Fun For Now (Carol + Therese)

[zakandsara]

Happy New Year. 😊 Enjoy!

 

Carol had had several drinks, just as she does most nights. Just as they do together. Her eyes became lighter, softer, glossier, and her every movement was like a part of a dance that Therese hadn’t yet learned. 

 

“Shall we have one more? A night cap?” Carol asked, placing a hand loosely on Therese’s forearm. 

 

The young woman looked up at her, smiling through the wine, or perhaps because of it. “Yes, I think so.”

 

Carol gestured to their waiter and sat back languidly in her chair. This was the fifth hotel they’d been at in 6 days, but the routine, the constant change, the mania of the spontaneity was finally starting to feel just right to Therese. 

 

“This town is lovely, don’t you think?” Carol asked, sitting back up. “I think this might be my favorite stop yet.”

 

Therese nodded. “Dinner was wonderful.”

 

“It was, wasn’t it?” Carol twirled a blonde curl and cocked her head, suddenly thinking too hard. “Though I think I’ve had enough.

 

Therese furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? Do you want to leave?”

 

She shook her head. “No, no. Why don’t you see if they’ll send our drinks up to the room? I’ve got to make a call. Okay, darling?”

 

Therese nodded, rarely ever even taking a second to think about Carol’s requests before moving to complete them. 

 

“I’ll meet you upstairs,” she called, already on her way to the lobby. 

 

Therese stood, too, and found that the wine had affected her more than she’d thought. She made her way to the host stand, where she informed the maître d' of their plan. 

 

She walked slowly, uncertainly to the elevator. She wasn’t feeling sick, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever had this much to drink before. “Sixth floor, please,” Therese said as she stepped in, focusing on each word harder than she ever had. 

 

She emerged, unscathed and just as unembarrassed, and waltzed toward their room, where the door was already propped. She pushed slowly, and found Carol undressing. 

 

“Oh,” she said out loud, perhaps too loud. “I’m sorry-“

 

“Don’t be,” Carol said, continuing. “Shut the door?”

 

Therese turned around and did as she was told, her heart racing. “The drinks will be up soon,” she said to the floor.

 

“You’re a doll, thanks,” Carol said, her voice getting closer. “What are you doing all the way over there?” 

 

Therese took a deep breath and turned around to find Carol sitting on one of the beds in her bathrobe. “Nothing. I’m a little...” She walked toward the woman and took a seat on the adjacent bed. “I need to sit down.”

 

Carol smiled. “Are you feeling poorly?”

 

Therese shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. I’m...” She paused as she watched Carol tilt her head away and bury it into her sleeve. 

 

“Hih’IhTschh!! H’iHTschhiOO!!” She straightened back up. “Excuse me,” she said, shaking her head. She tightened the belt on her robe. 

 

Therese felt a smile creep across her face. “Bless you,” she said finally, looking down. 

 

Carol cocked her head. “What’s so funny over there?” She was playful, too, in her state, though she’d likely never admit she’d had a bit too much to drink. 

 

“Nothing funny, I just...” she trailed off, rolling her eyes at herself. “I’ve never heard you sneeze before.” 

 

Carol laughed, long and loud and liquidy. “You’re very strange.” 

 

“I don’t mean to be,” Therese attempted to set the conversation back on course. “I guess I’ve become more interested in humans after all.” 

 

“I’d say so,” Carol agreed, wrinkling her nose. She brought her wrist back up and bent lazily into it. “He’iHhtschhh! Hih’tSchhhi-oO!! Oh, no...” she trailed off. 

 

“Are you all right?” Therese sat up, leaning closer. 

 

Carol looked up at her, her eyes wetter than usually. “Yes, yes, this just happens sometimes when I....when...” Her breath had begun to hitch, and though she attempted to fight it, she twisted away from Therese and bent double. “Hi’EHtschhiOO!!”

 

“Bless you,” the young woman told her again. “Is there anything I can do?”

 

Carol shook her head, standing to fetch her suitcase. “It’s really nothing, darling, it’s just a side effect.” She rifled through until she found a handkerchief in a coat pocket. 

 

“A side effect of what?” Therese moved closer yet again, taking a seat on an armchair near the vanity. 

 

Carol followed, perching on the chair’s arm. “Too much wine. I’m allergic to having fun,” she deadpanned, but burst out into giggles when she noticed the severity on Therese’s face. 

 

The young woman bit her lip, but laughed, too. “Well, I hope you’re not allergic to having fun with me,” she put a hand on Carol’s thigh, before she even knew she was moving. She looked up, catching the woman’s eye, and they stayed for just a moment completely still. A knock at the door jolted them both. 

