The Kitten, the Witches and the Bad Wardrobe - Willow & Tara Forever

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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 10/08/11)
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:33 pm 
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Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 1:23 pm
Posts: 3794
Topics: 5
Thank you for checking in, SJ

SMGOVAN - Flirty banter is what it's all about :) I very much wanted to get back into Willow's POV and putting her outside her element was just... because LOL.

I think perhaps 'Nostalgic Laundry Room Lovin' should've been the title... nice one with that!

Thanks

Astronsoul - I wouldn't go so far as to say 'evil' Tara but quite naughty :) And could you stay mad at Tara? I know I couldn't... I didn't just want to rehash that first time (a first time in many different ways) because I tend to think that - no matter how successful - those are a little awkward and unsure. These girls have nothing to be unsure about any more. No sexual awkwardness left...

As for the state of your washer, I couldn't comment! But it's one thing I never actually tried!! Reputation and word of mouth only...

Thanks

Katharyn

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 10/08/11)
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:32 am 
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Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 1:23 pm
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Topics: 5
What follows is - in a sense - a new start for Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love...

The piece I've just written is something I'll pursue with my occasional forays into Tara and Willow's lives (providing I can make it work) and that is to make the story 'dual purpose.'

Absolutely they will be the sorts of stories that LGTWIL has done up to now, snapshots into the girl's lives with fun (inc sexy) as the main point of it.

What is new about this is that I am going to also - for people who enjoyed my Sidestep series - make it work for that too. You don't need to have read Sidestep Chronicles for this. It's too big to ask people to read. And so nothing in the story that follows (or comes in the future) requires knowledge of that. However, for the people who have read it - and for me as a writer - I get to play in that world for free. No pressure, no massive story required.

That means, as per the notes of what I am about to post, you have oblique references to a past that was not canon. But nothing that means the reader is missing anything. Always, always, always it will add something for Sidestep readers and never, never, never take away anything for people who have not read those things. Also it sees a slightly more self-assured Tara and Willow, but they'd have got there anyway.

The next story, for example, sees Willow in a first job out of college. That's all you need to know, all that's really referenced. Nothing stopping anyone who hasn't read Sidestep from getting just as much out of it as if it was set in the canon world. That's why I am not calling it Sidestep. Just using it as a background.

I hope those who haven't read that can forgive me and those who have get a little extra from it. But I am open to feedback. If you find anything intrusive, or that you don't know enough, say so...

Thanks so much.

And now to the story - posted in two parts due to length.

Katharyn

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:34 am 
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Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 1:23 pm
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Topics: 5
Title: LGTWIL - Five for Dinner - AKA - Eating Pie
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please.
Summary: Willow’s got a job… (I can’t say more than that!)
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: Caution for some highly suggestive stuff, more so if you get all the references…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever.
Notes: This is something of a hybrid story. It’s deliberately intended to be vague about the girl’s background prior to leaving college. It absolutely fits with canon, but I don’t reference much of that because I also wanted it to work as a Sidestep universe ‘missing scene’. No knowledge of Sidestep is needed, but if you had read that you’d know that these are the career paths that the girls have entered into and some of the background references will mean a little more to you. Also it’s a slightly more confident Tara and Willow than you might expect from canon to S5 but a slightly LESS confident version than Sidestep would suggest. In other words it fits nothing perfectly.
This was originally entitled Five for Dinner, but then the final section happened and I just couldn’t let go of the Pie element…
Also it’s pretty long at more than 13,000 words so may have to be broken in two to post… Fun words, I hope, but much longer than I intended. Must felt the urge to write the girls again.
Thanks to: Anyone has fun with this and especially anyone who’ll say so. Happy holidays, whatever you happen to believe.

Post 1 of 2

Willow Rosenberg took in the world beyond the large glass window, rocking gently from side to side in the leather chair as she regarded everything that was laid out beneath her.

It was a perfect vantage point, looking out over the valley. Down below, out of sight unless she pressed her head up against the glass, was the road up to the twenty-two storey tower which she resided in. All around them the trees and grasslands that had been so inexpensive to obtain but showed the nature of the world, it’s natural state as it were. Beyond that… the city.

The city was a living thing, in it’s own way. Breathing, but more fetid air. The detritus from fast food cast aside for the rats. The sewers that still overflowed when there was a deluge. The rolling hills made famous by a hundred chase movies - the smell of burned gasoline filtered through combustion engines, tens of thousands of them at any one moment.

Hundreds of thousands of people, more like ants, scurrying around to their purposes to the greater service of the hive that was ‘the economy’. No, make that nest. Ants had nests, not hives. The point stood though. Down below, everyone was small. Everyone’s movement was chaotic. Seemed to be without real purpose. But she had a purpose. She understood the way that the world was, her perspective was wide enough to see it all. The ebb and flow of energy. The tide of the workers.

And in the back of every mind… they all knew that at any moment the big one might hit, reasserting the power of nature as it had back in nineteen-oh-six but everyone lived their lives as if it would never happen. What other way was there to exist than that? In a perpetual state of fear? Unacceptable.

Nature might - ultimately - be in control of the big picture. But here and now…

“Mine,” she murmured. “All mine.”

“Rosenberg?!”

Willow jumped to her feet out of the chair and the lingering dizziness from her over-enthusiastic spinning hit her immediately and she staggered, almost dropping the bowl that had been in her lap. “Yes, Sir, it’s me. Rosenberg. Willow Rosenberg. Umm. Hi.”

“Miss Rosenberg,” he said. “What, pray, are you doing in my office?”

“Ah. That. Give me a moment? Sir?”

“Take two.”

Arthur Lomas was her boss. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Arthur Lomas was her boss’ boss. Which made him a sort of grand-boss, if you wanted to think about things in family terms, which he often did in his motivational speeches. But he definitely saw himself in the patriarchal role, sitting at the head of the table since he owned the company too.

He was probably a turkey-carver, he had that look about him. As bosses went, in her grand experience of three whole weeks of the workplace after college, he ranked second of two. But then someone had to and Fran, her day to day boss, had been super-sweet to her.

So far… before she’d got caught in the boss’ office.

They might accuse her of industrial espionage or trying to increase her salary, perhaps planting something on his computer. She hadn’t done any of those things - of course - but she had to be afraid of them in those moments that he’d offered her. He might even have found her spinning in his chair, which had got her dizzy in the first place.

Putting down the bowl that had been in her lap, she took a deep breath, struggled for perfect equilibrium - got somewhere close - and then smoothed her skirt. It was pure luck that she even had this job. Three interviews in a week and an unfortunate tendency to perspire when she was feeling super-stressed - and who wouldn’t be super-stressed about their first real job out of college that would set the professional direction for the whole rest of her life - had seen her switch from pant-suits to her one skirt/jacket combination. As she knew now, if she’d been wearing pants she’d have been written off as a lesbian and failed the interview.

The fact that she was a lesbian and still owned a skirt suitable for work - several more since getting the job - seemed to have eluded anyone who cared. Much as that might have given her pause for thought, turned out that there was no overt discrimination here. In fact - generally - no one had seemed to care who she went home to. But when you worked for Arthur Lomas you wore skirts. Unless you were a man, in which case you absolutely did not. Fortunate really, because the opportunity - and the starting salary - had been too much to pass up once an offer was made.

His house, his rules. She supposed that went for small software houses that occupied half a floor of office space as much as his actual home.

“That’s three,” he said. “Moments?”

Answer… oh. “Oh… yes. I… I was admiring the view, Sir. It really is quite magnificent.”

“Yes, yes it is, thank you. But I’m more interested in what you’re doing in here at all.”

“Absolutely not stealing anything or indulging in industrial espionage, certainly nothing like that,” Willow blurted. “In case you were worried.”

“Certainly not,” Arthur agreed. “Given the access you have to our servers you’d have to be the most incompetent corporate spy in history to think you needed to come in here for anything like that. You’re not incompetent are you, Miss Rosenberg?”

“No! I mean, I wouldn’t be, if I was a corporate spy. Which I’m not. You’re as corporate as I’ve ever gotten. My entire corporate experience is - ”

“Two weeks learning the ropes here.”

“Three weeks,” she pointed out, “and I’ve started to make a contribution.” That was what Fran had said, that she was making a contribution. It felt good, getting past being dead-weight status so quickly. It felt like it was quick anyway… Being at work was a lot like being at school, but without recess, fewer chances to learn and a stricter dress code. In fact, it wasn’t anything like being at school, but it was a whole lot more different to being at college.

“My, time flies doesn’t it.”

“Yes, Sir, I guess it does.”

“So?”

“So?”

“What were you doing in here?”

“Umm…”

“Miss Rosenberg, the Lord hates a liar.”

“Yes, Sir, I’m certain he does and I wasn’t about to lie I… I was trying to think how to tell you that I was eating my lunch,” Willow admitted.

“Generally I find that the simple way is always best,” Arthur advised.

“I was eating my lunch,” she said.

“And there I was thinking that last year - admittedly before you joined us - I spent something like double your salary for the year providing, equipping and decorating a lunch room.”

Willow swallowed heavily, that was certainly the case. “And it’s a beautiful lunch room,” she said. “It is. As lunch rooms go it’s right at the top of my personal favourites.”

“In your extensive experience,” he said sarcastically.

Well there was no need to be like that about it, everyone had to start somewhere. “Once upon a time you’d only seen one office lunchroom too,” she said. Then realised just how that sounded. “I mean, Sir.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed, appraising her.

“You’ve got some fire in you, Rosenberg,” he said eventually and she could actually breathe again. It sounded like he even admired that as a quality which… kind of surprised her. Arthur, despite only being in his fifties, was an old fashioned kind of guy. As in… if he’d been on a TV show, at his current age but back in the nineteen-fifties, no one would’ve batted an eye-lid. The skirt thing was just the first sign. She’d only learnt of his dismissal of feminism as ‘lesbian propaganda’ after arriving and far enough into her experience that it genuinely shocked her. Because, at the core, there was little doubting he was a good man.

Willow knew for a fact that she was being paid the same as anyone else at her grade - which wasn’t a huge amount but a better deal than most and she was here for the experience. All the personnel forms asking her to name the beneficiary of her death in service payment and emergency contact details had featured options for multiple genders and queerness. All stuff he simply didn’t have to do and you wouldn’t have expected if you just listened to some of the things that were said about him.

Which just went to show, really. You couldn’t trust what people said. You had to look at what they did. Usually it was the other way around though. Arthur’s actions were a great deal fairer and more generous than his words and even those weren’t anything like you could hear on a thousand god-bothering TV stations every day.

“And what, pray tell, is yours?”

“I’m sorry?”

“When I came in you were muttering something about ‘mine, all mine’? Actually, it sounded quite… maniacal. Like something out of one of those movies where they’re trying to take over the world.”

