A/N: Heyyy, me again! It's time for chapter two! Thank you all so much for the enthusiastic reviews! It's time to kick this baby up a notch. Enjoy!
Many thanks to Filo, who makes me realize that I'm not perfect. Hee.
During their mud bath, Lorelai called Luke and filled him in on every last detail, including Emily's initial repulsion and ultimate confession that if it was socially acceptable, she would smother herself in mud, every hour of every day. There was a minor setback when her phone briefly submerged into the murky water, but she quickly retrieved it, relieved when she heard Luke's voice on the other end.
"Where is your mother right now?" Luke asked.
"Oh, she's in the tub beside me," Lorelai said nonchalantly.
"And she's hearing this conversation?"
Lorelai glanced over at Emily, blissfully enshrouded in sludge, and realized that this was the proverbial 'Kodak moment'. "Emily is much too distracted by the glorious mud to care," she told Luke, a smirk on her face. "Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood."
"You're singing," Luke remarked.
"Yep," Lorelai agreed. "I'm as happy as a pig in… mud."
Luke chuckled. "So, how is it that you can keep calling me? Isn't your battery running low, or something?"
Lorelai gasped in mock offense. "Luke, are you trying to get rid of me?"
"I tried that three phone calls ago. Didn't have much success."
"I'm incorrigible," she said, grinning.
"I thought they frowned upon cell phones."
"Well, they don't frown upon Ben Franklin," she retorted playfully.
Luke breathed heavily into the phone. "You did not pay them a hundred dollars."
Lorelai shrugged, skimming her free hand along the surface of the mud. "Hey, you're worth it." That response was met with silence; a good thirty seconds of it. "Uh, Luke," she began worriedly, "you still there?"
"Sorry, I need to ring up a few customers."
"Oh, okay," Lorelai said, the cheer absent from her voice.
Luke picked up on her discontent and quickly added, "I'm taking a break in about an hour… you know, if that, uh, means anything to you."
She giggled. "Hmm, I believe I will be in my scalp treatment then. Perfect time for a little chit-chat."
"Perfect time," Luke echoed, minus the enthusiasm. She smiled at his attempt to remain aloof.
"Talk to you soon," she chimed, disconnecting before he could say otherwise.
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As the day progressed, their conversations became less one-sided. In fact, Lorelai was more than a little convinced that Luke seemed to be enjoying himself. She thrived on the moments when she could entice a spark of laughter from him, and savoured every flirtatious remark that slipped from his unaffected tongue.
The flurry of phone calls wasn't going unnoticed. Every talk ended with a pointed stare and a tiresome interrogation from none other than Emily Gilmore.
"Lorelai, clearly there's something going on between you two," Emily said accusingly as they stood outside the door to the 'Quiet Room'.
Lorelai rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about."
"Stop," she groaned, "this is crazy."
"If you two can't see it, then you're only fooling yourselves."
"Mom, we're just friends. That's it. Luke and I are just friends."
"Mhmm," Emily said, dubiously. "Friends who can't spend a minute apart."
"I'm just bugging him. We were talking about the spa before I left, so I'm just letting him know what he's missing."
"Oh, I know what he's missing." Emily raised her eyebrows suggestively.
"Can we just go inside?" Lorelai asked, reaching for the door handle.
"After you," Emily replied, a smug smile on her face.
They were hit by a wall of overwhelming silence as they entered the room. There were a dozen other guests taking advantage of the uninterrupted peace. Some were reading, some were meditating, others were just plain sitting, and staring, and waiting… for God knows what. Lorelai struggled to hold in her laughter. It was like something out of a horror movie. Any minute now she was certain that a gigantic ape was going to burst through the wall, and wipe out everything in its path. She hoped it went for the annoying blonde with the pink tights and the perky breasts first.
Emily tiptoed her way to a plush chair on the east side of the room, and took a seat, her eyes widening when she was hit by the pulsations of the automatic, built-in massage system. Lorelai giggled softly, muffling the sound with the sleeve of her robe. Emily scowled, her furrowed brow soon relaxing as she gave into the sensations of her electronic masseuse.
Lorelai dropped into the chair next to her mother and waited for the good vibrations. She didn't feel anything initially, so she leaned over the armrest and picked up the remote starter, randomly mashing buttons on it. Still nothing. "Sure, I get the defect," she mumbled. Several heads turned to stare at her. Lorelai smiled nervously. "Yeah, I know. Quiet Room."
Emily's eyes were shut tight, and she moaned softly. "This is heavenly," she sighed. "I must tell you father about this, uh… what is it that I'm sitting on?"
Lorelai shook her head. "It's a massage chair, Mom. How can you not know what a massage chair is?" That response earned several more piercing stares from her noise-sensitive audience.
"What?" Lorelai cried in exasperation. "I have a disease," she explained. "Talk-itus. I can't not talk. Plus, I hate the sound of whispering. Especially in a quiet room. I feel like I'm in the morgue."
The perky blonde on the other side of the room chuckled briefly, then resumed her stretching routine.
Come on, guys," Lorelai said, her eyes now focused on the blonde. She had renewed hope for this woman. "Live a little. Make a sound, you know you want to." She turned to Emily for assistance, and was met with a comatose woman, clearly satiated by the powers of her chair. Lorelai sighed. "And when I need you, you're Helen Keller. Although, I must admit that the silence is nice for a change. Quick, someone wrap one of these up for the lady here," she said adamantly, gesturing to the chair.
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Lorelai gasped for air when they finally exited the Quiet Room, on the verge of suffocating in the confines of the deafening silence. Emily's revitalized body set off down the hall ahead of her, chatting animatedly to anyone that passed by about her incredible discovery of the massage chair.
Lorelai chuckled, anxiously removing the phone from her pocket and hitting 'redial'.
