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Uh, okay? I'm a professional entertainer, Calliope." Calli felt soft hands snake into her own. "Come on. Humor me."

Calli rolled her eyes and huffed. It was absurd. There was no way she was really going to do this.

Was she?

She crossed her arms, tightly digging her nails into her biceps. And then she sighed.

"Fine," she said, "But if I'm awful—which I will be—we're leaving and never coming back."

Jasmine huffed, and shot a dramatic pout. "Never coming back?" she said with hammed disappointment, "You don't wanna see another show?"

Calli blushed. "I... U-um..."

Jasmine chuckled at her. Then she tugged backward toward the dance-floor behind her, Calli stumbling after her.

"Come on, Courier," she cooed, "Show me what you got."

Jasmine brought them to nestle deep inside the crowd. They were relatively closer in stature with Jasmine's heels on, but Calli still had a few inches on her.

Jasmine pulled the bony girl's frame close to her, and began pacedly rocking, leading her with her own steps, guiding her along where she was going. Calli followed obediently, letting her rock their tightly pressed forms. And she soon found it difficult to recognize there was anyone else in the room besides the two of them.

Calli let out a sudden, harsh gasp as she was dipped without expectation. Jasmine made sure not to let her fall as she met her eyes deviously, before pulling her back up and spinning her.

She hadn't noticed fully that she'd spun her away. Her movements were her own, now. And truth be told, she wasn't awful. Or, maybe she was. And she was just too giddy to notice.

"How're we feeling, pretty girl?" Jasmine called over the music. Calli blushed.

She swallowed, plastering a stupid smile. "D-decent? I guess?"

Jasmine shrugged and chortled. "Better than bad. But, I think we can do a little better than that." Then she smirked.

Calliope cocked her head and was about to ask, 'how?' when she'd quickly fallen too distracted.

Jasmine danced just like she did on stage. Loud, shameless, and sensual. Everything the world said so loudly it would hate from her. Everything she very clearly did not care about. She raised her hands over her head and slowly traced down along the curves and rolls and divots of her body as she gave Calli lidded eyes.

Calli, on the other hand, just stared at her like an idiot. She felt the whole of her heating up. She gasped as Jasmine snatched her, pulling her back and firmly pressing their bodies together again. She felt Jasmine's supple softness all along her taught skin. She reveled in the entanglement of their warm, heated breaths pattering each others' lips. She decided to try something.

She took a firm grip of Jasmine's soft hips, feeling her hands sink into the soft flesh there, and Jasmine gave a rattled gasp onto her lips. And Calli saw that brief look of vulnerability that was so rarely there. Jasmine looked at her with wide eyes and massive pupils, lips parted and breathing ragged.

Calli kept rocking along with Jasmine to the sound of the music. And Jasmine looked at her with the same wide eyes, huddling a bit further in comfort for the warmth against her. Slowly, Calli's right hand trailed from on her hip along her backside, tracing over the top of her soft ass, over the roll of her back, finally resting at the soft cushiony flesh between shoulder blades, resting on the warm wool of her overthrow. Then, she tried to dip her.

Which was a mistake.

The blonde squealed as she toppled backward, landing on the lucky cushioning of her back, and managing to keep her head from cracking to the floor. Calliope, on the other hand, came toppling on top of her, bouncing on her body and sprawling out atop her.

"S-sorry!" She gasped, shakily. "I thought-I just-Shit..." She pulled herself off the woman below. "I fucked it up, didn't I?"

Jasmine stared straight into her eyes. She looked almost in awe. It was an odd sort of face. Like a child who had seen something they'd dreamed of their entire lives for the first time in fruition in front of them. But then she snorted. And she laughed. And she pulled Calli back in as they laid there on the solid floor.

"That was cute," she giggled. "But I'm a little heavy for that, sweetie."

Calli winced. "... You're okay?"

