FIC: Monstrous Regiment -- Pretty Girl
(In which our hero had to stop several times in order to take a cold shower. Guh.)
Title: Pretty Girl.
Fandom: Monstrous Regiment (Discworld) [novel].
Rating: NC-17, I . . . guess?
Genre: Romance/Smut.
Summary: Tilda observes Magda and comes to certain conclusions. Then they have sex. What do you want of me?
Warnings: SUPAH SPOILAZ. Femslash (not that you should really be surprised), attempted rape, masturbation, voyeurism, etc., etc., all that jazz.
Pairings: Tonker/Lofty [Magda/Tilda].
Author's Note: Written for the cheesemongers January 2007 prompt, 'Pretty Girl'. (Yes, how original is my title, please?) Please note that I do not actually think this is how the girls got together; I'm a follower of the flower-chain-making, hand-kissing, slow-taking Tonker/Lofty school (do schools exist for this pairing? They should), but porn had to be written. As always, concrit is adored, praised, petted, and given a bow to hang around its neck. (And no, I don't know when they would've had time to make flower chains. But they would've managed it. Because that's just how great they are.)
Disclaimer: Monstrous Regiment is the property of Terry Pratchett and his genius head. I merely own a worn paperback copy of this wondrous book. I make no money off of this fic.
Formerly posted at cheesemongers, specifically here.
---
Pretty Girl
---
The path from the Gray House to Munz was weedy cobbles that hurt through thin shoes and colourful peasant wildflowers, which were generally ignored by passers-by. Girls on work hire might have preferred to go a different way, on soft dirt paths rather than hard stone, but they had to stay in line, and so usually had sore feet by the end of the day.
Munz was a hard town to get lost in, but Tilda had managed it. She had been sent out by her current employer, if such a word could accurately be used for someone who paid her nothing, to fetch eggs and milk. She'd got to the market all right, but the streets were all tiny and similar-looking, and now she was certain she'd passed this same spot several times before.
It was getting dark. She looked up through the gap in the buildings at the dusky sky, feeling desperate.
She heard footsteps behind her.
"Well, now. What have we here?" said a voice. It was a male voice, and sounded wobbly and off-balance.
Tilda turned around. There were two men, one dark-haired, one blond, both unwashed and walking, or rather staggering, closer.
"Excuse me, sirs--" she began, hoping to ask for directions home.
They were far too close now. They were much taller than her, at least ten feet, and their faces were darker than the sky. One of them put his hands on either side of her head.
"Aren't you pretty?" he purred. His breath smelled of whiskey, stale beer, and old meals.
"Please," said someone, and she realized it was herself, "could you--"
The man gripped her chin and pressed her head against the wall. "She's real pretty, isn't she, Hans? Such a pretty little girl."
"Look, this is a bad idea," said the other man uncomfortably, the blond one. "Maybe we should just go home."
"Please, I just want--" Tilda whispered.
"I know what you want," growled the man in front of her, and pressed his lips against hers.
He tasted horrible, far worse than he smelled; there was something indescribable in his mouth that was something like decay and something like blood, but very, very old. Or perhaps it was a smell. It was new to Tilda.
Something slimy entered her mouth. It was his tongue, she realized as he grunted into her, his hot breath making her gag. He stuck it in all the way, and she couldn't breathe for herself because his moustache was in her nose, and she was forced to breathe what he had just exhaled.
She felt very dizzy.
There was something pressing against her leg. She tried to look down, but the man grabbed her chin again and wrenched her face up. She looked at his eyes, because there was nothing else. They were shiny and rolling back in his head, like he was ill, feverish. He was moving oddly against her--back and forth and back and forth--and breathing heavily.
Now he fumbled with himself, pressed against her harder. Tilda had had brothers, once. She was confused, but she wasn't stupid. He pressed against her thigh, biting her lip hard; she tasted blood, felt the stubble on her face. He made a noise into her mouth--
"No, listen, mate, let's go back to the pub, get another beer or two--look, leave the girl alone, will you?" pleaded the other one.
--and now another noise, and the cloth on her legs was thin enough that she could feel everything.
It was getting faster now. Now she was afraid.
She remembered that she was wearing a skirt only as she felt it being lifted (but she always wore a skirt--why should she be surprised?) and a hand rushing up her thigh, and one finger--
There was a thump and then another, and the man's grip was released as he fell to the ground. Tilda leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath.
