[fic] An infinite capacity for self-deception (5/?)
Title: An infinite capacity for self-deception (5/?)
Fandom: Latin Hetalia
Characters: Martina (fem!Argentina), Luciana (fem!Brazil), The Green Eyed Monster, Sebastián (Uruguay), Daniel (Paraguay), Manuela (fem!Chile), Miguel (Peru). Not everyone is in every chapter, but they'll all be in the story eventually.
Pairings: Martina/Luciana, side Miguel/Manuela
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Human AU, swearing, and sexual situations
Chapter Summary: This epiphany is better late than never.
1|2|3| 4| 5|6
They were watching a movie, some generic chick-flick where the heroine dated a complete asshole while her best friend, whom the audience could see was absolutely perfect for her, sadly cheered on her doomed relationship. Martina had seen it at least three times before, or maybe she hadn't and was thinking of something else, but the point was that she knew how it was going to end, so she didn't bother paying attention to the plot. Luciana's reactions were much more entertaining - her gasps at the surprising bits and her laughter at the corny jokes. Her heartfelt sighs at the pining best friend's plight.
They sat so close that Luciana's body heat warmed Martina's entire left side, from her bare calf to her shoulder, her skin tingling with electricity. If she twitched her pinkie finger just a centimeter to the side, and - there. Her hand rested lightly against Luciana's. She could already feel her palms sweating, and she really hoped Luciana wouldn't notice. When she glanced over, Luciana was staring at where their hands touched, looking up after a moment to catch Martina's eye and smile softly, tentatively, and then she shifted her hand to cover Martina's and Martina sighed in relief because Luciana's palm was slightly damp with nervous sweat, too.
Martina half expected Luciana to return her attention to the movie, content with this simple contact, but she apparently took this as an invitation to stare openly at her. Martina's throat felt thick, like she was choking on her own tongue, and when she opened her mouth a few times to say something, anything, all that came out was an embarrassing squeak.
She wondered what Luciana would think if she told her how unbelievably soft her skin was. She wondered if the skin of her neck and cheeks was just as soft. Well, that was a silly thought, of course her face would be soft. It would probably be softer than her hands and arms, and it would be warm and flushed as Martina dragged her fingertips across it, and she would laugh, bright and clear like a child. And then Luciana would let her eyes fall closed, her long, thick lashes brushing her cheek, and Martina would press her lips, light as a moth wing, to her temple, just to see how she would react, and then the tip of her nose, and then her eyebrows would tickle her lips and then -
And Luciana's breath would be deep and calm, like the drawn out pauses between the steps of a tango, as she waited patiently for Martina's next move. And she would sigh and it would be perfect, they would be perfect...together.
Her stomach flipped over on itself at the very thought of touching Luciana so gently, so intimately. Would Luciana's voice waver when she asked Martina what she was doing? Would she let Martina touch her as she wished?
Her agitation must have shown on her face because Luciana made a soft, almost comforting sound, something between a hum and a purr, and took pity on her, leaning closer, as if to whisper something over the background noise of the movie, but then she kept leaning until her lips touched the corner of Martina's. And then she held still.
Martina thought she was going to die. Luciana was right there, and it would only take the slightest turn of her head to make this light pressure an honest to God kiss, but she could do nothing more than whimper, so Luciana sighed, but it wasn't an exasperated sigh, more like a signal of resolve, at least that's how Martina interpreted it because the next thing she knew, Luciana's lips were around her bottom lip.
Her lips were warm, really warm, and her breath was hot against Martina's mouth. She sighed into the kiss, and Luciana tightened her grip on Martina's hand, reeling her into an embrace that Martina thought would give her a heart attack. She could smell Luciana all around her, the sweat and the vanilla and the bittersweet tang from the chocolate they had just been eating. She was shivering so hard that she thought she might shake out of her own skin, so hard that she had to clench one hand around the back of Luciana's blouse and the other in her hair just to ground herself. Luciana pressed her own hands against Martina's sides and stroke up and down, over ribs and muscle and that one spot at Martina's waist that made her squirm.
"I didn't know you were ticklish."
Martina felt the words more than she heard them where Luciana had murmured them into her mouth. They rolled against the roof of her mouth and over her molars, and Luciana's tongue followed them, which made Martina's heart skip a beat or three because holy shit, Luciana's tongue was in her mouth.
And she wanted it there.
