I.
"She has good legs. Like really, really good legs, Holly. I mean, definitely better legs than me." Gail whispers, transfixed by the performance taking place on stage.
Holly jolts, taking her eyes off the woman next to her for the first time in minutes and glancing at the stage, where, true to Gail's word, a drag queen with a pair of exceptionally long, shapely legs is belting out a medley of Madonna's greatest hits.
She takes a long, lingering look up Gail's crossed legs too – just to compare, she tells herself – before replying.
"I don't know Gail. They are good legs, but…" she falters, unsure how to continue without exposing the extent to which her thoughts have been occupied by the pale limbs to agonisingly close to her own.
"Maybe I should start doing more squats." Gail muses, still so entranced that she does not pick up on her date's fumbling over her words.
"You don't need to do anything, your legs are fine." Fine, extraordinary, fantasy-inducing…
"Hm…" Gail doesn't respond however, her attention so caught by the newest performer on stage that she doesn't notice the brown eyes to her left detailing her every reaction to the goings-on under the spotlight.
Detailing her eyes, wide in an infant-like anticipation of what will occur next. Her lips; occasionally caught between her teeth, occasionally wetted by the tongue that periodically darts out of her mouth to moisten them. Her eyebrows, moving from high on her forehead to furrowed as she flickers between bewilderment and amazement. Her long fingers, stilled in their hold of an almost empty wine glass Holly is not even sure Gail remembers she possesses anymore. Every feature and every movement as beautiful and entrancing as the next. To Holly it makes no sense that everyone was watching the stage with this exquisitecreature in such close proximity.
Holly is so enchanted that she fails to notice the show ending until Gail glances at her, her expression immediately shifting from encapsulated to unnerved.
"What?"
Holly checks herself, shaking out of her stupor and refilling her glass with wine. "Did you enjoy the show?"
Gail's eyes narrow as she watches the brunette lean over and top up her own glass. "Yes, did you?"
"It was good, impressive." Holly finds herself unable to meet the other woman's eye.
"Really? Which part specifically did you find most impressive?"
"You know, the one… with the legs."
"The chick Ipointed out to you?"
Holly nods slowly. "Yeah. Well, you were right, they were really good legs."
"And what was your second favourite?"
Holly takes a long, slow sip of her drink, desperately trying to recall any moment of the show that managed to draw her attention, however briefly, from the blonde. And failing. "Oh, you know, there were so many… good parts, it's hard to choose…"
Gail just locks her with a stare that Holly can feel burning through her pupils and into her soul. This look must be why Pecks make excellent police officers. Holly certainly wouldn't want to be shut in an interrogation room with those azure irises penetrating her every defence.
She squirms slightly. "What?" She asks eventually, when Gail's gaze makes no indication of leaving her.
Gail breaks out into a smirk. "You are a terrible liar." She takes a large swig from her recently replenished glass.
"I wasn't lying." Holly retorts indignantly.
"Oh really?"
"Really."
"So what, you were watching the reflection of the show in my eyes? Or does wearing contacts suddenly give you immaculate peripheral vision?" Gail enquires, smirk still sitting smugly upon her face.
"I was just looking at you to check you were having a good time. It's a lot of pressure being in charge of your first big gay night out, I don't want you to have feel like you're not enjoying yourself or that you're bored or…" Holly's ramblings are cut off by soft lips gently pressing themselves against hers.
Gail pulls back, but not so far that Holly stops feeling the air from her soft exhales upon her own moistened lips. "I'm having a good time. And you are kind of cute when you try to lie. Even if you are terrible at it."
"I'm not a terrible liar." Holly argues, weakly. "And I never lie to you anyway."
Gail scoffs and pulls away slightly. "Really? 'No, Gail, the courier's sick', 'No, Gail, I'm not panicking about going to second base with you', 'Try something new Gail, it won't kill you'…"
"That is not how I said any of those things. And the last one was not a lie, I had no reason to expect you to have that little ability with a baseball bat." Holly protests.
"I did try to warn you."
"I thought you were being melodramatic."
"Well, I was not. I haven't played any sport since my mother threatened to withhold my allowance if I didn't even try to get onto a varsity team first year of college. You would have thought she would have realised that hand eye coordination is not my strong point after eighteen years. The only reason I can fire a gun straight is because she had me practising since I was a child."