She saw:
A trail of hot wetness on her leg.
Two men, recumbent.
And Magda Halter, with a big stick slung over her shoulder, regarding her grimly.
"You all right?" she said gruffly.
Tilda, lost for words, opened her mouth and shut it again.
"Here," Magda said, pulling a handkerchief out of her shirt, "you can wipe it off."
She did, then offered it back.
Magda made a face. "No. No, thanks. You--" She shrugged. "You should probably just throw it away, really."
"But . . . it's yours."
"Not anymore."
Tilda looked at it. "Thanks," she said hesitantly.
"No problem," Magda said, looking away. "Listen, they're getting concerned about you--well, I say concerned--irritated, more like--anyway, everyone's lining up. It's this way." She nodded back in the direction she had come. Then she turned and walked off, without looking back.
Tilda watched her for a moment. Then she looked at the handkerchief. Already she regretted using it. It didn't smell right, now.
She crumpled it up and threw it behind her before following Magda out of the alley.
---
There were three things that everyone learned about Magda Halter by the end of her first week at the Gray House.
Firstly, she was strong. She had big shoulders and big arms, probably from hauling pig carcasses at home or something similar, and she could conceivably do more heavy work in an hour than most of the girls could in a day. She was set to work immediately, but somehow never finished anything very much more quickly than another girl would have. She was never scolded, but she wasn't pushed to work faster, either.
Secondly, she was awkward. She walked as if she didn't quite fit in her own skin, as if she was constantly unsure whether those wide shoulders were actually hers. She was better when nobody was watching, or when everyone was, but most of the time she had a tendency to trip over her own feet.
Thirdly, she was angry. She was furious, in fact, and she was furious all the time. The few girls who had tried to pull one of the traditional hazing rituals on her (because isn't it known that even in horrible circumstances people will try to make life just that little bit worse for each other?) had been found crying in a corner, bleeding and bruised, and taken to the matron for patching up. They all said they'd walked into doors.
Magda Halter was dangerous. She was frightening.
Tilda thought she was fascinating originally. That was before.
---
On the night of the first Tuesday in Grune, Tilda listened quietly from her bed as Magda wrestled with herself across the room, tangling with her blankets and making muffled little noises into the thin pillow. She was facedown. It looked very uncomfortable. It sounded uncomfortable, too.
But after she had exhaled long and sharp and hard and sunk into the hard bed like mercury, there was a smell in the air that was similar to, but not the same as, what Tilda had smelt in the alley. It was fresher and cleaner somehow. Perhaps, Tilda thought, it was just because it was Magda. Perhaps it was different for everyone, really.
She didn't quite believe that.
---
The next morning, she watched Magda dress out of the corner of her eye as she slipped her own dress over her head. She had heard the other girls sneering that the girl was just like a boy, but it was easy to see that she wasn't, if you looked. There was a curve to the shoulders, perhaps a slight slope of the neck, that gave it away. But you had to look.
She looked.
---
On the night of the second Octoday in Grune, Tilda had a dream. She was, however, awake for most of it.
What happened was this:
She was listening for Magda. The other girl hadn't done It again since Tuesday, and Tilda wanted to hear it again, because she didn't understand it, and things one didn't understand were dangerous.
Then she started thinking about it, and she found she couldn't stop.
Then she felt as though Magda was standing over her bed, even though she could feel her presence lying down across the room. She thought she heard the girl say something from the place where she couldn't be standing, and she thought she might have replied something.
Then she was watching as, suddenly, Magda was showing her what she had done. She watched with curiously detached fascination as Magda ran her fingers down her stomach, up her thighs, between her legs--
Something was curling in her stomach now, her real stomach, not the stomach of the part of her watching from the ceiling of her dream, but the part lying in her bed listening to Magda breathe as her mind's eye watched Magda touching her.
Her dream-self surprised her then, and gently raked her fingers up Magda's thigh. She couldn't see Magda's face, but she heard in her mind an echo of the noises Magda had made on Tuesday.
There seemed to be no space between them, in her mind; where one was, the other one was, mirroring each other like figures on a playing card. When Magda was just there, Tilda was there, too; when Tilda breathed out, Magda breathed in.
She watched as she reached inside, held, pulled, stroked, and then leaned up and kissed her. She breathed in sharply.
Then the dream was broken, and Magda was standing over her bed for real, looking worried. Tilda must have made a noise here as well, not just in that other place like this one in her mind.
