Title:
Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love – ExceptionalAuthor: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Probably none, and why the hell do we need to worry about this years after the show went off the air? Suffice it to say nothing bad ever happened to our girls.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all my W&T fic)
Summary: Willow goes off on one… this time she’s watching TV. In bed. Yeah, that’s gonna be popular with her better half.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories. You know the drill. Any other music, video, film or TV show that is mentioned by name or suggestion – the same deal goes for those too.
Rating: Caution for frolics and suggestiveness, but nothing too out there.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. I doubt I’ll even mention anyone else.
Notes: Okay, so I was doing a quick ‘Find’ on Pens front page and by chance came across this old thread of mine which Astronsoul had pushed up the board earlier this year. So, being as I have no memory for what I actually write I took at look at the last part that I wrote – the one that poked a little fun at writing including myself – and what can I say? I was… inspired. This had been fun for the sake of being fun and another obvious target presented itself. Music, the media…
A lot has changed since the girls were, well, the girls and it was ripe for some sort of Willowesque commentary. Whether it’s on the nail or not I’m not sure, I’m not a devoted watcher of US TV and certainly not up to speed on music videos but hey, I read After Ellen so… that’s enough, right?
At least that was what I
intended this to be about. In the end it became more about Willow, her thought processes and teasing some delicious reassurance out of Tara. Don’t take her too seriously, she’s just just being Willow – wanting to be special. But that’s no bad thing, right?
Thanks To: Astronsoul for dragging it up the board as mentioned above and my own, private Mod Biatch for sorting my old fic out
Lesbian Gay Type Women in Love
Exceptional
By
Katharyn Rosser
“So here’s my - ”
Tara, getting ready for bed, heard something from the bedroom but couldn’t quite make out what the woman already there was saying to her.
Between the TV, the toothbrush in her mouth and the wall that kept the en suite bathroom from being ‘too much information’ Willow was more than a little muffled. Which was fine, because Willow was more than just a little muff.
Hmm, now there was a funny that – one day – she might have to use.
“What was that, love?” she poked her head back around the door, trying not to grin at her own joke.
Willow hadn’t made much of an effort with the bed - which still bore the crumples of the past hour or so since an early night had felt like a
really attractive idea.
It wasn’t the only thing that bore the marks; she peered down her night dress at the perfect imprint of Willow’s teeth.
Willow wasn’t even looking at her; she was looking at the TV instead. Which was neither romantic nor sexy, despite the fact that her girl was still naked and not doing much to hide it. And so thinking of muff as she had been…
“Huh?”
“You said something? You said ‘so here’s my – something’?” Tara asked, brushing more slowly, not wanting to get toothpaste on a carpet that wasn’t theirs. The B&B had seemed like a nice place, though since they’d arrived – thanks to inclement weather – there hadn’t been much opportunity to get out.
You’d have thought Maine in the rain would be boring as well as rhyming rather well. Surprisingly not so. But then they had brought their own fun and so far it hadn’t involved writing poetry.
“Oh, yeah. So, here’s my thing – I mean, that’s what I said – I said ‘here’s my thing’.”
“No, love,” Tara assured her. “I washed it; put it back in the velvet bag in the case?” The looks they’d gotten when they checked in had been confirmation that two women in the same room – they’d been asked if they wanted separate beds – was uncommon enough here. Let alone if the maid found… well, ‘things’ lying around when she came in. The rainbow stripes didn’t exactly blend into the background…
“Not
that thing! Which is actually
your thing, if we want to get technical about it.” Willow was moving deliciously and exposing more of herself than she’d probably intended to. “Come on, Tara, I know I’m usually a good lay, but you really have to get your mind out of the gutter.”
Tara smiled at the teasing.
“So you have a thing,” she said around the toothbrush, needing to spit but Willow had a thing and that had to find its way to the surface or there’d be another conversation at two a.m.
“You might want to finish up,” Willow said.
“Oh, it’s that kind of thing?”
“Yeah, it’s a long – Look, can we stop calling it a thing? That’s way too phallic for my tastes. And yes, it’s a not-a-thing that might take a while. Go spit.”
Tara did as she was bidden, finishing off her teeth and then trotting over the thick carpet and slipping into a bed that just… well, it just reeked of them. Shampoo, perfume, sweat… other scents. Impressive, considering they’d only arrived today.
