Pairing: Magda/Tilda
Rating: E

Disclaimer: All characters herein are the property of Terry Pratchett, to whom I sincerely apologise for this (well, fairly sincerely). The idea of Tonker and Lofty moving to Ankh-Morpork to become (unlicensed) thieves is, of course, hyel's, although if there were any justice in the world it would be canon. The title, incidentally, is from Patti Smith's fantastic and glorious (har har, the wit rears its head again) song from the album Horses (the song itself adapted from Van Morrison's song of the same name, although Patti's is better, as there are plausible lesbians).
Summary: Tonker is damn proud. Lofty turns the tables. Tonker is . . . still proud, but less articulate about it.
Note: In response to the May 2007 "Freedom" prompt at cheesemongers. My first true PWP, and it's nearly a songfic. *headdesk* Only for you, my dearest, and on that note -- the happiest of birthdays to El (oh, my wit is overwhelming). ALSO: This might be considered a prequel (???) to a multi-part story I'm currently writing, which also involved T&L as unlicensed thieves . . . although the story I speak of has an actual plot, unlike this one. *cough*
Warnings: Warnings: Spoilers, as usual. (Ho hum.) Also: explicit ladysex! Tablesex! Lesbian content! Bodily fluids! Role-reversal (and why has this never occurred to me before?)! Okay? Good. Carry on.

Gloria
by Daughters of Isis

     We rush into our tiny apartment, arms filled, mouths open wide, breathing hard and grinning harder. We are reclaiming our childhood one bad deed at a time, shouting at old women who scout from their windows, feeding and petting the stray dog on the street with one lonely ear and a quick tongue, and happily teasing and begging from coppers, flicking our patent smiles through dusty locks. Lofty discovered it first, and taught me--the trick where you bend your knees and pinch your cheeks and suddenly look years younger. You can't tell where a person lives from her face, and you can't tell if she's saving up for a life on Nob Hill. Not that we are--oh, no. We like life at the foot of it.
     
      Well . . . perhaps the knee.
     
      Today we're mere marks from serious, though. Our arms, overflowing with gems from Cunning Artificers (a glorious haunt, as absentminded inventors abound), are testament to our wildness and folly--we aren't in the Guild, you see, and everyone knows what happens to unlicensed thieves. In fact, this fate is so universally known that both no one and everyone can know of it at the same time.
     
      I dump my load on our tiny table, whirl around in our cramped kitchen, stub my toe on our our paper-thin wall. "We did it!" I crow through tearing eyes, and Lofty smiles at me, puts down her own armful, and swings on girl's feet over to me. She knows full well that I'll grab her and pull her close, and I do it, tenderly, just like always.
     
      "You were fantastic," I murmur into her ear, smelling her hair (an intriguing mixture of dust and soap) and tickling her neck with my lips.
     
      She sounds like she's trying not to smile when, after a pause, she replies, "I always am."
     
      "Of course you are."
     
      "Of course I am. . . ." She trails off. Her face, when she shifts and I catch a glimpse of it, reminds me of the insides of the clock we saw in Cunning Artificers, laid out on a table, the potential in the gears palpable in the air. Now, too, there is a change in the air. Outside, a little boy shouts a dirty little song that he probably learned from his father. Lofty tenses one shoulder, then the other; I snake one arm around her waist, tickling her stomach, and make my gradual way down. She cranes her neck back--
     
      And suddenly I find myself backed up with my hips against the table, leaning over backwards with Lofty's half-lidded eyes staring straight into mine. In my shock, I've let go of her, and she isn't touching me anywhere--but she is quite palpably there, and very, very close.
     
      "What are you doing?" she asks calmly, the tips of her fingers grazing my side.
     
      "I--well, I'm--you know what I'm--"
     
      "All right, then, let me rephrase. . . ." She contemplates my splayed-out body one section at a time, inspecting me--and then: "Why don't you sit down?"
     