"Are you all right?" whispered Magda in the darkness.
"I'm okay," Tilda whispered back. "Just had a dream."
There was a pause. "Okay," Magda said, though she still sounded concerned. "I'm right here, though. Wake me if you need me or want to talk or . . . anything. You know."
Tilda listened to the sound of Magda padding over the cold floorboards; she could tell that the girl was holding her breath at the shock on her naked feet. Everything seemed to touch Tilda acutely just now, noises and breaths of air seemed so magnified, so it was understandable that Magda was experiencing the same thing.
Wasn't it?
Tilda rolled over to go to sleep and realized her sheets were wet.
---
Watching Magda was like a drug: once she'd started, Tilda couldn't stop. So there were times when she heard It again, and times when she saw private scars. Once she saw tears, but she never heard crying.
She watched Magda fight, and she learned a few things.
On the way back to the House one day, somebody tried the "What have we here?" line again. She looked him up and down, eyes narrowed, and then smashed the palm of her hand up precisely into his nose. It made a satisfyingly loud crack, the man shrieked, and Tilda walked away, singing inside and thanking anyone who might be listening.
Thanking Magda.
---
Magda never got hurt. When she fought, she fought like a cat.
The term 'catfight' is used inaccurately to describe somewhat mockingly the method of battle used by women, generally the type who scratch and hit with handbags. Cats don't fight that way. Cats inflict wounds and tally pain, and whoever walks away the bloodiest is the loser.
In other words: to be wounded is to lose.
So when Tilda saw the blossoming purple bruise on Magda's back one evening as she took off her dress, she gave an involuntary gasp.
Magda turned to look at her. "What?" she said blankly.
"Oh. Nothing," Tilda managed.
Still naked, and admirably unselfconscious, Magda put her hands on her hips. "Tilda," she said. "What is it?"
Tilda bit her lip. "Your . . . back," she said quietly, looking at her lap.
"My . . ." The girl's eyes flickered. "Oh. Right. Don't worry about that," she said flatly. "Just got hit on a shelf."
Tilda regarded her solemnly. Magda turned her back again and pulled on her nightdress.
"I didn't ask you where you got it, you know," Tilda said after a moment. She watched Magda's shoulders; they sagged.
"Yeah, I know you didn't." She sounded tired.
Tilda, sitting on her bed, hesitated. Then she said, "Magda?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you teach me how to fight?"
Magda turned around, looking surprised. "You want me to?" she said.
"Yes. Because, you see," Tilda said, "after the--the alley thing, there was another man, and--"
In one swift movement, Magda bent her knees so her eyes were level with Tilda's, grasped both of her hands, and, staring at her intensely, asked, "Who was he?"
"I--I don't know," Tilda said, startled. "I--"
"What happened?"
"Nothing," Tilda said. "I mean, well, I broke his nose, I think."
Magda looked at her for a moment. Then her face split in a wide grin. She plopped herself down on the bed next to Tilda. "You had me worried there for a moment, you know," she said, laughing a little under her breath.
"Why? You thought that--"
"I did. Silly, right? You can take care of yourself." Magda ruffled her hair playfully.
"I would've told you if he'd hurt me," Tilda said, a little hurt herself.
"Oh." Magda lowered her hand. "I . . . didn't know you trusted me that much."
"I trust you."
There was a moment of silence. Then Tilda said, "Will you show me?"
"What, how to fight?"
"Yes," Tilda said, though she sounded a bit uncertain even to her own ears.
"Sure, but not tonight," said Magda.
"Then can you tell me something?" Tilda asked.
"Okay."
"Why did you help me?"
Magda glared at her. "What the hell kind of question is that?" she snapped.
"No one sent you," Tilda said. "They never send anybody."
"I was worried about you," Magda said, shrugging. "There's idiots out there, you know? They do stuff to you, like--" She sighed. "It's not worth talking about, really. Nobody deserves that."
"Oh." Tilda thought for a moment. "Thank you," she added, hoping it was the right thing to say.
"Not a problem." Magda stood up. "I think I'll turn in, then."
"Sure." Tilda turned, hearing the covers on the other little bed rustle as Magda slipped under them, and pulled her dress over her head. She pulled her nightshirt on, then turned again, intending to say goodnight--
She had turned too quickly for Magda to look away.
The other girl flushed and looked away, glaring into the middle distance. "Sorry," she muttered, turning over with her face to the wall. "'Night."
