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The smoke detector went off, bringing Enid back to reality. She turned off the stove cursing at her burnt eggs as she threw them away.
She wasn’t even hungry anymore so she reached for a tea instead.
Her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter and she immediately grabbed it, hoping it was her…
Agnes’s old message was still sitting there, unanswered for the thirty-first morning in a row.
She set the mug down harder than she meant to. The handle cracked against the counter.
She stopped counting after day 27 because it was driving her insane.
It had all started with Agnes texting her one autumn morning.
“Hey, I’ve been trying to reach Wednesday but she’s not picking up. Can you tell her her flight to Prague gets in Thursday morning. I’ve also sent the check-in and residency details to her email in case she needs them.”
Enid stared at the message while holding a spoon over her tea, rereading it one more time, still shocked at the news.
“Her flight?” Enid frowned, looking towards the living room.
Wednesday was sitting on the sofa with a book open in her lap, posture relaxed and unknowing.
“Wednesday?” Enid asked, quietly.
Wednesday turned a page without looking up. “Hmm?”
“When were you planning on telling me you were going to…” Enid glanced at her phone again, “Prague?”
Wednesday’s hand froze, knuckles tightening around the sides of the book she was reading which was answer enough.
Enid laughed in frustration. “Oh, wow.”
Wednesday closed the book. “It is a three-month archival residency. I was going to tell you.”
“When?” Enid huffed.
Wednesday’s expression remained perfectly composed.
Enid knew that expression. “When you were already there?”
“That was not my intention.” Wednesday replied coolly.
“Right.” Enid folded her arms. “So when exactly were you planning to tell your girlfriend that you were moving to another country for three months?”
Wednesday stood up, “I am not moving. It is temporary.”
Enid rubbed her temple, “That is not the part I am upset about.”
Wednesday studied her carefully now. Enid could see it, she was searching for the right thing to say or something that would end the conversation the fastest and that made things 10 times worse.
“You did it again.” Enid said, exasperated.
Wednesday frowned. “Did what?”
“Made the decision first.” Enid’s voice cracked slightly. “You always do that.”
“I thought you would understand.” Wednesday answered.
“You know what? I do.” She wiped the corner of her eye quickly before Wednesday could notice. “You decide what’s best. You decide what you can handle alone. You decide what I’m supposed to handle and then you tell me after it happened.”
Wednesday took a step closer. “I did not tell you because I knew you would worry.”
Enid stared at her. “Exactly.”
Something flickered across Wednesday’s face. “I do not understand.”
“I know.” Enid looked away. “That’s the problem.”
For once, Wednesday had no immediate response.
The apartment suddenly felt much too small.
Three months in Prague archiving rare books and restricted notes and whatever other strange thing had managed to capture Wednesday’s attention this time.
Enid should have been excited for her. She probably would have been, if she had heard about it from Wednesday instead of finding out like this.
“I just…” She swallowed. “I need to know that we’re actually a pack.”
Wednesday went completely still, a cold shiver ran down her spine.
Enid regretted saying it the second it left her mouth, because Wednesday heard things differently when she was upset. She didn’t understand Please reassure me. She heard You’re going to leave me. And Enid knew that look Wednesday was giving her.
“Wednesday…I…” Enid reached for her arm but she recoiled.
“I understand.” She replied, dryly.
“No. You don’t.” Enid took a step closer, “Please don’t do the thing again.”
Wednesday’s eyes narrowed. “What thing?”
Enid sighed, “Turning one sentence into a reason to disappear.”
Wednesday’s jaw tightened and neither of them moved.
Then Wednesday looked at her. “If my absence frightens you this much, perhaps I should make it easier.”
Enid’s stomach dropped, her eyes going wide in shock. “Wednesday, please don’t.”
Wednesday’s expression barely changed, but Enid had known her for years. She saw the tiny shift in her brows, the way her fingers curled against her palms as she glanced toward the door.
“Wednesday.” She whispered.
“I shall go.” She replied as an ultimatum.
“This isn’t how I meant for this to go.” Enid pleaded.
“I know.” She replied, lowering her head.
Wednesday thought she was doing what was best for them, leaving first meant Enid wouldn’t feel abandoned later…
She slept in the living room that night and by morning, Wednesday was gone leaving behind a folded piece of paper on the kitchen counter.
Enid came out of their bedroom, puffy-eyed, hair messy. The living room was empty and the blankets were folded neatly on the edge of the couch. She thought Wednesday might have gone to her favorite bakery down the street, so she decided to start making Wednesday’s coffee.
When she stepped into the kitchen she saw the note and her heart raced. She reached for it with a trembling hand, opening it with caution.
You should not have to fear my absence. I am removing the reason for that fear.
