More meme response
More meme prompt responses plus an extra (and very, very old) bit of Tebbitt, Susan and sexy banter that I had posted some of in comments to the previous entry that vialethe and a few others were interested in. One entry here is definitely darker than what lotl101 was probably expecting, but it is very much colored by my experience in Romania and fit the prompt really well. It deals with a very notorious part of Romania's history under the dictatorship of Nicolai and Elena Ceaușescu. As I wrote this, I realized it had some disturbing political overtones today.
In a much, much lighter vein, for edenfalling we have Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade and memory loss.
I've had two requests for Vorkosigan crosses and I'm going to wait on those until after I finish my H&M update. Ruan, I need to think about Lone Island Bankers and memory loss a little more but that will come eventually. I think I might fail at this -- aren't these all supposed to light and fun and yet, I write what is below in Romania and kill Jalur.
Other than the beginning one, for Mori, I'm also going to say that all that follows is T rated, so heed the warning.
For Mori
Mary, Asim, the Pevensies, Truth or Dare
“I told you this would be unsuccessful,” Asim said.
“Yes, yes,” Mary replied impatiently. “You were quite correct.”
She pushed away from the kitchen table and went to stare out the back door at the spectacle. Peter had lobbed a ball very high up into a tree where it had lodged in the uppermost branches. Lucy was scaling up the tree like a squirrel. Peter was standing on one foot and counting down the time while holding Odin’s halter as Susan vaulted on and off the placid plough horse’s broad back, over and over. It was a race to see if Lucy would climb down from the tree before Edmund returned from his dash around the pond without losing the frog in his hat.
“I thought I might learn the truth,” Mary pouted. “Their secret! Instead....”
She looked around in frustration in the kitchen at the glass Peter had bounced five coins into, the knives Lucy had thrown (Asim said he could take care of the holes in the wall), and the house of cards Edmund had neatly stacked six levels high, and to which Susan had added an addition that took up most of the kitchen table.
Asim stirred his tea, a gentle clinking of metal on china. “Given the choice between truth and the dare, the Pevensies will always, always take the dare.”
OOOOoo
For edenfalling
Luke, Mara, memory loss
The shower felt great. Perfectly controlled, directed and heated water was one of the joys of being planetside. The temperature and humidity controls in their Coruscant flat were wonderful. He and Mara could share a bed that wasn’t a bunk on a ship, a campsite, or a cell at the Academy. They had droid service for the rooms. The takeout options were terrific. Eating on Yavin was limited to say the least. The Twi’lek cafeteria two levels down sourced some great food, things you had to go all the way to Ryloth for otherwise.
Luke had to be careful in selecting the body washes. He always enjoyed experimenting with what Coruscant Palace housekeeping offered the many species in residence. He avoided anything labeled from aquatic planets as those were invariably fishy. Anything too flowery was also unacceptable. Mara had a sensitive nose and didn’t appreciate her husband smelling like a floral arrangement - which Luke thought was really just his wife’s way of expressing her antipathy to the environment of Yavin.
He used the air jets to dry off, wrapped a towel around his waist and steeped out of the fresher…
And right into Mara’s holdout blaster, aimed very steadily at his gut. “What in Sith are you doing in my room, Skywalker?”
Luke took a step back, nearly losing the towel. “Mara, what is…” This was a little rougher than their usual play. That wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Just unexpected.
Her eyes flicked up and down his barely toweled body but the blaster was steady in her hand. His wife was showing a decided lack of appreciation -she was always very enthusiastic about his barely-dressed state. Usually, he’d help her get to a similar state and they would head back to the shower.
Was this some new play his wife had concocted? Except that power pack in the blaster looked fully charged and very lethal.
“I’ve got an order, Skywalker, and I mean to fill it.” Mara's harsh, clipped, and angry voice made him doubt this was another variation on I’m your prisoner back on Myrkr, you can untie me now. She was sounded very serious.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t vape you were you stand, Jedi.”
That settled it. She hadn’t contorted Jedi into a curse in years.
Luke clutched the sliding towel and hoped he would not end the morning in the bacta tank.
