Summary: Have you ever wondered why Piper decided to travel the world with a known drug boss? Piper's decisions over the years show how she became the woman who fell in love with Alex Vause. (Told from Piper's POV.)
Not sure if this is the end; depends on feedback, I suppose.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.
Adventure and excess were words I only used to describe fictional characters.
My high school friends teased me for my lack of spontaneity and incessant need to follow the rules. Senior year, they asked me to play hooky in early May, stating that I had the fewest number of absences of any senior. I really wanted to skip school that day—spring was in full bloom and the crocuses in Hayward Park, where our adventure was supposed to begin, painted the ground purple and yellow like a magic carpet.
"Can we leave after fifth period?" I'd asked our ring leader, knowing she'd give me all kinds of hell.
"It's ditch DAY, Piper, not ditch-the-last-two-periods-of-the-school day," she'd snapped.
I'd contemplated playing hooky for weeks, and I just couldn't pull the trigger. "I've got a C in AP Chem, and I can't risk missing the test on Friday."
"I knew you wouldn't do it!" Beth had let out a long sigh. "You've already committed to Smith, you have an A in every other class, and we have literally 14 school days left." She'd shaken her head and began to walk away. "I hope someone lights a fire under your ass someday, because you're boring and vanilla and afraid of everything."
Beth's verbal slap never escaped me, but I was frozen in my lackluster existence. I did what was expected of me and had high hopes that staying the course would lead to a storybook life complete with a successful career, a charming husband and two adorable, blond children.
My first year at Smith, I took 18 credits, met with professors during office hours, and very rarely went out to bars. My roommate, Katie, and I were a great match—she was a classically trained dancer from Seattle with a passion for environmental conservation. I spent most evenings with Katie and two other young women on my floor who were more interested in studying than partying.
During that first year, a number of guys from Amherst and Hampshire flirted with me, and a couple of them asked me out. I enjoyed the attention, and I decided early on that wanted a steady boyfriend. I'd had a boyfriend for five months at the beginning of senior year of high school and enjoyed that security.
In April of my freshman year at Smith, I had sex for the first time with Erik Lundgren, a Norwegian senior at U Mass Amherst who was pursuing a career in veterinary medicine. Erik was kind, funny and smart—the qualities any woman would find attractive in a man.
He broke up with me the day before summer break.
It wasn't until my junior year in college when I realized what it meant to lead an exciting life. I'd hoped to study abroad in Paris, but that program filled up two years in advance, so I settled for Geneva. My roommate, Keiko, was a studio art major from Newark who liked women and smoking pot. I'd met a number of lesbians at Smith, most of whom expressed their physical appreciation for women as an experimental thing, but Keiko was gay. She'd dated several boys in her younger years but confessed that she hated "their junk."
People were naturally drawn to Keiko—despite her half shaved head and lip piercing, she was strikingly beautiful. Her mother was Japanese and father was Italian; she looked like she could be on the cover of an indie Vogue magazine. She'd been to Geneva as a teen and remembered a few spots along Lac Leman where she could light up a joint and not be bothered.
"Want a drag?" She extended the joint to me.
I shook my head. "I've never smoked marijuana."
"It'll make you relax." Keiko lifted it closer to my lips.
Against my better judgment and as a shock even to myself, I took a short drag and coughed excessively as Keiko laughed. "Like this." She inhaled, held the smoke in her mouth for a few seconds, and then slowly exhaled.
I gave it another shot, and then another and another. In roughly 30 minutes, I was high for the first time in my life.
Turned out that the reason Keiko wanted me to relax was so that she could kiss me. And she did—leisurely at first, then harder and more persistent. I was slow to react—it was as if my brain couldn't communicate with my body to pull away, so I didn't. I let her kiss me and enjoyed every second.
Keiko and I explored Geneva as often as we explored each others bodies. The sex was good, and I wondered why it took me so long to discover the pleasures of a woman's body.
Throughout my semester abroad, we stayed out until 3 am with the local 20-somethings, smoking, drinking and dancing. Despite our shenanigans, we never missed class and had stimulating discussions about human rights, Swiss art and global health. I was addicted to my new found identity and the bliss that came along with it. For the first time in my life, I experienced spontaneity, and it was exhilarating.
