A story told through femme lips

This is a story told through femme lips.

Chapter 1: Femme lips as confusion

As I attempted to respectfully put a $5 bill in the dancer’s garter – my desire locked tightly in my core so no one would be harmed – you snapped your head towards me, a spark of knowing flashing into your eye.

“You’re not straight!” You exclaimed above the music, the voices, the revelry of the bar.

The next thing I knew you had pounced on me.

Quite literally.

The music, voices, and clinking of glassware still surrounded us. The loud conversations of our boyfriends across from us the backdrop to what was now happening. I lay pinned in our booth seating, the black pleather of the seat sticking to the skin of my bare shoulder blades. Your mouth was on mine. Wet, ferocious, demanding. Your hands pinned mine down above my head.

My body was alight with so many things all at once.

Something deep in my gut unclenching at being seen – what a relief, this thing I have kept so wound up inside of me, not quite a secret, but not yet expressed, it’s real, it’s here, and others can see it.

The core of me – hard to access through the haze of intoxication – potentially sparks? Maybe feeling desire? This is what I’ve wanted for so long right? To be wanted, to be desired, to be kissed by another femme.

Another part of me tightening – reacting to the speed, the force of you – do I actually want it like this?

This drunk? This public? And with you?

Chapter 2: Femme lips as no

Why do you say yes when you mean no?

The reluctant kisses. The soft and gentle, do-you-actually-want-this kisses. You say yes, but your body tells me a different story.

We’re in my bed making out and I feel the rush of desire through my body as I assault you with my mouth, my lips, my tongue, caressing yours as I make my way from your lips to your neck and back up again. And it’s then that I notice a familiar sensation. You haven’t done anything different. No sudden flinch, no stopping, no pulling away – and yet, I don’t feel the fire in me mirrored in you.

“Do you want this?” I ask.

“Yes,” you say, but something feels slow, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

“I mean ya...just, you know...new person...nervousness.”

I sigh and sit back among the pillows. “That doesn’t sound like a yes.”

Why do we always say yes – so used to saying yes.

Chapter 3: Femme lips as softness

I’ve become sensitive to the nuances. The gentleness, the softness, the restraint. I’ve learned that sometimes they mean no, even if you flirt, even if sometimes you say yes.

Too many of us have learned the consequences of not flirting, not smiling, of saying no.

That’s why the kiss comes as a bold surprise. I’ve felt it all week. My desire I think – no maybe it is mutual – no maybe it’s not – better not to risk it. And then you look me up and down in my dental floss lingerie and red trench coat and I feel your eyes burn through me.

“Can I kiss you?” The words still surprise me even though your eyes are clear. The moment feels magical, us standing in the dark on a bridge, the trees around us, water flowing beneath us.

I’m still impressed by your boldness. The date that ensues. Inside a tent among towering redwood trees along the water. The tent walls are made only of screens and I feel like I am laying back in a bed made of ferns and moss, caressed by every bit of dappled afternoon sunlight.

Your boundaries are clear. What a gift. You want to make out, but nothing below the pants.

Long curtains of wavy blond hair enclose us as your lips meet mine. Body to body, breath to breath, I breathe you in. You grind on me, the white lace of your bralette sliding off your shoulder. The warmth and softness in your body surrounding me. I want to disappear into it. I want to hold it, hold me, meld into it all.

It all seems possible here beside the water, the sounds of it enveloping my senses as your body takes me deeper into softness, both yours and my own.

Chapter 4: Femme lips as desire

You pin me up against the movie theatre wall. Cheesy lesbian porn designed for straight men plays on the screen. Something deep inside me unravels at feeling your desire – so clear, so unabashed, expressed with care, but also intent.

The queer experience of being fingered in the club bathroom in my twenties I imagine I’ve missed out on flashes before me, now nearly forty, pinned against the theatre wall.

Your lips meet mine with fierce desire, nothing gentle about them, yet still soft, a question that is open to any answer but clearly knows which one it prefers. I’m only too happy to respond with what you desire, my tongue meeting yours, the warmth of your mouth melting into mine, your body pressed up against me, lava flowing from between my thighs.