Jasmine raised a brow a gave a snort, smiling softly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I mean, you're not hurt or anything?"

She shook her head, still chuckling. "No, Calliope; I'm alright."

Calli sighed, and nodded, relieved. "Okay..."

The two remained there a little longer, Calli's eyes tracing Jasmine's features, until Jasmine finally cracked a sly grin. "You know, if you wanna straddle me so bad, we should probably find a bed."

Calli gasped, scrambling off and back and wincing as her bony ass hit the floor. She shot up to her feet. "S-sorry!"

Jasmine cocked her head, and halved her eyes. She traced Calliope's body. Almost as if she was inspecting her. "Why? That was an invitation."

Calli's entire body felt like it was burning.

Invitation.

She swallowed stiffly. "O-oh..."

Jasmine giggled and began pulling herself off the floor. Calli was quick to help lift her, thought she didn't help much. Jasmine giggled at her endeavor.

"Yes," she giggled, "'Oh.'"

The two stared at each other. Close. And the heat Calli felt suddenly enveloped her much further than her face.

She swallowed, her mouth dry.

I just want to actually know you first.

She realized, she never really considered what she meant by that. Not exactly. She wanted to get more familiar with her. Learn her rhythm. But when did she objectively decide it was enough?

That she really did know her?

Jasmine liked to read. She was coy, whitty, and teasing. She was a performer at heart. She seemed to enjoy the attention. Yet she had a rebel's soul. She had a great amount of goodness within her. And charity. Calliope thought then, that she blended with her easier than she'd ever blended with anyone.

She was kind. And gentle and compassionate. But she was also sly, and full of cheek, and irreverent.

She knew she was kind. She knew she was good.

And that, she decided, was enough.

"We don't have–" Jasmine started, but was cut short.

Calliope shook her head. "No. No, I'd... I mean..." She shuffled. "... I'm not opposed..."

She was surprised to see Jasmine's eyes hop wider for a moment. But then she nodded. And she smirked. She took pulled Calli in close.

"Then," she said in a purr, "Let's see where the night takes us."

. . . .

The door clicked behind as they finally returned to Jasmine's place. When they did, Jasmine immediately peeled off her overthrow with an odd sort of moan, and Calli found it hard not to watch her as she did so. Jasmine tucked the article over her shoulder and groaned as she stretched her arms out above her head. She let the limbs drop back down beside her, and her eyes fell on the staring woman. She chuffed, and attempted at something like a smile. But it was more a wince than anything. "I am... disgusting. And not in a good way. Think I'll hop in the shower real quick..." she chuckled as she peeled her wedges off her feet.

Calli nodded, froze, contemplated what the good way could possibly be, then elected it better for her sanity not to think about it at all. She cleared her throat and stumbled. "I-I probably should... too. When you're done."

Jasmine giggled at what Calli assumed must've been her awkwardness. "Sounds good, Calliope." She strode toward the other woman with that coy little grin that made Calli's heart flip every single damned time she wore it. Then she stood on her toes to press her lips firmly to Calliope's for a quick kiss that lasted perhaps a few moments longer than a, 'quick kiss,' would qualify for. Calliope's hands found place on her shoulders, and felt the tangible slickness and grease. She wasn't disgusted by it—used to far worse on herself—and just chuffed, and jested:

"Wow. You're right. You really are sweaty."

She gave her a snort and a less than amused look. "Yes, well, I am a woman of my word."

"Yes, indeed," Calli chuckled back. Jasmine huffed, smirked, and turned to plod up the stairs.

"Feel free to make yourself at home, wherever," she called.

Calli nodded and gave a vague acknowledgement before she finally realized she didn't exactly know what that meant. How would she make herself at home. She barely knew what home meant as is—dingy make-shift bedrooms in out-of-commision sewer-systems didn't exactly meet what she felt were, probably, most people's criteria. And the time since she'd known a real home was so very long ago now, she barely remembered it at all.