No… it hadn’t been that. She held up the bowl.

“And what is that?”

“Hummus, sir. And Pita. My… lunch.”

“And some of it is on my desk?”

“Ah, that was a mistake.” She bent and used a tissue to get it up off the desktop. Lucky she’d avoided the keyboard… it was a bitch to get off anything once it dried.

“Really?”

“Yes, Sir. I guess I should… get out of here?” She started towards the door, checking that she had everything she’d come in with and hadn’t eaten. Apart from that smear of hummus that just hadn’t lifted.

“Wait one moment. Close the door.”

Gulp.

——————

“Oh, baby, you’ve got magic fingers,” Willow moaned.

“Comes with being a witch,” Tara said, trying to lacing her voice with seduction. It wasn’t that successful, Tara didn’t need to try to be seductive she just was. More to the point they were way, way past seduction. Seduction had been, gone and left it’s number on the back of her hand. Now they were… now they were into magic fingers.

“You think? Mmmm, yeah. Right… there.”

The pressure was delicious, the speed just right and… Well, Willow had never been one to overlook the visual - at least when she could keep her eyes open against the pleasure - and naked and damp was a great look on her woman.

“Okay,” Tara said, pulling on her leg with her free hand, “not just from being a witch.”

“Other - mmmm - other qualities may be involved?” Willow gasped.

“Traits,” Tara said. “I think you call them traits. B-but I like qualities, qualities gives it a positive. It is positive, right?”

Right now there was very little that Willow could see - or feel - could possibly be a negative. “Candles, mmmm, a hot bath, mmmm, my girl in a tub for two…” They’d not been looking for an apartment with such a large bath, after all they weren’t big girls either of them, but when they’d seen it… it’d been a contributing factor to their decision. Okay, the location wasn’t great but it wasn’t like they were vulnerable after years in Sunnydale on top of a Hellmouth, and the kitchen could be more modern and… oh, there were lots of little flaws, but it had been hard to argue with a place that’d fit their nice big bed in and had a great big tub too.

They’d had their money’s worth in both of those locations. And actually in the living room. And the retro kitchen. And… well, pretty much everywhere as it happened. They hadn’t been shy about claiming the place as their own, even if they were only renting.

“Right?” Tara pressed again, doing something delicious with her thumb. The visual was lost to her as her head went back and her eyes rolled even further.

“Oh, right. Right. Qualities. Lesbionic qualities. Qualities of… ooooh… Lesbos. Lots of positives there and [there.”

There was no need to tell Tara where she wanted it, no need to try and assert voice control over those magic fingers. They just… worked. Tara knew. Tara knew all about her. Tara knew where everything was and how it worked. Tara had read the damned manual cover to cover and taken it all in. The faint tingle where their magic connected, physically, had more than faded into the background compared to the sensations that her lover was drawing from her now. That and the warm water, she thought there was something like earthing going on with the warm water.

The whole tub was turned into a pool of magical potential when they were like this.

And then they made potential into reality…

Why just have a foot rub, when you could have a magic laden foot rub? Perks of falling in love with a witch-come-goddess-come-footrub expert. Not that her girl would’ve agreed with move than a third of that estimation.

Tara’s thumb pressed into the arch of her foot again and Willow sighed in pure pleasure. This was surely how Miss Kitty felt when… well, their cat was something of a slutty-slut-slut. It didn’t take much to make her purr and, if she’d been capable of doing the same convincingly, she’d have been purring right now. She ought to have been ticklish, but Tara had the right of it. There was no tickling. Caresses in the less sensitive parts, firm pressure where it did more good.

“You shouldn’t wear heels if they make your feet sore,” Tara told her one more time. It’d been a common refrain over the past couple of weeks.

“But then I wouldn’t be here… now…”

“I knew you’d go a long way for pleasure,” Tara said, the voice of experience in that regard. “But torturing yourself all day to guilt me into a foot-rub is just… it’s a step from masochism.”

“Step from masochism,” Willow said. “You made a funny… except you didn’t mean to. Look, if I have to wear a skirt then I’m going to wear shoes and if I have to wear shoes then… everyone else there is taller than me, Tara.”

“Poor little baby,” Tara confided, switching feet again.

By way of revenge, she reached under the water, determined to grab hold of Tara’s foot and do some caressing of her own, the tickling kind. They were sat end to end in the bath and it was quite the most delicious sight. Sweat and steam both rolled down her lover’s damp skin. The water was deep enough to float Tara’s slightly more ample bosom and offer them up as if on a plate. With her hair fastened back from her face, a few strands lingering over her face, Tara looked very much like a woman you’d like to have rubbing your feet.

And more.

Tara thrashed before she even got close to the feet, threatening to send the water slopping over the floor. “Woah!” Willow said, “truce.” The landlady who lived downstairs got kind of… annoyed the last time that had happened. Understandably Mrs Jimenez wasn’t so worried about the intricacies of sympathetic wave motions building and reinforcing each other, nor just why one of them had been thrashing almost uncontrollably in the bath towards the end while the other had been keeping up a steady rhythm.

Nor about the fluid dynamics which caused just the right resonance of the water to build and build and build, or just what the cries of apparent pleasure had to do with that. They’d resolved there and then to use less water in those circumstances rather than cease to enjoy the advantages of the big tub.

“Calm down, baby,” Willow said.

“Don’t you tickle me,” Tara said sternly. “Don’t even make like you’re going to, missy.”

Willow put on her innocent face even though she was far from that, in this matter or anything else. But this was San Francisco - or the Bay area at least - and anything went. Not that anything hadn’t gone - or come - before they’d left Sunnydale or college or… anywhere, really. Since they’d been together… anything had both come and gone. Mostly come though.

Except tickling Tara’s feet. That was the big no no and with good reason beyond the bath tub. The last time she’d tried it, utilising a feather that had been tested for other purposes but found wanting, she’d been thrown clear across the room. Her own stupid fault for doing it when Tara was asleep and to a witch who was well capable of reflexively defending herself with a wall of thickened air.

“No,” Willow said. “I don’t want to tick you off, lover.”

“Good. No, wait… why?”

Moving her foot, since the rub seemed to have come to an end with her unfortunate choice, she moved it up against Tara’s breast instead, enjoying the sensation that was so different to how she usually felt her woman up.

“Just because…” Was she going to get caught out?

“No,” Tara said, lightly scratching her wet leg as it continued to rub the sassiness. “You said that with… a purpose.”

“Do you really think so little of me, baby?” Willow asked, trying another tack.

“I think I remember you asking me that before when it turned out you were hiding something,” Tara replied.

“I’m not hiding anything,” Willow told her, moving the foot down until it was between Tara’s legs. All new sensations there and she did make Tara sigh, and not in disappointment either. Mmm, maybe she would get away with this. Slip it into the conversation later. Just like she slipped her big toe… This little piggy wasn’t at the market…

“Ohhhh,” Tara said, struggling to turn her exclamation into conversation. “You’re hiding something.”

Willow flexed her toe. It was a promise, rather than a direct pleasure. The chances of taking Tara where she’d very soon need to go like this were slim, she knew that it’d be far too clumsy. But it was delicious all the same and the destination would be the same in the end… Quite possibly they’d need to hang the sheets out to dry, falling into bed wet - in more ways than one - would have that effect. And then, when it was all done and Tara was in her arms, suitable satisfied and grateful… that would be the moment to reveal all.

“But you know what it is,” Willow teased, withdrawing it, wiggling it in Tara’s face and then moving her foot back there again.

“I didn’t mean that!”

“Tell me you don’t want it and I’ll stop,” Willow said. She’d know a lie in an instant. Their magical based connection, as well as long familiarity with this young woman, made it so. Of course it worked both ways, letting Tara understand that there really was something that she needed to know. So the trick was to keep Tara off balance, to bring additional meaning to the term foot rub.

It was indelicate, obviously, one didn’t hear much mention of magic toes and the fine control was absent, but Tara took a little responsibility for her own pleasure - as she was often willing to do - and made the small movements necessary to keep from any unfortunate clashes of blundering tootsies and overly sensitive nubbins. More to the point, those beautifully smooth, slick thighs - as well as Tara’s hand - guided her when necessary. It really was a partnership that they had…

She could lay back, touching herself a little from time to time, and simply enjoying the hell out of watching Tara’s desire - and her need - build and build. Eventually there’d be nothing left but completing her and that was something she was always delighted to accommodate. There was so much that made the world special, but this

“I - I won’t forget,” Tara gasped as the need became too much for her and the tootsies, the whole foot, far from precise enough.

“Forget what?” Willow asked, pulling Tara up to her feet and and leaning forwards to bury her face between her lover’s wet thighs in one easy movement. She didn’t care where the water slopped, applying her tongue to the task of helping it slip Tara’s mind.

_____________


It pretty much was as she’d thought, aside from the fact that they’d dried each other off before coming to bed. Even now, an hour after they’d made it here, both their hair was still damp and it was going to be tangled and messy in the morning. Of course wrapping Tara’s hair around her finger as the woman lay with her head on her chest wasn’t helping but Willow was philosophical. Maybe they’d have to take a shower to sort that out…

No word of a lie had crossed her lips… Not really. Tara had known that there was something and willingly allowed herself to be distracted in the most hedonistic and pleasurable ways. Willow knew that her baby trusted her to spill the important stuff when it was necessary and the rest… well, the rest could wait. Living the lives that they had, the things that they’d done, it built that absolute trust. And compared to that this truly was… Well, it was piddly shit.

That was the best she could come up, piddly shit. Small, barely even worth mentioning, except that she was going to have to and now seemed to be the time. She’d gently refused Tara’s attempts to love her in return in favour of actually getting some sleep at a reasonable hour - last night they’d been down on Castro and things had gotten late all around them. The novelty of actual places you could go, with real queers, hadn’t worn off, even though they loved their straight friends back home. This was… shiny and new.

More than she could say for how this coming Saturday night would be…

Try dull and awkward. Oh, and with old people. Mostly old people. Even if the old people weren’t really the point.

“Tara…”

“Here it comes,” her lover said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” Tara said.

Okay, so she did know. But she was competitive by nature and so that meant that she didn’t enjoy being… what was the word? Predictable? Obvious? Even if she cherished the intimacy that allowed them to be those kind of things, it’d be nice - once in a while - for her ulterior motives to be less obvious and more under the table. “You played along?” she asked unnecessarily. But just because you knew didn’t mean you didn’t have the conversation.

“I didn’t like to stop you.”

“I bet,” Willow accused. “Look, lady, if you don’t believe in the truth of it then… I don’t think you should’ve let me go there. I feel… used.”

“No, it’s just that you’ve always been persuasive,” Tara explained, caressing her stomach gently.

“It’s true,” she said. “I’m a cunning linguist.”