Before I knew it, four months had passed and it was time to return home. Keiko went back to college in New Jersey and assured me she'd stay in touch, but I knew our relationship was over. It was fine though; she'd shown me what it meant to live a life filled with passion, and I was hooked.
Trouble was, there wasn't a lot of "living" to do in Northampton. I went to parties, smoked pot on occasion, pulled a couple of all-nighters, and had sex with gorgeous men and beautiful women—never simultaneously, though I was once approached by a very handsome couple. Until then, I hadn't considered my sex appeal, but women appreciated me as much as men, and I didn't discriminate: the attention was intoxicating. Still, I never felt that full sense of adventure and freedom like I did in Switzerland, and I longed for it.
After graduating from Smith, I decided to move to New York to live with my childhood best friend, Polly, who had recently graduated from Sarah Lawrence. She was trying to turn her internship at Barney's corporate into full-time employment. I was in no hurry to get a real job; my focus was trying to recreate the excitement that I'd experienced in Geneva. I began wondering if that was a fluke, and if I was meant to have an ordinary life.
While waiting tables wasn't much of an adventure, I knew that working in a restaurant would allow me more freedom than a 9 to 5 job. I'd spent nearly two weeks handing my resume to restaurant owners from Brooklyn to the Bronx, and I had zero interviews lined up. I decided to try a few bars and ventured into an unassuming one about three blocks from home. That night altered my life forever.
Psychologists and doctors agree that there are two developmental milestones that we hit as children that change the course of our lives: learning how to walk and learning how to drive. The freedom that those two events create cannot be measured, and one can never "un-learn" either of them. The night I met Alex Vause was equivalent to learning how to walk, and traveling the world with her was like learning to drive.
Alex was intoxicating from the moment we met. Her hair was as dark as midnight and her eyes were like little blue marbles behind her glasses. The sharp contrast intrigued me, but it was her unabashed line of questions that reeled me in. She was so fucking confident and captivating. Before I knew it, Alex had invaded my physical and emotional space…and I didn't mind at all. Her breath smelled like beer and apples of all things, and her deep voice was soothing and sexy.
Before I knew it, the bar was closing, I was drunk and no closer to finding a job; instead, I found this woman.
"Come on, I'll take you home," she said, steadying me by the elbow as I wobbled off the bar stool.
"I walked." My hiccups were more frequent now, causing me to giggle.
"So did I." Alex looked me in the eye and smirked. "No one drives in this city."
"I like living in a city where people walk," I mused, allowing Alex to lead me out the door. "I grew up in the suburbs and every one drove a big car or a Suburban or something equally vile."
"What do you have against cars?"
"They're bad for the environment and they take up a lot of space." I hiccupped. "It's like people are married to their vehicles and there's no conversations or personal connections when we drive everywhere."
"Personal connections?" She raised an eyebrow.
We stopped walking and Alex brushed my hair over my shoulder and smiled before leaning in to kiss me. My reaction was slow, but her warm lips leisurely pecked at my own until I opened my mouth just enough for us to deepen the kiss. I put my arms around her back as she cradled my face in her hands.
"You're salty," she commented.
Between the alcohol's affect on my brain and the unexpected kiss, I was too stunned to speak.
"Come home with me," Alex whispered and took my hand.
I nodded and let her lead the way.
There is a lot I don't remember about our first night, and I still don't know what happened to my favorite bra. I remember Alex's hands under it, squeezing my breasts while kissing her way down my neck, and then it disappeared. I woke up with my head on her thigh and my right arm flung over her stomach.
"Where am I?" My throat was scratchy.
"Good morning," Alex said, reaching for a glass of water and handing it to me. "Isn't it obvious?"
I assumed she meant that I was obviously at her house, in her bed. Naked. Alex, on the other hand, was wearing a black tank top and purple underwear. She had her back propped up against the headboard.
"What happened?" I sat up and guzzled the water, pulling the sheets high on my chest. I hadn't had a one night stand in over a year, and that one had ended poorly.
Alex picked up a paperback from the nightstand. "What do you think is more important, finishing the last chapter of a book or being on time for something?"
"Depends on the book." I glanced at the cover. "The Poisonwood Bible? Good one; read it last month."
She put her glasses on and smirked. "You read?"
