"How come I have to wait here for Sam and Callen?" Marty looked at the large case Kensi had lugged down the stairs.
"Because you're still not allowed to drive." Kensi's tone was very patient, even if she had already explained this at least half a dozen times already. But she'd been planning this weekend for so long and now she could hardly manage to keep her excitement out of her voice. It was a struggle to even remember the last time they'd done something like this – just going away for the weekend, just the two of them, with no plans to do anything except make love as often as possible. "You know what the doctors said – you have to wait at least six weeks after the injury before you start to drive again, and only after another scan gives you the all-clear." All the signs were looking good: apart from a few headaches, there were no other side-effects, no reason to suppose there would be any long-term damage.
"I could come with you." The suspense was killing him. Kensi had dropped the odd hint, but nothing more than that. This was worse than the night before Christmas, frantically squeezing the presents underneath the tree and trying to work out what they were – and praying they weren't something boring like a new socks, or a chemistry set that couldn't even produce the smallest of explosions.
"And leave Densi home alone?" Kensi kissed her baby and felt a slight pang of regret, one that was almost instantly replaced by thigh-trembling burst of sheer lust as she looked at Marty, who was doing his level best to look put-upon. "You have a lovely time with Uncle G and Auntie Nell. And try to be a good boy." She didn't hold out too much hope on that front: Densi had never spent the night away from home before and he was a creature of habit.
"He's got his bun-bun." Marty looked at the creature with something approaching repulsion. "I still don't see what possessed Nell to buy that thing. It looks evil."
"Densi loves it though, and that's all that matters." Kensi still had a thousand things to do and no time to debate the aesthetic qualities of a stuffed rabbit. "See you in a couple of hours." All this keeping secrets was just making things even better, she thought. It was almost like she was sneaking out to have an affair.
"I won't be late."
"Good. Because I'll be waiting."
Marty lay back and sat Densi on his stomach. "Women," he said conversationally, "are different from men. And mostly that's good. But sometimes, they can drive you mad. Mommy seems to think that if I walk into a hotel room and find her sitting there on the bed with a red ribbon tied around her waist, that it's going to be special. Now, you and I know that's not the case, don't we?" He still only had to look at Kensi and want her. Familiarity most certainly did not breed contempt. It brought certainty, and shared pleasure and mutual memories that only they shared. And then there was the small fact that they were still able to surprise one another. Life would never grow stale with Kensi around. He wasn't exactly averse to the idea of her wearing nothing but a red ribbon either.
Densi appeared to be trying to stuff his entire hand into his mouth, and was doing a remarkable good job of it.
"You really should listen to me, kiddo. Because one day, you'll be glad of my words of wisdom. You see, when a woman gets an idea into her mind, your job is to go along with it, 100%. You remember that, and you won't go far wrong." Marty looked at his watch and wondered if he could possibly stand the suspense much longer. "Oh, and do it with a smile on your face. It's simpler that way."
"A blindfold? Really?" Marty looked at the length of black fabric in disbelief. "You expect me to wear a blindfold?"
"Kensi's orders." Sam wasn't too sure that it was really such a good idea to drive around LA with a blindfolded man in the backseat, but who was he to argue with Kensi? Certainly not after the way she'd bossed him and Callen about all week, getting things ready to her very exacting specifications. It was only to easy to see that she was an Army brat and that a lot of her father's Marine Corps background had rubbed off on her. And after days of humping furniture up and down stairs he was too tired to argue with her, and had just accepted the stricture about the need for absolute secrecy to be maintained right up to the very last minute without further question.
"Okay. She's the boss. Just like I was telling Densi." He bowed his head meekly and let Callen wrap the cloth around his eyes.
"You can't see?" Callen crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, which caused Densi to go into paroxysms of delight.
"No, but I can take a pretty good guess at what you're doing right now."
"Mind your head then." Callen wasn't taking any chances, and placed his own hand protectively on top of Deeks' head as he got into the car. Kensi would kill him if he delivered Deeks bleeding or unconscious.
"All ready for the magical mystery tour? Sam revved the engine and glanced across at his partner. Deeks had no idea what he was in for…
"We're here." Sam looked in the rear view mirror. "Deeks?"
"I think he fell asleep about ten minutes ago." Callen reached back and joggled his knee. "Want to wake up? We've arrived at the palace of pleasure."
Instinctively raising up a hand to pull down the blindfold, Marty found it grabbed firmly. "No peeking. What did we tell you?"
