AUTHOR: Missy
EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com
PART: 5 of
8 (?)
RATING: NC-17 (thematic
material; Fmast)
PAIRING(s): L/L
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CATEGORY: Romance
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE:
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne takes Lenny's final proposal far
more seriously than he intended. When
Laverne's mock-wedding starts to take on way more meaning than she intended,
Shirley begins to question the validity of her rushed nuptials to Doctor Walter
Meaney.
NOTES: From something Kath told me about the proposal scene.
***
The sound of Shirley groaning brought Laverne to swift
wakefulness from a deep sleep. She
stumbled out of bed and tapped on the bathroom door. "Shirl?" A heavy groan was her only answer. "Should I call the d-Walter?"
Every word came out deliberately. "No...this is
normal..."
"I'm gonna go make some tea. You want some crackers?"
Another moan. Not quite sure what she could do for her
friend, Laverne put on a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt, then headed
downstairs to put a kettle on.
Waiting for water to boil had to be the most boring activity
known to man. She forced herself to
ignore Shirley's groaning and poured a large bowl of Sugar Smackers, figuring
that anything Shirley couldn't smell wouldn't hurt her.
As she sat down to a lonely breakfast, a teeny tiny part of
Laverne was glad that it wasn't her up there, groaning over the toilet. After taking an almost childish zeal in
trying them out, lately she'd been lax in taking her pills since there wasn't a
'special guy' on the horizon. Shirley's
nightmarish morning sickness had encouraged Laverne right back on the
responsibility wagon; she reached into the pocket of her robe, withdrew the
plastic disc and took one with her morning tea.
By the time Laverne finished with her breakfast, Shirley
staggered downstairs, tightly wrapped in her pink robe. "Can I do anything?" Laverne
fretted, helping her best friend to the couch and pulling a lap blanket over
Shirley's prone form.
"No - this is just nature taking it's
ugly course," Shirley grumbled, rubbing her eyes. Laverne rushed into the kitchen and returned
with a laundry-pan sized washtub, which they normally used to let their bathing
suits drip-dry after a day on the beach.
Shirley rested it on the floor, in case of further gastric upset. "Thank goodness it's Saturday - I can
spend the day down here watching TV."
"Sounds like fun," Laverne grinned, vaulting into
the side chair with a great amount of enthusiasm. "First, we can watch Sky King, then
Howdy Doody, then Double Indemnity's
on the Afternoon Movie!"
"Barbara Stanwyke is so awful
in that film," Shirley shuddered.
Laverne shrugged.
"Murders are supposed to be awful."
"True."
Shirley closed her eyes and - with the utmost carefulness - rolled onto
her right side, facing the TV. While
Laverne eagerly watched Sky King, her best friend fell to sleep.
Laverne kept an eye on her drawn-looking best friend, but
her worry over Shirley couldn't stop her childish enthusiasm for Saturday
morning TV. When Clarabelle Clown
appeared on her set, someone began to knock on her door. Laverne gingerly shut off the set and slipped
over to answer it.
Though she was no mystic, Laverne could have predicted who
was standing there. "Lenny?"
she wondered.
He stood on her doorstep in his best suit, bearing a handful
of daisies and a wide grin. "Hey,
Vernie," he yelped, "you busy?"
She shoved him into the hallway and closed the door behind
her. "Shirley's sleeping, be
quiet!"
"Oh," Lenny whispered, "sorry! Can you come out today?"
Laverne bit down on her lower lip. Shirley would probably sleep all afternoon -
she didn't have a date lined up and being alone didn't sound like a worthwhile
way to spend a nice afternoon.
"Where do you wanna go?"
"Well, we still got a million things to talk about when
it comes to the wedding..."
Tension yanked her head up.
"We've talked about the cake, the flowers, the invitations, the
guest list, the honeymoon, the favors, the dresses, the groomsmen and
bridesmaids, the band, the reception site, the church, the minister, the limos,
the pictures and the food. What else do
we gotta talk about?"
He thrust out his daisy-filled hand and said. "About when we're gonna spend some time
together alone."
"Lenny..." she eyed the daisies. "Did you get these outta
my window box?"
