Undercurrents

By S. Faith, © 2019

Words: 14,828
Rating: M / R
Summary: No one knew of the secret history behind the public story.
Disclaimer: Isn't mine, oh hell no.
Notes: Alternate canon, BJD movie universe (i.e. with a November birthday).
This one is a little bit different in format. Some of the chapters and longer, some are shorter. Hopefully this works.


Turkey Curry Surprise

It all began on New Year's Day…

Or so she thought.

She knew her mum had been trying to set her up with some boring, stodgy barrister for months now. Now that the annual New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet celebration was imminent, she had been resigned to her fate, to meeting (and then gently letting down) this total nerd.

Being single, and therefore the never-ending target for her mother's matchmaking efforts, had always been a source of great irritation for her. This year, though, she hadn't minded so much. She smiled to herself, combing her hair in a sedate style to settle it into place after getting dressed. Her suit of armour, the secret she was keeping, protected her ego against even the indignity of this particular setup.

No one knew what was going on, not even her closest friends. She didn't want to face their judgment, their questions, their concerns; she'd been as careful as could be and she did not want to further worry them unnecessarily. Their worry wouldn't have stopped her, though. It had been just the thing she had needed. Every day she could work her job in the city, a face in the crowd amongst other younger, prettier, sexier women. For one evening each week, though, she felt gorgeous. Confident. Sexy. Desirable, and definitely desired. Getting satisfyingly shagged into the wee hours with no strings attached, and then parting with the understanding: same time, next week. It was a perfect arrangement.

She stepped back and took in her reflection in the full length mirror, inspecting herself before she had to make her way down to the party. Hideous, this holiday-appropriate outfit her mother had insisted she wear. "It's festive!" her mother had said, though the outfit looked more like a sofa than anything she would have normally been caught dead wearing, least of all to a holiday party. She felt the opposite of gorgeous and sexy. But it was all right, really. She could have put up a fight, could have insisted on dressing in the outfit she'd brought, but much like resisting the matchmaking, it was not worth the battle. This atrocity of an outfit actually served her well tonight. The sooner she made her appearance at the party, the sooner she repulsed the man with whom her mum was trying to match her, she could get on the train, get back to London, and get on with her night.

She couldn't help the smile that found her lips again. Thinking of that fateful night. Thinking of her secret. Thinking of him.

Approx. two months earlier

If you want to have fun, make your own.

This was her thought as she delicately applied lipstick—a bold cherry red she wouldn't normally have dared to wear, to offset her kohl-darkened blue eyes—then stood back to gauge her overall appearance. Spaghetti-strap top, black miniskirt, tall black boots, hair loose and framing her face. She was ready to have a little too much to drink, to dance until her feet ached, to have a good time for her birthday, even if she had to go it alone. It was all right, though. She always found it easy to get along with people she didn't know, especially after that first cocktail.

The buzzer on her door rang, indicating her minicab had arrived. She grabbed her clutch and her keys, then left her flat.

She'd decided on a new nightclub to which she'd never been before, one for which there had been a lot of buzz. Rather than being sad that none of her friends could spend her birthday evening with her, she was proud of herself for venturing out all on her own like this.

"Quicksilver, please."

Apparently, giving the minicab driver the name of her destination was good enough; he clearly knew where it was. "Yes, miss."

The brushed metallic façade of the nightclub more than lived up to its name; she paid the cab then made her way to the entrance. To her delight, she was waved in immediately, and within moments she was enveloped by the booming music and the strobing lights. All she needed now was something to drink.

She went to the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary, and stirred the drink with the thin celery stalk before drawing in a sip. Delicious. One of the best she'd had in some time. Best of all, it was quite strong. When she had finished it, she headed directly to the dance floor. Almost immediately she found a dance partner for the high energy club beats. Before long, the bloke she'd danced with had bought her a drink. She then danced some more, pairing up with another man—probably young enough to be her nephew, but who cared? She was having fun. It was just the night she needed after months of feeling completely invisible to members of the opposite sex.

As she took possession of then sipped from her next drink, she happened to glance towards where tired dancers liked to sit to catch their breath. Only then did she notice that there was a man looking directly at her from his seat, his hand around a tumbler that rested on the bar table. She fought the impulse to turn around, to think he was looking beyond her at someone else. She expected him to look away at having been caught so brazenly looking at her, but he didn't; his gaze was intense and unwavering. Intrigued, she met the gaze and didn't look away.

Well, this is fun, she thought. Had he been watching her dance? She offered a smile, tilting her chin up. This triggered a response; he rose from his coveted seat and, drink in hand, approached her.

"Hi," she said, swirling her drink then taking another sip. He was tall, even compared to her own height in the heels she wore, and he was more than just a little bit attractive. His clothing was impeccable, even if his suit was way more appropriate for the financial district than a nightclub. He had strong, classical features; notably, the distinct line of his jaw and cheekbones. His hair—wavy, short around the sides, longer on the top—was as dark as his eyes; the intensity of his gaze was not lessened with his closer proximity. He hadn't spoken yet, so she prompted, "I haven't seen you dancing."

