FIC: "Beauty Is: a not-quite-love story in four bars and one hotel" for omens
Recipient: omens @ DW
Author/Artist: krechet/seatbeltdrivein
Title: Beauty Is: a not-quite-love story in four bars and one hotel
Rating: NC17
Pairings: Sirius Black/Eileen Snape
Word Count: 2747
Warnings: Age discrepancy (Sirius is 18, Eileen is…40-ish? She’s a cougar, we’ll just say), drinking, bar hopping, sex, body image issues, extremely vague hints at an abusive past relationship (guess who?), bizarre drunk humor, almost anonymous sex
Summary: “Eileen was always told she’d never be her own person, and she agreed. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t wander outside the lines on occasion.” A night on the town, Sirius Black, and juvenile discussions. Eileen learns that there’s a life beyond her ex-husband, and Sirius just loves all women everywhere.
Author's/Artist's Notes: I know you said you hated infidelity in fics, so I wanted to note ahead of time that Eileen has divorced Tobias in this. I hope you enjoy it! :) And just fyi, the song Sirius butchers is “Heart of Glass” by Blondie, which may or may not have been popular in the UK in 1980. I’m pretending it was.
***
Bar the First
Eileen was always told she’d never be her own person, and she agreed. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t wander outside the lines on occasion.
She’d met her husband at a London pub. Tobias had been charming, in his own way, and things had worked out-for a time. Even still, the pub was important. One of the few ideals she’d kept from her parents was the importance of one’s personal history. The pub, she decided, had been a pivotal moment for her.
“Do I know you?” A young man slid onto the wooden stool next to her, resting his elbows on the bar and grinning carelessly. Eileen pushed her bangs out of her eyes, managing a small smile.
“I don’t believe so,” she said, proud that she’d spoken above a whisper. Another strike against foolish ideals, a triumphant voice rang out in the back of her mind.
“Too bad for me then!” He said cheerfully, thumping on the bar. “The name’s Sirius.” He held out his hand, and she took it, feeling as though something monumental were about to happen.
“Eileen,” she said.
“Eileen,” Sirius repeated, “A very nice name. Where are you from, Eileen?”
“Oh,” she shrugged evasively, “you know. Around.”
“Me too,” Sirius said. “I’m usually from around too, you know, unless I’m not.”
“But if you’re not around, then where are you?”
“The moon, I expect,” he said, and they both took a drink. “I must say,” he continued, “that I am shocked to see a woman as fine as yourself here.”
“Here?” Eileen asked. “And what’s so wrong with here?” She’d been here for about an hour, and it felt lovely to her. Warm even, like she was floating. To be sure, she took another small drink.
“Oh yes,” Sirius continued, somehow impossibly closer and leaving her with the strange, thrilling fear that he was trying to climb onto her stool. “This isn’t a very,” his eyes slid to the barkeep, “reputable pub, you see.”
“I’ve never noticed,” she said.
“I thought you’d never been here?”
“No,” she denied nervously, not sure of how to treat this strange Muggle man, “no, I haven’t. But the moment I walked in, I didn’t notice anything. And I am a very noticeable sort of person.” Sirius was grinning, one elbow on the bar and the other holding a new drink.
“Oh, I quite understand,” he said. “I, too, am a noticeable sort of person, if you catch my meaning.”
“I don’t really understand,” Eileen said, “but your eyebrows are moving marvelously.”
“Thank you, dearest.” He waggled them again, and Eileen, cup at her lips, snorted loudly and dribbled gin all down her chest. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed. “Have you been to any other bars?” He asked, dabbing at her chest with one of the bright yellow napkins from the bar.
“No,” she said faintly, wondering just how much alcohol she’d had to not find his behavior the least bit forward. “Just this one.”
“I should show you around,” he said seriously. “You can’t be just here when there are so many theres.”
“What?”
“Perhaps-No, that’s too seedy.” He was muttering to himself.
“You want to go to another bar?” She asked. “Why?”
