Mrs. Priestly (3/5)
Title: Mrs. Priestly -- The Seduction of Andrea Sachs
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada/The Graduate
Rating/Genre: pg-13/femslash, crossover, AU
Characters/Pairing: Andy Sachs, her mom, Miranda Priestly; Andy/Miranda
Summary: Having a relationship with Miranda Priestly is definitely not easy. But Andy is beginning to feel that she wants more.
Disclaimer: Not my characters. Obviously.
Word count: 3 107
Spoilers/Warnings: As before, the plot is more based on The Graduate./No
Beta readers: mxrolkr and flyhiwithme2 and gabe12347. Thank you very much for your help and support! <3 Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Notes: Thank you for all comments and I’m sorry I kept you waiting with this one.
“I want to ask you something”, Andy’s mother said. “It’s really none of my business but … I was wondering what you do after work every night?”
Andy was shaving her legs in the bathroom when her mother walked in without knocking. At her question, Andy’s hand froze and she nearly nicked herself with the razor.
“What I do...?”
“You don’t have to tell me…”
“But I want to tell you”, Andy said, quickly. “I… I drive around.”
Her mother looked surprised.
“You don’t drive around from midnight to the next day…”
The truth was that sometimes Andy did just that. She didn’t see Miranda every night because Miranda had important work to do and after all, so did Andy. They both needed sleep and Miranda had not once asked Andy to sleep with her. But some nights when she wasn’t meeting Miranda, she was just feeling restless and she drove around for hours, trying to figure out her next step.
Because as much as she liked fucking Miranda Priestly in secret she had a sinking feeling that it couldn’t last forever.
“Are you seeing someone?”
This time, Andy did cut herself.
“No! Why do you say that?”
Her mother stared at her, clearly not believing one world she said. She walked out of the bathroom looking disappointed in her only child.
Andy hated disappointing her parents, and she understood that her mother was only concerned because of her secrecy, but she didn’t know what to say.
Why didn’t she ever know what to say?
***
Andy really liked to kiss Miranda’s inner thighs and to feel her warm wetness with the tip of her fingers and then with her mouth - there, at the most sensitive spot, and move her tongue over it the way that she knew made Miranda moan. Andy liked it when Miranda did the same to her, too. She also liked - no, adored - Miranda’s breasts. And she adored how Miranda’s mouth felt on her body. She liked kissing most of all.
Or maybe what she liked most of all was when they hadn’t been able to meet for a couple of days and she felt like she was bursting with need to feel Miranda’s hands on her body. In these moments they didn’t speak much, they didn’t even kiss before Andy was undressing herself. And then Miranda, whose voice was thicker than usual, would say something like: “Oh, you want it so badly now, don’t you? You want me to take you hard, right now?”
Andy couldn’t even say yes properly.
No, what she liked most of all was when she caught Miranda looking at her in the office, or when Miranda sometimes fell into a light sleep beside her, exhausted and sated.
What she didn’t like was when Miranda got dressed afterwards and hardly even looked at Andy; when it had all happened too quickly and maybe they hadn’t even spoken at all.
She liked it when they were both too excited to utter coherent sentences. She didn’t like it when she felt that Miranda was shutting her out.
“Miranda”, she said one day and broke the spell of one of the kisses she liked so much, “do you think we could say a few words to each other first this time?”
“I don’t think we have much to say to each other”, Miranda replied and put out the lamp by the bed.
Andy sighed. She felt so frustrated. ‘I don’t think we have much to say to each other’? Was that all?
Yeah, maybe. Sometimes, Miranda used that phrase even in the bedroom, as if making love to her was just one of Andy’s many duties. Andy had to admit that she hadn’t cared much about it in the beginning. It had all been so new and exciting and… and hot, and having sex with Miranda was like entering a whole new world. It was a joy she had thrown herself into with body and soul. It was a pleasure she hadn’t known existed…and she hadn’t asked for anything more.
