Lucky

Part 2

Elle woke up, slowly, as always. And felt slightly disoriented, although she could smell coffee…somewhere. And food.

Food.

She sat up and was surprised to feel disappointed that Vickie wasn't beside her.
Trying to ignore the sensation of feeling, basically, anything about another person, she focused on the much greater quandary of the moment: her clothes were in a downstairs' bathroom and the clothes she'd been given to wear were still in the library.

Okay. Maybe she'd have to go naked. She could feel the pulse throbbing in her throat as she felt the old and deeply ingrained, paralyzing anxiety of walking across any room, anywhere, when another person might see her back.

At just that moment, Vickie entered with a loaded tray, and laughed, "Ah ha! The beautiful girl's awake."

"Yes, you are," Elle grinned, She was stunned to find her anxiety instantly vaporizing and made no effort to cover herself.

Vickie smiled and placed the tray on the bed, "Thanks for not covering up two of your best assets."

"I was under the impression that you thought my ass was my best asset."

"Hey! That was alliteration and assonance!"

Elle smirked, "I'm a prodigy after great sex."

Vickie smiled. "Wasn't it? I only wish we hadn't had all that latex between us."

Elle's voice was so gentle that it took Vickie's breath. "Me too, Vic. I wanted to have everything with you last night. Every feeling. Every taste." That expression felt a bit too emotionally charged, so Elle grabbed a piece of sausage off of her breakfast plate and engulfed it, whole. "Despite what I said last night, I hope this wasn't your pet."

Vickie's voice was solemn. "I took you at your word. I'll have you know that my cat, Fluffy, gave her life for your breakfast."

"Bullshit. You don't have a cat-I can tell."

"How?"

Elle paused between stuffing her face, "One. You're not the sort of idiot who would name a cat Fluffy. Two. You're so affectionate that if you had one, the little bastard would have been in bed with us. Three: cats taste like chicken, not like sausage."

Vickie gaped, "How the hell would you know that?"

"I hate to promulgate a stereotype, but I've eaten at a couple of Chinese joints where I'm pretty certain that I've chowed down on cat."

Off Vickie's horrified look, Elle continued, "C'mon, now, if we're adult meat-eaters, we've seen chicken, for decades, in every possible permutation. If it arrives on your plate, is supposed to be chicken but doesn't somehow look like chicken, it's probably cat."

"And you ate it anyway? That's disgusting, Elle."

"Disgusting but true. I'm one of those people who accept the fact that if I'll eat one part of a phylogenetic scale, I shouldn't get prissy about others."

"What does that even mean?

"That means-if I'll eat a cow-what's the difference between that and a cat or dog or a horse? A mammal is a mammal is a mammal. Vegetarians can be righteous and indignant-but omnivores can't."

Vickie scowled, "Can I take you back now?"

Elle smiled, "To my own little corner of the world? Sure." she said, winking and popping another sausage into her mouth, "But I'm finishing Fluffy first."

Vickie laughed and ruffled Elle's hair, "I would never take you back. And we're on for dinner, right?"

Elle's voice was slightly muffled through an enormous bite of toast, "Like I said, if and only if you get rid of your daddy's boyfriend."

"That's a promise. Do you like Thai food?"

"What human doesn't?"

Vickie scooted closer to Elle in the bed and took a cup of coffee from their tray, "No human I know."

Elle snorted, "Exactly. I mean, of course, there're pod people who don't like Thai-because, evidently, they don't teach that at Pod Person University. It's a little known fact but that's one sure way to identify and bag 'em."

Vickie leaned over and kissed Elle's cheek, "You've given this a lot of thought?"

The blonde nodded, "Hell yeah. Pod people, zombies, werewolves, vampires, grey aliens, rogue cyborgs-I've read enough books and watched enough movies to be prepared for the entire range of excitement that life might afford me."

Elle smacked her forehead and looked at Vickie with perfect seriousness, "Holy shit! It might all hinge on Thai food! When-when, I ask you, have you ever seen or read about a grey or a cyborg eating Thai food?"

"Well…I'll have to admit-never, that I can remember."

"I think we're onto something here, Vic. There could be an academic paper in this."

Vickie shook her head, "You're a gabby little thing, aren't you?"

Elle winked at her, "Since the very first moment I was able to talk."

"Do you know that a person could conceivably wish to marry you for this sort of breakfast conversation?"

Elle snorted, "Yeah. Sure. The proposals never stop."