“The cunningest. Come on, love… You know I never mind if you want to distract me for a little while but now it’s time to use your words.”

Willow sighed. It was, she’d already told herself as much. “We’ve been invited to dinner at the weekend.”

“Oh? I can check - ”

“No. We’re going,” Willow said, before Tara could make the offer. “We have to go.”

“Will, if we have plans…”

“We don’t. We didn’t. But now we do. And we have to go.”

Tara sighed. “Okay.”

She waited. One. Two. Three decent intervals. “Oh, you glorious bitch.”

“What?” Tara protested.

Willow could tell her woman was trying not to laugh, she knew exactly what she was doing, of course she did. Tara always knew. “Come on.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tara insisted.

“Oh, yes. You do.”

“No… I…”

Willow tipped her head forwards and kissed the top of Tara’s. “You suck at lying, love, but as a sadist you have real promise.”

Tara shook her head now. “No, this isn’t sadism.”

“It’s teasing. It’s denial. It’s… if we were having sex I’d be screaming at you right… Just do it!” Willow pleaded, wondering if that comparison would help.

Tara paused, took a breath. “Okay, fine. If you really feel that way about it. Oh, Willow, where are we going? What’s going on? Why it’s so important that we go to dinner with… whoever that is?”

Willow shuddered, absurdly pleased that Tara had done what she ought to have from the beginning. “Okay. Thank you. Since you asked… my boss, Arthur. He wants us to come over.”

“That’s great!” Tara said. “It’s a nice gesture, for the new employee and all. Except… it’s really not, is it? It’s something else. What did you do?”

“Do? Why did I have to do anything?” Willow asked, why would her baby leap to that conclusion? Except, of course, if it wasn’t about him then it was something about her and it was something about them in a round about kind of way and - and - and - why wasn’t she saying all this? “I was born gay. There. That’s what I did. I was born gay.”

Tara took a beat, thought about that. “Okay, love… Much as I’ve appreciated that over the years… I think I’m missing the point about how that leads us to dinner with your boss and the part where that’s not a good gesture? I thought you said he all was religious and into these old-timey rules and stuff?”

Strangely, Willow - who’d been complaining about the imposition of those rules for the last few weeks - did actually feel loyal enough that she ought to do something. Say something. “You liked the skirts,” she pointed out.

“I like your legs and what a skirt does for you. So shoot me. But - isn’t he… well, kind of conservative?” Tara asked.

“You can be conservative and support all the aphabetty-queerness,” Willow said. “I think we should avoid stereotypes. Stereotypes are what get the world into trouble.”

“Does he support all the alphabetty queerness?”

“No. Not really. But he doesn’t like hate us either. He’s pretty much not getting into it, which I kind of appreciate,” she explained. “Now I’m there… it’s a non-issue.”

“So…?” Tara, naturally enough, was getting confused by how a non-issue equalled dinner invitation. And there was kind of a story about that. The one she’d been holding back.

“He’s inviting us over because we’re gay. Okay, technically, he’s inviting me over because I’m gay, but he kind of understands that your the stable, responsible one and so…”

“Okay,” Tara said slowly. “I’ve never been invited for dinner for that reason before - meeting someone because we’re in the community, sure. But being invited for dinner because we are… that’s a little weird. I don’t want to sit through my dinner being told I’m a sinner or having him try to changes us… I mean, baby we even believe in other gods than his. We can’t even pray the gay away with him.”

“We’re not praying the gay away, this gay’s not going anywhere. This gay’s here to stay. And that’s… it’s not what he wants. I mean, not the staying, he doesn’t want to take the gay away - he doesn’t care that I - we are into the lady loving and down with the muff.”

“You know something more then…” Tara said, not even reacting as she rattled off the euphemisms that usually made her smile at least.

“Baby, look, he’s my boss. My first boss and he runs a really good shop for me to get experience in,” she explained, but even she could tell that she was making Tara’s suspicions even worse. Maybe her woman was right to be wary, there were people in the world who’d want those things Tara had mentioned, but that wasn’t what she’d heard from Arthur and that wasn’t him… He was more of a fuddy-duddy than a dyed in the wool bigot. And they were both used to fuddy-duddys.

“Go on…”

“And no matter what he says, what his dress code says - remember you like my legs - ”

“How could I forget?”

“No matter what he has in some of the rules, you’re my next of kin if anything happens to me you get all the… well, there’s not much, but you get my pension, my benefits. You’re on my insurance there and how good is that, huh? He didn’t have to put all those things in there, but he did because it’s… fair. And I think he believes in love, admits that a girl can love a girl or whatever combination you care for. I mean, yes, granted I think… I think he’d prefer it everyone was like him and his wife, straight, married and everything but… he doesn’t expect it.”

Tara nodded, that hadn’t been news to her after all. She was really just reminding her wife of the things that she’d already discovered after the shock of the interview and the first few days at work. Since then, things had been looking better and better. Apart from her feet but the shoes had been her own choice and actually, there was no doubt, they made her look good.

When she wasn’t hobbling.

“Okay, so… we’re going to dinner because…?” Tara asked.

“He wants us to be…”

“What?”

“I never expected this,” Willow said. In fact, when she’d been trying to figure out what Arthur was talking about, her mind had wandered all over the place. Even to the notion that Arthur and his wife were… well, into sharing their affections with other couples. But she’d quickly been disabused of that notion, putting her fear - and no one and nothing else - to bed.

“What?”

“Role models,” Willow said. “We’re supposed to be role models.”

—————————

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:35 am 
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Post 2 of 2

“Lovely to meet you, Shannon,” Tara said as they were introduced to Arthur’s wife.

Willow had to marvel at Tara’s ease with… well, people. This was Tara Maclay they were talking about. A girl who’d once been so painfully shy that she’d had a stammer. A girl who used to hide behind her long, beautiful hair. And now… Now Tara was the belle of the ball.

The only belle that Willow liked to ball - but without the actual ball - new metaphor to abuse please, brain.

But she was. Tara had blossomed. Willow liked to think she’d had a large part to play in that, but in truth she was simply one factor amongst many. Being at college, dealing with new people all the time, all of their experiences back in Sunnydale… Yeah, it was hardly surprising that Tara’s shyness had been beaten down and kicked in the head by the sheer wonderfulness of the woman.

And people were taken with her too… Willow had found herself returned to being the awkward one, like it’d been back in the bad old days. BT. Before Tara. Her awkwardness manifested in babbling, most of the time, and had never really gone away. It’d just been masked by being the loquacious one of a couple. Tara couldn’t have ever hoped to go on be a teacher if she hadn’t overcome that problem she had. At least not a good teacher, and Tara was going to be the very best.

It probably helped that Tara’s shyness had - initially - been about making friends and she had bucket-loads of friends now. They both did. And it hadn’t hurt that no one had told she was a demon for some years either.

“Willow, isn’t it?” Shannon asked, offering her hand to her.

“I guess I must be, Tara’s girlfriend and all.” That might, she thought as soon as the word had slipped from her mouth, been a mistake. There was a portrait of Jesus here in the hallway and a big old cross. Perhaps the whole ‘a raging homosexual has a girlfriend’ thing had been a bit up front. On second thoughts though… no. That was why they were here at all.

Oh, and the fact Arthur owned the company she worked for. Outright. That had something to do with it too, while she was being honest with herself.

If Shannon had any feelings about the girlfriend thing, then she wasn’t showing it. Of course she was younger than her husband - considerably if Willow was any kind of judge at all - as in, a whole other generation. Some uncharitable thoughts crossed her mind then, but she had no basis for them and she squelched them as baseless and generally not very nice. Tara wouldn’t have been impressed with her for thinking them, that much was certain.

“I’m sure you’re more than just her girlfriend, or one of my husband’s employees,” Shannon said, then leaned in as if sharing a secret. “If we’re going to get on at all at the company and in life, then you have to be more than either of those things. You need to be a woman in your own right. Take it from someone who knows.”

How did you answer a statement like that? “Umm, I will. I mean, I am.”

More and more surprising then, she thought. Shannon knew what people thought about her, seeing her as some sort of trophy wife trading compatibility and her own life for access to money. Understanding that, she rebelled against it. Which was… yeah. It was probably as healthy an attitude as you could get in those circumstances. How easy would it be to lie back in the jacuzzi, enjoy the manicures and spend the money?

“Good. Shall we go inside, Arthur’s cooking, or else he’d have welcomed you himself. You’re not vegetarians are you?”

Because every lesbian was a vegetarian or a vegan? “No,” Willow shook her head firmly. “We both eat…” She paused as - unbidden - a different but very similar word to ‘vegetarian’ sprang to mind.

“Meat. We eat meat. Is it barbecue?” Tara wondered.

“Heavens no, I’m too afraid he’d set fire to himself. But he’s quite a good cook, he always ate properly before we met and now having him do that… it’s a perk.”

One of many, by the sound of it. This wasn’t a woman who looked weary of her marriage or even forcing additional cheerfulness. Which was heartening, actually. Because no matter the age difference they’d been together long enough to have a teenage daughter, ready to go off to college, and that was a long time. Willow had never doubted that she was going to spend her life with Tara and she looked forwards to it being a long and happy one, but even she had to gulp when she thought about just how long a time that was. As in… ‘Holy Moly’ and she’d been lacking in examples of really good marriages that had lasted that long, what with one thing and another. Neither Tara nor her parents were… well, that was something she didn’t want to discuss at the dinner table. The whole Sunnydale thing was a difficult topic.

Witchcraft was also out.

So in terms of what defined her - if you excluded Tara, witchery, where they’d come from, being into girls and anything remotely to do with technology and work - then… she might actually have a little bit of a problem. Maybe the question wouldn’t come up except… it was kind of what they were here for, wasn’t it?

“Arthur, Tara and Willow have arrived!” Shannon clearly wasn’t afraid to shout in her own home, even in front of company. She could imagine that her boss, who was softspoken, had grown to accept it over the years. That and a teenage daughter. Outnumbered in his own home, she recognised a certain amount of Ira in him, now she thought about it.

“Miss Rosenberg,” he said, obviously recognising her.

“Sir.”

“You must be Tara?” Arthur asked. He was wearing an apron that looked as it had seen plenty of use and the stains wouldn’t quite wash out. Beneath that, the same shirt and tie you’d have expected at the office. Between that and Shannon’s - obviously expensive - dress, it was pretty clear that she was under-dressed. The choice had been driven by the blouse she’d wanted to wear, which matched the dress that Tara was wearing, but then the only thing she had that matched and worked were the trousers. It occurred to her that, since her interview, Arthur hadn’t not seen a part of her legs.

But if he was upset about the choice then he gave no sign. Instead he held up his hands, the washed them before offering one to Tara to shake.