“I have a short attention span,” he admitted. “And I hate getting kicked out of, well, anywhere.”
“Does that happen often?” Eileen wasn’t sure what the man wanted. He seemed so young, almost as young as her Severus, but she tucked the thought away neatly. This was her night, and no amount of repressed fear for her son’s continued existence would dampen the mood.
“Only sometimes,” he shrugged. “And usually not if I’m alone. You see, Ja-” His mouth clicked shut. “One of my friends,” he continued, “has a knack for trouble.”
“Oh?”
“Oh,” he agreed. “But enough about that pillock. What say you and I go have a night?” He held out his hand to her, sliding off the barstool. With trepidation, Eileen took it.
**
Bar the Second
For a Muggle, Sirius knew how to have a good time.
“-and I do so like things that explode,” Sirius said, pounding his fist repeatedly against the bar.
“My son likes to blow things up,” Eileen said without thought, laughing.
“Do you have a-a son?” Sirius seemed enthralled by the fact. “What’s he like? Is he tall?”
“Well, he could be,” Eileen said. “I wouldn’t be a very good judge of that. I’m not very tall, you see.”
“That’s a shame,” Sirius said, and Eileen didn’t know what he was talking about so she just nodded and laughed.
“Are you married?” Sirius tried again.
“I was,” she said, smiling even wider now, “but not anymore.”
“Did he die?”
“No,” she said, her mind supplying the but I wish he had. “We divorced.”
“How extraordinary,” Sirius said, and it was very clear to Eileen that he didn’t care in the least about any of that.
“And you?” she asked. “Are you with someone?”
“I am with everyone,” Sirius said solemnly. “Well,” he amended, “all women, anyway. I do love women.”
“How extraordinary,” Eileen echoed.
“It is, isn’t it?”
**
Bar the Third
It was awful, the noise spewing from Sirius.
“He’s singing, I think,” Eileen told the barkeep.
“You think?” The old man threw his rag at Sirius’ face. “Well, I think he should stop.” The rag hit its target, but the obvious criticism didn’t affect the young man at all. Sirius began whipping the filthy thing at everyone who walked by him, strutting up and down the aisles between the tables and singing something about glass hearts or some such nonsense.
“-SOON TURNED OUT, HAD A HEART OF GLA-auugh!” The barkeep’s second rag, however, did its job.
“Oh my,” Eileen said, stumbling away from the bar over to the crowd that had formed around her fallen comrade. “Are you alive?”
“Yes,” he said from the floor, “but I very nearly wasn’t.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t sing,” she tried. “You sounded like you were already dead, actually.”
“Or maybe I should pick a different song?” He mused. Eileen pulled him up off the floor and made the executive decision to go to a new bar.
**
Bar the Last
“I can’t see,” Eileen said.
“You’re laying on the table,” Sirius said helpfully. Eileen pulled her head up with a groan, staring blearily at the long row of empty shot glasses.
“That,” she said, “was a lot of liquor.” Her head felt light and heavy at the same time, as if she was sitting in a very permanent fog.
“Yeah,” Sirius said, his voice trailing off into a mumble. “Hey,” he tried again, putting his arm around her waist as they sat in the booth. Eileen hummed, leaning onto his shoulder. “We should go to a hotel.”
“We, oh,” Eileen squinted at him. “What would we do there?” Did Muggle hotels have liquor?
“Fuck, actually,” Sirius said bluntly. Eileen blinked for a moment, and then made an immediate effort to stand.
“Let’s do that,” she said.
“I do love women,” Sirius said for possibly the eleventh time that night. “So very much.”
**
The Hotel
They were both so, so drunk that when Sirius threw a handful of gold coins at the bewildered Muggle man in the hotel and dragged her down the hall, all Eileen could do was laugh. Her lips tugged across her face so tightly that she wondered, drunkenly, if happiness was supposed to hurt and found that she didn’t mind if it did.