"Luke's," he answered.
"Heya," she said, smiling warmly.
"Hey, where you been?" he asked, sounding curious.
She grinned. "Why, did you miss me?"
"Finally got some work done. I've been losing out on a lot of tips today."
"Aw, poor baby," she teased. "I was in the Quiet Room. You can't talk in the Quiet Room."
"Maybe I need to get a quiet room," he muttered.
Lorelai stopped walking and leaned against the adjacent wall. "Oh, hardy har har." She pinched the phone between her ear and shoulder and quickly adjusted the tie on her robe. "Seriously, Luke, those people were like pod people… except for the blonde woman. I still hold out hope for her."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
She released an exaggerated sigh and changed the subject, "So, what's shakin' in the Hollow? Are Tom and the boys working hard?"
"Tom's too busy makin' wisecracks," Luke grumbled.
"That Tom, so full of… tomfoolerly," she said, giggling at herself. "I kinda like Tom," she added. "He has spunk. I bet he was a looker back in the day."
Luke snorted. "Would you like me to hand you over to Tom?"
"Nope," she said, smirking. "But give him a wink for me later, okay?" Luke groaned. "Blow him a kiss?" she asked instead.
"Lorelai," he said in a warning tone.
"Fine," she griped. "I guess a nice, firm ass pinch will have to suffice."
"I'm hanging up now," he threatened.
"No, don't!" Lorelai pleaded. "I'll be good." She smiled when she heard him sigh, her eyes coasting down her body and resting once more on the tie of her robe that had loosened again. "This darn robe just doesn't want to stay closed."
"Uh, your robe?" Luke asked quietly.
"Um, yeah," she said, smiling at the question. "Great robes, these robes. Good, uh, texture, good comfort quotient. Terry cloth. Can't go wrong with terry cloth," she babbled.
"No, terry cloth is right up there," he agreed.
Lorelai pushed herself off the wall and started walking at a leisurely pace. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Emily waving frantically at her. In no hurry to acknowledge the action, Lorelai slowed her pace even further. At the sound of Luke clearing his throat, she realized that she hadn't spoken for several seconds. "So, I guess the robe subject is officially off limits, huh?" she asked teasingly, in an effort to break the awkward tension.
Luke chuckled. "Might be safer that way."
Lorelai's eyes widened at the connotation of his words, but she didn't press any further. "My mother signed us up for a couple's massage."
"Signed who up?"
"Exactly my point," she said. "A couple's massage is for a couple. Not a couple of people, and certainly not my mother and I."
"Are you going there now?" Luke asked.
"Yeah, Emily's flagging me down." She glanced at her mother, exaggerating her steps as she hummed the 'Chariots of Fire' theme.
"You won't be satisfied until you make a spectacle of yourself, will you?" Emily hissed, turning on her heel and entering the massage room.
"I guess I should let you go," Luke said.
Lorelai stopped outside of the door and frowned. "Now why would you want to do that? I was just about to break into a verse of 'St. Elmo's Fire.'"
"Wouldn't want to miss that."
"I know," she said, ignoring his sarcasm. "Besides, if you hang up, I'm just going to call you back. Might as well save ourselves that step, right?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "Okay, I'm goin' in..."
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"His name is Gordon," Lorelai told Luke as she lay sprawled, face-down on the massage table. Her masseuse pressed his strong hands deep into the flesh of her back and she released a moan of appreciation. "Gordon's hands are magic," she sighed.
"Good for Gordon," Luke mumbled.
Lorelai chuckled, loosening her grip on the phone as her entire body went limp. "You should take a class, Luke. No girl can resist a massage."
"What makes you think I don't know how to give a great massage?" he challenged.
"Oh, I'm sure you do… but it doesn't hurt to, um, polish up the skills." She hazarded a glance at Emily who rested on the neighbouring table, and was rewarded with a blatant eye roll.
Luke boldly replied, "Well, if I go to all the trouble of taking a class, then I'd, uh, need someone to demonstrate on."
Gordon flexed his fingers into a knot on Lorelai's shoulder blade and she moaned again, this time adding a little volume for show. "A-ma-zing," she breathed.
Emily scoffed in disgust. "You make it sound as though you're getting a lap dance."
Lorelai snickered. "This is just as good," she said, shooting Gordon a mischievous wink. "Ooh, yes, Gordon. Right there. That's the spot," she coached. "Mmm… magic."
Luke's heavy breathing pulsated through the phone. "You're shameless," he told her.
"I'll be your guinea pig, Luke," she said without a second thought. "You take a class, I'll be your guinea pig."
He chuckled. "You can't be trusted while you're under the influence of Gordon's ministrations."
"You're right," she agreed in a husky voice. "I can't be trusted."
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Lorelai and Emily lingered in Lorelai's room as they added the final touches to their evening looks. Emily reluctantly applied a layer of 'Vicious Trollop' to her lips, shaking her head at the appalling name of the product.
"I still can't get over the way you talked to him on the phone," she said to Lorelai, rubbing her lips together to spread the colour evenly.
"It was banter, Mom," Lorelai insisted. "We were bantering, that's what we do."
"Oh please," Emily argued, "you were practically having phone sex with that man."
"Oh my God," Lorelai groaned. "Mom, you have no idea what phone sex is."
"I'm not so naïve, Lorelai. I know what I heard. And whether you acknowledge it or not, your behaviour was nothing short of abysmal."
Lorelai sighed, realizing that she was fighting a losing battle. "Fine, I'm sorry, okay? Can we get something to eat now?"
"All right," Emily said. "We're going for steak?"
"We're going for steak," Lorelai affirmed. "C'mon, vicious trollop, let's paint the town red," she said teasingly as she swung her arm around her mother's shoulder and they walked together into the hallway.
TBC…