Assured that they actually were the only guests and had the floor to themselves they hadn’t really held back from expressing themselves. Expressing themselves as a couple. Willow’s enthusiasm had helped her past her natural reticence for being so intimate in a place they didn’t know.
And Willow had been very enthusiastic.
“You had a thing,” Tara said, lying on her side and wondering why naked, freshly orgasmic Willow hadn’t wrapped around her yet. But her lover/best-friend/soon-to-be-wife was propped up with the remote in hand. Not even when Tara slipped a hand over her bare belly – where she’d left a tooth imprint of her own – did Willow give her much of a response.
“Yeah, well… Look at this.” Willow gestured at the TV.
“Music videos.”
“Not just music videos.” She flipped a few channels.
Tara had to admit she wasn’t detecting a theme or even much of a tune. “Maine TV bothers you?”
Willow looked at her, apparently utterly serious. “Baby, I don’t feel exceptional anymore.”
Tara waited for more, didn’t get it and blinked. “Huh?”
“I don’t feel exceptional. There, I said it.”
“Umm, after what we just did?” That’d been pretty exceptional. She couldn’t imagine anyone but Willow coaxing her that… high. Not that way…
“Well, yeah. I’m an exceptional
lover to you. I mean, duh.”
“You really are,” Tara said, snuggling up but still a little disappointed not to find more than an arm looping around her, absently playing with the hair she’d teased back into some semblance of not looking like stereotypically ‘bed head’ After all, you never knew when the fire alarm was going off – which was why both their clothes were laid out ready for that kind of emergency.
Naked in the rain
might be fun, but in the middle of the night in a Maine B&B carpark? Not so fun.
“Glad you noticed,” Willow said. “But… I’m not exceptional. Actually
we’re not exceptional.”
“No,” Tara said. “We’re exceptional. We are. I checked at www-exceptionalwomeninlove-dot-com. We were right there. Top of the exceptional list.”
“No,” Willow said. “We’re not. We’re… baby, we’re mainstream.”
“Is this because we’re getting married?” Tara asked, just a little suspicious. She’d always thought that Willow had secretly liked the ‘living in sin’ part of their current arrangement. The more sin the better when it came to subverting the moral choices that denied people like them their rights.
“No, I mean, no but yes – in a way. Maybe. I guess… I think us getting married is just one part of it. I know you want to get married,” Willow said, “because, hey it’s me. And I guess I feel that way about you too.”
“You’re gonna feel my fist if you keep up with that,” Tara threatened, fully aware of what she was setting up.
“Here? Baby, do you think we should?” Willow grinned and Tara thumped her fiancée gently in the stomach, sending Willow into an exaggerated reaction. “So you want to hear this or not?”
“I definitely want to know what our marriage, a wonderful and sacred commitment of our love has to do with your reaction to being – what did you say? Mainstream?”
“Okay, here it is… we’re… mainstream.”
“You said that already.”
“Well there it is. I hate to break it to you love but, we’ve been out there. We’ve been proud. And now… we’re mainstream. When we got together was there a lesbian on TV?”
“Plenty.”
“But we didn’t
know it, now look!” Willow flicked channels a couple of times to find a couple of women grinding against each other in a music video.
“Umm, okay.”
“Baby, when you were growing up if you’d have seen that what would you have thought?”
“Tune sucks. It’s all beat.”
Willow looked at her. Significantly.
“Okay, yeah… models grinding. I guess I’d have been…”
“You’d have been excited. Its okay, you can admit it.”
“I’d have found it interesting,” Tara said. “I’ll give you that. And I might’ve been inspired to buy myself some black underwear and have more interest in grinding…” She twisted her head as the image started to rotate. Or was it the models? Maybe the bed.
“See… and that was just flicking channels. Let me go again…” She tried again, four or five more flicks and then she stopped. “Look. Here! A soap. Girls kissing.”
“Yeah?”
“Kissing!”
“Okay… I think I’m missing your point.”
“We – lesbians I mean, we’re everywhere now.”
“Not on style and makeover shows,” Tara pointed out. Those were a weakness of Willows.
“Well, duh, the gay guys have got that whole market sown up and lets face it, they have that whole fabulous thing so what do you expect?”
