FIC: Hindsight Bias [the good wife, alicia/kalinda]
Word Count: 2500+
Disclaimer: Disclaimed!
Summary: She expects Alicia to regret it.
Rating: R
AN: Man, this pairing is like crack.
Hindsight Bias
Kalinda expects Alicia to regret it. She almost doesn’t stop by court the next morning, wanting to postpone that first awkward moment of sobriety as long as possible, the inevitable stilted silence and cringing eye-contact. Oh, it’ll be polite and subtle of course - this is, after all, Alicia - but Kalinda really doesn’t want to deal with the too-quiet “good morning” or the look that says “we should never mention this again”.
Still, there’s no merit in waiting. Kalinda takes two Tylenol in the courthouse bathroom, pointedly does not check her reflection. She squares her shoulders and slips into the second-back row like it’s any other day.
Up front, Alicia is cross-examining the prosecution’s expert witness. She sees Kalinda come in but doesn’t react. “And you’re certain this was the drug in question?” she continues, using her measured ‘I-doubt-your-credibility-but-am-too-well-mannered-to-mention-it’ tone. Juries love that tone. Privately, Kalinda thinks Alicia picked it up from her mother-in-law, an opinion she keeps carefully to herself. Normally the display would be amusing to watch, but right now Kalinda just feels vaguely ill. She balls her hands into fists inside her jacket.
After five minutes of questioning, Alicia walks back to the defence table to pick up a piece of evidence. Angling her body away from the jury, she pauses for a moment. Catches Kalinda’s eye.
And smiles.
Kalinda nearly falls out of her seat. Before she can assemble her face into some sort of appropriate reaction, Alicia has turned back to the witness.
Okay then. Kalinda blows out a long breath. That’s… interesting.
She refuses to think about it too closely for the rest of the cross-examination. There is no point in reading into things.
(But when Alicia flashes another smile as she sits down, Kalinda smiles back.)
(Last night:
“I think,” Alicia said after court let out, “my son may be sleeping with two different girls.”
“Upgraded from porn then, has he?” Kalinda glanced sidelong. Alicia didn’t respond. “Right. Drink?”)
“Hi,” Alicia says, sidling up to Kalinda in the courthouse hallway during a recess. Up close she looks tired, pale under her makeup. On the other side of the hall, Will is speaking quietly with their client.
“Hey,” Kalinda answers, keeping her expression carefully neutral. She watches as Will claps a paternal hand on the young man’s shoulder.
Alicia looks confused; she ducks her head, embarrassed. (Crap.) “Um, the jury seems to like us.”
Time to start over. “The jury likes you,” Kalinda tries, schooling her face into friendlier lines.
Alicia looks back up. Smiles wryly. “As long as they’re liking someone.”
“So-”
“Um-”
This is ridiculous. “Alicia,” Kalinda says meaningfully.
To her surprise, Alicia laughs, threading a hand through her hair. “Right. Sorry. It’s just, for some reason-” she rolls her eyes “-you suddenly make me very nervous.”
“There’s no need for that,” Kalinda says quietly. Absurdly, she feels like she should be apologizing.
“No?” Alicia asks. Her inflection suggests she is asking a lot of things.
Kalinda looks Alicia straight in the eye. Hopes she is answering the right question. “No.”
“Well, in that case-” Alicia smiles, like they’ve come to an agreement. “Last night was lovely. We should do it again sometime.”
Silence.
“You want-” (to get blindingly drunk? to have ill-advised and inappropriate sex?) “-a repeat of last night?” Kalinda says slowly.
“Well, um, I don’t really remember all of it.” Alicia is blushing now. Kalinda fights down the sudden and overwhelming urge to touch her. “So, you know, maybe without the alcohol. This time.”
Kalinda shifts her weight, clacks the heel of a boot. “So. Let me get this straight. You want to do that again. Sometime. Preferably while sober.”
Alicia swallows. “Yes.”
Kalinda glances at her watch. “How’s now?”
“What?” Alicia laughs nervously.
“Now,” Kalinda repeats, pulling Alicia to her feet.