So, she just stood there, fiddling with her hands for a brief moment, before starting to glance around at the room around her. After tonight, she understood why the feisty young woman lived as luxuriously as she did. She was, in a very literal way, a hot commodity. And that paid well, it so happened. And she treated herself nicely with it. Not ostentatiously, or in a way that was overly extravagant. She likely couldn't afford that anyway, given she still worked a mostly full-time position at a grocer. But she was what many people were not.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She was comfortable.

Calli had been downstairs enough. So, with some idle, cursory glances, she pulled off her boots, and made her way upstairs to the homeowner's bedroom.

She slowly pulled the door open, entered, and scanned her eyes about. She pursed her lips and plopped herself on the mattress, crossing her legs inelegantly. Glancing about, her eyes finally came to land on the stacks upon stacks of books at the bed's foot, and the two overstuffed rows on the paint-peeling, scuffed-up, old bookshelf all else was littered around.

Would making herself at home include reading something?

She crawled to the bookshelf and began looking. She didn't want to pick something Jasmine had been reading. She had learned, during her time with the other woman—sparse as it was—that she had habit of dog-earing any book she was in the middle of. However, flipping through an entire novel just to find a corner wasn't especially feasible. So, she elected, if she did find one, she'd just be careful not to flatten it out.

She gazed along spines and looked at titles. Many had none at all—in fact, most had none at all. But she saw, in the midst of the vast quantities of gathered reading, something even more plain seeming than any of the rest. It was a packet. A stapled, featureless, snow-white packet. She took it into her hands with an odd curiosity. She turned it over to look at the back, finding it to be just as blank and barren as the other side was. She peeled it open with a non-understood trepidation, gazing at that very first page. And, within it, was written in a fine, well mannered print nothing other than:

'Nothing More, by Jasmine March.'

Calli's eyebrows hopped up. She knew Jasmine perused literature. That she loved to read, and rant about stories she'd found. But never did she know that the miraculous woman was a writer herself.

Calliope came to sit back on the mattress, the packet still in her hands. Her nosiness, she found, came to take the better of her. She peered out the doorway of the room, hearing the vague sounds of running water. Instead of following down the trail of the fact that Jasmine March had a running shower in her home, she peeled back open that fragile packet, and flicked past that very first page. Her eyes landed on the start of that very second.

'One.'

. . . .

Calliope hadn't realized how long it'd been. She was about half of the way through the third chapter, now. In her whole life, she had never—not once—read a queer story before. She didn't even know they could exist. Well, she did, in the most technical sense. But she'd never seen one written out, nor otherwise told anywhere. Other than maybe a few personal anecdotes. But those, of course, weren't really narratives.

She was so utterly engrossed, she didn't hear footsteps walking into the room. Then a gasp.

She jerked her head up. Jasmine was there in the doorway, a towel tightly clinging to her body—to her curves. Calli could feel the heat gathering in her cheeks. But, Jasmine, strands of dampened hair still clinging to her forehead and her cheeks, was looking at her with wide and borderline panicked.

"Put that down," she fired. Calli did as she was told, yipping and flipping the stack of pages shut. She set them swiftly down next to her, clasping her hands and staring up at Jasmine. She grinned, sheepishly. Jasmine walked speedily across the room, holding her towel up where it gripped around her chest. She snatched the packet, and held it to her chest. She gave the scrawny woman looking coyly up at her from her bed a narrow-eyed look. "How much of this have you read?" she shot.

Calli gulped. "Not that much!" she hurried, then blushed, and stared at her lap. "Just, like... three chapters..."

Jasmine sighed out her nose, harshly. She took the packet she'd taken back to its rightful place, then gave the chop-haired woman another stink-eyed glare.

"I..." Calli wrung her hands together. "I'm sorry; I didn't know I wasn't supposed to."

