Safa was laying on the bed sharing memes with Stef like they did every night before bed.  Ezra and Mickey were curled up on the bed between them, fast asleep, as asleep as cats go.  

Stef made a soft chortle of amusement and Safa glanced at her and bounced her eyebrows in a question. Then, as if on cue, Stef tapped on her phone to share the meme.  

Wouldn’t it be funny if someone went to a job interview and actually did this? She texted.

Safa’s lips barely twitched, but Stef could feel Safa’s amused response as she typed back.

It had been a heavy few days of surviving.  

Safa woke several times from a nightmare last night and nearly kicked Stef out of the bed, but she used her favorite scarf to latch a limb to the bedpost for safety.  It also helped her avoid the risk of fighting Safa back in her own trauma nightmares.

Bondage made her feel safe, which, given what she survived - the trauma they both shared -  sounded like it shouldn’t make her feel safe.  Either way, they woke up drained of spoons before the day really began and thus declared it a nonverbal day. 

And they spent the whole day co-existing with each other and sharing memes in companionable silence under the same roof. The cats could tell they were feeling a little under the weather and velcro-attached to them both in shifts.  Half the day, Ezra clung to Safa while Mickey clung to Stef, and halfway through the day, the cats swapped humans.  And now it was late at night. They were preparing for sleep like some others prepare for something that causes them anxiety -  like giving a speech or going to war. It was what sleep felt like when someone is prone to chronic nightmares.

And so, the memes...

We should take on that bet… Safa texted.

Seriously? Stef replied.

Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t do Disney Lyrics, because my parents forbade joy in the house until I left.  But I could do pop songs. That was a contraband I allowed myself that they couldn’t easily catch, so I know my fair share of cheesy pop music.

Oh, I am the Queen of Disney.

I am well aware.  

So we are actually doing this? Trying to get a job interview and use only lyrics to see if it gets us hired easier?

Yes, I mean what do we have to lose?  The worst they can do is not hire us.  And we’re already jobless currently. So, it is like an experiment.

Ohh I do love social experiments

I know.  You got me stuck on that What Would You Do Show, now I have an Anxiety attack if I miss an episode - even if it's a rerun.

I would apologize for that, but I enjoy having you to share my pain.

I bet you do.

I am now not going to get any sleep -  I have to look up lyrics and prepare

If I kick you in my sleep, just pretend I am auditioning for my role as a backup dancer 

Estefania chortled. It made Mickey stir with a feline chirp and then flick his tail and curl it around his brother Ezra, who only flicked his ear. Eventually, Safa followed them over to sleep while Stef got lost in a Disney vortex.  Sleep, itself,  had to come up and take her from behind. Distracting her with hyperfixation on Encanto songs, so while she was looping the Family Madrigal for the fifth time, she fell asleep.  She ended up dreaming that Safa was Princess Jasmine and she was Aladdin.  

Lucky for you, I bring my magic carpet with me everywhere!  Dream Safa said in a charming tone as she unveiled her hair which fell down her body in a sea of black bouncy curls - like rapunzel - and flicked the fabric that was just on her head so it became a magic carpet. ‘Jump on, or are you too Street Rat to go on an Adventure with a Renegade Princess?’’  

Right when Dream Estefania as Aladdin was about to step on the carpet and sail away, the real Safa kicked her in the side. Thanks to the sneaky tactics of Sleep, Stef didn’t have time to strap herself to bed. So, she fell out of bed and onto the floor.  Narrowly waking up to stop her fall so she didn’t hit her head.  Glancing sleepily through her own dark curls up at the bed, she saw Safa clutching her pillow and kicking like she was running while clutching a bag or something. Estefania slowly got back in bed and - knowing the risk - she tried to think of a way to calm Safa like she did every night.  Waking her up sometimes made it worse when she fell asleep again, the nightmares somehow got worse like they doubled down on making the night really hellish to get back at her for the previous interruption. 