And yet she realized then, when Miranda spoke so bluntly, that she did want more. At some point during their tryst she had fallen for the older woman. She knew she shouldn’t have. It was just stupid. But Andy had read enough romantic poetry in her life to know that the human heart couldn’t be expected to be rational. Love’s nature was irrationality; it was a trap and a curse and apparently sex could make it happen.
But it wasn’t just the sex. It was that look in Miranda’s eyes she could swear that she saw sometimes. That look not of desire, and perhaps not of love, but of some kind of longing and a tenderness that she probably had to hide to be able to do her work and stay on top.
Andy had learned that much. A single act of kindness could be interpreted as weakness and Miranda was a part of a world where even a hint of weakness could ruin careers. She had to be an ice queen, a dragon lady.
Miranda was so good at being the queen that nobody could see that even this empress is just a person. Maybe Miranda forgot it, too.
But Andy saw. She knew. She knew that Miranda loved her work, just as well as she knew that Miranda didn’t love Stephen. Didn’t she need someone to love and be loved by? Because the magazine didn’t exactly love her back, did it?
“Look”, she said, “all we do is to come up here and leap into bed together…”
She wanted more and Miranda, too, wanted something more than just a body to warm her bed. Andy was sure of it, even if Miranda didn’t know it herself.
“Are you tired of it?”
“I’m not, no!” Andy said, and sighed deeply. “But do you think we could liven it up with some conversation for a change?”
“What do you want to talk about?” Miranda didn’t look at Andy. “We talk at work.”
“No,” Andy objected, “We don’t. You don’t talk at work, you give orders and dismiss me.”
“Your point?”
Nobody could pull off the you’re-an-idiot glare like Miranda Priestly. There were times at work when Andy nearly forgot that Miranda was her lover. But she refused to be bossed around any more.
Andy wanted to shake her lover, shake her so that all the pieces that made up the puzzle fell into place and then they could maybe understand each other.
“Think of something”, she tried.
But Miranda just refused to talk about anything properly. Fashion? She just snorted. What could Andy possibly have to say about fashion? Miranda wasn’t interested in giving lessons and Andy didn’t want them.
“What did you do this morning?” she tried.
“I got up”, Miranda replied with false obligingness. “I went to work. I had to wait for the elevator because the man in it wouldn’t get out. I handed you my coat and bag, I got in to my office and I drank my - “
“Okay, stop.”
This was impossible. Why didn’t Miranda want to talk to her? The answer that had forced its way to the forefront of her mind was very unappealing and Andy didn’t want to think about it. Instead she tried to ask Miranda about Stephen. What did she tell him? How did she manage to handle the situation? Didn’t he ask questions when Miranda went out at night?
“We have separate bedrooms”, she admitted.
“Oh, I see”, Andy said. “So… you don’t sleep together anymore?”
The thought comforted her. She hadn’t given it much thought to start with but by now, the idea that Stephen and Miranda… well, she didn’t like it.
“No, we don’t.”
Andy didn’t dare tell her how relieved she was. Miranda should understand it anyway. Neither of them wanted to talk about Stephen and she tried to think of something else to ask, but Miranda was quicker.
“All right”, she said, “you want me to talk, so I can just as well tell you this: My daughter, Elaine, is coming to stay with me next week. She’ll be here for the rest of the summer.”
“Oh”, Andy said, “that’s nice. But I guess I’ll be seeing less of you, then?”
“Why do think that? I’ll be at work and for the rest, well, I don’t see why anything has to change just because she’s coming.”
“Why didn’t Elaine grow up with you?” she asked, once again daring a personal question. Much to her surprise, Miranda answered:
“I wanted to get as far away from her father as possible when I divorced him. I wanted my life back and I wanted to start building my career.”
“But if you felt that way why did you marry him in the first place?”
There was a moment of silence.
“See if you can guess.”
Miranda glared, she’d allow Andy to ask but wouldn’t be volunteering the information.
“I can’t. I can’t see why… Oh, you mean you did it because you were pregnant?”
