Title:  Didactic Learning

Author:  Harper

Email: Xfjnky2@yahoo.com

Pairing:  Jessie/Katie (Once and Again)

Rating:  R/NC-17

Disclaimer/Warning:  I don’t own these characters.  All copyrights belong with ABC, and I don’t make any money off of my exploits.  Additionally, the characters, in canon, are teenagers, so if the thought of people that age indulging in intercourse bothers you to no end, just don’t read this.  I’m only saying that for your own peace of mind.

Archiving:  This’ll be at www.realmoftheshadow.com/harper.htm.  If anyone else is interested, please ask.

A/N:  This is un-beta’d, which means that you’ll undoubtedly find mistakes scattered throughout.  Please just substitute corrections for me.  If you’d like to send feedback, I’d love to receive it.  I’m at Xfjnky2@yahoo.com

Sunshine drifting in soft rays across the room, bathing everything in a light, golden glow.

Birds twittering and cheeping, melding with the far off trilling of a wind chime, and generally filling the room with the sound of the outdoors, the mixed chatter a muted backdrop to accompany the harsh, quick pants of breath, the rustling of clothes and bedsheets and the near silent rasp of skin sliding against skin.

Dust motes floating through the air like little specks of flame drifting through shafts of gold, battering about lazily with no set destination in mind.  Free, aimless, somehow utterly content in their own inanimate way.

Strawberry blonde hair spilling out over the soft cream of Egyptian cotton sheets, glacial blue eyes looking up, full of trepidation and desire and anxiety and a tinge of fear.

It was her stage, her haphazardly crafted setting.

“We don’t have to do this.”

The words were sincere.  Jessie could tell that, could read the concern shining down on her from moss green eyes, but she wanted it, wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything else.  She’d spent months getting to this point, shrugging off her initial reticence over the entire relationship, battling with the personal demons who held her back, told her it was wrong, lashed her with the invisible whips of shame.  But, they didn’t matter any more, they were nothing more than the mental manifestations of hate and prejudice and bias and the fear of anything that might be different that she’d soaked up from a thousand sources.  From unconcerned comments falling from the lips of unwitting adults to the subtle yet clear messages that she’d seen on television, in the movies, to the hard hammering blow of fanatical condemnation from those hiding behind phrases in a book that they interpreted for their own peace of mind without deigning to pay attention to the larger, more important message.  This wasn’t wrong, wasn’t evil, wasn’t unnatural, and neither was she.  Not for wanting it, not for having it, not for enjoying it.  Not for loving Katie.

Nothing like that could ever be wrong.  How could love be wrong?  Love was the one thing that had pervaded every message of hope and goodness and religion that she’d ever heard.  Wasn’t Christianity itself the seminal bastion of love?

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

It was love and self-sacrifice and the embodiment of the essence of selflessness, and the hate lay in the minds of those who used words written in love as a sword to cut down those things that met with their disapproval.

And if it was a sin?  Then, she supposed, it would just have to be a sin.  She’d learned, as a young girl, that all sin was equal in the eyes of God, whether it be a lie or a murder, and if that was so, then her sin, this sin of love, would be in keeping with all of those that were far less worthy, those committed every day without notice, and she could live with that.  Her sin would be a pure sin, and her God wouldn’t punish that.

And, she wanted this.  She was sure of that.  It didn’t matter to her anymore, the few stares that they received on occasion, the bitter cutting remarks made by those who had never even been important to her in the first place.  Why had she worried about their reaction, these people who she didn’t talk to, much less value?  Not like she valued Katie, who meant more to her than every single other person in that school all wrapped up together and presented as one.

But, her silent musings didn’t do anything to soothe the frown wrinkling her girlfriend’s normally unperturbed brow.  It didn’t leach away the troubled murkiness of normally verdant green eyes, didn’t steal away the crinkles of worry fanning across her forehead.  She didn’t know why it seemed so important to her, to consummate what they had.  Maybe a part of her was afraid that this was going to inevitably all crash down around her, and she wanted to have this memory, this one little piece of the first girl she loved, to keep with her forever.  Wanted to give that piece away as well, to know that there’d be something of her that would always belong to the girl hovering nervously above her.

Katie’s long, dark blonde hair was soft under her fingertips, the shafts sliding along her skin like thin, cool silken strands, and when she tugged gently against the back of the other girl’s thin neck, she was surprised by the hint of resistance that met her touch.

She could feel a look of confusion, of displeasure, settle across her features.  Was she pushing?  Had she pressured Katie into doing something that she didn’t want, had the other girl seemingly capitulated because she felt it was something she had to do?

“Do you… I mean… If you’re not ready…” she said, her voice falling faint before trailing off completely, head turning to the side as her eyes fell, unfocused, on the far wall.  She couldn’t look at her now, couldn’t see rejection in the other girl’s eyes.  She hadn’t ever contemplated this particular potential, always assuming that when she decided she was ready, then it would be time.