It was too hot in the room, like Dani had left the furnace on or something, and her skin felt like it was going to melt off. Or maybe it was because of Luciana's hands, which had found their way under Martina's blouse to her skin, and okay, yes, she was very ticklish right there. She twisted out of Luciana's grip and was about the apologize because it wasn't that she wanted Luciana to stop everything, but Luciana seemed to get the message because she had dropped one hand to Martina's hip and was mouthing at her neck just over her jugular and okay, that felt pretty amazing.
With an incessant push, Luciana dragged them down until she was lying atop Martina, her breasts pressed down against Martina's ribcage as she left a trail of kisses over her clavicle.
"Luciana," Martina heard herself whisper, burying her fingers into her friend's wild, dark hair. "Luciana."
Luciana nuzzled through her shirt at the valley between her breasts before lifting her head to shoot a heavy-lidded smirk at her. "So this is what you've been wanting? Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Then she leaned up to sink her teeth into the flesh of Martina's shoulder -
Martina jolted awake, her stomach plummeting to her toes so suddenly that, for a second or two, she thought she might vomit. The ever present noise of cars and late night revelers floating in through her open window was drowned out by the racing staccato of her heart in her chest and ears. She lay very still, staring open mouthed at the hairline cracks on her ceiling as she willed herself to calm down and give her brain enough time to process what had just happened. Her hair felt damp with sweat, and her skin prickled with nervous energy. With a few squirms, she managed to push the sheets half off her body until just her left leg was still covered. Despite the coolness of the night air pressing down on her, she knew her full body shiver was not entirely caused by the sudden temperature change.
So. That had just happened. If she tilted her head a bit to the side, she could almost still feel the hot press of Luciana's lips to her neck, and if she sighed and let her shoulders relax into the mattress, she could almost still feel her weight pressing down on her, around her, heavy and there. A sharp pang of desire flashed through her body, glowing just beneath her belly button, foreign and...
No. Not foreign. It was the same feeling he got from watching Luciana lick ice cream from her fingers, or from her fleeting, supposedly platonic touches, or the curve of her smile, or even just the thought of when she would see her next. Hot and just this side of uncomfortable.
She still felt a little nauseous, probably a side effect of suddenly discovering that she was honest to God attracted to her friend. That she wanted to make out with her friend, and maybe do even more with her, but also less. Because she'd really be content with curling up next to her in bed, or holding her close for hours as long as she didn't pass out from being overwhelmed.
She turned her head to the side to search out the glowing red numbers of her alarm clock in the dark. 1:24. Which meant that it was Friday, which meant that today was the day that Daniel was taking Luciana out. Martina bit her lip and inhaled sharply. Why was this happening to her now? Behind her eyelids, tears of frustration prickled, but she was not going to cry, damn it.
Rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms until star bursts broke out in the darkness surrounding her, she finally rolled over and sighed. Since the rush of excitement from the dream had passed, she felt cold, so she reached down to drag the blanket up to her shoulders and blinked at the empty expanse of the sheets next to her. She'd had men in this bed before, some who were kind, some who were cruel to her but at least paid her attention, but no one like...well, like Luciana.
She wondered how Luciana slept. She knew that she sprawled a bit from seeing her fall asleep on the couch a few times, but how would she sleep next to another person? Would she roll around and steal the covers and knock her partner in the face with wayward fists and feet? Or would she cling to her bed mate, curling up around them like a starfish. Would she have a preference as to which side of the bed she lay on? Would she only ever face the door or the window? Would she mumble in her sleep, soft, nonsensical words and phrases that Martina could tease her about in the morning and hum to herself throughout the day like a love song?
Martina had once slept with someone who had accused her of sleeping like a corpse, eerily still and silent. They hadn't been together much longer after that, but Martina still wondered what other people thought of her sleeping habits. It wasn't that she lay still because wanted to be alone in bed; she just never seemed to be able to find a comfortable position for her limbs around her partners. Instead she preferred lying as close to them as possible so that their body heat radiated into her own, even if that meant she was wedged practically underneath them, stiff as a plank.
Yet there was one man, a scruffy haired artist who had broken her heart years ago, who used to tangle his limbs together with hers, so that Martina often woke up in a tight embrace with him, the beat of his heart pounding against her chest. On the mornings after those nights, she often awoke feeling more well rested than she had in ages. Maybe that's how she would sleep with Luciana, like two puzzle pieces joined together.
What was she doing, thinking about how she and Luciana would fit together in slumber? Had her brain simply been waiting for permission to suddenly have open fantasies of...being with Luciana?
Apparently yes. She willed her mind to quiet down, to let her fall back to sleep so she could think about this more clearly in the morning when her mind wasn't so tired that she was lost in fantasies about loving Luciana. Okay, now she was getting way too far ahead of herself.