Tara had to admit that one, they had plenty of gay, lesbian and straight friends, but if you graphed them – Willow might just do that if she didn’t agree right now – the ‘fabulous quotient’ was right where you’d expect it to be. Stereotypes had to come from somewhere after all…
“Fantasy and sci-fi though,” Willow said. “I can’t find a show right now, but… lots of lesbians there.”
Tara had to give her that much. “Though we’re often still waiting for ‘the right guy’ – so not exactly ‘lesbians’ at all - or could be evil.”
“I’ll give you that, but who doesn’t like an evil, lesbian queen? I mean, come on…” Willow argued.
“Okay, but fantasy’s always had that, I mean look at vampires,” Tara said. “The fictional ones I mean. They’ve always had that going for them – right back to the early days. So… I don’t think that’s helping your case, love.”
“Tough cops,” Willow said, flicking channel. “Especially ones wearing suits with pants instead of skirts. Or denim, denim’s good – you know, if they’re undercover.”
“Uhuh.”
“Okay,” Willow said. “So we don’t know they’re into girls – often the Assistant District Attorney or other cops – but we don’t know they’re
not either.”
“No, come on,” Tara replied. “That’s just wishful thinking. And grinding girls in music videos, you know as well as I do that they’re just doing it for the guy with the camera or whatever. I can pass on all of this – even evil queens with a thing for innocent red-heads.”
“There are real characters though, I mean – women who are supposed to be into other women. Teenagers, old women, everything in between. And yes, sometimes that includes women grinding in music videos and… oh, that’s kind of… you’d never have seen that on TV when we were growing up.”
Tara rolled her eyes. Willow was off on one of her little theories and there really was no stopping the tide once it started to come in. But… you could help direct it. Channel it, so to speak.
“Okay, I’ll give you that, love.
That is certainly something I’d never have seen on TV when I was growing up.”
“What would you have done if you had?” Willow asked, a wicked grin spreading over her face.
“Turned it off real quick, before Daddy saw it.”
“Really quick? Or might you linger a moment?” Willow asked.
“You, lover, have a filthy mind.”
“I promise not to be jealous… So come on, young teenage lesbian, growing up miles from the city. Surely something like this would’ve been… I don’t know how to put it…”
Tara picked up the baton; it seemed the fastest way to get them to sleep tonight. “I think you mean ‘motivational’?”
“You said it.”
“I supplied the word, not an admission.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I was a good girl!”
“You’re not trying to tell me that you went from good girl to second-date-laundry-room-thank-everything-we-survived-sex in one easy move, are you?”
“Willow!”
“What?!”
“We’re so not having this conversation.”
“You knew what that Divinals song was about, didn’t you?” Willow challenged, teasing her physically as well as verbally now.
And so Tara just had to fight back. When you were ‘fighting’ Willow it was always best to play her at her own game. “Well, just because you didn’t pay attention to the lyrics…”
“I was innocent until I met you,” Willow teased, all naked and sultry and… the very definition of not being innocent. In fact this was Willow at her most sultry.
“Oh, please.”
“I was. Until I met you, I was naïve enough to think that I knew who I was.”
“That’s not the same as innocent,” Tara pointed out. “And you want to talk about innocent?” She pointed to her chest. “Never been kissed, baby. Never been kissed until you.”
“Maybe, but you were all with the touching yourself!”
“In what universe?” Tara asked. “You’re telling me that if I
had watched music videos like this – which I didn’t because they didn’t exist – then I’d have been - ”
“Motivated,” Willow supplied.
“Motivated to – to – to do that thing?”
“Come on, love, you can say it.”
“I know I can say it,” Tara said. “I know that. But this is a nonsense discussion. I didn’t see music videos like that so I didn’t go there.”
“But if you had?”
“Then – then – I suppose, maybe, I’d have been more… motivated. But honestly, I don’t – this isn’t my kind of music. And I’d have been more concerned with the objectification.” So there. Lets get that right out there. She didn’t think Willow was saying these videos were a force for good, but she certainly wasn’t saying there was anything wrong with them.
“Maybe this is a bad example then,” Willow said, “but this is what I’m saying. We’re everywhere now. Lesbians… I… When I joined up, I was exceptional. Now I’m just… ‘Oh, you two are together. That’s cool. Getting married?’ I’m only exceptional if I drive to a state where I can get married?”
“You’re exceptional if you forget to take me with you,” Tara pointed out.