"You never talk about college." Holly observes, pushing a stray bit of hair away from where it has fallen over Gail's eye.
Gail's tongue darts to moisten her lips and a contemplative look falls over her face. "I guess I'm not used to people wanting to know. I think in the past four years the only conversations I've had have been about relationships or police work."
"Should I be concerned that you're only dating me because I'm the only person you know who isn't a cop?"
"I was only friends with you because you're the only person I know who's not a cop. I'm dating you because you have a good rack." Gail smiles wryly.
"Well that makes me feel a lot better." Holly just manages to stifle a soft laugh as she captures Gail's lips with her own.
Gail pulls back to speak, "Good. It was meant to."
She glances down at her empty glass then across to the equally empty bottle on the table, and abruptly stands up. "Another drink?"
Holly tries not to pout at the officer's sudden absence from her immediate vicinity. "Let me, I'm taking you out tonight, remember."
"Mm, no." Gail shakes her head.
"No?"
"No." Gail smiles sweetly as she heads towards the bar, leaving a slightly entranced forensic pathologist at the table.
She returns a few minutes later, two coke-filled highballs in her hands.
"How did you get those so quickly?"
Gail shrugs as she reclaims her seat. "Bartender liked me, I suppose."
Holly looks over at the smiling, busty, dirty blonde behind the bar then back at her smirking date. "Are you trying to play me at my own game?"
"What game?" Gail asks innocently.
"I'm not going to get jealous just because one bartender flirts with you a bit."
"Well that's good, because I'm very popular with lesbians."
Holly raises her eyebrows. "Oh you are?"
"Uh-huh. Just warning you so that you're prepared for the masses of women who will try to hit on…"
Holly cuts her off with a short but determined kiss, pulling back just as Gail's lips start to move against her own. "You just had to stop talking."
"That's my line." Gail murmurs.
"It felt appropriate." Holly smiles, then glances at the glass just placed in front of her. "We've moved on from wine, I see?"
Gail shrugs. "Fancied something stronger."
"How much stronger? Should I be concerned?"
"Do you not trust me?" Gail feigns indignation.
Holly narrows her eyes suspiciously and takes a sip. "Rum?"
"That's what you drink when you're going out, right?" It's a question, but from Gail's intonation it sounds more like a statement.
Holly smiles gently at the blonde's unthinking thoughtfulness. The way when she's not actively fighting people, her natural instinct is to remember the littlest things and consider them in her actions without any intention of impressing.
"Yes, but it's only a single."
"You hate doubles."
"Is yours a double?"
"Yes. But I can handle it." Gail grins.
"I could handle it." Holly protests.
Gail glances at her sceptically, but doesn't argue. "You want to swap and have mine?"
"Is it whiskey?"
Gail shakes her head as she sucks on her straw. "Too expensive. Chick was going to charge me sixteen dollars for a double jack and coke. Vodka."
Holly grimaces. "No thanks."
"Good, I really didn't want your sorority girl mixer anyway."
"My what?" Holly raises her eyebrows.
"I like you Holly, but you are at least fifteen years too old to be drinking rum and coke."
Holly shrugs, unabashed. "I like it."
"We're getting bourbon the next place we go. Where is that, by the way?"
"There's supposed to be a nightclub with a good ladies night three blocks away, I thought maybe…"
"Who exactly told you about said night club?"
Holly ponders the question for a moment before conceding to it "… tripadvisor."
Gail lets out an exasperated sigh. "I am literally dating Toronto's worst connected lesbian."
"I told you! All my friends are straight or doctors, or both, mostly. And it's not like I grew up or went to college in the city. This is not my area of expertise!"
"Did you get this place off tripadvisor too?" Gail looks around the bar.
"No, I've been here a few times. I've been to some gay clubs too, I just usually follow everyone else to them, I never know where I'm really going, or where's best on a specific day. I think I've been to this one before. I'm not sure."
"What's it called?"
"I don't really know how to say it. It's not an actual word." Holly rummages around for her phone in her pocket and flicks open the webpage, holding it for Gail to look at.
The blonde ponders the page. "Well I've never heard of it, so it probably isn't owned by one of the larger organised crime rings."