And, she was ready.  Here, in her room, the room at her mother’s house, not the attic to which she’d been relegated, she wanted to share this, to experience this, to give this to Katie.

“Its not that,” Katie said, her words tangling together in a rush.  She did want this, would be crazy to not want this, but there was some part of her that had to know, had to absolutely know, that this was the right thing to be doing before she’d allow herself to commit to it.  There wouldn’t be any recriminations, any regrets, not if she had her way.

But then, blue eyes drifted back up to meet hers, and for a second the older girl found herself trapped, unable to breathe, much less speak.

“Then what is it?”  Jessie waited, eyes skimming furiously over her girlfriend’s face, looking for answers in the curve of lush lips, in the taut pull of pale flesh.

Katie fumbled, her head dipping as she searched for the right words, as she stumbled through something that should never have been as difficult as it was proving to be.  “I just don’t want you to… you know, wish things had been different.  Later, that is.  I don’t want you to look back and think it was the stupidest thing that you’d ever done, or to wish that you’d have waited, or to want to forget that it was me…”

And her voice disappeared too, not unlike Jessie’s, leaving her just as soon as it realized that she was making a fool of herself.

There were small, cool hands on her cheeks, drawing her face up so there wasn’t anywhere she could look other than bright, slightly damp, blue eyes, and her lashes fluttered, unconsciously trying to escape the intense scrutiny of a girl Katie was quite sure could see her very soul.

“If I wait a week, or a year, or five years, I’ll still always want it to be you,” Jessie whispered fiercely, trying to convey the truth of her words by sheer dint of her will alone.  “But I understand if you don’t feel the same way.”

Though, in truth, she didn’t think she’d understand at all.  It felt so right to her, so natural, and the possibility that Katie didn’t feel that as well was far more unsettling than she would have predicted.

Then there were lips against hers, reassuring her, brushing across her flesh with a touch so light as to be almost non-existent, and Jessie smiled, a huff of relief breaking the near painful silence that had stretched between them.

“No,” Katie said, then paused, realizing that her words and her feelings and her actions weren’t acting in accord.  “I mean, yes, I feel the same way you do, and yes, I want this, and yes, I love you.”

Which wasn’t really so much of an answer as it was an affirmation, but Jessie didn’t care.  She didn’t care about anything, from the bump of her shoes against Katie’s shins to the uncomfortable fold of sheets beneath her back.  They were positioned somewhat oddly, with Katie’s torso hovering over hers, with their legs entwined, with their faces pulled back until inches separated them, just as they’d been when the impromptu afternoon make-out session that they’d been thoroughly enjoying had suddenly seemed to morph into something much more serious.

“I love you, too,” Jessie replied, her voice tinged with a hint of shyness that she couldn’t seem to dispel.  It lingered over her, almost as if she were afraid to say the words, afraid to mean them.  That wasn’t the case, though, because she’d come to realize that there hadn’t been anything in her life more certain than her love for Katie.  It was stable, constant, unwavering, and something that she could cling to and jealously guard and tuck away for her own, private delectation.

But then Katie’s lips were on hers again, more firmly this time, and she didn’t want to waste time with philosophical and spiritual ruminations.  Instead, she wanted to feel, wanted to sear indelibly into memory each and every touch and moan and sensation.

There was the slide of their lips against once another’s, with the warm velvet of a soft tongue teasing against her lower lip, the light touch almost tickling.  And then there was the warmth of that same organ in her mouth, gently dueling with her own, never pushing for dominance or asserting some sort of claim, just merely gliding and stroking and making her belly quiver.

Hands had inched their way under the loose hem of her shirt, burning into her sides, and she moved to return the touch, to feel silky skin beneath her own palms.  A quick, hard tug and she’d pulled Katie’s shirt from the tight confines of her jeans, and then the wiry muscles of her back and the satin of her flesh were imprinting their tone into her hands.

“I want to see you.”  The words were said hesitantly, almost as if Katie was afraid that she would break the spell that had fallen over them, that she would ruin everything.

For a moment Jessie felt as if she couldn’t breathe.  This, then, was it.  If… when… she said yes, then the decision would be made, no turning back, and she paused, questioning, for a moment, her sanity.  Was she really ready for this?  Could she go through with it, could she bare herself completely, giving up all pretense of safety?

A quick nod, no more than the shallow shake of her head, and Katie was smiling down at her, eyes clear and green again, and she knew that she’d made the right choice.  She did want this, wanted to take that next step and fears be damned.