Yours, W.A.
Enid read it twice. Blood pumping loudly in her ears. Her world suddenly felt like it was shattering around her. She slid down the kitchen wall, hand over her mouth, and cried silently…
…
31 days later, she was still in the same apartment. The one with the ridiculous number of throw pillows Wednesday always pretended to hate, the blackout curtains Enid had bought so Wednesday could sleep after long days. The sheets hadn’t been changed. She couldn’t bring herself to erase the last trace of Wednesday’s scent.
Some nights she still reached across the mattress for a body that wasn’t there, pressing her face into the pillow until the faint ghost of Wednesday filled her lungs.
Tonight her absence felt sharper. Every small sound in the apartment was wrong without the steady rhythm of Wednesday’s breathing beside her. Enid stayed on her own side for maybe 20 minutes before instinct dragged her across. She curled on Wednesday’s half of the bed breathing carefully, like the scent might vanish if she got greedy yet it wasn’t enough...
Her mind drifted without permission to Wednesday’s softer presence on the couch while Enid ranted about her day. She remembered the way she listened without looking up from her book and still somehow caught every word with that soft almost-smile that only ever showed up when she thought Enid wasn’t watching. She squeezed the pillow tighter against her body, sniffling into it. She missed the solid, familiar weight of Wednesday pressed along her back in the middle of the night, one arm locked around her waist like she was something she refused to lose even in sleep.
Her memory drifted further, to more intimate ones she was trying to avoid. Her body still remembered the exact pressure of Wednesday’s fingers, the way she would stretch her open and hold her there until she was shaking and incoherent, watching every twitch like unraveling Enid was something she intended to master completely.
A month hadn’t erased any of it, just made the memories crueler.
The ache under her skin had been persistently building for days, and tonight, lying there in the dark, breathing in what little remained, it finally refused to be ignored…
She reached for the black toy in the nightstand with trembling hands. She told herself she wouldn’t but the need between her legs disagreed.
She turned it on and pressed it against her clit first, just to feel something. The soft vibration made her hips twitch. She was surprisingly, already wet; the first drag of the toy through her folds made her moan softly.
Pleasure burned low in her belly. She slid the toy lower, teasing her entrance, eyes shut as she pushed the tip inside with a shaky exhale.
It wasn’t enough without Wednesday’s hands to guide it or without the weight of her body on top of hers. Still, Enid worked it deeper in slow strokes that made her thighs tremble, her free hand fisting in the sheets on Wednesday’s side of the bed. Soft, needy noises filled the room. She whispered Wednesday’s name under her breath as she pumped the toy in and out.
…
Halfway across the world, Wednesday’s head snapped up from the manuscript she’d been reading for over an hour.
The feeling was immediate and raw, like a low, insistent pull behind her ribs. That same intense certainty that used to wake her at 3 in the morning when Enid was restless in Nevermore’s lupin cages. Enid needed her.
The vibration of an incoming notification confirmed her gut feeling. Enid was touching herself, thinking about her hard enough that their unbreakable bond lit up like a live wire.
Wednesday sat up stiffly and set the manuscript aside. She hadn’t touched her phone in several days. Not since the last time Enid’s name had appeared and she forced herself to lock the screen without answering. A month of forced silence, telling herself that clean breaks were kinder. Although she regretted her choice on the nights she woke up reaching for someone who wasn’t there and then lying awake punishing herself for her moment of weakness…
She unlocked her phone and only 1 notification waited: Device active.
Temptation had never been a problem for Wednesday. It was something she could always control. Yet this pull was beyond her, tiptoeing somewhere between curiosity and longing.
She opened the app and the interface loaded with the design she had gotten used to these past years with Enid. Their modern torture device she called it. The one they sometimes used when they went out just to test how long Enid could keep her composure…
Now the soft blue pulse told her the toy was already in use, most likely already inside Enid in the sanctuary of their bed. Wednesday could feel the echo of it under her own skin, the same shivers she used to draw out with her hands.
Her thumb hovered over the intensity slider. She could close the app and put the phone face-down giving Enid the privacy she was seeking. Instead she dragged the intensity higher and then higher still…
Enid cried out so hard the sound cracked in her throat. The sudden surge made her back arch off the mattress as the toy pulsed deep inside her, stronger and perfectly timed to the exact rhythm Wednesday always used when she wanted her desperate.
“Wednesday…” She moaned, scrambling for her phone with a shaking hand. She hit call before she could talk herself out of it.
Wednesday answered on the second ring. “Enid.” Her voice was perfectly even, but Enid heard the faint catch underneath and the way Wednesday’s breath had immediately changed.
