Chapter Text
It was always a bad idea to drink with Francesca Bridgerton but Michaela Stirling could hardly say no to her, especially on such a wintry night.
Scotland was covered in a thick layer of snow that frosted the windows of Kilmartin house. Inside, it was warm enough with the fire going, but certainly some alcohol helped. Michaela was already buzzed and more careless with her words than usual. Which is why, she told herself later, she described their bottle as the ‘pinnacle of wines’.
“What do you mean?” Francesca said fast, her words slurring with the speed.
“I mean it is the best.” She spun the bottle, glancing at the label. “It came all the way from South Africa. I purchased it while sailing past the cape.”
They were sitting side by side on a silk-upholstered couch, facing the cracking fire.
“Oh, I got confused for a second there.” Francesca cleared her throat, caressing the ridges of her crystal glass. “I think I’ve become extra sensitive to the word pinnacle. Actually, I despise it.”
”Why on earth would you despise it?” Michaela placed the bottle on a table. “Because it is slightly inappropriate? It’s a euphemism anyway.”
”You hate euphemisms.”
“You’re right.” Michaela blinked, flattered that Francesca had remembered something as mundane as that, then took a short sip of her drink. “I do, but I don’t quite prefer saying paroxysm. Sounds too medical.”
A moment of comfortable silence passed between them, only broken by Francesca. “Don’t you sometimes think it is made up? That everyone might be pretending?”
Michaela shot her friend an absurd look. “How could you possibly say that when it—wait…don’t tell me you’ve never reached your pinnacle before.”
Francesca cringed, her shoulders rising and falling with a defeated shrug. “I guess not.”
“Francesca no…” Michaela frowned in an absurdly dramatic tone. “You are jesting.”
She shook her head morosely, eyes cast downward still. “I tried. I think…it is impossible for me.”
“I’m sure you have yet to try everything.” Michaela put her glass down. “How could it be—that’s awful. How can a girl go so long without experiencing a high like that—without reaching heaven?”
Francesca buried her face in her hand. “It does not matter now. It is not as if I am trying to be with child anytime soon. It definitely mattered a lot to me before, with John, but it is something of the past now.”
“Francesca, you still have more life to live.” She place a hand on her shoulder hoping to convey some comfort, truly feeling sorry for her friend’s absurd mentality. “You should not deny yourself of pleasure because you are a widow. In fact, you are more deserving of some self-indulgence now than ever.”
“I have no intention of remarrying and I do not want to be with another man for the rest of my life,” she said resolutely. Whenever Francesca made a conviction like that, she was absolutely certain of it.
“I don’t mean it like that.” Michaela chewed her lip. “I mean, you can always…pleasure yourself.”
“In what way?”
Once again, Michaela was taken back. Francesca was the one who had been married and intent to conceive but was surprisingly naive about certain things. Maybe it was because she’d rushed into it and it didn’t help that she’d gone and married a virgin either. Both of them—absolutely clueless. “Haven’t you ever touched yourself…inappropriately?”
Francesca’s face went scarlet. “No I—that’s—it’s not right.”
“And who told you that?”
“…I told myself.”
“And are you always so right about everything?”
Fancesca began to nod and Michaela burst out laughing. “Where’s your humility? Of course you’re not right about everything! And neither am I. You should feel free to love yourself and touch yourself whenever you please. Well, maybe not whenever, but you understand me.”
“You truly think I could achieve a pinnacle on my own?” She fiddled with her necklace, “Without a…”
“Without a penis? I can assure you that every pinnacle I have reached was without one,” she smirked deviously, “and I have had many.”
Francesca straightened her back, freshly alert. “Can you show me?”
“Show you?”
“Well, what I mean is to give me some instructions…” Francesca swirled her drink. “Maybe a written step by step guide?”
“You think you can solve this methodically like learning to play a new song but really, it’s more like solving a jigsaw.”
“So I can’t learn?”
“Of course you can, you’ve just got to use your intuition and do what feels right, because all of us are so different.”
“Michaela, I am not asking.” A foreboding darkness swept across Francesca’s features that sent chills down Michaela’s back. “I have already tried so much to no avail. I need you to guide me.”