“Ha-ha.”
“The Divinals weren’t singing about a solo-marriage,” she said.
“So you do know the song! Ha!”
Tara sighed. “We already established that.”
“But I got you to admit it,” Willow said, triumphant.
“Maybe you’re just exceptional and I can’t resist you?” Was this really all about Willow wanting to be exceptional?
“Well, duh. I’m serious though,” her lover said, flicking stations until she found something else that interested her. “Really. We’re like – we’re like the diversity card. Every new show or movie must have the token ethnic character, the token gay – or at least a character that they can make gay later – probably bi-sexual… I mean, isn’t there just a plague of bi-sexuals now?”
“I think plague is a bit harsh,” Tara said.
“There’s lots!”
“But you can’t call it a ‘plague’!” That was her point.
“Oh, right that could be taken the wrong way – yeah but – if lesbians are more obvious, then bi-sexuals are… they’re like the new straight.”
Tara knew she was going to regret asking but Willow was obviously waiting for her to. “Go on…”
“Bi-sexuals are like – it’s easy. You need representation, then go get a bi character off the shelf. Maybe you can just refer to it in passing, while hooking them up with the opposite sex most of the time. That’ll get the homo-audience on your side. But – and I ask you – where are all the bi-boys?”
“So now you’re saying there’s not enough representation - ?”
“No, I’m saying there’s an explosion of bi-girls and lesbians. That show about LA lesbians with impossible houses and no jobs that’d really pay for them – at least not jobs they actually seem to do - you know the one I mean?”
“Yes, I know the one you mean - ”
“You think that would’ve happened when we were growing up?” Willow asked.
Tara sighed, wondering what this was really about. Because it sounded less like the state of the media and more and more like ‘when I was a girl.’ “Sure you’re not just getting old?”
“No!” Willow protested. “I am not getting old and besides, I’m younger than you.”
“So now you’re saying
I’m getting old.”
“You wear it well,” Tara’s lover insisted. “We can smooth out the wrinkles and dye out those grey hairs.”
“Ha ha,” Tara said, certain that at least the latter was an exaggeration. “Seriously though, that’s the way it sounded to me. You, my dear, are one step away from saying ‘Kids today…’ and you’re not even thirty.”
“I don’t know,” Willow said. “I spent so much of my life not knowing who I was and then I did know who I was and I thought I was pretty cool for having worked it out - ”
“You had help,” Tara pointed out, just a little smug about her part in that.
“I think that’s actually called ‘a seductress’ but think of it as ‘help’ if you prefer.”
Tara chuckled, who’d been seducing whom? Huh? Seemed to her that Willow’s sheer presence in that room had been all she needed to forget who she was, why she was there and all about the magic that she’d been disappointed wasn’t in use. It’d let her devote her attentions to another – unfamiliar – kind of magic. One between them. “Seductress is a good thing, right?”
“I should say so,” Willow agreed. “But anywho, I was doing so well, I’d come out to everyone who mattered, I had you - ”
“You’ve still got me.”
“I’ve got you,” Willow stressed, “that’s what I said. I’ve got you. So just when I start getting into how ‘right’ all this, how exceptional I really feel – not only to know who I am but to find the person I’m supposed to be with – and the world’s suddenly flooded with lesbians. Or at least with women who do… that sort of thing in rap videos.” She twisted her head again.
“You’re not seriously comparing yourself to those girls?” Tara asked, very tempted to use another, less polite, word for them. But they were just images on a screen, two girls – actually three, no four girls – doing a job and getting paid for it.
“No,” Willow said, “They have boobies. More boobies, I mean.”
“There are four of them, I think.”
“I meant, bigger. And I’m pretty sure it’s three.”
“I love your boobies,” Tara promised her, kissing one to make the point and perhaps distract from a discussion that seemed to be wandering all over the place.
“Thank you, baby,” Willow said, “but that’s really not the point.”
“I’m struggling with the point,” Tara said, “I really am.” Still, if she licked it, that might help.
“I don’t know… like I said, I just don’t feel… I don’t feel it’s ‘just us’ any more.”
“You want we should stop going out with our friends?” Tara wondered, knowing that wasn’t what Willow meant at all. Her girlfriend hadn’t thought through that sort of implication. Every so often, not so often after they’d just been loving each other up, the pressure cooker that was Willow’s mind had to let off some steam.