“Very nice to meet you,” he said. “Willow’s told me absolutely nothing about you.”

“That’s not true,” Willow insisted by pure reflex. “Except if it is.” Okay, this was the boss and his home. Arguing might not be the best idea. And what had she actually said to him? “It wasn’t like I was hiding anything,” she explained to all three of them. “More… I was focused on my work.” A grade one excuse, surely. They didn’t come much better and more appropriate than that.

“Gah!” Shannon said, throwing up her hands. “No! No talk about work, the company or that office. Any of you. Right?”

“Umm, right,” Willow said.

Arthur and Tara said nothing.

“You must be sick of it too,” Shannon said to Willow’s girlfriend.

“The novelty hasn’t worn off yet,” Tara told her, with a look that might have been significant.

“It will… trust me. But that’s no reason for you not to talk about yourself.” With a smile, Shannon led Tara away, ostensibly to get her a drink, but there was another guest here and she was thirsty too.

Tara didn’t seem to mind though and so Willow found that she couldn’t really protest. Not when she was stood watching her boss… cook things. Quite what he was cooking was a different matter. Only the ingredients for salad were in evidence at the moment, but on the stove and in the oven there was more going on. Smells that… yes, her boss probably was a good cook if you judged him on the scent alone.

Can you smell, what the boss is cooking?

Searching for something to say, Willow settled on the obvious. “Thank you for inviting us over, it was very kind of you.”

“I did invite you over for a purpose,” he said, but not unkindly. It was more like he was cutting through the pleasantries she felt were necessary and being honest.

Note to self, cut through the pleasantries. “All the same,” she said. “It remains a nice gesture.” Dang. Not only was she still engaging in pleasantries, now she was arguing with the boss at the same time.

Arthur seemed to let it go though and carried on with his preparations, stirring something he had on the hob that smelled sweet and good.

“Your wife seems lovely,” Willow said.

She thought perhaps she’d made yet another mistake then. It wasn’t like she was saying ‘and I’d love to get in her pants’ or anything, because she really wouldn’t. But to a man who was doing what he was doing tonight, that might be the subtext that he chose to read into it. After all, didn’t a lesbian want every piece of candy in the store? Not this one, but there was your popular mythology. A dyke was attracted to every woman in the world, while every straight woman could somehow be pickier about men. How was that supposed to work?

“Thank you,” he replied after that moment where his eyes had hinted at what she’d been afraid of, before common sense overcame the ridiculous. The only thing eating all the candy would get you was fat, and there was just one piece of candy that she wanted to - and did - eat and this metaphor was getting to the end of it’s useful life since ‘eating’ was probably a topic she didn’t want to blurt her way into babbling about.

“And I can’t wait to eat,” she said, led directly there by her treacherous brain. “Eat dinner, with you. And your wife. And my girlfriend. Who is Tara. Tara is my girlfriend. We’ll all eat together. Oh gods… God. God. One God. Oh God.”

“Miss Rosenberg?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a little strange?”

“Oh yes,” she said, back on safer ground and therefore happier. She thought she must’ve dealt with those slips quite well. All things considered. “I get that all the time.” Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say in front of your boss, but on the other hand it’d taken her away from the things that might easily be misinterpreted.

“So did I,” he admitted. “It’s a part of how we get into this business, people like you and I.”

Okay… unexpected. Now they were a ‘you and I’? They were equated with each other on some level? Wow… because wasn’t that like some sort of success?

“I guess…” she said, hesitantly. It didn’t seem appropriate to take that into being too familiar. “Sir.”

“Arthur, tonight,” he said.

“And I’m - ”

“Willow, I know. Can you chop, Willow?”

“I’ve never cut down a tree… oh… Yes, I can chop,” she’d realised that he was talking about the salad, tried to make a joke and realised it was a stupid thing to attempt. “But…” She looked over to where Tara and Shannon were talking, already sat like best friends. Their body language just screamed ‘comfortable.’ Already.

“Don’t worry about them,” Arthur said. “Shannon’s just taking the chance to find out all about you.”

“You mean us, as a couple?” she clarified as she started to slice tomato.

“No, I mean you. My wife believes that if you want to know a person you ask the person they love.”

“Oh.” She glanced over there again, caught both Tara and his wife laughing, looking her way.

What were they talking about?

There was so much Tara could say… A lot that she wouldn’t. Unless she was super comfortable and charmed… Not that her woman would ever betray a confidence, or share something that was really very private. But there were enough things that were embarrassing enough for their friends to know, let alone her boss. Amusing little anecdotes.

Would Tara do that to her? Had she done anything recently to deserve it?

Oh, Tara would be be suitably contrite later, if she did. Blaming it on oversensitivity and getting down on her knees to make the apology. While that was no bad thing, still…

“Don’t worry, Shannon doesn’t bite,” he said, mistaking her concern.

“Tara does… not. Either. Tara doesn’t. No biting from Tara.” Damn…

“Good to know. Peppers, you like peppers?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, they won’t slice themselves.”

Willow set to it, only slightly concerned about staining her fingers. “You…”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.”

“Speak your mind, Miss Rosenberg.”

“I was wondering where your daughter was,” she admitted. That was, after all, why they’d been asked to come over.

“Frequently my worry too, I assure you,” he said.

She stayed silent, unsure of what she was supposed to say. What to do was easier. Peppers were her salvation.

“She’ll be down for dinner,” Arthur said when it became obvious she didn’t have any real reply. “Under protest, but she’ll be down all the same.”

“That’ll be… nice,” Willow said. It seemed like a nice neutral thing to say.

“I suppose,” Arthur said to her, “you’re wondering what it is that you’re supposed to do here tonight. And how. Moreover you might be worried about the consequences?”

“Ah,” Willow said. “It had crossed my mind.”

“There are no consequences,” he assured her. “It’s not like I can hold anything against you, though if you or your partner are in the least bit successful then I’ll certainly consider it a great personal favour.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Willow said. “As I’ve told you before, I like to succeed. It’s… something I like.”

“Quite.”

The more she talked to him without the office around them, the more she realised that - in many ways - this was Rupert Giles with an East Coast accent, that was where he was from, she was sure. Perhaps he needed to be handled in the same way… No, she told herself, resting the knife against the board. Three weeks into her job she didn’t start ‘handling’ her boss. Not in any way.

“But seriously,” she said. “What is it you want me to do?”

“Yeah, Dad, why don’t you tell her what you want her to do?”

Willow turned, looked at the newcomer in the room. “You must be, Lacey.”

——————————

Watching Lacey and her parents interact was - in some ways - like watching one of those TV shows that was supposed to be funny, and the canned studio laughter certainly found funny, but then you wondered why every episode was like every other one. And that was what she was sensing, the tensions that existed around this table were old ones. This wasn’t something new that had just started happening when their daughter had outed herself in the last few months. That had just been ‘one more thing.’

Oh yeah, Lacey was Gay. That was Gay with a capital Gay.

And Lacey was all in favour of pushing that into her parents face.

It was actually Tara that told her that, though they hadn’t discussed it in the slightest. But her girlfriend’s reaction to people was always enormously valuable to Willow. Whether when her lover was shy or now she was more confident, she’d always been able to trust Tara’s judgement. Knowing her girlfriend so well she could pick up on the nuances of Tara’s reaction without actually having to discuss it with her at all. It wasn’t that Tara would ever show dislike - okay, sometimes she did when it was a really strong reason for doing so - but the eyes, the expression, the way she breathed.

And through Tara, as well as what her own eyes and ears were telling her, she’d come to her own conclusions about Miss Lacey.

Frankly, the girl was determined - absolutely determined - to get her parents pissed at her.

Okay, she was a teenager, but she was about to go to college and should know better by now. Moreover, Willow wasn’t sure that her parents deserved it. It was tough to judge someone on less than a three course meal - without even reaching desert - and maybe you shouldn’t do that at all, but she was able to see what was driving Arthur and Shannon to distraction.

Their little girl had gone away and suddenly, in her place, had come an in your face young woman, looking to assert herself through her sexuality. There was out, there was proud and there was just plain rebellious. Lacey didn’t seem to be willing to meet them halfway. On anything. She wanted everything her own way, she wanted absolute acceptance and if she’d gotten it then she’d have wanted more and more and more because - at the end of the day - she was spoiling for a fight. And she was more than capable of provoking it too.

Which was why Tara was, after a couple of hours, faintly disapproving.

Now, for Tara, ‘faintly disapproving’ was the equivalent of a bitchslap, but of course no one else here knew that.

Not that Lacey cared anyway. She and Tara had been invited here by the girl’s parents and Willow was pretty sure Lacey didn’t know that they were supposed to be here to be some sort of positive influence. It’d sounded like a good idea, it’d sounded like being some sort of guidance counsellor. It’d sounded like an easy way to get her boss to like her. But… face to face with Lacey? Not so much.

Because here was the thing, Lacey didn’t actually need guidance. She didn’t necessarily need a positive influence. Arthur and Shannon’s daughter was just fine in her own skin, thanks very much. Parenting, sure. Some help fixing her manners and controlling her teenage way, definitely. But she didn’t need guidance from outsiders.

Which kind of made it hard to know what to do. There was expectancy in the air, to the extent that when the girl said something vaguely controversial looks were exchanged that said ‘well, what are you going to do about that?’ and frankly, she had no idea. She didn’t know Lacey, she didn’t know the family, she didn’t even know Arthur all that well. So… what were they supposed to do?

“Are we done?” Lacey asked.

“That’s not how you leave the table, young lady,” her mother said.

“Well then, may I be excused?” The sarcasm just dripped from the words, challenging all of them - Tara and she included - to call her on it.

“No, you may not,” Arthur said.

“Well, I need a smoke,” Lacey told them, already half way to the patio door.

“Get back here, young lady,” Arthur called. It just made Willow cringe, more especially because his daughter completely ignored him. And that was nothing to do with her sexuality or her clothes. It was just because she was wilful and full of herself. From Willow’s point of view, whatever it was that the two parents were blaming this behaviour on, it totally wasn’t that. It was just about Lacey had decided to act bitchy. Maybe with some provocation - everyone had trouble with their parents at that age - but the extent of it was something she just… didn’t get.

Okay, so her own parents hadn’t been… perfect and there’d been complications along the way. But she’d never stormed off to have a smoke. Of course she’d never actually smoked, so that would be one reason for that.

“Maybe we could do with a breath of air,” Tara said, looking at her significantly. Willow who happened to glance at Shannon next could see that Lacey’s Mom, at least, very much wanted the answer to be ‘yes.’ But there were some things that a girl just had to do alone. “You stay here, baby,” she said, rising from the table. “I’ll go.”

“Are you sure?” Tara asked, catching her hand loosely when she trailed it over her girlfriend’s shoulder on the way out.