      Before I can do more than open my mouth in confusion, I find myself crashing backwards onto the table. It's hard to take in: I am half-sitting, half-lying--on the table--with Lofty on top of me, breathing heavily and still conducting her visual inspection.
     
      Her eyes settle, after what seems like an eternity, on mine, and there's something very familiar there. She leans down until she is just inches from my face, her hair making a short, ragged curtain around us, her breasts flush on mine.
     
      "You're always so proud of me," she whispers, each word a puff of hot air scalding my already-swollen lips. "I love it. Want to--" And she's devouring my mouth now, kiss and breathe, kiss and breathe, forcing my lips open with her tongue before I can even register its explorations. She knows all of my weaknesses, though I don't remember telling her of them--running her fingernails over the tiny soft spot behind my ear, forcing my legs open with her knee and meeting my hips with a rough push of the leg as they rise to meet her. Every tiny noise I make, she swallows, then coaxes out another. She knows me so well. . . .
     
      "--want to make you prouder," she says into my lips, buzzing away at every nerve.
     
      I manage, "You want to--"
     
      She buries her head in my chest and nods, sending a hot tongue to explore the hidden territory under my collar.
     
      "But you've never--" I cry.
     
      "I never stole anything before today, but I was good." Lifting her head, she stares me down. "Wasn't I?" Her gaze, intense as ever, bores into me.
     
      I've become an expert at judging her moods, which very few people can do; she looks rather hurt. "You were amazing," I tell her soothingly, trying to ignore the tiny disappointed tickle in my belly as she slides backwards. "They would've caught me if it hadn't been for you, I know that--I didn't know you could run like that. We can do this easy, you're so good, I know we ca--ah!--"
     
      Tiny fingers petting and tickling in a very private place--I lock up and stare, mouth slightly open. I've always known she has nimble fingers, but how could she have undone my pants without my noticing? And now I look again and see her other hand, buried in her own breeches, working away in time with the hand in me, and the glassy look in her eyes, the grin on her face. She's watching me, drinking me in, circling and repeating everything that makes me gasp or bite my lip or roll my eyes just a bit in a tightly spiralling pattern, and every once in a while her eyes close, just for a second, and she breathes in, one shallow, ragged breath, and she starts in again with renewed vigor.
     
      When I reach up to her, finally realising that I'm lying paralysed while Lofty works alone, she snaps at my fingers. "Take the shirts off," she tells me, as her teeth clack shut on empty air. With ridiculously fumbling fingers that jerk at every fresh attack, I undo and remove them--hers first, because I want to see all of her as she she does to me things I've never even contemplated. We whine, one after the other, when she has to move her hands to shrug of the shirt. Her skin is flushed and perfect, and the ceiling above us swims into insignificance in the wake of her stare.
     
      She glances down, and without a word exchanged, I start untangling us from our pants. Considering how distracted I am, I make relatively short work of them, and then we are naked, on our only table, our one very rickety table. Suddenly this doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore. "We should go--" I whisper.
     
      She leans down, slo-o-owly, and digs her teeth into my shoulder with impossible precision. It really hurts. She never hurts me--and she's still touching me, going just fast enough to keep me up with her.
     
      "We," she tells me, as she trails hard kisses up and down my collarbone, "just did what no one else in this city is brave enough to do." She runs her palms down my side, caressing my hips, and nibbles gently between words. "You know why we got away with it?"
     
      "Tell me."
     
      "We got away with it," she says, "because we aren't afraid. Of anything." One hand sneaks up to grasp mine, squeezing out a rhythm as she runs her free fingers up in a slick line, not quite in the right place, but close enough that soon her fingers are wet and smooth as a wet tin roof. "We don't have anything to be afraid of. Not from some old rich men, not from some young nobs with sticks, not from dirty amateurs. I'm not afraid." She leans in, devours my mouth, and pinches gently at the slick skin between my legs. I moan--I can't help it--and turn my head away. "Are you afraid?" she murmurs.
     
      I look back. Smoke in her eyes. "No."
     
      "What do you want?" she says seriously. Both of her hands release me, one hovering just above my breast, the other just above my crotch.
     
