Archive of Our Own

So everyone's in Iowa for a day of great fanfare that turns into an eleventh-hour recruitment effort for the anti-Payne bandwagon thanks to a suspiciously seductive offer from a notoriously unstable Balkan nation, and despite the shambolic nature of past few weeks, alienating the people of Millbank is proving surprisingly difficult.

"I'm telling you," Sadie hisses, "I led that reporter straight to the story—I practically wrote the first paragraph—and she was still all, You have my word; my lips are sealed."

Katherine frowns. "And you're sure you got the right person? I would imagine there are quite a few Jeannettes in this town."

"Yes, I'm sure," Sadie replies a little hysterically. "She was writing in her little notebook about pies, because those are apparently more important than groundwater contaminants."

"I mean, they certainly taste better," Katherine quips, but she must sense that Sadie's only a couple of seconds away from melting down because she follows that up with, "Looks like my speech is about to take a sharp left turn into the perils of progress."

"That is literally," Sadie stresses, "our only hope."

"What do you think I should focus on? Religious diversity? Big-city liberals? Dispensaries on every corner? Ooh, antifa?"

"Honestly? All of it."

When Sadie's attempt to take a cleansing breath turns out more shuddery than intended, Katherine has the grace to look mildly concerned.

"Hey, the speech is at 3, right? So we have, what, half an hour to prep?"

Sadie glances at her watch. "Thirty-seven minutes, yeah."

"If the rest of this place is anything to go by, the Millbank town hall probably isn't a bustling hive of activity—what do you say we commandeer a room and bang this out?"

Something flutters wildly in Sadie's chest. "You mean the– um, the speech?"

"Sure," Katherine chirps breezily, then impales her with a discerning look.

--

Katherine does not mean the speech.

OK, technically she does for the first, like, five minutes, but then she drags Sadie into a bathroom without further preamble, so… there's that.

"What if," Sadie begins, unsure how Katherine will react to what she's about to posit or if she even has the right to posit it at all, "we go somewhere other than a bathroom? This is just, y'know, becoming a– a theme."

Katherine begins unbuttoning her blouse. "You mean this time or next time?"

Sadie's train of thought derails at that last part—at the implication that doing this again is a foregone conclusion—and although she's trying her best to remain coherent here, she's transfixed by the sight of Katherine's fingers nimbly freeing the last of the buttons from its fabric prison. "Um, whenever."

Katherine nods briskly. "I think I can make that happen."

Sadie takes a moment to let the dichotomy of all this settle in her brain, the way the businesslike back and forth of their exchange is thrown into sharp relief against the sight of Katherine's nipples jutting out from the creamy silk of her bra.

"You know, I learned that trick back at York," Katherine informs her in smoky tones, and Sadie's eyes snap up guiltily. Off Sadie's lack of response, she elaborates, "I'd tell people I needed to prep for my speech, then spend the next half-hour vaping to take the edge off."

"Mhm," Sadie contributes intelligently, unable to keep her gaze from dipping back down again, and Katherine chuckles throatily.

"You see something you want?" Off Sadie's nod, the older woman grins ferally. "Then what are you waiting for?"

Sadie reaches out almost reverently, trailing her fingertips across one of Katherine's breasts like she's supplicating in front of a particularly depraved altar of worship. Katherine's nipple stiffens at her touch, and she can feel her mouth water in anticipation of sealing her lips around it.

"Go ahead," Katherine encourages her, the invitation edged with impatience, and Sadie doesn't need to be told twice; when she dips her head to delicately close her teeth around the fabric-clad nub, Katherine's mouth falls open in a silent gasp.

At this point in their—well, whatever this is—Sadie's been here twice already, but the sensation of delving beneath Katherine's skirt and sinking her fingers into the burning-wet slickness between the other woman's legs is just as electrifying as it was the first time, the time that Katherine had her pressed up against a stall in the women's bathroom at the London Chop House.

Katherine spreads her legs wider as if to allay any lingering ambiguity surrounding what Sadie's expected to do here, and Sadie can't resist hiking up her skirt and rocking her hips against the other woman's thigh. Katherine's answering hiss serves as all the confirmation Sadie needs that the swirling arousal inside her has manifested into sodden-wet heat.

The feeling of Katherine's hand in her hair comes as a surprise, although not an unpleasant one. Sadie allows her head to be tilted at what Katherine deems an optimal angle, then flutters the tip of her tongue against Katherine's nipple before tracing a path of shaky kisses up to the other woman's neck.

"Careful," Katherine warns, her voice raspy, and Sadie doesn't know which she wants to do more—mar Katherine's skin or treat it with reverence. She dips her tongue into the hollow of Katherine's clavicle.

"I got this," Sadie murmurs, then easily slips three fingers into Katherine's cunt.

Katherine writhes, doing her best to draw Sadie deeper, and Sadie humors her to a point. After all, she has her own climax to think of—Katherine had made that crystal clear by defining the lack of payment associated with their executive bathroom tryst—and the same notion must occur to Katherine because she drops a hand to Sadie's lower back and guides her slow undulations.

If Sadie had the space in her mind to overthink right now, she'd probably be embarrassed by how quickly she unlocked this level of arousal within herself simply by bucking her hips into Katherine's thigh a few times, but at least Katherine's right here with her, moaning softly.

When she presses her thumb against Katherine's clit, the two of them make brilliantly electric eye contact for a second before Katherine's cunt spasms so strongly that her eyes go wide and unfocused, which in turn is enough to sweep Sadie over the edge. With a helpless keen, Sadie buries her face in Katherine's neck and inhales the sharp tang of the other woman's perfume.

--

Despite the fact that Sadie's whole body is vibrating and her thoughts feel like static, the reality of being pressed for time presents itself with a gnawing insistence in some far-flung recess of her mind. As she attempts to reacclimate herself to her surroundings, she gets the distinct impression that Katherine's thigh is just as soaked as her hand—and if the persistent twitches of Katherine's cunt around her fingers are anything to go by, Katherine's experiencing some not-insignificant aftershocks that she's honestly kind of proud of.

Katherine exhales slowly, sounding wrung-out and satisfied, and Sadie wants to live inside the way the noise makes her feel.

"You're shaking," Katherine observes wonderingly, tracing her thumb along the width of Sadie's lower back.

"We'd better–" Sadie stutters, stepping gingerly backward, and they regard each other searchingly for a moment before Katherine snaps back to professional mode and smooths her hair into place.

"Well, it's almost speech time. Think I can get any more mileage out of that joke about feeling buttered up?"

"I– no," Sadie admits frankly, envious of Katherine's startlingly swift recovery, but Katherine's either too stubborn or too busy rebuttoning to acknowledge her.