Tilda blinked. She felt dizzy all of a sudden, like she'd stood up too quickly. No one watched her; she was unnoticeable.
Wasn't she?
She padded uncertainly over to Magda and tapped her on the shoulder.
Magda whipped her head around, still red, but angry and defiant now too. "I said I was sorry, didn't I?" she snapped. "I don't know what you--"
Then she really looked.
Tilda's hair hung around her shoulders, and she gave a quivering smile as she leaned in.
The overwhelming sensation was softness. She had her hands in the sheets, but Magda was softer. Magda smelled more like freshly washed linens than the linens did.
Magda broke the kiss, backing her head into the pillow, eyes wide. "Tilda," she whispered, "what are you doing?"
"I have no idea," Tilda whispered back. "What do you want to do?"
"This isn't a joke! This is--"
"Magda." Tilda put a finger to the other girl's lips. "It feels good, doesn't it? What you do?"
"What do you--"
"I want to feel good, Magda. Show me? Please?"
They looked at each other in the light of the flickering candle. There was an open honesty on Tilda's face and a blatant worry on Magda's.
That lasted just until Tilda grabbed Magda's hand, kissed it gently, and put it between her legs. "Please," she said.
Magda looked at her one last time, appraisingly, and then reached up to cup her chin. As Tilda leaned down to her, she realised Magda's hand was shaking.
There was a brief moment of uncertainty--they were both trying to contribute to the kiss, and there were nose-bumpings--but then Magda snaked her tongue between Tilda's lips, and they found a comfortable, sliding rhythm. Tilda was briefly reminded of drums.
They lay there until the candle burned down, because there was a lot of territory to explore between lips and tongues. Tilda found one spot at the junction of cheek and hairline that made Magda shiver; Magda tangled her fingers in Tilda's hair, spreading her other hand across her chest, looking for sensitive spots and finding them. Tilda could feel her nipples brushing against the cloth of her nightshirt and against Magda's, and then Magda put her hand there and oh--
She brushed it with her thumb. Once. Twice. Again and again. Tilda bit her lip because the walls were thin and leaned into the touch, breathing quickly on Magda's cheek. Magda brushed her lips from Tilda's ears to her mouth and kissed her again, tentatively, experimentally.
Tilda had been struggling to make Magda understand that she was serious, even if she herself didn't know exactly what she was serious about. But specific articulation turned out to be unnecessary. Tilda could say anything to Magda without opening her mouth at that moment (which was just as well, since talking took their mouths away from more interesting activities).
She whimpered as Magda's mouth bypassed her own and made its wet way down her throat. She buried her fingers in Magda's hair, dragged her up for a kiss, ran her tongue across her teeth. Fingers tiptoed up her arm--her covered arm. Oh, no.
"Clothes," she said indistinctly.
"Clothes," Magda agreed; the puff of hot breath on Tilda's mouth made her keen.
Very shortly there was a little pile of nightshirts on the floor, but Tilda couldn't remember how they'd got there, or whether it had been herself or Magda that had pulled her own desperately over her head. Regardless, Magda was staring at her now, eyes bright, the hint of a grin twitching on her lips.
"Can I show you something?" she asked quietly.
Tilda nodded--of course--and watched as Magda kissed her way down her chest, lingering on her stomach and hips. She ran her tongue along Tilda's hipbones, which were far more sensitive than Tilda would have thought, and then nudged her legs open with her chin--
There was a thrill of horror first, then a sense of discomfort and overwhelming sensation, and then the drums got harder and louder and faster, and Tilda said something that might have been "Good" and reached down to grab Magda's neck in a way that was probably uncomfortable. Magda just laughed quietly, making her shudder, and kissed her and hummed.
It was a kiss, really, Tilda thought as she ran her eyes over Magda. Everything about the way Magda had kissed her--the way she paid attention to every little spot, the little bites and kisses to make it up--was happening again now. And her mouth was still hot.
She saw it before she felt it: a little light in the corner of the eye, perhaps, or a movement of Magda's head--and then she tensed and arched and hissed and came, while Magda smiled into her and kept up.
After a moment of looking at the ceiling and trying to catch her breath, she looked at Magda, who had slithered up to lie on her elbow next to her. "Thank you," she whispered, feeling a bit tingly and wanting to laugh.
"No need," Magda said, and did laugh. Then she leaned over and kissed Tilda softly. "It was my pleasure," she murmured into Tilda's lips.