"This is way out of your division's territory though, surely that doesn't mean much?" Holly questions.
"I've heard of most of the worst places in the city. If they're bad enough they're on everyone's radars."
"Does that mean it gets your seal of approval?"
Gail sips her drink, and continues flicking through the page. "Well given that only about five things in existence have ever received my seal of approval, probably not."
"Do I have your seal of approval?" Holly giggles.
"Mm, you're getting there." Gail replies without missing a beat.
Holly pouts slightly, but Gail's attention is still on the phone in her hands. "Well buxom-TO1991 says it has 'plenty of studs and some of Toronto's finest and loosest dykes'," She reads from the screen. "So it must be worth a visit. What's a stud?"
Holly looks around the bar and points at a short haired, tattoo-sleeve sporting, brunette sat at the bar, "Like her, but also kind of a lothario."
Gail nods in appreciation of her newly acquired knowledge, and returns to the phone.
"So do you trust my judgement enough to let me take you there?" Holly asks, after a momentary silence.
Gail looks up at her. "Of course I do." She says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Because you've been reading that page for quite a while now."
"Sorry. It's entertaining. People write weird stuff about places they have pulled. Here." She hands the phone back to the brunette.
"Thanks. I'm meant to be your entertainment tonight."
Gail almost chokes on her drink.
Holly flushes immediately. "I just meant… I'm meant to have your attention, not my phone. I'm not doing anything… performing wise. I didn't mean entertainment, I meant…" She trails off, eyes narrowing at the now smirking, but still slightly pink from her impromptu coughing fit, blonde next to her.
"You're meant to kiss me when I start rambling." Holly points out.
"Sorry." Gail offers as her lips meet Holly's in the tenderest of kisses. "I just wanted to see where you were going with that."
Gail starts to pull back, but Holly's hand sneaks around the back of her neck, weaving lightly through the hairs at the bottom of her skull, and forces her back. Gail takes a moment to react to the return of soft lips against hers, but quickly works to accommodate their movements. She shivers as Holly's hand slides under her ear and across her jaw, thumb stroking across her cheek gently. Her own hand finds purchase half way up Holly's thigh, evoking a slight gasp from the older woman as her fingers draw lazy circles on the inside of her leg through her jeans.
Gail can't help but groan as they part, just as Holly's tongue has tantalisingly swept across her lips.
"Maybe we should get going to this 'ikn…' whatever, place." Gail suggests.
"You haven't finished your drink." Holly points out.
Gail picks up her glass and throws back the remaining liquid, grimacing slightly as it burns down the back of her throat.
"Let's go." She stands up, and pulls on her coat. Holly follows suit and takes her place next to her date as they leave the bar, fingers linked in a tight hold.
II.
They only separate hands when they reach the front of the nightclub's short queue and they are asked to present their IDs. Whilst it is an over-21s only night (that was one thing Gail had wanted to check in the reviews- she was not up for partying with a load of college students), it is still a slightly ridiculous ask, and Gail shoots the bouncers an appropriately dirty look in response.
Once they have paid their cover charge, Holly slips out of her coat and hands it to Gail. "Here, you take these to the coat check, I'll get us some drinks." She says, before slipping off through the main doors in front of them before Gail is able to respond.
Once the coats are checked, Gail follows her date into the main room, and is immediately thankful that the club has not yet filled densely as she spots the back of the pathologist's head at the bar, slightly taller than most, but not all, of the women around her. She contemplates joining her at the bar, but decides to sit at a bar table in the corner so the brunette can realise for herself her error in rushing off into a crowded room neither of them were acquainted with without properly working out where to meet.
Unfortunately, missing in Gail's plan to show to Holly the error of her ways is her own, platinum hair, and Holly takes only one brief survey of the room before she identifies the location of her date and heads towards them, two glasses containing a liquid Gail can't identify in the dark room in her hands.
"I forgot to organise where to meet." Holly says sheepishly as she climbs into the second stool at the table, placing herself only centimetres to the side of her companion.
Gail smiles and kisses her cheek. "I know."
"I've had more than I realised, with the wine we had at dinner."
