Disclaimer: All characters and situations from Gilmore Girls are properties of Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions and Hofflund/Polone in association with Warner Bros. Television. No copyright infringement intended.
I don't know how many of you are reading my When Old Worries Are Fixed, New Ones Arrive fic, but I decided to take a day trip away from it to write this. I just watched A Vineyard Valentine and it prompted this. I tried to write what Lorelai's "I think we'll stay in" would lead to...
"I think we'll stay in," Lorelai told Rory as she leaned over the side of the couch. She said this with hope and excitement that she wasn't sure were actually warranted due to her fiancé's pure lack of enthusiasm in being anywhere near her.
Lorelai hoped that choosing to lock herself in a room with this man would not end up being a mistake. She wasn't exactly sure what prompted her to confine herself to such a small space with Luke and his suddenly giant attitude. All she knew was that she loved this man, and she wanted him back. Luke had been cold and distant lately, but the fire was warm and she hoped they'd get a little closer that night.
So, rather than forcing Luke to be social, which was usually a mistake, she took another chance. She was about to instead force him to be loving-- with her. Why was it that that seemed like an equally trying feat these days?
"Hey," Lorelai said, forcing a smile as she closed the door behind her. Luke stood poking at the fire. "Whatcha doin'?" She asked as she sauntered over to stand next to him.
"I had to rearrange the logs," he said nodding towards the fire place. "I don't know who started this fire, but they obviously had no clue because that configuration was just asking for an accident. If I didn't know any better, I'd think someone was trying to put us in some sort of danger."
Lorelai nodded as she shrugged and shoved her hands into her back pockets, "--looked fine to me."
"Yeah," Luke scoffed, "like that's saying anything."
Lorelai's mouth hung open slightly as she shook her head and turned to look away from him, her glance eventually landing on the floor. Sure, she knew she wasn't a camper or anything, and it was probably true that her thinking the fire looked okay was not really saying anything for its actual safety, but the tone of Luke's voice had no warmth or joking quality to it. His comment bordered on nasty, and in response, Lorelai walked towards the bathroom saying, "I'll be right out, okay?"
"Yeah," Luke said, putting down the poker and crouching by his suitcase. He took out his few articles of clothing to transfer them to a dresser drawer.
Lorelai closed the door of the bathroom and peered into the mirror, examining her face closely. She noticed a few small wrinkles beside her eyes and on her forehead. Dragging her fingers across them slowly, the dark circles under her eyes suddenly popped out at her. She leaned away suddenly and wondered if the sullen look she kept seeing on her face was becoming permanent. If she had to have the few fine lines on her face that came with age, she'd rather them be the result of constant smiles than constant frowns. Before the past couple of months she thought she'd at least be able to tell her grand-kids one day that she was okay with the wrinkles because they were a sign of her long, happy life, but she had to actually have a long happy life to do that, and these days happy moments were few and far between.
She decided to wash up, brush her teeth, and reapply her make up before getting changed.
Taking off her scarf and sweater a few minutes later, she noticed the slightly more than flat stomach she was supporting beneath her t-shirt. So she'd gained a little weight in the last couple of months, but she wasn't exactly 20 anymore, and she was under tremendous stress with Rory, the engagement, the renovation, the wedding, Rory again, the wedding planning, April appearing, and then postponing the wedding, and there was no way that constantly competing for Luke's attention could be doing anything to help the situation.
This couldn't be why Luke was avoiding her, could it? Surely Luke was not that superficial. Just to be safe, she dug out a soft baby blue night gown from the bag she'd brought into the bathroom. Its empire waist and outwardly flowing skirt camouflaged her very little belly. She hoped this would be enough to at least draw him in. Once she had him turned on and back to his usual self, or at least headed in that direction, she figured it would no longer matter that once it came off he'd have to see her naked anyway. By then, she figured, he should accept the imperfections because he was Luke and he loved her, or at least she hoped so.
