"You definitely haven't changed your mind?" The Queen hugged the youngest daughter by the shoulders.
"Mom." Rachel sighed. "You are asking me this question for the third time and this is only at the airport."
"Okay, I won't do it anymore." Regina smiled.
"Look, she doesn't even ask us." Charlotte grinned, nudging Gideon slightly.
"You are going to camp for the fourth and fifth time, everything is perfectly clear with you." her mother dismissed her.
"Well, we could suddenly change our minds too." her daughter remarked slyly.
"After waiting for a whole year." The Queen nodded. "So, have you decided not to go?" she asked in all seriousness.
"Charlotte!" A girl who approached the reception desk nearby waved at them.
"Monica!" Charlotte rejoiced. "That's it, Mom, bye!" She quickly kissed her mother on the cheek. "Daddy." She hugged Gold.
"I'll miss you." He hugged her back, clutching her on him.
"Yes, me too." She eagerly freed herself from his embrace. "Bye-bye!"
"You never answered me." The Queen called out with a laugh when she was already rushing to her friend.
"I'll think about it again." Charlotte replied cheerfully, turning quickly around as she walked.
Shortly before the beginning of registration, escorts from the scout camp appeared and began to arrange the children, each in their own group. Gideon, seeing his counselor, also said goodbye to his parents and hurried to the front desk.
"Who is Rachel going with?" Gold turned to his wife.
"That's what I'm looking for." She leafed through the contract. "She's in the third squad with Miss Linnet." She peered into the crowd. "There she is." The Queen nodded toward a short brunette with a number three sign.
"So you definitely haven't changed your mind?" The father smiled at his daughter.
"Dad! Enough is enough!" She was indignant.
"Okay." He hugged the girl by the shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "Call us every day, okay?"
"Sure." Rachel promised.
"If anything happens, we will come immediately and pick you up." The Queen reminded her.
"May I go already?" The girl sighed.
"Let's go." Gold grabbed her bag and headed for the desired group.
After seeing the children off, they sat down to drink wine in a cafe at the same place at the airport.
"Rachel will be fine, right?" She looked at her husband.
"Regina, calm down already." He added some wine to her glass. "Each time it's the same thing, with every child. And all of them are always delighted with the scout camp".
"Well, yes." Regina agreed. "But she's still so young."
"She's twelve years old." Gold stroked his wife's hand. "She's going to have a great two weeks without her parents."
"This is such an unusual sensation." the Queen said thoughtfully. "For the first time in seventeen years, you and I are alone."
"Well and how is the feeling?" Her husband inquired. "Pleasant or so-so?"
"I don't know, I haven't understood it yet." Regina shrugged. "So far just strange. Just imagine: you and I are together and the whole house is only ours, for two weeks."
"It's not necessary for us stay at home." Gold noticed.
"Really?" The Queen looked at her husband with interest. "But I have already begun to like this idea. I have already begun to imagine how I will spend two weeks in bed with you".
"But won't we get bored, in two weeks?" He asked with a grin.
"Hardly." the Queen smiled. "I think we will have a great vacation."
"I have another suggestion." He took out an envelope from the inside pocket of his windbreaker, opened it and took out several pieces of paper, spreading them out like a fan on the table. "Tomorrow is the opening night, a new production of La Traviata. What do you say?"
"Vienna?" Regina read the inscriptions on the tickets. "It's 8 hours of flight." She sighed. "Do you really want to?"
"And you don't?" Gold was surprised.
"Well, I don't know." the Queen continued. "I was already somehow tuned in for a quiet family vacation. In bed."
"I think there's some kind of bed we can find in Vienna too." Her husband grinned. "Seriously, Regina, this is Verdi's best opera in one of the best theaters in the world. And we have tickets for the central box, which were not so easy to buy, by the way. By evening, we will be at the hotel. Well, at night local time. We'll sleep, we'll go to the theater tomorrow and then, if you want, we can return home. Come on, check-in has already started."