Gail just nods and inspects her drink. This was something she had noticed half an hour ago already. Not to Holly's detriment. She was just slightly less together, more easily flustered and prone to social faux pas beyond her usual awkward bumbling. It made sense, Gail was sure Holly's brain worked at at least four times the speed of every other human being's, of course a bottle of wine was going to jam up some of those constantly whirring cogs slightly. And Gail knew from previous visits to the penny together during the platonic stages of their relationship that she could probably drink Holly under the table three times over.
"This had better not have Red Bull in it, Holly." Gail indicates the glass in her hand, eyeing suspiciously the group of twenty-somethings at the table next to them.
"Of course not, that stuff is horrid, it's pure sugar and caffeine. It's whiskey, as requested. Well, scotch."
"And yours?"
"Don't worry, it's the same." Holly smiles.
"No need to be so proud Holly, you like whiskey. We bonded over that."
"I thought we bonded over our cynical antisocial behaviour at weddings." Holly points out.
"We bonded over many things." Gail concedes. "But you do also keep bottles of bourbon in your cupboards so you can't pretend drinking whiskey is a chore for you."
"Kept bottles of bourbon in my cupboards. If I recall, someone drank my last one."
"I didn't finish it." Gail argues.
"True." Holly admits. "Okay, so imagine I'm here at this table, or… no, wait, that table." She points at the group of twenty somethings Gail had previously been warily appraising. "I'm out with my friends, with them, and you're out searching for some tail. How would you pick me up? Show me your moves."
Gail's lips curl into a bemused smile. "You're ridiculous."
Holly just grins widely in response and sucks on her straw.
"Well firstly, they are all far too cool to be your friends, Holly. Secondly, I would definitely never want to hook up with you if those sorts of hipsters were your friends. And thirdly, I don't pick people up."
"So I'd have to pick you up?"
"Only if you wanted me to pour a drink down your front."
"Hm. That is quite the quandary." Holly muses.
Gail just giggles lightly, the same bemused look on her face.
"How do you ever get in relationships then, if you won't initiate them but also hurt those who try to woo you?" Holly asks.
"I don't know," Gail ponders "I guess they always end up tricking me into liking them as friends then turn around and kiss me once they've already wormed their way into my life." She says, accusingly.
"Ah, see, I didn't do that. I only kissed you on maybe the third time I met you."
"Or they go on dates in front of me to make me jealous then corner me in small rooms where I have no choice but to kiss them."
"No choice, huh? We could always just stop the whole kissing thing, if that's what you want." Holly teases.
"Nah, the deception runs too deep now, there's no easy backing out anymore." Gail raises her shoulders in a resigned mock shrug.
"I'm sure you could find a way if you really wanted."
"I'd feel bad, all that effort you put into courting me, wasted."
Holly bats lightly at the blonde's shoulder. "I did not court you. Also I did not go on that date to make you jealous!" She huffs, recalling the allegation made a minute earlier.
"Sure." Gail responds, as unconvincingly as possible. "Oh, what if she's here and she catches you taking me out to clubs less than a week after your date, hussy!" She looks around the club, gleeful at the prospect.
"She wouldn't start a catfight, if that's what you're suggesting. She was a little too… refined, for that."
Gail's face falls slightly. "That's disappointing." She looks around the room. "How about you, how would you pick me up if I was here, skulking in the corner?"
"Me? I'd have been scared off when you poured your drink down the first person who tried to hook up with you."
"Too bad; we could have been really good together." Gail muses.
"Yeah. Good thing you spent the first six hours we knew each other hiding in my lab so we had to get to know each other."
"Good thing I am so terrible at relationships I had to spend six hours hiding from my colleagues with you weirdos at the morgue."
"Are you expecting me to drink to you being terrible at relationships?" Holly asks.
"Good point. Okay, good thing I have such terrible friends that I had no choice but to befriend the strange, hot forensic pathologist." Gail suggests, raising her glass.
"That's slightly better." Holly says, clinking her own drink against Gail's and following her lead in downing it.