Not yet it wasn't, Tilda thought smugly. There were some things her imagination was useful for.
Title: Pretty Girl.
Fandom: Monstrous Regiment (Discworld) [novel].
Rating: NC-17, I . . . guess?
Genre: Romance/Smut.
Summary: Tilda observes Magda and comes to certain conclusions. Then they have sex. What do you want of me?
Warnings: SUPAH SPOILAZ. Femslash (not that you should really be surprised), attempted rape, masturbation, voyeurism, etc., etc., all that jazz.
Pairings: Tonker/Lofty [Magda/Tilda].
Author's Note: Written for the cheesemongers January 2007 prompt, 'Pretty Girl'. (Yes, how original is my title, please?) Please note that I do not actually think this is how the girls got together; I'm a follower of the flower-chain-making, hand-kissing, slow-taking Tonker/Lofty school (do schools exist for this pairing? They should), but porn had to be written. As always, concrit is adored, praised, petted, and given a bow to hang around its neck. (And no, I don't know when they would've had time to make flower chains. But they would've managed it. Because that's just how great they are.)
Disclaimer: Monstrous Regiment is the property of Terry Pratchett and his genius head. I merely own a worn paperback copy of this wondrous book. I make no money off of this fic.
Formerly posted at cheesemongers, specifically here.
---
Pretty Girl
---
The path from the Gray House to Munz was weedy cobbles that hurt through thin shoes and colourful peasant wildflowers, which were generally ignored by passers-by. Girls on work hire might have preferred to go a different way, on soft dirt paths rather than hard stone, but they had to stay in line, and so usually had sore feet by the end of the day.
Munz was a hard town to get lost in, but Tilda had managed it. She had been sent out by her current employer, if such a word could accurately be used for someone who paid her nothing, to fetch eggs and milk. She'd got to the market all right, but the streets were all tiny and similar-looking, and now she was certain she'd passed this same spot several times before.
It was getting dark. She looked up through the gap in the buildings at the dusky sky, feeling desperate.
She heard footsteps behind her.
"Well, now. What have we here?" said a voice. It was a male voice, and sounded wobbly and off-balance.
Tilda turned around. There were two men, one dark-haired, one blond, both unwashed and walking, or rather staggering, closer.
"Excuse me, sirs--" she began, hoping to ask for directions home.
They were far too close now. They were much taller than her, at least ten feet, and their faces were darker than the sky. One of them put his hands on either side of her head.
"Aren't you pretty?" he purred. His breath smelled of whiskey, stale beer, and old meals.
"Please," said someone, and she realized it was herself, "could you--"
The man gripped her chin and pressed her head against the wall. "She's real pretty, isn't she, Hans? Such a pretty little girl."
"Look, this is a bad idea," said the other man uncomfortably, the blond one. "Maybe we should just go home."
"Please, I just want--" Tilda whispered.
"I know what you want," growled the man in front of her, and pressed his lips against hers.
He tasted horrible, far worse than he smelled; there was something indescribable in his mouth that was something like decay and something like blood, but very, very old. Or perhaps it was a smell. It was new to Tilda.
Something slimy entered her mouth. It was his tongue, she realized as he grunted into her, his hot breath making her gag. He stuck it in all the way, and she couldn't breathe for herself because his moustache was in her nose, and she was forced to breathe what he had just exhaled.
She felt very dizzy.
There was something pressing against her leg. She tried to look down, but the man grabbed her chin again and wrenched her face up. She looked at his eyes, because there was nothing else. They were shiny and rolling back in his head, like he was ill, feverish. He was moving oddly against her--back and forth and back and forth--and breathing heavily.
Now he fumbled with himself, pressed against her harder. Tilda had had brothers, once. She was confused, but she wasn't stupid. He pressed against her thigh, biting her lip hard; she tasted blood, felt the stubble on her face. He made a noise into her mouth--
"No, listen, mate, let's go back to the pub, get another beer or two--look, leave the girl alone, will you?" pleaded the other one.
--and now another noise, and the cloth on her legs was thin enough that she could feel everything.
It was getting faster now. Now she was afraid.
She remembered that she was wearing a skirt only as she felt it being lifted (but she always wore a skirt--why should she be surprised?) and a hand rushing up her thigh, and one finger--
There was a thump and then another, and the man's grip was released as he fell to the ground. Tilda leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath.
She saw:
A trail of hot wetness on her leg.
Two men, recumbent.