"I don't dance," he said, almost too low to hear.

"That's too bad," she said, then added, emboldened a bit, "I was hoping you did."

She could make out the muscles in his jaw tensing and releasing; his eyes seemed to glitter from the flickering lights of the dance floor. He drained the last of his own drink, set down his empty glass on the bar, then said at last, "I might be persuaded."

Her lips slid into a sly smile. "Oh, good."

She took in the last of her own drink, set down the glass beside his. She took a step back before reaching to grasp his hand, then pulled him along with her to the dance floor. The high-energy song that began just then was evidently a popular one, because the crush of the crowd around them suddenly increased, and she hardly had any room to move.

She felt hands on her waist; her dance partner pulled her closer and began to move with her. She smiled, placing her hands on his upper arms. As other dancers brushed against them and into their space, she felt his arms slide around her and pull her to him. She had to admit, it felt good to be pressed against him as they moved in their own time to the music; he was solid and strong, guiding their movements, and better at dancing than someone who claimed not to do so. She felt his hands splayed against her back. They were no longer keeping time with the beat, but instead, moved slowly together.

"You do dance," she said playfully, though at first it was not clear if he could hear her over the music.

He had; he bowed closer to her so that she in turn might hear: "With the proper motivation, yes." He did not draw away; his fingers pressed gently into her. He spoke again, but the only words she caught was, "Kiss you."

Was he asking if he could? She thought he was. She decided to answer by turning her head, where his lips found hers before hers could find his.

The beat of the music was matched only by the thrum of her heart as the kiss deepened. His hands slid down over her backside and pulled her even closer to him; her fingers were soon raking through the thick waves of his hair. It was an adventure she had wanted, and she'd found one: snogging a total stranger in the middle of a pulsing dance floor.

In very short order, she distinctly felt rather than just sensed that he wanted more than just to dance with her. She felt the same way. As he broke away to nuzzle into her neck, he brushed his fingers along the hem of her miniskirt on the back of her legs and quietly asked, "All right?"; in so many words, she said yes. As he traversed upward on the tender skin of her thigh, a moan escaped her lips; in that moment, it felt a very real possibility that they might just shag right there in the middle of the crowd.

But the song ended, the crowd ebbed, and he drew back, though he claimed her hand. Her cheeks felt hot, her knees were weak, her hair was probably wild; by looking at him, she knew her lipstick was obliterated. She led him to the bar for a paper napkin and with an impish smile, reached up to dab it off.

He still looked so intense, so serious; when she tossed the napkin aside, he stood close to her again. "I don't usually do this sort of thing," he said quietly, "but I'd like to finish what we started."

She knew what he meant by "this sort of thing." She hardly did this sort of thing herself, to snog a stranger in a nightclub, and even rarer did she shag someone she'd only just met. But he was smoulderingly, magnetically compelling, and his touch was stirring things in her that frankly surprised her. She found herself agreeing with a nod.

It was then he offered a small smile.

He led her to the door, then off to a very expensive car parked along the kerb less than a block away. He opened the door for her, then took his place in the driver's seat and engaged the engine.

She knew she was taking a huge risk leaving the nightclub with a man she didn't know. To his credit, he seemed to sense this unease in her. "I know you only have my word to go on," he said quietly as the car crawled down the streets of London proper, "but I promise that I'm no madman or serial killer."

"I suppose that's reassuring," she said; if he were, would he say this? "So where are we going?"

"Somewhere private," he said. "Can't risk being caught in public."

"Oh God, you're not married, are you?"

His chuckle was devoid of mirth. "Not anymore. But it would be enormously embarrassing, possibly career-ending, to be caught in flagrante, say, in the toilets or in the back seat of a car. No offense meant to you, of course."

"Are you a politician or something?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Then what—"

"The public sees me as… a good guy. A 'nice boy.' But I don't want to get into real life."

He made a good point. He pulled up to a building and into its underground car park. From there he led her to the key card-entry lift that whisked them up to a flat far above the city streets. The flat was respectably sized with drawn drapes that revealed a gorgeous view. He did not turn on the main lights, just flicked on a single amber-hued lamp by the door. She asked, "Is this your place?"

"No," he said. "It's… available for my use and I remembered that it's free tonight."

"So mysterious," she said, smirking.

"It's not really," he said, coming near to her, cupping her face in his hand, "but the details are not important. This is."

The electricity from the dance floor sparked back to life.

"You're absolutely right," she said quietly, then got up on her toes to press her lips to his then broke away. "Sorry not to ask first."

"Forgiven," he said, his tone warm. He ran his fingers along her collarbone to her shoulder, along the spaghetti straps of her top. "You know," he said, his gaze meeting hers again, "you need only say so and I'll stop."