“Mara, I don’t care how much you enjoy those Twi’lek really big mixed salads. There is something in those peas that does not agree with you.”
ooOOoo
ooOOoo
For lotl101
Tebbitt, Susan, unanticipated baby acquisition
Susan did not think the last two years had been good to Buchareşti. True, General Secretary Ceauşescu had kept Romania out of the Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia in ‘68, and been heralded as a rebellious hero by the West. But here, on the ground, it was grim and oppressive. There was nothing in the stores; any decent food had to be acquired on the black market. There was bread but the other state-provided food was, well, best not speculate on its source or composition.
The dank and damp Gara de Nord train station was probably the grimmest place in the country. Their MI6 handler in London said the station was like a grisly murder scene that awed, inspired, and captured the eye so you could not look away.
Susan pulled her scarf closer about her head, dashed across four lanes of traffic and horse carts, and hurried into the station. In the grimy reflections of the lorries queued up, she watched for any pursuit, police, boys in Army uniforms with guns that may, or may not, have bullets, or the frighteningly competent, Moscow-trained hoods of the Securitati. She didn’t see anyone making an awkward pursuit and trying to follow her.
Her hard, galvanized rubber boots weren’t good for running, but she and Tebbitt always paid attention to shoes. It was amazing how many agents and those trailing them failed to change their shoes. Head down, Susan sank deeper into her shabby overcoat, clutched her string bag, and wriggled through the oppressive crowd toward the ticketing area.
Tebbitt was already in place, leaning against the pillar, grizzled, unshaven, and reeking of plum moonshine. The bag was at his feet, right side, and the cigarette was dangling from the left side of his mouth, which meant the drop had been handled. They’d delivered currency, chocolate, Kent cigarettes, condoms, and cameras and film for their Bucharesti network and picked up rolls of undeveloped film that were sewn into the bottom and sides of the bag.
“Alina!” he shouted. If it had been Rodica that would have meant, I’m already a dead man. Run for your life.
“You’re drunk!”
Tebbitt picked up his bag and they berated and shoved each other and began moving toward the train that would take them south to Constanţa. From there, they would meet Vasily and he would sail them out to the Black Sea and the Bosphorus.
The queue, of course there was a queue, was even worse than usual. Elbow to elbow with battered and beaten people, all in the same dark coats, fur hats, and rubber boots. String bags were bulging with bread from the state-run bakeries and bottles of ţuica. Susan was pushed up against a bench and cursed under her breath, in Romanian, when her shins banged the edge.
There was no one sitting there - everyone was studiously avoiding looking at it - but Susan’s bump had disturbed the pile of dirty rags that was lying on the bench. From the linens, a baby’s piercing cry erupted, loud even over the din of the railway station.
Tebbitt’s own Romanian curses were Transylvanian, colourful, and heartfelt. “Not another one,” he muttered.
Susan turned her head away, sick. The crowd around them was parting, surly and protesting, as two very young men in Army uniforms and an older police officer pushed through, toward the bench. They were shouting at the people around them and demanding that someone claim the baby. Of course no one would. The parent was long gone.
The child's cries intensified.
A girl, Susan thought. A baby girl. Another baby abandoned.
She froze, her heart pulling toward the baby and breaking again for the scores of other Romanian children they had seen abandoned to state-run institutions since Secretary Ceauşescu had banned all contraception and abortion four years ago. That was only what they had seen. Surely there were hundreds, thousands, more. Like political dissidents and other enemies of Romania Mare, the babies disappeared. Their network had said Securitati prowled hospitals and doctors' offices to enforce the bans and administer pregnancy tests. Women were dying. And every time she saw an abandoned Romanian baby, she was reminded, again, of the dead and orphaned in England after the war and, going back further, the children Lucy and Edmund had left behind.
Couldn’t they save this one?
Tebbitt’s face was a mixture of fury and despair. “No,” he whispered, knowing her unspoken questions. He took her firmly by the arm. “We can’t.”
She stumbled with him toward the train, knowing he was right and hating the cruel necessity of it. There was no way they would make it out of Romania with a baby. They could not claim the child now; they could not afford to be questioned by the police and military; Securitati and informants were everywhere. They were traveling on forged papers. They had no documents for a baby. They were carrying hard currency and guns. There was no milk to purchase, no food, and they were taking a train to the coast to sneak onto a boat operated by MI6.
