This is How We Change the World Ch. 03

"I've never really had any other jobs," Lyric said. "I'd... maybe try to find another coffee shop, but they'd want a reference and... and if I quit or got fired because of that, then..."

"Starting back at minimum wage, or worse. Under the table, part time." Maddy sniffed sharply, and her voice sounded a little rough. "That would be hard."

"New hardest thing," Lyric said, chuckling darkly. "Yaaay."

"How do you feel about it? Sex work? Like... it's one thing if it's your only choice, but... assuming you had one..."

"I actually do like it," she said, softly. "Parts of it. I wish that it wasn't so dangerous."

"That guy was twice my size," Maddy said. She ran her nails along Lyric's shoulder. "If I'd... If I'd come along with you, and I was there to help you... I couldn't stop someone like that. At his size? And that's just one of them."

"What I really worry about are the pimps."

"Ohh," Maddy said. "You mean..."

"I mean that if I get too... I'm afraid that someone will spot me doing my thing and feel like I'm eating their bread. I try to do different places, and not draw attention to myself, but I still worry. Pimps and cops."

Maddy leaned over her, snaking an arm around her and squeezing in a sideways motion that was second cousin to a hug. "Huh." They were silent for a minute, and then Maddy asked, "What parts do you like?"

"What?"

"You said you like parts of it. Of sex work. Which parts? I'm getting the impression it's not the thrill of getting caught."

Lyric chuckled. "No, not that. I like the attention, I like the feeling that I can arouse someone, and get them off. I like the way they look at me, and tell me I'm pretty." She took another deep breath, and let it out slowly. "I like the idea of sex work. The way behavior, and desire, and... upbringings and morals all come together to make these unique drives. Everyone has one. Everyone's is different. I think we don't... we don't let ourselves have that. We don't... we hide it, and we shouldn't have to. It should just be easy."

"You know... in a way, everything you just said... that's the psychological side of it."

Lyric nodded. "I've actually thought about trying to..." It was such a stupid idea. She bit her lip and shook her head.

"Trying to what?"

"Go to school. Study psychology, and sexuality. But that's like grad work stuff. I never even applied to start a bachelors. I don't have any money. About the best thing I can say for myself, right now, where I'm at, is that I'm not drowning in debt. I don't own much, but I also don't owe, and... and student loans?"

"Yeah... I never studied. I didn't have the money. My parents didn't believe in higher education, and when they died they didn't leave me much."

"What would you have studied?"

Maddy played with Lyric's hair when she thought. It felt amazing.

"I don't know," Maddy said. "Art? Art is pretty. I would have liked to look at some art. Amy went to business school. That seemed to work out okay for her."

"Does business make Amy happy?"

"You know," Maddy said, leaning her head back, "I honestly have no idea." She sighed, and added, "It makes her a lot of money. Amy is not a happy person. She's driven, and she's competitive, and she's... strong, but happy? No."

"That sounds miserable," Lyric said. "I don't want that for myself. I... I like working at the coffee shop. I don't know that I want to do it forever, but... I don't hate it. I don't... I don't see me leaving a big family behind, so... what's the point of making a lot of money, right?"

"I feel like we should be high for this," Maddy said, laughing.

"Tomorrow," Lyric said. "They wouldn't wear off before we've gotta be in tonight." Then she added, "My point is... like... I just need to earn enough money for me. Right now. Anything more than that starts to eat into my time and effort. I... I give work... I give them what I give them, and the rest of me is mine. Does that make sense?"

This time, Maddy said, "Yeah," and was quiet for a long time.

Lyric settled in next to her, scooting as close as possible. "I want the johns to be like that. They only get"—she spread her hands apart, and not very far—"this much of me. No more."

"I was actually thinking about that," Maddy said, voice sounding distant. "This guy at work, different customer, he wanted me to take some video on his phone, and... and it came out really good. I think I read something where indie filmmakers are sometimes just using their iPhones for everything. Or, almost everything."

Lyric laughed. "My phone is, like, eight years old."

"Mine isn't," Maddy said. "Mine is newer than that guy's was."

"Look at me, I'm so cool," Lyric aped. "I have a fancy phone."

Maddy booped her nose. "What I mean, is, you know... instead of going out there, and putting in a half hour of work, and getting paid by one guy, what if you... put in a half hour of work, and then sold that half hour to twenty guys. Or a hundred guys. And girls. And enbies."