Katie was tugging gently on her shoe, kneeling in the thick pile of the carpet beside her bed like a supplicant, and Jessie felt a rush of emotion shoot through her.  She loved this girl, was more than in love with her, if such a thing were possible, and when she heard both shoes hit the floor, felt cool air against the bottoms of her feet, felt uncharacteristically fumbling fingers fiddling with the button on her jeans, she shed any lingering apprehensions that she might have been clinging to, bringing her own hands down to soothe Katie’s nervous ones, flicking open the line of five buttons that stood as the great divide between remaining as they had been and moving forward.

The rough fabric caught at her hips, only falling away at a sharp pull, and as Jessie lay there, trying desperately to forget that she was wearing her white cotton PowerPuff Girls panties, Katie stood, shoulders hunched over slightly, head turned to the side.

“Katie?”  Maybe she had pushed too hard, despite what the other girl had said.  Maybe now, with everything moving out of the realm of the ephemeral and into the world of the most definitely going to happen, the other girl was having seconds thoughts, was questioning her own rationality.

Those shoulders hunched over a little more at the questioning tone, and Jessie felt her heart nearly stop beating.  Katie didn’t want this, and didn’t know how to tell her, and she knew that in three seconds she was going to start crying, which would only serve to make things approximately fifteen times worse than they currently were.

“I… I don’t know what to do.”  Katie’s normally confident voice was whisper soft, and Jessie had to strain to hear the words.  “I mean, I’ve never done this before, and I don’t want to…”

The blonde trailed off, mortified beyond words.  How did one say that they didn’t want to screw something like this up, that they didn’t want to suck horrifically, didn’t want to embarrass themselves completely.  Really, there was no dignified way to go about it.

Curling up into a sitting position, knees pulled back toward her chest with her arms wrapped protectively around them, Jessie thought for a moment, chewing nervously on her bottom lip.

Taking a deep breath, she searched for some way to form the reassurances floating through her head, but the words didn’t seem to want to align themselves properly, so with a sigh, she said, “I’ve never done this before either, but I think that, between the two of us, we can make it work.”

A snort of laughter bubbled past Katie’s lips, earning a look of befuddled confusion from her girlfriend.  “Listen to us.  It sounds like we’re trying to assemble an atomic bomb without an instruction book,” she said ruefully, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at her own perceived idiocy.  Everyone had to start somewhere, didn’t they, and there wasn’t anyone that she’d rather have with her when she took off the training wheels than Jessie.  So, kicking off her shoes and stepping out of her socks, she rejoined her girlfriend on the bed, kneeling in front of her.

“Well,” Jessie drawled, eyes drawing slowly up her girlfriend’s form, “I think that if we did have a book, instruction number one would say lots less talking, lots less clothing, and lots more kissing.”

With a quick move, Katie swept her shirt away, letting it drift to the floor some feet away, consciously willing her hands to remain at her sides and not come up and cover her chest as they wanted to do.  “I always was a stickler for the rules,” she teased, eyes sparkling with mischief, and Jessie smiled, a full smile with a complement of even white teeth, and Katie felt her stomach jump.

“Then I guess that means that we have to move on to the lots more kissing requirement,” Jessie replied, her voice low, and Katie nearly knocked the other girl back to the bed in her enthusiasm.

Laughing even as she savored the feel of her girlfriend’s lips against hers, Jessie trailed her fingers down the tickling silk of Katie’s skin until the digits were hooked in the other girl’s waistband, pulling fruitlessly at the tight fabric.  She wanted to even things up, wanted to have as much access to Katie’s body as the other girl had to hers, and so with a near vicious tug she pulled the button free and the zipper halfway down.  Unwilling to concentrate more fully on what she was doing, too enraptured by the feel of Katie’s lips against her own, she yanked futilely on the recalcitrant jeans, groaning in frustration when they didn’t budge an inch.

With a laugh of her own, Katie joined her fingers to the fray, pulling the zipper the rest of the way down and shimmying out of the suddenly restrictive garment.  It took a bit of awkward maneuvering to get the pants off completely, but she managed and didn’t particularly care that she probably looked like a fool while doing it.

After that, it seemed like only seconds until she was pressing her bare chest against Jessie’s, feeling the hard press of aroused nipples teasing her sensitive skin, and Katie closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and simply savored the moment.  This was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, and she’d never quite comprehended until that moment that Jessie’s skin was so baby powder soft, that her eyes were so unflinchingly hypnotic, that she was so incredibly beautiful with her lips swollen from kisses and her fair skin flushed with excitement, and it took every ounce of her control to keep from bursting into tears of joy from the overwhelming pleasure of it all.

A soft touch on Jessie’s shoulder and she was guiding the other girl back down to the bed, one hand jerking furiously against the covers, pulling them down and away, while the other steadied them both.  The sight of Jessie laying there, with her hair mussed and wild against the pillows and her pale skin bare, was like the most beautiful of paintings, and suddenly Katie believed in reincarnation because surely the girl before her had been the inspiration for Botticelli’s Venus, for Gentileschi's Judith, for Vermeer’s hauntingly beautiful unnamed girl… of this, she was sure.

