Dempsey and Makepeace - OneShot - Fruit Punch
This is my very first D&M fanfic. I've already started a full length story but this scene suddenly popped into my head last week and I just had to get it down on paper. I'm quite sure the pro-D&M fanfic-ers would be able to do a much better version but the idea struck me as being quite funny.
It was a gloriously warm day; more like early July than May. The clear blue mid-morning sky was fresh and flawless and the sun dazzled with a pure white vibrancy. Birds sang their tender notes, hidden from view along the tree-lined avenue.
Harry was already back behind the steering wheel with her green-grocery purchase by the time Dempsey emerged from the newsagents door a little further along.
"Crummy store," he grumbled, sliding himself into the passenger seat and slamming the door shut.
"Please don't tell me they're not stockists of that fine stalwart of American society, The New York Times!" she gasped sarcastically.
"Cosmopolitan London, my ass," Dempsey griped. "You know, that dumb-ass kid at the counter told me, 'we got copies of Bild if that's any good to you'. Can you believe that? Do I look like the kinda guy who reads kraut newspapers?"
Harry opened up the brown paper bag she had on her lap and delved inside. "I'm not sure you look like 'the kinda guy' who reads at all, actually," she deadpanned.
Ignoring her comment, he continued cheerfully, "At least they had my cigars." He dropped the packet of Laguito panetelas on the dash.
"Yippee," Harry enthused – unenthusiastically. She began peeling a banana.
"And my gum." A pack of Wrigley's spearmint joined the cigars.
"Mm hmm." Harry was concentrating on her banana.
"And they got these individual apple pies." He pulled a small box from either pocket of his brown leather jacket. "I got you one too."
He glanced over, holding one of the boxes aloft for her to see.
His jaw fell.
"What the hell are you doing?"
She frowned a little at his interruption, licked the tacky skin resin off her left thumb and forefinger and finally gave him her attention.
"I'm about to eat my banana if that's alright with you," she said, slightly perturbed but determined not to show it.
"No you aint," he shook his head to reinforce his decision.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm drawing the line right here."
Harry regarded him suspiciously. "What are you talking about, Dempsey?"
"What's wrong with apples? You like apples. You always buy apples."
"But I like bananas. And I don't always buy apples."
Dempsey ripped the end off his individual apple pie box and slid the foiled pastry out.
"No, sometimes you buy cherries ... I don't like cherries either."
Makepeace was now totally lost. "No one's asking you to," she said patiently.
Dempsey took a large bite out of his pie, frowning as he chewed rapidly. "Have this instead," and he tried to get her to take the other pie
"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you. Those things are filled with all sorts of E numbers and preservatives and besides, they taste like sugar soaked cardboard. I'd rather have real food."
Dempsey made a face and downed the rest of the pie in one.
In the brief silence that followed, Harry returned to her banana. It got as far as her mouth before Dempsey burst out, "Now you see, this is just what I'm talking about." He grabbed his Aviators off his face and jabbed them towards the offending article.
"What!" she exclaimed. "What is your problem?"
Oh god! She'd just done that thing. Dempsey was transfixed. That thing she did with her lip when she got all high and mighty about something. Her top lip kinda curled somehow, like it'd got snagged and it was just so damned sexy!
"Dempsey?"
He tore his eyes away from her mouth, trying to avoid looking at what she held in her hand.
"I can't cope with you eating that," he gestured at the banana, "in front of me."
Light began to dawn for Makepeace but she considered it might be more prudent to pretend she was still in the dark whilst she figured out how best to play the situation.
"Are we talking about some sort of fruit phobia here, because if we are, that's just plain weird."
Her hand holding the banana was now resting on the steering wheel.
"It's a banana, Harry, and you're..." he floundered, "holding it."
Harry leaned in to him conspiratorially. "That's the way we eat them in this country. Were you expecting me to use a knife and fork?"
Deliberately, she brought it up to her mouth and formed her glossed lips into an 'O' to accommodate the first four inches. Her eyes were on his as she gradually eased the banana in.
What on earth was she doing? She was acting like some kind of a slut! But the frightening thing was that she was enjoying it. Yes, she could feel her face flushing but it wasn't merely her own brazenness that was causing it, it was the sheer intoxicating thrill of the power she was wielding.
"Oh, Sergeant...!"
Dempsey stopped breathing. This was the stuff of fantasies, certainly his fantasies and now here she was playing them out right in front of him, the picture of innocence – or devilment, as he was starting to realise. He watched, mesmerised as she oh so slowly pulled the banana back out, her teeth gently grating down the soft surface and then her lips closing over the resulting trail of scooped flesh. When she repeated the process he actually felt his throat start to constrict.