A car alarm began blaring rhythmically a few streets down, and Martina counted the number of blasts until it stopped, lulling herself back to the edge of sleep where her body lay separate from her mind, and if she just let herself go a little further, the next thing she would remember would be waking up in the morning to birds chirping outside her window. A small part of her was terrified of what else she might discover in her dreams, of how much more she wanted to find, but that little voice was swept away into the careless void of unconsciousness.
-
When she awoke again, a shaft of sunlight illuminated the foot of her bed, and someone was knocking on her door.
"I let you off easy yesterday," Sebastián was saying, "but sleeping in late is not a habit you should get into. Are you even listening to me?"
Martina groaned loudly so he would know she was, if not out of bed, at least awake enough to respond. She yawned and glanced at the clock, which told her it was 7:15. Her first class was not until eleven on Fridays, which meant she still had plenty of time to sleep in. Plus it was only a boring psychology lecture, and she could get the notes from someone else if she accidentally dozed off during class.
"You have a guest waiting for you, or do you want me to tell Luciana to come back later?"
She nearly fell off the side of the bed in her rush to reach the other side of her bedroom. When she wrenched the door open with a wild-eyed look, she was met by Sebastián's smirk
"Nice to see you among the living," he said.
"Is she in the kitchen?" Martina asked frantically. "Tell her to give me a few minutes to get dressed."
"Oh, Luci's not here, but now that you're up, you can clean the living room while I'm gone."
With adrenalin still pumping through her veins, Martina slammed her bedroom shut behind her and stomped down the hall after her cousin.
"You are such a dick. I hope you have a horrible day at work," she spat, glaring daggers at his back as he headed for the front door. "I hope you have a never ending stream of customers from hell."
"Thank you for the well wishes. I'll call to check in on your progress with the cleaning. See you later." He grabbed his briefcase and left the apartment with a small wave, leaving Martina in her pajamas to flop down on the couch. Sleep sounded so tempting right now, but Sebastián was a stickler for a clean house, and she really didn't want to face his wrath when he came back home to find that she had gotten nothing done.
She stretched and rubbed her face against the couch cushions, the same ones she had dreamed about last night, and then shot upright like lightening had hit her. She gnawed at her lip and glanced at the couch, at the place where Luciana had been sprawled in real life no more than a week ago before they had gone out for a movie and coffee. Luciana's skin was a shade or two lighter than the rich leather, her hair a shade or two darker, and Martina trembled just letting herself think about how beautiful she was.
It wasn't a revelation that she thought Luciana was beautiful, that she looked forward to their time together despite their altercations. That's how friends felt about each other, right? Except now Martina had seen Luciana in a different light, and she realized how much she wanted her, how much she ached just thinking about Luciana's skin against hers in that dream. It was terrifying.
She liked men. She was attracted to men. It had never even crossed her mind that she might be attracted to a woman, besides on the vaguely jealous notion that she thought some women were pretty. But now she couldn't stop replaying the dream in her mind, how right it seemed, even if it went against everything she thought she had known about herself. How had she not realized she was attracted to Luciana? How could she have been so dense before? It was like a dam had been opened, and now she recalled every little instance of attraction that had confused her before, all those unnameable feeling she had had that suddenly made so, so much sense. She bit her lip. What was she supposed to do now? She needed to talk to someone about this. Someone she trusted.
The vacuuming could wait. She trotted back to her bedroom and grabbed her phone from her nightstand, curled up on top of the covers and dialed Manuela's number. As soon as the call connected, Martina spit out, "Let's get one thing straight: I am not a lesbian."
"Oh, that's cool," Miguel answered. "Manuela's in the bathroom, but she should be out any minute now."
All the color drained from her face. She listened numbly as a door open on the other end of the line, there was some shouting, and then Miguel's fuzzy voice said, "It's your friend who isn't a lesbian."
There was another scuffle, and then Manuela was on the phone. "Martina?"
"Oh God. Oh God."
"Don't listen to Miguel. He's being an idiot."
Martina sniffed and picked idly at her fingernails. "Was it really...that obvious who it was?"
There was a long pause before Manuela finally mumbled, "Well I don't really...I mean, I don't get many calls besides...so it was process of elimination."
"Oh. Umm..."
"So did you call just to tell me you're not a lesbian?"
"Well, I'm not."
"Congratulations. Do you want a gold star?"
"This is serious, Manu!"
"I'm sorry I can't read your mind," Manuela drawled. "Okay, I'm not sorry about that, but you're going to have to tell me why you called."