“No,” she admitted, looking at the flare of flame where Lacey had triggered her lighter outside in the darkness.

“I can go,” Tara said.

Looking around the table, she could see that Lacey’s parents were probably also expecting it to be Tara. Tara who wanted to be a teacher. Tara who had charmed them and not babbled at them. Tara who liked the broccoli.

Tara who didn’t work for Arthur. “This is… mine,” she said.

Besides, Tara could always go later. If things didn’t go great. Tara had a way of making things that weren’t going so great into something that…was. Better to keep that in reserve, she couldn’t help thinking. Keep that powder dry. Besides, she didn’t want her baby smelling like smoke when she got home tonight.

“Okay then,” Tara replied.

On reflection, Tara didn’t sound so unhappy about the offer either. Trust was one thing, it was good to trust. It was good to be trusted. Doubt was bad. And yet… she couldn’t help thinking that had been a little too easily done. But since she’d made a big deal out of it, it wasn’t like she had much choice now, did she?

Glancing back at Tara as she headed for the patio doors that Lacey had closed behind herself, she received a supportive smile and then Tara was talking to Shannon again.

All too easy…

Unlike what she was about to do, which was likely to be a challenge. She really didn’t do well with interpersonal conflict. Give me a vampire to stake, set fire to or generally dust and I’m fine. Get in the middle of an argument, someone else’s argument, and I come out in a cold sweat. Great… This was a teenager. And one who - in school - would’ve probably looked down on her. Not that ‘weird girl’ was up there with the cheerleaders on the totem pole, but - at least when she’d been in school - it’d definitely been above ‘geek dressed by her Mom at Sears.’

This would’ve been easier in those skanky vampire clothes… at least then they might have had a fashion point of reference.

“Umm, hi,” she said.

Lacey turned and regarded her, taking a long drag as she did so.

“I’m Willow,” she said, probably unnecessarily since they’d already been introduced.

The girl blew a smoke ring, tipping her head back.

“Oh, that’s pretty cool.” And actually, it was. Made her wonder about the physics of it all. Just what you did… surely it had something to do with the tongue as well as the lips?

Lacey looked again at her and blew the rest of the smoke right in her face, making her cough. “What, they send you out here?”

“I thought,” she spluttered. “I thought maybe a neutral party would be kind of… well, neutral.”

Way to go…

“Neutral? You’re like Switzerland, huh?”

“I like chocolate and clocks,” Willow joked, but saw it was falling more than flat. Flat would’ve been an improvement. Right now she was digging holes. China syndrome style. “But, enough about me. What’s happening with you?”

“You know, same old, same old,” Lacey said. “I had a bad day in school and then I come home and get ambushed by a couple of old queers.”

“Hey, who’s old?”

“You two.”

“Older. Than you. That’s it. Definitely not old but yeah, we’re queer. What about it?” Willow said, trying to get with the programme. It was why she was here after all and this sass was only getting her back up. People who her knew her well, knew that when they got sassy-mouthed with her then she was only going to get more and more determined. And this girl was making her… hella determined.

Hella.

Determination was ninety percent of the battle. Or was that perspiration? She had perspiration. It was a warm night and this girl was… intimidating. What was the other ten percent? She couldn’t remember what the other ten perspiration - percent, percent - she couldn’t remember what the other bit was. Determination. Perspiration…

Inspiration! That was it.

“What?” Lacey demanded.

“Inspiration,” Willow said. “Inspiration.”

“What about it?”

“That’s what I’m here for. I guess. Your father - ”

“Asshole.”

“Your father wants me to be an inspiration to you - or us, actually. Me and Tara,” Willow said.

“And how do you think that’s going to work out?” Lacey asked.

“Pretty much it’ll crash and burn, because you don’t want to be inspired.”

“Ya think?”

“I’ve known plenty of people like you,” Willow said. “From a distance at least. I didn’t get too close. Probably because I don’t like having smoke blown in my face.” Confronting the girl, without getting aggravated about it, was her inspiration. Mom and Dad, understandably because they had a teenage daughter, probably didn’t manage to do that all that often. And Lacey was hardly likely to be helping them.

“Dykes?”

“Bitches,” Willow said, strangely pleased when Lacey’s cigarette dropped from her mouth and the girl had to catch the falling butt on the third attempt.

“What did you call me? How dare you?”

“I’m not trying to get on your case, Lacey,” Willow said. “I’m here as a favour to your Dad, because he asked. But now that I am, there’s no point in me being anything but honest with him or you.”

“I wouldn’t be honest with him,” Lacey said, puffing on the cigarette again, but this time facing away from her.

“Why?”

“He doesn’t want to hear it, he still thinks I’m his little girl.”

Willow considered that, everything that’d happened between her and Ira, her Dad. “Dad’s will do that,” she said. The voice of experience having just the one of them. “That’ll never go away and the more you push against it, the more hurt he’s going to be and… Lacey, aside from the fact he’s your Dad, lets add some practicality into the mix. This is the man who’ll probably be buying you your first car - if he hasn’t already.”

Lacey turned, looked at her. “That is an excellent point. Mercenary but… excellent.”

Yay me. Perhaps now I can get her to sell herself or something… This wasn’t going as intended. What had started life percolating through her mind as a light-hearted quip had been converted into an actual factor to consider? Would anyone thank her for that? “But that’s not why you should be nicer to him,” she followed up, trying to soften the impression. Arthur wouldn’t thank her for adding ‘money grabbing’ to his daughters list of traits.

“Go on then, I’m listening.”

She earned herself a hearing then. Perhaps that was truly yay then, maybe… except now she had very little idea what to say and look at how that had turned out a few minutes ago. “Okay, well… What’s the objective of everyone, when they’re dealing with parents?”

“I don’t know, it’s not the car?”

“To bring home who you like, have them accepted,” Willow said. This was where she’d lucked out. Her Dad was about as close to Tara as anyone could be. Talk about welcoming someone into the family. Second daughter much? More like first daughter, sometimes. They even fished together… Ira had never fished with her, his natural daughter. Back to the topic though. “Right? And you’ve never been able to do that have you?”

“No…” Lacey said, puffing immediately. It was obviously a ‘tell’, one of those things that gave her away. She hated smoking, but when the kid finished this cigarette, she probably needed her to light up another one. It was just too damned useful. This wasn’t a sign she was lying, Lacey really hadn’t brought anyone home, but it was a definite sign of the importance, where the stress lay. Except…

“You’ve never had anyone to bring home,” Willow deduced and she knew as soon as she said the words that was the real truth. Lacey was a rebel without a cause. A yin without a yang. An Oreo without any cream… okay, that last one she was never, ever saying to anyone. But this girl was a lesbian without a girlfriend. Ever. She was… just theoretical. And that was something Willow could understand.

“No, I mean - if I wanted.”

“No.”

Lacey lit up again, took a long drag and that seemed to calm her down. “You’re just too good for me. I’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those pesky visiting lesbians.”

Willow laughed, pleased they’d found something to connect over. “You know, the Mystery Machine’s parked outside.”

That made Lacey chuckle, in spite of the stress. “I guess that makes you Velma, with the red hair and all. The freckles.”

“I don’t wear glasses,” Willow pointed out.

“Velma’s pretty hot… I always liked her.”

It wasn’t a come on, just an offhand complement. Lacey hadn’t looked at her that way all night - nor avoided looking at her - even in her lack of a girlfriend state. “And Tara must be…”

“Daphne’s even hotter,” Lacey admitted, actually laughing properly. “Always knew there was something going on between those two and that Fred wasn’t getting any play.”

“Fred and Shaggy,” Willow said. “I mean, have you seen that neckerchief?”

“The sixties were a different time,” Lacey said. “So I hear… Being around this city back then…” She sounded wistful.

“I wouldn’t know any better than you,” Willow reminded her. “I’m only a few years older. But… look, it doesn’t need to be the sixties for you to get a girlfriend, you know? If can do it then, believe me, anyone can.”

“Time travel might be the only way,” Lacey said and Willow was pleased to see she didn’t feel the need to take another long drag. The Scooby Gang references had definitely helped bring the stress levels down.

“What, never?” That surprised her. Nothing then? Not a kiss? Not a feel? But that was the sense she was getting.

“And you’re a player, I suppose?”

“No…” Willow said. Never a player. Never been played. Happily in love, thank you very much.

“Tell me she’s not your only girlfriend.” Lacey jerked a thumb back towards Tara.

“She’s my only girlfriend. Never wanted anyone else. Never… had anyone else.”

“So how did you two hook up?” Lacey asked.

“That’s a… long, complicated story and one for another time.” Certainly not a time when Arthur and Shannon were around and talk of ghosts, ghouls and things that really did go bump in the night were so intimately involved in how they’d gotten together. She and her baby… Willow glanced back at Tara, laughing and smiling with the two grown ups. She felt like that, she felt like she had a grown up girlfriend while she was out here with the kids.

Kid. And that was fine because much as she considered herself mature and grown up, there was no doubt that Tara was more mature and grown-up than she was. And needed to be. That was just how she was.

“The point is though,” Willow continued, before Lacey could give up on the flicker of interest that she’d actually shown, “you don’t need to be alone.”

“Ah… and now we get to your real example.”

“Huh?”

“What you’re here for. Come on, surely you know?”

“We’re here to show - I think - that you can go to college, come out the other end and have a job, a partner - ”

“No,” Lacey corrected her. “That’s not it. You’re both here to show I can have a nice girlfriend.”

Willow considered that for a moment. “Would that be so bad?”

“Fuck no,” the girl said after a few moments thought. “That wouldn’t be so bad. But they’re terrified I’ll hook up with, well, someone like me. Me… I’d just like to hook up.”

“So… why not do something about it?” Willow asked.

“Because… I can’t meet girls,” Lacey said. “There it is. I am the single most pathetic dyke in the country, it’s official. I can’t meet girls. I mean… I can see girls, I can think they’re hot… but they’re all straight or involved or… not into me.”

“Well,” Willow said, rapidly feeling out of her depth. This was one thing she really couldn’t speak to. Tara had pretty much fallen into her lap. Like it was fate or something. “Have you tried?”

“Tried what?”

“Meeting girls. Like… making friends. Maybe letting on that you’re…” She hesitated, looking Lacey over. “Okay, they’re probably guessing that you’re into women.”

“Ya think?”

“It might be apparent,” Willow said and Lacey laughed. “This how you really identify?”

“What do you mean?”

“The leather, the asymmetrical piercings… the hair… I mean which of these things gets to your parents the most?”

Lacey barely had to think about it, the answer was right there on the tip of her tongue. Which either meant she’d been well aware of it when she did these things or she’d been thinking about it since and ignoring what she’d been told. Willow could get down with that, she’d been a rebel. Still was. After all, it wasn’t like she was studying to be a doctor now was it? In your face parental expectations.

