one of us

“Do you know Giselle?” 

It was a stupid question; she was well aware of it. If one lived in this area for longer than a week, they knew her, there was no way around it. The red hair dye was hard to miss, and her commanding personality was even harder to forget and not stick to. Aeri herself kept stumbling across her and doing as she wished with little to no convincing - not her proudest moments, but it was easy to justify fulfilling every command when she was in the moment.

Still, she was sort of hoping Yizhuo would say no. 

“Yeah,” she smiled lazily, as if memories were flashing in front of her eyes. Positive ones; it made Aeri’s stomach turn. “She gives great head.”

The giggle rang in Aeri’s head almost painfully, and she would pick up a fight about it, but there wasn’t much for her to say. Yizhuo was right - Giselle did give great head every time, everything she gave was great, in fact, even though Aeri tried to find anything to snark upon many times. 

She was sort of caring, despite feeding off of hookups, some more regular than others, but the sense of comfort she provided wasn’t anywhere near enough to get attached. A slightly above minimum politeness towards whoever she would host in her bed for the next hour or two, sometimes more. Often more, at least for Aeri, and there was a selfish part of her that hoped she was on the rare side. 

“Ningie?” She waited for an affirmative hum to continue with her question. “How often are you seeing her?”

Yizhuo puffed smoke into the air and rolled her eyes playfully, still smiling at Aeri. She took another hit and cupped Aeri's jaw with her free hand before connecting their lips to pass the smoke to her. Aeri didn't really like to smoke anymore, but she did like her dealer. So, she took her chance to deepen the kiss - even if she felt, and probably looked, desperate and pathetic.

“Hm, she appears here and there.” Her finger traced Aeri’s face mindlessly, still too giggly for someone admitting to cheating, if it could be called that in the first place. 

Even if their relationship was stable, she would have forgiven Yizhuo anything, as long as she wouldn’t leave her. She came to this conclusion a long time ago, sometime between their fourth meeting at whatever support group they could get into and the second time they were lying in Aeri’s bed sharing a blunt after sex, as they did now. 

Except they haven’t had sex in a while, and as much as Aeri was grateful Yizhuo never brought it up and still kept showing up just to hang out, it also made her feel as if she was replaced. An unreasonable feeling, as she learned from listening to people who attended the anxiety support group, but too loud to dismiss. Sometimes she wished Yizhuo would try to initiate anything, maybe drop the finger tracing Aeri’s face down to drag across her neck and chest, go lower until her hand got between the jeans and underwear. Aeri would eventually tell her to stop, but she’d at least know Yizhuo still wanted to have her this way. 

“I like seeing her, you know?” Yizhuo said with her eyes focused on Aeri’s side profile, but she couldn’t look back. The weight of her stare was too much as it was, and she didn’t want to see her utter any of the words that were coming out of her mouth. “She’s so desperate for me, it’s cute.”

Her eyes closed involuntarily, just in case the sharp pain in her stomach turned into tears. She wanted to give Yizhuo a reason to talk about her like this, too. Did she ever even talk about her? Did her friends know about whatever they had going on for the past months? When she’s gone for the weekend, did they assume she’s at Aeri’s, testing her vocal cords’ limits? Did Yizhuo still think of her first when she needed closeness and a helping hand? Probably not, not anymore, if ever. 

She rolled over on the bed to see Yizhuo’s face when she got distracted by the blunt, forgetting to pass it to Aeri. Maybe she’s realized she wasn’t feeling like it, or maybe she forgot she was there. As she expected, right below her ear there was a slowly fading red mark, and Aeri had a suspicion she knew precisely who made it. Her finger touched the skin, and it felt wrong to try to do anything. She couldn’t cover Giselle’s work with new marks; she wasn’t sure why. It’s not as if Giselle was a possessive person, and Aeri wouldn’t mind if she broke things off with Yizhuo either, but she couldn’t get herself to do anything.

“It’s fading already, but it was pretty.” Yizhuo grabbed Aeri’s wrist and pulled it away from her neck. She maneuvered their fingers to intertwine them and pushed them onto her chest where another mark was in full view. “Giselle is skilled with her mouth, she really is.”

