How Revisionist of You: Part II
Disclaimer: You know the tune...sing along.
Summary: Celebrate we will?
Dedicated to: Pig, for always being there playing in the background.
Just Thinking Out Loud
The party was finally over. The adrenaline that had kept her going all night was wearing thin. Sixteen years old. It's been sixteen years since she laid in that hospital bed scared beyond all reason. Sixteen years since she was sixteen. She'd bought Rory a laptop for god's sake. The calming effect that washing dishes provided her in normal circumstances was doing very little for her now. There was a boy outside. A boy who seemed to know that it was her daughter's birthday. He knew and Lorelai wanted to forget. If she forgot then maybe she could shut her eyes and pretend that Rory was still reading Ramona Quimby books on a bed that was still too big for her.
Others would fancy her in the early (or late) stages of denial. She fancied herself a realist with a dash of the whimsical and all others, fate and time included, could hop on raft with the rest of the pharaohs on that river. What are things you can't control if they aren't, at least, centered around you and what you want? She couldn't be blamed for all of this time passing by. It had to be someone else's fault. She was beginning to think it was her mother's doing. If all else fails, blame it on Emily Gilmore.
Lorelai used to look at her mother and know with certainty that Emily Gilmore was old. That she was so out of sync with what went on in the real world that she wouldn't know "cool" if it paddled her on the ass and demanded she beg for more. Now, however, she looked at her hands emerging from the soapy water and saw her mother's hands. The smoothness of youth was receding . There were defined lines around her knuckles that were erased and redefined as she clenched her fists. It was simultaneously angering and reassuring. The lines were a testament to her age and all that she had been through. She had held a baby Rory to her breast with those hands. She had scrubbed hotel bathrooms with those hands. She had gripped headboards tightly with those hands.
This last thought brought her back to the present. The birthday girl may be outside with the bag-boy, but there were still two guests in the house. The caterer and the bringer-of-all-things-frozen remained to aid the clean-up process. Their quiet rustling could be heard accompanied by the swish of filling trash bags from the living room.
Luke's presence this evening was surprisingly not unsettling. They had maintained that status admirably since their last encounter, living up to their whispered promises. To everyone around them, nothing had changed. To Lorelai and Luke, nothing had changed. Lorelai still had the unsettling dreams and the ever-present hum of sexual tension. Only now it was fueled by the glaring tinge of reality instead of the soft mystery of fantasy. She'd be doing menial tasks (such as washing the dishes) and she'd have a flash of skin against skin, panting breaths, the sound of a ball cap falling with a soft thud onto linoleum flooring. Every sip of coffee smelled of sex, every ring of a bell clashed with grunted promises.
It had been a week (a freakin' week!) after a dry spell of years, and she wanted more. She was beginning to remember, with weak-kneed enthusiasm, the feel of the exact moment of penetration when the back door burst open. Her daughter walked briskly into her room. With the girl in her near vicinity, Lorelai erased all dirty thoughts from her mind. If she was thinking about it, her eyes would reveal that because she knew her daughter and her daughter knew her. She's become an expert at deception in the past week and while she hated it she knew that it had to be done. While her daughter might be the one person in the world that could understand her, Rory would not understand this. For that, Lorelai loved Rory even more.
Don't Mean to Dwell on This Dying Thing
Rory emerged from her room, duffle bag in hand.
"Mom, I'm off." Rory shuffled her feet, a tell-tale sign that something was going on that she didn't want to tell her mother about. She'd not perfected deception as well as her mother had.
"And Mrs. Kim is okay with you showing up this late?" She smirked, ever amused by the lady's rules and restrictions.
"She seems to have grudgingly accepted this night as something special. Although, if these things keep going later and later, she might not allow us to keep up this one birthday tradition." Lorelai had never understood Rory's preference to the Kim house on birthday nights until Rory finally caved and confessed Lane's secret music collection.
Sookie bustled into the kitchen and immediately began to make sure all of her culinary talents were not wasted on the Gilmore storage method (eat until gone), carefully sealing and packaging.
"Rory, are you leaving?" She glanced up at Lorelai. "Luke's finishing up in the living room."
"Yeah, Sook. Traditional birthday sleepover at Lane's soon to be commenced." Rory said as she leaned over to give Lorelei a kiss on her cheek. "I'll be home as soon as we've cleared out every book and music store in Star's Hollow- after our hourly prayers, of course. I'll call."
"Enjoy your tofu." This was Lorelai's traditional birthday send off.
"Always." And Rory was gone. One down, one to go.
"Sookie, there's no need. I'll take care of it. Go home, you've done plenty." She have her friend a grateful smile.