After changing, she leaned in towards the mirror again, utterly unsatisfied. She'd never been so self-conscious before in her life. What was going on? She knew it was just because of this man she was trying to impress that she shouldn't have to try to impress anymore. He was supposed to just be hers, no effort necessary. But all of a sudden, it was getting a little tougher for Lorelai to achieve that look of awe on Luke's face that proved how infatuated he was with her. She was no longer living up to that challenge, and it frightened her.
She tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned back to stand up straight again. As she did so, she couldn't' help but notice how she naturally slouched forward. Trying to stand up straighter, she pulled her shoulders back. She wanted to strangle herself when the next thing she noticed was the sad appearance of her breasts. All of a sudden they just weren't as attractive as they usually were. Their own perkiness seemed, to her, to have followed Luke's when it left, and now they were dragging her joy out along with them.
She told herself she had to let it go. After all, this nightgown was not meant to be worn with a bra, so she wasn't wearing one. What could she really expect to look like without a bra?
As these self-loathing thoughts, more specifically at the moment: breast-loathing thoughts, continued to flood her mind, without thinking about it, she cupped a breast in each hand and lifted them upward, only to let them fall a moment later when she pulled her hands away. She repeated this action a few times with her head tilted to one side.
"What are you doing?" Luke's voice invaded her thoughts, and she gasped when she saw him standing behind her through the mirror.
"God. You scared me," she said, still holding a breast in each palm.
"What are you doing?" Luke asked again, nodding towards her chest in the mirror.
"Oh," Lorelai said, sighing, but not with embarrassment. "Nothing. Never mind." She released her hold and shrugged. "What are you doing in here?" She asked.
"I wanted to brush my teeth," he said, holding up his toothbrush. "But if you're busy I could come back later," he pointed to her chest again, chuckling at the thought.
Lorelai sighed, "No, it's fine," and stepped off to the side as he stood in front of the sink and reached to turn the water on.
Waiting as Luke put some toothpaste on his brush, she crossed her arms across her chest which once again pushed her breasts upward. This caught her attention for a second as she glanced down, but she quickly looked away and let her arms fall to her sides with a sigh.
"Are you waiting for something?" Luke asked with a mouth full of toothpaste.
"Yeah," she said and pointed to the toilet a few feet from the sink.
"Oh, sorry. You can go ahead," Luke said.
"Are you sure?" Lorelai asked, her facial expression clearly conveying her confusion.
"Yeah," Luke said as if it was nothing.
"Okay," Lorelai said, still skeptical.
"I'll look away if you want," Luke labored.
"No, I don't have a problem with it. I'm just surprised you don't have a problem with it," Lorelai said, lifting up the bottom of her nightgown and pulling down her panties.
"Why would I have a problem with it?" Luke asked as he spit out the rest of his toothpaste and glanced over at her as she watched his expression carefully.
"I don't know, I just figured it wasn't exactly a turn on."
"Well, it's not," Luke laughed, "But it doesn't repulse me or anything." He splashed some water on his face before grabbing a towel to dry it.
"No, I'm glad. Just a little surprised," Lorelai said as she pulled her panties back up a moment later and headed for the sink.
"Why?" Luke asked, leaning against the counter and meeting her eyes with his own.
"I don't know. I've just never done it in front of a guy before," she said.
"Well, I'm not just a guy. We're engaged. You're not engaged to most guys, as far as I know," Luke said.
"Good point," Lorelai said, nodding.
"We've done everything else together," Luke said.
"Yeah, I know, I just didn't know if you thought this was different."
"Well, I don't," Luke said shortly.
"'Kay," Lorelai said, reaching to pump out some soap from a nearby dispenser.
"Great. So, you don't mind, right?" Luke said, reaching to lift up the toilet seat.
"Be my guest," Lorelai said.
Luke nodded, but soon Lorelai looked over and said, "Hey, wait one second, actually."
"What?" Luke asked, letting the elastic waist of his sweat pants snap back against his stomach.
As Lorelai dried her hands and picked up her discarded clothes and suitcase, she asked, "Do you remember watching Along Came Polly?"
"The one with the ferret?" Luke asked, furrowing his eye brows.
