A/N: Written for the Third Annual Femslash Kink meme (The Good Wife, Alicia/Kalinda, shaving (A on K, post-Ham Sandwich reveal)), because I'm hopelessly addicted to the idea of a period of aggressive, angsty sexytiemz between Ham Sandwich!gate and (hopeful) future reconciliation!gate.

Love to Limelight/threeguesses for the gracious lookover, among other things.

It's an exercise in futility, trying to figure out why this is happening. But sometimes Kalinda finds herself doing it nonetheless.

She doesn't kid herself that it is forgiveness, or any semblance of healthy; the latter is something she's never concerned herself with anyway. But she worries about Alicia sometimes – that for her, it's some kind of self-hate thing, a way to punish herself while evening the score with Peter at the same time.

On especially cynical days, Kalinda even believes it's some kind of long con to hurt her… that Alicia is biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike. Not her usual style, but the last months have turned a few tides.

The reason the worries and cynicism don't change anything is because all the rest feels fucking phenomenal. At work, everything is tense and awkward, but when they kiss - when they fuck - everything is heightened, exciting. The sensuality is better than the weirdness even when it's tinged with aggression, so Kalinda takes it.

The first time Alicia goes down on her, Kalinda almost expects her to use teeth. (She doesn't, but when Kalinda comes she isn't sure whether it is in spite of her terror, or in part because of it – fear's a kind of arousal too, after all.) The thought never quite goes away, and she's always a little wary of that mouth, those long and manicured fingernails – even as she seeks them out, again and again.

For awhile she keeps track of how often it happens because the details make more sense than the big picture, but eventually trying to quantify it feels stupid. Kalinda hates feeling stupid.

Still. It's been enough times to know better, when Alicia raises the stakes.

It's mostly in Alicia's apartment, when the kids are away (Alicia's seeming preference of locales, not Kalinda's; probably another way to maintain control over this situation, playing on her own turf). Today, Alicia's been giving her those looks, the ones where it's hard to tell if she wants to fuck Kalinda or slap her, and Kalinda always tries to head that off at the pass by steering toward the former. So the minute court recesses, she steers Alicia toward home, and bed.

Kalinda's already gotten Alicia off twice, once with her mouth and once with her fingers and the small, covertly disguised vibrator she's taken to carrying around in her bag, so by the time Alicia crawls between Kalinda's thighs on the bed she's worked up from the thrill of it; is in desperate need of relief.

But Alicia seems in no hurry this time - after easing Kalinda's panties down, she merely traces what she's uncovered with her eyes, presses a flushed cheek to it.

"I want to see you," Alicia says.

Kalinda's focus is on the molten, velvet heat that hums between her legs and fans up through her body; Alicia's words make no sense because as far as Kalinda can tell, Alicia has seen every bit of her uncovered by now, has touched everything. "You are." She flexes her hips up slightly, but she won't ask out loud for what she wants.

"No." Alicia runs fingertips through soft, dark curls. "I want to see you. Bare."

Awareness starts to penetrate the fog of tense arousal. "You want me to…"

Alicia's breath is hot down there. "Me. I want you to let me."

Thinking in metaphors isn't typical for Kalinda, but she needn't be versed to see the themes hulking over them like monoliths… trustvulnerabilitycontrol. Kalinda has quite a bit of one of these things; scant amounts of the others.

Screw that, her mind says, stubborn even in the face of overwhelming arousal and obligation. There's no fucking way, it swears.

"Okay," she hears herself saying, and the sly smile she feels pressed against her isn't much of a relief.

Kalinda usually keeps this part of herself groomed, for hygiene and sex, but she's too practical to go completely bare – doesn't have time for the daily maintenance it requires. Now, the porcelain of the bathtub rim is cold against her ass; it turns her skin to gooseflesh, makes her nipples harden under the cover of her black camisole. She watches as Alicia moves about, gathering the materials she needs – washcloths and towels, scissors to trim and razors to shave, a large glass bowl - without hesitation or thought, and realizes that…

"You've done this before."