And Magda Halter, with a big stick slung over her shoulder, regarding her grimly.
"You all right?" she said gruffly.
Tilda, lost for words, opened her mouth and shut it again.
"Here," Magda said, pulling a handkerchief out of her shirt, "you can wipe it off."
She did, then offered it back.
Magda made a face. "No. No, thanks. You--" She shrugged. "You should probably just throw it away, really."
"But . . . it's yours."
"Not anymore."
Tilda looked at it. "Thanks," she said hesitantly.
"No problem," Magda said, looking away. "Listen, they're getting concerned about you--well, I say concerned--irritated, more like--anyway, everyone's lining up. It's this way." She nodded back in the direction she had come. Then she turned and walked off, without looking back.
Tilda watched her for a moment. Then she looked at the handkerchief. Already she regretted using it. It didn't smell right, now.
She crumpled it up and threw it behind her before following Magda out of the alley.
---
There were three things that everyone learned about Magda Halter by the end of her first week at the Gray House.
Firstly, she was strong. She had big shoulders and big arms, probably from hauling pig carcasses at home or something similar, and she could conceivably do more heavy work in an hour than most of the girls could in a day. She was set to work immediately, but somehow never finished anything very much more quickly than another girl would have. She was never scolded, but she wasn't pushed to work faster, either.
Secondly, she was awkward. She walked as if she didn't quite fit in her own skin, as if she was constantly unsure whether those wide shoulders were actually hers. She was better when nobody was watching, or when everyone was, but most of the time she had a tendency to trip over her own feet.
Thirdly, she was angry. She was furious, in fact, and she was furious all the time. The few girls who had tried to pull one of the traditional hazing rituals on her (because isn't it known that even in horrible circumstances people will try to make life just that little bit worse for each other?) had been found crying in a corner, bleeding and bruised, and taken to the matron for patching up. They all said they'd walked into doors.
Magda Halter was dangerous. She was frightening.
Tilda thought she was fascinating originally. That was before.
---
On the night of the first Tuesday in Grune, Tilda listened quietly from her bed as Magda wrestled with herself across the room, tangling with her blankets and making muffled little noises into the thin pillow. She was facedown. It looked very uncomfortable. It sounded uncomfortable, too.
But after she had exhaled long and sharp and hard and sunk into the hard bed like mercury, there was a smell in the air that was similar to, but not the same as, what Tilda had smelt in the alley. It was fresher and cleaner somehow. Perhaps, Tilda thought, it was just because it was Magda. Perhaps it was different for everyone, really.
She didn't quite believe that.
---
The next morning, she watched Magda dress out of the corner of her eye as she slipped her own dress over her head. She had heard the other girls sneering that the girl was just like a boy, but it was easy to see that she wasn't, if you looked. There was a curve to the shoulders, perhaps a slight slope of the neck, that gave it away. But you had to look.
She looked.
---
On the night of the second Octoday in Grune, Tilda had a dream. She was, however, awake for most of it.
What happened was this:
She was listening for Magda. The other girl hadn't done It again since Tuesday, and Tilda wanted to hear it again, because she didn't understand it, and things one didn't understand were dangerous.
Then she started thinking about it, and she found she couldn't stop.
Then she felt as though Magda was standing over her bed, even though she could feel her presence lying down across the room. She thought she heard the girl say something from the place where she couldn't be standing, and she thought she might have replied something.
Then she was watching as, suddenly, Magda was showing her what she had done. She watched with curiously detached fascination as Magda ran her fingers down her stomach, up her thighs, between her legs--
Something was curling in her stomach now, her real stomach, not the stomach of the part of her watching from the ceiling of her dream, but the part lying in her bed listening to Magda breathe as her mind's eye watched Magda touching her.
Her dream-self surprised her then, and gently raked her fingers up Magda's thigh. She couldn't see Magda's face, but she heard in her mind an echo of the noises Magda had made on Tuesday.
There seemed to be no space between them, in her mind; where one was, the other one was, mirroring each other like figures on a playing card. When Magda was just there, Tilda was there, too; when Tilda breathed out, Magda breathed in.
She watched as she reached inside, held, pulled, stroked, and then leaned up and kissed her. She breathed in sharply.
Then the dream was broken, and Magda was standing over her bed for real, looking worried. Tilda must have made a noise here as well, not just in that other place like this one in her mind.
"Are you all right?" whispered Magda in the darkness.