Jasmine gave an odd sort of combination of a sigh and a scoff. "No," she said, gliding across the floorboards to a sliding-door closet on the other side of the room. The door was long separated from its track, and she sort of just slid it out of the way to get access to hampers inside. "I mean—I never said you couldn't..."

Calli teetered her head and clicked her tongue. "True. Y'know, if you think about it, this is all really your fault." she trailed with a coy grin. Jasmine gave a humored huff, and rolled her eyes, though Calli couldn't see it. Suddenly, the towel she'd had enveloping her fell to the floor, and Calli squeaked, flicking her head away as a naked Jasmine shuffled through sorted clothing hampers.. She definitely didn't peak. More than twice.

Jasmine's body was still glistening with water, not yet fully dried. Her bare rear was there and Calli felt ashamed for looking at it so gratuitously as she was. But she didn't divert her gaze as careful eyes drew along the ripples and curves and shapes of her figure, getting distracted for a brief time before a sudden query broke her focus.

"What'd you think?" There was a hint of caution in Jasmine's words. Almost like she was afraid of what Calliope's answer might be.

Calli swallowed the knot that had grown in her throat. "O-of the book?"

Jasmine's answer was a vaguely affirmative noise.

"I..." She took a moment—gathered her thoughts. Then she smile a genuine smile, her eyes coming to train on something a bit more chaste as they trained toward an empty corner of the room. "I thought it was amazing. I've... I've never read a book with... with actual, like, queer people in it before."

"Is that all?" Jasmine chuckled. Calli shook her head.

"No, I just—It was so... so compelling. It kinda hurt having to put it down," she chuckled, "It all felt so... so real." Jasmine slipped a shirt over her head—white, like everything else she wore, and perfectly fitting, emphasizing her voluptuosity without being overly tight. Her lower half was still bare, and Calliope made a concerted effort to look at her top in the moments when she looked at her at all.

"Yeah?" she said.

Calli nodded. "Yeah." Jasmine pulled out a pair of black briefs, and Calli fidgeted some more. "How do you write characters that seem so... alive?" She looked at her lap pensively. "I felt for them..." Jasmine shrugged.

"I dunno," she said, "I didn't even know I could until just now."

"Well, you definitely can," Calli chuckled. Jasmine didn't answer as she pulled a pair of cream yoga shorts from the hampers. She hiked them over her thighs, grunting as she pulled them over a point of contention just under her ass. Calli again looked more brazenly than perhaps she should have; than she wanted to. But she couldn't will herself away.

As soon as the shorts were up, Jasmine turned around, and Calli flicked her head back to her lap, steadily. She heard the other woman plodding to the bed, and could even hear the sly little smile she must've been wearing as she purred out after her.

"Calliope?"

Calli felt the mattress dip as she sat down.

"Y-yeah?"

She slid a little closer, and Calli felt herself being tilted slightly toward her by just how close she was. Eventually, the softness of her hip met with the bone of hers. She leaned into her ear, almost touching it. Calli felt her breath tickle her there as she spoke in a chuckle.

"You were staring again. Weren't you?"

Calli shuffled with her hands. She looked steadily at the stacks of books at the foot of the bed, before she cleared her throat, yet still spoke with a rasp, "Is that bad?"

Jasmine shook her head, but Calli couldn't see it. "Of course not."

Calli nodded stiffly. "Then... what is it?"

She shuddered when she felt the other woman's wet lips pad against her neck. She felt her mouth move against her skin.

Jasmine spoke steadily: "Natural."

"Nothing about us is natural..." Calli mouthed sadly. Jasmine managed to hear her.

"I disagree," she said.

"Why?"

"Because. We exist."

"Is that what, 'natural,' means?'" Another feathery kiss, another tremble she could feel to the tips of her extremities. Calli still didn't look at the shorter woman. But she felt her moving in even closer. A small and soft hand entwining itself with her own. "... People say we're unnatural."

"They're wrong."

"They say we're sinful."