They boarded their train and found their already cramped car. Tebbitt put his arm around her shoulders and, with fumbling fingers, opened the bottle of moonshine. Susan swallowed several mouthfuls. Even the vile taste, the stench of the railway car, and the noise of the station could not drown out an unwanted child’s cries.
ooOOoo
The effects of the ban on abortions and contraceptives in 1966 and the collapse of the Romanian economy and rigid controls on food and energy consumption led to the abandonment of thousands of children who were, it was revealed by Western media in 1990, incarcerated in horrible orphanages and institutions. Mortality in some of these places was higher than 50%.
And on to something much happier!
oo OOoo
I posted parts of this in comments and people seemed to like it, so, consider this more of a response for vialethe and others who were interested in the exchange. This is very, very old Tebbitt/Susan and I’ve jossed it. But it seemed fun at the time.
“So, you are going out tonight with this Tebbitt chap?”
“I am,” Susan replied. “Have you and Edmund decided how to threaten him yet?”
Peter snorted lightly and shifted against the doorframe of his sisters’ bedroom. “As much as we might wish to do so, I suspect you would take ill to it.”
“Oh, if it would make you feel better, you may do so. Not too much though, or he might actually be concerned for my virtue which would not do at all.”
Come to think of it. She was applying a light powder to her cheeks but even Peter, who knew nothing of such things, noticed the absence of Susan’s usual paint. Her frock also seemed rather ordinary and… he craned his neck for a better look. The only time Peter paid it any mind at all was when contemplating how they were always in his way and might be removed. Susan was not wearing stockings.
“Susan, I have to say that you do seem rather simply dressed for a night on the town.”
Smiling, his sister reached for a pair of baubles for her ears and then returned them to her vanity. “That is because I do not intend to have a night on the town, Peter. Surely you can see that.”
A thousand different things rushed through Peter’s head - that he would like to pummel Tebbitt and that Susan would stab him with a knife if he did so; that he was insanely envious of his sister; that he was fascinated, curious, and wildly hopeful that it would as fabulous here as it had been in Narnia - which was then inconveniently crowded out by a persistent, highly erotic fantasy that prominently featured a tall blond with long hair and longer legs wrapped around his hips.
As if reading his mind (Susan could do that), she swiveled on her vanity stool and glared. “If you say so much as a word of criticism, you are the biggest hypocrite who has ever lived.”
Peter held open his hands in mute supplication. “Am I saying anything? Your lovers were always your own business, Susan.”
Even if her judgment about them was sometimes suspect.
She gave a nod of satisfaction and began brushing her hair.
“I assume though that you have given some thought to the fact that this is not Narnia and people can be a bit odd about this sort of thing here?”
“Then England would do well to have a Narnian approach to lovemaking, don’t you think, my brother?”
“Smashing idea!” Edmund piped up from him behind, causing Peter to start.
“I hate it when you sneak upon me like that!” Peter complained.
“I am the only who can!” Edmund elbowed by him into Susan’s bedroom. He took in the picture of his sister with a glance. “So, no dinner and dancing and just taking Peridan straight to bed?”
“Tebbitt!” Susan repeated. “His name is Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt! And yes, that is my intent.”
Edmund flopped down on Lucy’s bed with a disgusted sigh. “Lucky sod. How is it that I did not fully appreciate how much easier it is to find partners when one is a King?”
Truer words never spoken.
“Shouldn’t you have a courtship contract for him?” Peter asked, teasing his brother.
“Actually…”
Susan interrupted. “Don’t you dare, or any woman you do bring home will learn from me that you are deviant, diseased, and a homosexual.”
“Well, the deviant part is true enough,” Edmund replied, sitting up. “Seriously, Susan, what are you doing about preventative measures?”
“It is not as if you can ask a Hound,” Peter put in, referring to the Narnian method as reliable as anything yet discovered here.
Susan pulled her hair up into a simple tie. “Finally, an intelligent observation! I have it well in hand, of course.”
Peter had to bite back his own laughter as Edmund guffawed. Susan glared at them. “Don’t be crude, both of you.”