"Are you talking about making porn again?"

"I think so?"

Lyric laid there on her side, and shifted so that her ear was on Maddy's thigh. She knew there was something she should have said right there. A really good line that brought their conversation, and their time together, into focus. She could feel it on the tip of her tongue. A mission statement. It was right there in the ether, in front of her. All she had to do was drag it into being. Speak it into existence.

She couldn't, though. It eluded her, and then the moment passed, and it just felt nice the way Maddy played with her hair. Her heavy-lidded eyes found the clock on the entertainment center. It was eight, and they had to be in at ten.

"Before I forget," Maddy said, interrupting her thought. "Would you be alright if I went to group with you? The... the other one? That's at the same time?"

Lyric nodded, but her thoughts refused to allow themselves to be sidetracked. "Do we have time before work?"

"Time for what," Maddy said, distantly.

Lyric pushed herself up, smiled, and arched her eyebrow.

"Oh." Her cheeks went from zero to sixty in under a second.

***

They were ten minutes late.

***

08 Feb 2023

The next evening when Lyric woke up, Maddy was already buzzing around in the kitchen. Lyric yawned, and scratched at her head as she sat up. Maddy must have heard the sound, because her bare feet slapping against the linoleum floor of the kitchen started moving very quickly, and then the door was opening.

"Hey," Maddy said, eyes wide as she came into the room. She had two mugs of coffee in her hand.

Lyric held her hands out in front of her, zombie style, and said, "Gimme."

Maddy passed her one, as she sat down on the edge of the bed, and leaned over to kiss Lyric's forehead, which was nice. "It might be a little strong. I was distracted."

"Already thinking about today?" Lyric said, smirking over the lip of the mug.

"Actually," Maddy said, very slowly, "I have a proposition for you."

This got Lyric's attention.

"Actually it's not so much a proposition as I really just want to give you something."

"Like, a birthday present?"

"Sorta. Unrelated question, when is your birthday?"

"Not soon," Lyric said, smirking again.

"Okay. Doesn't matter. I was gonna do this no matter what, unless you tell me no."

"You are amped up," Lyric said.

"I wanna buy you a laptop."

Lyric's arms went a little soft, and the mug settled on her lap. "What?"

"I mean, I know you have one. I've seen it. We've watched porn on it, but it's old. You couldn't do, like, video editing on it."

"You want to edit videos?"

"Actually, what I really want is to film."

"Film what?"

"You," Maddy said, laughing, "silly!"

"Film me doing wh-oooooooooh!"

"Yeah!"

Lyric took a sip, and said, "You were serious about that?"

"Deadly serious."

"You can't buy me a laptop," Lyric said, feeling quite sensible. "We don't know how to do any of that."

"And you need equipment to learn!" Maddy held out her palm, with two gummies on it. "We'll hit up a Best Buy, buy something, and be home before these kick in."

"No no no." Lyric leaned back, laying the mug on her night stand, and laughed when she couldn't sit back up because Maddy had pounced on her. "You can't just buy me a laptop! They're, like, thousands of dollars."

"I can afford that," she said, as she kissed a line along Lyric's collarbone. "It's a one time purchase."

"Come on. There has to be some other, less crazy solution."

Maddy sat up, frowning petulantly. She was straddling Lyric, and it was very distracting. "We have a spare laptop back at... the other apartment. It's mine, but I don't use it for much."

"Is it newer than mine?"

"Every other laptop in the world is newer than your laptop," Maddy said, smirking.

"It's going to hear you," Lyric hissed, hiding her smirk behind a tactically placed open hand. "Don't piss it off!"

"You're old," Maddy said, turning and shouting toward the kitchen and living room. They both giggled, and their upstairs neighbor thumped a broom handle on the floor. "You're old too!"

Somewhere in all that turning around, Lyric's cock got all nicely lined up along the length of Maddy's lips. She was slippery, and warm. Lyric couldn't tell if it was just her own thrashing around under Maddy or both of them, but she put her hand on Maddy's thigh. Caressing. "Can your laptop do video editing? I think it's hard."

"Not as hard as some other things," Maddy said, archly.

Lyric's hand slid inward, from the thigh to the hip, to the nexus of Maddy's incredible bush. "If we take these, can we get to your apartment and back before it kicks in?"

"I bet we might even have fifteen minutes to spare," Maddy said, popping hers into her mouth.

