A/N:

1. Always the first point: Thank you so much for the reviews, faves and follows! They mean so much to me, considering I'm just someone who pretends to be a writer!

2. Last chapter I scaled down the funny... this chapter I upped the drama. But juuuust a little bit. I like throwing you guys into this new ride I call Brittana. Wait, that sounds messy. What I meant to say was... I like throwing you guys into this Brittana roller coaster. Whew. okay that definitely sounds better..

3. Where's Lord Tubbington? Not in this chapter. :P He'll be there soon.

4. To everybody whose reviews I couldn't reply via PM, thanks so much for making the time to comment! I appreciate each and every one of them!

5. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! I hope you're gonna be spending your days with the people you love & the people who love you. Please don't forget to pay your happiness forward and help others in need. It's a cold world out there for people without jackets and food. Also for pussies (ha!) without shelter and food.

Alright, onward we go!

"I just love seeing you interact with Charity," Brittany plopped down next to me on her couch. This was the second day I went to Bob to meet them, and I was proud to say that I wasn't as awkward as before. I was handling Brittany's gift in flirting like a pro. Before, depending on how many times she said 'pussy', I would have ended my night either taking a really cold shower, or ordering new panties from Victoria's Secret. But now, I can actually talk to her.

Like, from our conversations we now know just enough information about ourselves. Nothing super deep though. Just like hobbies (mine: point out incompetence at restaurants, hers: buy children coloring books), skills (mine: bitch out incompetence at restaurants, hers: finish children coloring books), best friends (mine: Quinn, hers: Charity and Lord Tubbington), and favorite dish (mine: sushi and anything seafood, hers: pussies and candy bars. In that order.).

("I'm just being honest!")

Did I mention she was hilarious too? She shared her experiences with past Rent My Pussy clients and we just laughed our asses off the other day. I mean, I knew I shouldn't be laughing at all because, after all, I was once one of them, but her stories were amazing. There should be a reality show about her business and her client. Like a hidden camera kind of thing? Yeah, I'm so gonna make a pitch about it to one of my contacts.

So there you go. Even though a part of me still wishing we had our tongues super close, Brittany proved to be an awesome conversational partner. Never had I clicked so much with a person like this before. Even Quinn had to earn my friendship (or I had to earn hers, whatever). Brittany was just… easy. I couldn't stop talking to her. There was this urge from somewhere inside of me to intellectually bone her.

…

Wow, that sounded so much better in my head.

"She's had issues, to say the least, with some of my friends, but obviously she has no problem with you," Brittany continued.

I looked at the peacefully purring cat in my lap and furrowed my eyebrows. I really couldn't imagine Charity being hostile to anyone. She had been so sweet an cuddly to me. "What kind of issues?"

"Oh, you know," Brittany shrugged. "Cat issues. Insecurities and all that. She almost clawed my friend's eyes because he said she smelled bad and she could've used a bath. And you know how much cats hate baths."

I nodded, looking like I was deep in thought. Then, after a pause, I asked her. "So you knew she could've clawed my eyes out, but you offered her to me nonetheless?"

Brittany carefully took a sip of her hot coffee, and even as her lips were hidden behind the mug, I could tell she was smiling. Amused.

"I knew she wouldn't do anything to you, and you wouldn't do anything to her," she explained, and when I raised an eyebrow she continued. "I had a feeling you guys had something in common."

"Oh?" I was intrigued, so I challenged her. "And what is that?"

"A couple of things, actually," Brittany was quick to answer. "One, both of you had that look in your eyes. The kind of look that says, 'yeah, bitch, come at me,—"

I had to laugh at that because one, she was talking in this adorable ghetto way, and two, she was kind of right. I mean, I'm me. I'm Santana Lopez. Of course I had that look. As for Charity... well, I had to admit I was at the receiving end of that look when we first met, so… I agreed with Brittany completely.

"Okay, that makes sense," I said. "What else?"

"Two," Brittany held two fingers in the air. "You're both go-getters."