"Already?" Regina was surprised in turn. "So we're going right now, just like that?"
"What's bothering you?" Gold asked.
"Well that I don't have anything to change on arrival for example, and I don't have any face cream, lipstick or even a comb." The Queen spread her hands. "Nothing at all. Not even a charger for the phone."
"I'm sure there are shops there too." Her husband assured her. "So this is not a problem. Let's go." He stood up and held out his hand to her.
"No, wait, I can't do it just like that. Suddenly fly to another continent." Regina protested. "I need to organize, get things together. We need to move the car!" She realized. "It's on a temporary parking lot."
"It will be moved, don't worry." Gold nodded. "I have already arranged it."
"And the keys?" the Queen asked bewildered.
"We will receive them upon arrival, in the locker room. Let's go!" He repeated. "Check-in ends in half an hour".
"This is some kind of madness." Regina muttered, getting up from the table. "What if Rachel will want to come home eventually?"
"She won't." her husband assured her. "And you and I are not flying to Mars, only to Austria".
"Okay, I get it: it's useless debating with you." The Queen shook her head. "Where is our front desk?"
"There we go. So much better already." He quickly kissed her on the cheek and took her arm, dragging her along.
They reached their room at the Ambassador Hotel around eight by New York time, but, weary from the trip, collapsed into bed, barely having time to take a shower.
"How have we stooped so low?" Regina grinned, settling on her husband's shoulder. "It's eight o'clock and we are already sleeping."
"Well, by local time it's already two in the morning, so everything is fine." Gold answered, hugging his wife. "Sleep." He lightly kissed her temple.
"Good night." The Queen, yawning, buried her nose in his neck.
"Yeah." He pressed her tighter on him.
Waking up in the morning, Gold found that he was in bed alone. Looking around, he saw the Queen sitting on the windowsill with a cup of coffee, admiring the cityscape. For a while, he silently enjoyed watching the graceful curves of her naked body, her brown hair scattered over her shoulders and the sun glare on them, her burgundy nails which stood out sharply against the background of a snow-white cup she held with both hands, like a bowl, and was also cast with a golden glare.
"Someone was going to spend all two weeks in bed with me." he finally spoke. "And where are you in fact?"
"It's never too late to return to this plan." His wife turned towards him.
She put the cup on the windowsill, easily and silently jumped to the floor, went to the bed, ducked under the covers and pressed herself against her husband.
"Good morning." She smiled, kissing him.
"Good morning." Her husband kissed her back. "You are so beautiful." he added quietly, running a hand through her hair.
"Really?" Regina grinned. "Did you just notice today?"
"Oh you." Gold laughed. "How can anyone talk to you at all?"
"Well then, I won't do that anymore." the Queen said conciliatorily. "Come on, again. We'll replay everything."
"Be quiet already." He pulled her to him and kissed her again.
Then he raised himself on his elbow and, laying his wife on her back, began kissing her neck, her collarbones and her shoulders leisurely, stretching out the pleasure while also stroking and massaging her hips, now and then easily touching her crotch with the edge of his palm. Slowly dropping below, he reached her hips with his lips, first tracing along their inner side with light kisses and then with the tip of his tongue as he slid his hands along the outer side, the calves and the ankles.
"Come here." Regina pulled him up.
"You never let me get to the fun part." Gold grumbled, dutifully returning to her neck.
"Quite the opposite." She squeezed his hand with her hips when it once again ended up in between them.
"Well, let it be so." He smiled, slowly penetrating into her, first with one finger, then with two.
The Queen arched towards him with a sigh, clutching his palm. Having almost immediately felt the necessary spot inside, he began to massage it just as slowly. At first with ease, gradually increasing pressure and building up the pace, enjoying the sensation of her hot moisture on his fingers, her moans and her kisses which randomly showered his neck, shoulders and chest. Ignoring his own excitement as long as possible. Only when the heaviness in the groin became unbearable, he removed his hand and entered her. Frozen in place, he took a few deep breaths first and only then began to move in her, very slowly, trying to think about something else. However, this didn't help much. A couple of minutes later he poured into her with a groan. Immediately slipping out of his wife, he returned his hand to its original place, continuing to massage her with increasing intensity, and a minute later she joined him, squeezing his shoulders and snubbing her nose in his neck.