“You’re joking,” Alicia says, but she’s letting Kalinda steer her up the hallway.
By the time they slip inside the wheelchair bathroom, Alicia’s laughing again. “This is insane,” she murmurs (only she’s watching Kalinda’s mouth). She touches the line of Kalinda’s jaw, hands warm and steady, but when Kalinda leans in she says “wait”.
Kalinda watches, confused, as she reaches over to grab a couple paper towels. Carefully, Alicia uses one to blot away her own lipstick, then tilts Kalinda’s chin up to do the same. Off Kalinda’s look, she adds “so I’m practical, so what?” a little bit defensively and Kalinda kisses her to avoid dissolving into laughter.
She’s right. This is ridiculous, such a bad idea, but Kalinda can’t remember the details from last night and she wants to. She wants to remember everything. She bites Alicia’s bottom lip and yes, there’s that choked-off whimper. Tries her neck and gets a moan. Her ear and a sigh.
Alicia’s warm underneath her suit jacket. Kalinda splays a hand along her ribcage, thumb resting just beneath her breast. She rubs it slowly back and fourth, dragging along the underwire of Alicia’s bra, and Alicia’s breathing chokes off in a gasp.
“I don’t think we have time,” she pants. “Time to-to repeat everything we did last night.”
“No?” Kalinda asks. She slides a leg between Alicia’s thighs, moves her thumb up a quarter inch. “Are you sure?”
Alicia’s head thunks back against the bathroom wall. She’s still for a second, body frozen in an arch, and then she gently collects Kalinda’s roving hands. “Pretty sure,” she says, tangling their fingers together chastely. “We have less than five minutes.”
“That’s a problem?” Kalinda murmurs into her mouth. Alicia closes her eyes, eyelashes dark against her fair skin.
Kalinda pulls away, moving towards the sink to re-apply her lipstick. “Right. Best not to risk it,” she says blandly.
Alicia remains against the wall for another minute, eyes closed. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
Kalinda smiles.
(“It’s just,” Alicia said, slurring a little, “I thought I raised him better. I’m a feminist for fuck’s sakes.”
Kalinda liked the way Alicia said fuck. That probably should have been a warning sign. “Another round.”)
Kalinda doesn’t see Alicia again until two o’clock (partly because she was running down a lead, partly because she didn’t have a reason to and refused to construct one). She’s delivering findings across the bullpen when Alicia catches her eye and beckons.
“Do you want to get lunch?” she asks when Kalinda nears. She’s aiming for her normal tone but not quite hitting it; there’s just the tiniest catch on the ‘c’. Kalinda finds it charming. “I haven’t eaten yet.”
(She’s also lying - Kalinda can see the remains of a sandwich in the garbage.)
“Sure,” Kalinda says easily.
Outside it is unseasonably warm for March, the snow nearly all melted. Everything smells clean and wet, like a faux-spring. Alicia walks with her jacket slung over her arm, her hair a fright in the wind. Kalinda wants to put her hands in it. Feel the tangles.
“I’m sorry,” says Alicia, apropos of nothing, when they sit down on a bench to eat. “I swear I’ll be able to look at you without blushing in a minute.”
“You’re getting shy on me now?” Truth be told, Kalinda is having the same problem. Something about being outside; the weather, the way Alicia’s cheeks are flushed. Stupid to start- this -in spring, all of nature oversexed and new.
Alicia smiles, popping open the plastic lid of her salad. “Yes. Yes I am,” she says to the iceberg lettuce.
Kalinda doesn’t answer. She is leaning into the wind to cool her own blush.
They linger on the bench longer than they should. Alicia tells silly stories about college; someone’s accidental ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms, a friend-of-a-friend’s roommate growing leeks in the bathroom. Occasionally they attempt eye-contact but it’s easier just to sit, knees angled into each other, watching the street.
By unspoken agreement they enter Lockhart-Gardner through the parking garage. Kalinda backs Alicia into a corner next to someone’s black Escalade and kisses her. Tugs at her lower lip until she opens her mouth in a groan.
