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Author's Note: Picture used with permission from *lavonia on deviantart.

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Chapter 119
 

Jem Chapter 119

It’s a fun time actually packing everything up from the gig and leaving with all of the staff at the same time and despite the chill in the air fall’s my favorite time of year really. And it’s actually one of those nice fall nights after a really good time and the van feels perfect and toasty by the time we’re ready to go.

Rayne opens my door and I slip inside and we head out with the other’s doing our convoy thing all the way to our house.

You know I’m happy, like just plain happy and as me too and that’s a new experience. I mean I’ve been happy since being Angel and everything but this is a lot different. My hair and my make-up, my legs curled up on the seat my dress and nylons and the weight of rightness on my chest and Rayne and the girls and Dad and everything it’s just kind of right in this really rare way.

It’s one of those kinds of moments when you just have to reach over to the stereo and turn it up loud when a really great song comes on. Rayne smiles as she’s driving as I sing along to *Crazy Little thing called Love* By Queen and then we break into *Nothing But A Good time* By Poison all the rest of the way to then house.

Sometimes it’s just really fun to do that. I’ve only ever been able to do that since I became myself.

We stop and we all get out and we’re unloading and Molly’s with us and Carmen and Mike and Dad and the rest of the guys too as we’re doing our stuff the guys are doing the heavy lifting and getting everything back into the house and set back up and cleaning started.

I go and make a pot of coffee and put the kettle on for tea for myself wanting one instead of the coffee since I really don’t want to be up all night. I like both actually I’m not all that fussy when it comes to that stuff really. I think though honestly I think I like tea a little better because of the different ones seem so much more different than coffee and I can like cook with them.

And there’s just something about the smell of Earl Grey that I love even if I used to drink mostly the orange pekoe stuff from Tetley or Red Rose.

We break off from each other sort of doing our own things and I’m getting the tea and things ready and people are showering and I dig through the fridge and put out some of our leftovers from Thanksgiving into a few sandwiches for the guys. On homemade bread and I use chopped turkey and I take a little of the dressing and stuffing both and break it up with a fork and add some mayonnaise and a bit of salt and a good bunch of pepper and a little lettuce and take them out to the guys who are eating as they’re helping and just…

Dad, Uncle Mitch, Mike, Davey and Billy…five guys and Kimmie takes one and so does Carmen and a dozen half cut sandwiches are poof…gone.

But the smiles and the thumbs up from them as they’re eating and the hugs from Dad are so worth it.

I like that, even that whole girl and the guys thing. I know it’s maybe a stereotype but guys are hungry all the time it seems and it’s honestly something that I think that Mom would have been doing while we were doing this stuff if she was here.

They guys don’t stay too long except for Mike who shared a look with his dad and his dad did this reach to his back pocket and there was this Guylepathy thing between them and Mike actually turned red a little and it takes a few minutes for me to clue in I think about the whole thing.

It had to do about sex I think.

Well….Uncle Mitch is still Mike’s Dad and Mike and brook are having sex and there has to be something or has been something said about all of that and stuff. I mean like with Mike having protection for like.

Wow…okay it’s kinda a think about me that I’m not sure if I’ll really have to worry about with the damage and my condition maybe but at the same time Brook and Kim if her and max get together to do that stuff and they’re my sisters and it’s such a serious thing an a serious girl thing that it’s really making me think.

I mean it’s a whole different story from this side of things and I’ve never really thought about anything like that much but thinking about it now.

Its serious stuff and no wonder so many women take the whole relationship stuff pretty seriously and everything. Now I sort of see where Rayne was kind of coming from if she was going to be in the closet and facing down all of this.

I mean from what I got about her family there was a lot of anger about her being a lesbian but there was a lot of guilt tripping too to go along with it all and I’ve heard stuff and read stuff since being Angel that’s shown me stuff.

Like pressure to have sex, and even like not wanting to be gay so much that you don’t accept it yourself and sleep with the other sex…not the one that you are actually attracted to.

It’s pretty heavy stuff but at the same time I’m not too like distracted by it it’s just something I’m a lot more aware of living in female ground zero and everything. And then there’s Mike…too tempting a target to tease.

“So’d you get the ones that she likes?”

He chokes on the mouthful of sandwich he’s got and Molly yanks the laptop that was in front of him away. He sputters… “What?”

“Did you get the ones that she likes?”

Carmen leans over the couch and looks at him and she does that girl something’s fishy squinty eye thing. “You didn’t, you never even asked her.”

I jump in with… “What, well that’s rude.”

Mike looks helplessly at the guys and Billy just laughs at him. “Dude you’re so screwed.”