“It’s not crude!” Edmund protested. “It’s a perfectly reliable preventative!”
“Regardless, I am at a safe point in my cycle and, as I would of course never trust that alone here, I assume Tebbitt has an ample supply of condoms, and if he does not, I do.”
“What! How!?” Peter thundered, echoed by Edmund’s, “Bloody Americans.”
“Just so,” Susan replied.
The door chimed. Edmund sprang up and Peter had to step quickly to the side as his brother dashed out of the room, calling out, “Time to threaten the Lord Peridan!”
ooOOoo
“That was not too awful,” Tebbitt sighed, taking Susan’s arm as the door shut behind them.
“Be grateful that my sister was not home. You might have had to duck her throwing knives,” Susan said, adjusting her bag on the other arm.
“I think your brothers were deterrent enough.” They were an alarming pair. The older brother was as solid as a rock, though larger, and the younger one scarier than hell.
Tebbitt guided her off the front path and began walking toward the Tube. “I know you wanted me to collect you now, but it is still early for dinner. So, what do you have in mind in the meantime?” he asked.
“Well, I have been thinking that our first time would be hard, fast, and frantic.”
Admittedly, he had been dreaming of it. Fantasizing about it. Dwelling upon and thinking about it. Knowing the many facets of Susan as well as he did, he should not have been surprised. She had promised, even if it had been over three years ago. Still, it was shocking when she continued, ever so matter of factly, “The second time will much more leisurely and thorough, of course. I shall be expecting everything we were too desperate to do the first time.”
“Whaa…” he managed to stammer. Susan was smiling at him, lips drawn slightly over her teeth and he wildly thought of those lips around his …. To eliminate any doubt, she sidled up to him and where a moment ago it had been merely friendly, now it was intimate, her fingers caressing his wrist, her breast pressed to his arm.
“Whether there is a third will rather depend upon your stamina.” Her low, throaty words went from his ears straight down and unfurled there, warm and needy. Happily, he managed to reassert some self control to avoid hauling this amazing woman into an alley and ravishing her within a row of her parents’ home. For, Susan Caspian had made a devastating admission.
“Are you sure you would not like to stop for a bite first?”
“The only bites I want, Tebbitt, are yours on my inner thigh!”
The prospect of his mouth moving up her leg to…
“A curry then? Something hot?”
Susan’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Dinner can wait, Tebbitt. I cannot. By tomorrow morning, I want you to have made love to me so thoroughly, I will not be able to walk from your flat.”
“Oh, I forgot to mention, I have a flat mate now.”
She looked ready to erupt and he knew this particular teasing game had gone on long enough. He caught her gently by the elbow and planted a whispered kiss on her cheek. “The hotel is not in that direction, Mrs. Caspian.”
“Oh!” she breathed, leaning into him. Susan returned the kiss, seemingly chaste, but he knew better, and they were on a public street. “Allow me to commend you for your foresight.”
They adjusted themselves again and began walking toward the Underground, faster than before.
“One thing though, Wing Commander. I have left Mrs. Caspian at home.”
“That is sensible, as she is my cousin,” Tebbitt admitted. “So, are you Miss Pevensie, then?”
“No, she’s at home as well and will be in bed by ten o’clock. I had two other choices, but I deemed one too royal for the occasion.”
“Royalty would likely be too highbrow, given what I intend to do to you.” Further, from what he had just witnessed of Susan’s adventuresome tastes, the list of what he intended to do with her and to her and she to him had grown rather longer.
“Queen Susan the Gentle would surprise you. She is a very knowledgeable woman. But, no for tonight I am Mrs. Jane Ellis, courtesy of a parting gift by the Shoemaker.”
“Mrs. Jane Ellis.” Tebbitt rolled that about, testing the name.
Mrs. Ellis unwound her hand from his, and slid her arm around his waist, her fingers trailing.
“Mrs. Ellis knows everything that Queen Susan does and is a bit of tart besides.”
“Only a bit?” he countered, taking advantage of the darkened stairway down to the Tube to test the boundary. Mrs. Ellis neither batted his searching, teasing hand away, nor made any sound of protest. Quite the opposite in fact, as she deliberately turned into his touch, allowing a bolder sensation than even he had intended.
