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This pillow. This pillow was where Marlene would live forever, where she would bury her face and scream for all eternity, because Dorcas was driving her insane.
More specifically, Dorcas’s lips were driving her insane, because why did Dorcas have to do that and this and that with her lips all the time?! The lip-point, a common gesture in many cultures, typically attributed to Southeast Asia, South America, Africa, Oceania… it made sense, of course – it was a gesture that Dorcas was raised with, except it made Marlene look at Dorcas’s lips, and then Marlene couldn’t stop looking, because she was a creep!
The problem was Marlene. Actually, not Marlene, just the small section of her brain that seemed to think Dorcas was the most attractive thing in existence, which was quite factually true, so Marlene couldn’t argue with it, but she was supposed to keep it to herself! Not start staring at Dorcas’s pouting lips whenever she pointed to something with them!
Marlene was about to start crying into this pillow.
She breathed into it, thought about how Dorcas’s lips were very pillowy—
No, but when Dorcas pointed with them, it was like she was kissing the air. Her lips were a soft, pillowy cloud of pink, like burgundy candy floss, and it was a blessing to be pointed at by them. They were a symbol of intimacy, so when Dorcas turned her head and subtly gestured her lips towards something, she was showering it with love, like butterfly kisses, fluttering from the cusps of opening flowers, seeing the world through rose gold tinted glasses, a warm, hazy state of easy love.
Marlene wished Dorcas would point at her with her lips.
Head still in the pillow, she heard the door open.
“Hi,” Dorcas greeted, and Marlene immediately lifted her head to see Dorcas smiling. (With her lips.) (Because people smiled with their lips.) (Be normal, Marlene.)
“Hi!” Marlene beamed, and, Fuck me, my voice was so high-pitched.
Dorcas’s lips twitched in amusement. (Why, lips?! Stupid, stupid lips. Marlene needed to stop looking.)
“We were looking for you, I wanted you to see this cool rune we found in the common room.” Dorcas turned her head (and gave Marlene a glorious view of her side-profile), and gestured with her lips to the common room, and that was a pout Marlene really wanted to kiss, and also, her brain should shut up.
Think about something else instead, like… lip-pointing was very respectful, when one thought about it, because it was considered rude to point fingers, but with a little tilt of the chin and a quirk of the lips, people could still point out what they wanted to, and it’d be softer and warmer, because they’d be pointing with their lips, like how Dorcas did, with her pretty pouting lips—
Marlene’s eyes had been glued to Dorcas’s lips for way too long. A flush seeped into her cheeks, and with painful awkwardness, she pulled her gaze upwards in order to gauge the expression on Dorcas’s face.
Dorcas also looked frozen. They were both locked in a heavy stare, the air around them too hot for comfort and too hot to breathe. To compensate for the sudden lack of oxygen, Marlene’s heart was trying to beat itself into cardiac arrest. “Um,” she said, and, Fuck me, why does my voice sound so breathless?
The sound seemed to bring Dorcas to life, and she stepped forward, until she was standing over Marlene, and they were still staring at each other. The trusty pillow was in Marlene’s hands, but she was losing her grip on it.
It fell to the floor, landing on Dorcas’s feet, and Marlene looked down, but Dorcas put a warm hand on her chin and brought her gaze back up. Everything was so warm, hot and dry as if they’d been a desert for days without water. Dorcas licked her bottom lip, and there it was, a strip of water, shiny like the oasis where Marlene would live forever, burying her face into it. Suddenly, she was surging forward, crashing into Dorcas’s mouth like breaking the surface of a lake, drinking from it as if she’d die from dehydration if she stopped. Dorcas was drinking from her, too.
As in, Dorcas was kissing her back. Kissing her back? It felt as though they were drinking from each other. Whatever it was, Marlene was officially an addict. She gladly succumbed to her fate.