"Just wait till we've delivered you, safe and sound." Sam retrieved Densi from his car seat and tucked him comfortably under one arm, while Callen helped Deeks stumble across the sidewalk.
"This is a set up, isn't it?"
"No set up. Door to door delivery. We're just doing exactly as we were told – by She Who Must Be Obeyed. There's stairs here." Callen kept his hand underneath Deeks' elbow and guided him upwards.
"This is definitely a wind-up." After six flights of stairs, he could feel his legs starting to shake, which was pretty dispiriting after all the work he'd put in that week trying to get fit again.
"No wind-up. And we're here." Callen patted him on the shoulder. "Enjoy the weekend." He and Sam belted down the stairs at top speed.
Pulling off the blindfold, Marty blinked owlishly in the light. He was standing in the hallway of an apartment block that looked incredibly familiar. There was a door in front of him, and while it had been painted a different colour, it too was ringing bells. And it was standing ajar.
"Curiouser and curiouser."
Only it wasn't curious at all, because Marty knew exactly where he was and he had a very good idea what was going on. He walked down the hallway of his very last bachelor apartment, down towards a large room with windows that looked out onto the ocean and let the light flood in; a room with a polished wooden floor and a large fur rug and it was hard to stop himself grinning. And then he turned around a saw a once-familiar black leather chair, a bottle of champagne and a red rose. The bottle of champagne was in Kensi's right hand and the rose was between her teeth. And she was sitting in the black leather chair, her legs swung over the side and wearing a pair of sheer stockings, stiletto heels and a fuscia-coloured corset, trimmed with black lace. And nothing else at all. Apart from a smile that could have been the personification of 'come hither'.
"I think I've died and gone to heaven."
"That's a pity, because I've got no intention of being good this weekend." Kensi uncurled her legs and stood up slowly. "I want to be very bad indeed." She put down the bottle of champagne and stood beside him. "How about you join me – for old times' sake?"
"This is where it all began." Marty looked around and shook his head slowly. "Where we began." He looked down at the fur rug and smiled at the memories. "How did you get all this stuff? Not to mention the apartment?"
"I had a little help." Kensi tucked the rose behind his ear. She wasn't going to tell him how much it had cost to rent the apartment for the weekend, or the fact that she'd had to buy a brand new fur rug, the old one having disappeared into the mists of time. But at least they could take that back home with them on Sunday. It had just been sheer luck that the apartment had been empty and up for rental again. "Callen really didn't want to part with the chair though." He'd been quite grumpy about having to cart the various pieces of furniture up three storeys too and had kept telling her that he wasn't getting any younger.
"I can imagine." Marty sat down and pulled the handle so that it reclined. "I missed this chair."
"I didn't." Although it had been surprisingly comfortable, she had to admit.
"How about you come join me?" He patted his knee invitingly.
"Join you in the vibrating porn chair?" Kensi's mouth was beginning to curve into the smile he found irresistible.
"Why not?" For the first time in weeks he was starting to look a bit more like the old-Marty, Kensi thought, with an almost painful joy. And that made all the hard work, all the planning and all the money worthwhile, just to see that look on his face again, the faint glow of colour and the sparkle in his eyes.
Why not indeed? Kensi sauntered slowly across the floor, and her heels made a staccato click that punctuated each step. She straddled the chair, leaning close so that her cleavage looked even better than before and kissed him.
"You don't know how long I've waited for this," Marty confessed.
"Actually, I do." That had to be the reason guys bought these chairs in the first place, didn't it? But this was a special occasion and what was wrong with fulfilling the odd fantasy along the way? "So, what happens next? Does the corset stay on or off?"
"On. Definitely on. But take off your stockings – very slowly."
"Like this?" Kensi held out her foot and let him slip off the shoe before placing her foot on his knee and unfastening the stocking top from the suspender clips. Starting at the top of her thigh, she began to roll down the stocking, aware that Marty's eyes were firmly glued to the action of her fingers. As she moved towards her ankle, Kensi stopped and lifted her foot up.
"How about you help me?" The foot waved enticingly in front of his face and Marty took the gauzy fabric between his teeth and pulled, so that Kensi's toenails, painted a bright scarlet, were suddenly revealed.
"You are so full of surprises."
The foot was now lying in his lap and it wasn't lying still.
"You'd better believe it." With both feet safely back on the ground, Kensi turned around and started to unroll the other stocking. It was impossible to notice that she was not wearing anything underneath the corset. Marty lay back in the chair watching and thought he'd just gone to heaven.
Randy plot bunny is now demanding a black leather reclining chair too. Like I make any money out of this...