I jutted my bottom lip out and did a nod. "What made you say that? We've only known each other for a couple of days. I don't think I've done something that could have you draw that conclusion."

She chuckled and it made her beautiful eyes twinkle. "That's easy. Look, we're probably about the same age. Now, we're still pretty young and any other people would be having trouble getting away from their daily jobs for a sick day, let alone for a full week vacation in Vegas. Look at your friend, Quinn. She's in Vegas and yet… she's working. Which could only mean two things."

"Which are?" I asked.

"One, you're either very successful and hold a high position in the office, or two, you are the boss of a Rent My Pussy type of business — which, I really hope you're not because that would mean we're competitions," she winked.

I pursed my lips into a tight smile, nodded and assessed her reasoning as I sipped my apple juice. She was right.

Brittany fixed her sitting position and folded her legs under her. I really got her curious. "So… are you not a go-getter? Are you not either one of my guesses?"

I hummed and agreed. "Yeah, I am a go-getter. I know what I want and once I find it, I will get it," I smiled at her. "That was a really good read, Britt."

"What can I say… I have a gift," she shrugged playfully. "So what do you do?"

"I work in the music industry," I said simply. But her eyes were begging for more, so I complied. "I started from the bottom as a front desk greeter, but now I'm one of the producers in my company. I delved in songwriting, but as it turned out, it's not for me. The lyrics I come up with are often… well, I was told they're offensive. Guess I can't help it when I'm brutally honest."

"Come on… They can't be that offensive! I bet they're still good. Give me an example."

"Let's see," I stroked Charity's back as I recalled old memories. "OH. Okay. This one time I dated a guy who had big ass lips, so I made him a song about how he could probably suck a baby's head off."

"Whoa. Hard core," Brittany deadpanned.

I chuckled because her straight face was perfect. She really had a knack for that type of comedic relief. "Needless to say that relationship didn't last very long."

"Do they usually last longer than that?" she asked, and she caught me by surprise. She seemed to sense my hesitation to answer, though, because then she tried to retract her question. "You don't have to answer that. Sorry, it's a habit of mine to ask weird questions at random moments."

I shook my head. "It's fine. To answer your question, no, my relationships had never lasted long," I paused, playing with Charity's fur once again before I gave her the final part of my answer. "But I always wanted them to be."

"And why do you think that is?" Brittany asked again.

Of course by now, I was the one curious. The Furry Pussy Pimp (yeah, that's what she told me to call her now) should only be asking these kinds of questions if…

"What are you, a shrink?" I playfully accused and rested my hands on my hips. I also raised one eyebrow just because I could.

Brittany shyly ducked her head down and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, all the while wearing a smile on her face.

Dear god.

She looked so gorgeous and sweet I could just eat her up!

Ooh… wank—

Stop, Santana! Focus, you cavewoman!

"Something like that," she looked up to meet my eyes and cringed. "I'm actually an animal trainer. This is just something I do on the side for a few months of the year."

"A few months of the year?"

"Yeah. December, February, and June," she told me.

I had to ask, "why only those months?"

"Because those are the months when a lot of people feel the loneliest," she shrugged.

I jutted my bottom lip out and nodded. Clearly Brittany had figured it all out with this business. "So… an animal trainer," I moved on after quite a long pause, but it must've been done as a question so Brittany confirmed it with a nod.

"Wow," I responded.

"Yup. Wow. You can laugh at me now," she half-smiled, obviously defensive about her unusual job. Well, it wasn't really unusual per se. It was just unusual to me. I'd never met an animal trainer before. "I mean it's not like I haven't been laughed at before."

"No, no," I told her quickly, frantically waving my hands in the air. "Totally not something I'd laugh at! I admit it was sort of weird hearing that, but that's because the only animal trainers I know are the ones whose 2D faces I so happened to encounter on Animal Planet. Besides, I really, really think it's a cool job."

The usually outspoken, outwitting blonde looked surprised at my (honest!) reaction.