Alex's black hair against the white sheets captured my eye. So did her rosy, full lips. In that moment, I was intrigued and oddly at ease. "I do."
She leaned over and brushed her lips against mine. It was a quick, chaste kiss, but my heart leapt into my throat. Just as I was about to put my hand on her cheek, she pulled back. "I'm going to be extremely late."
Alex got out of bed and began searching through her drawers. She pulled out articles of clothing from each one and shoved them into a small wheelie suitcase.
"Are you leaving?" I furrowed my brow. "What happened last night? I mean, I know what happened, but…"
"We had fun." She turned towards me and smiled. "Let's do it again, but this time with dinner beforehand."
"I'd like that." I felt my cheeks turning pink. "I'm free tomorrow night."
Alex laughed as she approached me and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. "I'm leaving for Bitung in an hour. Write down your number, and I'll call when I get back."
"Indonesia?"
My mind tried desperately to recall what Alex told me she did for a living. Drugs. She worked for an international drug cartel. This should have made me nervous, but I was more curious about where her travels took her than anything. Besides, her profession had nothing to do with the two of us at that point. For all I knew, this was a one time thing with the possibility of dinner somewhere down the road.
"No one knows Bitung unless they're in the drug trade." She walked into the bathroom and turned on the water. "And I'm fairly certain you're not," she called over her shoulder.
I rolled out of the four poster bed, followed Alex into the bathroom and watched her take off her tank top and underwear before she stepped into the shower.
"The smallest primate in the world is from Bitung. I think they're called Tarsiers," I commented, scratching my head.
"You study chimpanzees?" Alex smiled.
I followed her into the shower and closed the curtain, not sure what was driving me other than her alabaster skin, wet black hair and colorful tattoos. "No, I read."
The only good thing that happened in the 10 days that Alex was gone was that I secured a job at a diner. My hours were shit—breakfast shift from 5 until 10:30 a.m. and an occasional lunch gig if the regular waitress didn't show up. (She was six months pregnant, so I was hopeful that I'd pick up more work.)
I'd only spent 10 hours with Alex, half of them in utter drunkenness, but I couldn't get her off my mind. When she approached me in the pub and glanced at my resume, she figured out that I'd never been a waitress and totally fabricated my resume. She had me pegged in less than five minutes, and I loved it. I loved her confidence; the way she checked me out; and the fact that she found it odd that I ordered a margarita in October. I loved that she put my drink on her tab with just a quick gesture to the bartender. Alex struck me as a woman in control, able to size up anyone in mere seconds.
I usually don't go for the Rockabilly type, but Alex wasn't Rockabilly per se. The blue tips of her hair, the huge cross around her neck and the sensible earrings were all playing against that style, and I knew she'd be difficult to fully comprehend. Despite the dark eyeliner and mascara, her soft eyes behind the glasses made me trust this woman immediately. Perhaps I was wrong to do so, but she'd spun me into her web the first moment we met.
On a rainy Tuesday morning after a rather hellish shift at the diner, I checked my phone and noticed the blinking voicemail icon.
"Hello, Piper Chapman, it's Alex Vause. I'm back from Indonesia, and you'll be pleased to know that I got a picture of Tarsiers. Their eyes freaked me out—they're not the cutest little monkeys I've ever seen. Anyway, Annie Leibovitz is doing a show at Lincoln Center on Friday night and I have an extra ticket. If you're interested, meet me at Atlantic Grill on West 64th and Broadway around 7ish."
At that moment, I didn't care that I had a bacon grease stain on my t-shirt or that I'd only made $20 in tips. Alex called. Alex called and asked me out. I grinned from ear to ear, dropped my apron on the back counter and left the diner in the rain without an umbrella.
I've never believed in being fashionably late, so that night, I took a cab to the Atlantic Grill and arrived precisely at 7 o'clock. The bar was vast and crowded, and as I scanned the room for any sign of Alex, I listened to the cacophony surrounding me—a cocktail being vigorously shaken, the sound of a champagne bottle being popped open, 20 different conversations and the occasional loud, manly laugh.
There was only one unoccupied stool at the far end of the bar, so I walked over to it and draped my coat over the back. I was pleased with the green dress I'd chosen – there were small, open slits on my ribcage where just enough skin peeked through while still looking classy and modern. I wore my hair down with a singular sparkly barrette on the right side to keep it out of my face.