"I kind of want to go dance, but I feel like this room is not quite ready for us to unleash our moves yet." Holly observes, looking around the room. "Let's go to the bar." She suggests, taking Gail's hand and pulling her to the large bar along one side of the room before the blonde has a chance to protest. Not that she would even if she had the chance. Especially now the prospect of dancing is definitely on the cards. That has never bothered her before, dancing. Her ability to brush off what others think of her is so well refined that other people's judgements of the wild, rhythm-less flailing she usually calls 'dancing' have never impacted her in the slightest. Nor did they bother Holly, she had gathered from their ridiculous uncoordinated-yet-somehow-still-in-tandem movements on the dance floor at Frank and Noelle's wedding. But that wasn't sexy dancing. There wasn't any sweaty grinding or any attempts to arouse through provocative but rhythmic touches then. The idea that is now dawning upon her, that tonight may require those sorts of moves, in which she is certainly not skilled, certainly makes more alcohol seem more of a necessity than it had previously.
Waiting for the attention of the bartender, Gail is disappointed to find that her self-declared power to attract lesbians does not extend to the soft butch serving the patrons at their end of the bar. The revelation would have sent her into a sulk if it weren't for Holly's fingers tracing her waist lightly through her shirt.
When they finally do receive the attention of the bartender, Gail jumps in and orders five tequila shots before Holly has a chance to get back on the rum and coke. Teasing aside, if this night goes the way Gail hopes, it will be a whole lot more pleasant if Holly does not taste of Captain Morgan. Too many nights at college spent making out with a boyfriend who would spend all evening drinking beer and smoking taught her to be very aware of what people were drinking before she stuck her tongue down their throats.
Holly eyes her carefully and leans in to shout in her ear over the music. "You know you can't split five in half, right?"
"I know. Three for me, two for you."
"Why do you get more?"
"Because I need more." Gail answers as their drinks arrive, whipping out her card and handing it across the bar before Holly has the chance to do the same. "Race to finish these first?"
"You have one more than me." Holly points out.
"I'm feeling confident." Gail retorts, picking up a shot and holding it in midair for Holly to meet with her own. They shoot their first drink, and sure as Gail had expected, Holly pauses to grimace after she swallows, giving Gail the time to put back a second before Holly has even started hers, and she ends up finishing her third milliseconds before the brunette is done.
"Shit." Holly mutters a rare cuss in response to the burning sensation left by the alcohol in her mouth. Gail holds out a piece of lime, but when the pathologist doesn't immediately take it from her, she elects to push it against the other woman's teeth through her slightly parted lips.
"GAIL!" She shrieks, attracting the attention of a couple of groups near to them.
Gail almost doubles over with laughter as the other woman reprimands her with a swat to the shoulder.
"That wasn't funny!" Holly protests.
Gail just wraps her arms around her waist, pulling them flush against each another. "I was helping you." She says, sweetly.
"I didn't need help!" Holly protests, but Gail just continues her silent, sickly innocent smile. "If I was wearing lipstick you would have completely ruined it." She pouts.
"You never wear lipstick." Gail reasons.
"I could start."
"I like you without." The blonde murmurs (as much as one can murmur in a nightclub with music blasting), before capturing Holly's lips in a soft, chaste kiss. She can taste the raw lime and tequila on her soft skin, but that somehow doesn't detract from the gentle sweetness of the brunette's lips.
She would have been perfectly happy to linger in this moment endlessly, but the music suddenly turns to a disgustingly upbeat and catchy pop track Gail is certain will be stuck in her head for the rest of the weekend. "Let's get the dancing over and done with then." She says, dramatically.
Holly pokes her in the ribs for her petulance, but grabs her hand and drags her to the dancefloor without argument.
The dancefloor itself is only moderately populated, allowing the space for Gail, in theory, to throw out some of her more natural, most flailing moves. She realises very quickly, though, that she needs more alcohol still if they are going to come to her very easily. Holly, however, appears to be in her element. Surprisingly in her element. It's that cool, unabashed, but not in your face, confidence thing she has going on. She just waves her arms in the air and starts jumping around giddily as the chorus hits its peak, like she doesn't care what people think. And it's not just because of the alcohol.
"I love this song!" She yells into Gail's ear as her arm founds the air furiously.
Gail can't help but laugh internally at the idea of the nerdy, glasses wearing, lesbian being such a big fan of the most mainstream song of the year. But then, Gail notes, Holly is never allowed to tune the radio when she's around, so she really has no idea what sort of music she likes at all.
"You have a terrible taste in music!" Gail shouts back.