"You do?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't I? You get to work with beautiful creatures that won't talk back when they're told to do something or criticized. They can handle the truth."

Brittany snorted. "Yeah, they won't talk back, but the big guys can still kill you. That's why we had lots of training and education. I majored in psychology, minored in animal psychology. That's a requirement for everybody in our line of work — y'know, to somewhat understand our friends."

"Friends?"

"Patients just sound so… sickly."

"Ah, got it," I nodded and gave her an encouraging smile. "Well, I'm sticking to it. Your job's so cool, also I think you're officially the smartest person I know. Quinn doesn't count cause I used to let her look at my test answers back in high school. She's not really that smart — but don't tell her I told you that."

There was a subtle shade of pink creeping up her creamy neck and chin, and then cheeks, and I couldn't help but admiring the endearing show. Unconsciously, I shifted in my seat and moved an inch (okay, more like five) closer to her.

"Honestly, though, now that I know your job is actually a dangerous one, please be careful," I told her seriously. "Have you ever been bitten?"

"Nope," Brittany shook her head proudly. Then her eyes widened comically as she remembered something else. "But I got clawed once by a tiger. There's a scar on my back. Not a big one, though. Just teeny tiny."

"Holy shit," I cringed again. I can't even handle a papercut, let alone a tiger claw on my back! "How did it happen?"

"Well, you see, the training company I work for, Faunalogy, only takes abandoned animals," she checked with me if I was following. And I was, so I gave her small nods.

I had heard of the company before. In fact, it was famously known for their ethics that a lot of production companies would rather hire them instead of anybody else. A few people I'd worked with had mentioned Faunalogy a number of times, mostly when they were brainstorming music videos, but I'd never done any research about it.

"Sometimes the animals were abused so badly, they develop certain behaviors. A lot of them became super clingy, but others could be really hostile if they felt threatened."

"Wow," I breathed. "No wonder you asked me about the cuddling part."

"Yeah. Faunalogy actually ask those questions — or some version of it — to all of our clients. So not just me to you."

"Even the part about fuzzy pussies?" I asked and winked.

"Even the part about fuzzy pussies," she laughed. "Or fuzzy cocks, if someone's looking for a chicken."

I shuddered and made a face. "Gross."

Brittany laughed louder, and I started to want to make her laugh all the time. Seriously... it was music to my ears, a sight for sore eyes, and all that shit you cheesily say in Hallmark movies.

"Anyway," she continued after calming herself down. "Long story short, they brought in a new tiger that day courtesy of an awfully cruel traveling circus, and I was still a week into my new job. I was trying to pet him but he mistook it as me trying to hit his head. Once I turned my back on him — which you should never do when you're in the vicinity of an abused, supposedly wild, animal — he swung his paw at me."

"Damn, Britt," I cringed. "How bad was it? And what happened to him? Any consequences?"

"No consequences for him," Brittany shook her head. "We all understood that it was then part of his nature to be extra defensive. Besides, I've told you. All I got was a small scar. Nothing to big."

"Can I see it?"

Seriously, my uncontrollable mouth was just asking for trouble. See, most of the time, when I was around Brittany, I didn't have control over my actions. Once, I went to a psychic reading and found out that my spirit animal was the always lustful garden gnome named Graham the Mentally Unstable Gnome of Bedford.

Okay, that might have been one of those Gnome Name Generators instead of a legit psychic, but still… All my life, things I found over the internet had provided me with very good information on the most important aspects. Why shouldn't I trust it, right? I mean, come on. Who did you think was my first teacher on lady sex?

(Internet porn. D'uh.)

Brittany, of course, was always on her toes when it came to teasing me to the point of cutting the tension of my sexual frustration. Naturally, she put on a smirk.

"Why, Ms. Lopez," she purred. "Are you trying to get me naked?"

"N-No! I was just curious, that's all!" Yeaaah, not very subtle, self. For sure Brittany was going to be all Miss Seduction-for-Your-Thoughts again, and I wasn't sure I could handle it.