Andy didn’t see Miranda as someone who could be stopped and trapped by anything, not even pregnancy, but of course even Miranda must have been young and impressionable at some time in her life.
“Yes”, Miranda admitted. “It was our parents that… As soon as his parents died, so did our marriage. He wanted custody. It was easiest and best for everyone.”
There was a rattle in the darkness of the room. Miranda poured something into a glass.
“Best for her, too? Didn’t you miss her?”
“I kept myself busy. I saw her sometimes…”
Miranda turned on the light and looked at Andy.
“Andrea, I can’t see why this is so interesting to you.”
“I thought”, Andy said and looked into Miranda’s beautiful blue eyes, “that maybe you wanted to tell me how you feel about… things.”
“Not particularly”, Miranda said, and tried to take Andy in her arms but Andy steered away.
“Wait a minute! Okay, I get it. You don’t want to tell me anything. And I guess you haven’t told her anything about yourself either.”
“Stop talking about Elaine.”
Miranda’s voice was sharp and she put the light out again.
“What? Why…”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Why is she such a big taboo subject? Is it because you left her?”
Miranda didn’t answer.
“I guess I will have to get to know her”, Andy said, “and find out.”
“Andrea,” Miranda put the light on again. She rolled over and pushed Andy down into the mattress, her face suddenly pale, like the ice queen she was said to be. Her eyes were harder than Andy had ever seen them.
“Andrea, don’t you ever take that girl out!”
Andy didn’t understand. Why was Miranda suddenly so protective like a lioness whose cub was endangered? And why was the thought of Andy getting to know Elaine so threatening?
“I have no intention of taking her out.”
Andy didn’t even much feel like meeting Elaine Robinson at all. It could be very interesting to meet her but, on the other hand, it could be very awkward, too. She hadn’t seen her since they were kids. The twins and Stephen were different, but Elaine… Andy realised that meeting Miranda’s older daughter wouldn’t bring the two of them any closer, it would only be a reminder of everything that was between them: Miranda’s life that she had lived before, the life Andy never could be a part of because Miranda didn’t even want to share the present with Andy, much less the past.
“I wasn’t being serious, Miranda,” Andy said, and thought about getting up from the bed. Maybe she should just leave if Miranda was going to keep acting weird…
“Good”, Miranda said.
“But why shouldn’t I taker her out?” Andy changed her mind, determined not to drop the subject.
“I have my reasons.”
Was that a sigh? Was that a hint of sadness in her voice?
If so, Andy thought, give it to me; let me in! Let me understand you!
Or was it irritation?
“Let me hear them.”
“No.”
“I think”, Andy snapped, “that I know the reasons. I’m not good enough for her, am I? I’m not important enough to be around in your life. I’m good enough for this…”
“Andrea, that’s enough.”
“No, I want to know why you won’t talk to me, why you don’t want me to talk about your daughter.”
Andy looked at Miranda, wondering what they were doing there. Why did Miranda even want her in the first place?
“I’m good enough for this but I’m not good enough for your daughter, and that’s it, isn’t it?”
Miranda looked away; didn’t say anything.
Andy was loosing the little patience she had left and shouted as she pulled the sheet off Miranda’s naked body,
“That’s it, isn’t it?!”
Still no answer. Miranda just sat up, slowly, reached for the sheet and covered herself again. Her eyes seemed to scream something from the bottom of her soul but no words came out of her mouth. And then she said it, just one word:
“Yes.”
Right there and then, something snapped in Andy’s brain and hot flames were dancing in front of her eyes, making Miranda all blurry and strange.
“Go to hell, Miranda! Who do you take me for? Do you think I’m proud of this?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I am not.”
Andy started to get dressed but her fingers were shaking and she couldn’t manage the buttons. She wanted to hurry up and leave but the more she tried, the slower her fingers moved, as if she was trapped in some fever dream.