“How far to the hotel?” she whispered, warm and close in his ear.
“A few stops.”
Distantly, the rumble of an approaching train sounded and he seized her hand. “Mrs. Ellis, we have a train to catch!”
In a much, much lighter vein, for edenfalling we have Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade and memory loss.
I've had two requests for Vorkosigan crosses and I'm going to wait on those until after I finish my H&M update. Ruan, I need to think about Lone Island Bankers and memory loss a little more but that will come eventually. I think I might fail at this -- aren't these all supposed to light and fun and yet, I write what is below in Romania and kill Jalur.
Other than the beginning one, for Mori, I'm also going to say that all that follows is T rated, so heed the warning.
For Mori
Mary, Asim, the Pevensies, Truth or Dare
“I told you this would be unsuccessful,” Asim said.
“Yes, yes,” Mary replied impatiently. “You were quite correct.”
She pushed away from the kitchen table and went to stare out the back door at the spectacle. Peter had lobbed a ball very high up into a tree where it had lodged in the uppermost branches. Lucy was scaling up the tree like a squirrel. Peter was standing on one foot and counting down the time while holding Odin’s halter as Susan vaulted on and off the placid plough horse’s broad back, over and over. It was a race to see if Lucy would climb down from the tree before Edmund returned from his dash around the pond without losing the frog in his hat.
“I thought I might learn the truth,” Mary pouted. “Their secret! Instead....”
She looked around in frustration in the kitchen at the glass Peter had bounced five coins into, the knives Lucy had thrown (Asim said he could take care of the holes in the wall), and the house of cards Edmund had neatly stacked six levels high, and to which Susan had added an addition that took up most of the kitchen table.
Asim stirred his tea, a gentle clinking of metal on china. “Given the choice between truth and the dare, the Pevensies will always, always take the dare.”
OOOOoo
For edenfalling
Luke, Mara, memory loss
The shower felt great. Perfectly controlled, directed and heated water was one of the joys of being planetside. The temperature and humidity controls in their Coruscant flat were wonderful. He and Mara could share a bed that wasn’t a bunk on a ship, a campsite, or a cell at the Academy. They had droid service for the rooms. The takeout options were terrific. Eating on Yavin was limited to say the least. The Twi’lek cafeteria two levels down sourced some great food, things you had to go all the way to Ryloth for otherwise.
Luke had to be careful in selecting the body washes. He always enjoyed experimenting with what Coruscant Palace housekeeping offered the many species in residence. He avoided anything labeled from aquatic planets as those were invariably fishy. Anything too flowery was also unacceptable. Mara had a sensitive nose and didn’t appreciate her husband smelling like a floral arrangement - which Luke thought was really just his wife’s way of expressing her antipathy to the environment of Yavin.
He used the air jets to dry off, wrapped a towel around his waist and steeped out of the fresher…
And right into Mara’s holdout blaster, aimed very steadily at his gut. “What in Sith are you doing in my room, Skywalker?”
Luke took a step back, nearly losing the towel. “Mara, what is…” This was a little rougher than their usual play. That wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Just unexpected.
Her eyes flicked up and down his barely toweled body but the blaster was steady in her hand. His wife was showing a decided lack of appreciation -she was always very enthusiastic about his barely-dressed state. Usually, he’d help her get to a similar state and they would head back to the shower.
Was this some new play his wife had concocted? Except that power pack in the blaster looked fully charged and very lethal.
“I’ve got an order, Skywalker, and I mean to fill it.” Mara's harsh, clipped, and angry voice made him doubt this was another variation on I’m your prisoner back on Myrkr, you can untie me now. She was sounded very serious.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t vape you were you stand, Jedi.”
That settled it. She hadn’t contorted Jedi into a curse in years.
Luke clutched the sliding towel and hoped he would not end the morning in the bacta tank.
“Mara, I don’t care how much you enjoy those Twi’lek really big mixed salads. There is something in those peas that does not agree with you.”
ooOOoo
ooOOoo
For lotl101
Tebbitt, Susan, unanticipated baby acquisition
Susan did not think the last two years had been good to Buchareşti. True, General Secretary Ceauşescu had kept Romania out of the Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia in ‘68, and been heralded as a rebellious hero by the West. But here, on the ground, it was grim and oppressive. There was nothing in the stores; any decent food had to be acquired on the black market. There was bread but the other state-provided food was, well, best not speculate on its source or composition.