As the blonde continued to stoke her breakfast in as if she were feeding a furnace, Vickie watched her with amazement, sipped her coffee and began to gently stroke her bedmate's back.

Elle stiffened and said, "You don't have to touch that."

"You said it doesn't hurt."

Elle stared at the tray, "It doesn't hurt-it just doesn't matter. You don't have to pay attention to it."

Vickie took another sip of coffee and offered, gently, "I'm not paying attention to it and it doesn't matter to me, either. I just wanted to touch you-so I thought I'd pat your back. It's a hell of a lot less distracting than caressing your breasts while you're eating, don'tcha think?"

Elle felt tension easing from her shoulders and focused on her food, "If it's not too disgusting to you-it does sorta feel nice."

Vickie smiled. "I told you last night, it's not disgusting at all. And does it feel sorta nice? Or very nice?"

Elle frowned at her breakfast and spoke sharply. "Nice. Alright? Very nice."

Vickie didn't take any offence from the tone, "Okay, then. Nice is good. Eat and let me pet you."

Elle continued to eat but continued to frown. "You want to know what happened, don't you? Why I-"

"Nope," Vickie interrupted her, quickly. "Not yet. It's personal and it's not like we've even had our first date yet."

Elle's frown disappeared, replaced with a sly smile, "Well, you know-in the parlance of my trade, last night was technically a date."

Vickie took another healthy swig of coffee, "Your trade here or your trade in Geneva?"

"Here, smart-ass, and fuck you very much. Don't you eat? All you're doing is swilling coffee."

"Honey, you're eating enough for both of us. Coffee is the top of the food pyramid for me. I nibbled while I was cooking for you, little girl."

"I'm not little."

"Actually, you are."

"Said the giantess."

"Okay-how about one 'getting to know you' question. You know I'm a lawyer. What do you actually do?"

The blonde raised one eyebrow. "When I'm not doing people? International business. You don't really want to know any more than that."

Off Vickie's expression, she raised both hands, "I don't mean that it's a secret. If I told you, I wouldn't have to kill you or anything but it would bore the tits off of you. I'm not kidding. You'd have to hold your breasts while I described it so they wouldn't fall off."

"Yours seem to have stuck around. And very beautifully, I might add."

"They give you a special tit glue when you're initiated into international business. It's like getting into the Benevolent Order of Elks or something. There's even a secret handshake involved."

"You could hold my breasts while you told me."

For the first time since the food had appeared, Vickie suddenly had Elle's full attention. "If I were touching your breasts, Vic, the only business we'd be talking would be very, very personal."

The two women's eyes met and both felt, suddenly, breathless.

Vickie blinked, "Hold that thought." She lunged for the phone by the side of the bed and dialed.

After a couple of seconds, she spoke, "Hey, Chris. Can you meet me for brunch? Yeah? Yeah. It's important. We need to talk. Sure-that's great-meet you there. 11:30? See you then. 'Bye."

She turned off her phone and turned to Elle, "'Operation Get Rid of Cheating Boyfriend So I Can Have Dinner With Beautiful Woman' is underway."

Elle nodded her approval, then said, "The rules change tonight, you know. Just because you buy me dinner, it doesn't mean you'll get lucky."

Vickie chuckled, got out of the bed, and looked into green eyes. "I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I can get lucky tonight. We'll just have to see whether you can."

Elle beamed up at the brunette. "Nice one, Vic. And cheeky."

Vickie gave a playful bow and said, "I'm going to get you some clothes to wear home. You're not wearing what you came here in."

Elle bridled a bit, "Why the hell not? It was good enough for you last night."

"You're right-but last night I didn't know you. Now I have too much respect for you to let you display yourself that way. Do what you want away from me, but I want you to be respected in my presence. Got it?"

Elle felt a flash of anger, then an unexpected sense of warmth. "Got it."

"Good. Now finish your breakfast so I can take you home and break up with my boyfriend."

As Vickie turned to leave the room, Elle raised her voice. "I was a virgin."

Vickie turned back to face the bed.

"I was a virgin before this…" Elle tilted her head toward her back, "happened."
Looking down at her plate, she whispered, "I just wanted you to know that."

She looked up and gave the other woman a thin smile, "I wasn't always the slut and whore you see before you."

Vickie felt her throat constricting with sadness and took one deep breath. "We had sex for money, Elle. And I'm going to pay you for that sex. But I don't think of you as a hooker, a slut, a whore or any other name people might give you for what we did last night. What we do and who we are…are sometimes very different things. You can tell me what happened when we know each other better-and I do want to get to know you. Because I already like you. A lot."