Right. Right, that made sense. She would have to tell Manuela what was going on if she wanted to have a conversation about it. About...
"Okay, you can't tell anyone."
"'Cross my heart and hope to die.' Now will you get on with it?"
Martina ignored the impatience in Manuela's voice and took a deep breath. "I...had a dream. Last night."
"Dr. Freud is listening. Go on."
She frowned. "You don't care, do you?"
Manuela sighed, a soft, tinny whistle through the speaker. "I'm listening, really. Keep talking."
"Okay. Okay, so I had a dream about...Luciana."
"Hmm. What kind of dream?"
Martina chewed on her lip a bit before saying, "Well we, uh, did...stuff."
"Well, that's incredibly descriptive. What kind of stuff? Cooking-stuff, fighting-stuff, being a couple of dorks-stuff?"
"Uh, no, more like..." Martina paused, searching for the right words. "...making out...stuff."
"...you had a sex dream about Luciana?"
That made her jolt upright. "We didn't have sex -" Martina stopped herself there, suddenly wondering what would have happened if she hadn't woken up from the dream at that precise moment. At the rate they had been going, she was pretty sure Luciana would have had her out of her clothes within another few minutes. Her cheeks flamed at the idea, and she shivered.
"-but you almost did, or you wanted to, at least."
"Okay, can we not talk about this? I would not have sex on the couch in my living room where my cousins could walk in at any moment - I have a little more taste and class."
"You didn't even make it to the bed? Geez, you're impatient."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up. You aren't helping here. And why the hell would you think I wanted it? I'd never even considered it until today. This isn't fair, you're not allowed to know more about me than I do." Martina pouted despite not having an audience to see her expression.
"But you like Luciana, right? It's...well, I've seen how you act around her. How you guys act around each other. I'm not blind. I thought you were just too embarrassed to let anyone else find out."
"Embarrassed? I didn't even know! How does that even work? Isn't it supposed to be obvious if you're...But I'm not a lesbian - really. I've dated men, and okay, most of them turned out to be complete assholes, but I was still attracted to them. So I can't be a lesbian." She felt out of breath, and she almost continued talking over Manuela when her friend cut in.
"I never said anything about you being a lesbian. I'm not sure what rock you've been living under, but it's possible for someone to be attracted to both men and women."
"Of course I know that."
"Right. So what's the problem? What do you want me to tell you?"
Martina let her head sag against her hand, closing her eyes against the bright daylight gleaming through the windows of her bedroom. She thought for a few moments about what she wanted to tell Manuela. Why had she even called? Was she really looking for advice? No, it wasn't that. She just needed to...talk.
"I...can you just..." She muttered. "How did I not notice this before? I'm pretty sure most people know whether they're straight or not when they're in, like, high school. I should be past this bullshit."
There was a faint thump, almost like Manuela had just sat down. "Okay, listen, I'm not the person you should go to with questions about sexuality and stuff, but you really shouldn't be thinking too hard about this. If you like Luciana, then you like her. It's as simple as that. Stop trying to complicate things."
"But I don't even...know what I'm supposed to...or why. I mean, seriously - how did I not see this?"
She heard Manuela make a soft noise on the other end of the line, somewhere between comforting and groaning. "Are you just talking because you like the sound of your own voice? There's no guidebook you have to follow with these things. And now you're weirding me out - I figured you'd be the kind of person to focus on how much of a special snowflake you are now."
"Well." Martina twirled a lock of hair around her index finger. "That goes without saying."
"Thank God. I thought you'd been replaced by an imposter."
That made Martina grin. This wasn't so bad, talking about this. And...she could do this. With Luciana. Because the more she thought about it, the more obvious it was that Luciana must feel something for her, too. All those little looks and touches and words that, before, had been nothing more than Luciana's quirks, but now that she added them up, they shone like stars above a lost ship, guiding her home. There was no way she could be mistaken.
"I'm going to tell her," she said. "This is silly, I'll just tell her, and she'll...right. I should have done this a long time ago."
"So you have this figured out. Good - I have to finish getting ready for class. Oh," Manuela mumbled quickly, "and, uh, I'm glad. That you felt you could trust me."
"Well, duh," Martina shrugged. "I'll talk to you later."
"Yeah, bye."