𓄧

Her job was mind-numbingly repetitive, which used to be an advantage when she was in college trying to get any salary she could, but now she was simply tired after years had passed with her at the same desk, with the same tasks every week. It wasn’t that her coworkers had it any better; she didn’t remember talking to any of them, but she knew who was coming back to their crying children with a childlike husband joining them soon, who had another shift to make ends meet, and who would go straight to a bar the second the clock hit five. 

She’d have gone with them, had she been more sociable and without her doctor reminding her touching alcohol again wouldn’t have helped her in any way. She wasn’t sure if he was right, but it didn’t hurt to follow the advice; the computer screen hurt her eyes anyway, and having a drink hadn’t helped her calm down her thoughts after the first few times, no matter how often she tried to replicate the feeling of thinking about nothing meaningful. 

“Need help?” 

Aeri jumped in her place a bit at the voice from behind her, its owner staring at the screen. There was a familiar weight on her shoulder and she could see the red strands mixing with her dark brown ones on her shirt with the corner of her eye. Of course it was her, who else could it be? 

She wasn’t sure where Giselle worked, if she worked at all, despite talking to her more often than she did with her coworkers whose routines she had almost memorized. All she knew was that Giselle could show up anywhere, at any time, pull money out of nowhere, and disappear just as fast as she appeared. 

Sometimes she would come into the office, like today, take her place on the poor-quality chair and pull her by the hips to make her sit on her lap as she took over Aeri's tasks with annoying ease. As if she was mocking her for how stressed she was over the Excel sheets and emails Giselle was filling in seconds, purely for fun, resting her hand on Aeri’s thigh here. She watched the words and numbers show up on the screen, and it was somewhat soothing to see her work simply getting done on its own, with her lying on Giselle’s body and observing her fingers hitting the keyboard. She missed seeing them, and she liked her somewhat alcoholic and sweet scent digging into her nose, even if she didn’t like to admit that.

“Don’t shift so much, you’ll make people nosy,” Giselle whispered to her and slapped her thigh with a loud sound, making Aeri gasp in surprise, but she quickly remembered where they were and it replaced the excitement in her head with panic for a second. 

She looked around the office, but it was like nothing had happened. Nobody seemed to notice; she wasn't sure whether it's better or worse. Everyone was focused on clicking into their own computers and walking around printing new papers that would end up in the trash or collecting dust in the archives soon, but nobody even looked in their direction. It was simply as if she was not there. 

“Stop worrying so much,” she said again in a monotone voice, fingers never stopping typing. “Do I need to make you stop thinking?” 

Maybe she did. She often knew what was best, anyway, and it seemed to be one of those cases. The truth was, she wanted Giselle to let her drop to her knees under the desk and have her roll the mini skirt she had on just enough to put her mouth on her as she kept responding to the emails Aeri never read. She wanted to be useful, see her purse her lips in an attempt to stay quiet, and eventually see her give up and whine that Aeri’s doing a good job for her.

The thing about Giselle was, though, that she was not to be touched. So, the fantasies were nothing but fantasies, and the reality was that her fingers slipped under Aeri’s much more formal skirt to search for the wet spot on her underwear. 

“We’re in public-” 

“Are we really? Look around, nobody cares about what you’re doing.” She took Aeri’s chin into her hand to force her to scan the office while her fingers worked on getting a few buttons of her shirt undone. “They won’t mind if I make you come on my fingers here, they can’t see us.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, I’ll get fired…”

“Fine, let’s leave,” Giselle said, tone annoyed in a way that made Aeri’s stomach turn with either fear or excitement, and stood up suddenly, making sure that Aeri kept her balance. The hand on her hip quickly got wrapped around her wrist and Giselle dragged her across the office with little to no care. It was easy to give up and let her lead wherever she saw fit, even if Aeri had no idea how she could possibly know the building’s floor plan. Perhaps Giselle’s confidence could make anything work out for her. 

Aeri wished she could say that she appears here and there with affection like Yizhuo did, but to her it was haunting; how easy it was for her to give up thinking and do as Giselle said, and let her disappear seconds later, until she decided to show up again. How she didn’t even question which door Giselle pushed and locked behind them, too busy putting her lips on hers and grabbing her jaw to get her as close as she could. 

