It wasn't long before LaFontaine answered Laura's knock. "Hey, Laura. Finally up?"
"What?" Laura wondered if they were alluding to her and Carmilla's sexcapades. Her eyes fell on the ornate grandfather clock standing in the corner of the room, and her jaw dropped open. "It's already two o'clock in the afternoon?"
"Yeah, seems like you're running on vampire time." They snorted. "Not that I blame you, staying up all night with Carmilla."
Their words reminded Laura of Carmilla's plan to have Laura tied to a chair all night, a night several hours sooner than she realized. Her muscles tensed with anxiety, and she felt the beginnings of a blush blossom on her face. She licked her dry lips and stepped into their room. "Heh-heh, that's what I need to talk to you about."
They looked curious. "I'm listening."
"Um..." She glanced in the direction of her and Carmilla's room. Was Carmilla listening? She knew vampires had good hearing, but she didn't know how good. She looked back at LaFontaine, biting her lip. "There's this thing..."
"A thing." They stared at her, waiting for her to elaborate.
"A thing... You know..." She waved her hands. "With Carmilla? That we... Are doing? A thing... tonight, with... stuff. Stuff. You know, like, stuff she wants to do. With me. That's kind of..."
"Sexual?" they suggested. "Unusual? Some kind of arcane vampire ritual?"
"No, not..." Laura sighed. "Not arcane. It's just... Yeah, sexual. Let's go with that. The kind of thing that might result in me... um, screaming."
She shut her eyes, realizing how that sounded. Her face grew hot. "Not screaming as in... uh, good, sexy screaming? But scary, slasher movie screaming. Maybe."
She opened her eyes.
LaFontaine's face was scrunched up. They looked somewhere in the middle of grossed out, puzzled, and concerned.
"I just need you to know that I'm okay," she said, trying to get the conversation back on track. "Whatever Carm's doing to me, it's okay. She's not going to try to eat me or anything. She's a good vampire."
"Wow. Okay." They exhaled and blinked rapidly. "Um, let me get this straight: Carmilla wants to do something sexual that will make you scream like a victim in a horror movie, but it's okay because she's a 'good vampire.' "
"Yeah, that's right." Laura grimaced. While technically true, it sounded way worse than it needed to be.
"Okay, let me think about this for a moment." They stretched and looked away contemplatively.
She let them have the time to think it over. She knew she hadn't said it right but didn't know how else to say it.
They took a deep breath and turned back. "All right, well, first of all, I'm all for women's sexual freedom. If you want to have scary, kinky sex with a centuries-old murderer, that's your prerogative. I will, however, caution you to have safe sex, and it's not really STIs I'm worried about. It's the aforementioned centuries-old murderer who may or may not restrain herself. You say she's a 'good vampire,' but what does that mean? She's still a super strong serial killer with a taste for our plasma."
"She's changed," Laura insisted. "She only killed people when under her mother's thumb. Since she joined us, she hasn't done anything more than bite a Styrian mayor rallying up a vampire-killing mob. Besides that, it's just been blood bags and animals."
"Mmmhmm, she did bite that mayor," they said, nodding. "Out of anger, when we could have easily slipped by unnoticed. And then she complained about not getting to murder someone for Christmas. I know you like her, Laura, but she's pretty damn aggressive."
"What happened to respecting women's sexual freedom?" she countered.
They raised their eyebrows. "Okay, you're not contradicting what I said, so that tells me you agree with me. She is aggressive. She likes her Christmas murder tradition, and she hasn't reformed quite as much as you'd like to believe."
"She could have killed us at any point." She stared into their eyes. "She could have killed us while we slept, and we wouldn't be able to do a thing. She could have let Will take me to the Dean. She could have let the Dean win. She could have let Lophii eat us, but she didn't. She saved us. She is a hero."
"Okay, she's a hero," they admitted. They shrugged. "Maybe she won't plan to kill us, but she is impulsive and dangerous. You have to admit that she could take her scary sex thing too far. She could hurt you, Laura. I don't want that to happen."
"I don't want that to happen either," she said quietly. "But it won't. I know it won't. I trust her, LaFontaine. I trust her with my life."
"I know you do." They looked pained. "I just don't know if I can."
"So, what, are you going to forbid me to have a sex life like a nosy politician?" Laura demanded. "If I want to take off my clothes and jump in her bed right now, do you think that you can stop me?"
"It's not that." They shook their head. "It's just, if you're screaming... Like, seriously screaming... How can I trust that it's you and Carmilla just having scary, sexy fun and not Carmilla murdering you?"
"She won't murder me," Laura said. She looked pleadingly at them.
"Okay, wait." They held up a hand. "Maybe we could work out some kind of code."
"A code?" She blinked. For a moment, all she could think about were those spy decoder rings you found in cereal boxes.
"Like, something you could shout that would mean 'Carmilla is murdering me,' " they clarified. "So that I know it's really having fun when you just scream bloody murder."
"Oh." That actually sounded pretty reasonable. She was certain that Carmilla wouldn't actually try to eat her, but if it would satisfy LaFontaine to make a contingency, she was for it. "Sounds good. What code would I say?"
"Well, we'd need something to distinguish it from anything else you could happen to shout," they reasoned. "It's actually pretty much the same as kinky sex safewords. There'd typically be a set of traffic light colors: green, yellow, and red, with green meaning 'All is well' and red meaning 'Stop now.' "
"That's probably not a good idea for this," she said. "With a vampire, we could be talking about the color red for a completely different reason."
"Right." LaFontaine pursed their lips as they thought.
Laura thought about it too. The color idea wasn't entirely off. They just needed a color that wasn't likely to come up in conversation. Maybe something a little more complicated. "What about 'Dark blue'? I don't see dark blue, specifically, coming up in conversation."