“My Mom the piercings, she’s… she keeps wanting to know who did them because it’s not legal yet.”

“And your Dad?”

“The hair. He really liked my hair when it was long and soft and…” Lacey ran her hand through the spiked, coloured mess. And there was no getting past the fact it was a mess. No matter how you identified or what you thought fashion was, that was pretty much just a mess.

“It’s brown, really I mean? Like your Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“Better than being grey and balding like your Dad, right?” Willow quipped, hoping that the patio was double-glazed and basically her voice wasn’t going to carry inside. Doing good deeds by joking about your boss rarely went unpunished. Probably. Lacey laughed, agreeing with her.

“I can see you like that, see what he misses.” Lacey had been building up to something like ‘he hates me’ and she was trying to show that probably wasn’t it at all. If Arthur hated his daughter, would she be here with Tara? And no matter what was happening in this family, no matter what arguments the two parents had with the girl, it didn’t seem to her to be based around her sexuality. “Look in there,” she said.

Lacey turned, defiantly smoking as she expected to find her parents glaring at her. But they weren’t, they were laughing and joking with Tara. “What?” she asked more softly than her attitude had suggested when she turned.

“That’s your folks, making friends with a big old lesbian.”

“She’s not that big,” Lacey teased.

“She’s not old either,” Willow added, just in case word got back. “But whatever you think about them, they’d be nice to any girl you brought home, don’t you think?”

“Would they? It’s different when it’s your kid - I mean, I suppose.”

She could see that, she could. Very different, but despite the conservative outlook of the company he ran, Arthur was pretty open minded. He’d invited them here after all. “Okay, maybe. But look what he did by bringing us here. He’s trying to show you that there are - ”

“Nice girls.”

“Okay,” Willow said. “You don’t have to make it sound like such a bad thing. I’ve not always been… nice.”

“Yeah, you seem like a bad girl,” Lacey said. And there was that sarcasm again.

“Hey, I’ve known bad girls. They always come to sticky ends… or turn into pussy cats.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Lacey joked. Willow, feeling obliged, smiled.

“Look,” Willow said. “There’s not much I can say to you that’ll mean anything if you don’t want to hear it and you’re right I don’t know you - I don’t know what it’s like to be you, but I do know what it’s like to be the odd one out. The one who never thinks she’ll get all the things you know you want. Someone to hold. Someone to kiss. Someone to do other things with,” she added the last part when she saw the F bomb forming on Lacey’s lips. “You shouldn’t say that unless you’re doing it.”

“And there’s my problem.”

“No,” Willow said. “It’s not.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really. At least, I think really. If you just wanted that you could’ve gotten it. You’re obviously attractive, no matter how much you try to distract from it.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“I’ve seen the picture of you in there, you’re pretty.”

“I don’t want to be pretty.”
“Which is fine,” Willow said, “but if that was all it was then you’d be getting just as much as you wanted.” Okay, so it felt slightly weird talking with someone else about things that she’d never even done, but if you looked at Faith as an example. There was a girl who’d gotten precisely as much as she wanted, when she wanted. And it hadn’t been because she was attractive - even if she hadn’t been that would still have been there. It was because she’d had the pure confidence - balls, if you like - to be the slut bomb that she was. Whatever else her problems had been - and there’d been many in Willow’s opinion - that’d been the truth of it. “Someone out there, some girl in your school or… well, wherever kids hang out these days…”

“Way to date yourself, Granny.”

Willow stuck her tongue out and Lacey replied in kind. “Ouch, didn’t that hurt?” The stud in the tongue was something she’d never understood. There were other places that she didn’t understand when it came to piercing, but that one was the easiest to mention.

“I’m told it’s great for…” Lacey didn’t complete the thought.

“I wouldn’t know,” Willow told her firmly. “From either end. But it seems like something you’d do after you figured that out and tried it the other way. Au naturel, as it were.”

Lacey sighed and Willow had the definite impression that she wasn’t exactly wedded to this identity she’d constructed for herself. At least not the parts that weren’t internal to her. “Look, what I was trying to say was… you have to be out there. There are girls out there. Girls who’d like you. Girls who’d like you like this I mean, this is the city to go out that way and get yourself some company but seems like you’re pushing people away as part of who you are, which says to me you aren’t even sure this is you, or what you want.”

“I’m not… I’m not the girl with the big hair and the makeup and the flowery clothes from Sears,” Lacey said.

Even though Willow didn’t have big hair, much makeup and hadn’t been dressed by Sears since she’d taken control of her own wardrobe when she went to college, that one still cut deep.

“But something tells me you’re not all this either,” she said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Lacey’s silence was answer enough.

“Okay,” Willow said. “I’m not going to offer your fashion advice because… well, I’m not that girl.”

“Plus you’re old.”

“Plus that,” Willow agreed. “Older, not old. Just older. But look, you dress precisely how you want to dress. You stick pieces of metal through whatever you want to stick metal through. Hair and makeup… cool, whatever, but do it for you, Lacey. Not because you want to shock your parents or try to be what you think other people expect. Be yourself, that’s about all I can say. And if that Lacey is someone who wants to be with someone else… go places you’ll find her. And let her in.”

“In?” Lacey asked, all dirty grins.

“Your heart. To get to know you. Then, yeah… the other. If you want. But it doesn’t matter what your parents say, it doesn’t matter how you dress or whatever. Not if you don’t let them close to you, to get to know you. What do you think, someone’s going to just kiss you just because…?” Okay, there were bars like that, she and Tara had wandered into one just the other week - and exited rather faster - but she wasn’t sending a seventeen year old there. No, what Lacey needed was… someone like Tara. But Tara was taken.

“It’s not like I don’t know this stuff,” Lacey said, but more wistful than angry about it.

“So… do something about it. And, you know, if your parents - who are gonna put you through college and probably buy you that car to go with - are pissed at you just a little bit less then… is that so bad?”

Lacey took another long drag and then stubbed out the cigarette. “I hate these things,” she said.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Willow told her.

“Is it…”

“What?”

“Good?”

Lacey was looking in at Tara who waved when they were both paying attention, clearing the dishes from the table. “Yeah. It’s good.”

————————————


“I’m seriously impressed,” Tara told her.

“Why?” Willow asked. “We’ve done that before. A bit of lube and - Ohhh, you meant the other thing.”

“Yeah,” Tara said. “I meant the other thing. Earlier. Before we got home and you were so full of yourself.”

“Before I was full of you,” Willow grinned. Zinger!

“I’m shocked Arthur even let you near his daughter,” Tara told her, pushing her chin up with her finger. “You, missy, have a filthy mind.”

“You don’t mind if I take her out?” Willow asked.

“I’ll probably be insanely jealous,” Tara joked, “but being as you’ll be coming home to me I don’t have to worry about anything. Besides, you’re the one who knows all the best places to go.”

“Now you’re just being sarcastic,” Willow accused, snuggling up to Tara and pulling the covers more tightly around them both.

“What?”

“I am not trying to get Lacey laid,” she said. “That would be wrong.”

“I never said a word.”

“It’s what you meant though.”

Tara’s fingers were in her hair, pushing it back into some semblance of order after there’d been those fingers wrapped in it while she was… well, down there.

“You’re always the one who gets hit on in those places,” Tara reminded her.

“Not by choice!” Willow felt that she had to be very clear on this, not that they hadn’t commented on it before. It was true, of the two of them she was the one who tended to attract the attention of singles in certain establishments here in the city. And… well, people who weren’t single but were still looking for alternative company. And it wasn’t even like she was a certain kind of person’s type. All kind of women had been dropping hints, trying to buy her drinks and… well, sometimes they flat out propositioned her.

It’d taken her a while to figure it out too since - in her humble opinion - Tara was the much hotter prospect. After all, who wouldn’t want to take Tara home? But eventually, yes, they’d figured it out.

“You just look so… available.”

“I’m not though,” Willow said. “And I don’t do it deliberately. You know that I’d never knowingly be available. And you know very well, missy, that no matter who comes looking for a piece of Willow pie, there’s only one gal who gets to eat it.”

Tara broke down then, the sassiness had done the trick - as usual. Because this was her girl, her Tara and no matter how ‘interesting’ or cute the people who hit on her, that was the absolute truth. Her pie was only for one mouth.

“Pie?” Tara gasped, fighting for breath through her laughter. So hard that those sassy boobs were shaking. “Really? Willow pie?”

“It’s metaphorical,” Willow explained, really not thinking it was that funny. “You know, because of the eating - ”

“I know what it is… Willow Pie,” Tara cracked up again.

“Alright,” Willow said, propping herself up to look into Tara’s eyes after what seemed like a decent interval. “Come on, it’s not that funny.”

“Oh, it’s funny,” Tara insisted, kissing the end of her nose.

Hmm, this was the sort of thing that might get back to their friends… And some of them would take it, run with it and she’d never hear the end of it. It’d be Willow Pie for breakfast. Willow Pie for dinner. Willow Pie for thanksgiving. Not even thinking about Halloween when anything vaguely pumpkin coloured would… Okay, now she had thought about it and… no. There was a line. There had to be a line. And that, right there, was the big red line. Or more of a an orange one.

“Can we discuss the fact that you think I’m ‘available’?” she asked, trying to get them back on an even keel. Tara’s tried valiantly to get her laughter under control, failed and then tried again.

“Okay,” Tara said. “I’m back. I am. You just look… when we go to those kind of bars, you… I don’t know what it is. Everyone who’s even remotely attracted to cute, red-haired girls makes a beeline for you.”

“Maybe you should join in, dye your hair.”

Tara shook her head. “Baby, you’ve heard of the urge to merge…”

Okay, there was that. Practicalities of living together meant that she had borrowed some of Tara’s clothes and they had started to shop in some of the same places and they had… “You’re right, you going red would definitely take that a step too far.”

“Oh, I went red a long time ago,” Tara told her. “And once you do, you never look back. It’s a thing, you know?”

“Thank you, baby,” Willow said, kissing her. “Now about my availability…”

“You’re not letting this go, are you?”

Willow shook her head.

“Well, it’s funny,” Tara said

“And couples should always be able to laugh with each other - or at each other,” Willow said pointedly.

“Keeps things fresh.”

“Well you - you - when you’re in a bar - you… you drink looking over your glass the whole time!”

Tara said nothing.

“Okay…” Willow admitted. “That was poor, even for me. But you do. You look at people over your glass but they never think you’re into them. And it can’t be because they’re not attracted to you, after all I’m not often wrong and definitely not about the hotness that is you. So… What’s your secret?”

Tara considered for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, there’s something. You are - hands down - the hottest girl I know, the hottest girl I ever saw and - even though you’re mine - I have no idea how you are not getting hit on when we’re out. You go to the bar or the bathroom and they’re around me like flies, you… You they keep their distance.”