And Carmen goes… “Really Brook has a toy?”

Uncle Mitch starts to choke on his coffee.

Mike’s turning a whole new shade of red.

This is kind of fun.

Brooklyn comes in and she looks at all of us. “You can all go just screw the hell off what kind of stuff Mike and I do in the bedroom is OUR business.” She takes a drink of the mug of coffee in her hand and gives us all this look. “You Perverts.”

That just gets us all laughing and it’s that family kind of fun and friends stuff too and I see Molly actually sort of side eyeing Mike as she’s going to get a coffee herself. I go over and sort of just hang beside her. “You okay?”

“Yes, no you guys are still really so damned different that it freaks me out a little.”

“Really?”

She nods and does the cream and sugar thing. “You with Mr. Walker he…he takes you as an equal like and that’s just…”

“Just what?”

“You’re a girl, he’s a guy and he’s an older guy at that they don’t like tend to give us women folk that kind of respect but I’ve been watching and he like respects you. And then there’s Mike…and don’t get me wrong I like Mike for a guy he’s kind of above board with the not looking at my breasts and butt all the time or like saying shitty things and he..he didn’t get mad just now.”

I smile. “Well Mr. Walker and I have a pretty good understanding with each other and like before I really try and give serious respect.”

“But a man should respect you just as much as he does another guy.”

“And that’s the thing he is.”

“He is?”

“Yes, I’m not deferring to him or giving him respect first out of gender stuff Molly it’s age, experience that I’m deferring to. There’s a lot of people I don’t get because they think they’re owed respect with that who you have to give respect to give it.”

“But you have to give respect to get it.”

“No actually no one has to respect anyone, it’s awesome when they do but in the real world it’s just not automatic….not when you’re young and just starting out.”

She looks at me. “Uh-huh…well…I guess.”

I look back at her. “Molly I get it you have reasons and I’m not going to push on them. I’m not going to push you to work with or deal with people that trigger stuff for you either.”

She looks at me and she sighs. “Sorry Angel it’s just…it’s just a lot of the men in my life have been assholes and they’re been terrorizing assholes at that.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Molly looks at me and she shakes her head no. “No…not right now it’d just trigger me…and the last thing I really need is to go there.”

I nod and rub her shoulder. I sort of get it, it was bad, there were men involved and it could have been a lot of things too and not just one thing. I mean Carmen’s got to be holding back a lot of toxic traumatic stuff…and as cool as Dad and Mike and the guys are she’s absolutely right about knowing where her safety limits are.

Molly looks over to me and she actually leans on me a little and then she hugs me too. “You’re aces Angel you know that?”

I smile a little and give her a one armed hug back. “I’ve heard something kind of like a rumor to that effect. I’m not sure how true it really is, y’know celebrities and all the hype.”

She smiles at me a little.

I say. “See…there’s a smile, now how about we get back to putting our video stuff up and you can go and hang with your new girlfriend.”

She blushes. “Carmen’s not, I mean she’s never said…”

I bite my lip smile at her and I walk us both back over to the living room and to Carmen who smiles when she sees her and I pass Molly off to her and Carmen goes with it slipping her arm around her in my place and Molly has this expression between Eeep and yay.

Which is all kinds of awesome.

And I at least get to work in getting the video stuff online with our spots as we have them so far and even load the video of the mini-concert onto I-tunes too just in case someone wants to buy it to support the band.

I mean we post our videos for free but still it’s nice when people can and will download our stuff and all and it all helps. I don’t want us to be all about the money, if our fans are real fans then they download stuff to support us.

When we get all the stuff for the site up and everything I so would like to do stuff for the fans that do pay out for our things like that and just do something nice. That’ll be something that I’ll have to think about because I want us to be accessible without us having to go and say stuff like you only can see this if you buy this or so much of this. And honestly if people will want it they’ll buy it or they’ll pirate it so just being open access these days seems so less money-grabby.

But that doesn’t mean that we won’t sell things.

But the site first before all of the stuff for shipping and everything, I’m anticipating a really big headache maybe with all of that stuff. Maybe I’ll ask Josie about some of that stuff since she takes orders and everything with her printing business.

While I’m at that I’m looking into our payments from our I-tunes and every time I do it’s just impressive really I mean we’re not doing millions by far or anything but there’s enough there that I know what we’ll be doing with some of it…and we’ll still be able to get a bit of a payout for each of us.

And that’s going to have to wait until Tuesday since tomorrow’s the actual holiday and the banks will be closed and I want to do other banking along with that. Raine settles in behind me doing that sort of straddle thing and presses her breasts into my back which feels amazing and not just from the sexy stuff but just her own warmth and I kind of love the way she’s circling her arms around my waist and she slips her head over my shoulder.