Michaela gave a nervous laugh, picking her drink back up and tossing a gulp down her throat. She coughed. “I am absolutely terrible at getting things onto paper.”
“Then tell it to me.”
——-
That’s how the two ended up, two bottles of wine down, in Francesca’s bedroom. She’d moved to the room across the hall from Michaela, still distraught by the many memories held in the previous one.
“Are you comfortable?” Asked Michaela, lying on top of the covers and next to her. Francesca lay underneath, covered up to her shoulders. She was still very much dressed, thank god, but it was definately a precarious situation they were in.
Francesca’s nod felt like the safety switch of a gun being turned off, danger accelerating in the space around them as if an explosion was due anytime.
Michaela stared up at the vaulted ceiling, her hands chastely resting on her stomach as she thought of what she would be doing if she was alone with dangerous thoughts.
“Close your eyes.” Her voice was loud in the awfully quiet room, “Imagine the thing that makes you feel warm, tingly and hot. The thing that makes you burn.”
“I don’t know what that is.” Francesca confessed. She was all jittery since they’d laid down, but seemingly determined to see what she had put in motion to the end.
“You do,” Michaela insisted, “think harder. I am certain I know what it is.”
“You are?” Francesca whispered, still at a loss. She couldn’t conjure a single exciting image in mind but Michaela seemed so sure she had one that she could guess it. How presumptuous. It wasn’t like they knew each other all that well since returning to Scotland. Francesca knew she’d never let slip any sort of fantasy. She hadn’t even had one! Michaela must have been making assumptions. Or—could it possibly be that Michaela thought Francesca was thinking about her? That was hardly a logical conclusion but she flicked her eyes to the side. The woman had a smirk playing on her face, almost confirming Francesca’s theory. What would she even think about her—
All of a sudden, as if by force, a flurry of images of Michaela rushed through Francesca’s mind. They were memories, which should not have been so significant, if only they were not recalling the most scandalous of sights. In that moment, Francesca’s drunken and confused brain had decided to replay every instance where her gaze had landed on the curve of Michaela’s hips in a red dress, her bosom framed by blue, her glittering two-toned lips saying her name or a stray lock of hair that she wanted to brush behind her ear. Ceased by these memories, Francesca felt the tingles in her core, then a burning. Burning like she was on fire, like her very thoughts had sent her sex bursting into flames. A dangerous feeling, which she’d avoided every time it came. She felt like she was being punished for being so dirty.
“I don’t think I can do this.” She confessed in a panic. “I’m burning.”
“That’s exactly what you need.”
Francesca shook her head, scared. She squeezed her thighs together like she was used to doing around Michaela. Too used to. “It’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong is denying yourself of it any longer.” Michaela’s voice was firm and resolute. Reassuring. “Don’t you want to reach down…cool yourself off?”
“I do,” Francesca sighed trying to make sense of the patterns on the ceiling.
“Then do it. Follow my lead. Lift your dress, right above your thighs.” Michaela gave these instructions like she was telling Fran how to boil an egg. “You do not have to take your shorts off yet, just touch the satin where you need it most.”
A breath blew softly between Francesca’s lips as she followed the instructions. That’s what she loved. Clear orders. Being told exactly what to do. It was impossible to play a song out of thin air, what she needed were notes on paper, telling her fingers exactly which keys to press.
“Keep thinking about whatever you were thinking about. Keep it right there, at the forefront of your mind. Do not be afraid of being firmer with your fingers. You should see them as an…extinguisher.”
“No metaphors please.” Fracesca was surprised by just how breathless her voice sounded in the still room. How unravelled she already was! Maybe it was a bad idea to ask Michaela to do this with her but if Michaela hadn’t been right next to her, smelling lovely, filling her ears with her rich honey voice, Francesca doubted she would have been courageous enough to touch herself at all.
She rubbed herself unsurely, trying to make the itching burn go away. The satin was soft between her fingers, hot where it touched her skin and…wet. Usually, it took some time and help to form this natural lubrication but she was now doing it so effortlessly that she became more excited. She felt the thin fabric clinging to her the wetter she became, revealing the shape of her lips beneath.