“I’m not proud”, she blurted out, heavily as if she was running, “that I spend my free time fucking my boss as if I got paid to do it when I’m really getting nothing…”
“I see”, Miranda breathed, barely audible, behind her back.
“I come here out of sheer boredom”, Andy went on, even as some part of her brain shouted at her to stop. “This is the sickest, most perverted thing that ever happened to me. That’s all!”
Miranda turned around and looked at her.
“Oh, really? That’s how you feel about me, that I’m a sick and disgusting person?”
“Don’t start this”, Andy snapped, already moving towards the bedroom door.
“What, you don’t expect me to be hurt?”
Andy stopped. No, of all the things she could have expected Miranda to say that was not one of them. It looked too much like a confession coming from Miranda, and Andy simply didn’t understand how the woman’s brain worked. Miranda hurt Andy, she couldn’t deny that, by acting the way she did. Why would a person do that, if she was afraid of getting hurt herself?
“You just told me that I’m not good enough for your daughter,” she said, as if it was the entire reason she was upset. Well, it was a start. She couldn’t say what she really wanted to say, that much was clear to her.
“Did I say that?” Miranda looked at her as if she really didn’t remember her own words. “I didn’t mean to give you that impression. Andrea… I would never say that you aren’t as good a person as she is.”
Andy tried to recapitulate the conversation in her head but as the red flames in front of her eyes faded away, so did the words they had spoken just moments ago.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Miranda said with a sigh, and she, too, began to get dressed.
She looked tired, exhausted even. Andy had never seen her like that before; she looked almost as harried as Emily usually did at the end of a long work day.
“What are you doing?” she said.
Miranda sniffed.
“It’s obvious that you don’t want me around.”
Andy reflected on the fact that Miranda had just answered a very stupid question.
“Um…”, she said, “wait… I was kind of upset there. I’m sorry I said those things.”
“It’s all right”, Miranda said with her office voice. “I can understand why I am disgusting to you.”
No, Andy wanted to scream, no, it’s not like that! You’ve got it all wrong! How did this happen?
“No, Miranda, honestly, I’m sorry. I…”
I love you. No. Not that…
Andy had to say something and she didn’t know what. She turned to the door but didn’t open it. It was white and she stared at it as if she expected to see words written on it; black, bold words, instructing her, guiding her…
“I enjoy this… what we have. I look forward to it, always, it’s… the one thing I’ve got to look forward to.”
“Andrea, look at me”, Miranda demanded, and Andy turned around again, slowly.
“You don’t have to say that”, Miranda said, with a stern, sphinx-like expression.
“But I mean it.”
“Then”, Miranda said, “I want you promise not to take Elaine out.”
And instantly, Andy was ready to leave again.
“This is absurd. The thought didn’t even occur to me.”
“Then promise me.”
Andy looked at her. Yes, it was absurd. But what harm could it do to promise? If it was that important to Miranda that she said it, why shouldn’t she?
So she said it, that she promised to stay away from Elaine Robinson, and both of them took off their clothes again. Their bodies clashed as if they were both trying to prove something. Miranda kissed Andy like a challenge, as if to say ‘I own your soul’, and she hissed:
“You want me, Andrea, say that you want me.”
“Yes”, Andy panted. “Yes, I want you.”
And then, suddenly, Andy was on top of her, pinning Miranda to the mattress, kissing her forcefully. Miranda buried her fingers in her hair like a hungry animal trying to devour her but Andy broke free. Her mouth travelled downwards over Miranda’s throat, her shoulders, nibbling, leaving marks. She moved quickly and when she was close enough to taste Miranda’s silvery juices she took up the challenge, silently warning Miranda:
‘Okay. Own it, then - but only if you remember that once taken, it can never be returned.’
Later, they rested quietly together, close as if nothing had ever happened. But something had happened, even if Andy couldn’t figure out what, exactly. She sensed, vaguely, that something was broken between them.
It scared her but she didn’t dare try to talk about it. As long as Miranda was calm and reasonable, Andy decided, she wasn’t going to try to win another argument.