This is better. It’s hard to be shy about the things they want to do to each other as they’re actually doing them. Kalinda immediately feels steadier, more grounded.
“Still want a repeat?” she asks, sliding a curious hand up under Alicia’s skirt.
“Yes,” Alicia hisses, clamping her thighs together and halting Kalinda’s progress. “But Jesus, Kalinda, not here.”
Kalinda wants to. She wants to see Alicia come now. “Would you prefer to move to section B of the garage? There’s a lovely view of some Sedans.”
Alicia blinks at her slowly, eyes heavy with lust. In the dim light Kalinda can just make out the flush running up her neck. (Right now. Very now.) “Uh-uh,” she shakes her head firmly. “I want a bed. Or at least a horizontal surface.”
“I think I saw a flatbed back that way,” Kalinda says. She’s only half-kidding.
“Friday night. The kids have sleep-overs. Peter has a campaign dinner. It goes until late.”
Kalinda rests her head against Alicia’s shoulder in defeat. “Okay.”
(“We could go back to your place,” said Alicia.
Kalinda thought: bad idea. Kalinda thought: bad, bad idea.
Kalinda said: “Yes.”)
The rest of the week is very long. Kalinda spends it running around exposing a Ponzi scheme and waiting for Alicia to change her mind. She is almost sure this is going to happen. Alicia’s a practical woman; eventually she’s going to realize the impossibility of the situation. Have an attack of conscience, a crisis of sexuality. Something.
Alicia (who, for no apparent reason, has decided now is the moment to be surprising) spends the week smiling at Kalinda; across conference tables, in briefings, during client meetings. Ducking her head and blushing and flirting, for god’s sakes, to the point where Kalinda wants to shake her and say ‘stop it stop it, someone will notice’. (But also: ‘you’re lovely, don’t stop’.)
On Friday she slips into Alicia’s office at half-past five, closing the door and leaning against it.
“Hey,” Alicia says with her new smile, warm and strange. “I’m just packing up.”
Kalinda raises an eyebrow. “You’re on page seven of a thirty page briefing.”
“Right. Yes.” Alicia swallows. “Well, I could be packing up. If you wanted.”
Kalinda considers. “Nah,” she says, settling herself into the extra chair and rolling it close. “I have to read it too.”
“O-okay,” Alicia breathes as Kalinda reaches across her to turn the page.
For ten minutes there is no sound but the rustling of paper. Periodically Alicia taps her pen, circles a passage. She’s angled her body into Kalinda’s, consciously or unconsciously, and each time she moves Kalinda can feel the muscles in her arm flex. She smells like perfume and coffee and printer ink, familiar and warm. She goes to Kalinda’s head.
She’s also paying way too much attention to the briefing.
So Kalinda starts slowly. Surreptitious touches, brushing Alicia’s knee and thumbing the inside of her wrist. She actually manages to reach bare thigh before Alicia laughs and stops her, makes her sit on her own hands (“I’m not kidding, Kalinda, don’t you dare move them”).
Still. She speed-reads through the rest of the document and Kalinda counts it as a victory.
(“Is this the part where you invite me into your bedroom to examine your etchings?” Alicia asked. Her heels were kicked off. Kalinda could see a run in her nylons.
“Yeah,” Kalinda said. Paused. “Or I could just fuck you.”
Bad, bad idea.)
When they finally leave, it’s in separate cars (because Alicia “would like to live, thanks, Kalinda”). They watch each other in Alicia’s rear-view mirror at red lights. Kalinda forgot her gloves at the office and her hands slide uselessly along the steering wheel, cold and numb.
She hesitates, just for a moment, when she puts the car into park (because god, this feels-) but then Alicia’s tapping on the window and they’re slipping in the side entrance, stealing through the hush of the expensive lobby. Their heels clack like gunshots against the marble.
“Do you want a drink?” Alicia says inside the apartment. She’s nervous, shy, still wearing her coat. Kalinda wants to kiss her and Kalinda wants to fuck her and Kalinda wants to run. “Or, um, anything to eat?”
Kalinda shakes her head. “No.”