My hands reach, grasping and groping all over your body. Also a question open to any answer but desiring only one: to touch you. You hear me loud and clear and reach up beneath your short jean skirt to rip your fishnets open at the crotch for me. I want you to have access to me – your actions tell me.

They are so clear.

Chapter 5: Femme lips as sanctuary

The take-me-home-after-work kiss.

We sit in a bar after work. While the structured part of our gig is over – all performative hotness and attraction to each other (not performative on my part) – you’ve invited some of the clients to the bar with us. I know you have an on-going financial arrangement with one of them. I’m more interested in you than the men, and have no interest in working more this evening. I start to show signs of being ready to leave.

You lean over and whisper in my ear: “Come home with me. I just don’t want him to know. I can leave shortly after you and meet you around the corner?” You pretend to be whispering about something else as you coyly eye your client across the table.

I’m taken aback. I had always thought the flirting was just professional, but apparently what I had been feeling for a while now was mutual. I whisper back my excitement as we discreetly make plans and I make my apologies and promises for next time to the men across from us in the booth.

I wait for only a short while around the corner, taking in the night sky above the city and pulling at the straps on my heels – so ready to take them off. You greet me warmly and we start the short walk to your apartment, the tone between us feeling no different than before, despite the fact that we have both now made it clear that we intend to have sex with each other. Not that we haven’t done that before – but never without being paid, without men watching.

This is the first time I’ve been inside your apartment. It’s a plush, princess paradise of femme comfort. The whole place seems to pulse with pinks, flowing fabrics, fluffy pillows, and sensual art of curvaceous women.

You don’t jump me, nor I you, even once we are inside. You are familiar with how it feels to arrive home after a long night of performing hotness and you don’t expect me to show up this way for you. You anticipate each need as you invite me into the shower with you, handing me a cotton pad covered in make-up remover, and a cozy pair of sweatpants to put on after we’ve finished.

You still haven’t touched me. First you feed me – pizza, water, electrolytes – do I need tea? Candy? Chocolate? You have literally any post-work treat I could desire. I sink into the comfort, the ease. I feel my shoulders lower a few inches as something in my belly gently unwinds – what a gift to have my needs anticipated. Your body language, tone, and words are clear: I can take off the mask now, yes you are attracted to me, yes you want me, but not the me that is curated, the sexuality designed for safety and financial profit.

You get it. With you there is no performance.

You invite me into your bedroom. The gentle pinks extend here, there is even a make-shift princess canopy above your bed. It’s not only the aesthetics, I swear the place even seems to smell sweet, like cotton candy. It’s then that I notice the vintage glass dishes of various candies laid out on your nightstand. I’ve definitely died and gone to femme heaven. We crawl into your bed and curl up, cozy under the warmth and softness of the cloud-like duvet.

Only then do you kiss me.

This is not a first kiss. No, we’ve kissed many times before, but never like this, never just for you and just for me. You swallow me whole with the warmth and comfort of your mouth. You wrap me up in the fullness of your thighs and breasts. Making out with you is like sinking into a pool of plush pillows – just a little wetter...and a lot hotter.

The epitome of comfort, ease, safety. It melts me.

These plump, wet, hot femme lips are a sanctuary unto themselves. I lean down to worship them with my mouth, my tongue. I take it all in with every cell of me as I continue to melt, surrendering fully to the holiness that is femme for femme desire.

Shannon Rose (she/her) is a queer bi-femme of white settler ancestry. Her people are from the lands now known as Poland, Ireland, England, and Germany. She lives on the lands of the Quw'utsun Hwulmuhw next to a creek in a cedar grove where she spends her time building community, dreaming, writing, and working as a counsellor and sex worker. She is a practitioner of animist and earth-based spiritual traditions. www.mugwortandroses.com

Insta: @mugwort.and.roses

Artwork credit: SH

SH film photography is a queer duo photography team working in 35mm and super 8 film. All of the profit earned in SH shoots are redistributed to Intimate Access, a local mutual aid network for swers on Vancouver Island.

Insta: @sh.film.photography

Bluesky: @sh-photography