how many times?

“So, SuperMax, spit it out — how many times we done this already?” “What?” The air smells like weed, sweat, chlorine, and dust. Sunlightseeps through the fabric of a faded flag, — not patriotic red-and-blue like before, but bright pink, sunset orange, white, striped and splotchy, bought the fuck knows where or when because Chloe so fucking love her cuntry and because whatever was left of national pride in her heart got stomped out by stepdouche’s army boot, — and paints the room in the soft glow of golden hour. Thin fingers bring a rolling paper to her lips stretched in a sly grin. “Don’t play dumb, Caulfield,” — she takes a drag, smoke fills her lungs, saturates her body with pleasant poison, clouds her head — “how many times have we already kissed?” “Jesus, Chloe, the hell are you talking about? I told you to quit with your medicine. Look, your last brain cells can’t make it anymore,” — a sideways glance of grayish-blue eyes shows annoyance, but her cheeks are red like a sinful nun’s. She was destracted but her hands keep doing their thing — writing, writing, writing more lines in her journal. The handwriting gets crooked. Nervous. Fast. The pencil lead breaks with a deafening crack — or so it seems to Max, who’s not used to it being this quiet in this room. She leans back against the old computer chair. Stretches and turns toward the voice of her blue-haired punk friend. The fragile pale body in the sunset light seems to glow. Eyes glint in the haze of narcotic haze. Hair spread across the pillow. The thin fabric of torned in several places tank top rides up, exposing a hollow stomach, protruding ribs, the waistband of her favorite boxers peeking out above her jeans; her gaze accidentally falls on Chloe’s sharp breasts — their silhouette so visible through the clothes. Beautiful. Hands instinctively reach for the camera. “Come on, hippie,” — a flashlight sounds a second before Chloe props herself up on her elbows — “I know you inside and out. You’re always messing with me, with time, rewinding back and forward, fixing bullshit, making the moment perfect, and then re-living it over and over.” “Touché…” “So there’s no fucking way I believe we never made out again after that one time.” The memory of their first kiss flashes through Maxine’s head for a second. So silly, so childish, almost innocent peck on the lips. To be honest, she would’ve remembered it in detail even without rewinding. But she didn’t want to just remember — she wanted to preserve that moment, to have the clearest possible panorama of it in her head. So yes, she rewound time again, and again, and again. Noticing every little thing. Birds singing in the background. The way the wind slid across her bare legs. The faint creak of old floorboards. Dust motes floating in the air, glowing gold in the light. Sharp shoulders under her fingers. Chloe’s quiet breathing. And her lips. Chapped, bitten, rough, tasting like cigarette smoke and cheap beer — which, by the way, was now the brunette’s favorite flavor. Touching them was felt like a little electric shock. A flash. A short circuit that made her head go empty for a second, made her brain stop working. Error. Max_Caulfield.exe has stopped working, please reboot the system. “What, got nothin' to say, MadMax?” “You are such a bitch sometimes,” — a heavy sigh hides a smile, but Max’s eyes still shine with mischievous little sparks. “No, Chloe, we haven’t kissed a single time since then.” “Bullshit.” Chloe lunges forward and sits up straight on the bed. Her feet thud against the floor, accidently kicks bottles by the bed and one of them falls over, rolling off somewhere. Good thing is the beer never stayed in them for long — nothing would’ve spilled anyway. Otherwise Mac had have to break the flow of time again — getting yelled at by Joyce wasn’t something she or her blue-haired friend wanted. Punk-girl takes another drag, closing her eyes. Max watches mesmerized as her chest rises. As a few smoke rings appear in the air, slowly dissolving.The strap slowly slips off her fragile shoulder, exposing her collarbone and left breast. Hipster’s cheeks instantly flush crimson and she looks away. Not that she wasn’t used to Chloe not wearing a bra, or dressing pretty… provocatively sometimes. But this was too much. Too much for her stupid heart, for her brain that couldn’t handle the strain, for the very essence of Caulfield. “Fine. Whatever, Chloe. Don’t believe me if you want,” — she mumbles under her nose, trying not to look — not-to-look-nottolook-nottolooknottolooknottolooknolook at the someone’s body. And definitely not meeting the eyes of its owner. Wouldn’t mind being it’s owner, huh, Max? She shakes the thought off with a sharp movement, turning back to her journal. What was she writing? Something about their investigation, about Nathan, about the Cyclone, about the storm; about jealousy over the missing Rachel whose stare presses down on her like a thousand-ton boulder; about how badly she wants to run away with Chloe and not deal with any of this shit; about how she wants to possess her completely and utterly; about how she dreams of repeating that kiss ten hundred thousand times — not in her head, but in reality; about how she wants to… “Hey, hippie,” — a voice right next to her ear makes her flinch, — “don’t you dare to fucking lie to me.” Maxine’s hands instinctively close the journal and practically throw it away from her. The time-worn notebook slides across the table and falls to the floor with a thud and rustle, opening to the most embarrassing page in this entire collection of embarrassment. The page that even Max herself felt awkward looking at, which is why she always flipped past it without really looking, dying inside with shame. The apex of her cringe.