“Right.” Alicia looks up, a smile breaking over her face. She’s radiant, lit-up like a light bulb and oh, Kalinda should’ve never let them become friends, should have sided with Cary instead, not Alicia with her sloe-eyes and her wide mouth and-
Somehow, they make it to the bedroom. Kalinda’s hands are shaking, adrenaline pouring down her veins, and she can feel the heat of Alicia’s blush against her cheek as they kiss.
“This is-” Alicia laughs as her fingers slip along Kalinda’s buttons. “I mean, we’ve done this before, for god’s sake-”
“I don’t remember,” Kalinda gasps. “So really-”
Alicia has finally gotten the blouse open, is tracing stuttering circles around Kalinda’s navel. “Well,” she says firmly. “We’ll just have to remember this time then.” Her palms are clammy. Underneath them, Kalinda’s ribcage heaves sharply.
“This time,” Kalinda agrees, and closes her eyes against Alicia’s smile.
(Kalinda had Alicia pinned against the bed and she could already tell, already knew Alicia liked being held down from the way her breathing went staccato. She’d been trying to get at Alicia’s collarbones all evening: they were calling to her and she had to bite them, lick them, suck them, something, but all Alicia seemed to want was her mouth. Every time Kalinda broke away from her lips Alicia whimpered for her to come back. It was driving Kalinda insane. She only got as far as Alicia’s neck before she was forced to drag herself up for a kiss, just a quick intermission before the process began all over again.
Under her clothes, Alicia was almost shockingly pale. Kalinda could see the veins in her breasts, the pulse in her throat. It felt as though she had a fever, body burning against Kalinda's, hot skin powdery and dry and smelling of talc, of lime from the tequila. Between her thighs she was slippery and warm, slick like a river. Kalinda twisted her fingers and Alicia whimpered, treading water against the sheets.
Please, oh my god, Kalinda, please, she murmured. Her head was thrown back, lovely and desperate and so Kalinda murmured back at her; soft, breaking things she’ll want to forget come morning.)
They haven’t even done anything, haven’t even touched below the waist, and Kalinda is already starting to see the magnitude of this mistake. Alicia is wonderfully, gloriously naked, waiting on the bed, and Kalinda wants to take her to the movies, take her down Devon Avenue to get jalebi. She feels dizzy and short of breath.
Alicia circles her wrists and pulls, tumbling them backwards onto the mattress. They slide between the mountains of throw pillows, muffled and secret. Outside the window, the sun slants slowly towards the horizon.
“I don’t really know what to do,” Alicia whispers, so Kalinda guides her hand. Holds it in place and rides her fingers. Comes with her head turned into a pillow while Alicia traces the line of her neck, while Alicia laughs and says, no fair, and Kalinda thinks, I never said I was fair.
“Why aren’t you panicking?” Kalinda asks, later. It isn’t a good question - it makes her heart trip warningly against her ribcage - but it’s better than the one she almost asked, which was “what now?”
“I don’t know,” Alicia says slowly. She slurs a bit, afterwards. Kalinda noticed the first time and thought it was the tequila, is delighted (and horrified at herself for being delighted) that it wasn’t. “Shock?”
“No,” Kalinda hisses, frustrated. “This whole week, you’ve been - obscenely calm.”
Alicia pushes herself onto an elbow, watching Kalinda’s face carefully. “And you’ve been… panicking?”
YES, Kalinda wants to scream. YES, can’t you see how this was a horrible horrible idea? and have you no self-preservation instincts? and also, maybe: what is wrong with you?
“I’ve been… perplexed by your lack of panicking,” she hedges carefully.
“Oh, well.” Alicia blows out a breath. “I could wring my hands a bit now if it’ll make you feel better.”
And Kalinda’s mind actually makes it halfway through the sentence, actually thinks those first two words, before she shuts it down.
“I should go,” she says, but before she’s so much as moved Alicia’s rolled over, trapped Kalinda beneath her body.
“You really shouldn’t,” she murmurs into Kalinda’s hair, and Kalinda’s mind thinks you, you, you, all three of the words out now, no taking them back or changing it. She closes her eyes. Lies very still against the feeling.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed!
