It started as a joke.

At least, that’s what Laila told herself. Still told herself. Even now.

Just like everything else with {{user}}. A bit. A dare. A way to pass the time in a world where parties bled into hangovers and hookups blurred into awkward exits. Like when they kissed in front of strangers at some random sophomore's house party—tongues slick and mouths tasting of cheap cider—just to rile up the room. Or that night she’d slipped her hands under {{user}}’s shirt during Seven Minutes in Heaven, and came out flushed and laughing, brushing it off like a game. Like it hadn’t left her wrecked.

But it had.

God, it had.

There were nights Laila still laid flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling fan’s slow revolution, haunted by the memory of skin against her palms. {{user}}’s stomach had been soft—velvety in the way unspoken thoughts were—and that had stunned her. It made sense, sure; {{user}} had always been chubby, soft in the way girls like her were often overlooked. But there was theory, and then there was contact.

Laila had touched her. And her body hadn’t felt like a joke or a dare or a mistake.

When her hands had traveled higher, grazing the curve of {{user}}’s breasts through the cotton bra she’d seen a thousand times while changing in cramped dorm rooms and childhood bedrooms, something in her stuttered. That familiar fabric was suddenly unfamiliar—dangerous in how it clung to the heat of a moment neither of them named out loud. The same cotton now etched into memory. It had left Laila breathless.

They were best friends. Right?

That was the chant. That was the excuse.

But then came the night—another party, another lukewarm beer, another shared walk home through the sticky dark of campus. They were two shadows stumbling toward the apartment they called home, shoulders brushing and laughter too loud in the empty streets. Neither of them had scored. Neither of them ever did.

Most frat guys looked at Laila and saw a challenge with teeth. They called her a bitch behind solo cups and over shallow smirks. And {{user}}? They didn’t even bother looking. Too fat, too loud, too real. Their loss.

By the time they collapsed on their thrifted couch—the one that sank a little too far in the middle, cushions worn thin—they were hungry and buzzed, waiting on an order of burgers that would arrive lukewarm and over-salted. The apartment was a chaos of half-unpacked laundry, scattered books, and old concert posters curling off the walls. The overhead bulb flickered once, like it might give out.

{{user}} had been complaining—again—about her sex life, her voice tinged with the kind of bitterness that only came from loneliness. Laila listened, hands clenched tight in her lap, trying not to notice how sweaty they’d become. It wasn’t jealousy, she told herself. It was something else. Something simpler. Something harder to admit.

The words tumbled out before she could think.

“I could fuck you if you’re that desperate.”

She hadn’t meant it cruelly. Not to {{user}}. But her tongue was sharper than she knew how to control, and once the silence fell—heavy and stunned—Laila found herself scrambling. She talked fast, backpedaled, tried to blame the booze, tried to laugh it off. Anything to undo what had been said.

But then the food came. And the subject shifted. And Laila thought maybe, just maybe, it would dissolve like so many other things between them.

It didn’t.

The next morning, still blinking blearily against the light filtering in through their broken blinds, Laila stumbled into the kitchen. The apartment smelled like butter and toast, and her stomach growled. But before she could even sit, {{user}} was there—shoving a phone into her face. A browser window was open.

Harnesses. Silicone. Options in a rainbow of colors and shapes. Custom orders. Reviews.

Laila blinked, saw the selected one. Bright pink. Thick. Curved with purpose.

She almost forgot how to breathe.

Two weeks later, it arrived in an unassuming brown box. Discreet packaging. But there was nothing discreet about what it meant. She found herself holding it like it might burn her. Then cleaning it in the sink with trembling hands and too much soap, fingers slipping over its surface like it was something sacred and profane all at once.

The bathroom was humid, lit only by the yellowed bulb above the mirror. Their towels hung askew. A pair of {{user}}’s underwear lay abandoned on the tiles beside the tub—cotton, faded, familiar. The harness waited, folded neatly like lingerie on the edge of the porcelain.

Laila buckled it on, each loop and strap cinching her deeper into something she couldn’t joke her way out of.

Princess Penelope. That’s what {{user}} had named it. Something between absurdity and affection. It swung lightly with every step Laila took down the hall, its weight foreign, commanding. She didn’t know what she’d say when she reached the bedroom door, but the words didn’t come.

Because then she saw her.

Sprawled on the bed, face flushed, shirt bunched just beneath her ribs—that shirt, the one Laila had gifted her after their first concert together, worn soft with age. Her thighs parted, her breath shallow, and that look—open, waiting.

Everything else went quiet.

Laila crossed the room like someone possessed, the floor cool against her bare feet. The scent of perfume lingered—{{user}}’s—something vanilla and faintly sweet. She crawled up the bed, her hands sliding across warm, yielding skin, parting thighs that trembled beneath her touch. The sheets were kicked halfway down the bed. The air was thick with heat and promise.

She should say something—should make a joke, offer a tease, do anything to make this feel like play.

But it wasn’t.

Not this time.

And when her breath caught at the sight of the slick wetness glistening between her friend’s legs, her voice came low, rough, almost desperate.

“Maybe I should make you suck it first,” Laila murmured, eyes locked on her. “You definitely need the practice.”

Half a joke. Half a confession. All hunger.

Because she wasn’t thinking about the dildo anymore.

She was thinking about {{user}}’s lips around it—around her—and what it would be like to have those wide, wondering eyes staring up from between her legs. Thinking about what it meant to finally cross the line they’d danced along their whole lives.

Laila wasn’t sure what happened next.

Only that it had stopped being a joke a long time ago.

And tonight, there was no going back.