“Maybe it’s magic,” Tara said. “And flies? Really?”

“Just one of them metaphors, I guess. Not so funny this time.” Specially considering what that made her if the other women were flies… “I… I’m actually kind of offended that they’re not all after you. I mean, there was that one girl and she didn’t look like she cared whether you were taken or not, or even if I was right there, but… most girls stay away. Come on, how do you do it?”

“I just… I just,” Tara thought again. “I think I just ‘be yours’ and make you mine.”

“Yeah, because that makes sense.”

Tara laughed. “You do know that I’m only marginally more socialised than you, right?”

“I’d never know it. What happened to the girl I fell in love with?”

“She’s right here, she’s enjoyed her slice of Willow Pie but she’s figured out that you make your own reality. We had to, back in Sunnydale. The things we were involved with… It’s… attitude. That’s the best way I can think to put it.”

“I get it,” Willow said. “You don’t mean like, copping a tude. You mean… showing what you feel.”

“And I feel… taken.”

“So do I right now,” Willow teased. “I mean… that was pretty intense. What with the f-”

“Stop it!” Tara chided her.

“Okay, okay,” Willow said. “I’ll try harder to show more that I’m very definitely taken too. And then some.”

“If you looked like you do right now,” Tara said. “You’d be just fine. You’re just… I think you try to be too nice. And nice is good, but when they’re hitting on my girl I get…”

“Possessive.”

“I have a lot to protect,” Tara said.

“Mmm, so you do. Notice how I think it’s hot?” Willow asked.

“Yeah, I had noticed that - somehow - when we got back from you always wanted to snuggle.”

“And then some,” Willow said. “And don’t pretend that knowing you’re the only one who can have - ”

“Willow Pie?”

Me,” Willow completed, pointedly. “Don’t pretend that doesn’t work for you.”

“Oh, it works. It definitely works.”

“So, if I take Lacey out and absolutely don’t fight them off saying ‘but have you met my friend Lacey, she has a pierced tongue,’” Willow said, “you’ll be right here waiting for me?”

“I’ll be here. You can bring me a slice of pie.”

Willow growled, then embraced it.

“A slice? You better eat the whole damn thing, lover.”

*****************************

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 8:13 pm 
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thank you, katharyn...

that was great, would love to read more.


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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 1:27 pm 
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Thank you very much edob, I certainly hope to write more :)

Katharyn

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------


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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 3:13 pm 
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i found your update yesturday morning, very early. i work nights. so anyhoo, i left notes all over the house, and even in my ipad to make sure that i read this. and it was what made my night :blush

happy holidays, katharyn
you fucking rock :bow


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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 5:15 pm 
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Hey Katharyn! You snuck in and posted a new short story –awesome! Sorry it took so long to leave feedback to this delightful little tale. Loved Willow getting caught being maniacal over her lunch. I thought she was having a Pinky and Brain moment there. And… ohhhh.. a foot message. I thought.. errr.. I knew all along that’s what was going on there. :wink

It says a lot for Willow, and Tara, that after just a few weeks, the boss man believes they are suitable role models for his rebellious daughter. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say “knowing” rather than “believing”. I doubt he would encourage anyone to have influence over someone as important as his beloved daughter without being confident they could achieve, or try to achieve, the results he hoped for. Unless.. he’s just totally desperate and willing to risk help from a virtual stranger. It is a teenager he’s dealing with after all. LOL.

I expected Tara to charm the lady of the house. She doesn’t even have to try, it just happens naturally. That’s my girl. Mine.. all mine. (Sorry.. couldn't resist using your line for a friendly poke at Grimm! :wink)

It was a nice surprise that Willow was the one to have a little talk with Lacey. Now they have plans to go out on the town. It’s a lot easier to meet someone when you’re not going it alone. I’d say Willow’s boss is gonna owe her a pretty huge personal favor!

It’s wonderful to read another story set in the SideStep universe. Well done.. and thanks!

Hope you have a Fantastico New Year! :)

PS: Speaking of old/older.. I was in the grocery store the other day and had to ask a woman who looked to be in her 80’s to read a label for me. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? LOL.


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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 12/24/11)
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:59 am 
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edob - Again! - so you took the story to work to read? Obviously as a manager I cannot approve :) But since I'm not your manager that really doesn't matter now does it!? LOL And back in the real world... I wish I could read stuff at work too! :)

Kajun - Snuck? Snuck? You mean publicised in the approved threads? I have no worries about how long it takes anyone to reply. It's not like I am sat here clicking refresh-refresh-refresh to push up the page views and also check for my fix. Not like that at all. So it's all good. *stops shaking*

The story kind of just happened... I really had no plan for it other than Willow being at work and that whole 'the world is mine thing' came more from me wanting to actually *gasp* describe */gasp* something (I don't do that a lot!) and once I had I had to wonder why... so... yeah. The conservative boss who... isn't just struck me as a nice balance on assumptions.

Foot massage. It may or may not be the case that someone who may or may not have been me was or was not in a bath, alone or not, having her feet rubbed - or not - in the recent past. And it may or may not have been the case that the - person involved - or not - may have been making appreciative noises that may or may not have been commented upon and likened to... well, something else. Or not. Maybe. Just saying. Or not saying.

The boss thing was a touch unbelievable, granted and actually I think I find the assumption that they'd be any help at all rather crazy anyway. But that goes to the misunderstanding of the problem. It's not that Lacey's into girls. It's that she's a teenager, a late blooming one. That either of them could help with that was... unlikely. But he believes because he misunderstands because... that's what parents do!

At least that's how it seems to me.

The Tara thing, keeping her in the background, was a concious choice. I am naturally biased towards Tara. I can't help it and especially in Sidestep terms she is the one the whole story was really about from the early days. So I wanted to give Willow a chance to shine and do something on her own (while still keeping Tara in there) For once Willow isn't the butt of my jokes or the one who needs to be helped out because Tara is just so much more mature and... it was fun for me to play it that way.

As for what will happen with Willow playing wingwoman for Lacey... hmm, it's one thing for the boss to have a daughter who's a theoretical lesbian. Maybe it's another for her to have a girlfriend... that's a whole new set of problems for parents (boy/girl/straight/gay I don't think it matters!) and I have no idea where that would go...

Thank you so much for being expansive and letting me reply in kind :)

Happy New Year

Katharyn

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 11/22/12)
PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 12:38 pm 
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Wow, nearly a year since I posted in this thread. Fair enough, I've been doing other things :)

Another one shot story, Tara arriving home in time for the holidays (any holiday you like)

Happy holidays everyone.

Katharyn

Title: My girl will be home in an hour!
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Absolutely, yes please.
Spoiler warning: Nope, just for fun
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. No conversion to eBook or other formats either. Please enjoy it here. Reader presence on the board really matters.
Summary: A short, one shot, story inspired by one of my friend’s Facebook status’ last night. And yeah, she’s a girl too 
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: Suitable for anyone who can deal with the idea who two women in love and getting a little frisky. Probably.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever, that’s all I’m bothered about.
Text convention: Use of italics denotes either special emphasis if used for a single or a few words in a sentence OR first person thoughts if used for a whole sentence.
Notes: So… It’s November and my writing life is complicated. I am in the midst of writing Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda or – more accurately – redrafting it. However I took a break to do NaNoWriMo as I always do. Having finished that in the middle of the month though, I moved on to start on yet another T/W/Movie crossover that I’m very excited about for the rest of the month.
But… then I ran into a brick wall. Not writers block, I just need to go do the planning for that story interlinking movie aspects into S4 especially and planning takes away from word count and so… I needed to write a quick story to keep my word count up during Nano month  I’ve cruised past the 50K I was supposed to do, but I still want a big month.
Yes, this is what you’re dealing with. Something driven by word counts. Explains a lot, huh?
So then I saw my friend’s Facebook status and thought… there’s a story there. It was just one of those moments. And there was a story. Just a short one but… getting interesting.
Oh, and you colonials are having Thanksgiving. Seemed to fit nicely for that too. EDIT – Tip for the wise writer… it’s not really a good idea to be in a coffee shop if you’re start getting into the sensuality of your own story while you’re writing it…
Thanks to: Rachael, who put this status up, and to her girl who was coming home. Yeah, I almost called but thought… no, an interruption was probably not what you want right then.



My girl will be home in an hour…

The phone had rung precisely four times and then stopped.

It was the pre-arranged signal. One that didn’t cost anything and one that didn’t… spoil things either.

‘Tell me when you land,’ she’d said and Tara had promised she would.

Not that she’d needed the hour to prepare, not really. The house was all cleaned up. All the laundry was done, ready for the fact Tara had been away for two whole weeks – the longest they’d been apart in a couple of years – and would need to wash her clothes too.

Tara’s coming home.

Even Miss Kitty seemed to get it. She was no kitten, more in the ‘venerable’ stage of her life by now, but the elder feline had batted the more excitable and boisterous Mister Tiddles into line more than once while she’d been trying to get things sorted out and tidied up.

Not that she lived like a pig when Tara wasn’t here, but… Perfect, it should really be perfect.

Tara was the kind of girl that, spotting something out of place, would quietly go about fixing it and she didn’t want Tara fixing anything when she got home.

Me, maybe. She can fix me. But nothing else.

With Miss Kitty on the arm of Tara’s empty chair – never once slipping into her place as easily as she liked to her lap – Willow sat down, a little nervous. Mister Tiddles, attention whore that he was, wrapped this way and that around her ankles trying to be a real, grown up cat and she reached down to scratch at him.

Tara was almost home.

Fifty…two minutes. Average time, of course. To get from the airport on an average day, going at an average speed and coming home to be very un-average.

Two lesbian, two cat, two car household. That wasn’t average… except in their own community demographic. Lesbians and cats? Who’d have thought it? Shocking, right?

“You’re a stereotype,” she said to Mister Tiddles as he jumped up onto her lap, encouraged by the attention she’d already paid him. “You’re just a big old stereotype.”

But so what? Who’d ever cared about that? Certainly not their younger cat. He was slightly… umm, dumb. Picking him out at the pound he’d seemed adorable and really was. For a cat though, he was stupid as a brick.

My girl’s coming home.

Missing Tara had been something she’d been dreading, and of course she had. But it hadn’t taken long for her to accept the reality of things and shift her attention to what was going to happen when Tara got home.

Look forwards, not back.

She twirled her ring around her finger. This one was still shiny and new to her. Another symbol of a promise that one day they’d keep with each other when the law down here kept up with the action they’d already taken in… how many countries was it now?

Three. She and Tara had been married three times. Once in Mexico. Once in Canada and once in Cuba of all places. But here at home? How insane was that? Once they’d heard that you could, as a pair of women, get married in Cuba what the hell were they going to do? It’d seemed practically obligatory, just to say they had to anyone who’d listen.