To Be Continued…
***
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada/The Graduate
Rating/Genre: pg-13/femslash, crossover, AU
Characters/Pairing: Andy Sachs, her mom, Miranda Priestly; Andy/Miranda
Summary: Having a relationship with Miranda Priestly is definitely not easy. But Andy is beginning to feel that she wants more.
Disclaimer: Not my characters. Obviously.
Word count: 3 107
Spoilers/Warnings: As before, the plot is more based on The Graduate./No
Beta readers: mxrolkr and flyhiwithme2 and gabe12347. Thank you very much for your help and support! <3 Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Notes: Thank you for all comments and I’m sorry I kept you waiting with this one.
“I want to ask you something”, Andy’s mother said. “It’s really none of my business but … I was wondering what you do after work every night?”
Andy was shaving her legs in the bathroom when her mother walked in without knocking. At her question, Andy’s hand froze and she nearly nicked herself with the razor.
“What I do...?”
“You don’t have to tell me…”
“But I want to tell you”, Andy said, quickly. “I… I drive around.”
Her mother looked surprised.
“You don’t drive around from midnight to the next day…”
The truth was that sometimes Andy did just that. She didn’t see Miranda every night because Miranda had important work to do and after all, so did Andy. They both needed sleep and Miranda had not once asked Andy to sleep with her. But some nights when she wasn’t meeting Miranda, she was just feeling restless and she drove around for hours, trying to figure out her next step.
Because as much as she liked fucking Miranda Priestly in secret she had a sinking feeling that it couldn’t last forever.
“Are you seeing someone?”
This time, Andy did cut herself.
“No! Why do you say that?”
Her mother stared at her, clearly not believing one world she said. She walked out of the bathroom looking disappointed in her only child.
Andy hated disappointing her parents, and she understood that her mother was only concerned because of her secrecy, but she didn’t know what to say.
Why didn’t she ever know what to say?
***
Andy really liked to kiss Miranda’s inner thighs and to feel her warm wetness with the tip of her fingers and then with her mouth - there, at the most sensitive spot, and move her tongue over it the way that she knew made Miranda moan. Andy liked it when Miranda did the same to her, too. She also liked - no, adored - Miranda’s breasts. And she adored how Miranda’s mouth felt on her body. She liked kissing most of all.
Or maybe what she liked most of all was when they hadn’t been able to meet for a couple of days and she felt like she was bursting with need to feel Miranda’s hands on her body. In these moments they didn’t speak much, they didn’t even kiss before Andy was undressing herself. And then Miranda, whose voice was thicker than usual, would say something like: “Oh, you want it so badly now, don’t you? You want me to take you hard, right now?”
Andy couldn’t even say yes properly.
No, what she liked most of all was when she caught Miranda looking at her in the office, or when Miranda sometimes fell into a light sleep beside her, exhausted and sated.
What she didn’t like was when Miranda got dressed afterwards and hardly even looked at Andy; when it had all happened too quickly and maybe they hadn’t even spoken at all.
She liked it when they were both too excited to utter coherent sentences. She didn’t like it when she felt that Miranda was shutting her out.
“Miranda”, she said one day and broke the spell of one of the kisses she liked so much, “do you think we could say a few words to each other first this time?”
“I don’t think we have much to say to each other”, Miranda replied and put out the lamp by the bed.
Andy sighed. She felt so frustrated. ‘I don’t think we have much to say to each other’? Was that all?
Yeah, maybe. Sometimes, Miranda used that phrase even in the bedroom, as if making love to her was just one of Andy’s many duties. Andy had to admit that she hadn’t cared much about it in the beginning. It had all been so new and exciting and… and hot, and having sex with Miranda was like entering a whole new world. It was a joy she had thrown herself into with body and soul. It was a pleasure she hadn’t known existed…and she hadn’t asked for anything more.