"Huh?" Holly is too lost in the pumping music and her own uncoordinated moves to hear anything Gail is saying.
Gail smiles, content to just watch the other woman lose herself to the music as she waits for the alcohol to filter into her own bloodstream.
Or for the DJ to change to something more her style, which he does very soon, abruptly cutting off the end of the bright pop ballad to launch into a classic seventies rock belter. It's far more to Gail's taste, something she attempts to express to her date, but once again her words don't seem to be at all comprehended.
In lieu of words she finds herself compelled to finally join in Holly's atypical dancing. In fact both are so committed to the atypical dancing style that neither notice the slightly wild berth nearby women were giving them for the entirety of the next five songs, each cut off at bizarre, nonsensical moments to make wake for the next, from seventies rock belter, to nineties power ballad, to extremely mainstream white rap, to boyband tune everyone was beyond pretending they didn't actually like.
Finally Gail gives in and indicates her need for a drink. Holly acquiesces and lets herself be led back to the bar where Gail orders them two beers.
"You know alcohol doesn't actually help with dehydration." Holly points out.
"You must have been the life of the party in undergrad." Gail grins, grabbing the bottles from the bar. She runs her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her hot face, but leaving the hair itself sticking out slightly, held there by the sweat that can be seen glistening across all areas of her exposed skin. Her cheeks too, are tinged red from the heat of the room and the dancing.
"So what do you think so far?" Holly asks.
Gail ponders the question. "Well the DJ is… potentially the worst I've ever heard."
Holly takes a long sip of her drink. "She's just a bit cheesy."
"There is an art to cheesy, Holly, and she has not mastered it." Gail explains, matter-of-factly. "But I'm having fun."
"Yeah?"
"Yep." Gail nods, resting her elbows on the bar and leaning back against them. "And while I'm starting to remember why I never go out anywhere other than the Penny, I could get used to clubbing without men." She observes, looking around at the multitude of women, dancing and chatting and hooking up around them.
"You think?"
"Are you kidding, that sweaty testosterone smell? Gross."
Holly's brow furrows. "I'm fairly sure testosterone doesn't smell."
"Only fairly sure?"
The furrow deepens. "Ninety percent sure. Ninety five. I don't like this."
"Being drunk?"
"Not remembering things."
"Feels strange being one of the mortal folk, huh?" Gail teases.
"I don't know, is this how mortal folk feel?"
"I wouldn't know, I'm invincible." Gail deadpans.
Holly just smiles into her drink, and they continue to survey the room in a comfortable silence. That is, until Gail notices that the other woman has made little progress in finishing her drink, and decides to pull out one of her favourite college-era moves, slamming her own bottle down on top of Holly's, shocking the brunette and causing her drink to bubble up over the spout of the bottle in her hands. Holly shrieks in shock as the liquid runs over her fingers.
"Drink it!" Gail shouts through her howls of laughter, as more foam pours out of the bottle.
Holly jumps out of her shock and brings the bottle to her mouth, catching most of the froth that has not yet spilled out of its container- which is to say, not much. When the bubbling has subsided she places the now nearly empty bottle down on the counter and scowls at her date, who raises her arms in mock defeat.
"You were drinking it too slowly." Gail offers as way of explanation
"You're like a frat boy." Holly says, shaking some of the foam off her hands.
"Frat boys always got the hottest chicks." Gail reasons.
"I'm going to wash my hands." Holly grumbles, but Gail can see the amusement lurking beneath her faux annoyance. "Don't pull any sorority girls whilst I'm away."
"I'll try, but I warned you, lesbians love me."
Holly shoots her most Gail-refined glare over her shoulder as she walks away and the blonde returns to leaning against the bar.
"I think the DJ's changed. Come on." Holly says when she returns, not waiting for a response before she drags Gail back to the dancefloor.
On the way, Gail notices that the music has indeed changed from the endless stream of badly mixed hits to a less jolting mix of RnB tracks, and is initially slightly relieved until she recognises the tone of music. This is the music people procreate to. The music which gets people dry humping on dancefloors. Gail does not dance to this music. Well she does, but not in the way anyone she has ever dated has wanted her to. She enjoys continuing her wildly inappropriate erratic writhing whilst everyone else decides to ramp up their gyrating and touching to levels that would be considered indecent in any other setting.