The dank and damp Gara de Nord train station was probably the grimmest place in the country. Their MI6 handler in London said the station was like a grisly murder scene that awed, inspired, and captured the eye so you could not look away.
Susan pulled her scarf closer about her head, dashed across four lanes of traffic and horse carts, and hurried into the station. In the grimy reflections of the lorries queued up, she watched for any pursuit, police, boys in Army uniforms with guns that may, or may not, have bullets, or the frighteningly competent, Moscow-trained hoods of the Securitati. She didn’t see anyone making an awkward pursuit and trying to follow her.
Her hard, galvanized rubber boots weren’t good for running, but she and Tebbitt always paid attention to shoes. It was amazing how many agents and those trailing them failed to change their shoes. Head down, Susan sank deeper into her shabby overcoat, clutched her string bag, and wriggled through the oppressive crowd toward the ticketing area.
Tebbitt was already in place, leaning against the pillar, grizzled, unshaven, and reeking of plum moonshine. The bag was at his feet, right side, and the cigarette was dangling from the left side of his mouth, which meant the drop had been handled. They’d delivered currency, chocolate, Kent cigarettes, condoms, and cameras and film for their Bucharesti network and picked up rolls of undeveloped film that were sewn into the bottom and sides of the bag.
“Alina!” he shouted. If it had been Rodica that would have meant, I’m already a dead man. Run for your life.
“You’re drunk!”
Tebbitt picked up his bag and they berated and shoved each other and began moving toward the train that would take them south to Constanţa. From there, they would meet Vasily and he would sail them out to the Black Sea and the Bosphorus.
The queue, of course there was a queue, was even worse than usual. Elbow to elbow with battered and beaten people, all in the same dark coats, fur hats, and rubber boots. String bags were bulging with bread from the state-run bakeries and bottles of ţuica. Susan was pushed up against a bench and cursed under her breath, in Romanian, when her shins banged the edge.
There was no one sitting there - everyone was studiously avoiding looking at it - but Susan’s bump had disturbed the pile of dirty rags that was lying on the bench. From the linens, a baby’s piercing cry erupted, loud even over the din of the railway station.
Tebbitt’s own Romanian curses were Transylvanian, colourful, and heartfelt. “Not another one,” he muttered.
Susan turned her head away, sick. The crowd around them was parting, surly and protesting, as two very young men in Army uniforms and an older police officer pushed through, toward the bench. They were shouting at the people around them and demanding that someone claim the baby. Of course no one would. The parent was long gone.
The child's cries intensified.
A girl, Susan thought. A baby girl. Another baby abandoned.
She froze, her heart pulling toward the baby and breaking again for the scores of other Romanian children they had seen abandoned to state-run institutions since Secretary Ceauşescu had banned all contraception and abortion four years ago. That was only what they had seen. Surely there were hundreds, thousands, more. Like political dissidents and other enemies of Romania Mare, the babies disappeared. Their network had said Securitati prowled hospitals and doctors' offices to enforce the bans and administer pregnancy tests. Women were dying. And every time she saw an abandoned Romanian baby, she was reminded, again, of the dead and orphaned in England after the war and, going back further, the children Lucy and Edmund had left behind.
Couldn’t they save this one?
Tebbitt’s face was a mixture of fury and despair. “No,” he whispered, knowing her unspoken questions. He took her firmly by the arm. “We can’t.”
She stumbled with him toward the train, knowing he was right and hating the cruel necessity of it. There was no way they would make it out of Romania with a baby. They could not claim the child now; they could not afford to be questioned by the police and military; Securitati and informants were everywhere. They were traveling on forged papers. They had no documents for a baby. They were carrying hard currency and guns. There was no milk to purchase, no food, and they were taking a train to the coast to sneak onto a boat operated by MI6.