And yet she realized then, when Miranda spoke so bluntly, that she did want more. At some point during their tryst she had fallen for the older woman. She knew she shouldn’t have. It was just stupid. But Andy had read enough romantic poetry in her life to know that the human heart couldn’t be expected to be rational. Love’s nature was irrationality; it was a trap and a curse and apparently sex could make it happen.
But it wasn’t just the sex. It was that look in Miranda’s eyes she could swear that she saw sometimes. That look not of desire, and perhaps not of love, but of some kind of longing and a tenderness that she probably had to hide to be able to do her work and stay on top.
Andy had learned that much. A single act of kindness could be interpreted as weakness and Miranda was a part of a world where even a hint of weakness could ruin careers. She had to be an ice queen, a dragon lady.
Miranda was so good at being the queen that nobody could see that even this empress is just a person. Maybe Miranda forgot it, too.
But Andy saw. She knew. She knew that Miranda loved her work, just as well as she knew that Miranda didn’t love Stephen. Didn’t she need someone to love and be loved by? Because the magazine didn’t exactly love her back, did it?
“Look”, she said, “all we do is to come up here and leap into bed together…”
She wanted more and Miranda, too, wanted something more than just a body to warm her bed. Andy was sure of it, even if Miranda didn’t know it herself.
“Are you tired of it?”
“I’m not, no!” Andy said, and sighed deeply. “But do you think we could liven it up with some conversation for a change?”
“What do you want to talk about?” Miranda didn’t look at Andy. “We talk at work.”
“No,” Andy objected, “We don’t. You don’t talk at work, you give orders and dismiss me.”
“Your point?”
Nobody could pull off the you’re-an-idiot glare like Miranda Priestly. There were times at work when Andy nearly forgot that Miranda was her lover. But she refused to be bossed around any more.
Andy wanted to shake her lover, shake her so that all the pieces that made up the puzzle fell into place and then they could maybe understand each other.
“Think of something”, she tried.
But Miranda just refused to talk about anything properly. Fashion? She just snorted. What could Andy possibly have to say about fashion? Miranda wasn’t interested in giving lessons and Andy didn’t want them.
“What did you do this morning?” she tried.
“I got up”, Miranda replied with false obligingness. “I went to work. I had to wait for the elevator because the man in it wouldn’t get out. I handed you my coat and bag, I got in to my office and I drank my - “
“Okay, stop.”
This was impossible. Why didn’t Miranda want to talk to her? The answer that had forced its way to the forefront of her mind was very unappealing and Andy didn’t want to think about it. Instead she tried to ask Miranda about Stephen. What did she tell him? How did she manage to handle the situation? Didn’t he ask questions when Miranda went out at night?
“We have separate bedrooms”, she admitted.
“Oh, I see”, Andy said. “So… you don’t sleep together anymore?”
The thought comforted her. She hadn’t given it much thought to start with but by now, the idea that Stephen and Miranda… well, she didn’t like it.
“No, we don’t.”
Andy didn’t dare tell her how relieved she was. Miranda should understand it anyway. Neither of them wanted to talk about Stephen and she tried to think of something else to ask, but Miranda was quicker.
“All right”, she said, “you want me to talk, so I can just as well tell you this: My daughter, Elaine, is coming to stay with me next week. She’ll be here for the rest of the summer.”
“Oh”, Andy said, “that’s nice. But I guess I’ll be seeing less of you, then?”
“Why do think that? I’ll be at work and for the rest, well, I don’t see why anything has to change just because she’s coming.”
“Why didn’t Elaine grow up with you?” she asked, once again daring a personal question. Much to her surprise, Miranda answered:
“I wanted to get as far away from her father as possible when I divorced him. I wanted my life back and I wanted to start building my career.”
“But if you felt that way why did you marry him in the first place?”
There was a moment of silence.
“See if you can guess.”
Miranda glared, she’d allow Andy to ask but wouldn’t be volunteering the information.
“I can’t. I can’t see why… Oh, you mean you did it because you were pregnant?”