This time, she was frozen on what to do, feeling like she was internally spinning helplessly, as anxiety ate her mind into an alert state.  She just sat on the bed and carefully kept herself from falling over the same trauma cliff.  Slowly breathing and counting helped Stef dissociatively step back and switch to one of her alters - Persimmon -  who was better at getting things done and dealing with trauma situations.  Checking the phone and realizing it was almost dawn,  deciding she might as well decide that they were up for the day.  Running a grounding hand down Safa’s spine, who was trembling and sweating, Persimmon caressed her back in soothing circles; and said comforting words.  Eventually, Safa calmed and breathed slower - more relaxed.

“I love you so much, street rat…” she whispered softly.  Safa mumbled a soft sound of relaxation and then farted loudly against her lover’s thigh, which led to Estefania swimming back to the front and giggling soundlessly.

__________________

Three weeks passed and there were many nights of reruns and food-bank-experiment-dinner dishes,  or just not eating at all, until one night, Safa came home late.  Ezra gave her a scolding look. The feline glared up from his plate of wet food on the counter, because the humans may starve for a few nights but to let the cats starve was unacceptable. 

“I know, I know. I’m late, but it's for a good cause, I promise,” Safa whispered as she gave the sleek mini panther a few scritches behind the ears, which he leaned into and purred.  

There was the sound of a moan coming from the bedroom. Safa raised an eyebrow at the cat who looked at her with his innocent, big, green eyes.  “What is she up to back there?”  Safa wondered as she put down the shopping bag on the couch on the way back to the bedroom. The door was ajar. Safa peeked inside to witness Estefania writhing on their bed, her hand moving furiously against her pussy, while using the vibrator against her nipples.  She was wearing a pair of Safa’s underwear on her head - so that the crotch was right over her nose.  

Safa recognized them from at least two days ago. She was wondering where they went when she put the laundry in the washer the night before. It seemed a horny thief stole them for herself. 

“Ohhh, Safa, Safa!” Stef moaned in that voice that said she was about to cum, and Safa had a decision to make. She could say something and be a brat and ruin her orgasm, or she could watch her girlfriend orgasm, knowing it was difficult for her to get there sometimes because of the dissociation.  Either way, Safa knew she wanted to be involved more directly for the second round. 

“Oh!!!”  Stef cried out sharply and loudly enough that  Mickey darted from under the bed and out of the room as Stef’s heavy body bucked and jerked on the tangled sheets - sighing in relief.

Clatter! Clunk!

Safa nearly fell into the shelf as the cat darted past her. She caught herself, turning to look at Stef’s startled dark eye looking at her through one of the leg holes in the panties on her head.  

“Safa… you’re home!” she said and rolled up to her elbows.

The movement made the vibrator fall onto the floor and make a puttering rattle noise against the hardwood as if it was trying to run from the bed too. 

“Oh shit.  I didn’t realize that fell.”  Stef struggled to get up to get to the toy and make the rattling stop. Being unable to see the world very well at the moment did not help. Everything was blurry without her glasses or contacts in.  Safa got to the toy first and switched it off.  

“Might see the world better if you were wearing your glasses instead of my dirty panties on your face.”  Safa quipped.  

Slowly, Stef took the undergarments off her head and her fuzzy fluff of a curl nest went all static clinging to them as she set them aside on the bed.  “How much of the show did you see?”

“Not enough. I’m almost jealous of my underwear.”

“You should be, we’re eloping next week, I’m going to be Estefania Fruit of the Loom High Cut”  

“Oh really?  Is that an invite to the wedding or just a ‘save the date’, you’ll be ‘out of the office’ type memo?”

“Take it however you want.”  

Safa smirked and moved closer to sit on the bed,  “Take it however I want?”

“Did I stutter?”

Safa shook her head, “You did not. But,I can think of other uses for your mouth than talking …”

Estefania whimpered,  “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ve been craving you all week…”

Safa smiled a bit submissively.  “Yeah?”

Nodding a bit too much and a bit too fast, Estefania’s curls danced over her head.  Her dark hair was long enough to cover her breasts and her dark eyes with lashes too long to be real - but they were - blinked at Safa.  “Get over here and kiss me, you saucy bitch.”

Giggling, Safa did what she was told, forgetting the good news she had to share. There were far more interesting things to do with her mouth than talk just now.