"Let's go find some nice place for breakfast." Gold suggested when they both had cooled off slightly.
"Why? Doesn't this place suit you?" Regina was surprised. "We can use room service."
"No, then we won't get out of bed at all." He grinned. "It's almost one p.m. and we still have to buy some decent clothes for the evening. Also, I don't know about you but I want to walk around the city. I haven't been here for a long time and never without the children. It's also probably an interesting sensation when you don't hear all the time: "Mom! Dad! Let's go! Let's buy it! I'm tired! I want ice cream! We are bored!"
"Perhaps." the Queen agreed. "Let's go to the "Lounge" in a skyscraper near the canal: we will take a walk, have breakfast and look at the city from above, check if nothing has changed in it during the time we weren't here."
"Better to go to the "Loft", in "Sofitel"." he objected.
"The "Lounge" is a hundred meters higher." Regina remarked.
"It doesn't matter." Her husband shrugged. "The city is clearly visible from "Sofitel" and the cuisine in the "Loft" is much better. Not to mention how much better Nouvel's architecture is and how much nicer it his building is than in this ugly Perrault skyscraper. It's forbidden to build all kinds of rubbish in Paris, so he got it here."
"Okay, let it be the "Loft"." the Queen surrendered.
"You know, the view from the eighteenth floor is even better than from the fifty-seventh." The Queen sipped a cocktail, sitting near the glass wall of the "Das Loft" restaurant.
"I didn't even doubt it." Gold answered. "Vienna is not a very tall city. Well, if you don't take Perrault's creation into account of course." He grimaced, looking at the gray winding skyscraper that was visible nearby.
"You have some unhealthy fixation on this Perrault." Regina sighed. "Turn away from it, do not look. Look at the roof of the cathedral." She nodded at the building, covered with colorful tiles. "Look at the town hall. Generally, in any other direction. And if it annoys you so much that you can't look at anything else, we probably should have gone to the "Lounge" in this skyscraper. This is the only place where it's not visible."
"Yes." her husband agreed. "But it's not less ugly from the inside. Okay, finish your drink and let's go. Everyone will be dressed to the nines at the central box of the opera and we will look very foolish in jeans. So we still need to buy some clothes and whatever else you were missing yesterday."
"Well, I guess I don't remember what I was missing yesterday." she dismissed.
"Really?" he became interested. "Listen, well, you need to drink more often ... What are you drinking there?"
"Champagne with Aperol and some white wine." Regina answered, looking at the glass.
"Fine." Gold smiled. "We need to find out if they pour the rest to go."
"Well, stop it!" The Queen got a little playfully indignant.
"Come on, say it already." He leaned on his arm and looked mischievously at his wife.
"I'm glad we flew here." Regina smiled. "It was a really good idea".
"Now this morning has become almost perfect." Gold said with pleasure.
"Almost." the Queen specified.
"I still need to look at you in a new evening gown." Her husband explained. "Better yet, in a few. Then it will be safe to say that I received all possible pleasures from this morning."
"Imp." Regina laughed. "Where are we going?"
"At Kärntnerstrasse." He waved to the waiter to bring the bill.
"In "Steffl"?" The Queen asked again.
"God forbid!" Gold raised his eyebrows. "There was a nice little shop nearby, as far as I remember. I think it's still there".
They walked a little along the promenade before heading to the famous street filled with the most famous shops and shopping centers. That "nice little shop" turned out to be a rather expensive boutique in one of the old houses in early Baroque style. Its silence and coolness contrasted pleasantly with the noisy street bathed in the hot sun. There was no one in the shop except them, and two perfectly dressed, combed, with make-up on girls circled around the only visitors.
