Following Footsteps
Notes: Lissy and Marina take over their respective fathers' works. Lissy is a spy, like Grell, only with more LITERARY JABS, and Marina beats up thugs for a living, just like Papa Dearest. Then they go out, have a beer and discussing Lies To Tell Alan So That Eric Can Survive Him Finding Out What Marina Is Doing.
Hope you like it - and, what the hell, this is a follow-up to the piece I wrote for applegoo so consider it a part of that too.
“Alice?” the man chuckled, swirling the wine in his glass like a yuppie. He had a smile that glinted like starshine, and hair oiled and gelled back into some kind of raggedy mullet. It didn’t go, she decided, with his three piece suit and wingtips. “Like the novel. Are you curious, little Alice?”
Ruby-red lips quirked up.
Really, the most surprising thing about that was that the putz knew the story.
“Not at all,” she purred, and uncrossed her legs, showed him a flash of lace, and watched the wine and lust creep scarlet over his skin. “However...”
She rose, bending attractively to scoop up her wine-glass, and moved behind him. Lifting the flute to her lips, she let the wine touch her mouth, and lowered her head, breathed words into his ears.
“Like the Cheshire cat...” He shook, never heard the sound of the blade slipped free from the thigh holster. “I do tend to...”
She smiled, and brought the tip underneath his jaw.
“Disappear.”
She pulled her hand back sharply, and his throat split open like a present. Blood sprayed over the coffee table, over the fireplace, over the wine glasses. Alice left the knife on his lap, and delicately folded her white gloves into her purse. She shook her hair out with her fingertips, and smeared her lipstick, pulled the strap of her dress down.
A satisfied man was a man who didn’t want to be disturbed - and she was going to make sure nobody peeked in until she was long gone. That was the easy part.
The hard part would be explaining to Marina why she was late. Again.
. . .
Alice was late. Again.
But that was fine today. She had one more extra drop-by before she went home; her father had given it to her as ‘practice’. Meant that the guy probably lived in an iron-lung, and couldn’t walk without a cane, but what the hell: practice was practice, and she needed a ton of it. Papa could go on all he wanted about tension and atmosphere and weapons, and it’d mean nothing if she couldn’t test his words out.
Tapping the crowbar against her shoulder, Marina watched the target limp into the alleyway, and jitter there. Soft and slow as a cat, the blond slid along the wall until she was behind him, and moved the curved end of the crowbar to the back of his neck. He stiffened.
“Mister Bellini sends his regards,” she said coolly, and brought the crowbar down on the back of his neck, too lightly to kill him. He crumpled, and curled up, and she stepped over, and aimed for the knee-cap. It broke too easily when she swung her crowbar down.
Disgusting hands crawled up her leg, and she kicked out, and sneered. “Next time, you bring the money on time, eh? I guarantee you will not want to see me again.”
The man just whimpered.
Marina turned away and froze as a warm, soft hand reached out from somewhere behind her, climbing intimately over her shirt, to flirt with the flutter of lace above the dipping neckline.
. . .
“I never understand why you Mafia folk don’t merely kill the bastards,” Lissy said. She tugged at the lace underneath her fingers, and held back a sigh. Marina just didn’t have a clue. You’d think she could at least learn to dress dapper, like Uncle Alan.
“Because that’s not ... Be difficult to get money from them if they were dead.” Marina shrugged, locking her arm - the one that didn’t hold the bloody crowbar - around Lissy’s neck. The man moaned between them. Casually, Lissy jabbed him in the side. Really, some courtesy would be nice. “Ready to go?”
Lissy nodded her head, sliding her handbag to the other arm. Tucking her hand in Marina’s, she let the girl pull her away from the guttering street-light, and leaned in absently to the arm around her shoulder. Nobody around at this time of night, just a nice clear sky above, good company... blood on their hands.
Marina nudged open the door to the broken down little shack and tossed the crowbar in. It rattled as it fell, clanging on things here and there.