Alicia only glances at her, gives a noncommittal shrug. She hasn't been feeling talkative enough for easy answers, and Kalinda can empathize with that.

Kalinda wonders who it was for, when Alicia shaved herself… Peter, or Will, or someone else. Wonders if Alicia shyly exposed it, wonders if he traced her with large calloused fingers, appreciated the new silky smoothness of her. Those would have been the days when Alicia gave of herself fully, believed that if she pleased the one she loved she'd be rewarded, and Kalinda doesn't know if or how she'll ever get there again.

"You'll need to open your legs," Alicia tells her, not unkindly; Kalinda realizes first that she hadn't noticed Alicia kneeling on the floor in front of her, towel under her knees to protect them from the hard floor, and second that indeed, her own knees are pressed as tightly together as a Victorian virgin's.

It takes all her will to allow them to open, especially once she sees the flash of silver from the small manicuring scissors Alicia holds in her hand.

This goes against every self-preservation instinct Kalinda has – it goes against common sense, really, you don't expose the most sensitive part of yourself to the woman whose husband you once slept with, not when she's holding a sharp object and is moving it with intention.

And yet Kalinda does it.

The scissors seem to approach in slow motion, an inch at a time. Kalinda swears she can feel the cold radiating off the metal already, contrasting with the heat of Alicia's skin as they near her, and despite telling herself it's okay, Alicia wouldn't, not in that way - a giant flinch shudders through her lower half in spite of herself, betraying her anxiety.

Alicia pauses and her eyes switch up, meeting Kalinda's with their own icy heat that is typical now. "I wouldn't do that again." It's in that teacher-tone, this is for your own good – the result if Kalinda doesn't obey is catastrophic, and both of them know it.

"Yeah. Got it," Kalinda says thinly, forcing her traitorous muscles to stillness. They want to vibrate like her heart seems to, and she's never needed her capacity to control more in her life.

Satisfied that Kalinda's been intimidated into immobility, Alicia's gaze moves downward once again; her hands move. Kalinda hears the scissors opening and closing, rather than sees – her eyes remain tightly scrunched shut this time, white-knuckled fingers gripping the tub to either side of her.

Alicia is efficient with this part, whether out of mercy or impatience to move onto what comes next – it's a scant few minutes before she murmurs "See, that wasn't so bad," but she makes no promises about what happens once the razor's in her hand.

Kalinda's eyes open at the feel of Alicia's gentle, brushing fingers, stroking away what she's shorn onto the towel below. What remains is short, and now that they've gone this far they have to follow through.

"So. You like it better this way?" Kalinda forces her tone into something approaching conversational, as if she lets people close enough to cut every day.

Alicia lifts a shoulder as she stands and flips on the sink faucet. "It's just… different." Gently lifting, then shaking the towel over the wastebasket, she glances at the half-dressed woman below her. "It's good to do different sometimes, hmm?"

Kalinda sure as hell hopes so. If this 'different' doesn't work out, she may never try something out of her comfort zone again. If it does work out, she's still not sure she will.

The sink runs for a minute before it reaches the temperature Alicia wants; the water steams the mirror, makes the room feel moister, heavier. Alicia fills the bowl with it, sets it on the floor, then soaks a navy washcloth before wringing it out and approaching Kalinda again.

"It'll make it softer. Easier," Alicia explains unnecessarily as she lays the cloth over the full of Kalinda's sex.

It's hot – not too hot, but close, and the wet heat feels good, especially with the brief added pressure of Alicia's hand. There's a brief memory – losing her virginity at age fourteen, it had been unremarkable, if not altogether unpleasant. The guy was older, not illegally so but enough, and when it was over he did this, heated the scratchy hotel towel in the sink and pressed it between Kalinda's legs. The soreness wasn't quite gone by the time it cooled, but she tossed it aside and climbed back on top of him anyway, ignoring the tinge of blood and the ache of her inexperienced flesh.

She's older now, a hell of a lot more worldly, and somehow still more nervous than she's ever been. Yet when Alicia removes the washcloth a few minutes later with a wiping motion, Kalinda's pelvis tilts forward reflexively, and for the first time since she agreed to this she recalls how turned on she'd been before, how desperate to come. She doesn't expect the remembrance to last.