I. KISSED. CHLOE. FUCKING. PRICE.

An entire spread filled with one sentence. Way to go, Max Freakfield. And of course, Chloe sees it. That familiar mischievous grin appears on her lips, weed demons dancing in her eyes. Her already wide pupils dilate even more, turning into black holes. It devours Max, pulling her into its vortex, while she nervously babbles something in her defense. Her hands reaches for her face, trying to cover it, but immediately jerks away. She makes a gesture what already became familiar past this week. One small movement — she’ll just rewind time and won’t let this happen. Nothing will happen. She won’t be humiliated so stupidly, and Chloe will never know what a weirdo Caulfield is. “Nope!” — Chloe''s hand grips her thin wrist and pulls the brunette’s arm up over her head, — “You’re not running away that easy, smartass, not this time.” Chloe is no longer just close — she’s looming over the trembling girl’s entire body. Like a predator over cornered prey. She grabs her victim’s other hand, and now both of Maxine’s limbs are in the air. She’s completely disarmed, caught in a trap of ten knobby fingers digging into her tender pale skin, where crimson marks are already slowly blooming. Chloe smiles, almost baring her teeth. Chloe presses a knee into the seat, settling between thighs. Chloe looms over her like a sheer cliff, slowly moving closer to Maxine’s face. Chloe kisses her? Dry lips crash into hers, pulling her into a completely wild and desperate kiss. They crush the soft swollen lips of the mistress of time. So greedily, hotly, possessively. Confident. Demanding. Something clicks in her head, and Maxine surrenders under this pressure. She awkwardly kisses back. Clumsily, timidly, cautiously. She leaning forward to be closer. Accidentally biting Price’s lower lip, receiving in return a quiet, barely audible half-sigh half-moan. And that sound becomes a catalyst for both of them, a trigger, a nuclear fucking bomb. Someone else’s hot wet tongue slides across her parted lips, runs over her teeth, then gently slips inside, touches, explores, writhes, intertwines with her own. Rough and aggressive at first, but then relaxes. The kiss becomes softer, gentler. Both girls melt from this feeling. The sharpness of Chloe’s angular body evaporates somehow. She becomes so pliant, careful, tender. Like thick syrup, so sweet, honeyed. Even the taste of the recently smoked joint seems cloyingly sweet. Inside the old oak colors skull thousands of sparks-associations are born: caramel, honey, jam, hot milk, sugar syrup, molten gold. Her head is empty, and her lungs overflow with the flutter of a thousand fireflies. Chloe gently releases partner’s wrists and buries her fingers in tangled hair with one hand, softly touches her friend’s cheek with the other (can they even call each other friends after this?). Trails her fingertips feather-light over her freckles, her chin, moves to her neck. She steps back slightly, wanting to enjoy the reaction to her little mischief, smiling so shyly that for a second she stops being the Chloe Price. And then. Her eyes catches the movement. A flick of the hand. The universe freezes. The room fills with the crackle of rewinding tape.

***

“So, SuperMax, spit it out — how many times we done this already?” The air smells like weed, sweat, chlorine, and dust.