Andy didn’t see Miranda as someone who could be stopped and trapped by anything, not even pregnancy, but of course even Miranda must have been young and impressionable at some time in her life.
“Yes”, Miranda admitted. “It was our parents that… As soon as his parents died, so did our marriage. He wanted custody. It was easiest and best for everyone.”
There was a rattle in the darkness of the room. Miranda poured something into a glass.
“Best for her, too? Didn’t you miss her?”
“I kept myself busy. I saw her sometimes…”
Miranda turned on the light and looked at Andy.
“Andrea, I can’t see why this is so interesting to you.”
“I thought”, Andy said and looked into Miranda’s beautiful blue eyes, “that maybe you wanted to tell me how you feel about… things.”
“Not particularly”, Miranda said, and tried to take Andy in her arms but Andy steered away.
“Wait a minute! Okay, I get it. You don’t want to tell me anything. And I guess you haven’t told her anything about yourself either.”
“Stop talking about Elaine.”
Miranda’s voice was sharp and she put the light out again.
“What? Why…”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Why is she such a big taboo subject? Is it because you left her?”
Miranda didn’t answer.
“I guess I will have to get to know her”, Andy said, “and find out.”
“Andrea,” Miranda put the light on again. She rolled over and pushed Andy down into the mattress, her face suddenly pale, like the ice queen she was said to be. Her eyes were harder than Andy had ever seen them.
“Andrea, don’t you ever take that girl out!”
Andy didn’t understand. Why was Miranda suddenly so protective like a lioness whose cub was endangered? And why was the thought of Andy getting to know Elaine so threatening?
“I have no intention of taking her out.”
Andy didn’t even much feel like meeting Elaine Robinson at all. It could be very interesting to meet her but, on the other hand, it could be very awkward, too. She hadn’t seen her since they were kids. The twins and Stephen were different, but Elaine… Andy realised that meeting Miranda’s older daughter wouldn’t bring the two of them any closer, it would only be a reminder of everything that was between them: Miranda’s life that she had lived before, the life Andy never could be a part of because Miranda didn’t even want to share the present with Andy, much less the past.
“I wasn’t being serious, Miranda,” Andy said, and thought about getting up from the bed. Maybe she should just leave if Miranda was going to keep acting weird…
“Good”, Miranda said.
“But why shouldn’t I taker her out?” Andy changed her mind, determined not to drop the subject.
“I have my reasons.”
Was that a sigh? Was that a hint of sadness in her voice?
If so, Andy thought, give it to me; let me in! Let me understand you!
Or was it irritation?
“Let me hear them.”
“No.”
“I think”, Andy snapped, “that I know the reasons. I’m not good enough for her, am I? I’m not important enough to be around in your life. I’m good enough for this…”
“Andrea, that’s enough.”
“No, I want to know why you won’t talk to me, why you don’t want me to talk about your daughter.”
Andy looked at Miranda, wondering what they were doing there. Why did Miranda even want her in the first place?
“I’m good enough for this but I’m not good enough for your daughter, and that’s it, isn’t it?”
Miranda looked away; didn’t say anything.
Andy was loosing the little patience she had left and shouted as she pulled the sheet off Miranda’s naked body,
“That’s it, isn’t it?!”
Still no answer. Miranda just sat up, slowly, reached for the sheet and covered herself again. Her eyes seemed to scream something from the bottom of her soul but no words came out of her mouth. And then she said it, just one word:
“Yes.”
Right there and then, something snapped in Andy’s brain and hot flames were dancing in front of her eyes, making Miranda all blurry and strange.
“Go to hell, Miranda! Who do you take me for? Do you think I’m proud of this?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I am not.”
Andy started to get dressed but her fingers were shaking and she couldn’t manage the buttons. She wanted to hurry up and leave but the more she tried, the slower her fingers moved, as if she was trapped in some fever dream.
“I’m not proud”, she blurted out, heavily as if she was running, “that I spend my free time fucking my boss as if I got paid to do it when I’m really getting nothing…”
“I see”, Miranda breathed, barely audible, behind her back.