Lissy didn’t take any notice - she was too preoccupied glaring at what Marina had decided would be an appropriate ride home. Eric’s fuck-off motorcycle was nothing a lady should be on! Especially not a lady in a tight, A-line skirt plastered to her legs - which her girlfriend wasn’t going to get to see now, since she hated that monstrous machine more than she hated blood on her manicure.
“How exactly do you expect me to ride this in this skirt, Mar?” she asked patiently, pulling at her skirt as best she could.
Marina shrugged. “Could take the skirt off?”
“... Oh, fuck off,” Lissy huffed, and bent. She rolled the material up as high as she could make it go, sliding delicately onto the motorcycle.
Marina kept all giggling to a minimum until she had started the bike, forcing Lissy to hug her and derail all slaps to the head until later.
. . .
Picking Lissy up was never quite as fun. Lissy had this cock-eyed idea that men wouldn’t hurt a pretty girl; Marina wished she could knock it into her head that not everyone was scared off by pretty girls. Most men down her way were terrified of her dad, or they’d have tried to get somewhere with her.
“You nearly got raped you crazy brat,” she repeated, for the third time that hour. She gestured with her fork, her smile dimming a little, “all because you went somewhere you shouldn’t. Really, sweetheart, you fuckin’ terrify me sometimes.”
“Oh, please.” Lissy rolled her eyes, scooped up pasta from a chipped dish. “I had it under control.”
“Your fighting skills are shit, princess. You had nothing under control. He was about to rip your dress off when I got there; ‘m glad I got there when I did.” Swallowing her mouthful of pasta, Marina reached over to top up Lissy’s wine glass, then her own.
Her father wasn’t here this weekend, which meant they had the place to themselves. It was always... amusing to see Lissy - who grew up with sumptuous, decadent, smothering luxury - sitting on the cheaper stuff. Lissy never said a word about it, though. She was sweet like that.
Lissy lowered her fork and reached for the wine glass. “Sweetheart,” she said lazily, “you’re useless if you don’t have a gun or a cock-extension crowbar in your hand. At least Joseph taught me how to fight. Only girl in my social class who could break a boy’s hand without any help whatsoever.”
“Hell, you can break a guy’s hand by smashing it into a door, but that doesn’t mean the door knows how to fuckin’ fight. Just be careful, Lis. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
Marina cupped her hand over the top of Lissy’s wine glass, leaning in to steal a kiss from her instead. The socialite bent back a moment, watching her - she could all but see the cogs turning in Lissy’s head. Fine and good for you to talk, but you’re the one out beating thugs with crowbars.
“I’ll be careful too,” she promised, and kissed her lips.
. . .
And from there, to the living-room, a movie - always scary, to build Lissy up - and from there to the bedroom.
The window shut against the cold, and no sound at all to interrupt the way Lissy’s dress slides off her skin, the sound of it like water, sequins clicking on the floor. Then, her ice-pick heels, frivolous and careless, and her silky, impractical underwear - green today, the two of them matching. Brings out the colour of her hair, her skin. She looks like a fairy.
Marina combed her fingers gently through Lissy’s hair as the redhead helped her off with her clothes, discarded them on the floor like rags. And, together, they sank down into the bed, and into warm, welcoming heat, slick skin, mouths parted for kisses and ecstasy, fingers sliding over arms and backs and sides, over legs, hips thighs.
Lissy holds her down, spreads kisses every where she can reach, and each one sends out sparks all over her body. Her eyes blur, her mind blurs. There’s nothing. Everything is fire-coloured, fire-licked, and her hands move on their own accord, her mouth bites at places she never knew were sensitive, to hear Lissy whisper her name.
Over.
And over.
And over.
Again.
And when the fire just dims down to embers, Marina draws her arm around the redhead’s shoulders, and pulls her on top of her, rather than against her side. Lissy settles easily on her body, a living, breathing blanket.