Summary: She expects Alicia to regret it.
Rating: R
AN: Man, this pairing is like crack.
Hindsight Bias
Kalinda expects Alicia to regret it. She almost doesn’t stop by court the next morning, wanting to postpone that first awkward moment of sobriety as long as possible, the inevitable stilted silence and cringing eye-contact. Oh, it’ll be polite and subtle of course - this is, after all, Alicia - but Kalinda really doesn’t want to deal with the too-quiet “good morning” or the look that says “we should never mention this again”.
Still, there’s no merit in waiting. Kalinda takes two Tylenol in the courthouse bathroom, pointedly does not check her reflection. She squares her shoulders and slips into the second-back row like it’s any other day.
Up front, Alicia is cross-examining the prosecution’s expert witness. She sees Kalinda come in but doesn’t react. “And you’re certain this was the drug in question?” she continues, using her measured ‘I-doubt-your-credibility-but-am-too-well-mannered-to-mention-it’ tone. Juries love that tone. Privately, Kalinda thinks Alicia picked it up from her mother-in-law, an opinion she keeps carefully to herself. Normally the display would be amusing to watch, but right now Kalinda just feels vaguely ill. She balls her hands into fists inside her jacket.
After five minutes of questioning, Alicia walks back to the defence table to pick up a piece of evidence. Angling her body away from the jury, she pauses for a moment. Catches Kalinda’s eye.
And smiles.
Kalinda nearly falls out of her seat. Before she can assemble her face into some sort of appropriate reaction, Alicia has turned back to the witness.
Okay then. Kalinda blows out a long breath. That’s… interesting.
She refuses to think about it too closely for the rest of the cross-examination. There is no point in reading into things.
(But when Alicia flashes another smile as she sits down, Kalinda smiles back.)
(Last night:
“I think,” Alicia said after court let out, “my son may be sleeping with two different girls.”
“Upgraded from porn then, has he?” Kalinda glanced sidelong. Alicia didn’t respond. “Right. Drink?”)
“Hi,” Alicia says, sidling up to Kalinda in the courthouse hallway during a recess. Up close she looks tired, pale under her makeup. On the other side of the hall, Will is speaking quietly with their client.
“Hey,” Kalinda answers, keeping her expression carefully neutral. She watches as Will claps a paternal hand on the young man’s shoulder.
Alicia looks confused; she ducks her head, embarrassed. (Crap.) “Um, the jury seems to like us.”
Time to start over. “The jury likes you,” Kalinda tries, schooling her face into friendlier lines.
Alicia looks back up. Smiles wryly. “As long as they’re liking someone.”
“So-”
“Um-”
This is ridiculous. “Alicia,” Kalinda says meaningfully.
To her surprise, Alicia laughs, threading a hand through her hair. “Right. Sorry. It’s just, for some reason-” she rolls her eyes “-you suddenly make me very nervous.”
“There’s no need for that,” Kalinda says quietly. Absurdly, she feels like she should be apologizing.
“No?” Alicia asks. Her inflection suggests she is asking a lot of things.
Kalinda looks Alicia straight in the eye. Hopes she is answering the right question. “No.”
“Well, in that case-” Alicia smiles, like they’ve come to an agreement. “Last night was lovely. We should do it again sometime.”
Silence.
“You want-” (to get blindingly drunk? to have ill-advised and inappropriate sex?) “-a repeat of last night?” Kalinda says slowly.
“Well, um, I don’t really remember all of it.” Alicia is blushing now. Kalinda fights down the sudden and overwhelming urge to touch her. “So, you know, maybe without the alcohol. This time.”
Kalinda shifts her weight, clacks the heel of a boot. “So. Let me get this straight. You want to do that again. Sometime. Preferably while sober.”
Alicia swallows. “Yes.”
Kalinda glances at her watch. “How’s now?”
“What?” Alicia laughs nervously.
“Now,” Kalinda repeats, pulling Alicia to her feet.
“You’re joking,” Alicia says, but she’s letting Kalinda steer her up the hallway.