The brunette smiled a dazzling smile. "Would I break up with my father's boyfriend for just anybody? I think not."

Elle answered shyly, "If you keep that up, you probably will get lucky tonight."

"I got lucky when you got in my car last night, pretty girl." Vickie tilted her head to one side with a smart-assed grin, "And you know you can trust everything I say-I'm a lawyer."

Elle grabbed a pillow and tossed it toward the brunette, who merely dodged and said, "You gotta be quicker than that around here, short-stop."

When she'd left the room, Elle placed the tray to one side of the bed and closed her eyes, "Holy shit," she said aloud, "what have I gotten myself into?"

***
As they drove closer to Elle's corner, Vickie asked, "I don't want you to tell me why you do this but if you don't need it, what do you actually do with the money you make?"

"Give it to the other girls."

Before Vickie could question her, Elle hastened to add, "I'm never anywhere for very long, Vic. You can't just barge in and hook in strange places if you don't want to get beat down by the girls or their men. I look for a place where the girls are independent, tell them I'm a freak and if they let me work, they get my money."

"How long have you been here?"

"Last night was my first night-and you were my first trick."

"Trick, huh?"

Elle smiled at her driver's profile. "Admittedly, more tricky than trick."

"Why are you here?"

"My company wants me stateside somewhere. But I always say no. I like to keep moving and if I trick in any city, I force myself to keep moving because my real-life cover could be, as they say in bullshit movies, blown."

"So you might be able to stay here?"

"They totally, definitely want me here."

"And you're sabotaging that by tricking?"

"That's my modus operandi, baby."

"But you've only had me in this city, right?"

"Yes."

"So your cover's still entirely cool in this city, Elle."

"Yes-but what's your point? That's my car, the grey one, over there."

Vickie pulled over. "A Lexus?"

"I know. What a fucking cliché, huh?"

"Big time. My point is-I want to get to know you."

"Dinner tonight, then."

"Don't hook until tonight."

Elle turned on Vickie with a ferocity that took the other woman's breath away. "No one tells me what I can or can't do with my body."

Vickie started to answer, stopped, then continued, "Your body is your own-and, of course, you can do whatever you want to. I just don't want anyone else between us before I see you again. Is that too much to ask?"

Elle glared into liquid blue eyes, "I'm going to dinner with a trick. That's a first. But listen to me very carefully. Don't ever, ever ask me that again. The only part of what I do that concerns you is what I've already told you. I'm disease free-I always have safe sex."

As the blonde continued, her tone was cold and her voice increased in volume. "When I leave this car, Victoria, I may, or may not, gang-bang an entire football team. Whether I do, or whether I don't, is absolutely none of your fucking business. I won't tolerate even the suggestion of possessiveness from anyone. I've been possessed-and I have the scars to prove it. That will never happen again. Never again. So if this is your fantasy about having met the proverbial whore with a heart of gold-you'd better re-think that right this second. I have a heart of stone. Never doubt it. Don't forget it."

Vickie's eyes had filled with unshed tears and Elle's voice softened. "I didn't say that to hurt your feelings, Vickie. You crossed a line that I don't let anyone cross. There was no way for you to know that-but now you do. Do you still want to go to dinner? I wouldn't blame you if you don't."

Vickie hesitated, then asked quietly. "Do you want to go? I mean-do you even care if we go?"

"Of course I do-I'm looking forward to it." She took Vickie's hand and gave it a brief squeeze. "I like you a lot, Vic. That hasn't changed."

Vickie scrubbed her eyes, "Then we're on for dinner. Eight okay?"

"Perfect-call me and I'll meet you. And if you buy me a couple of Thai iced teas, I guarantee you that you'll get lucky."

"It's a deal."

"Do you mind if I kiss you goodbye, Vic? I know that we're in broad daylight and that you're straight and all."

"Not anymore, evidently."

They shared a very quick, tender kiss.

As Elle exited the car, Vickie called after her, "I want you."

The blonde smiled and answered, "I know that, ma chere. But you can only have me on my terms. They're non-negotiable. I know that isn't fair-but that's the way it is."

Before she turned away, she added with smoldering eyes, "And Vic-I want you, too. No matter what we have for dinner, it's only going to be an appetizer."

As they parted, Elle and Vickie each felt the oddity of being both deeply aroused and terribly sad.

Continued...