It could be easy to ignore the knife to her side, and the gun by that, and the baseball bat, the lamp, and all the other little weapons, and she does. For just a little, there’s no Mafia and no agency - just Lissy, and her warmth, and her incredible smile.
Hope you like it - and, what the hell, this is a follow-up to the piece I wrote for applegoo so consider it a part of that too.
“Alice?” the man chuckled, swirling the wine in his glass like a yuppie. He had a smile that glinted like starshine, and hair oiled and gelled back into some kind of raggedy mullet. It didn’t go, she decided, with his three piece suit and wingtips. “Like the novel. Are you curious, little Alice?”
Ruby-red lips quirked up.
Really, the most surprising thing about that was that the putz knew the story.
“Not at all,” she purred, and uncrossed her legs, showed him a flash of lace, and watched the wine and lust creep scarlet over his skin. “However...”
She rose, bending attractively to scoop up her wine-glass, and moved behind him. Lifting the flute to her lips, she let the wine touch her mouth, and lowered her head, breathed words into his ears.
“Like the Cheshire cat...” He shook, never heard the sound of the blade slipped free from the thigh holster. “I do tend to...”
She smiled, and brought the tip underneath his jaw.
“Disappear.”
She pulled her hand back sharply, and his throat split open like a present. Blood sprayed over the coffee table, over the fireplace, over the wine glasses. Alice left the knife on his lap, and delicately folded her white gloves into her purse. She shook her hair out with her fingertips, and smeared her lipstick, pulled the strap of her dress down.
A satisfied man was a man who didn’t want to be disturbed - and she was going to make sure nobody peeked in until she was long gone. That was the easy part.
The hard part would be explaining to Marina why she was late. Again.
. . .
Alice was late. Again.
But that was fine today. She had one more extra drop-by before she went home; her father had given it to her as ‘practice’. Meant that the guy probably lived in an iron-lung, and couldn’t walk without a cane, but what the hell: practice was practice, and she needed a ton of it. Papa could go on all he wanted about tension and atmosphere and weapons, and it’d mean nothing if she couldn’t test his words out.
Tapping the crowbar against her shoulder, Marina watched the target limp into the alleyway, and jitter there. Soft and slow as a cat, the blond slid along the wall until she was behind him, and moved the curved end of the crowbar to the back of his neck. He stiffened.
“Mister Bellini sends his regards,” she said coolly, and brought the crowbar down on the back of his neck, too lightly to kill him. He crumpled, and curled up, and she stepped over, and aimed for the knee-cap. It broke too easily when she swung her crowbar down.
Disgusting hands crawled up her leg, and she kicked out, and sneered. “Next time, you bring the money on time, eh? I guarantee you will not want to see me again.”
The man just whimpered.
Marina turned away and froze as a warm, soft hand reached out from somewhere behind her, climbing intimately over her shirt, to flirt with the flutter of lace above the dipping neckline.
. . .
“I never understand why you Mafia folk don’t merely kill the bastards,” Lissy said. She tugged at the lace underneath her fingers, and held back a sigh. Marina just didn’t have a clue. You’d think she could at least learn to dress dapper, like Uncle Alan.
“Because that’s not ... Be difficult to get money from them if they were dead.” Marina shrugged, locking her arm - the one that didn’t hold the bloody crowbar - around Lissy’s neck. The man moaned between them. Casually, Lissy jabbed him in the side. Really, some courtesy would be nice. “Ready to go?”
Lissy nodded her head, sliding her handbag to the other arm. Tucking her hand in Marina’s, she let the girl pull her away from the guttering street-light, and leaned in absently to the arm around her shoulder. Nobody around at this time of night, just a nice clear sky above, good company... blood on their hands.
Marina nudged open the door to the broken down little shack and tossed the crowbar in. It rattled as it fell, clanging on things here and there.