 

“The drinks,” Carol remembered, standing quickly. She padded over to the door and opened it, still, it seemed, a bit more shaken by the small interaction than Therese would’ve guessed.

 

She received the tray and tipped the bellhop, shutting the door with her foot. “I suppose we should’ve quit while we were ahh...ahead.” She cut herself off, her breath catching again. 

 

Therese stood and urgently swooped in, pulling the tray away before disaster struck. 

 

“Hi’iHntschhh-oo! Hih’tsSchhhiOO!!” She pulled the handkerchief from the pocket of her robe and rubbed at her nose. “I must be good company like this,” she joked, her consonants sounding duller. 

 

“I’d rather be with you like this than with anyone else any other way,” Therese said, looking away as she finished. “Bless you, anyway.”

 

Carol smiled, her eyes going warm as they lingered. “Thank you.” She stepped over to Therese and put a hand on her cheek. “Angel.”

 

She smiled, placing her hand over Carol’s. “No more wine tonight, I think.”

 

Carol shrugged, pulling her hand down. “It won’t get any worse,” she assured, sniffling. She picked up the glasses and handed one to Therese. “When in Rome.”

 

She looked at it, staring into the red inky void for probably too long before finally lifting it up to Carol’s and clinking it. “To having fun.”  

 

Carol winked at her and took a long sip, setting the glass down on a side table. “Are you?”

 

Therese sat back in the chair. “Am I what?”

 

Carol reclaimed her spot on the arm. “Having fun?”

 

Therese looked up at her for a moment, but pulled herself away, taking another sip she didn’t need. “How could I not be?”

 

The blonde woman shrugged, pushing a strand of hair behind Therese’s ear. “Are you missing home?”

 

She shook her head. “Not at all.” 

 

Carol smiled, leaning slightly away. Her breath caught and hitched once, twice, before she bent fully into her shoulder. “Hi’TeSchhh-ishh!!” 

 

“Bless you,” Therese told her once again. She put her hand back on the woman’s thigh, this time, less timidly. “I’m sorry this is happening.”

 

“Don’t be.” Carol shook her head, drinking some more of the cursed wine. “Harge would always get so frustrated with me whenever this happened. ‘You know what it does to you,’ he’d tell me. Scold me, more like.” Carol trailed off, looking down. “He’d send me off to sleep in Rindy’s room until it passed.”

 

Therese frowned. “That’s terrible.”

 

She shrugged. “He’s not here now.”

 

“No,” Therese rubbed her thumb across the woman’s knee. “He’s not.”

 

“I thought these days would be miserable. I’m so grateful you‘re here. Truly, Therese. You can’t imagine how grateful.” She looked down, the sincerity of the moment seemingly overtaking her. “Listen to me...” she said, her lightness returning. “The wine’s made me melancholy on top of it all.”

 

Therese reached up and put a hand on her arm. She squeezed lightly. “I don’t mind.”

 

“Of course you don’t,” Carol stood, walking toward the bathroom. “You don’t mind anything.”

 

Therese laughed softly, following her until she hit the bed, where she laid down on her stomach. She put her hands under her chin and watched Carol fill up a glass of water from the bathroom tap. “That’s not true,” she said finally, sounding as though even she weren’t sure that was verifiable. 

 

“Oh, no?” Carol popped her head out for just a moment. “Tell me.”

 

Therese rolled over onto her back, propping her head up with a pillow. “I can’t stand bananas.”

 

She heard Carol chuckle from the bathroom. 

 

She smiled. “And I hate when it rains in summer.”

 

Carol waltzed back out. She wrinkled her nose. “I do, too.”

 

“And I really don’t like to drive.”

 

Carol cocked her head. “We make a lucky pair, then, don’t we?” 

 

“I’d say so,” Therese agreed, suddenly feeling her face flush with heat again. “Mind if I crack a window?”

 

Carol shook her head. “Stay put- I’ll do it.” 

 

She finished off her water and leaned over to the window, cranking it open just a slit. The cool winter air poured in and made the room fresher, more alive, more electric. 

 

She stepped back, looking quizzically into the air. 

 

“Everything okay?” Therese sat up. 

 

She nodded, but put a finger up telling the girl to wait. Her nose twitched and her bright blue eyes closed, almost sensually, as she gasped in. “Hih’ETsCHhh!! Hih’eHKTschh-OO!!” She rubbed dramatically at her nose with the handkerchief. 

 

“You are getting worse,” Therese stated, a blend of accusation and sympathy. 

 

Carol bit her lip, guilty. “You’re too worried about me.” She stepped closer to the bed, perching on its edge. She took another sip of her wine, finishing off the glass as though in defiance. 

 

“I’m not worried,” Therese defended. “I’m observing.” She smiled, looking over at Carol with a smirk. 