“I want you to… that is… if I do anything you don’t like, I want you to tell me,” Katie said earnestly.  She couldn’t imagine ever doing something to hurt the vision before her, especially not in this arena, but it was with trembling hands that she reached out, letting her fingers trail over the impossibly soft skin of Jessie’s shoulders, down to the burgeoning curve of her breasts.  Pale pink nipples crowned the gently rounded lobes, and with a feather light touch, she brushed by the hardened peaks, her own gasp of surprise mingling with Jessie’s.

Lowering herself down slowly, unaccountably hyperaware of a need to give Jessie as much time as possible to escape her, to move away from any unwanted touch, Katie brought their lips together once more, the sounds of their increasingly harsh pants mingling with the indrawn hisses of surprise and arousal as they each became a little more daring.  Jessie’s fingers moved down Katie’s back, leaving sharp trails of fire where her nails scored the skin, as the other girl grew more confident in her caresses, more certain in her movements.  Soon Katie’s lips had moved down to tease at the flesh of Jessie’s neck, teeth nipping even as her tongue soothed, and then, blindly, she moved down further, taking one aching nipple into her mouth, suckling gently.

With Jessie’s hands wrapped through her hair, throaty moans urging her on, Katie decided to explore further, the broad flat of her hand skimming down the other girl’s concave belly, fingertips encountering soft curls before dipping, finally, into the warm wetness between the younger girl’s thighs.  At the touch Jessie gasped again, her shoulders rising unbidden from the pillow, eyes rounding in surprise, as a wave of white hot pleasure shot through her belly and up her spine.

Katie nearly growled with delight, sure that she’d never felt anything quite so wonderful in her life.  She’d touched herself like that, certainly, but it didn’t feel the same, didn’t even begin to compare to the slick skin burning against her, and she fumbled, feeling horribly awkward as she searched for the spots she knew would bring Jessie the most pleasure.

When one long finger slid deep inside her, Jessie realized that she’d forgotten to breathe, and with a great gasping gulp drew air into her burning lungs.  The feeling wasn’t painful, wasn’t uncomfortable, but was inherently different than anything she’d ever experienced before.  It was Katie inside her, Katie touching her in one of the most intimate of ways of which she could conceive, Katie who was looking down at her with concerned dark eyes.  The other girl’s long hair, for once pulled free of its ponytail, had spilled around her shoulders, falling to tickle against the sides of Jessie’s face, and she let her eyes flutter shut, let everything fall away but the sensation of having the girl she loved touch her.

After long moments, the finger was joined by another, and then the two began to move, and Jessie couldn’t help it as her eyes popped open, as her hips began to squirm and move against the delightful pressure.  She felt as if she were striving for something, some unattainable pinnacle, and as Katie slowly drew her fingers free of Jessie’s body, trailing them up to lazily circle the sensitive bit of flesh at the apex of her thighs, the peak seemed suddenly that much closer.  And, as Katie’s movements quickened, as the other girl loomed above her, even teeth biting nervously into her bottom lip and eyes closed as she savored the feel of the girl beneath her, Jessie felt everything freeze, felt the muscles in her thighs tense and her back arch, and her head fell back, lips parting on a silent cry.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered long seconds later, one hand having instinctively reached down, capturing Katie’s wrist and pulling her hand away even as little twitching aftershocks shot through her body.

The older girl grinned shyly, eyes narrowing as she studied her girlfriend’s flushed features.  “Did I… I mean, did you…” she tried to ask, not quite sure how to frame her question and not entirely certain that it was polite to even ask in the first place, despite the fact that she was desperate to know.

With a wide grin, Jessie pressed herself up, overturning their arrangement so that she was stretched out on top of her taller girlfriend, her sensitive skin reveling in the full body contact.  “I think I’ll just have to show you,” she murmured teasingly, her lips coming down to capture Katie’s in a soft, sweet kiss.

And, when Katie came, Jessie’s name on her lips, she decided that it really was best to learn by example.

Later, when their clothes were all back on and the mussed bed was carefully made and the sound of Karen puttering around in the kitchen below them broke through the haze that had surrounded their afternoon, Jessie stopped, looking around her room with a wide smile.  It had been there throughout her transformation, from birth until now, and it seemed only fitting that those walls had watched over her that afternoon, had borne witness the most momentous occasion to have graced her young life.

Katie’s fingers wrapping around her own drew her out of the nostalgic fog that she’d stumbled into, drawing her firmly into the present, for which Jessie was infinitely glad.  It was, after all, quite a pleasant place to be.

THE END