By the time they slip inside the wheelchair bathroom, Alicia’s laughing again. “This is insane,” she murmurs (only she’s watching Kalinda’s mouth). She touches the line of Kalinda’s jaw, hands warm and steady, but when Kalinda leans in she says “wait”.
Kalinda watches, confused, as she reaches over to grab a couple paper towels. Carefully, Alicia uses one to blot away her own lipstick, then tilts Kalinda’s chin up to do the same. Off Kalinda’s look, she adds “so I’m practical, so what?” a little bit defensively and Kalinda kisses her to avoid dissolving into laughter.
She’s right. This is ridiculous, such a bad idea, but Kalinda can’t remember the details from last night and she wants to. She wants to remember everything. She bites Alicia’s bottom lip and yes, there’s that choked-off whimper. Tries her neck and gets a moan. Her ear and a sigh.
Alicia’s warm underneath her suit jacket. Kalinda splays a hand along her ribcage, thumb resting just beneath her breast. She rubs it slowly back and fourth, dragging along the underwire of Alicia’s bra, and Alicia’s breathing chokes off in a gasp.
“I don’t think we have time,” she pants. “Time to-to repeat everything we did last night.”
“No?” Kalinda asks. She slides a leg between Alicia’s thighs, moves her thumb up a quarter inch. “Are you sure?”
Alicia’s head thunks back against the bathroom wall. She’s still for a second, body frozen in an arch, and then she gently collects Kalinda’s roving hands. “Pretty sure,” she says, tangling their fingers together chastely. “We have less than five minutes.”
“That’s a problem?” Kalinda murmurs into her mouth. Alicia closes her eyes, eyelashes dark against her fair skin.
Kalinda pulls away, moving towards the sink to re-apply her lipstick. “Right. Best not to risk it,” she says blandly.
Alicia remains against the wall for another minute, eyes closed. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
Kalinda smiles.
(“It’s just,” Alicia said, slurring a little, “I thought I raised him better. I’m a feminist for fuck’s sakes.”
Kalinda liked the way Alicia said fuck. That probably should have been a warning sign. “Another round.”)
Kalinda doesn’t see Alicia again until two o’clock (partly because she was running down a lead, partly because she didn’t have a reason to and refused to construct one). She’s delivering findings across the bullpen when Alicia catches her eye and beckons.
“Do you want to get lunch?” she asks when Kalinda nears. She’s aiming for her normal tone but not quite hitting it; there’s just the tiniest catch on the ‘c’. Kalinda finds it charming. “I haven’t eaten yet.”
(She’s also lying - Kalinda can see the remains of a sandwich in the garbage.)
“Sure,” Kalinda says easily.
Outside it is unseasonably warm for March, the snow nearly all melted. Everything smells clean and wet, like a faux-spring. Alicia walks with her jacket slung over her arm, her hair a fright in the wind. Kalinda wants to put her hands in it. Feel the tangles.
“I’m sorry,” says Alicia, apropos of nothing, when they sit down on a bench to eat. “I swear I’ll be able to look at you without blushing in a minute.”
“You’re getting shy on me now?” Truth be told, Kalinda is having the same problem. Something about being outside; the weather, the way Alicia’s cheeks are flushed. Stupid to start- this -in spring, all of nature oversexed and new.
Alicia smiles, popping open the plastic lid of her salad. “Yes. Yes I am,” she says to the iceberg lettuce.
Kalinda doesn’t answer. She is leaning into the wind to cool her own blush.
They linger on the bench longer than they should. Alicia tells silly stories about college; someone’s accidental ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms, a friend-of-a-friend’s roommate growing leeks in the bathroom. Occasionally they attempt eye-contact but it’s easier just to sit, knees angled into each other, watching the street.
By unspoken agreement they enter Lockhart-Gardner through the parking garage. Kalinda backs Alicia into a corner next to someone’s black Escalade and kisses her. Tugs at her lower lip until she opens her mouth in a groan.
This is better. It’s hard to be shy about the things they want to do to each other as they’re actually doing them. Kalinda immediately feels steadier, more grounded.