Lyric's thumb, tenderly nuzzling its way deeper and deeper, found its target, and Maddy gasped. And then they were racing. Maddy leaned forward, and Lyric reached down to grab herself, and then...

...and then she was inside... and they were staring at each other... and they were sharing the same air... and they were moving, slowly, together... and they were connected in a way that was hard for Lyric to stay present with.

It was hard, but she couldn't have let go if she tried. She stayed right there, right where she needed to be while Maddy rode her. Maddy's breasts hung from her chest, and Lyric grabbed both of them. She loved Maddy's breasts. Envy was also a part of it, but only a little part.

Maddy reached down, grabbing her own patch of pubic hair like she was trying to rip it out, and fingered herself feverishly. When she did, she squeezed, core muscles working overtime, and the squeezing was so good. Lyric was practically cross eyed, and it was all she could do to keep her legs and hips moving. Driving. Pushing. Aching to be just that little bit deeper.

Maddy came first. She'd already been so wet at the start that Lyric thought she might have been touching herself out in the kitchen before she woke up. When she did, she started to lose her balance, and Lyric rolled with her. Stayed between her legs. Stayed inside of her. Maddy's whole body went tense, and then loose...

...and Lyric started going again. Maddy's body moved, gently, under her. Swaying and bouncing with every push. Her red hair fanned out underneath her, across the sheets. Lyric grabbed Maddy's hips, to plant her in place, and lost herself in the waves. The rising and the falling.

***

Thirty minutes later, the two of them scurried out of her apartment, freshly showered and flush from another rushed encounter in the bathroom. Maddy's sleek wet body, in the shower, had just been too kissable.

***

The last fifteen minutes, on their way home, had been a little bit dicey. Maddy was very touchy-feely, and they were both very giggly. Lyric had been doing her masturbathons on gummies for so long that her body had developed a Pavlovian response, and she was incredibly horny. She and Maddy kept kissing on the subway, and she had to stop herself from trying to fondle her girlfriend the whole time. She did her best to keep it PG, though the two of them got more than a few stares.

Walking down the street had been a little easier because they had to focus on where they were going, but whenever a crosswalk had them waiting for more than ten seconds, they were making out. When they got back to her apartment, the prized laptop was almost an afterthought. They raced to disrobe, and Maddy got up on one of the kitchen stools, perched on the edge with her legs spread wide, so that Lyric could get right in front of her. They held each other so tightly, arms reaching all the way around. Legs squeezing her waist.

It was so hard to focus, and so easy to be touching Madalyn. Things were rarely easy for Lyric, so she latched onto those that were and didn't let go.

Lyric almost lasted as long as Maddy did. She hit her peak, rising up on the balls of her feet to bury herself, and was panting and trying to stay hard while Maddy played with herself to get her across the finish line. It was enough, if only barely, and she melted into Maddy's arms while the two of them caught their breath.

"Oh," Maddy said, tiredly. "Right. The laptop."

Lyric just blinked at her, and then burst out laughing. After a few seconds of them trying to disentangle from each other, made more difficult by Maddy constantly trying to make out with Lyric, and Lyric letting her, they started gathering things from around the apartment. Phones. Laptops. Water. Eventually, though, they made it to the bed. Laying on their bellies, side by side, while Maddy booted it up.

"I don't think it came with any editing software," Maddy said, sifting through the list of programs. "Lemme see." She did a bit of googling, and Lyric leaned against her. Let her head rest on Maddy's shoulder. "Some of these are free, it looks like."

Lyric had a lot of questions buzzing around under the surface, but for the time being she just watched.

Maddy set up a couple of downloads, moved her laptop to the floor, and rolled onto her side. "Okay. So."

"So," Lyric repeated, with mocking sternness.

"Tell me about videos. You've watched enough to have some idea of what you'd do, right?"

"Uh." Lyric just blinked for a moment. "Yeah. Okay. Um..." Lyric had some big brain thoughts about this, and they were in there somewhere, but she hadn't been ready for that. She was still coming down off the last one, so she rolled to match Maddy's body language and frowned. "I'd want to wear my breasts."

"Okay. So, partially clothed? For the seams?"

"Maybe," Lyric said, slowly. "I've got some bralettes that would cover the bottom, and are soft enough in the cup that.I can just pull them down."

"Never liked bralettes myself," Maddy said, "but I can see it for you. So, would you want to make stuff where you start off clothed and work your way toward naked? More staged setups, with some acting?"