Safa was out of her clothes in seconds, naked and enjoying Stef’s lips along her tits and inner thighs.  “Fuck you smell so good,” Stef moaned, nearly whimpering. “My mouth is literally watering.”

“Then drink up …creamy paradise awaits”  

With a smirk, Stef lowered herself and her long and wide tongue lapped at the slit of Safa like a greeting. Then she moved to spread her open, brushing the thick bush back like curtains making herself at home. Sucking on the clit like a greedy squatter -  an entitled house guest -  she sucked and sucked until Safa was hissing incoherently and twitching her orgasm before she could help it. 

Moving down to suck and slurp at the cream down below, flooding the sheets. Safa, still twitching, as Stef drank down the cream. As well as collecting some in her tongue like a spoon and swirled it up the under clit fold before wrapping her lips around it again and sucking hard.

That had Safa swearing a long stream of profanities in a scream as her hands flailed out and ripped the fitted sheet off the mattress as she let Stef’s tongue wring her out like a towel. 

Stef surfaced, gasping, with her face sweaty and sticky, smeared with Safa’s juices and musk. She felt like a whale having broken the surface to spurt water out of her hole and breathe air she cruelly needed. If only she’d been born with gills, then she’d be able to stay below and swim in Safa’s salt water forever.

“Your turn… Just… let me breathe... Fuck, I needed that. Damn it. I almost wish I didn’t cum so fast, but  fuck, I can’t help it when you do the thing… with the thing… and the tongue, and fuuck…”  afa rambled and weakly motioned with her arm.  

Watching Safa’s breasts rise and fall with her heavy breath, for a moment, Stef kissed the pulse point in her thigh like a prayer.  She did pray, Safa didn’t. They agreed to just let it be. But at this moment, Stef felt the only divinity she believed in was Safa.

Safa, her hardworking survivor who would rip out her soul if it meant that it would fix all the shit wrong in the world.  She’d martyr the salt of her oceans so that the fresh waters would flow sweeter and longer for a better world, a world she’d been denied. Someone deserved to have it, even if she had to sacrifice the brine of her bruises by surviving every day one more time to make it happen in any way she could. 

Safa sat up, catching Estefania looking at her like she was made of gold - such devotion and worship in those eyes - lost in a happy thought.  

“Do you always look like that after you’ve tasted me and I just didn’t realize until now?” she asked as Stef blinked out of her reverie and gave Safa her eyes. 

“Maybe…”  she answered evasively, hoping to sound flirty and not embarrassed at being caught swooning.  She wondered if her atheist girlfriend would be offended at her worship daydreams about how she praised her and would continue to. About how often she saw Safa as the street rat, renegade princess -  or any of the billions of ways to retell all the Disney movies about romance and love.  Stef’s parents let those movies raise her more than they raised her, themselves.  She got more life advice from those animated tales than she ever did from going to Mass or any Service her parents dolled her up for.  

“Hey…”   Safa said with a concerned note in her voice.  Stef looked at her again, not realizing her focus slid from her gaze - which was still on Safa - that she had been looking at her without looking at her.  “Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts.”

“Spicy thoughts, or … spicy thoughts?”

Stef waggled her hand as if to say half of both.  Safa frowned in understanding.  “Do you want to talk about it? Or… do you want… your turn?”

“I wouldn’t want to deny you this warm meal I have been cooking for you all week. I sampled it and it is amazing, but I need a second opinion.  How about you tell me what you think of my cuisine? Then … we can talk about that other spice,”  she said with a head bobble.  Safa grinned.  

“Well, I’m famished, but I look around and I don’t see my meal. No plate or anything. Where is it?” Safa asked in a joking tone, looking under pillows and the strangled blanket around their legs.  

Stef smirked, then moved to straddle Safa’s face.  “It’s right here … let me feed it to you.”  And suddenly, the wet dark of her was lowering down around Safa, who grabbed the thick of her thighs and got up close before sticking out her tongue through the slit - like wiggling her way through an ajar door - like she had moments before, then feeling the wet sweet of the cloying sticky just drip all over her.