I've died and gone to heaven! Makepeace, don't do this to me ... don't do it babe.
Harry was suddenly inordinately amused to see the trance-like expression on Dempsey's face and struggled to stop herself laughing.
"It's only a piece of fruit, Lieutenant." She somehow managed to adapt her burgeoning laughter into what she hoped was a marginally seductive smile.
"That ain't fruit sweetheart, that's edible torture," he said heavily.
Harry slewed herself around to the side, her right knee pressing against his, her elbow on the back of the seat so she could comfortably hold her head in her hand. She couldn't believe she was doing this, actively encouraging him in his immature lusting. The banana stood proudly between them.
"Shall I tell you something?" she asked with a cool yet sultry self-assurance.
Dempsey shifted uncomfortably. "I'm listening."
She leaned in closer. "You're a bloody pervert!" she told him irately and the air between them crackled with her pseudo fury.
"Hey," he protested, "you were the one suckin' on that thing like it was..."
"I was winding you up!" she cut in. "If your libido goes into overdrive over my mid-morning snack then you deserve everything you get."
Harry pushed him with some force back over into his own airspace but didn't pause for breath. "and if I want to sit in my car, on my break and eat my banana, then I bloody well will!"
She twisted back in her seat, reached behind her to the back seat and picked up the copy of the London Standard she had left there the previous evening.
Dempsey grinned. She'd done that thing again with her lip.
Even if it had been a wind-up, the fact that she'd so openly tried to turn him on was in itself a huge turn-on. She'd tried... and boy had she succeeded.
Slapping her newspaper across the steering wheel, Harry bent her head down to read and sunk her teeth into the banana, chewing wrathfully.
Still Dempsey grinned. Clearly the subject was now closed as far as Makepeace was concerned.
"You know, princess, that was below the belt."
Harry scowled, scanning the front sheet and attacking another inch. Then, with the merest of glances she answered, "From where I'm sitting, Dempsey, it still is."
Abruptly, he leaned over and snatched up the newspaper. "Gimme that," he growled.
Jeez, was it that obvious?
Swiftly, Dempsey exited the car, shielding himself with the Mid-day news extra edition.
Harry finally allowed herself the delightful pleasure of release in loud and bawdy laughter. She watched him go and stand at the rear offside wheel and spread the newspaper out on the soft-top where he pretended to read, sunglasses firmly back in place. Hiding, she thought.
Harry was positively glowing with the knowledge that she could have that effect on him. It had all been a bit near the knuckle and she wondered if maybe she'd taken it a bit too far but at least now he knew she could give out the sexual innuendo as good as she got, if not better.
She ate the rest of the banana; the smile on her face and the excitement filling her chest making it rather difficult to swallow down. She could smell cigar smoke wafting in from the open passenger window, fragrant and masculine on the warm spring air and she wondered what was going through his mind right now. Had she gone too far? Had she embarrassed him? He was probably wondering if he'd embarrassed her with his lack of 'self control'. Did that idiot of a man even realise how close she was to wanting him right now?
The sharp tap on her window made her jump. He signed for her to roll the window down so she complied. He rested his hand on the ledge.
"So is it safe to get back in?" he asked sheepishly, twirling his sunglasses by one of the arms.
He uses those things like a crutch!
Harry lightly took hold of his free hand and turned it over palm facing up. "Maybe you could get rid of the evidence for me." She smiled up at him sweetly as she slapped the limp banana peel into his hand.
His eyes stayed on hers lingeringly for a few moments, making her spine tingle but she couldn't be sure of what they were saying to her. Wordlessly, he strolled to a street-side bin twenty feet away from the car. As he walked back he put the Aviators into his breast pocket before rejoining her.
"Fruit truce?" he asked cautiously as he got in.
"Depends on what your demands are," Harry said somewhat briskly.
He loved the way she could do that; that ability to sound angry with him whilst keeping up the repartee. It was so subtle that he was never wholly sure whether she was kidding or not. But this time, it was something slightly different; there was a fierce tension between them and he'd never known her to be so overtly sexual with him,(sober anyway), she had always drawn the line before now and wriggled out of the situation.
Dempsey smiled slowly. "Okay," he began, "no cherries," he counted off on the fingers of his left hand, "too provocative."
"Provocative." Harry repeated flatly.
"Uh huh." Second finger. " Definitely no bananas, way too suggestive."
"Suggestive," she said. "But you're happy with apples."
"I'm more than happy with apples, Sergeant." He was grinning and Harry found herself enjoying the way his eyes were shining and the corners of his eyes were crinkling.
"Pears are good; also oranges, apricots, peaches, nectarines, pineapples ..."