“C’mon,” Sirius pulled her in the doorway, his eyes glazed and shining. She’d barely set a foot in the door before they were stumbling over each other, too far from the bed to make much use of it. Eileen leaned against the wall, tugging her knickers down with a fervor she hadn’t felt since her wedding night. Sirius, impatient, took over once she got them down to her knees, tugging her up by the waist until she was nearly over his shoulder, her feet dangling helplessly. He grabbed her knickers, tugging them until they hung limp around one ankle.
“Sirius,” she scrambled for purchase, her hands fisting in his shirt. “Sirius-” But then she was sliding back down, her feet hitting the ground the same time as his knees. “What are you doing?” She asked, breathless.
“Your husband can’t have been a very good sort if you don’t know,” he replied, nudging one leg up over his shoulder.
“What-Oh-” Eileen’s eyes squeezed shut and the back of her head hit the wall when Sirius’ tongue went straight between her legs, his fingers rubbing and spreading and- “No,” she gasped, “that’s-oh, oh please-ah, that’s why I divorced him!”
Sirius hummed back at her, and the feeling shot straight from the heat between her legs all the way to her fingers and toes, her whole body pulsing and warm.
She could hear someone, a woman-is that me?-saying “Oh god, oh please, oh god,” over and over, the rhythm of the words following the quaking of her legs. When he pulled back, licking his lips, Eileen’s world narrowed to a single, disappointing moment. “Wait,” she gasped, trying to hook his head back between her thighs with the knee over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare-”
“I wouldn’t,” Sirius grinned, but he stood nonetheless, letting her leg drop off his shoulder as he jerked his belt off, tossing it somewhere. Eileen’s hands were at his zip immediately, fumbling his cock out from its confines with hazy need.
“Please,” she tried again. “Oh, oh!”
It couldn’t have felt any better, her mind declared. He was in her, and it felt so different from with Tobias, like coming inside to the heat after spending decades in the snow.
“Nice,” he was saying, his lips close to her ear. She couldn’t make out much more, her mind focused on him, on her legs around his waist, tugging him in, shoving him deeper. She groaned in frustration as the warmth settled between her thighs, almost, but not quite, spilling over the edge, leaving her wanting and wanting-
Sirius slid a hand between them, his fingers pressing just above their connection, thumbing the slide of skin-into-skin for a brief second, then sliding up, pushing against something else entirely. Eileen’s whole body seized up, her head cracking against the wall as the warm feeling spilled over, burning every bit of her body from her twitching toes to her flushed face. When Sirius spilled over into her, Eileen just smiled pleasantly, sleepily, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
She felt beautiful in his arms, and that thought held her pleasantly for the rest of the night.
**
Eileen knew she wasn’t beautiful. In the harsh morning light through the haze of a whiskey hangover, she knew she was likely so far from beautiful that Sirius would run screaming, naked, into the streets.
“Oh, god, fuck.” The bed shifted, and Eileen pulled the sheets over her small breasts, acutely aware of just how bad her breath smelled right then, of the gray hair spread sparsely at her temples, of the heavy, masculine set of her eyebrows. Sirius rolled over, his lightly haired chest pressing into her shoulder.
“Morning, beautiful.” He grinned and reached across her for the pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. “I have a hangover from hell,” he complained hoarsely, lighting a thin stick.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. Her voice was small.
“What do you have to be sorry about?” He waved his hand at her as she opened her mouth. “Nothing, you don’t have a thing. In fact,” he continued, blowing a fine ring of smoke, “perhaps I should be apologizing.”
“For what?” She asked, bewildered.
“You were drunk,” he said simply.
“That’s not an excuse for anything,” she said tightly, her mouth working before her mind caught up. Her face burned at the slip, and she reminded herself that she was in a different life now. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“What are you so nervous about, then?” Sirius stepped out of the sheets, presumably to find his clothes. Eileen stared at his uncovered body, refusing to do the sensible, lady-like thing and look away from the fine male specimen standing before her in all his glory.
“Nothing,” she said finally.