I smile and do this sort of partial head backwards leaning nuzzle with her and smell her. I love to smell her. The smells of her perfume and her make-up and her most of all it’s one of those wonderful things to me and it kind of always makes me feel good.

“Are you going to be done soon?” She asks with this almost purr in my ear.

“Sort of I was just checkin….” Rayne’s nuzzling my ear and you ever have someone really do that? I mean a real sexy nuzzle? She’s using her nose and more importantly her lips, those ripe full soft sexy lips to trace the back edge of my ear…flick the earlobe with the earring just a little like it was a…and then she glides her lips over that light fuzzy bit of nape hair that you never find is sensitive yourself until someone else is playing with it.

“Checking….?” She purrs again…oh Tish…she’s using the French accent.

“Uhm…uhm…?” She just moved and moved enough that her breast slid across my back in a suggestive way.

“C’est Checkmate qui?”

“Uhm…yeah…I…you win.”

“Bon, viens avec moi chere.”

Rayne gets up and I quickly close the file and close the laptop and let her slip her fingers in with mine as she leads me away from everyone else and I just blush really, really red as I give everyone else a wave and we head upstairs.

She leads me to the bathroom and she has some of our things already there like our robes and towels and the like and she has a few tea candles here and there that she lights and then she turns the lights in the bathroom off and she pours some bath crystals into the tub and starts to run us a bath and turn on some music too….we have one of those portable stereo’s that has the plug in for an I-pod or an MP3 player.

She has her MP3 in and *Thinking of You* By Nora Jones starts to play.

I step up and reach over and turn the tap down so it’s really slow and then I reach out and I take her hands in mine and start to dance with her. No one leading, we’re both leading and following ti’s just sort of like this back and forth without like competing, moving like that. It’s a lot like the tides flowing in and out.

Then we’re slowing undressing each other and that’s just amazing, it’s stunning and breath taking that I get to be like that with Rayne and to see her and just how beautiful she is.

And getting undressed for me is actually very nice too, it’s yes a sort of toss up in me being the way that I am against the way that I want to really be. It’s a thing though that’s entirely different when you’re alone and facing that dysphoria and the damned mirror and when it’s someone that really loves you looking at you.

Touching you, fingers tracing over sensitive skin. Slipping off my bra and removing the inserts and I feel this strange and exciting feeling run through me as my nipples do this little crinkle and ache stiffen in the exposed air. I’ve nothing really there yet but with my condition actually and the hormones I’m on apparently something is working.

Rayne’s touch to them the way she cups the flesh there and pushes it up to sort of form a bit of a breast mound there makes me gasp and pant but in a light way, in a good way. My chest pushes towards her deeper into her touch as her thumb slides over the stiff little nipple making me shudder and this happy whine sound come out of somewhere in my throat.

Oh goddess so sensitive…and they hurt but it’s a good hurt…I can feel as she rolls her thumbs and massages with her hands the blood getting hotter and my pulse getting faster. It’s such a right feeling of pleasure too like it’s so new and yet it feels right like it’s not something good that’s new in the whole like alien sense of things but something that my body and my brain’s like waited for.

We step out of our things and into the tub and settle into it and we’re like sitting with me straddling her and touching more now and kissing and washing and my hands and mouth get busy touching and washing her and kissing her sweet lips and suckling her amazing breasts and feeling the softness and the feeling…they have a sensual weight to them when you’re making love.

I want that too, that feeling that she’s having the touch and heft and sighy-shiver that comes with a lover’s touch the possibility to show myself sensually as who I am by just being the way that I am when I want to be that way.

It’s so easy to lose myself in her and to discover myself all at the same time. There is this whole thing of just falling into Raine’s love that draws me in. she pulls me into her presence with her need and her loving and giving heart.

There’s this Dido song… *Who Makes You Feel.*

And as much as Rayne’s usually the one that instigates our encounters I’m the one that slips off of her to get to a better position as we’re kissing and touching and making love and dip my hand under the hot water and touch.

Gentle, gentle, gentle just feather touches.

First through her soft downy patch letting the anticipation be a thing and then stroking her mound just soft touches with the tips of my fingers and then I get closer just first touching her there and feeling her folds and then just these teasing slow strokes but on the outside edges and she (Gasps) loudly and there’s that deep “Nnnnn…aah…” and we kiss.

Break the kiss…nuzzle cheek to cheek…her fingers and thumb roll my nipples again with the ow…eff yes, yes so sensitive and it has me on that edge of making my eyelids flutter and my eyes roll in that good way and our faces sort of slide to one side of each other and there’s the graze of teeth on my neck, this sexy little gnaw.