"I won't be eating pineapples in my car," she interrupted him.
"Mm, maybe not. So I'm hoping that means you won't be eating melons either?"
Harry made a face. "That's so incredibly infantile, Dempsey. Melons too ribald for you, are they?"
That mouth trick again! The way she drew her lips together, whatever it was, it drove him wild.
Dempsey sat back smugly. "You can blame the ancient Greeks for that one."
"Okay," she said slowly. "I know I'm probably ... no definitely going to regret asking this but what do the ancient Greeks have to do with anything?"
Dempsey hunched forwards a little, squooshing his lips with his right hand as he attempted to smother his childish grin. "Well, ya see, it goes like this; on cold winter nights, although I can't imagine that it ever got that cold, so for want of a good woman I guess, these ancient Greeks would take a melon, cut themselves a hole in it and ..."
Harry held up her hand in alarm, gesturing for him to stop right there. "Please Dempsey," she said, eyes closed, "if you say another word I swear I shall scream."
He shrugged. "Just what I heard." He noticed with some satisfaction that she was blushing.
"Neither do I want to know where you heard it."
Silence reigned.
"Soooo," Dempsey sighed heavily and slapped both hands down flat on his thighs. "Dates!"
Harry inclined her head, preparing herself for the next onslaught. "Are we for or against them?"
"Definitely for." He smiled warmly. "You and me; at the movies, tonight, seven-thirty. Sound good?"
Harry looked at him sharply. I'll go to the cinema with you but I have an aversion to dates, as long as we're clear on that."
"No problem, Sergeant."
"So what's on?"
"Some movie with that guy Mickey Rourke," he answered casually. "Sounds okay."
Harry's heart skipped a beat.
"About?" she queried with equal nonchalance.
Minor hesitation from Dempsey which Harry spotted instantly. "Oh, you know, boy meets girl... he's a food critic or something."
It was all Harry could do not to laugh out loud. Did he really think he'd get away with that one? Was his intention to embarrass or seduce her? Either way though, the proposition was exciting.
"Fine," she answered indifferently.
"Yeah?"
Was she actually falling for it? No way!
Harry crossed her arms across her chest. "I'll pick you up at seven-thirty."
But Dempsey's mind had already jumped ahead to the end of the evening. When she dropped him back home she might decide to do a disappearing act without so much as a nightcap. At least if he was the one doing the driving he could invite himself in when they reached her place.
"But I've invited you!" he protested, "I should pick you up."
"That would be too much like a date," she pointed out.
Her eyes fell to the newspaper he had folded and stashed down the side of the foot-well. She had read the review of the film he was taking her to see the previous night. It starred Mickey Rourke and a young actress named Kim Basinger and according to the reviewer, 9 ½ Weeks was the most erotic film ever to make it past the British censors.
So Dempsey thought he was going to get one over on her did he? Well, fore-warned was fore-armed and she already had an idea forming in her mind to get him back. There had been a simply stunning black pencil skirt dress languishing in her wardrobe for the last couple of weeks just waiting for the right opportunity to be worn. The fabric was of a very fine linen and she suspected that should she cross her legs whilst seated in the cinema, the material would stretch tightly enough to reveal the outline of the stockings and suspenders she would be wearing underneath. Subtle yet effective. She was pretty certain that would make him sweat. It crossed her mind that this was a dangerous game she was playing and yet she found she wanted to put herself in that danger, it felt almost like a compulsion. It was natural to want what you couldn't have, wasn't it? And she certainly couldn't let the relationship she already had with Dempsey go any further, it would ruin everything. She knew she already cared too much – much too much. The sorts of feelings she caught herself experiencing when she was around him certainly weren't conducive to a healthy working relationship. And yet she accepted his out of hours invitations and on a few occasions had taken him along as her plus one dinner date or to parties given by friends. And always she carefully explained to people that although they were partners at work, they were merely friends out of work. Was that cruel of her? Dempsey never discouraged people from assuming their relationship went further; was that because he liked the idea or because he thought it would annoy her?
Drawing herself out of her reverie, Harry buckled up her seat belt.
"Right, time to go and seek out Patrick Mustoe – see what he's got to squeal about."
As she moved her feet to the pedals, she knocked against the bag of bananas she'd dropped there earlier. "You do realise, Lieutenant," she said silkily as she reached down.
"What's that?"
"Bananas are sold in bunches," Harry dumped the bag into his lap and continued without giving him a chance to respond, "but fortunately for you..." she slid her tongue over her bottom lip, "I can only manage one at a time."
Dempsey was distraught. "Jeez, Harry," he managed to groan.
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