Estefania’s thighs were large like the rest of her.  She was well over six feet tall and thick and curvy. She kept her body hair well-groomed and trimmed. Being from a hairy family, genetically and adoptedly, body hair management was one of the first things she learned once she became a woman. It was meant to catch a good man or a husband, but Stef was not interested in having either unless they had a pussy and knew how to eat one.  Safa, also not a stranger to being a woman with body hair, dove in and enjoyed her favorite meal. Particularly enjoying the way her nose rubbed against the clit nub as she licked in the dark and played in the cream between the folds. Her hands held her open so that she got all the good spots she knew Stef liked, relishing the feeling of her thighs trembling and clapping along the sides of her head.  

Stef started to sing Safa’s name again, thinking of that fantasy, that dream. Flying on the magic carpet with a renegade princess. Having to eat her out while she concentrated on keeping the carpet in the air, making sure they didn’t crash.  The fantasy spun out in her mind and she was making so much noise that Safa was getting aroused again.  She wanted to reach and rub herself as well but didn’t want to jeopardize her focus.  So she visualized what she wanted Stef to do on her body as she did it to Stef’s.

Simultaneously, she imagined that Persimmon could astral project and eat her pussy as she was eating out Stef’s. She moaned at how good that thought felt, that fantasy. Having a partner with a dissociative disorder had its ups and downs, but one of the ups was that each sexual experience  - in a way  - was like a potential orgy or at the very least a threesome, even if only two physical bodies were present.  

Shivering as that agile tongue flicked against her clit again, then under and around and wiggled along the hood and over. Then sucking, sustained sucking, Stef gripped the air like invisible ropes, or hands, or bars of a cage. She came hard and long and then something squirted out of her, and in a panic, she sat up and moved back. “Holy shit did I pee on you?”

“No,  you squirted…  Wow…  I made you squirt.”

“You made me squirt…”

“That was your first --?”

Stef nodded.  “Are you sure I didn’t pee on you?”

“Very sure.”

The two of them stared at each other, smiling for what felt like a long moment.  “You want to know what I was fantasizing about?”

“You tell me yours, I will tell you mine…”

“You go first...” Stef said. 

“Well, I was fantasizing about a threesome.”

“Oh?  With you and me? Who was the third person?”

Safa twisted her lips and averted her eyes, feeling a little awkward,  “Persimmon.”

Blinking Stef made a sound of amusement. “So very you and me.”

“Yeah, I imagined it as her being this astral form, like a genie or something. While I was eating you out she was eating me out… and…. Yeah.”

Stef felt Persimmon’s flattery and smiled a bit shyly, before leaning in to kiss Safa sweetly. “You have no idea how much we wish that could happen.”

Safa ran her hand over Stef’s head, stroking her hair.  “What was yours?”

Laughing nervously, Stef moved to lie down next to Safa, covering her face with her hands.  “Well, it was sort of Disney-related. Because of that bet we made…”

“Go on, I’m listening…”

“It was basically the Aladdin story, except I was Aladdin. The suave street rat, pretending to be a prince with the help of a genie, and you’re the runaway princess trying to have a life of her own and not meet her family’s expectation to marry some loser who only wants you for your money and doesn’t really love you.  And I have had a recurring dream about it nearly every night for a while now. My favorite one is when you take off your veil headscarf and it turns into a magic carpet and we sail off to a whole new world. And while we’re flying I start to eat you out, but I have to be gentle and careful because if you cum too hard the carpet may crash and we’d end up stranded somewhere. So the idea is to eat you out in a precise way that you don’t lose your focus and lose control over piloting the magic carpet.”

“Oooh, well lucky for you that is the one Disney movie I watched once when I was an adult and tried to watch them. You know, figure out why my parents were so convinced they were evil. And I gotta say I like your version better.”

Stef giggled.  “I do too.”

“Though I feel I would be the pretend prince and you’d be the renegade princess.”

“That’s Persi’s fave version of the story too.  She totally sees you as dashing street rat, trying everything you could to get in my pants, asking me to take off my veil and then you use your last wish to transform it into a magic carpet so that even when I am alone and I need to get away safely or something, I would always have a getaway carpet with me. Annnd, that is what we were thinking about when we thought to grab your panties and have a little fun…”

Safa smirked.  “Glad I got a big ass then, otherwise that would be a small as shit magic carpet.”