Martina hung up and rolled out of bed again. This was it. She would clean the house and go to class and then go out with friends in the evening. And it wouldn't matter that Luciana was going on a date with Daniel because, while her cousin might be a gentleman who knew how to treat a lady and show her a good time, he was no match for Martina. Saturday would come, and Martina would tell Luciana, and that would be that. Everything would be perfect.
tbc
Fandom: Latin Hetalia
Characters: Martina (fem!Argentina), Luciana (fem!Brazil), The Green Eyed Monster, Sebastián (Uruguay), Daniel (Paraguay), Manuela (fem!Chile), Miguel (Peru). Not everyone is in every chapter, but they'll all be in the story eventually.
Pairings: Martina/Luciana, side Miguel/Manuela
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Human AU, swearing, and sexual situations
Chapter Summary: This epiphany is better late than never.
1|2|3| 4| 5|6
They were watching a movie, some generic chick-flick where the heroine dated a complete asshole while her best friend, whom the audience could see was absolutely perfect for her, sadly cheered on her doomed relationship. Martina had seen it at least three times before, or maybe she hadn't and was thinking of something else, but the point was that she knew how it was going to end, so she didn't bother paying attention to the plot. Luciana's reactions were much more entertaining - her gasps at the surprising bits and her laughter at the corny jokes. Her heartfelt sighs at the pining best friend's plight.
They sat so close that Luciana's body heat warmed Martina's entire left side, from her bare calf to her shoulder, her skin tingling with electricity. If she twitched her pinkie finger just a centimeter to the side, and - there. Her hand rested lightly against Luciana's. She could already feel her palms sweating, and she really hoped Luciana wouldn't notice. When she glanced over, Luciana was staring at where their hands touched, looking up after a moment to catch Martina's eye and smile softly, tentatively, and then she shifted her hand to cover Martina's and Martina sighed in relief because Luciana's palm was slightly damp with nervous sweat, too.
Martina half expected Luciana to return her attention to the movie, content with this simple contact, but she apparently took this as an invitation to stare openly at her. Martina's throat felt thick, like she was choking on her own tongue, and when she opened her mouth a few times to say something, anything, all that came out was an embarrassing squeak.
She wondered what Luciana would think if she told her how unbelievably soft her skin was. She wondered if the skin of her neck and cheeks was just as soft. Well, that was a silly thought, of course her face would be soft. It would probably be softer than her hands and arms, and it would be warm and flushed as Martina dragged her fingertips across it, and she would laugh, bright and clear like a child. And then Luciana would let her eyes fall closed, her long, thick lashes brushing her cheek, and Martina would press her lips, light as a moth wing, to her temple, just to see how she would react, and then the tip of her nose, and then her eyebrows would tickle her lips and then -
And Luciana's breath would be deep and calm, like the drawn out pauses between the steps of a tango, as she waited patiently for Martina's next move. And she would sigh and it would be perfect, they would be perfect...together.
Her stomach flipped over on itself at the very thought of touching Luciana so gently, so intimately. Would Luciana's voice waver when she asked Martina what she was doing? Would she let Martina touch her as she wished?
Her agitation must have shown on her face because Luciana made a soft, almost comforting sound, something between a hum and a purr, and took pity on her, leaning closer, as if to whisper something over the background noise of the movie, but then she kept leaning until her lips touched the corner of Martina's. And then she held still.
Martina thought she was going to die. Luciana was right there, and it would only take the slightest turn of her head to make this light pressure an honest to God kiss, but she could do nothing more than whimper, so Luciana sighed, but it wasn't an exasperated sigh, more like a signal of resolve, at least that's how Martina interpreted it because the next thing she knew, Luciana's lips were around her bottom lip.
Her lips were warm, really warm, and her breath was hot against Martina's mouth. She sighed into the kiss, and Luciana tightened her grip on Martina's hand, reeling her into an embrace that Martina thought would give her a heart attack. She could smell Luciana all around her, the sweat and the vanilla and the bittersweet tang from the chocolate they had just been eating. She was shivering so hard that she thought she might shake out of her own skin, so hard that she had to clench one hand around the back of Luciana's blouse and the other in her hair just to ground herself. Luciana pressed her own hands against Martina's sides and stroke up and down, over ribs and muscle and that one spot at Martina's waist that made her squirm.
"I didn't know you were ticklish."
Martina felt the words more than she heard them where Luciana had murmured them into her mouth. They rolled against the roof of her mouth and over her molars, and Luciana's tongue followed them, which made Martina's heart skip a beat or three because holy shit, Luciana's tongue was in her mouth.
And she wanted it there.
It was too hot in the room, like Dani had left the furnace on or something, and her skin felt like it was going to melt off. Or maybe it was because of Luciana's hands, which had found their way under Martina's blouse to her skin, and okay, yes, she was very ticklish right there. She twisted out of Luciana's grip and was about the apologize because it wasn't that she wanted Luciana to stop everything, but Luciana seemed to get the message because she had dropped one hand to Martina's hip and was mouthing at her neck just over her jugular and okay, that felt pretty amazing.