"I'm okay," Tilda whispered back. "Just had a dream."
There was a pause. "Okay," Magda said, though she still sounded concerned. "I'm right here, though. Wake me if you need me or want to talk or . . . anything. You know."
Tilda listened to the sound of Magda padding over the cold floorboards; she could tell that the girl was holding her breath at the shock on her naked feet. Everything seemed to touch Tilda acutely just now, noises and breaths of air seemed so magnified, so it was understandable that Magda was experiencing the same thing.
Wasn't it?
Tilda rolled over to go to sleep and realized her sheets were wet.
---
Watching Magda was like a drug: once she'd started, Tilda couldn't stop. So there were times when she heard It again, and times when she saw private scars. Once she saw tears, but she never heard crying.
She watched Magda fight, and she learned a few things.
On the way back to the House one day, somebody tried the "What have we here?" line again. She looked him up and down, eyes narrowed, and then smashed the palm of her hand up precisely into his nose. It made a satisfyingly loud crack, the man shrieked, and Tilda walked away, singing inside and thanking anyone who might be listening.
Thanking Magda.
---
Magda never got hurt. When she fought, she fought like a cat.
The term 'catfight' is used inaccurately to describe somewhat mockingly the method of battle used by women, generally the type who scratch and hit with handbags. Cats don't fight that way. Cats inflict wounds and tally pain, and whoever walks away the bloodiest is the loser.
In other words: to be wounded is to lose.
So when Tilda saw the blossoming purple bruise on Magda's back one evening as she took off her dress, she gave an involuntary gasp.
Magda turned to look at her. "What?" she said blankly.
"Oh. Nothing," Tilda managed.
Still naked, and admirably unselfconscious, Magda put her hands on her hips. "Tilda," she said. "What is it?"
Tilda bit her lip. "Your . . . back," she said quietly, looking at her lap.
"My . . ." The girl's eyes flickered. "Oh. Right. Don't worry about that," she said flatly. "Just got hit on a shelf."
Tilda regarded her solemnly. Magda turned her back again and pulled on her nightdress.
"I didn't ask you where you got it, you know," Tilda said after a moment. She watched Magda's shoulders; they sagged.
"Yeah, I know you didn't." She sounded tired.
Tilda, sitting on her bed, hesitated. Then she said, "Magda?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you teach me how to fight?"
Magda turned around, looking surprised. "You want me to?" she said.
"Yes. Because, you see," Tilda said, "after the--the alley thing, there was another man, and--"
In one swift movement, Magda bent her knees so her eyes were level with Tilda's, grasped both of her hands, and, staring at her intensely, asked, "Who was he?"
"I--I don't know," Tilda said, startled. "I--"
"What happened?"
"Nothing," Tilda said. "I mean, well, I broke his nose, I think."
Magda looked at her for a moment. Then her face split in a wide grin. She plopped herself down on the bed next to Tilda. "You had me worried there for a moment, you know," she said, laughing a little under her breath.
"Why? You thought that--"
"I did. Silly, right? You can take care of yourself." Magda ruffled her hair playfully.
"I would've told you if he'd hurt me," Tilda said, a little hurt herself.
"Oh." Magda lowered her hand. "I . . . didn't know you trusted me that much."
"I trust you."
There was a moment of silence. Then Tilda said, "Will you show me?"
"What, how to fight?"
"Yes," Tilda said, though she sounded a bit uncertain even to her own ears.
"Sure, but not tonight," said Magda.
"Then can you tell me something?" Tilda asked.
"Okay."
"Why did you help me?"
Magda glared at her. "What the hell kind of question is that?" she snapped.
"No one sent you," Tilda said. "They never send anybody."
"I was worried about you," Magda said, shrugging. "There's idiots out there, you know? They do stuff to you, like--" She sighed. "It's not worth talking about, really. Nobody deserves that."
"Oh." Tilda thought for a moment. "Thank you," she added, hoping it was the right thing to say.
"Not a problem." Magda stood up. "I think I'll turn in, then."
"Sure." Tilda turned, hearing the covers on the other little bed rustle as Magda slipped under them, and pulled her dress over her head. She pulled her nightshirt on, then turned again, intending to say goodnight--
She had turned too quickly for Magda to look away.
The other girl flushed and looked away, glaring into the middle distance. "Sorry," she muttered, turning over with her face to the wall. "'Night."
Tilda blinked. She felt dizzy all of a sudden, like she'd stood up too quickly. No one watched her; she was unnoticeable.