“Good,” he said, sounding pleased. He was grinning again, and Eileen’s lips twitched up in response. “You know,” he said as he tugged his pants up and looped in his belt, “we should do this again sometime.”
“But why would you want to?” Eileen blurted before she could stop herself. She was firmly sober, and the joy at having someone look at her like she was someone beautiful seemed to have disappeared in the night, replaced with her sluggish, hung-over mind.
“Because it was fun,” he said. “You’re rather lovely, you know.” He let out a barking laugh at the incredulous look on her face. “Really, you are! You’re a woman.”
“Is that all it takes?” She asked.
“I do like women,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t unique. You’re Eileen, after all, and I can tell you with ninety-five percent certainty that I’ve never had such a good time with any girl named Eileen before.”
“And what about the other five percent?” She asked shrewdly.
“If I don’t remember it,” he said, “then it doesn’t count.”
“I don’t even know what to think,” she sighed. “I could be your mother.”
“That would have been awkward,” he said. “I like you just fine not being my mother, so keep on keeping on, and all that.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“No.” He frowned. “Possibly. I did have a lot.”
“Sirius-”
“No, no,” he said, stooping down to gather her clothes and put them on the bed. “You’ve done me a great service.”
“How?” She asked. “I really don’t-”
“Your husband must have been very stupid to let you leave,” Sirius said gravely, and that shut Eileen right up, leaving her with a strange, warm feeling welling up in her chest.
“Oh,” she said faintly.
“I have to go,” he said reluctantly. “I have a wedding to get to.”
“Yours?”
He gave her a strange look. “Hell no. Why get married when I have such excellent nights ahead of me? No, this is for Ja-” He looked annoyed. “My best mate. It’s his wedding.”
“Have a good time,” Eileen said. Sirius watched her for a moment before leaning down, his lips pressing gently to hers.
“You really are, you know,” he said, his mouth pouring the words into hers. “You’re really very beautiful.”
When Sirius left, Eileen knew with absolute certainty that she’d never see him again. She also knew, with equal certainty, that she would never forget him.
***
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Author/Artist: krechet/seatbeltdrivein
Title: Beauty Is: a not-quite-love story in four bars and one hotel
Rating: NC17
Pairings: Sirius Black/Eileen Snape
Word Count: 2747
Warnings: Age discrepancy (Sirius is 18, Eileen is…40-ish? She’s a cougar, we’ll just say), drinking, bar hopping, sex, body image issues, extremely vague hints at an abusive past relationship (guess who?), bizarre drunk humor, almost anonymous sex
Summary: “Eileen was always told she’d never be her own person, and she agreed. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t wander outside the lines on occasion.” A night on the town, Sirius Black, and juvenile discussions. Eileen learns that there’s a life beyond her ex-husband, and Sirius just loves all women everywhere.
Author's/Artist's Notes: I know you said you hated infidelity in fics, so I wanted to note ahead of time that Eileen has divorced Tobias in this. I hope you enjoy it! :) And just fyi, the song Sirius butchers is “Heart of Glass” by Blondie, which may or may not have been popular in the UK in 1980. I’m pretending it was.
***
Bar the First
Eileen was always told she’d never be her own person, and she agreed. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t wander outside the lines on occasion.
She’d met her husband at a London pub. Tobias had been charming, in his own way, and things had worked out-for a time. Even still, the pub was important. One of the few ideals she’d kept from her parents was the importance of one’s personal history. The pub, she decided, had been a pivotal moment for her.
“Do I know you?” A young man slid onto the wooden stool next to her, resting his elbows on the bar and grinning carelessly. Eileen pushed her bangs out of her eyes, managing a small smile.
“I don’t believe so,” she said, proud that she’d spoken above a whisper. Another strike against foolish ideals, a triumphant voice rang out in the back of her mind.
“Too bad for me then!” He said cheerfully, thumping on the bar. “The name’s Sirius.” He held out his hand, and she took it, feeling as though something monumental were about to happen.