Lissy didn’t take any notice - she was too preoccupied glaring at what Marina had decided would be an appropriate ride home. Eric’s fuck-off motorcycle was nothing a lady should be on! Especially not a lady in a tight, A-line skirt plastered to her legs - which her girlfriend wasn’t going to get to see now, since she hated that monstrous machine more than she hated blood on her manicure.
“How exactly do you expect me to ride this in this skirt, Mar?” she asked patiently, pulling at her skirt as best she could.
Marina shrugged. “Could take the skirt off?”
“... Oh, fuck off,” Lissy huffed, and bent. She rolled the material up as high as she could make it go, sliding delicately onto the motorcycle.
Marina kept all giggling to a minimum until she had started the bike, forcing Lissy to hug her and derail all slaps to the head until later.
. . .
Picking Lissy up was never quite as fun. Lissy had this cock-eyed idea that men wouldn’t hurt a pretty girl; Marina wished she could knock it into her head that not everyone was scared off by pretty girls. Most men down her way were terrified of her dad, or they’d have tried to get somewhere with her.
“You nearly got raped you crazy brat,” she repeated, for the third time that hour. She gestured with her fork, her smile dimming a little, “all because you went somewhere you shouldn’t. Really, sweetheart, you fuckin’ terrify me sometimes.”
“Oh, please.” Lissy rolled her eyes, scooped up pasta from a chipped dish. “I had it under control.”
“Your fighting skills are shit, princess. You had nothing under control. He was about to rip your dress off when I got there; ‘m glad I got there when I did.” Swallowing her mouthful of pasta, Marina reached over to top up Lissy’s wine glass, then her own.
Her father wasn’t here this weekend, which meant they had the place to themselves. It was always... amusing to see Lissy - who grew up with sumptuous, decadent, smothering luxury - sitting on the cheaper stuff. Lissy never said a word about it, though. She was sweet like that.
Lissy lowered her fork and reached for the wine glass. “Sweetheart,” she said lazily, “you’re useless if you don’t have a gun or a cock-extension crowbar in your hand. At least Joseph taught me how to fight. Only girl in my social class who could break a boy’s hand without any help whatsoever.”
“Hell, you can break a guy’s hand by smashing it into a door, but that doesn’t mean the door knows how to fuckin’ fight. Just be careful, Lis. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
Marina cupped her hand over the top of Lissy’s wine glass, leaning in to steal a kiss from her instead. The socialite bent back a moment, watching her - she could all but see the cogs turning in Lissy’s head. Fine and good for you to talk, but you’re the one out beating thugs with crowbars.
“I’ll be careful too,” she promised, and kissed her lips.
. . .
And from there, to the living-room, a movie - always scary, to build Lissy up - and from there to the bedroom.
The window shut against the cold, and no sound at all to interrupt the way Lissy’s dress slides off her skin, the sound of it like water, sequins clicking on the floor. Then, her ice-pick heels, frivolous and careless, and her silky, impractical underwear - green today, the two of them matching. Brings out the colour of her hair, her skin. She looks like a fairy.
Marina combed her fingers gently through Lissy’s hair as the redhead helped her off with her clothes, discarded them on the floor like rags. And, together, they sank down into the bed, and into warm, welcoming heat, slick skin, mouths parted for kisses and ecstasy, fingers sliding over arms and backs and sides, over legs, hips thighs.
Lissy holds her down, spreads kisses every where she can reach, and each one sends out sparks all over her body. Her eyes blur, her mind blurs. There’s nothing. Everything is fire-coloured, fire-licked, and her hands move on their own accord, her mouth bites at places she never knew were sensitive, to hear Lissy whisper her name.
Over.
And over.
And over.
Again.
And when the fire just dims down to embers, Marina draws her arm around the redhead’s shoulders, and pulls her on top of her, rather than against her side. Lissy settles easily on her body, a living, breathing blanket.
It could be easy to ignore the knife to her side, and the gun by that, and the baseball bat, the lamp, and all the other little weapons, and she does. For just a little, there’s no Mafia and no agency - just Lissy, and her warmth, and her incredible smile.