Wasn't she?
She padded uncertainly over to Magda and tapped her on the shoulder.
Magda whipped her head around, still red, but angry and defiant now too. "I said I was sorry, didn't I?" she snapped. "I don't know what you--"
Then she really looked.
Tilda's hair hung around her shoulders, and she gave a quivering smile as she leaned in.
The overwhelming sensation was softness. She had her hands in the sheets, but Magda was softer. Magda smelled more like freshly washed linens than the linens did.
Magda broke the kiss, backing her head into the pillow, eyes wide. "Tilda," she whispered, "what are you doing?"
"I have no idea," Tilda whispered back. "What do you want to do?"
"This isn't a joke! This is--"
"Magda." Tilda put a finger to the other girl's lips. "It feels good, doesn't it? What you do?"
"What do you--"
"I want to feel good, Magda. Show me? Please?"
They looked at each other in the light of the flickering candle. There was an open honesty on Tilda's face and a blatant worry on Magda's.
That lasted just until Tilda grabbed Magda's hand, kissed it gently, and put it between her legs. "Please," she said.
Magda looked at her one last time, appraisingly, and then reached up to cup her chin. As Tilda leaned down to her, she realised Magda's hand was shaking.
There was a brief moment of uncertainty--they were both trying to contribute to the kiss, and there were nose-bumpings--but then Magda snaked her tongue between Tilda's lips, and they found a comfortable, sliding rhythm. Tilda was briefly reminded of drums.
They lay there until the candle burned down, because there was a lot of territory to explore between lips and tongues. Tilda found one spot at the junction of cheek and hairline that made Magda shiver; Magda tangled her fingers in Tilda's hair, spreading her other hand across her chest, looking for sensitive spots and finding them. Tilda could feel her nipples brushing against the cloth of her nightshirt and against Magda's, and then Magda put her hand there and oh--
She brushed it with her thumb. Once. Twice. Again and again. Tilda bit her lip because the walls were thin and leaned into the touch, breathing quickly on Magda's cheek. Magda brushed her lips from Tilda's ears to her mouth and kissed her again, tentatively, experimentally.
Tilda had been struggling to make Magda understand that she was serious, even if she herself didn't know exactly what she was serious about. But specific articulation turned out to be unnecessary. Tilda could say anything to Magda without opening her mouth at that moment (which was just as well, since talking took their mouths away from more interesting activities).
She whimpered as Magda's mouth bypassed her own and made its wet way down her throat. She buried her fingers in Magda's hair, dragged her up for a kiss, ran her tongue across her teeth. Fingers tiptoed up her arm--her covered arm. Oh, no.
"Clothes," she said indistinctly.
"Clothes," Magda agreed; the puff of hot breath on Tilda's mouth made her keen.
Very shortly there was a little pile of nightshirts on the floor, but Tilda couldn't remember how they'd got there, or whether it had been herself or Magda that had pulled her own desperately over her head. Regardless, Magda was staring at her now, eyes bright, the hint of a grin twitching on her lips.
"Can I show you something?" she asked quietly.
Tilda nodded--of course--and watched as Magda kissed her way down her chest, lingering on her stomach and hips. She ran her tongue along Tilda's hipbones, which were far more sensitive than Tilda would have thought, and then nudged her legs open with her chin--
There was a thrill of horror first, then a sense of discomfort and overwhelming sensation, and then the drums got harder and louder and faster, and Tilda said something that might have been "Good" and reached down to grab Magda's neck in a way that was probably uncomfortable. Magda just laughed quietly, making her shudder, and kissed her and hummed.
It was a kiss, really, Tilda thought as she ran her eyes over Magda. Everything about the way Magda had kissed her--the way she paid attention to every little spot, the little bites and kisses to make it up--was happening again now. And her mouth was still hot.
She saw it before she felt it: a little light in the corner of the eye, perhaps, or a movement of Magda's head--and then she tensed and arched and hissed and came, while Magda smiled into her and kept up.
After a moment of looking at the ceiling and trying to catch her breath, she looked at Magda, who had slithered up to lie on her elbow next to her. "Thank you," she whispered, feeling a bit tingly and wanting to laugh.
"No need," Magda said, and did laugh. Then she leaned over and kissed Tilda softly. "It was my pleasure," she murmured into Tilda's lips.
Not yet it wasn't, Tilda thought smugly. There were some things her imagination was useful for.