“Still want a repeat?” she asks, sliding a curious hand up under Alicia’s skirt.
“Yes,” Alicia hisses, clamping her thighs together and halting Kalinda’s progress. “But Jesus, Kalinda, not here.”
Kalinda wants to. She wants to see Alicia come now. “Would you prefer to move to section B of the garage? There’s a lovely view of some Sedans.”
Alicia blinks at her slowly, eyes heavy with lust. In the dim light Kalinda can just make out the flush running up her neck. (Right now. Very now.) “Uh-uh,” she shakes her head firmly. “I want a bed. Or at least a horizontal surface.”
“I think I saw a flatbed back that way,” Kalinda says. She’s only half-kidding.
“Friday night. The kids have sleep-overs. Peter has a campaign dinner. It goes until late.”
Kalinda rests her head against Alicia’s shoulder in defeat. “Okay.”
(“We could go back to your place,” said Alicia.
Kalinda thought: bad idea. Kalinda thought: bad, bad idea.
Kalinda said: “Yes.”)
The rest of the week is very long. Kalinda spends it running around exposing a Ponzi scheme and waiting for Alicia to change her mind. She is almost sure this is going to happen. Alicia’s a practical woman; eventually she’s going to realize the impossibility of the situation. Have an attack of conscience, a crisis of sexuality. Something.
Alicia (who, for no apparent reason, has decided now is the moment to be surprising) spends the week smiling at Kalinda; across conference tables, in briefings, during client meetings. Ducking her head and blushing and flirting, for god’s sakes, to the point where Kalinda wants to shake her and say ‘stop it stop it, someone will notice’. (But also: ‘you’re lovely, don’t stop’.)
On Friday she slips into Alicia’s office at half-past five, closing the door and leaning against it.
“Hey,” Alicia says with her new smile, warm and strange. “I’m just packing up.”
Kalinda raises an eyebrow. “You’re on page seven of a thirty page briefing.”
“Right. Yes.” Alicia swallows. “Well, I could be packing up. If you wanted.”
Kalinda considers. “Nah,” she says, settling herself into the extra chair and rolling it close. “I have to read it too.”
“O-okay,” Alicia breathes as Kalinda reaches across her to turn the page.
For ten minutes there is no sound but the rustling of paper. Periodically Alicia taps her pen, circles a passage. She’s angled her body into Kalinda’s, consciously or unconsciously, and each time she moves Kalinda can feel the muscles in her arm flex. She smells like perfume and coffee and printer ink, familiar and warm. She goes to Kalinda’s head.
She’s also paying way too much attention to the briefing.
So Kalinda starts slowly. Surreptitious touches, brushing Alicia’s knee and thumbing the inside of her wrist. She actually manages to reach bare thigh before Alicia laughs and stops her, makes her sit on her own hands (“I’m not kidding, Kalinda, don’t you dare move them”).
Still. She speed-reads through the rest of the document and Kalinda counts it as a victory.
(“Is this the part where you invite me into your bedroom to examine your etchings?” Alicia asked. Her heels were kicked off. Kalinda could see a run in her nylons.
“Yeah,” Kalinda said. Paused. “Or I could just fuck you.”
Bad, bad idea.)
When they finally leave, it’s in separate cars (because Alicia “would like to live, thanks, Kalinda”). They watch each other in Alicia’s rear-view mirror at red lights. Kalinda forgot her gloves at the office and her hands slide uselessly along the steering wheel, cold and numb.
She hesitates, just for a moment, when she puts the car into park (because god, this feels-) but then Alicia’s tapping on the window and they’re slipping in the side entrance, stealing through the hush of the expensive lobby. Their heels clack like gunshots against the marble.
“Do you want a drink?” Alicia says inside the apartment. She’s nervous, shy, still wearing her coat. Kalinda wants to kiss her and Kalinda wants to fuck her and Kalinda wants to run. “Or, um, anything to eat?”
Kalinda shakes her head. “No.”