"You are nice," she said, though it honestly meant a lot to her to hear him say it. His fingertips burned heat into her shoulder, where they sat waiting. She said, "Yes, by the way."

His gaze moved back to the strap, then he slipped those fingers beneath it and slipped it down over her shoulder

"Oh, yes."

"Bridget!"

Her mother's shrieking voice ripped into her consciousness and—regrettably—snapped her out of her shag reverie. The memory lingered as she inspected her reflection again.

That birthday night had since kicked off what had since become a weekly assignation. They met at Quicksilver on Thursday night; they danced; they went to that flat and had mad, passionate, consensual, protected sex until the early hours, when she took a minicab back to her flat. He had offered to drive her home, but she preferred that he did not know where her flat was.

She had never learnt his name, nor had he learnt hers. And that had worked out just fine.

"Be right down," she called back. She smoothed her hair down once more, sighed, then went downstairs.

The guests had indeed begun to arrive, and she made her way through the family friends until her gaze alighted on the familiar figure of her dad. They spoke briefly, he typically reassuring to her as they shared a cigarette, until her mum came to pull her away again.

This was it; the meeting with the nerd. Best to get it over with, she supposed. Then she could eat, hop on the train south back to London, and get ready for Quicksilver just to see if he might show, too. She hadn't seen him since before Christmas.

All of her thoughts were focused on this goal, even as her mother brought her nearer to the man to whom she was to be introduced, who was facing away from her and conversing with a pair she presumed were his parents. As he turned around at the sound of the approaching voice of her mom, however, all of the blood rushed from her head; she willed herself to stay upright.

Her mother continued talking, but before her, standing in the most ridiculous Christmas jumper she had ever laid eyes on, she could only see the man with whom she had been secretly having hot, anonymous sex for weeks.

This was Mark Darcy.

Mark Darcy was him.

She could not reconcile these realities. She tried to make small talk but had trouble finding anything innocuous to say, especially in front of their parents. His face was as stoic as anything she'd ever seen; he didn't let anything slip to the surface, not even recognition. He ended the misery of the conversation by walking away to find something to eat, though his brusque departure honestly left her a little stunned. As she filled a plate for herself minutes later, she overheard him saying something rude about her to his own mother, Elaine Darcy.

Had he actually not recognised her in the terrible tapestry outfit and muted makeup? For a moment, she felt a bubble of hope surface, but it was quickly burst. There was no way he didn't recognise her. They had spent far too much time, as he might have said, in flagrante.

Perhaps he had just been embarrassed to find out the truth of who she was: not the glamorous woman that she had projected herself to be at the nightclub, but plain, ordinary old Bridget, who worked a mostly unexciting job in publicity for a book publisher, and who was so pathetically, chronically a singleton that her mother had to try setting her up with her friends' kids friends.

Compounding her sadness was the knowledge that while this affair (for lack of a better term) couldn't have lasted forever, she dearly wished that it could have gone on a bit longer than two months. This meeting had certainly ended it with some finality. Regular casual sex had honestly been so, so good for her, and honestly, she was going to miss it; in a world where sleeping with a strange bloke from a nightclub could be exceedingly risky, she had truly felt safe when she was with him.

And God, he'd been good. She was going to miss that, too.

Well, she thought. That's the end of the Thursday night hook-up, not to mention my self-esteem.

She left the party as soon as was decent; even though she felt rejected, she certainly didn't want to take it out on her parents and make them feel bad. But she didn't want to stay so long that she ran the risk of probing questions from her mum about why they had not hit it off.

She didn't spare him a glance as she left.

"Bridge, we've got to find you a man."

She glanced up from where her attention had focused on her cappuccino, across to her friend Tom. "Why do you say that?"

Tom knew her well. "I don't know if you've noticed, but since the new year, you've been a bit… snappish."

She immediately felt defensive, which sort of proved his point. "And why do you think that means I need a man? Hmm?"

"When you get this way, it's because you've hit a dry spell." He grinned impishly. "You need a good shag."

Tom was of course right. It had been two weeks since the devastating meeting at her parents, and she still hadn't let on to her friends what had happened. When they asked about how she'd spent her birthday on her own, she said she'd gotten a pizza and watched Frasier, and that had been the end of that line of questioning. After all, it was behaviour that was not at all out of character.

She sighed. "I know."

"Too bad things didn't click between you and that barrister that your mother wanted to fix you up with."

She laughed abruptly. She couldn't help herself. She thought Tom might ask why the laughter, but he clearly thought she was laughing at "that barrister" himself, and she wasn't about to disabuse him of the notion. "If only," she said, then smiled. "I don't suppose you know anyone?"

"Not anyone straight, sadly; sorry, darling," Tom said with a pout. He thought a moment, then added, "Didn't you say your boss was a hot thing?"

She groaned. "He is," she lamented. "But that is such a bad idea. You know. Being my boss and all."

"Still…" He mimed something obscene with his hands.

She threw a wadded-up napkin at Tom, but laughed as she did so.