"Yes," she said, firmly. "Sometimes."

"So, sometimes with some production value, and sometimes just fucking."

Lyric nodded, blushing, as her imagination started running.

"And would you want to work with other women? Trans women? Men? Trans men?"

"Yes," Lyric said, nodding more emphatically. "Topping and bottoming."

Maddy tilted her head. "What's that?"

She blushed. "Sometimes I'm the one doing the fucking, and sometimes I'm getting fucked."

Maddy's eyebrows rose. "Would you ever want me to use a strapon on you?"

Lyric's whole head felt hot with embarrassment, and she thought she must be beaming with the heat of a star with how hard she was blushing. She almost laughed it off, but...

"I'd love that."

"Oo, I'd totally love that too!"

Maddy was momentarily distracted from video making. She groped Lyric's ass and made her giggle, and just like that, all was fine. The pit of her stomach tingled at the thought.

"Too bad we don't have one now," Maddy said. "Or do we? What kind of sex toys do you have?"

"Not strapons," Lyric said and turned on her tummy so that Maddy had better access to her butt.

Maddy kissed her cheeks, then slowly up her spine, and Lyric was buzzing with happy hormones. Some of Maddy's hair had come loose and tickled. She shivered. Maddy kissed up and over the breast form's line, and Lyric thought she could almost feel the kisses like it really was her own skin.

Maddy reached for Lyric's ponytail and pulled it loose.

"Hey," Lyric protested.

"Mmh," Maddy said as if it explained anything, and stroked Lyric's hair. Arranging it. "Okay, check this out."

Lyric sat up reluctantly. Maddy was already moving, bursting into action and arranging pillows at the headrest. Positioning the bedside lamp, and rummaging Lyric's closet.

"Okay, here," Maddy said and patted at the pillows. Lyric scooted over to sit where she pointed. Maddy helped her put on a short sleeved button-down top, positioned her to lie back on the pillows, then knotted the hem of the shirt loosely over her tummy to cover the seam of the breast form.

"And then, yeah," Maddy muttered and went to get the choker Lyric had tossed on the bedside table. She fastened it with an adorably concentrated expression, then continued to position Lyric among the pillows. She arranged Lyric's hair to cover her face.

"Okay, now, stay put," Maddy said, searching for something.

Lyric felt like giggling. Then her nose itched. Then her cock stirred, when she watched Maddy bend over at the foot of the bed. Maddy's round, pale bottom. It was so distracting. She managed to mostly not move, and then Maddy was back, taking pictures with her phone. She came closer, and Lyric reached to touch her boob.

"I said stay put!"

Lyric pouted, lowering her hand to where it had been.

"Yes! That!" Maddy said excitedly.

Lyric didn't know what she meant, but then in a flash of red hair Maddy turned around and reached for the laptop again, transferring the pictures to it. She came to sit beside Lyric and showed them to her.

In the low light Lyric's skin looked smooth and unblemished. The light coming from the upper left illuminated the boobs delightfully, laying across the cleavage like warm butter, and Lyric's cock, laying half hard and still sticky from lovemaking, presented an enticing contrast. Her dark hair covered her face, which the lamp left in shadows in the first place, with only a hint of a nose and pouty lips visible.

"Ooo," Lyric said.

"That's hot," Maddy said. "I'd jerk off to that."

They collapsed in giggles.

"You can't jerk off!" Lyric protested.

"All the euphemisms for girls are stupid," Maddy said, grinning. "What do you think? Is this the image you want to portray? Or something naughtier? Or something sweeter, like a schoolgirl thing? You know, you could pull off either of those."

Lyric was still looking at the picture. She had tried taking photographs of herself before, and even videos, but it was difficult to do alone and she could also see how Maddy had a much better eye for composition and lighting than she did herself. This could really be something. She could see how this could really be something. She felt something growing inside her, excitement or anticipation or something. Ambition, maybe?

"And you need a moniker," Maddy said. "Would it be the same you use while hooking? What was that, Renna?"

"No... I mean, yes, Renna is correct, but no, that won't be it. I want something else for this. I need another layer. Like, an avatar name that's clearly an avatar, like... I dunno, but then behind that my name is Renna."

"Okay!" Maddy said brightly. "How about..." She tilted her head to the side, looking Lyric up and down. "Isabella Lollipop."

"Whaa-a-at?" Lyric laughed, voice rising.