When they get to the dancefloor, Gail becomes immediately thankful as she realises Holly is not one for the forward, body-melding tandem dance moves either. Instead she dances solo, waving an arm in the air as her hips sway out of sync with the music.
Unfortunately, the vast increase in volume of people on the dancefloor now the calibre of DJ has improved forces them to dance only just apart from each other. Gail tries desperately to maintain a gap between them, terrified that she will end up forced into grinding with Holly in a way that will only end up revealing how truly lacking in sex appeal and co-ordination she is in these settings in which everyone suddenly seems to give off the impression of being backing dancers in provocative music videos.
That plan, however, is put to a stop when Gail spies another woman making her approach to Holly behind the brunette's back. All it takes is one dark hand to come to rest on the pathologist's hip, and all fear is chased from Gail's mind to be replaced by an overwhelming possessiveness.
She sweeps in, wrapping an arm around Holly's waist and attempting to match the movements of her hips with the other woman's. And failing, by and large.
She honestly intended on letting go once the would-be suitor had got the message and left, which she did, pretty quickly, but Holly's hands have fallen to her hips, and Gail decides that backing away would be an even more awkward move than staying together.
It does not look sexy, even as Gail eventually turns so her ass is backing into Holly's front and the brunette's breasts can be felt on her back. Gail doesn't know if this is down to their mutual lack of co-ordination, Holly's slight over intoxication, the bodies around them fighting for space and occasionally engaging with unattractive, desperate, open-mouthed kisses with one another, but Gail strongly suspects all three are strong contributors.
But that doesn't completely stop it feeling good. Surprisingly good. Up close Gail can still smell Holly's subtle perfume along with the salty, sweaty aroma that dancing has conjured up. When she turns to look at the woman behind her, she can see the beads of sweat running down her cheek, but they illuminate rather than detract from her appearance. Whilst their hips are far from moving in tandem with one another, the feel of Holly's body connecting with hers in those rare moments of synchronicity is setting her on fire. It shouldn't be, but it's almost working for her.
When Gail eventually spins around once more, she finds herself locking with those deep brunette eyes. Holly smiles back at her even as they stand on each other's feet for the tenth time in minutes.
Gail only closes the gap between them for the kiss when she can no longer bear the deep gaze. It is as messy as is to be expected from their dancing, all teeth and tongue, and a not entirely pleasant taste of spirits and beer is exchanged between the two of them. But that is certainly not enough to part them. There is something inside Gail which tells her that everything is completely right even though their movements suggested nothing of the sort.
Their parting, when it comes, is only due to a fumbling attempt by Holly at getting a light, subtle grope of the other woman's chest. Not that Gail doesn't appreciate the effort. There is a sensitivity that has built up over the past half hour that makes even the briefest, most poorly aimed stroke of a thumb over the peak of her breast most appreciated, even though the subtlety of the move been asking a little too much subtlety of Holly's intoxicated body.
But then they are both lost to a fit of giggles, and Gail decides that now would be the appropriate time to make their exit, before Holly attempts to get to third base right there on the dancefloor.
Once they have left the club, Holly with a large amount of encouragement from the blonde, Gail has barely the time to register the cool air on her face before hands are clasped on her cheeks and pulling her into a deep, lingering kiss. Gail acquiesces to the movement of the other woman's tongue against her own, pulling them together tightly for warmth. She becomes faintly aware of fingers trailing down her neck and over her coat-covered body. And then the fingers become frustrated by layers between them and their intended target, and head to the buttons Gail had only just clasped together. She feels the immediate cold as one button pops open and some air sneaks in through it, and swats away the hand instinctively.
"We need to get in a taxi."
"Mm, you're no fun."
"It's too cold for inappropriate outdoor groping." Gail whines.
"Wimp."
"Sensible." Gail points out. "If I caught hypothermia you'd have to look after me."
Holly scowls. "I'm the sensible one, amd I say we should carry on."
"You make a good argument." Gail smirks, directing the older woman towards a waiting taxi, catching her as she stumbles.
"I'm fine!" Holly protests as Gail attempts to help her into the vehicle.
Gail just grins as she slides in next to her. "I know you are, Lunchbox."