"Dark blue." They nodded. "That should work."
There was an awkward pause as the two of them let that thought sit.
"Well, I should be going," Laura broke the silence. "I've got a lot of research to do. A lot of... blogging."
"Yeah, that's good," they said. "Good, um, luck."
"Thanks," she said. "Can you also make sure Perry understands?"
"Yeah, I'll tell her," they said. "I'll tell her something at least."
"Great... Later," she said, turning away and heading back into the hall.
Laura took a deep breath, glad to be rid of that conversation. Awkward as hell. She headed downstairs for some cookies.
She was about to heat up some soothing hot cocoa, when she remembered Carmilla's warning. Maybe a full mug of cocoa that was sure to turn into two mugs, if not three, wasn't the best refreshment choice right then. She went to the sink and turned on the faucet. She looked around for her TARDIS mug but couldn't find it, so she stuck her mouth onto the stream and drank a couple mouthfuls of tap water right from the spout. She turned it off before drinking more than she should. This was so not her first choice, but she wasn't about to fill her bladder when Carmilla had so pointedly warned her about it. Maybe Carmilla had been bluffing, but maybe she hadn't, and Laura had to take Carmilla on her word.
Walking to her computer, she made sure the webcam was on and then hastened to fill in her audience. "Hello, loyal viewers," she declared in a faux cheerful tone. "Well, today is a particularly weird day. Not only did I unknowingly adjust to my vampire girlfriend's nocturnal schedule and end up waking up in the middle of the afternoon, but it seems that last night, while I was under the influence of wine and the romantic atmosphere, I actually agreed to let Carmilla tie me to a chair as payback for when I held her captive. Hoo-ray. Not only that, it seems that at some point during the evening, my loving girlfriend may make me scream like I'm being murdered, thus prompting the most awkward conversation of my life as I told LaFontaine not to mount any kind of rescue mission if they happen to hear me."
"And I'm being extremely lenient under the circumstances," Carmilla broke in from behind her.
Laura started. She turned to see Carmilla standing very close. Laura hadn't even heard her footsteps.
Carmilla smiled. She raised Laura's TARDIS mug to her lips and drank.
"Hey! I better not detect a bloody aftertaste, Missy," Laura warned her, annoyed that Carmilla took her mug without asking. "Need I remind you some of us don't take their coffee with iron supplements."
"Relax, ginger snap. It's just chocolate." Carmilla patted her head as she sat down next to her. She pressed the warm mug against Laura's cheek. "Want some?"
"Oh, you're evil, all right." Laura pushed the mug away, grimacing. "You're an evil, wicked, no good vampire."
Carmilla chuckled. "Tell them why I'm evil. Go on."
Laura giggled awkwardly. She looked at the camera. "Uh, well... Carm is going to keep me tied up all night, and she won't interrupt for any human biological functions. As a result, she has kindly advised me to refrain from taking in more liquids than are absolutely necessary. She's evil because she's teasing me with yummy chocolate... in my mug... that she knows I can't have."
"Ooh, well explained." Carmilla took a gratuitous sip and licked her lips. "Feeling thirsty?"
"Yes!" Laura groaned. She put her head in her hands. She didn't see why Carmilla got so mean all of a sudden.
"Almost like you're a vampire thirsting for blood," Carmilla suggested. She waved the mug under Laura's nose, tauntingly filling her nostrils with the scent. "All your being is concentrated into one all-consuming thirst. And the one thing that can quench your thirst is held tantalizingly out of reach by the girl you should be kissing right now. Instead, all you can think about is the possibility of her being kind and letting you drink your fill."
"Oh," Laura said quietly. She hadn't really thought about what Carmilla went through. The pain she suffered... How much Laura really did owe her. "Now I get it."
"Yes, that's right, Laura's viewers," Carmilla addressed the camera. She stroked Laura's hair as she spoke. "The reason I am a wicked, evil vampire is because this delicious chocolate-filled croissant was a wicked, evil human. No doubt you all are sending insult-filled emails her way as we speak, but let's channel that passion into something more constructive, shall we? Now, it's clear that Laura must be punished. I have some ideas for going about that, but I'm open to suggestions. Send your best ideas to , and I'll take them all under consideration."
"Carm!" Laura's face grew very hot. "You're crowdsourcing this?"
Already, Carmilla's phone was audibly vibrating, indicating new emails in her inbox.
"Hey, it's the digital age. It's not like you don't tell them everything about us, anyway." Carmilla shrugged. Giving Laura a smile, she gulped down huge mouthfuls of her cocoa.
Laura looked at the mug wistfully. Carmilla was right that Laura deserved to be thirsty when Laura literally tortured Carmilla by withholding blood. Fine, she'd accept this game, let Carmilla have her fun. It really was the least Laura could do to make up for her ten days of torment. "It ends tomorrow, right? You tie me up, do whatever, and then we're even?"
"Of course." Carmilla hugged her and planted a kiss on her cheek. She pulled back and smiled. "When I untie you, the two of us will be even. You have my word. Until then, you can do your best to keep me happy."
"Right..." Laura glanced at the pocket in Carmilla's leather jacket where the phone continued to vibrate as email after email came in.
Carmilla followed her gaze. She pulled her phone out and looked at the screen. She gave a low whistle. "Wow, your viewers are really eager to help. They must like me better than you!"
Laura coughed. "I'm sure they would have helped me if I had asked them and you didn't."
"Keep telling yourself that, lemon drop." Carmilla pushed the empty TARDIS mug into Laura's hands. "Get me a refill, will you? I've got a lot of fun emails to read."