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Story: Flogging Faith

“Yeah,” said Faith. “That was pretty freaking awesome.” She considered continuing to lie there, the silence between them comfortable. Comforting.

But she had one final surprise.

“Hey,” she said, jumping up, and then sitting heavily back down on the bed. “Got up too quickly,” Faith said.

“Oh, rainbow girl,” said Bex. “Come on, let’s get you some water.”

Faith padded after Bex back into the main room of the loft, Faith pantless, and Bex topless. They made a pair, the two of them.

Bex poured out a glass of water and stood over Faith to make sure she drank it.

“I can look after myself,” protested Faith, but Bex’s arched eyebrow implied otherwise.

“What was so urgent that you had to jump out from our bed anyway?” asked Bex.

“I had an idea,” said Faith. “Just a small one. One last surprise.”

“Go on then,” said Bex.

“I’d like to make you feel like art,” she said. “Not by flogging you—I think we both know that isn’t really my forte—but by photographing you.”

“Where?” asked Bex. She didn’t seem enthusiastic, but she wasn’t shutting down the idea either.

“Here,” said Faith. “Here in our—your—home.”

“Our home,” said Bex. “You want it to be our home?”

This wasn’t at all where Faith had envisioned this conversation going, and she really wasn’t entirely certain what to make of it. She’d planned on talking about sexy photos against the window, the setting sun in the background. And by her calculations, she didn’t have much time to capture it.

“Faith?”

“Yes, of course I do,” she blurted out. “Of course I want to stay here with you and never leave. You’re amazing. Who wouldn’t want to? But right now I need you to get undressed and stand by the window so that I can take the perfect photo.”

Bex didn’t argue, didn’t push her point, just stepped out of her pants and walked toward the window. “Where do you want me?”

Faith scampered over and shifted Bex’s position so that she was looking out across the city. “There, just like that.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Bex’s shoulder, felt the other woman shiver, and then stepped back.

The sun was just starting to set and the sky was magnificent. The colors painted Bex’s skin, just like she’d painted Faith’s, and the parallels took Faith’s breath away.

She got out her phone and started snapping, adjusting angles, moving to capture the scene.

And then Bex looked back over her shoulder, right down the camera lens, right at Faith.

“We’re home,” she said. Not Bex, not Faith, but the both of them. Faith’s heart lurched in her chest and her eyes filled with traitorous tears.

Here and now, the two of them. They were home.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re my home.”