With an incessant push, Luciana dragged them down until she was lying atop Martina, her breasts pressed down against Martina's ribcage as she left a trail of kisses over her clavicle.
"Luciana," Martina heard herself whisper, burying her fingers into her friend's wild, dark hair. "Luciana."
Luciana nuzzled through her shirt at the valley between her breasts before lifting her head to shoot a heavy-lidded smirk at her. "So this is what you've been wanting? Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Then she leaned up to sink her teeth into the flesh of Martina's shoulder -
Martina jolted awake, her stomach plummeting to her toes so suddenly that, for a second or two, she thought she might vomit. The ever present noise of cars and late night revelers floating in through her open window was drowned out by the racing staccato of her heart in her chest and ears. She lay very still, staring open mouthed at the hairline cracks on her ceiling as she willed herself to calm down and give her brain enough time to process what had just happened. Her hair felt damp with sweat, and her skin prickled with nervous energy. With a few squirms, she managed to push the sheets half off her body until just her left leg was still covered. Despite the coolness of the night air pressing down on her, she knew her full body shiver was not entirely caused by the sudden temperature change.
So. That had just happened. If she tilted her head a bit to the side, she could almost still feel the hot press of Luciana's lips to her neck, and if she sighed and let her shoulders relax into the mattress, she could almost still feel her weight pressing down on her, around her, heavy and there. A sharp pang of desire flashed through her body, glowing just beneath her belly button, foreign and...
No. Not foreign. It was the same feeling he got from watching Luciana lick ice cream from her fingers, or from her fleeting, supposedly platonic touches, or the curve of her smile, or even just the thought of when she would see her next. Hot and just this side of uncomfortable.
She still felt a little nauseous, probably a side effect of suddenly discovering that she was honest to God attracted to her friend. That she wanted to make out with her friend, and maybe do even more with her, but also less. Because she'd really be content with curling up next to her in bed, or holding her close for hours as long as she didn't pass out from being overwhelmed.
She turned her head to the side to search out the glowing red numbers of her alarm clock in the dark. 1:24. Which meant that it was Friday, which meant that today was the day that Daniel was taking Luciana out. Martina bit her lip and inhaled sharply. Why was this happening to her now? Behind her eyelids, tears of frustration prickled, but she was not going to cry, damn it.
Rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms until star bursts broke out in the darkness surrounding her, she finally rolled over and sighed. Since the rush of excitement from the dream had passed, she felt cold, so she reached down to drag the blanket up to her shoulders and blinked at the empty expanse of the sheets next to her. She'd had men in this bed before, some who were kind, some who were cruel to her but at least paid her attention, but no one like...well, like Luciana.
She wondered how Luciana slept. She knew that she sprawled a bit from seeing her fall asleep on the couch a few times, but how would she sleep next to another person? Would she roll around and steal the covers and knock her partner in the face with wayward fists and feet? Or would she cling to her bed mate, curling up around them like a starfish. Would she have a preference as to which side of the bed she lay on? Would she only ever face the door or the window? Would she mumble in her sleep, soft, nonsensical words and phrases that Martina could tease her about in the morning and hum to herself throughout the day like a love song?
Martina had once slept with someone who had accused her of sleeping like a corpse, eerily still and silent. They hadn't been together much longer after that, but Martina still wondered what other people thought of her sleeping habits. It wasn't that she lay still because wanted to be alone in bed; she just never seemed to be able to find a comfortable position for her limbs around her partners. Instead she preferred lying as close to them as possible so that their body heat radiated into her own, even if that meant she was wedged practically underneath them, stiff as a plank.
Yet there was one man, a scruffy haired artist who had broken her heart years ago, who used to tangle his limbs together with hers, so that Martina often woke up in a tight embrace with him, the beat of his heart pounding against her chest. On the mornings after those nights, she often awoke feeling more well rested than she had in ages. Maybe that's how she would sleep with Luciana, like two puzzle pieces joined together.
What was she doing, thinking about how she and Luciana would fit together in slumber? Had her brain simply been waiting for permission to suddenly have open fantasies of...being with Luciana?
Apparently yes. She willed her mind to quiet down, to let her fall back to sleep so she could think about this more clearly in the morning when her mind wasn't so tired that she was lost in fantasies about loving Luciana. Okay, now she was getting way too far ahead of herself.