"Oh," she pouted. "Well, that's kinda disappointing."

In that moment, I was sure Brittany was the kind of girl who got everything she wanted for her birthdays and Christmases. Because that pout? Killer!

I quickly corrected myself to make her feel better. "I— I didn't mean I didn't want you to get naked!"

There were times in my life when I wish I had listened more to what my parents had to say. Most of them were moments when I clearly should've put more thought into what I was about to say.

But this one, here on Brittany's couch, sitting so close to her and petting her (actual, non-metaphorical or whatever you grammar Nazis call it) pussy, was definitely not one of them. How could it be, when this gorgeous, beautiful human being ended up literally taking my breath away by kissing me senseless?

Nobody really knew this — not even Quinn cause there were certain things about me that I would like to keep to myself — but while other girls my age moved on from their fascination of Barbie once they were a little bit older, I never did.

My dad, the Catholic, wise and seemingly together husband and father, was one of those people in our communities that you look up to. That you go to when you have a domestic problem you need to solve. Every Sunday our pastor would tell the congregation little anecdotes about him and his participation in building a better community. Needless to say, everybody in our small neighborhood of Lima, Ohio, knew him.

Fortunately — or unfortunately, depends on how you see it — not a lot of people knew my dad, the good-looking, uber-popular surgeon who, while living in the same house and giving my mom and I financial security, mentally and emotionally checked out of his family about 4 years after I was born. He was always there for PTA meetings, Christmases and Thanksgivings, but a girl could only handle seeing her daddy kissing another woman in the hospital break room so many times without changing her mind about her childhood hero.

Did my mom know about his affairs? Definitely. Did she know about me knowing it? She does now, but she spent a huge amount of time either not knowing, or pretending to. Did she do anything about it? Well, other than telling her mother about it (who told his mom about it), she pretty much just let things flow. I think she did it to keep me safe and… well, to preserve my image of him.

Which ties me back to my Barbie dolls.

Even when I started high school, I still kept a complete set of a Barbie family in a big enough UPS box under my bed. In it, Barbie, Ken and Skipper lived together in a perfect world where other people just simply don't exist — or at least, they didn't try to steal other people's husbands and/or wives.

Perfect, perfect family.

…

Until I found out from my dear uncle Google that Skipper was actually Barbie's sister and my cardboard box family was actually incestuous, that is.

Imagine my disappointment learning that Barbie didn't name her daughter Skipper because she made her "skip" her period.

Anyway.

The whole thing with my mom and dad hurt my heart a little bit.

Okay, a lot.

Cliché, but I remember thinking, as a child, that it was my fault that my dad strayed. I thought I was the reason he abandoned us and I kept feeling some kind of guilt towards my mom. Of course, she was a great mother and never once did she ever blame me — but I just couldn't help but feel. And that brought me to a problem I now have.

According to Quinn, her extraordinary capability to read people (her words, not mine) had brought her to the conclusion that I had (have, really) this need to please people around me, as well as pretend that I was alright.

Quinn had the worst (best?) enemyship with Nicole. Every time Nicole was around, I swear, the high school HBIC Quinn was back in full force. If she had hunky guys around she would've paid them to pour slushies on Nicole.

(I found out months after I broke up with Nicole that Quinn actually paid some neighborhood kids to egg Nicole's car. I guess that was a close version of slushies.)

They were totally hostile towards one another. There was always a fight going on about the simplest things. Quinn would start most of them because, for example, Nicole had stood me up for an important date for the nth time; but Nicole would always be the one to egg her on, telling Quinn that she should just get laid and get that knot out of her brain — thus, making matters worse. I simply just couldn't figure out anymore who to bitch at: my best friend, or my girlfriend.

I always ended up sacrificing my best friend.

But she was always there the next day to listen to me sob away stories about the awful girlfriend that was Nicole.

When I called her up after I found out Nicole had been screwing some slut she worked with, Quinn was ready with the ice cream and movies. She said she had been anticipating that moment for while, and she wasn't even sorry about it. I hated her for wishing my break up, but it didn't last long because she slowly brought me to my senses.