"Yeah - this was kinda
spur-of-the-miniature." She
cautiously took the daisies, examining them for bugs while he stood back,
wide-eyed. "You wanna go to the
park? I'll bring my guitar - you can
bring yours."
Laverne tilted her head and looked at him. What sort of mind-trick was he trying to pull
on her? She resisted the temptation to
lower the boom on their little game.
"I guess. You wanna drive
out to
Lenny thought briefly.
"Okay. Get your guitar and
meet me at the truck. We can busk for honeymoon mad money!"
"All right," Laverne said lightly. She slipped inside, grabbed her guitar and
purse, and locked the door behind her for Shirley's safety.
Laverne wondered what she was doing as she headed
outside. For someone who wasn't
interested in what Lenny was offering she was spending a lot of time with
him. Not a new development in a
relationship that had always involved a lot of hanging out.
She wasn't accepting marriage from him, she reminded herself
for the millionth time in the past few days - the wedding would never take
place. Lenny knew it, and she knew it,
they were both just having too much fun teasing each other. And she was having way too much fun being
teased, Laverne admitted to herself silently.
Soon, she would let him down easy - but not too easy, she thought,
remembering his jibes about her 'old maid' stateus.
Her smile held an edge of determined viciousness when she
saw him next.
***
Laverne loved this place, mostly because it was filled with
wild noise and interesting people.
"Lookit that, lookit
this!" she exclaimed as she dragged Lenny through clusters of gathered
teenagers, all of whom waved at them happily.
Lenny, slightly shyer, shrunk back and offered them a wave
or two. There was another reason they
couldn't be together, Laverne thought.
He was so meek, and she needed a bold man who wasn't afraid of taking
what he wanted. Maybe she'd read too
many romance novels, she chastised herself, because not every man she dated fit
that criteria. He hung back as she
parted the crowds and found them a bare spot on a grass-covered hill near a
pecan tree. They sat down opposite one
another under the shade of the tree and settled their guitars in their laps.
Laverne watched Lenny tune his instrument, still unsure
about how to do the same thing with hers.
Laverne fiddled with the knobs on the neck of it, causing the much
dreaded TWANG of a guitar string shattering to puncture the air.
"You got a spare?" she asked him.
Lenny reached into the back pocket of his pants and withdrew
a long silver strand and held it out to her.
Unthreading the broken string, she carefully replaced it.
"What do you know?" she asked, carefully
strumming. Her guitar made a cool, clear
noise in the chatter-clouded air.
"I can fake almost anything," Lenny said, resting
his thumb against the fretboard. "Whattya
know?"
"Some Beatles, some Stones, some Dylan, a little
classical..."
"How about 'Like a Rolling Stone'?"
She nodded.
"Okay..."
that was one of the few songs she knew from memory - and as she
made the first chord with her right hand, she realized Lenny knew that and had
selected the song just because she knew it.
"One, two, three," he counted for her. Eyes closed, Laverne joined him, her right
hand moving automatically down the neck as her left strummed. Lenny sang – Laverne’s ability to do two
things at once had been robbed from her.
And it was like magic, playing with him. Musically, they'd always fit well together,
even though Lenny had more experience and a nicer singing voice than she did;
she could sing low and slip around and beneath the hitch in his baritone,
making the counterpoints of their voices mix well together. When they hit the bridge, she looked toward
him to see if she was doing as well as she believed; Lenny caught her eye with
a big smile - and she grinned back without thinking.
As the song finished, she wondered why she couldn't find
such perfect rhythm with anyone else.
They locked eyes, and he finished with one dramatic strum across the
frets.
It was the applause that startled them out of their private
world; a small gathering had watched them play and sing, and threw flowers at
their feet in tribute. Lenny smiled and
bowed his head in response; Laverne remained absorbed in Lenny and barely waved
to their enthusiasm.
"Do you know 'Scarborough Fair'?" Lenny asked.
"No," she admitted.
"It's easy. C D Db C D C D F."
"What?"
"Doncha know how to read
music?" he gaped at her
Laverne drew herself up straight and true. "I play by ear."
"Tin ear," he teased when she frowned. "Yanno, we
sound good together," he added, tuning his guitar a step lower.