Should she…Francesca didn’t want to ask so she lifted her hand as imperceptibly as possible and shoved it into the front of her shorts. Despite how warm her fingers were they felt frigid against her naked sex. She shivered at the sensation, not moving them quite yet but relishing the difference in temperature.
“Did you just—?”
“I did.” She blushed. “Was it too soon?”
“No no of course not. Like I said, follow your intuition.”
Some moment passed while Francesca tried to keep control of her breath, making timid strokes. “I’m not sure what to do now it’s not helping a lot, feeling around.”
“Might I suggest rubbing your clit?”
“My what?”
“The little button, at the top of your slit.” Michaela said like it was obvious. Everything was obvious to her wasn’t it? She seemed to hardly understand just how little Francesca had been told growing up. “It should feel quite hard right now.”
“I…”Francesca began unsurely then trailed off. “Is it supposed to be—.”
She whimpered. The sound was completely out of her control and extra loud in the quiet but she felt glad she’d at least found what Michaela was talking about. She rubbed at it again, a little harder and breathed harshly through her mouth.
“I take it you’ve found it?”
She nodded, then realising Michaela couldn’t see her nodding, chose not to respond verbally. She wasn’t sure if she could trust her own voice right now.
“What feels really good is if you rub it in circles.” Her friend suggested. “Feel free to try other…shapes, though.”
She couldn’t be certain but Michaela’s voice seemed to have taken more strain to it. There was a nervous shake to her words that made Francesca hotter.
She swallowed, pressing her lips together in case another embarrassing sound should want to leave them.
She wrestled with the most wonderful sensations, as if her body was being controlled by the tiny button, all the while stealing short glances to her teacher. The more she went on rubbing herself, the wetter she became, and her fingers coated in more fluid than she thought possible. Heat climbed up to her chest and face and rolled down her legs and to her toes. Every so often she’d hit the bundle of nerves just right that she’d have to squeeze her thighs tight, unable to handle it. Part of her wanted to disappear, hoping Michaela couldn’t hear the lewd, wet noises that she could, and at the same time she was hoping she did. The former was stronger though.
Closing her eyes, Michaela faded from the room, instead occupying the darkness behind Francesca’s eyelids. The memory reel played over and over. Francesca’s hips bucked. Her breath came and went. She heaved through gritted teeth. Her eyes tightened, forcing the images to stay longer. Michaela’s body, her face, her hair, her big doe eyes.
Then Francesca became afraid. Her body felt completely out of her control. Whatever was happening to her was automated and did not need much intervention. It wasn’t herself that sped up the pace of her fingers, torturing her clit, but someone more daring than her. Her other hand gripped the sheets desperately, holding on, doing nothing to silence the wail tunneling up her throat. Stars the colour of rainbows filled her vision and her back rose from the bed as if she was being exorcised.
Her fear got the better of her. She wanted out. “Michaela—ah! Ah! Mi-mmmmmmmm. Ahhhh” She cried out in a long high pitched moan.
Then she blacked out. The next thing she remembered was an excited face hovering above her’s, her breath coming back to her, a hesitation to withdraw her hand from her sensitive, twitching core and an immense sense of relief. There wasn’t a single point of tension in her whole body. Every muscle seemed to have been relaxed.
“You did it!” Michaela exclaimed, her brown eyes glittering.
“I did it.” Francesca smiled, exhausted and dazed.
“I knew it was possible,” Michaela continued. “I can’t believe you said you tried everything. That was hardly the start!”
A whole new world had opened up. Francesca hadn’t known there was a secret button that meant she didn’t have to be penetrated to feel good. And she felt amazing! More than amazing, she felt euphoric!
Then a sobering thought hit her, now that all the alcohol and excitement had dissipated from her body.
“I’m sorry I said your name.” She choked out. “It wasn’t my intention and if I made you uncomfortable I—.”
“Do not fret. I am so happy for you.” Michaela rose, sliding off the side of the bed. “I think I have already stayed too long. I should go.”
Francesca nodded, aware that her hand was still on her reawakening sex as Michaela smiled down at her. “Thank you. And goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Michaela pursed her lips, really studying Francesca’s face for a second, something intense passing between the two of them, before walking out of the room.
Francesca revitalised her fingers, determined to make that look she’d just received and Michaela’s retreating figure the subjects of her next pinnacle.