"Try this on." Gold took off from the hanger one long, narrow dress in a dark blue color.
"No, that won't do." The Queen shook her head. "Have you seen the cutout on the hip?"
"So what?" He did not understand.
Regina sighed. "At fifty years old such a cutout can no longer be worn."
"Well, I think it depends on the hips, not the age." Her husband shrugged. "Try it on and then you'll see if this cutout is suitable for you or not."
"Your husband is right, madam." One of the saleswomen cautiously interposed. "With your figure you can afford to wear any kind of cutouts".
"See." He smiled at his wife. "The girl agrees with me".
"Well, I bet." She grinned. "If I were selling dresses at the price of a car, then all of them would perfectly suit even you".
"Just try it on." Her husband sighed. "Then you can say if such a neckline suits you, if it doesn't fit, if you can wear it at fifty, if you can't ... Do you have a Brut?" He turned to the saleswoman.
"Of course!" she readily answered.
"Good." Gold nodded. "Bring us the bottle. This is going to take us a long time".
"Do you think this will help persuade me to accept a dress with cutouts all over?" The Queen asked with irony.
"I think it will help me have a good time." He hugged his wife slightly and quickly kissed her on the temple. "And spend less energy debating. Go try them on." He handed her half a dozen dresses he had already removed from the hangers.
"Well, and who was right?" The Queen once again left the fitting room, this time in a blood-red dress with a deep cut out on the back.
"Me again." Gold smiled, sipping champagne, comfortably sitting in a wide low armchair opposite her. "You are as dazzling in this dress as you were in the previous three."
"Have you seen it from this side?" Regina grinned, turning her back to her husband.
"Not yet, but now I have." He looked at his wife with pleasure. "And from this side it is even better."
"It's not for my age." The Queen shook her head.
"But for your figure." Gold retorted.
"No, I refuse to go somewhere wearing this dress." Regina stated.
"Okay, you'll wear it at home." her husband agreed. "Is there anything else left?" He nodded towards the fitting room.
"It is." The Queen sighed.
"Good." He smiled. "Let's take a look."
The Queen changed clothes several more times, showing a wide variety of cutouts, draperies, trains and the hats, shoes and handbags attached to them, which the enterprising saleswomen picked out for her.
"This is the last one." Regina stood in front of her husband in a golden dress of the finest cut, which made it possible to see all the charms of her figure, despite the fact that it was completely closed up.
"I like everything." He concluded, looking at his wife. "Wrap it up." He smiled at the girl, standing waiting not far from them.
"This one?" She specified.
"Why only this one?" said Gold surprised. "Wrap everything we tried on. And don't forget the shoes. Yes, and find us something simpler for walking around the city".
"Of course!" the girl answered with enthusiasm.
"We still need to choose a suit for you." The Queen sat down on her husband's lap. "Don't forget about it. We'll pick something no less form-fitting and erotic." She winked at him with irony.
"Oh please." He grinned. "A good suit is still impossible to buy; it must be sewn by order. But, since I can't see myself, it's absolutely not important. So I'm ready for anything in advance, you can have all the fun you want".
"Everyone was looking only at you, not the stage." Gold threw his jacket over his wife's shoulders and lightly took her by the waist.
They were walking slowly along a street shimmering with night lights.
"And in vain." Regina responded. "The production was simply magnificent. I haven't seen such a production in the Met for a long time".
"Well, really?" He grinned. "See? And you wanted to spend all two weeks at home or at the lake."
"I already said you were right." She took his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. "Do you want me to say it again?"
"I never get tired of hearing it." He lowered his head and kissed her nose. "But now it's not about that. What do we do next? Stay here? Go back home? Or shall we go somewhere else? By the way, everyone praises Macbeth at the Covent Garden and you and I haven't seen it yet."
"We'll decide later." She snuggled closer to her husband. "Now we will go back to bed. We haven't been there since morning".
"Agreed." He smiled.