"Yeah," Lorelai said.
"What about it?" He wondered.
"It's fine with me," she gestured to him standing in front of the toilet, "as long as it's never like it was with Ben Stiller and Alec Baldwin in the men's room at their office."
"God, that was disgusting," Luke said, his face distorting at the memory. "It will never be like that. God. What kind of a pig do you think I am?"
"Okay," she said a little taken aback by his last comment. "You go right ahead then."
"Wonderful," Luke said rolling his eyes.
Lorelai sort of sighed in annoyance at his constant eye rolling. Soon, she realized there was nothing left for her to do in the bathroom, so she said, "'Kay...meet you out there..." and headed out to the bedroom as Luke washed his hands.
Lorelai lay on her side on the side of the bed closest to the door, in a way she hoped was suggestively, while she waited for Luke to emerge.
He did so a moment later, shutting off the lights around the room and climbing under the covers on the other side of the bed, letting out a dramatic sigh, "Aah, long day...The trip here was really long. Did it feel exceptionally long to you?"
"We came from Connecticut. Of course it was long," Lorelai said.
"Well, I know," Luke said. "I just didn't think it would feel quite that long..." He turned a few times on the bed, trying to get comfortable.
Meanwhile Lorelai said pointedly, "I didn't think it was too long, but I was enjoying the company."
Luke finally settled on his back and began, "Man, it's weird sleeping in someone else's bed."
"You sleep in my bed all the time," Lorelai said.
"I know, but that's different. And, it doesn't help that it's not very comfortable."
"I don't have a problem with it," Lorelai shrugged, getting a little more annoyed. Was that a trend today, or was she imagining it? In every situation Luke could concoct a problem and manage to complain about it, but Lorelai had absolutely no issues with the weekend so far, except, of course, for Luke's attitude.
"What are you doing, anyway?" Luke asked.
"What do you mean?" Lorelai asked.
They both looked at each other, clearly not understanding the other.
"You're not under the covers. Aren't you cold?"
Lorelai climbed under and asked sweetly, "There, is that better?" with a smile on her face. Thinking that was his back handed way of getting her closer to him, she placed her hand on his stomach, only to let it fall off as he turned on his side to face her.
"Sure," Luke said, smiling before finishing, "G'night," and closing his eyes contently.
Lorelai inaudibly gasped as her mouth hung open. Reaching to turn on a bed-side lamp, she said, "Now, wait just one minute."
"What?" Luke asked, groggily, as if it was a struggle to open his eyes again.
"What do you mean, 'what?'" Lorelai asked in shock before adding bluntly, "Aren't we gonna have sex?"
Luke let out an amused laugh. "Oh, sorry. I thought we were just going to sleep."
"Luke! It's not even 10:00."
"I know, that's why I was surprised you didn't want to hang out with Rory."
"No, I wanted to hang out with you," she said, winking and touching his arm.
"Alright," Luke shrugged.
"Well, you don't have to act so happy about it," Lorelai said, exasperated.
"I wasn't really expecting to do anything...like that...in a house with Rory and Logan."
"That doesn't matter," Lorelai said, waving it off. "Why else did you think I wanted to come on a little vacation to Martha's Vineyard for Valentine's Day?"
"I thought you wanted to spend time with Rory," Luke said.
"Luke," she sighed, "It's Valentine's weekend. I down want to 'hang out with Rory,'" she mocked with her arms flailing. "I want you to love me," she pleaded.
"Okay, I got it," Luke said, rolling his eyes.
"Okay?" She checked.
"Sure, let's go," he said without much thought or sentiment.
Lorelai rolled her eyes as Luke leaned in to kiss her. His lips touched hers and she quickly felt his tongue pushing against her motionless lips. She opened her mouth to let him in, and Luke moved as they kissed to hover above her. He pulled away briefly from the world's most perfunctory kiss to move one leg over her until he straddled her legs. She turned onto her back, and without any thought they adjusted their position so that Lorelai's legs were bent and spread so Luke could kneel between them.