"Yeah," she admitted, surprised by the shyness
tingling over her skin.
"That's good.
When we get married we can play together any time you want."
Instead of dignifying that with a response, she said,
"C, D?"
"Yeah," he said roughly. "C."
They spent most of the afternoon teaching each other songs;
for every Beatles number he knew by heart there was a Kinks song he couldn't
quite master the fingering for. At
around two she noticed her stomach was grumbling.
"Can you get us some hot dogs?" she asked,
reaching into her purse. "I got
cash..."
"I got enough," Lenny said. "Wanna soda?"
"Pepsi, please."
"Okay. Watch
Mister Chimey for me," he requested.
It took her a few moments to realize that 'Mister Chimey' was his guitar - and not his penis. The childlike name he'd given the instrument
brought Laverne back to reality, reminding her that another strike against
Lenny was his immaturity, and that she wanted a to marry a grown-up.
Like her Pop.
She winced sourly. No, nothing like judgmental,
pressuring, dour Frank. Well, maybe kind
like him - generous, protective - loving...
Like Lenny?
Laverne lay down in the grass and looked blindly at the
cloud-frosted sky. What was really so
bad about Lenny, in the big scope of life?
Hygiene and morality issues aside, of course, she winced. Why had she only contemplated marriage to him
in her most desperate hours when she'd dated thieves and gang members? Was she that fixated on finding a big, tough,
strong hero who would take her away from the drudgery of Bardwells
and make her a mommy? Did she have a
thing for authority figures?
Shirley, in one of her moments of pop psychological insight,
had claimed to Laverne that she had the inverse of a Madonna/whore
complex. "You could call it a
saint/bastard complex in your case," Shirleys
said, blushing on using the latter word.
Was that true? Did she paint
every man she met as either a protecting hero or a pulse-increasing villain?
Lenny interrupted her thoughts with a round of hot dogs and
soda. "Thanks," she smiled,
taking her food from his open palms and blushing when they made contact.
If she had a saint/bastard complex, why did it feel good to
touch him?
***
"You wanna go home?"
She wiped her ketchup-stained mouth with the back of her
hand. "It's only 5."
"That's close enough to sunset. We can watch it go down together," he
said. She put the suggestion out of her
mind for the next hour as they finished swapping repertoires. After they'd finished the wisdom exchange,
Lenny took the guitars back to the truck and returned to sit with her.
As he sat down, he grabbed her around the waist and pulling
her close to him. Her face collided with
his shoulder and she endured the embrace; sweat had dampened his shirt, and she
could feel the moisture through her thin plaid shirt. His cologne assaulted her nose, and his hands were greasy from
the French fries they'd shared.
But she had to admit it felt nice to rest against his belly,
to feel his heart beat against her shoulder blade and listen to his breath
billow into her ear.
"I can't see the sunset," she pointed out, and
gently Lenny turned her around.
The sky was golden-orange, with cotton-candy colored clouds,
the sun blood colored as it descended.
It was startlingly beautiful.
Lenny remarked, "you ever see a sun that
big?"
"The sun's always big."
"I mean - it makes me feel real tiny next to it. Yanno, like a ladybug. Or a tapeworm."
"Eww."
"It's beautiful, and I'm glad I'm sharing it with
someone pretty like you."
The romance in his voice made her feel horribly guilty, but
their gazes met, and suddenly it felt right to incline her head as his
descended.
She leaned in toward him, his plump lips parting slightly as
they touched. Her tongue slipped into
his mouth just as his cleared her teeth.
His hand ghosted over her jaw and through her hair to rest on the back
of her neck.
Her body softened, moistened; her nipples erected. She felt comfortable enough to lie in his
arms for the rest of her life and aroused enough to unzip and take him right there in
front of the strangers walking the nearby bike path. Kissing him was such a strangely natural act
that it felt like the first step toward a bed and his body on hers...
They broke apart, lungs aching for air. He looked down at her as if she were
precious, delicate, and rare - as if letting go of her would be a big mistake.
"Wanna come up to my place?" Lenny asked, his voice deep with a new arousal.
She nodded.