"Alright, I suppose it was bad enough that I couldn't leave in the first place."
"Well, normally I would be insulted by someone suggesting that I didn't know how to store perishables, but with you I know that you care." Lorelai crossed the distance between them to give her a swift hug. "Thanks again for all of your help."
"Anything for Rory. God I can't believe that she's sixteen. I feel really old." Sookie looked down.
"I know, Sook. I really do." Lorelai gave her friend a reassuring wink. "I'll see you soon. Give me a call, okay?" She really didn't want to admit to pushing her friend out the door, but dammit, there was sex to be had.
"Alright sweetie. See you." Then suddenly Lorelai was alone….almost.
Lorelai turned back to the sink and plucked another class from the suds. She did feel old and she didn't like it. She was trying to hold on to the memories of her youth. She realized then that she didn't really have much of a youth to hold on to. Getting knocked up in your teens will do that to a girl. These thoughts weren't helping so she tried to remember the last time she felt young. She knew it was there and she knew if she thought hard enough she could remember. She knew she acted like a teenager most of the time, but it was much different than feeling young. She could act all she wanted, but that didn't stop her from having the responsibilities that she had, or the worries.
But Look At My Blood
She felt a presence behind her and came out of her reverie. She heard the soft thud of something being set on the kitchen floor. She continued to wash the dishes, pretending to be unaffected by the other person in her kitchen. She heard approaching footsteps and felt the heat of his proximity on her back. Suddenly, two hands gripped the counter on each side of her periphery. Suddenly she was able to remember the last time she felt young. She also felt the stirring of hairs where his breath met her neck. She instinctively leaned back into him.
"Did Rory head to Lane's?" His hot breath spurred her to nod silently. "Sookie gone, too?" More breath. More nodding.
"Finally." This nodding was enthusiastic and the shiver hit her spine and trailed the column to her tailbone causing her hips to sway. The back of her jeans swiped the front of his and as a result a deep groan resonated behind her. His hands swiftly left the counter to grasp her hips an a now familiar grip. Lorelai first thought it was to still her reaction, but he pulled her hips back and ground against her with a fierceness she wasn't aware he was capable of. Sure, he was gruff and a little callous, but never physically forceful or aggressive. She liked it, expressing her enjoyment by giving back as much as he gave. They both released deep sighs.
"God, Luke. I wish you'd have done this when you walked in the damn door." He chuckled while raising his hand from her hip to her stomach underneath her shirt. She reached behind her and slid her hands around his hips landing them in the back pocket of his jeans. He growled softly into her ear.
"Somehow, I doubt your mother would have approved." His hand quickly rose, dragging the hem of her shirt along with it. He paused at her breasts, sweeping over them, letting her shirt ride along her bra-line before attaching his lips to her neck aggressively. She was giving over control to him again. She didn't know how he won out every time, but he did and did so powerfully.
"You'd be surprised at what my mother seems to approve of." This came out a half-moan, half-gasp as he joined his teeth and tongue to his mouth's ministrations.
"Hmm?" His inquiry reverberated through her shoulder causing her hands to clench the fabric within his pockets. The force of it pushed him closer to her once again.
"Apparently, when you came in, my mother perceived the look on your face to mean that you were a man in want of a lap dance." Luke chuckled deeply this time. The sound was so erotic, muffled by her shoulder that Lorelai moaned unabashedly.
"Your mother doesn't know me at all and yet, she reads me so well." it was Lorelai's turn to laugh. This man was becoming more of a mystery to her the more intimately acquainted with him that she became. He only seemed to speak in clear, coherent sentences during foreplay. Luke actually was eloquent when involved in sexual activity, making the scenario even more enticing. Luke was in the process of removing Lorelai's shirt when she giggled again at her thoughts.
"And what is so humorous?" Not wanting to share her revelations with him, she covered admirably by returning to the topic of maternal observations.
"There was also some comment about a porterhouse steak, but I was still so amused that she said lap dance, I didn't catch it." Lorelai's hands returned to his denim clad behind after the removal of her shirt. She was desperate to return him to their previous closeness.
He lifted his head to her ear to whisper, "But I don't eat red meat." This man was going to be the death of her. She turned her head to drink in his strong profile.
"My mother seems to think differently." Her lips brushed his jaw line.
"Can we stop talking about your mother now?"
"Thank god." Their lips met in a searing kiss. Lorelai willingly surrendered to their usual battle for control, giving it all to him. She'd just waited too damn long for this not to. His tongue was sweeping her mouth, leaving no part unexplored. She envisioned her mouth claimed by a flag with a coffee cup emblazoned on it, waving victoriously from its pole. She was now grinning into the kiss which elicited a similar response from her partner. This just spurred her on to remove her hands from his backside and use them to ensure that his mouth stayed in place. She was surprised when she came in direct contact with soft, curly hair. He'd removed his cap. The sneaky bastard knew exactly what he was coming into this kitchen for.