A car alarm began blaring rhythmically a few streets down, and Martina counted the number of blasts until it stopped, lulling herself back to the edge of sleep where her body lay separate from her mind, and if she just let herself go a little further, the next thing she would remember would be waking up in the morning to birds chirping outside her window. A small part of her was terrified of what else she might discover in her dreams, of how much more she wanted to find, but that little voice was swept away into the careless void of unconsciousness.
-
When she awoke again, a shaft of sunlight illuminated the foot of her bed, and someone was knocking on her door.
"I let you off easy yesterday," Sebastián was saying, "but sleeping in late is not a habit you should get into. Are you even listening to me?"
Martina groaned loudly so he would know she was, if not out of bed, at least awake enough to respond. She yawned and glanced at the clock, which told her it was 7:15. Her first class was not until eleven on Fridays, which meant she still had plenty of time to sleep in. Plus it was only a boring psychology lecture, and she could get the notes from someone else if she accidentally dozed off during class.
"You have a guest waiting for you, or do you want me to tell Luciana to come back later?"
She nearly fell off the side of the bed in her rush to reach the other side of her bedroom. When she wrenched the door open with a wild-eyed look, she was met by Sebastián's smirk
"Nice to see you among the living," he said.
"Is she in the kitchen?" Martina asked frantically. "Tell her to give me a few minutes to get dressed."
"Oh, Luci's not here, but now that you're up, you can clean the living room while I'm gone."
With adrenalin still pumping through her veins, Martina slammed her bedroom shut behind her and stomped down the hall after her cousin.
"You are such a dick. I hope you have a horrible day at work," she spat, glaring daggers at his back as he headed for the front door. "I hope you have a never ending stream of customers from hell."
"Thank you for the well wishes. I'll call to check in on your progress with the cleaning. See you later." He grabbed his briefcase and left the apartment with a small wave, leaving Martina in her pajamas to flop down on the couch. Sleep sounded so tempting right now, but Sebastián was a stickler for a clean house, and she really didn't want to face his wrath when he came back home to find that she had gotten nothing done.
She stretched and rubbed her face against the couch cushions, the same ones she had dreamed about last night, and then shot upright like lightening had hit her. She gnawed at her lip and glanced at the couch, at the place where Luciana had been sprawled in real life no more than a week ago before they had gone out for a movie and coffee. Luciana's skin was a shade or two lighter than the rich leather, her hair a shade or two darker, and Martina trembled just letting herself think about how beautiful she was.
It wasn't a revelation that she thought Luciana was beautiful, that she looked forward to their time together despite their altercations. That's how friends felt about each other, right? Except now Martina had seen Luciana in a different light, and she realized how much she wanted her, how much she ached just thinking about Luciana's skin against hers in that dream. It was terrifying.
She liked men. She was attracted to men. It had never even crossed her mind that she might be attracted to a woman, besides on the vaguely jealous notion that she thought some women were pretty. But now she couldn't stop replaying the dream in her mind, how right it seemed, even if it went against everything she thought she had known about herself. How had she not realized she was attracted to Luciana? How could she have been so dense before? It was like a dam had been opened, and now she recalled every little instance of attraction that had confused her before, all those unnameable feeling she had had that suddenly made so, so much sense. She bit her lip. What was she supposed to do now? She needed to talk to someone about this. Someone she trusted.
The vacuuming could wait. She trotted back to her bedroom and grabbed her phone from her nightstand, curled up on top of the covers and dialed Manuela's number. As soon as the call connected, Martina spit out, "Let's get one thing straight: I am not a lesbian."
"Oh, that's cool," Miguel answered. "Manuela's in the bathroom, but she should be out any minute now."
All the color drained from her face. She listened numbly as a door open on the other end of the line, there was some shouting, and then Miguel's fuzzy voice said, "It's your friend who isn't a lesbian."
There was another scuffle, and then Manuela was on the phone. "Martina?"
"Oh God. Oh God."
"Don't listen to Miguel. He's being an idiot."
Martina sniffed and picked idly at her fingernails. "Was it really...that obvious who it was?"
There was a long pause before Manuela finally mumbled, "Well I don't really...I mean, I don't get many calls besides...so it was process of elimination."
"Oh. Umm..."
"So did you call just to tell me you're not a lesbian?"
"Well, I'm not."
"Congratulations. Do you want a gold star?"
"This is serious, Manu!"
"I'm sorry I can't read your mind," Manuela drawled. "Okay, I'm not sorry about that, but you're going to have to tell me why you called."