***
The drive back to Laurel Vista seemed interminable, made
worse by the usual Saturday evening flux of traffic tying to make it in to
They found home and parked, and without another word walked
up to Lenny's deserted apartment.
She stood on the cluttered living room floor while he
nervously turned on the overhead lights and took off his jacket. Laverne felt every muscle in her body tense
as she waited for him to grab her - to throw her down on the bed and end the agonizing
tension. Instead, he pulled out a chair
at his kitchen table and pulled out a pack of cards, then dealt her a hand.
"Gin," he said.
The tension in her body became agonized. "WHAT?"
"Let's play cards."
"Why?"
He licked his lips nervously. "I just wanna!"
She sat down and took the hand he dealt. "Why don't we make a little wager to
make this more interesting?"
His eyebrow rose. "Sounds dangerous."
She leaned over the table.
"Why don't we make a bet?"
"You mean like the time I had to eat a whole jar of hot
peppers 'cause I bet on the Blue Jays when Squig picked the Dodgers?"
"Yeah, but a lot less painful," she said. "Best two out of three."
"Okay - what's the wager?"
She thought for a moment, then
leaped at the chance. "If I
win," she said, "we break off this engagement."
"Okay. If I
win," Lenny said, "we do it."
She almost choked on her own tongue.
"Laverne?" he worried. "I don't wanna make you do something you
don't wanna do. You can say no, and nothing'll change."
But she wanted something, her bouncing nerves demanded
succor - a day filled with intimacy and shared interests had left her open to
him in every way. "Let's do
this."
She played surprisingly well for a woman well-distracted by
her own libido. Then again, Lenny was a
horrible bluffer and an even worse card player.
She beat him easily in the first hand, and the second.
It all came down to this.
She didn't want to make him feel bad, so she threw the hand. That led to another - to another thrown hand,
and an even break for Lenny.
She went into the sixth hand with confidence, never
imagining that he had the wherewithal to beat her. He asked her for sixes, she gave him one -
she got an eight back from him. She only
needed a jack when he triumphantly put down his full house.
"Gin," he said.
Laverne stared at the cards laid out on the cheap folding
table. She looked up into his radiant
face and back down at the cards, trying not to show how unnerved and pleased
she was by this turn of events.
"So," he grinned, "you got a rubber?"
"I'm on the pill," she mumbled. "Len?"
He leaned back in his chair, visibly hurt but relieved as
well. "Okay. We can wait for the wedding night if you
want."
She almost agreed, but there would be no wedding night with
this man. Maybe all they would have is
one night of bliss before they broke apart their friendship, bitter because of
the silliness of this game. She made her
choice by lurching across the table and kissed him - shutting their mouths,
enrapturing them in the world they shared.
He pulled her forward, until she was lying
belly-down on the table in the riff-raff of cards and other unidentifiable
debris. Her arms went around his neck, his hand went down her blouse.
Laverne's mind buzzed dizzily, but the reasoning, practical
part of her acclaimed herself to what was about to happen. So they would fuck, she decided. She'd had casual sex before, without guilt or
shame. She could do the same with him -
he'd get what he wanted, she'd get what she needed, it would be over - they
would go back to being friends.
Then she would tell him the engagement was over.
Their bet provided her with a perfect excuse - he would be
bad in bed, she would say they couldn't satisfy each other, they would break
up, sadder but wiser. The charade would
be over and she could get back to her life as a swinging single in mod-ern
Her hand snuck under the table, patting the rising ridge in
his pants. "S'that
a rocket in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
The front door flew open, abbreviated her question. "Hello!" Squiggy yelled, dragging
two suitcases. He eyed the red-faced and
panting couple as they pulled apart and Laverne clambered off the table. "I told ya,
Len - don't do bimbos on the table! It
leaves rings!"
Laverne's lips puckered in a display of nausea. "I'm gettin
out of here..."
"Laverne, don't go!
I got my tongue all limbered up!" Lenny yelled.
Squiggy stepped between the two of them, trapping Lenny in
the apartment. "Waitaminute, I gotta show you my slides from Pewaukee!"
Laverne slammed the door as Lenny and Squiggy continued to
argue, running back to her apartment and - for once - locking the door behind
her.