Luke, however, was not one to be stayed by mere hands. He broke the kiss only to continue his exploration of her jaw line up to her ear and back down the slope of her neck. Lorelai did not protest. His hands traveled down the column of her neck to the tops of her breasts. He followed the lines of fabric with the tips of his fingers around to her sides, to her back. With one hand he undid the clasp of her bra while the other plunged to her jeans and the top button, unfastening it. Was this man fucking ambidextrous? It made sense with all of the multitasking he did at the diner.
"Have you heard anything from the teacher?" His hand delved underneath the waistband and came in direct contact with heated skin. "Jesus, Lorelai."
"Inviting you over here tonight may have involved some ulterior motives on my part." Her hip bucked involuntarily as she deliciously enveloped one of his fingers. "Max doesn't matter, just don't…..ever…..stop." And with that, she was cold. He'd removed himself and any hands or body heat.
It's Alive Right Now Deep and Sweet Within
"I may just be providing a service for you, Lorelai, but I'm still human. I don't do sloppy seconds, not even for you." He caught her eye's reflection in the window with a cold stare.
"Jesus Luke, I know that. I haven't heard from the guy." He was back, flushed against her rear, assuming all previous positions. Lorelai gasped at the sudden reconnection of sensation. Her hand reached behind her to clutch maniacally at the back of his head. He was working her into a frenzied place that few people had previously brought her to. He didn't even have all of her clothes off yet.
"Good god, Luke, this is crazy." She was panting. The diner-guy had her panting. "You should come with a Surgeon's General Warning label." Another deep chuckle reverberated against her shoulder.
"Yeah, I'll post it next to the 'no cell phones' sign. I'd never hear the end of it. Maybe just a tattoo on my ass….?" His gravel-rough tone was so entrancingly seductive that Lorelai had ceased paying attention to anything else. The brush of denim scraping her ankle bones brought her out of his trance. It wasn't until he was buried deep inside her that she realized he had removed the obstacle of their clothing. Luke's drawn out moan brought her reeling into the present.
He must've been having as much of a difficult week of anticipation as she had. He was taking her with deep, powerful strokes. He was claiming her soul with teeth clenched onto the spine of her neck. He was going to leave such a mark that concealer and a loose hair style would barely cover it. Her hands met his on the edge of the sink and they held together in a united grip for much needed leverage.
Gradually, her peripheral vision was dimming around the edges. Her pupils were dilating and the room was beginning to close in. All she could focus on was the mop of brown hair moving behind her shoulder in the window's translucent reflection. She could feel her awareness spiraling and just as she was losing herself, piercing eyes met hers from behind the slope of her neck. As soon as the connection was made his eyes were gone and so was she.
Just as she was reaching the height of ecstasy, the sleight pressure of his hand on the small of her back pushed her down so her belly rested on the sink's separator, making her body perpendicular to his. This caused his claim on her to intensify ten-fold and before her pleasure could end, it began again. The only sensation she was aware of was his fierce grip on her hip with one hand and her neck with the other. Her hair was being swept aside as he continued his slow, deep seduction. She felt hot puffs of breath against her ear, such a sharp sensation that she might have welcomed another release.
"I never really liked the sound of my own name before, Lorelai…." The rest of his confession was implied. She'd been vocal? She'd been saying his name? Soon, though, she understood what he was talking about. His movements became short and frantic, then still. His "Lorelai" was a bare whisper against the shell of her ear and the only proof of his release.
There was a moment of hitched breathing, then Luke slowly wrapped his arms around her midsection and raised them both back up into standing position. His mouth, still close to her ear, dropped the barest kiss below it.
"I'll see you in the morning." Once again the barest whisper, a far cry from Ranting Luke. She felt the rustle of him righting his clothing and then he was gone. His footsteps echoed down the hallway and ended at the sound of a shutting door.
Once he was gone, her head finally began to clear. She was slowly beginning to realize what a strange encounter the whole experience had been. She probably would have felt dirty if it hadn't been Luke and it hadn't been so passionate. That was it. It was passionate. It involved some mysterious emotion. Lorelai realized that they'd had a very intense session without ever looking at each other face to face. She knew that he had acknowledged her via her reflection, but he had looked away at the onset of her climax. And, dear god, she'd seen him wear that expression before.
It was the one he wore when he would rant too loudly at her.
It was the one reserved for broken things he'd fixed.
It was guilt.