Right. Right, that made sense. She would have to tell Manuela what was going on if she wanted to have a conversation about it. About...
"Okay, you can't tell anyone."
"'Cross my heart and hope to die.' Now will you get on with it?"
Martina ignored the impatience in Manuela's voice and took a deep breath. "I...had a dream. Last night."
"Dr. Freud is listening. Go on."
She frowned. "You don't care, do you?"
Manuela sighed, a soft, tinny whistle through the speaker. "I'm listening, really. Keep talking."
"Okay. Okay, so I had a dream about...Luciana."
"Hmm. What kind of dream?"
Martina chewed on her lip a bit before saying, "Well we, uh, did...stuff."
"Well, that's incredibly descriptive. What kind of stuff? Cooking-stuff, fighting-stuff, being a couple of dorks-stuff?"
"Uh, no, more like..." Martina paused, searching for the right words. "...making out...stuff."
"...you had a sex dream about Luciana?"
That made her jolt upright. "We didn't have sex -" Martina stopped herself there, suddenly wondering what would have happened if she hadn't woken up from the dream at that precise moment. At the rate they had been going, she was pretty sure Luciana would have had her out of her clothes within another few minutes. Her cheeks flamed at the idea, and she shivered.
"-but you almost did, or you wanted to, at least."
"Okay, can we not talk about this? I would not have sex on the couch in my living room where my cousins could walk in at any moment - I have a little more taste and class."
"You didn't even make it to the bed? Geez, you're impatient."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up. You aren't helping here. And why the hell would you think I wanted it? I'd never even considered it until today. This isn't fair, you're not allowed to know more about me than I do." Martina pouted despite not having an audience to see her expression.
"But you like Luciana, right? It's...well, I've seen how you act around her. How you guys act around each other. I'm not blind. I thought you were just too embarrassed to let anyone else find out."
"Embarrassed? I didn't even know! How does that even work? Isn't it supposed to be obvious if you're...But I'm not a lesbian - really. I've dated men, and okay, most of them turned out to be complete assholes, but I was still attracted to them. So I can't be a lesbian." She felt out of breath, and she almost continued talking over Manuela when her friend cut in.
"I never said anything about you being a lesbian. I'm not sure what rock you've been living under, but it's possible for someone to be attracted to both men and women."
"Of course I know that."
"Right. So what's the problem? What do you want me to tell you?"
Martina let her head sag against her hand, closing her eyes against the bright daylight gleaming through the windows of her bedroom. She thought for a few moments about what she wanted to tell Manuela. Why had she even called? Was she really looking for advice? No, it wasn't that. She just needed to...talk.
"I...can you just..." She muttered. "How did I not notice this before? I'm pretty sure most people know whether they're straight or not when they're in, like, high school. I should be past this bullshit."
There was a faint thump, almost like Manuela had just sat down. "Okay, listen, I'm not the person you should go to with questions about sexuality and stuff, but you really shouldn't be thinking too hard about this. If you like Luciana, then you like her. It's as simple as that. Stop trying to complicate things."
"But I don't even...know what I'm supposed to...or why. I mean, seriously - how did I not see this?"
She heard Manuela make a soft noise on the other end of the line, somewhere between comforting and groaning. "Are you just talking because you like the sound of your own voice? There's no guidebook you have to follow with these things. And now you're weirding me out - I figured you'd be the kind of person to focus on how much of a special snowflake you are now."
"Well." Martina twirled a lock of hair around her index finger. "That goes without saying."
"Thank God. I thought you'd been replaced by an imposter."
That made Martina grin. This wasn't so bad, talking about this. And...she could do this. With Luciana. Because the more she thought about it, the more obvious it was that Luciana must feel something for her, too. All those little looks and touches and words that, before, had been nothing more than Luciana's quirks, but now that she added them up, they shone like stars above a lost ship, guiding her home. There was no way she could be mistaken.
"I'm going to tell her," she said. "This is silly, I'll just tell her, and she'll...right. I should have done this a long time ago."
"So you have this figured out. Good - I have to finish getting ready for class. Oh," Manuela mumbled quickly, "and, uh, I'm glad. That you felt you could trust me."
"Well, duh," Martina shrugged. "I'll talk to you later."
"Yeah, bye."
Martina hung up and rolled out of bed again. This was it. She would clean the house and go to class and then go out with friends in the evening. And it wouldn't matter that Luciana was going on a date with Daniel because, while her cousin might be a gentleman who knew how to treat a lady and show her a good time, he was no match for Martina. Saturday would come, and Martina would tell Luciana, and that would be that. Everything would be perfect.
tbc