Leaning in once more, he rained kisses over her neck, moving quickly from one spot to another. Lorelai lay motionless beneath him as a hand came to cup her breast, Luke's thumb rubbing over her nipple repeatedly, silently asking her for some recognition.
The only recognition she gave Luke's actions was the one gasp that escaped her lips when his tweaking of her nipple through the night gown caused not pleasure but pain.
He was going too quickly, not giving her enough of a chance to react. Her arousal was miles behind his frantic stimulation.
She felt like she was back in high school when sex was over in 2 minutes because her partner was inexperienced and had no clue what pleased her, or even any interest in anything besides his own release.
She wasn't turned on in the least, and she needed Luke to go slower.
She knew his heart wasn't in it because this man had previously given her the greatest sex she'd ever had. He was beyond attentive, spending hours kissing just her arms and legs, wanting as much build up as they could take. He would always want to go slower, never falling victim to Lorelai's charm -- never convinced to take her usually more frantic pace. They'd roll around on the bed for hours with their clothes still on because Luke simply refused to be rushed.
Tonight was different. She could feel Luke's bare back beneath her hands already. When had he taken off his shirt? She moved her hands lower down to cup and squeeze his butt. When had he taken his sweatpants and boxers off?
Who was this man above her? He didn't want to be with her, he was only going through the motions to humor her request to love her. It was all simply to placate her. She could tell by his slurping kisses on her breasts, the incessant rubbing of his hands on her things, and simply by the fact that two minutes in, his lips were anywhere but on hers and his hands were anywhere but on her face and in her hair. Who's naked arousal did she feel pushing into the cotton of her panties? Surely it couldn't be Luke's, because none of these were the familiar actions or scenarios of making love with her Luke.
This was a different man entirely.
"Hey, are you okay?" Luke's voice tore Lorelai from her trance.
"What?" She asked him, finally meeting his eyes.
"You looked like you were spacing out a little," Luke told her.
"Oh. Sorry. I'm fine," she said, forcing a smile.
"Okay," Luke said.
After a moment's pause, Luke pushed himself up to rest on his heals and offered his hands to Lorelai, saying, "C'mere."
She took his hands and let him pull her towards him.
She sat up in front of Luke, finally leaning forward and sucking Luke's earlobe into her mouth, nibbling gently on the soft flesh. She trailed a line of kisses along his neck, soon settling on a single spot.
"Don't," Luke rasped. "Not where someone can see it."
She leaned back for a second to flip her hair out of her face. As she chose a new spot on his chest to leave a mark, Luke scrunched her hair up in his fists contently, staring at the brown bundles and taking pleasure from their softness.
Lorelai assaulted his skin, sucking fiercely, licking seductively, nibbling gently, and kissing softly.
As the moments passed, Luke released his grip on Lorelai's hair and spread his large hands over her back. When he noticed the lack of skin beneath his fingers, he leaned away from Lorelai's mouth on his chest to say with a genuine smile, "Babe, you're a little behind here."
"Huh?" she asked, looking up at him curiously.
"Can I just?..." He asked, pulling at the bottom of her night gown, pooled at her lower hips.
"Yeah," Lorelai said, and together they pulled the garment over her head.
"Lay back," Luke said, tossing the blue fabric to the floor.
Lorelai obliged, lying flat on the bed and looking up at Luke. He looked down at her, meeting her eyes briefly before his attention went to her panties. Lorelai wiggled her hips to help Luke pull the garment down and lifted her legs higher so that Luke could remove the final barrier coming between a temporary physical connection.
When Lorelai brought her legs down again, she let her knees fall to the side, opening herself for him.
"Ready?" Luke asked, leaning forward.
"Yeah," Lorelai said.
Luke took himself in his hand and guided himself to her entrance in an attempt to slide inside.
"Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow," Lorelai grunted and quickly pressed her palm against Luke's shoulder when the attempted entrance wasn't quite as smooth as either expected.
"What?" Luke asked, looking up to see the stressed expression on her face. "What's wrong?"