 

“You’re very funny tonight,” Carol told her with a grin. “How can you remember you’d never heard me sneeze before?”

 

“What?” Therese cocked her head, the night getting muddier by the minute. She, too, stood to fetch herself a glass of water. 

 

“Earlier. You said-“

 

“Oh,” Therese cut her off as she emerged from the bathroom. She took a seat next to Carol in the bed and put her head in her hands. “I’m sorry I said that, I embarrassed you.”

 

“You didn’t.” Carol put a gentle hand on her wrist and guided it down. Therese looked up at her. “You didn’t at all. It was sweet.” 

 

The brunette smiled, a sudden twinge prickling at her eye, like she was about to cry, only of sheer joy. She leaned forward. She paused and cocked her head, but shook off her questions. She kissed Carol. 

 

The older woman pulled back after a moment. “Therese,” she purred, velvety and soft and pure. 

 

She sat back. “I remember everything about you. It’s impossible not to, I can’t help it.”

 

Carol looked down, this time, her cheeks bloomed rosy. “My god...” she trailed off, laughing to herself. “How did I find you?”

 

“I don’t know,” Therese put a hand under her chin and cocked it up. She kissed her again. “But I’m glad you did.”

 

Carol sat back again, this time more urgently. She took a desperate breath and bent tight in between the two of them. “Hih’mPHtschhh!!” She sighed, sniffling. “Excuse me, sorry.”

 

Therese brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Bless.” 

 

She nodded, twisting further away. “Hi’EkTschh-iOO! He’iHKtschhh-OO!! I’m so sorry,” she repeated. She fished the handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose softly. 

 

“Carol...”

 

“I know,” she finally gave in. “No more wine.” 

 

“I don’t like seeing you suffer.”

 

“I’m not suffering,” she laughed. “Actually, it feels good sometimes, don’t you think?”

 

Therese shrugged. “Sometimes. Maybe.”

 

“You don’t believe me,” Carol nudged her. “I’m not bothered. I swear on...” she looked around. “I swear on the bellhop.”

 

Therese started to giggle, which sent Carol into a fit of giggles herself. “I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

 

Carol tilted her head toward the door. “He was rather interested in us, wasn’t he?”

 

“In you,” Therese corrected her. “He was practically staring.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “He wasn’t.”

 

“He was!” she insisted. She looked at Carol’s long legs folded under her, her soft skin, her endlessly enticing blue eyes. “How could he not be?”

 

She smiled. “You’re too good to me.”

 

“I’m as good as anyone in their right mind would be.” 

 

It was Carol, this time, who leaned forward for a kiss. “My darling.”

 

Therese put hers arms around Carol, hugging her close. “You smell divine.”

 

Carol chuckled and pulled back. “It’s new. From...” she trailed off, a now-familiar look taking over her face. “From Chicago- hih’EHnKtschhh!!”

 

“Bless you.”

 

“Thank you. You don’t have to say that; you must be tired of it by now.” 

 

Therese smiled. “Not if you’re not tired of doing it.”

 

“I’m getting there,” Carol admitted, slowly bringing the hankie up to her face as if to prove her point. “Hih’iNgKschht!!”

 

Therese winced. “Don’t hold them in.”

 

Carol nodded as she geared up for another. “Hi’EHkTschhie-OO!!” She shook her head. “I’m getting a headache.” 

 

“Then I think it’s time for bed,” Therese told her, standing from the bed and extending a hand for Carol to grasp. 

 

She led her to the other bed and folded down the bedspread. “I’ll get you some water.”

 

Carol laid down, following Therese’s nonverbal instruction more than the young woman had ever seen her follow verbal ones. “You’re a star,” Carol mumbled quietly, already dwindling. 

 

Therese set the refilled glass down on the side table and sat on the edge of the bed, pushing Carol’s hair out of her face. She leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Goodnight, Carol.”

 

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Goodnight, my darling.”

 

Therese smiled, standing to make her way to her own bed. She laid down, but her eyes were wide open. She’d never get to sleep tonight, she thought, because every one of her dreams had already come true.

Edited January 1, 2019 by zakandsara

[crazygirl22]

I'm so glad you're back to posting new stories. I watched the movie one week ago and was desparately searching for a Fanfiction about it on this forum but could not find one. I'm so happy now you wrote this great story. Reading it was an awesome way for me to start the new year. I hope you have a happy new year too and let me say: I'm stunned by how great you can write so many characters I love. I mean, seriously it could have been in the movie like this! (I wish it would have)

[curlyq9393]

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgOMG!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE this. Completely obsessed with it. Absolute perfection. Welcome back, sweets. It is so good to have you here.