"I think that could be said for most people."

"That we come from somewhere evil."

"Where do they say that is?" Jasmine scoffed. Another kiss. Calliope neglected answer.

"They say we're monsters."

Another kiss.

"You're pretty kind for a monster," Jasmine said. Calli could feel the erratic breaths of a chuckle patter her neck.

"It's hard for monsters to see monsters..." She hadn't thought of the words as they came out. She wasn't even sure she knew what she was saying anymore. Or if it was really her talking. Or just what she was told. A worm that had crawled into her brain and died there with its hate. Something she didn't know, nor could forget. An impression.

"You don't think that," Jasmine spoke matter-of-factly. Like she knew precisely every little thing going on in the other woman's head.

There wasn't a kiss this time.

Calli was silent.

"Where do you think we come from?" Jasmine said in a calculatedly neutral tone. Something about it made Calli feel a little smaller. Guilty, maybe. Or embarrassed.

She felt the grip on her calloused hands grow tighter. Her mind was hardly in the room anymore. But the weight of Jasmine's words still managed to yank her back down just enough to touch her toes to the ground.

She swallowed stiffly, her throat tight. She turned head just enough to meet the brilliant, blue eyes that looked back to her. There was a vulnerable flicker behind them, where normally there was cheek or teasing. A gentleness seeming foreign to her face.

Calli looked to her fully, with tight lips.

"I don't know..."

Jasmine smiled in a soft sort of way, her head tilting slightly. Calliope had known of her kindness. Glimmers of tenderness within her she'd witnessed a precious handful of times in their meager span together. But everytime it came to show, her heart still skipped. And it wasn't a common look for her either—not compared to many others. That didn't hinder its meaning in the slightest. In fact, it only made it stronger.

Jasmine was a sly woman. She was coy, and tricky, and rather hard to pin down. One to prod and bully, but always soften it with a kiss. She was complicated. That much, Calliope had gleaned for certain. But that enigmatic mixture that she was, was one with undeniable care stirred in. Entrenched in every fiber. In every cell.

The kiss between the teases.

Then her voice hushed again:

"Want me to tell you where I think we come from?"

Calli looked to her glistening eyes. Like the ocean in the distant horizon. Where the sky wasn't choked by smog.

"Nowhere," she said. "Like everything. Everyone. And if we're anything... Anything at all... Good. Or.... Or bad... It's because we made us so ourselves."

Calliope looked to her with trembling breath as she gazed into the sweetness behind those cerulean eyes.

And she barely processed the movement—barely even recognized the flicker in her mind that told her to do such—as her fingers tore through the other woman's hair, and she pulled her into her lips.

Calliope Lucero was rough. That is what she made of herself. She was tumble. Strong, and resilient. Unbreakable. Yet, at the same time, somehow vulnerable. She was who she was because she made it so. And most importantly of all, over anything else:

She had made her so herself.

They kissed again. And again.

And Calli chuckled. "Y'know, I was gonna take a shower, too."

Jasmine gave a sputter of a laugh. "Calliope? I really don't fucking care."

Their lips played against each other, and Calliope came to slowly drag Jasmine down with her to the bed, pressing her onto her back into the damaged springs of the mattress.

Jasmine gave her a wily gaze, like she hadn't quite expected the boldness. And Calliope looked at her the same. Because she hadn't, either.

The soft woman beneath her was the world's most underknown phenomenon. She was both mysterious and subtle, yet obvious as a punch to the throat. She was strong; she was confident; she was self assured; she was a rebel. A living act of protest against everything and anything she was told she was or had to be.

She was nothing if not utterly irreverent and defiant. And yet, as she stared up at the girl over her with that craving look of yearn, she seemed so undemanding. Just in wait for Calliope's next burst of confidence to strike. But nothing came other than ragged breaths and hungry eyes. So she decided to be the stoker.