"This's not working. Hold on a second," Lorelai said, placing both hands on his chest and pushing him back gently.
He moved to sit on his heals again, asking, "What are you doing?"
"I'll be right back," Lorelai said, moving to get out of the bed.
"Where're you goin'?" Luke asked, getting frustrated.
"Hold on..." Lorelai rummaged through one of her bags before she pulled out a bottle of KY and held it up for Luke to see when she sat back in the bed beside him.
"Good plan," Luke said.
"K, well do you want to..." she asked holding up the bottle in her hand, "Or do you want me to?"
Luke rolled his eyes, sighing, "Does this feel a little off to you, tonight?"
"Yeah," she admitted reluctantly, avoiding his eyes.
"Alright, well, as long as it's not just me...I guess we can just chalk it up to being somewhere different. It's a little uncomfortable..." Luke trailed off, looking at her for confirmation.
Lorelai nodded, going along with his excuse.
"Do you want to stop, or...?" he asked.
"No," Lorelai replied quickly, eyes wide.
"Okay...then...I'll do it," he said, taking the bottle from her hand and popping open the cap.
"Hey," she said, stopping him, "why don't you grab a condom now so that we don't have to stop again," she suggested.
"Why do we need a condom?" Luke asked.
"I'm not on the pill anymore...?" Lorelai asked with a 'duh' sort of tone.
"You're not?" Luke asked, confused. "Did I know this?"
"Yeah," Lorelai gasped. "We talked about it a few weeks ago...I can't believe you don't remember."
"I don't," Luke said. "What did we talk about?"
Lorelai sighed, "We were in bed," she started.
"Well, there you go," Luke said, "that's why I don't remember. I was probably asleep."
"You were responding to what I was saying," Lorelai pointed out.
"Okay, I was probably half asleep."
"Luke," she said annoyed.
"Oh yeah, that was the night I got home late from dropping April off and then you started talking once I got into bed."
"Yeah," Lorelai said.
"Okay, well remind me what you said."
"Luke," she scolded again. "Oh fine," she said, throwing her arm in the air and beginning to summarize the conversation. "I had gone to the doctor's that day, and she said I should consider stopping birth control 'cause we're getting married and sometimes it takes some time to get all the stuff out of my system. So, if we wanted to have a baby pretty much right away, then I should talk to you and we should consider it, especially if we're still thinking about having the wedding relatively soon. You said, yeah, you thought it would still be soon, so you said you thought it was a good idea. So...I stopped taking it," she said matter of fact-ly.
"Well, how come we haven't had to use any since then?" Luke asked.
"We haven't had sex since then," Lorelai said.
"Oh...huh. That's odd."
Lorelai just rolled her eyes, sighing, "Yeah."
"Well, did you bring any, because I didn't?"
"No," Lorelai said, sighing. "I asked you when we were packing our bathroom stuff this afternoon if you "grabbed some of those" already," she said using air quotes, "and I pointed to the box of condoms I bought and put on the shelf you were standing right next to."
"Oooh," Luke said, sighing. "I thought you were talking about those little tooth paste things up on the shelf."
"No, I told you I already packed some of those," she said.
"Oh..." Luke said, "Well. We have plenty of toothpaste."
"Great. Can it be used as birth control?" Lorelai asked sarcastically.
Luke just rolled his eyes. "K...well I guess this is done..." he said throwing the bottle in his hand onto the bed and leaning to grab his sweatpants.
"I guess," Lorelai said.
"Alright, well I think I'm going to take a quick shower."
Luke shut the bathroom door a moment later and the shower turned on quickly.
Sighing, Lorelai flopped back onto the bed and her head fell to one side. "Right," she sighed, "'cause there's nothing we could have done that wouldn't require a condom."
She noticed her nightgown on the floor and moved slowly off the bed, bending and picking up the discarded article.
She fingered the soft material for a moment, sighing, "Well at least I didn't have to fake an orgasm," and crossed the room to her suitcase.She rummaged through it, removing some panties and tucking the nightgown in a side pocket, not caring if it wrinkled or not.