She focused on Giselle’s warm hands slipping under her shirt to grab her waist. She kept stepping forward, forcing Aeri to step back, even though she wanted to keep their bodies as close as possible and trusted that Giselle wouldn’t let her fall. Her hand traveled up Aeri’s back until she could pull on the strap of her bra before unclasping it completely. 

She whined when Giselle abandoned her lips, but it was fine as long as her mouth found its place on Aeri’s nipple, despite the angle being awkward and her loose bra getting in the way. The red hair was a mess from Aeri’s constant pulling, but it made Giselle scrape her teeth on her skin, so Aeri wasn't necessarily sorry, and she didn’t seem to mind anyway. 

Aeri looked up from where Giselle worked on her breast and the walls around them became somewhat familiar until she could recognize the room they were in. She tried to get her legs closer together instinctively, but Giselle was between them and she raised her head with a questioning expression. 

“It’s my manager’s office, I don’t think we should… be here,” she explained, trying to get away, but Giselle’s arms are on either side of the desk behind her, locking her in place. 

“Is your manager here?”

She wasn’t; she was barely ever there and paid Aeri too little for how much she worked to get mad at her, even if she did find out, but it was still awkward. Giselle didn’t think so, though. She pushed her tongue between Aeri’s lips again before she could answer, because at the end of the day, they both knew it didn’t matter, and Aeri would let Giselle do anything with her even if her manager had to watch it happen. 

“It won’t take you long to be done anyway,” she laughed and pulled Aeri’s underwear down her thighs. 

How long has it been since she had Yizhuo do that? Too long, it was obvious by the way she was ready to beg Giselle to do something, anything. She put her hands on Giselle’s waist, trying to get them under her clothes, but she couldn’t get to her skin. Giselle wrapped her fingers around her wrists and took her hands away to pin them to the desk, making Aeri whine at the sudden roughness. 

“Keep them here, can you do that?” 

“Yeah,” she said in hopes it would get Giselle to get to it faster. “Touch me?”

She half expected Giselle to laugh at her and make her beg better, but apparently it was enough this time; she lifted her hips slightly up to make Aeri sit on the desk, not caring about the papers left on it, and put her hand back under her skirt. 

“You’re so easy to rile up, how come your girlfriend can’t get into your pants?” she giggled when she dragged her fingers over her pussy, collecting the excess fluid she was the reason behind. 

She’s not her girlfriend, Giselle knew that. If Yizhuo were her girlfriend, she wouldn’t have been in the situation she’s in with Aeri and she wouldn’t have had semi-regular sex with Yizhuo either. It hurt to hear anyway, because Aeri didn’t know why it was the way it was at all. Perhaps having Giselle’s fingers in her and her lips on her skin made her stupid. 

Her fingers rubbed over her, avoiding the clit as if she enjoyed seeing Aeri annoyed and she probably did. She kissed down her jaw before deciding on a place to dig her teeth into, making Aeri moan slightly louder than she’d like to. Giselle treated it like a green light, though, and started sucking on her skin more while teasing her hole over and over, fingers not high enough to touch her clit but not low enough to get inside. 

“You’ll be working better with a clear head,” she said when she decided to slip inside eventually. Aeri wanted to wrap her hands around her, but kept them still where Giselle left them. “And I won’t have to come in here and do your job for you because you’re busy thinking about me.”

Aeri wanted to protest, to tell her that she wasn’t thinking about her at all until she showed up, that she was capable of doing her work on her own, but it was hard to think with Giselle’s finger inside her and her thumb dragging over her clit. She used to make Yizhuo feel the same way, at least she hoped she did, so what happened? She should have been in Giselle’s place now, making Yizhuo whine like she was now. She should focus on remembering Giselle’s moves and words to imitate her for Yizhuo, perhaps that was the way. She missed seeing Yizhuo under her instead of Giselle over her. 

“Thoughts back to me, Riri.” 

Aeri mumbled a half-hearted apology into Giselle’s shoulder, even though she knew Giselle didn’t genuinely mind or feel upset by it. That was part of the whole thing; they knew what they were doing and what the deal between them was, but all thoughts about it were slowly fading with each push of Giselle’s fingers. She wondered if getting put in Yizhuo’s place made her closer or more distant from her; if having Giselle the same way she does made her somewhat understand her more, as delusional as she felt for thinking this.