"No more Prairie Home Companion, I see," came a voice from behind.
I turned around and smiled at the sight of Alex, and she leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek. She looked stunning—knee length black dress with an open collar and a gold chain that tied over her breasts with a "C" on the tassel, presumably, Chanel. Her black leather boots made her even taller than I remembered.
"I hated that outfit," I said, commenting on the hideous dress I wore the night we met. "This is more my style."
I could feel Alex's gaze as she looked me up and down. "Ravishing."
Our eyes met and I bit my lower lip, which if it had a mind of its own, would have reached up to kiss Alex's bright red lips.
"I'm glad you came," she said with a small smile. She touched my thigh and sent a thousand volts of electricity through my body.
"Thanks for inviting me."
We talked about her trip and the Tarsiers, of which she had a picture, my new job, where we grew up, school, books, films and music. We had similar tastes in many things, but it was clear that I was more traditional than Alex. Her non-traditional interests attracted me even more and made me long for a life similar to hers. Before I knew it, it was already 9 p.m. and there was only an hour left of the Leibovitz exhibition.
We never held hands that night or stole a kiss, but we touched often like two magnets turned on the correct side. The back of her hand softly skimmed my butt when we stepped off the escalator and my fingertips slowly ran down her arm as we stared at a black and white photograph of a ballerina in a deep plié.
Alex commented on the lighting or composition of a photograph, and I commented on the subjects. I felt like I was in a music video for some romantic song as the viewer watches two people falling for each other.
We must have been the last people in the exhibit as the lights flickered, indicating that the show was over.
"I have two of her photo books at home," Alex said as we walked outside into the brisk October air. "Would you like to see them?"
"I would." If my heart beat any faster, I was sure it would jump right out of my chest.
We barely made it inside before Alex shoved me against the door and devoured me. My hands couldn't move fast enough to rid her of her coat and then her dress. Alex's hands were flat against my ribs, sneaking into the slits of my dress and covering as much of my breasts as she could with the fabric restricting further access.
"Seeing these little slivers of your skin killed me all night," she panted against my mouth. "You like torturing me?"
I closed my eyes and smiled. "If this is my punishment for said torture, then yes."
Alex was far more adept at handling a bra than I was and had both my dress and bra off in less than a minute. I struggled with hers, which caused a brief lapse in our heated moment for a few giggles. "Smooth, Piper."
"I'm clearly not as skilled as you are in undressing another woman," I retorted.
"You'll learn." Alex's lips never left my body as we made our way to the closest flat surface, which happened to be a loveseat near the entryway to her brownstone.
My pantyhose were unsalvageable, but I didn't give a fuck. All I wanted was this woman's mouth and hands all over me, and my wish was granted. Alex slithered down my body, allowing her hands to precede her tongue, and each time she found a beauty mark, she bathed it in open-mouthed kisses. The noises that escaped me were nothing other than primal encouragements for Alex to continue her ministrations.
She looked up at me as her head was positioned above my upper thighs. "I love your body."
"I want your tongue inside me," I gasped.
Not that Alex needed an invitation, but she ravished my pussy like nothing I'd ever experienced. I came in 30 seconds and then again two minutes after that. We tried moving upstairs but ended up stopping halfway up where I licked her pussy from a lower step. When we finally made it to the living room, we ended up in a 69 position on her Persian rug that I later learned cost $10,000 and now had a lovely stain.
Alex tasted like sweet Bourbon, and I couldn't get enough. We made love all night on just about every surface, and I came at least six times. My pussy was sore by morning, but she was still keen on eating me, gentler now. She licked me slowly, her tongue flush against my insides, often forming a point on my clit. Sometimes she sucked the little bud with her lips, other times she bit it lightly.
I have no idea what time I fell asleep that night, but when I woke up, Alex was gone. I called for her several times, but there was no answer. I sincerely hoped that she didn't have a flight to some foreign destination that she forgot to mention.
I found a robe on the back of her door and put it on as I walked through the living room, noticing shreds of clothing strewn about the room. I smelled fresh coffee as I entered the kitchen and found a note propped against the coffee maker:
You deserve room service after last night. Be back soon.
PS: Don't get dressed.
Alex
And that began two months of falling in love with Alex Vause.
The End