'You've changed, Santana,' was Quinn's very sentence that really got to me, and she was right. That day I realized that I did change. And I didn't realize it for the longest time, but I had substituted my old self with a person who needed approval from people I didn't need in my life. Like, I needed to be held by people who I knew didn't care about me — which was why I kept Nicole in my life for much too long. I kept her until it was too late for me to comprehend that certain people just don't deserve my awesome self. And love.

So right now, as I half-laid there on the couch being sweet lady handled by Brittany, I was having these scary thoughts in my head, because… because the way she was looking at me was so soft and delicate. She was touching me so… careful… and nobody had ever taken the time to treasure me like that. This was just too much of a bubble of a dream, and if I weren't the one to burst it, someone else would and I just knew it would hurt.

"Where did your mind just go to?" Brittany whispered softly. Her blue eyes looking straight into mine, moving left and right like she was trying to read me. Her hand was stroking my hair like every strand was made of string.

I shakily answered. "I… I can't do this."

Brittany stopped her caressing and slowly sat upright, making a room for me to do the same too.

"This?" she asked for clarification. "This, this, or the whole… this?"

"I… I just—" I took a deep breath. "Brittany, I'm going home in 2 days and you're… you're you and you run this business—"

"On the side," she reminded me.

"Yes, on the side," I cut her off. "And you've been teasing me like crazy, and don't get me wrong, it's not that I didn't like it, it's just…" I trailed off, trying to think of good words to say that wouldn't stink like a word vomit.

"What, Santana?" she pushed gently, and the abominable Yeti inside of me decided to come out and play.

"I'm not just some fuck, okay?" I snapped. "I'm not some slut you can finger and then leave. I know your kind."

"My kind?" Brittany asked back. I didn't dare to look into her eyes because I could tell from her tone she was getting upset. Not angry yet, but definitely upset.

"Yeah, your kind! As soon as I leave Vegas, you'd be free to find some other girl to bang. Don't think I don't know your M.O."

"Excuse me? Weren't you the one who was looking for hookers for a one-night stand just a few days ago? And did you really think I was looking to just fuck you? If I wanted to do that I wouldn't be here talking to you at all. All I wanted was to get to know you! "

I did it. I definitely made her angry, and she was fucking scary when she was angry. Maybe it was because I had never seen her fuming like that. The whole 5 days I had known her, they were constantly filled with smiles and laughter, if not inappropriate puns and wordplays.

I regretted my need to push away the wrong kind of people.

I regretted what came out of my mouth after even more.

"Bullshit! You talk a big game about how sad it is to not be wanted," I used my fingers to make exaggerated air quotes, "to be abused and abandoned. The truth is, you don't even know what it's like to be left behind. Well, I do! And it fucking hurts! So let's do us both a favor and don't pretend you know what it's like!"

I panted, out of breath after that last spiel.

She was breathing hard too, and I wasn't sure why — until she looked up and I saw her blue eyes rimmed red.

Shit.

"I'm sor—"

"You know where the door is," she cut me off harshly and picked Charity up from my lap.

She disappeared behind the connecting door and turned the lock (I knew. I heard it click.).

I let my self out and chose to walk up the stairs to the penthouse instead of taking the elevator. I just felt like I needed a longer journey up to my room.

Quinn found me later that night all curled up in my room, crying my eyes out. She mentioned something about meeting a blonde in the lobby who had her 15 cats in their little carriers loaded into a fancy stretch limousine, and I cried louder because... Because I just needed Brittany to give me a second chance.

Quinn didn't say anything about the whole situation, mainly because I had been keeping her in the dark about Brittany. So she just handed me my phone. "Whatever happened, I'm sure you want to fix it," she told me.

And I should've done it. At least try calling Brittany to see if she'd answer. And if she didn't then I should've left her a message.

But I didn't.

I just went to bed and not sleep.

I left Vegas 2 days after that.