They boarded their train and found their already cramped car. Tebbitt put his arm around her shoulders and, with fumbling fingers, opened the bottle of moonshine. Susan swallowed several mouthfuls. Even the vile taste, the stench of the railway car, and the noise of the station could not drown out an unwanted child’s cries.
ooOOoo
The effects of the ban on abortions and contraceptives in 1966 and the collapse of the Romanian economy and rigid controls on food and energy consumption led to the abandonment of thousands of children who were, it was revealed by Western media in 1990, incarcerated in horrible orphanages and institutions. Mortality in some of these places was higher than 50%.
And on to something much happier!
oo OOoo
I posted parts of this in comments and people seemed to like it, so, consider this more of a response for vialethe and others who were interested in the exchange. This is very, very old Tebbitt/Susan and I’ve jossed it. But it seemed fun at the time.
“So, you are going out tonight with this Tebbitt chap?”
“I am,” Susan replied. “Have you and Edmund decided how to threaten him yet?”
Peter snorted lightly and shifted against the doorframe of his sisters’ bedroom. “As much as we might wish to do so, I suspect you would take ill to it.”
“Oh, if it would make you feel better, you may do so. Not too much though, or he might actually be concerned for my virtue which would not do at all.”
Come to think of it. She was applying a light powder to her cheeks but even Peter, who knew nothing of such things, noticed the absence of Susan’s usual paint. Her frock also seemed rather ordinary and… he craned his neck for a better look. The only time Peter paid it any mind at all was when contemplating how they were always in his way and might be removed. Susan was not wearing stockings.
“Susan, I have to say that you do seem rather simply dressed for a night on the town.”
Smiling, his sister reached for a pair of baubles for her ears and then returned them to her vanity. “That is because I do not intend to have a night on the town, Peter. Surely you can see that.”
A thousand different things rushed through Peter’s head - that he would like to pummel Tebbitt and that Susan would stab him with a knife if he did so; that he was insanely envious of his sister; that he was fascinated, curious, and wildly hopeful that it would as fabulous here as it had been in Narnia - which was then inconveniently crowded out by a persistent, highly erotic fantasy that prominently featured a tall blond with long hair and longer legs wrapped around his hips.
As if reading his mind (Susan could do that), she swiveled on her vanity stool and glared. “If you say so much as a word of criticism, you are the biggest hypocrite who has ever lived.”
Peter held open his hands in mute supplication. “Am I saying anything? Your lovers were always your own business, Susan.”
Even if her judgment about them was sometimes suspect.
She gave a nod of satisfaction and began brushing her hair.
“I assume though that you have given some thought to the fact that this is not Narnia and people can be a bit odd about this sort of thing here?”
“Then England would do well to have a Narnian approach to lovemaking, don’t you think, my brother?”
“Smashing idea!” Edmund piped up from him behind, causing Peter to start.
“I hate it when you sneak upon me like that!” Peter complained.
“I am the only who can!” Edmund elbowed by him into Susan’s bedroom. He took in the picture of his sister with a glance. “So, no dinner and dancing and just taking Peridan straight to bed?”
“Tebbitt!” Susan repeated. “His name is Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt! And yes, that is my intent.”
Edmund flopped down on Lucy’s bed with a disgusted sigh. “Lucky sod. How is it that I did not fully appreciate how much easier it is to find partners when one is a King?”
Truer words never spoken.
“Shouldn’t you have a courtship contract for him?” Peter asked, teasing his brother.
“Actually…”
Susan interrupted. “Don’t you dare, or any woman you do bring home will learn from me that you are deviant, diseased, and a homosexual.”
“Well, the deviant part is true enough,” Edmund replied, sitting up. “Seriously, Susan, what are you doing about preventative measures?”
“It is not as if you can ask a Hound,” Peter put in, referring to the Narnian method as reliable as anything yet discovered here.
Susan pulled her hair up into a simple tie. “Finally, an intelligent observation! I have it well in hand, of course.”
Peter had to bite back his own laughter as Edmund guffawed. Susan glared at them. “Don’t be crude, both of you.”
“It’s not crude!” Edmund protested. “It’s a perfectly reliable preventative!”
“Regardless, I am at a safe point in my cycle and, as I would of course never trust that alone here, I assume Tebbitt has an ample supply of condoms, and if he does not, I do.”