      I lean up helplessly. "I don't want you to stop!" I hiss, wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me.
     
      "You want me to . . .?" Still she's not touching me. Strong girl. Hard girl. She's grinning. Enjoying this.
     
      She brushes against me, just for a second, and I can't help myself. I snake one arm between her legs and rake her, just once, with my fingertips. She groans, lowers her head for a moment, and then looks at me, half-questioning, half-annoyed.
     
      "Do what you want with me," I tell her fiercely, "just do it now!"
     
      She bares her teeth in a fearsome grin then, and, as if she's planned this all along, slowly presses the heel of her hand into me. Rubs. Rubs. Rubs. And I hold onto her thighs for dear life, biting my lip and breathing fast and hot through my nose. I would wonder how long she's been planning this if there was any blood left in my brain.
     
      "More?" she whispers. "More?"
     
      "Yes."
     
      I would be angry if it was anyone else. . . . I wouldn't be like this with anyone else. . . .
     
      She's leaning into me with all her weight, each push harder than the last, making almost undetectable circles, watching me the whole time. She's on her knees above me, and her legs are as wet as mine. I look, and I know her. I take her free hand in mine, dip it in, and bring it to my lips, because I know her and she's still watching, eyes wide. And, one finger at a time, I lick and suck and hold in my mouth the sea-salt and Lofty taste of her.
     
      She doesn't blink. I don't blink.
     
      With one final dig of her palm, she crawls up just enough to straddle the tops of my thighs, grab my elbows. Bewildered, I grasp hers, too, and she grins her approval. "Don't scream," she mouths, and, before I can wonder what this means, she starts to ride me.
     
      There are no words, just sensations. We are hard against each other, in perfect symmetry, and the heat never built faster. Her eyes are wild, her hair in her face; I want to brush it back, but I can't let go, can't can't can't, and I won't, so I just buck against her as she comes down to meet me, faster and faster and fast fast until--
     
      I don't black out. I want to. I really, honestly want to. But all I can do is lie there, dizzy and slowly relaxing, as Lofty dives in for a clinging kiss and her movements and breathing slow.
     
      For a moment it's quiet. Then:
     
      "I told you not to scream." She sounds almost amused.
     
      "I didn't!"
     
      "You did."
     
      "I did no such thing!"
     
      "You did." She presses a finger to my lips before I can protest again, her dark eyes hooded and laughing. "I can make you scream," she tells me, a smirk flitting across her face.
     
      All the blood that had been circulating elsewhere rises to my cheeks, and I look away. "Stop it," I mutter.
     
      "You really want me to? Anyway, there's no point stopping now." She nods significantly towards the window.
     
      Which is open.
     
      And the street is oddly quiet.
     
      I look up at her. She looks down at me. And we both start laughing like the world's about to end.
     
      ---
     
      It's not long before everyone knows us, or knows of us, rather. We've spread out from Cunning Articificers, mostly to temples and such, and we've moved somewhere new, with a bigger table. But we always take jewels, and Lofty's always in charge. She knows what she's doing.
     
      The downstairs neighbours, a celebate Omnian priest among them, know us, or think they do--not as Tonker and Lofty, the thieves responsible for the recent crime wave for which the Thieves' Guild is getting unbearable flak from the Patrician, but as Magda and Tilda, odd but sweet enough, even if they are . . . well. They invite us over for tea sometimes, and give us pamphlets, and try to coax us into throwing ourselves at various men, or trying to coax the men into throwing themselves at us. We're polite as warranted and rude as deserved, and we hold hands in public.
     
      And we never, ever close our windows--not even at night, nor during the winter. And when we wake up, we walk outside with a smile and a wave to our groggy-eyed friends from downstairs, and we laugh to ourselves at the way their eyes dilate when they see us, as memory replays everything they can't help but hear.
     
      And we save up those pamphlets, and in the winter, when the window's open and it's cold inside, Lofty burns them, one page at a time; and we fuck by the light of that fire.