Near the top of another bag was a think Stars Hollow sweatshirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. After carelessly pulling one piece of clothing on after another, she crossed her arms over her chest for a moment before reaching up to pull her hair into a messy knot on her head.
As she returned to bed, she caught a glimpse of her appearance in a mirror on the wall. She stopped and stared for a minute and almost smiled. Her feelings sharply contrasted those of just a half hour before.
She looked sloppy and like she just didn't care. And, if she was honest with herself, she'd say she was caring less and less as the days passed.
It's hard to care yourself when no one else does.
The last thing Lorelai wanted to do was come up with something for her and Luke to do when he got out of his cold shower, so she shrugged her shoulders, sighed deeply and decided to give up.
Lorelai pulled back the covers and crawled into bed. Turning toward the bedroom door, she closed her eyes in hopes that sleep would come quickly. Soon enough, she heard the shower turn off and a few minutes later Luke pulled back the covers beside her and lay flat on his back with his hands on his stomach. She rolled her eyes when she heard his light snores a couple minutes later.
An hour later, Lorelai was awoken by Luke's fidgeting. Looking at the clock, she briefly wondered when she'd fallen asleep. She listened as Luke tried to get comfortable beside her.
Before she even knew she'd fallen back to sleep, she was awoken again to a clock that read 2:05. Luke had turned back onto his back with a sigh. His breathing was loud and labored like he was annoyed at something. Slowly Lorelai turned over to face him without saying anything and rested first her hand and then her head on his chest. Luke let out another sigh and waited as Lorelai once again fell asleep.
Still unable to fall asleep after forty-five minutes, Luke started moving to lay on his stomach in hopes that a new position would help. Lorelai's sleep was once again disturbed and she moved her head back to her own pillow. She looked at Luke's dark figure for a minute before deciding to place her hand on his back. She rubbed circles over his shirt letting them grow in size as his tense shoulders relaxed and his breathing evened. She smiled contently when she finally heard his snores again and allowed herself to fall back to a peaceful sleep.
Unfortunately Lorelai narrowly opened her eyes around 4:30 that morning to find Luke staring at the ceiling wide awake. She whispered, "Hey," in a voice raspy from sleep.
Luke turned his head to look at her with wide eyes but remained silent.
"You okay?" Lorelai asked.
"I'm fine," Luke said as if it wasn't clear that he'd barely slept the whole night.
"Okay..." Lorelai accepted the answer for a minute, but then asked, "You sure? You want to take a walk or something?"
"It's four-thirty AM," Luke said.
"Yeah, but there's a beach right out there. We could walk for a while and then watch the sun rise."
"Nah," Luke said.
"Okay, do you want to talk or watch a movie?" Lorelai suggested. All she wanted was for her man to be happy to be with her. She honestly did not care how she got him that way, but that was her goal. It was her only care for the moment.
"No, really, I'm fine. You can go back to sleep."
Lorelai reached with her right hand to grab Luke's right arm where it lay draped over his stomach and rolled over to face the opposite wall. She held his arm tightly and pulled him to roll over with her. She let his arm drop over her side and she desperately held onto is his hand and closed her eyes with a sigh.
This man didn't even want her to lay awake next to him. The effort it took to talk to her was just too much, and he didn't want to make it. In fact, it seemed like he'd rather her not be there at all.
Yes, she decided, it might have been a mistake to lock herself away with Luke because it had taught her a few things she simply did not want to know.
Is anyone watching The Return of Jezebel James? I didn't think it was as bad as all the reviews I've read seemed to. I felt at home again when I heard how fast they talk. LOVE IT! I love how Parker Posey plays Sarah. Her facial expressions kill me. Anyway, I hope it continues to grow and stays around for a while because I love AS-P! Can't wait to watch episode 3 tonight. :)
I hope you all liked this. I don't know if it's particularly wonderful, but I just wanted to write it. So, I did. Let me know if it was all a big mistake. :) I haven't decided yet if I'm going write the next night or not, but if there's interest, I might do it.
Thanks for reading.