Calli felt a hand snake up the hem of her top. Another slid up her skirt. And she reveled in the touch—the heat and the tenderness of Jasmine's soft hands on her body—fingers grazing skin and exploring areas she'd clearly been thinking of in a preciously methodical way.

Calli sighed into another kiss, gliding a calloused hand up the fabric of Jasmine's tee, trailing along the plush flesh of her stomach. It was almost unbearably warm to touch, and incredibly tender. The feeling of it on her hand was so very peculiar and unique—she had difficulty comparing it to anything else.

Jasmine let out a contented little noise into Calliope's lips at the running contact along her body, and the thinner girl took it as a sign to push further.

Calli's hand trailed further up the voluptuousness, and at the same time, Jasmine's traced around the boundaries of Calli's bra, and the toned, slenderness of her thighs.

Calliope found a hold on one of Jasmine's breasts, wrapping her fingers around it. It was soft, generous, and almost formeless in her hand. She had a hard time keeping her grasp. But that didn't stop her managing to roll her thumb along the lower woman's hardened nipple, slipping it against her fingers, and grasping it between her pointer and middle. Jasmine groaned roughly into Calli's mouth, and she felt her fingers desperately trying to slip beneath the bounds of her bra. Calliope chuckled against her lips before she pulled away.

Jasmine gave her a doe-eyed little look, and Calliope chuckled as she began undoing her own buttons. She shrugged her top off her shoulders, letting it slide onto the mattress, and revealing her barness, and the dumbed, thirsty look Jasmine shot at her tight-skinned torso made her chuff. She brushed some stray hair out of her eyes, and pulled her hands behind her. Her bra clipped off and fell to the bed, then tossed aside.

Jasmine bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. And Calliope couldn't help grin at the sight of her large thighs rubbing together, urgently.

Calli pressed back down over her, and hushed against her ear, "Is this what you meant when you said you weren't always bossy?"

Jasmine whimpered, and shuddered beneath her. She chuckled, pulled back, then pressed their lips together, her hand traveling back under shirt. And Jasmine's came onto her also, running against her showing bones and over her ribs, to her subtle breasts, and Calli's breath hitched and froze as she traced over her nipple. Calli pulled back, pecking kisses along Jasmine's jaw, down and down to her plump neck. She pulled and sucked on her skin, and Jasmine mewled Calliope could feel her body shaking, and she came to ask.

"Is this good?"

"Y-" A shrill gasp. Unable to immediately vocalize, she just nodded with a single, monosyllabic affirmation, before a, 'yes,' finally found its way out of her.

Calliope chuckled as she kept going, nipping and sucking. She grabbed the hem of the pudgy woman's shirt, and pulled. Jasmine lifted herself and assisted as she could in taking the top off her. Calliope threw it over the side of the bed, and soon, she was there in nothing but her yoga shorts. Calliope sat up and looked her over, thoughtfully, a hand running over her soft stomach to the edges of her breasts again, and back down. She trailed further and further down her flesh, when she came over the fabric of her shorts. She pressed the tips of her fingers into the plump flesh there.. Jasmine whimpered.

Calliope hooked her fingers into the waist of her shorts. She spread it open and began tugging downward, when her fingers slipped loose on accident, and the elastic of the garment snapped against Jasmine's skin.

"Shit–" Calliope yipped in a hush tone, "Sorr–"

Jasmine shot in a ragged breath, "Do that again."

Calliope froze, and studied hard on Jasmine's face. She was biting harshly on her lip with wanting eyes. Calliope could still feel the movement of her legs beneath her desperately hunting for friction

Calli came to hold a sly smirk. And she chuckled. "Oh. You're weird." Jasmine pouted.

"Is there something wrong with that?"

Calliope drug her nails from Jasmine's chest along her belly. Not terribly harsh, but enough to make a strong sensation, and Jasmine snatched her wrist and pressed them in to dig harder. Calliope hummed.

"Not at all."

And she did it again.