“Eileen,” she said.
“Eileen,” Sirius repeated, “A very nice name. Where are you from, Eileen?”
“Oh,” she shrugged evasively, “you know. Around.”
“Me too,” Sirius said. “I’m usually from around too, you know, unless I’m not.”
“But if you’re not around, then where are you?”
“The moon, I expect,” he said, and they both took a drink. “I must say,” he continued, “that I am shocked to see a woman as fine as yourself here.”
“Here?” Eileen asked. “And what’s so wrong with here?” She’d been here for about an hour, and it felt lovely to her. Warm even, like she was floating. To be sure, she took another small drink.
“Oh yes,” Sirius continued, somehow impossibly closer and leaving her with the strange, thrilling fear that he was trying to climb onto her stool. “This isn’t a very,” his eyes slid to the barkeep, “reputable pub, you see.”
“I’ve never noticed,” she said.
“I thought you’d never been here?”
“No,” she denied nervously, not sure of how to treat this strange Muggle man, “no, I haven’t. But the moment I walked in, I didn’t notice anything. And I am a very noticeable sort of person.” Sirius was grinning, one elbow on the bar and the other holding a new drink.
“Oh, I quite understand,” he said. “I, too, am a noticeable sort of person, if you catch my meaning.”
“I don’t really understand,” Eileen said, “but your eyebrows are moving marvelously.”
“Thank you, dearest.” He waggled them again, and Eileen, cup at her lips, snorted loudly and dribbled gin all down her chest. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed. “Have you been to any other bars?” He asked, dabbing at her chest with one of the bright yellow napkins from the bar.
“No,” she said faintly, wondering just how much alcohol she’d had to not find his behavior the least bit forward. “Just this one.”
“I should show you around,” he said seriously. “You can’t be just here when there are so many theres.”
“What?”
“Perhaps-No, that’s too seedy.” He was muttering to himself.
“You want to go to another bar?” She asked. “Why?”
“I have a short attention span,” he admitted. “And I hate getting kicked out of, well, anywhere.”
“Does that happen often?” Eileen wasn’t sure what the man wanted. He seemed so young, almost as young as her Severus, but she tucked the thought away neatly. This was her night, and no amount of repressed fear for her son’s continued existence would dampen the mood.
“Only sometimes,” he shrugged. “And usually not if I’m alone. You see, Ja-” His mouth clicked shut. “One of my friends,” he continued, “has a knack for trouble.”
“Oh?”
“Oh,” he agreed. “But enough about that pillock. What say you and I go have a night?” He held out his hand to her, sliding off the barstool. With trepidation, Eileen took it.
**
Bar the Second
For a Muggle, Sirius knew how to have a good time.
“-and I do so like things that explode,” Sirius said, pounding his fist repeatedly against the bar.
“My son likes to blow things up,” Eileen said without thought, laughing.
“Do you have a-a son?” Sirius seemed enthralled by the fact. “What’s he like? Is he tall?”
“Well, he could be,” Eileen said. “I wouldn’t be a very good judge of that. I’m not very tall, you see.”
“That’s a shame,” Sirius said, and Eileen didn’t know what he was talking about so she just nodded and laughed.
“Are you married?” Sirius tried again.
“I was,” she said, smiling even wider now, “but not anymore.”
“Did he die?”
“No,” she said, her mind supplying the but I wish he had. “We divorced.”
“How extraordinary,” Sirius said, and it was very clear to Eileen that he didn’t care in the least about any of that.
“And you?” she asked. “Are you with someone?”
“I am with everyone,” Sirius said solemnly. “Well,” he amended, “all women, anyway. I do love women.”
“How extraordinary,” Eileen echoed.
“It is, isn’t it?”
**
Bar the Third
It was awful, the noise spewing from Sirius.
“He’s singing, I think,” Eileen told the barkeep.