This was the result.
“No! No! I mean – All I mean, all I want is…? It’s not like I’m against visibility – I’m all yay for visibility even if
that sort of visibility probably isn’t helping.”
“Says the naked girl in the bed.”
“Ha ha. Is it a bad thing to want to keep being exceptional though?” Willow asked. “To miss when it almost felt it was just us? I mean, we got along okay. We had each other and we had friends, maybe not gay friends but we had friends. And… we watched TV. We weren’t sitting there – well, like we are now. But… Exceptional?”
“You are,” Tara promised her. “You’ve got me.”
“Well, yeah. But you could have anyone you fluttered those pretty blue eyes at,” Willow moaned, not really meaning that either.
“And just how many people have you ever seen me flutter them at.”
“Just me.” Now that was rather perkier.
“See, exceptional.”
“But - ”
“Lover, what did you do last month?” Tara asked, having a brainwave. Willow wanted to be exceptional, well yay. Now she knew one way she could prove it.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Willow said even though she obviously got it.
“Yes, you do. What did you do last month?” They both knew, but Willow saying it could only be a good thing right now.
Her girl’s voice dropped. “I sent you on ahead when we moved so that I could U-Haul across to move in with you,” Willow said. “And how stereotypical is that? After mullets, that’s
the big-ole-gay-gal stereotype.”
“Uh-uh,” Tara shook her head. “Not many people do that deliberately, just so they could say that they’d done it. That is truly exceptional. Unique. All Willow. Quirky.” She was proud of the last word. Willow loved to be seen as quirky.
“I guess… It’s not about me… You know what, Tara?”
“What?”
“This is a really ill-thought out argument I’m having with myself, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.”
“There’s no truth at all, in anything I’m saying. I want it both ways…”
“It’s exceptional that anyone could be so self aware,” Tara agreed happily now that Willow saw her point of view. “That you can admit that. Also, if you want exceptional, you can’t carry a tune. At all. In no way. You’re exceptionally bad at singing.”
“When did this become about listing my faults?” Willow asked.
“But there are so few,” Tara replied. “So very, very few. Remember, self-aware is a good thing. We just decided that.”
“Well you… you… you sing after you give me an orgasm,” Willow accused, just a little feebly.
“That’s really the best you can come up with?” Tara asked. And yes, guilty as charged. Not like, in bed, but later when she was still in her happy place. Guilty as charged.
“It’s hard!” Willow complained. “You make it so hard… you’re so beautiful and scrumptious and totally edible and perfect, oh damn you, Tara Maclay.”
With her lover snuggled up against her to make her point, Tara actually felt guilty as charged. Up until Willow, not a one of those things had ever crossed her mind about herself. Except in the negative sense – qualities she didn’t have. Willow Rosenberg was a game changer alright.
Never. Been. Kissed.
There’d barely been a day since that they didn’t get to much more than kissing. “Can we turn the TV off now?” she asked.
“You want to get frisky again?” Willow asked hopefully. And she knew full well that hopeful Willow was adorable…
“Look what happened the last time,” Tara replied, but she was mellowing to the idea.
“But I’d love to hear you sing.”
“What, again?”
“I like to hear you sing, there’s nothing wrong with that. You have a wonderful… voice.”
“You’re exceptionally transparent too,” Tara told her. It was late, they were both tired after a day of… well, after a day, but somehow she thought it wouldn’t take much for Willow to talk her into it.
So long as she didn’t get sweaty again, after all she’d just showered and she did like to go to bed fresh.
“I am transparent when it comes to you,” Willow replied. “But am I really?”
“Sweet lady,” Tara said, slowly kissing her way down her girl’s torso. “There’s no one like you. Would you like me to count the ways?”
“Mmm?”
Tara counted them off on her fingers, between kisses. “You’re a red-haired - that’s one – Jewish – that’s two – lesbian – that’s three – witch and that’s four. Just how much more exceptional do you want to be? How small a part of the population do you want to be?”
“Ohhhh,” Willow said. “I’m really, really good with that exceptionality… really good. That’s really, really exceptional.”
“Excellent,” Tara replied with a wicked smile before she applied her lips and tongue to the task. She hadn’t been holding her fingers up in the air when she was counting those factors off.
Not at all.
**********************