I bite, gnaw, kiss back.

I feel the tightening of her pelvic muscles suddenly under my touch and the quivering pulses inside and the hot breathy “Angel, oh Angel…holy…”

And right at the same time her hands do one last roll and then skim over then ow, perfect, ow nipple feelings and sensations and then she pushes and cups me but it’s this squeeze of the pushing up into my not quite there’s but feeling like they’re there’s.

And its pressure and it’s me under her hands and it’s friction coming to rest and this squeeze that just seems to make these pleasureful blooms from those two small points of pleasure into these swells that race through the rest of my breasts and ripple through me until…

(Sex-Whine.) “Rayne, Rayne…oh…oh..ff..ff..Rayne…”

I’m just right behind her…and panting and we’re sort of between sweating from the heat and the sweating from the sex and then there’s the wet from the water and just…her hair is wet and slicked back and she has this amazing sultry and sexy look.

Then there’s more fevered kissing and I sink my fingers finally inside…and her mouth finally goes to my breasts and that feeling is so much more and so much different than her hands.

Her hand slips down and there’s soap…slickness…and…pressing to me and rubbing but in this gliding way.

……………………The bathwater gets cold and that’s the cue for us to drain it away and a quick blast and wash with the hot water from the shower to actually get clean…it’s fun washing each other…and having someone wash you back is very, very satisfying.

We get out but there’s more…and it’s the folding stool and the sink and this slow and careful washing of each other’s hair….leaning over, that look the sensuality of it and the intimacy of a lover shampooing your hair.

And not like washing but that whole thing with the slow lather and the scalp massage and the caring looks and kisses and grazes and sweetness, it’s flirty and it’s romantic and it’s really, really soothing too.

But when it’s my turn to do her’s and there’s that there and it might and it’d just…I slip on my panties the double set with the snugger ones under the regular ones and Rayne’s looking at me and she reaches out from where she’s sitting to take my hand after.

“You okay?”

I nod. “It’s just not something I just want hanging out y’know.”

She nods. “Was it me?”

I look at her. “Both but it was mostly me. I mean knowing that it’s not something that you’d want just sort of…flopping on you and stuff is kind of part of the my dysphoria stuff I guess I mean were it kind of comes into like with you and me.”

She thinks about it a few seconds and she nods. “Yeah, I get that I mean when we were making love it’s sort of a different mindset, it’s not so bad touching it because I’m way more into you than it but afterwards it’s kind of…well it kind of hits some off buttons.”

I nod. “Me too.”

She pulls me closer and then down into a kiss. “I’m sorry Ange.”

“Don’t be…I’m okay with it, it’s like this is part of the whole thing I get and get why and the dysphoria stuff kind of like makes sense.”

She nods and kisses me again. “You sure?”

Now that I’m covered and secure and stuff I’m actually okay and I nod with her kiss and then I straddle her and sit on her thighs and I kiss Rayne a lot, lot deeper and we get pretty busy doing that until I finally break it enough to run the hot water in the sink, and start doing her hair.

With lots of me there on her lap and kissing her while my fingers are through her hair and massaging and slipping down to suckle and pay more attention to her breasts.

I go lower still while we’re waiting for the conditioner to do its thing.

And I think I’m getting a lot better at doing this sort of thing.

Even after though there’s this brushing our teeth and stuff and the regular touches and clean up in the bathroom together there’s that lover’s closeness and that friendship thing too. Those smiles and the looks those little glides and touches. That whole thing of being so close you have shared personal space.

It’s dark and it’s sort of quiet and sort of not when we’re finally out of the bathroom and there’s music coming from all three of the other bedrooms and it’s not hard to hear Mike and Brooklyn making love and I think I hear Carmen and Molly who’s apparently sleeping over tonight and there’s the sound of Rush playing in Kimmie’s room and the flickering lights of her TV set from under the door and Dad and the others might have left.

I smile at Raine and we slip downstairs and check the doors and I clean up a bit of the stuff for the kitchen and beat together some egg-scramble mixture and put it in a bowl overnight and Rayne slipped down to the basement and slipped a load of wash on so it’s be done and ready tomorrow to hang outside.

We meet up maybe thirty minutes later and kiss and slip our hands into each other’s and just sort of have this silent dance together in the empty hall downstairs before we head upstairs and settle into bed with each other.

You know I thought when we started this living in the same room and being in the same bed I’d have trouble falling asleep.

It’s actually kind of the opposite. (Smiles and falls asleep.)