“You think?” The old man threw his rag at Sirius’ face. “Well, I think he should stop.” The rag hit its target, but the obvious criticism didn’t affect the young man at all. Sirius began whipping the filthy thing at everyone who walked by him, strutting up and down the aisles between the tables and singing something about glass hearts or some such nonsense.
“-SOON TURNED OUT, HAD A HEART OF GLA-auugh!” The barkeep’s second rag, however, did its job.
“Oh my,” Eileen said, stumbling away from the bar over to the crowd that had formed around her fallen comrade. “Are you alive?”
“Yes,” he said from the floor, “but I very nearly wasn’t.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t sing,” she tried. “You sounded like you were already dead, actually.”
“Or maybe I should pick a different song?” He mused. Eileen pulled him up off the floor and made the executive decision to go to a new bar.
**
Bar the Last
“I can’t see,” Eileen said.
“You’re laying on the table,” Sirius said helpfully. Eileen pulled her head up with a groan, staring blearily at the long row of empty shot glasses.
“That,” she said, “was a lot of liquor.” Her head felt light and heavy at the same time, as if she was sitting in a very permanent fog.
“Yeah,” Sirius said, his voice trailing off into a mumble. “Hey,” he tried again, putting his arm around her waist as they sat in the booth. Eileen hummed, leaning onto his shoulder. “We should go to a hotel.”
“We, oh,” Eileen squinted at him. “What would we do there?” Did Muggle hotels have liquor?
“Fuck, actually,” Sirius said bluntly. Eileen blinked for a moment, and then made an immediate effort to stand.
“Let’s do that,” she said.
“I do love women,” Sirius said for possibly the eleventh time that night. “So very much.”
**
The Hotel
They were both so, so drunk that when Sirius threw a handful of gold coins at the bewildered Muggle man in the hotel and dragged her down the hall, all Eileen could do was laugh. Her lips tugged across her face so tightly that she wondered, drunkenly, if happiness was supposed to hurt and found that she didn’t mind if it did.
“C’mon,” Sirius pulled her in the doorway, his eyes glazed and shining. She’d barely set a foot in the door before they were stumbling over each other, too far from the bed to make much use of it. Eileen leaned against the wall, tugging her knickers down with a fervor she hadn’t felt since her wedding night. Sirius, impatient, took over once she got them down to her knees, tugging her up by the waist until she was nearly over his shoulder, her feet dangling helplessly. He grabbed her knickers, tugging them until they hung limp around one ankle.
“Sirius,” she scrambled for purchase, her hands fisting in his shirt. “Sirius-” But then she was sliding back down, her feet hitting the ground the same time as his knees. “What are you doing?” She asked, breathless.
“Your husband can’t have been a very good sort if you don’t know,” he replied, nudging one leg up over his shoulder.
“What-Oh-” Eileen’s eyes squeezed shut and the back of her head hit the wall when Sirius’ tongue went straight between her legs, his fingers rubbing and spreading and- “No,” she gasped, “that’s-oh, oh please-ah, that’s why I divorced him!”
Sirius hummed back at her, and the feeling shot straight from the heat between her legs all the way to her fingers and toes, her whole body pulsing and warm.
She could hear someone, a woman-is that me?-saying “Oh god, oh please, oh god,” over and over, the rhythm of the words following the quaking of her legs. When he pulled back, licking his lips, Eileen’s world narrowed to a single, disappointing moment. “Wait,” she gasped, trying to hook his head back between her thighs with the knee over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare-”
“I wouldn’t,” Sirius grinned, but he stood nonetheless, letting her leg drop off his shoulder as he jerked his belt off, tossing it somewhere. Eileen’s hands were at his zip immediately, fumbling his cock out from its confines with hazy need.
“Please,” she tried again. “Oh, oh!”
It couldn’t have felt any better, her mind declared. He was in her, and it felt so different from with Tobias, like coming inside to the heat after spending decades in the snow.