“Right.” Alicia looks up, a smile breaking over her face. She’s radiant, lit-up like a light bulb and oh, Kalinda should’ve never let them become friends, should have sided with Cary instead, not Alicia with her sloe-eyes and her wide mouth and-
Somehow, they make it to the bedroom. Kalinda’s hands are shaking, adrenaline pouring down her veins, and she can feel the heat of Alicia’s blush against her cheek as they kiss.
“This is-” Alicia laughs as her fingers slip along Kalinda’s buttons. “I mean, we’ve done this before, for god’s sake-”
“I don’t remember,” Kalinda gasps. “So really-”
Alicia has finally gotten the blouse open, is tracing stuttering circles around Kalinda’s navel. “Well,” she says firmly. “We’ll just have to remember this time then.” Her palms are clammy. Underneath them, Kalinda’s ribcage heaves sharply.
“This time,” Kalinda agrees, and closes her eyes against Alicia’s smile.
(Kalinda had Alicia pinned against the bed and she could already tell, already knew Alicia liked being held down from the way her breathing went staccato. She’d been trying to get at Alicia’s collarbones all evening: they were calling to her and she had to bite them, lick them, suck them, something, but all Alicia seemed to want was her mouth. Every time Kalinda broke away from her lips Alicia whimpered for her to come back. It was driving Kalinda insane. She only got as far as Alicia’s neck before she was forced to drag herself up for a kiss, just a quick intermission before the process began all over again.
Under her clothes, Alicia was almost shockingly pale. Kalinda could see the veins in her breasts, the pulse in her throat. It felt as though she had a fever, body burning against Kalinda's, hot skin powdery and dry and smelling of talc, of lime from the tequila. Between her thighs she was slippery and warm, slick like a river. Kalinda twisted her fingers and Alicia whimpered, treading water against the sheets.
Please, oh my god, Kalinda, please, she murmured. Her head was thrown back, lovely and desperate and so Kalinda murmured back at her; soft, breaking things she’ll want to forget come morning.)
They haven’t even done anything, haven’t even touched below the waist, and Kalinda is already starting to see the magnitude of this mistake. Alicia is wonderfully, gloriously naked, waiting on the bed, and Kalinda wants to take her to the movies, take her down Devon Avenue to get jalebi. She feels dizzy and short of breath.
Alicia circles her wrists and pulls, tumbling them backwards onto the mattress. They slide between the mountains of throw pillows, muffled and secret. Outside the window, the sun slants slowly towards the horizon.
“I don’t really know what to do,” Alicia whispers, so Kalinda guides her hand. Holds it in place and rides her fingers. Comes with her head turned into a pillow while Alicia traces the line of her neck, while Alicia laughs and says, no fair, and Kalinda thinks, I never said I was fair.
“Why aren’t you panicking?” Kalinda asks, later. It isn’t a good question - it makes her heart trip warningly against her ribcage - but it’s better than the one she almost asked, which was “what now?”
“I don’t know,” Alicia says slowly. She slurs a bit, afterwards. Kalinda noticed the first time and thought it was the tequila, is delighted (and horrified at herself for being delighted) that it wasn’t. “Shock?”
“No,” Kalinda hisses, frustrated. “This whole week, you’ve been - obscenely calm.”
Alicia pushes herself onto an elbow, watching Kalinda’s face carefully. “And you’ve been… panicking?”
YES, Kalinda wants to scream. YES, can’t you see how this was a horrible horrible idea? and have you no self-preservation instincts? and also, maybe: what is wrong with you?
“I’ve been… perplexed by your lack of panicking,” she hedges carefully.
“Oh, well.” Alicia blows out a breath. “I could wring my hands a bit now if it’ll make you feel better.”
And Kalinda’s mind actually makes it halfway through the sentence, actually thinks those first two words, before she shuts it down.
“I should go,” she says, but before she’s so much as moved Alicia’s rolled over, trapped Kalinda beneath her body.
“You really shouldn’t,” she murmurs into Kalinda’s hair, and Kalinda’s mind thinks you, you, you, all three of the words out now, no taking them back or changing it. She closes her eyes. Lies very still against the feeling.