“What! How!?” Peter thundered, echoed by Edmund’s, “Bloody Americans.”
“Just so,” Susan replied.
The door chimed. Edmund sprang up and Peter had to step quickly to the side as his brother dashed out of the room, calling out, “Time to threaten the Lord Peridan!”
ooOOoo
“That was not too awful,” Tebbitt sighed, taking Susan’s arm as the door shut behind them.
“Be grateful that my sister was not home. You might have had to duck her throwing knives,” Susan said, adjusting her bag on the other arm.
“I think your brothers were deterrent enough.” They were an alarming pair. The older brother was as solid as a rock, though larger, and the younger one scarier than hell.
Tebbitt guided her off the front path and began walking toward the Tube. “I know you wanted me to collect you now, but it is still early for dinner. So, what do you have in mind in the meantime?” he asked.
“Well, I have been thinking that our first time would be hard, fast, and frantic.”
Admittedly, he had been dreaming of it. Fantasizing about it. Dwelling upon and thinking about it. Knowing the many facets of Susan as well as he did, he should not have been surprised. She had promised, even if it had been over three years ago. Still, it was shocking when she continued, ever so matter of factly, “The second time will much more leisurely and thorough, of course. I shall be expecting everything we were too desperate to do the first time.”
“Whaa…” he managed to stammer. Susan was smiling at him, lips drawn slightly over her teeth and he wildly thought of those lips around his …. To eliminate any doubt, she sidled up to him and where a moment ago it had been merely friendly, now it was intimate, her fingers caressing his wrist, her breast pressed to his arm.
“Whether there is a third will rather depend upon your stamina.” Her low, throaty words went from his ears straight down and unfurled there, warm and needy. Happily, he managed to reassert some self control to avoid hauling this amazing woman into an alley and ravishing her within a row of her parents’ home. For, Susan Caspian had made a devastating admission.
“Are you sure you would not like to stop for a bite first?”
“The only bites I want, Tebbitt, are yours on my inner thigh!”
The prospect of his mouth moving up her leg to…
“A curry then? Something hot?”
Susan’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Dinner can wait, Tebbitt. I cannot. By tomorrow morning, I want you to have made love to me so thoroughly, I will not be able to walk from your flat.”
“Oh, I forgot to mention, I have a flat mate now.”
She looked ready to erupt and he knew this particular teasing game had gone on long enough. He caught her gently by the elbow and planted a whispered kiss on her cheek. “The hotel is not in that direction, Mrs. Caspian.”
“Oh!” she breathed, leaning into him. Susan returned the kiss, seemingly chaste, but he knew better, and they were on a public street. “Allow me to commend you for your foresight.”
They adjusted themselves again and began walking toward the Underground, faster than before.
“One thing though, Wing Commander. I have left Mrs. Caspian at home.”
“That is sensible, as she is my cousin,” Tebbitt admitted. “So, are you Miss Pevensie, then?”
“No, she’s at home as well and will be in bed by ten o’clock. I had two other choices, but I deemed one too royal for the occasion.”
“Royalty would likely be too highbrow, given what I intend to do to you.” Further, from what he had just witnessed of Susan’s adventuresome tastes, the list of what he intended to do with her and to her and she to him had grown rather longer.
“Queen Susan the Gentle would surprise you. She is a very knowledgeable woman. But, no for tonight I am Mrs. Jane Ellis, courtesy of a parting gift by the Shoemaker.”
“Mrs. Jane Ellis.” Tebbitt rolled that about, testing the name.
Mrs. Ellis unwound her hand from his, and slid her arm around his waist, her fingers trailing.
“Mrs. Ellis knows everything that Queen Susan does and is a bit of tart besides.”
“Only a bit?” he countered, taking advantage of the darkened stairway down to the Tube to test the boundary. Mrs. Ellis neither batted his searching, teasing hand away, nor made any sound of protest. Quite the opposite in fact, as she deliberately turned into his touch, allowing a bolder sensation than even he had intended.
“How far to the hotel?” she whispered, warm and close in his ear.
“A few stops.”
Distantly, the rumble of an approaching train sounded and he seized her hand. “Mrs. Ellis, we have a train to catch!”