“Nice,” he was saying, his lips close to her ear. She couldn’t make out much more, her mind focused on him, on her legs around his waist, tugging him in, shoving him deeper. She groaned in frustration as the warmth settled between her thighs, almost, but not quite, spilling over the edge, leaving her wanting and wanting-
Sirius slid a hand between them, his fingers pressing just above their connection, thumbing the slide of skin-into-skin for a brief second, then sliding up, pushing against something else entirely. Eileen’s whole body seized up, her head cracking against the wall as the warm feeling spilled over, burning every bit of her body from her twitching toes to her flushed face. When Sirius spilled over into her, Eileen just smiled pleasantly, sleepily, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
She felt beautiful in his arms, and that thought held her pleasantly for the rest of the night.
**
Eileen knew she wasn’t beautiful. In the harsh morning light through the haze of a whiskey hangover, she knew she was likely so far from beautiful that Sirius would run screaming, naked, into the streets.
“Oh, god, fuck.” The bed shifted, and Eileen pulled the sheets over her small breasts, acutely aware of just how bad her breath smelled right then, of the gray hair spread sparsely at her temples, of the heavy, masculine set of her eyebrows. Sirius rolled over, his lightly haired chest pressing into her shoulder.
“Morning, beautiful.” He grinned and reached across her for the pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. “I have a hangover from hell,” he complained hoarsely, lighting a thin stick.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. Her voice was small.
“What do you have to be sorry about?” He waved his hand at her as she opened her mouth. “Nothing, you don’t have a thing. In fact,” he continued, blowing a fine ring of smoke, “perhaps I should be apologizing.”
“For what?” She asked, bewildered.
“You were drunk,” he said simply.
“That’s not an excuse for anything,” she said tightly, her mouth working before her mind caught up. Her face burned at the slip, and she reminded herself that she was in a different life now. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“What are you so nervous about, then?” Sirius stepped out of the sheets, presumably to find his clothes. Eileen stared at his uncovered body, refusing to do the sensible, lady-like thing and look away from the fine male specimen standing before her in all his glory.
“Nothing,” she said finally.
“Good,” he said, sounding pleased. He was grinning again, and Eileen’s lips twitched up in response. “You know,” he said as he tugged his pants up and looped in his belt, “we should do this again sometime.”
“But why would you want to?” Eileen blurted before she could stop herself. She was firmly sober, and the joy at having someone look at her like she was someone beautiful seemed to have disappeared in the night, replaced with her sluggish, hung-over mind.
“Because it was fun,” he said. “You’re rather lovely, you know.” He let out a barking laugh at the incredulous look on her face. “Really, you are! You’re a woman.”
“Is that all it takes?” She asked.
“I do like women,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t unique. You’re Eileen, after all, and I can tell you with ninety-five percent certainty that I’ve never had such a good time with any girl named Eileen before.”
“And what about the other five percent?” She asked shrewdly.
“If I don’t remember it,” he said, “then it doesn’t count.”
“I don’t even know what to think,” she sighed. “I could be your mother.”
“That would have been awkward,” he said. “I like you just fine not being my mother, so keep on keeping on, and all that.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“No.” He frowned. “Possibly. I did have a lot.”
“Sirius-”
“No, no,” he said, stooping down to gather her clothes and put them on the bed. “You’ve done me a great service.”
“How?” She asked. “I really don’t-”
“Your husband must have been very stupid to let you leave,” Sirius said gravely, and that shut Eileen right up, leaving her with a strange, warm feeling welling up in her chest.
“Oh,” she said faintly.
“I have to go,” he said reluctantly. “I have a wedding to get to.”
“Yours?”
He gave her a strange look. “Hell no. Why get married when I have such excellent nights ahead of me? No, this is for Ja-” He looked annoyed. “My best mate. It’s his wedding.”
“Have a good time,” Eileen said. Sirius watched her for a moment before leaning down, his lips pressing gently to hers.
“You really are, you know,” he said, his mouth pouring the words into hers. “You’re really very beautiful.”
When Sirius left, Eileen knew with absolute certainty that she’d never see him again. She also knew, with equal certainty, that she would never forget him.
***
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