“You…ah, fuck…” Enid’s voice broke on a moan as Wednesday nudged the intensity again, forcing the toy to grind against her sensitive walls. “You still have it linked.”
“Apparently.” She replied, dryly.
“I didn’t…I wasn’t trying to…” Another adjustment, higher this time, and Enid’s free hand flew down to press the base of the toy harder against herself. “Wednesday…”
“You are using it, thinking about me.” Wednesday’s voice was low. “Even after a month. Pleasuring yourself on that toy and pretending it is me.”
Enid chuckled, breathless and a little broken. “Yeah. Stupid, right? God, I’m so fucking lost without you. It doesn’t feel right. Nothing does…”
The line went silent for a moment. Then Wednesday spoke again, huskier. “Keep going. Let me hear you.”
Enid obeyed. She slid the toy in and out of her needy hole, dragging it slowly against her walls while Wednesday controlled every surge and cruel little increase that kept her right on the edge.
Unrestrained, loud, filthy sounds filled Wednesday’s ear. “Fuck… it’s not enough,” Enid gasped, hips jerking as Wednesday turned the intensity higher. “Your fingers…used to stretch me so much better…ah!”
The toy pulsed hard and steady, eliciting broken moans and the headboard to slam against the opposing wall as Enid’s back arched.
“Been aching for weeks,” she managed, voice wrecked. “Nothing else…calms me. Just empty. Need you…need your hands, the way you…hold me…”
Another precise adjustment and Enid’s thighs shook. “Wednesday…please…feels so good but it’s not you!”
She was past coherent sentences now. Just loud, filthy sounds and half-formed pleas as Wednesday kept her right on the edge, refusing to let her fall.
“Wednesday, I…I miss you! God, I need you, I can’t…I’ve been so lost without you…” Enid cried into the phone.
Wednesday’s breath hitched sharply. The app pulsed faster and less controlled. Under the composed silence Enid heard it, the soft, almost imperceptible huff of breath. “Enid…” And a second later, lower, strained, like the word had been dragged out of her against her will: “…fuck.”
Enid’s eyes flew open. She knew that sound. Knew what it meant when Wednesday’s perfect control frayed.
“You’re touching yourself,” Enid whispered, wrecked but certain. “Aren’t you. You’re touching yourself to me.”
Wednesday didn’t deny it. Her breathing had gone uneven, heavy and no longer hidden. Enid could hear the faint wet sound of fingers moving, the strain in Wednesday’s throat as she rubbed herself hard on the other side of the world. “Yes.”
That single word undid something in Enid. She flipped onto her stomach, using the bed as leverage and began to rock her hips, pushing the toy deeper and let her voice go low and flirty the way she used to when she wanted Wednesday to break.
“G-good…keep going,” she gasped, voice shaking as the toy pulsed hard inside her. “I wanna hear you. Put your fingers inside yourself for me…right now.” She ordered, moaning, eyes rolling back. “Think about how I used to sink my strap deep into you until you came all over it… ‘cause I am.” She moaned, humping the bed harder. “Fuck, I’m so wet for you it hurts. Don’t you dare stop, Wednesday.”
Wednesday exhaled as the wet sounds on her end grew louder. Enid could picture it perfectly, Wednesday in some fancy hotel room, black nightgown pushed up around her hips, two fingers buried inside herself while she listened to Enid fall apart in the same ruthless way she always touched herself when she wanted to tease Enid with a show.
“That’s it…” Enid whispered, voice shaking hard as her own orgasm started to crest. “Fuck yourself for me. I know…how you get when you’re close. All breathy and tense…until you can’t hold it anymore.” She let out a desperate, needy moan. “Let me hear you. Please…”
Wednesday finally caved.
“Ah…Good girl,” she rasped, the words rough and husky as her own release started to pull her under. “That is…my good girl. Coming for me even when I am not there. Taking what I give you…” Her breath hitched hard. “…like you always do.”
Enid shattered, coming hard, crying out Wednesday’s name like a prayer and a curse at the same time, body locking up around the toy as it pulsed relentlessly through the aftershocks. Through the phone she heard Wednesday’s breathing turn loud and uneven, the strained sound of her own release breaking free as she moaned Enid’s name, the wet, messy sounds of her fingers still moving as she rode it out.
They stayed on the line for a long moment, sharing the same harsh, heavy breathing, too intimate for the distance between them.
Enid laid there trembling, phone still pressed to her ear, tears slipping into the mattress, the toy finally powering down on its own. She could still hear Wednesday on the other end with soft, uneven exhales and the faint rustle of fabric as she presumably wiped her fingers clean.
Then Wednesday’s voice came through, rough and lower than before. “I am coming home.”
Enid closed her eyes and for the first time in 31 days, she smiled.