New Circumstances
Jenny folded the dress neatly and placed it carefully in the draw, sliding it shut silently. She turned back to the fireplace where her mistress was standing, dressed only in her chemise and corsets, basking in the warmth of the orange flames. The soft light bounced off scales, their smooth surfaces reflecting the shadows of the dancing fire.
Jenny cleared her throat and Vastra opened her eyes, not turning around.
"Yes Jenny?"
"If you wouldn't mind turning around ma'am, I'll unlace your corsets for you." Vastra did as she was bid and fixed her maid with a soft, dark-eyed stare. Jenny looked down avoiding her gaze, concentrating, perhaps a little too hard, on the laces of the corset in front of her, her fingers fumbling a little as she did so.
"You seem nervous Jenny," Madame Vastra observed, looking down at her white hands. "Is anything the matter?"
"No ma'am." Vastra lifted the girls face, tilting it up with a finger so that two sets of dark eyes met, shining like garnets in the soft light of the fire.
"You would tell me, wouldn't you Jenny, if there was something bothering you?"
"I'd tell anything miss," Jenny said quietly.
Vastra couldn't help but study her for a moment in the soft light. It accentuated all her delicate human features, her soft dark lips, her cheekbones, her large round eyes.
"You know Jenny, you are really rather beautiful," she mused, tucking a stray strand of ebony behind the girls ear. Jenny could feel the blood rush to her cheeks and she looked down, smiling to herself. Vastra chuckled. "How very human of you," she smiled, brushing her fingertips over her soft skin. Jenny's eyes fluttered shut at her touch, her skin prickling under her warm fingers. "I can hear your heart beating," Vastra whispered, "so fast, like a thousand humming birds."
"You tend to have that effect on me ma'am," Jenny breathed.
"I noticed."
They were incredibly close now, so close that their faces were mere inches apart, and they were fighting gravity to maintain that distance.
"So, what would one normally do in such circumstances?" Vastra asked, her voice little more than a whisper. "I am afraid I am rather new to his situation." Jenny let out a breathy laugh and looked up into her mistress's eyes.
"I believe, ma'am, that, the two parties involved, would, both willing, enter in to a kiss." Vastra wrapped her free arm around Jenny's slim waist and held the girl to her.
"And, are you willing, Miss Flint?"
"Ma'am, I think I shall die if you don't." And so, at long last, after so much unwanted waiting, she did.