The two of them giggled, and Stef looked around in the sloppy bed for the underwear in question.  

“Looking for these?”  Safa’s voice sang as she waved her used underwear at Stef like a captured flag. 

“Are you going to make me the street rat now? I have to steal my magic carpet back?”

“I don’t know, these look a lot like runaway princess panties to me… smell like runaway princess panties too…”  she teased. 

“Naughty renegade princess… caught by the pretend prince …  What will she do to punish me…?”

Stef was crawling toward Safa now like a tigress wanting to pounce.  Safa’s sly lips slid into a teasing smirk before she moved in one fluid action, swooped and grabbed Stef in a hug, and kissed her a long moment before they lay back on the bed breathless.  “No punishments,  you’ve been a good girl.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm, especially because it’s thanks to you and that meme idea that I got a job today.  They gave me an advance and I went shopping and bought you a surprise gift on my way home. That’s why I was late.”

Stef’s eyes went wide with surprise,  “Wait, you got hired!  Where?”

“Steadman’s Art Gallery and Auction House.  We’re gonna be able to afford the good cheese now. It will only be a matter of time before you can get the kick-ass chef job you want, I just know it.”

Bringing her hands up to wave the tears wanting to fall away from her eyes, Stef gasped,  “ That’s amazing! I can’t believe it.”

“Me either.  But turns out Guy Favreau, the great-grandson of the first owner of the Gallery and Auction house was so fucking impressed at my avant-garde approach to answering the interview questions with song lyrics that he called me ‘edgy’ and ‘relevant’  once he saw my art.  You know, the same art that other studios have been calling ‘cutting edge, but not for them.’  He was like ‘when can you start, this is mind-blowing work. So... I told him I could start right now, but I’d really like to go home and tell my girlfriend the good news. And he sort of had this relieved response and said, ‘You’re a lesbian, thank god!  The last woman I hired, I had to get a restraining order because she didn’t understand the words ‘boundaries’  and ‘crossed,’  and then told me to go home and grab you a little something on the way home. And it took me a minute to figure out what that would be, and once I did, I had to do a little driving but it’s out on the couch.”

Safa didn’t get to say much else as Stef wiggled off the bed and made her way out to the living room like a kid trying to dash to the tree on Christmas.  Finding the shopping bag, she took out what was inside and her eyes went wide as she looked up at the naked Safa standing against the wall, watching her open the present.  “A Home Karaoke Game?”

“They had all types of genres to go with it but I made sure to get 80s pop, 90s pop and Disney at the very least. There are a few other random genres in there that could be fun, like Rock classics, Metal… and I mean… It could be fun as a stay-at-home date night… At least once a week, if you want?”

Stef made a sort of swoon motion and pressed her hand to her chest.  “That’s so sweet.”

“Well, I know work will take a lot out of me and I don’t… I don’t want to neglect you…” 

Safa moved closer.  “You’re the light of my life.”

“Safia Nurita Mahl, you know all the sweet things to say.”

“Well, there is one other thing I need to confess.”

“What’s that?”

“I kind of did use one Disney lyric in my interview.   I did my best to stay with pop lyrics but I totally spaced on one question and just answered  ‘Hakuna Matata,’ and it made him laugh.  And I wonder if that was the deciding factor for why he decided to take the plunge on me. I saw a paw print tattoo on his collarbone because his shirt was unbuttoned in that classy,  attractive way that some people can pull off.  And well…  his hair is kind of golden like a lion, so ..”

Estefania smiled slowly, “Sneaky street rat…” she teased.

“Yes,” Safa replied with a giggle.  “But only for Runaway Princesses… who need a magic carpet to catch them when I kick them in the middle of the night.”

“Well, I kick you sometimes too. It's a mutual carpet.”

And then, at that moment, one of the mini panthers found the empty shopping bag and the two human lesbians watched and giggled in unison.  

Life, queer as it may be, with its highs and lows, really boils down to kicks and giggles… And deciding your own happily ever after by going the distance with the bare necessities. Around the riverbend, you’ll turn a sow’s ear of a life into a silk purse and leave a legacy that reminds those that follow of the sound of falling sand…