And this year they were thinking of somewhere in Europe to go and get married one more time. It wasn’t bigamy – she’d checked – not when you were marrying the same person over again and your own country hadn’t quite got around to figuring the self-evident truth of much of the rest of the world.

So… they’d keep going and getting married in other places until they could get married here. It was a thing and only meant that they had to plan ahead a little more, to get the licences sorted. Plus, as Anya had she’d pointed out, it only meant they were following the example of lots of straight couples. They could get married as often as they liked and who didn’t like a party? It was just the divorce part they skipped, because… nah, who needed that when the life, the love and the sex were this good?

Mister Tiddles looked as if he was about to settle, but Willow found that she was too nervous to go along with that. She needed to move around, to pace and she couldn’t do that with a kitty on her lap.

“Off you go,” Willow said, putting him down. He mewled in complaint, of course, only to get a disapproving look from Miss Kitty who – they both knew – would be just as much a whore for Tara’s attention as she would. What did it mean when the aged, venerable and smart Miss Kitty considered Tara was her human while she’d got the attention of the young, dumb and adorable Mister Tiddles?

Nothing… it didn’t have to mean anything. Just because he was the only cat she’d ever met that belonged to a human… Yeah, he was that needy.

She checked her watch. Forty minutes. Maybe. But minimum time to Tara’s return was more like twenty-five. No way could she make it quicker than that. Right? Even though it was well after the peak traffic.

Might take longer though.

Missing Tara was a curious thing. Yes, she’d started to focus on her return and how that would be. But… I didn’t miss her as much as I thought I would.

Truly, it’d been hard to feel that – despite distance - Tara wasn’t with her. Even when they were both here, they went to work every day, spent all that time apart week in and week out and she still always had some sense of Tara’s presence in her life. Even before the rings had been slipped on each other’s fingers.

Missing coming home to her, or coming home to wait for Tara, had been harder.

And sexy-times? She’d forgotten just how alone that could make her feel. On the other hand, she’d found that she’d also forgotten the power of a long hot bath, closed eyes and pretending she had the intimate attention of a certain sexy blonde witch.

The bath-time of self-discovery had just been the second night…

Now though… Tara’s coming back to me.

She hadn’t had a bath every night, but she didn’t think Tara would be jealous even if she had. No, some of the other nights she’d had little Nikki for company and Tara was way more likely to be jealous of that than anything she’d done on her own.

Xander and Anya’s little girl was just a darling. A tempestuous, moody, sulky, noisy little darling and they both loved her to bits. They weren’t exactly being selfless when they took the two year old off Mom and Dad’s hands and probably spoiled her even more than she was at home. Years of knowing Anya had revealed the tricks of the trade to manipulate into doing what they wanted though.

Not tonight though. By now Nikki would be tucked up at home and…

How was this going to go?

She’d allowed for all sorts of possibilities. Maybe Tara would be tired and need a sleep right away? Maybe she’d not been able to sleep for the last two weeks in an otherwise empty bed? Being alone in bed was… hard.

Or maybe Tara had been able to sleep while she was away but had been missing other horizontal needs too much to pause for much else? If so, then she was ready, willing and able to assist in any way that she was needed to.

The bedroom was… well, there were candles and even rose petals – ready but not pre-scattered – just in case they wanted a special night right away?

Or… food. A light snack, all ready to be heated up and served up. Airplanes weren’t known for fulfilling your appetite and… Tara could eat.

“Tara can eat anything she likes,” she said to Mister Tiddles. “Yes, she can. Yes, she can. She can take me… anywhere and eat whatever she wants to. She can even twirl my ring…”

“Promises, promises,” Tara said from behind her.

Willow jumped; she hadn’t even heard her girl – her wife – come in. “Tara?”

“Umm, yeah.”

Bags in hands, Tara quickly dropped them as Willow ran to her and hugged her fiercely, kissing her again and again. “I missed you,” Willow said between kisses.

“I’m getting that idea! Missed you too, love.”

The fervour died down quickly enough and they were left holding each other, Willow pushed that hair back from her woman’s face. “You got another grey one there.”

“Oh! Thank you very much,” Tara joked. “‘Welcome home, baby, you got another grey hair’!”

“Can I get points for endearing attention to detail though?” Willow asked.

“You get points for being you,” Tara promised her. “Nothing more and nothing less than that.”

“So how was it?” Willow asked. Yes, they’d spoken every day but they were going to talk about the trip and what’d happened anyway. The only way they were going to avoid that was… well, if Tara wanted them to do something else with their mouths.

Or go to sleep, but she didn’t look sleepy and so… A girl could always hope.

“You know it was good,” Tara said reasonably. “And you know what I did. You kept asking me and I kept telling you.”

“No, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t having intimate dinners with some hot girl while you were away.”

“No… Not intimate ones,” Tara said.

“But dinners with hot girls?”

“No, wait, sorry. I got it wrong. Not dinners. I was just intimate with hot girls. They didn’t tell me about my grey hairs either.”

“You’re a beautiful bitch!” Willow said and kissed her again.

“No… wait… Hold on. That wasn’t it. They were just hot dinners. That was it. But in all seriousness, I did get intimate with one hot girl.”

Willow knew very well that there was a punch-line but for the life of her she didn’t know what it was.

“Tell me, and you’d better confess it all.”

“Well,” Tara said, tidying her bags but leaving them for now, “I was chatting with this girl. Red hair, she had. Absolutely stunner.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, she liked to talk on the internet when her girlfriend was away.”

“Wife,” Willow corrected. “We promised to say ‘wife’ more.”

“You’re right – when her wife was away, she liked to do that.”

“Much better. So, what happened with her?”

“Well, we finished our video chat and I just walked away but when I came back… she’d left her webcam on.”

Willow blinked. “I did – I mean, she did?”

“Yes, you – she – did.”

“Oh… right. Well, she should be more careful. Did you… see anything… interesting?” she wondered, knowing where this might be going.

“Pussy,” Tara breathed.

“Pussy?”

“Mister Tiddles, he walked right across it.”

“Oh… you had me worried for a moment,” Willow said.

“Then there you – she was on the bed…”

“No! You didn’t see – did you!?”

“Gotcha, lover,” Tara said, grinning. “But I know you too well… I know that look in your eyes. If I’d been here…”

“You’d have been - ”

“Twirling your ring?”

“Well, maybe not that, but… yeah, maybe. You know, if you wanted to.”

“You’re a sexy woman, Willow Maclay.”

“I really am,” Willow grinned. Tara had slipped her shoes off and was crawling over the couch to her while two cats looked on curiously. Well, one looked on curiously. The elder of the pair had shared single room dorms and apartments with them when they were just starting out. Miss Kitty yawned. Yeah, she’d seen this all before.

“Sooooo… You said I could do anything I wanted? When I was walking in?”

“No, I said you could eat anything you wanted.”

“Oh? Have you got something prepared for me?” Tara asked teasingly, sitting on her feet. Maybe just to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere.

“I’ll say I have.”

Tara moved further towards her, over her… Not bad, when she was wearing a blouse that she could see right down. “You’ve been shopping,” Willow concluded, not recognising the bra so she tugged and confirmed what she’d thought.

“I was thinking only of you.”

Tara kissed her. Frisky, wasn’t she? It wasn’t in any way a bad thing. Willow tried to reach for her, but Tara gently stopped her and held her hands by her side while propping herself up. Mouths. All about the mouths right now. Kisses. Words. Nibbles and delicate movement of the tips of tongues.

She sighed when Tara pulled on her top lip with her when a long kiss finally broke. “You taste…”

“What?”

“My woman, you taste like my woman.”

“Well, duh. That’s because I am,” Tara confirmed.

“I can’t believe you told me you’d watched me on the webcam!”

“I can’t believe you admitted there was something to watch.”

“It’s your voice,” Willow said. “Your sexy, sexy voice. It’s not just the webcam, on the phone…”

It earned her another kiss. “I know you only married me for the sex,” Tara said.

“The first time,” Willow explained. “The second time I married you for the sake of the children. Miss Kitty and Mister Tiddles need a stable family unit. I stay with you for the sex.”

“Oh, right. I see the way it is.”

“You didn’t ask about the third time,” Willow pointed out.

“Oh, why did you marry me the time?”

“You’re a great cook,” she said. “Too.”

“Oh, right… I know my place.”
“Yes, it’s right between my legs,” Willow said. “One way or another.”

“Oh?” Tara asked. “And were you thinking one way, or the other right now?” Willow’s knees were pressed up against her lover’s hips. Her wife’s. She was right where she was supposed to be.

“Both. All of them, actually.”

“You’ve not got any less greedy since I went away.”

“You know I’m good for it,” Willow said.

“A very reliable debtor to be sure.”

“I think, maybe, I’m actually in credit,” Willow replied, lying back. So… they weren’t going to make it to bed just yet, they were going to reconnect right here? Somehow she couldn’t see the bad in that either?”

Tara relaxed her weight down on top of her, lying on her and between her legs. Kissing her, letting go of her hands so they could touch more completely. Willow’s hips started to move and Tara’s thigh pressed into –

Somewhere an alarm went off.

Blinking against the noise, shocked Willow sat up. All alone… Damn, I hate it when that happens.

Tara wasn’t on top of her. Her phone was beeping after completing its countdown – Tara will be home in an hour and…now it’s an hour and Tara’s home.

Tara was stood there.

Right there, in the doorway.

“What are you doing, love?” Tara asked, smiling down at her.

Willow looked and realised that her hand was clasped between her legs, fortunately outside of her pants but… yeah. “Thinking of you?” she replied. “Us, actually?”

Tara bent over the back of the couch to kiss her and yelped as Willow pulled her right over it and on top of her. “Now… where were we?”

“Welcome home for the holidays?”

“Okay, wife, why don’t you invite me in?”

*************************

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------


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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 11/22/12)
PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 2:58 pm 
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4. Extra Flamey

Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 9:59 am
Posts: 160
:whip Dinbs! Hey, that was great! Funny and cute and sexy... I loved Mr Tiddles, the dumb little cat, Willow calling him a stereotype, I loved them getting married already three times...I loved all of it!


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 Post subject: Re: Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love (New Standalone 11/22/12)
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:18 pm 
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23. Volumey Text

Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 1:23 pm
Posts: 3794
Topics: 5
Wills redemption - I don't think dibs counts for much when you are the only one :)

Mr Tiddles was a reaction to Miss Kitty, of course. But generally I find that cats really do have two settings. Smart enough to rule the world if they could be bothered and too dumb to know what the world actually is... Nothing in between.

I wasn't sure about the 'legality' of the marriage thing but couldn't be bothered to do the research!! Fun fluff! :)

Thanks,

Katharyn

_________________
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------


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