The shaving foam smells like rosemary and peppermint as Alicia dispenses it, a scent probably intended to be calming; she rubs it between her hands, palms it over Kalinda's pubic mound and downward, fingers tracing delicately down either side of her sex. Kalinda thinks of how she must look to Alicia, perched here with knees splayed open and exposed from the waist down, waiting not for the warm touch of a lover but rather the cold bite of a razor. The submission of it feels unnatural, and there is not a thing remotely comfortable about this situation.

"Ready?" Alicia asks, holding up the razor, and her smile is actually a little coy.

It would be lovely to hate her. "Sure," Kalinda grits out, her calf muscles straining as she presses the balls of her feet to the floor like she can brace herself.

Alicia's just as capable with this part, but far less expeditious. She draws the razor slowly, fingertips pulling at the fragile skin to tauten it, making the blade run smooth –up, down, left, right, pausing occasionally to rinse the razor in the bowl of warm water, then repeat the process over again. Her face is a portrait of concentration, the tip of her tongue held between her teeth and Kalinda briefly imagines sucking it, nipping it punishingly. Then she's just surprised that she's keeping her eyes open this time.

They say nothing. There is the scrape of the razor, the uneven breaths, the swish of water and God, she wants this to be over. She wants Alicia to hurry up, be less careful, just accomplish whatever this was meant to do, because it is making Kalinda ache with the strain of holding still, making her breath shallow, making her heart slam at the danger, two millimeters to the left or right and it will hurt, hurt so bad, and she deserves it but Alicia is staring at her intently, touching her, focusing on her and it's winding her up tight, tighter than she's ever been in her life. In about five seconds she's going to scream, tell Alicia to stop, tell her she can't do this anymore, she can't…

"All finished." Alicia's voice is gentler than it's been all night, but it still sounds shattering in this small space.

Kalinda blinks at her dumbly. She hasn't been cut, not even a little, but she knows the plight of Damocles, the constant threat of the falling blade.

"What do you think?" Alicia asks, soft, as she rubs the last traces of foam off Kalinda skin, dries it with a towel. She hands Kalinda the small mirror she'd set aside by the sink.

Kalinda stares down into the reflection, and there it is… there she is. Revealed and unprotected, laid completely bare and it is Alicia who's made her this way, Alicia, Alicia who's been stripping away her every last defense since the day they met, and Kalinda would hate how fitting it all is if it weren't so… so…

"Beautiful," Alicia murmurs, a faint trace of a smile there as she brushes soft knuckles across her handiwork almost compulsively, testing the perfect smoothness. When she glances up at Kalinda, the coldness of the past weeks is momentarily gone, replaced by what might be wonder that she's done this… that Kalinda allowed her to do this. "You're…"

And then Alicia brushes a casual finger across her clit, and all hell breaks loose.

The mirror clatters to the tile; it doesn't shatter, but it cracks down the middle. Kalinda had absolutely no idea she'd been so close, but now her toes curl against the tile floor, the fingers of one hand claw at Alicia's shoulder, and she's gasping in surprise as much as sensation as the orgasm hits her short and fierce. Alicia's wide-eyed, staring. By the time she even fully comprehends what she did, it's over.

The tension drains from Kalinda's body, frozen muscles given permission to tremble again. The breath she lets out sounds a little like a sob. "Sorry. I'm sorry," she whispers, not sure if she's embarrassed or relieved or all of it, everything. It was one thing to give over control to Alicia; another to lose it completely, unwillingly.

It's at this moment she knows she never feared the razor at all. The true danger is now, when she could be sent away humiliated, marked, and exposed, knowing it was her own damn fault for putting herself in this position to begin with.

But Alicia's hand is warm as it cups the part of Kalinda she's bared, and she looks not at all disdainful; for the first time since everything fell apart, there's something in her eyes that resembles endearment.

"Shh. It's okay. I like you like this." Even her smallest smile is like the sun.

Kalinda falls into her arms.