“I come here out of sheer boredom”, Andy went on, even as some part of her brain shouted at her to stop. “This is the sickest, most perverted thing that ever happened to me. That’s all!”
Miranda turned around and looked at her.
“Oh, really? That’s how you feel about me, that I’m a sick and disgusting person?”
“Don’t start this”, Andy snapped, already moving towards the bedroom door.
“What, you don’t expect me to be hurt?”
Andy stopped. No, of all the things she could have expected Miranda to say that was not one of them. It looked too much like a confession coming from Miranda, and Andy simply didn’t understand how the woman’s brain worked. Miranda hurt Andy, she couldn’t deny that, by acting the way she did. Why would a person do that, if she was afraid of getting hurt herself?
“You just told me that I’m not good enough for your daughter,” she said, as if it was the entire reason she was upset. Well, it was a start. She couldn’t say what she really wanted to say, that much was clear to her.
“Did I say that?” Miranda looked at her as if she really didn’t remember her own words. “I didn’t mean to give you that impression. Andrea… I would never say that you aren’t as good a person as she is.”
Andy tried to recapitulate the conversation in her head but as the red flames in front of her eyes faded away, so did the words they had spoken just moments ago.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Miranda said with a sigh, and she, too, began to get dressed.
She looked tired, exhausted even. Andy had never seen her like that before; she looked almost as harried as Emily usually did at the end of a long work day.
“What are you doing?” she said.
Miranda sniffed.
“It’s obvious that you don’t want me around.”
Andy reflected on the fact that Miranda had just answered a very stupid question.
“Um…”, she said, “wait… I was kind of upset there. I’m sorry I said those things.”
“It’s all right”, Miranda said with her office voice. “I can understand why I am disgusting to you.”
No, Andy wanted to scream, no, it’s not like that! You’ve got it all wrong! How did this happen?
“No, Miranda, honestly, I’m sorry. I…”
I love you. No. Not that…
Andy had to say something and she didn’t know what. She turned to the door but didn’t open it. It was white and she stared at it as if she expected to see words written on it; black, bold words, instructing her, guiding her…
“I enjoy this… what we have. I look forward to it, always, it’s… the one thing I’ve got to look forward to.”
“Andrea, look at me”, Miranda demanded, and Andy turned around again, slowly.
“You don’t have to say that”, Miranda said, with a stern, sphinx-like expression.
“But I mean it.”
“Then”, Miranda said, “I want you promise not to take Elaine out.”
And instantly, Andy was ready to leave again.
“This is absurd. The thought didn’t even occur to me.”
“Then promise me.”
Andy looked at her. Yes, it was absurd. But what harm could it do to promise? If it was that important to Miranda that she said it, why shouldn’t she?
So she said it, that she promised to stay away from Elaine Robinson, and both of them took off their clothes again. Their bodies clashed as if they were both trying to prove something. Miranda kissed Andy like a challenge, as if to say ‘I own your soul’, and she hissed:
“You want me, Andrea, say that you want me.”
“Yes”, Andy panted. “Yes, I want you.”
And then, suddenly, Andy was on top of her, pinning Miranda to the mattress, kissing her forcefully. Miranda buried her fingers in her hair like a hungry animal trying to devour her but Andy broke free. Her mouth travelled downwards over Miranda’s throat, her shoulders, nibbling, leaving marks. She moved quickly and when she was close enough to taste Miranda’s silvery juices she took up the challenge, silently warning Miranda:
‘Okay. Own it, then - but only if you remember that once taken, it can never be returned.’
Later, they rested quietly together, close as if nothing had ever happened. But something had happened, even if Andy couldn’t figure out what, exactly. She sensed, vaguely, that something was broken between them.
It scared her but she didn’t dare try to talk about it. As long as Miranda was calm and reasonable, Andy decided, she wasn’t going to try to win another argument.
To Be Continued…
***