She was alone - that would normally force her to worry about
Shirley, but she'd taped a note to the lampshade. Laverne:
Morning sickness better, going out with Walter to see 'Gidget',
be home by ten. Love, Shirley.
It was only seven now - plenty of time to sulk. Or, she thought, feeling the tension still
lingering in her belly, something much more fun...
She stripped out of her clothing, tossing it all over the
bedroom until she stood nude before her bed.
She sat down at the left side of it, opened her dresser drawer and dug
beneath old copies of True Confession and wadded-up phone numbers to find her
seven-inch vulcanized rubber pal, James Dean.
James had been the third acquaintance Laverne had met in
Laverne smirked as she threw back the covers and squirmed
between them. James made her anything
but numb 'down there' she thought, as she closed her eyes and immersed herself
in her favorite fantasy, her left hand going to her breast and plucking the
center of her right, gently.
The faceless man in
her fantasy had her laid out on the beach, his muscular shoulders flexing as
they French kissed. His hand worked the
zipper on her swimsuit down, revealing golden flesh to the rays of light
painting their bodies. His duty was to
please her, so her spent minutes licking her nipples, blowing cool air and
sucking on them until she began to writhe...
She was writhing now, too, both of her nipples puckered and
tingling. Her right hand drifted low and
began to tease the rising flesh of her clit.
The man in her fantasy
moved a little slower, kissing her thighs and all around her mons before placing his tongue in the ridge of her
labia. Slow little licks, up and down,
before he found her clit and began to work it over with gentle suction and
teasing tongue...
In real life, her fingers did all of the work - making her
wet. Making her throb. She gabbed James
from the nightstand and slid his slick length down her torso, over her clit,
then deep into herself where her inner muscles flexed and released, flexed and
released. She didn't even need to turn
James on, but she clicked him into first gear.
Flexing and releasing, she continued the fantasy.
Now the stranger was
on her, in her, working his hips evenly and carefully. Never was he too rough or too soft - never
did he come too quickly and kick her out of his place unfulfilled. He was the perfect man, existing only to
protect her, to love her, to provide unlimited orgasms...
A real orgasm was building - she felt the familiar almost paralyzing
tension begin on the soles of her feet, racing up the back of her legs. She was moaning loudly, squeezing her own
breasts, flexing in time with the vibrator.
She dialed James up to the medium setting.
She was ready to
burst, her arms tangled about his neck.
She called out, incoherent, on the knife's edge of orgasm. Just before she contracted around him, his
face transformed from blurry to sharp-featured; his skin from tanned to pale,
his musculature from a bodybuilder's to a working man's.
His
eyes to blue.
"LENNY," she called into the darkness, bending
herself into shapes a contortionist might envy, the pleasure- wracking her so
divine that she bit her palm to keep from screaming anything more
revealing. So quickly the pleasure-agony
was over and she dropped back to the real world, weak-limbed, sated, sleepy. She almost
didn't have the energy to shut off the vibrator and unplug it.
Dizzily, she got up, cleansed it and hid it away again for
further use, then tossed on a nightshirt and prepared for dreamless sleep, too
exhausted to even question her Lenny fantasy.
But peace was interrupted by a knock at the door.
WHY did Shirley have to forget her keys at the worst
possible time?! Stumbling downstairs,
Laverne didn't even bother to turn on a light.
Silhouetted by the
hall lights, he stood there, his eyes electric and filled with life.
It was as if she'd never come. Her knees felt weak with anticipation - had
he heard her moaning and coming, calling his name? She watched Lenny silently, then changed
course and grinned briefly before bringing her arm up and running her pussy
juice-scented fingers along the outline of his lips.
His tongue lashed out, sucking them into his mouth, drinking
in her taste; his teeth scraped her and she withdrew them.
They were locked in an embrace, eye to eye, the kisses
crushing and uncompromising. Together
they stumbled backward up the stairs.
The clatter of the door being swept aside was only dwarfed
by her surprised cry as he took her into his arms and carried her two steps to
her bed.
As he sunk down over her body and began to kiss her
frantically, she realized they had both won everything they'd been gambling on.