If you don't like fluff then look away now, cause the first bit of this is several baskets of kittens worth of fluff. But this is Cat's story, and Cat wanted fluff, so Cat gets fluff and that is that.
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16. Utopia
Emily
When I woke up from a relaxed and bountiful sleep I found myself wrapped round her again. It always felt so fucking perfect waking up next to this most wondrous of bodies. The sight of her beautiful face, the silky feel of her lustrous curves. The unique and intoxicating scent that meant only Naomi. The gorgeous little noises that she made in her sleep. And the warmth, my God the warmth that felt so much more than mere body temperature. Like the gorgeous balmy heat of a Mediterranean night that wrapped you up in its soothing goodness till the dawn. Or like settling down into the comforting embrace of a deep hot bath. I could feel my muscles relaxing every time I lay next to her. And no matter how long or how passionate the previous night's sexual adventures had been, I always woke up feeling rejuvenated.
I think it's fairly safe to say I was addicted. I've never been that desperate to have a partner, you know the way some people feel they need a boyfriend or a girlfriend to complete them. I've always been much more of a take the world as it comes kind of a girl. I have a twin, a crazy family, a good bunch of mates, I have Effy and I have the sea. Girls have come and gone within that steady framework, but I've never really clutched desperately at them hoping they'll turn out to be 'The One'. I've fallen in and out of what felt like love, but I've never done desperate drama. And yet now, with this, I find myself overcome. I spend almost every night with her, and when I don't it feels kind of weird and wrong. It's like she's meant to be here. Like the universe resonates to a different frequency when we're in proximity, a better and more harmonious one. It's not like my life was shit before she got here, but now that she is I don't think it will ever be the same again.
I lay there watching her as she slept and I was completely fascinated. I could look at her for fucking hours. I lay on my side next to her making maps of her features, and watching the changing light of early morning dancing across her golden hair. Every breath she took was a wonder to me, the rising and falling of her chest as artful as the finest ballet. The casual way her arms were splayed across the duvet was as moving to me as the greatest of paintings. And then the most sublime moment of all, the moment when her eyelids fluttered open and I got to gaze into the depths of the mesmerising boundless blue I loved every bit as much as the ocean.
She blinked, and smiled a fuzzy smile, reached out a lazy arm and softly stroked my cheek. Neither of us said a thing. The moment was too perfect for the invasion of words. Our hands clasped together on automatic and we just looked at each other, insane amounts of emotion spinning between us as we drank each other in. A tiny thought sparked in the centre of my heart, but soon my beating organ pushed it out into my blood and spread it through every part of me until I was consumed by this thought, and this thought alone. That if I had Naomi and the sea I could be happy for the rest of my life.
"You're so beautiful."
Her first words of the day, uttered with complete sincerity as she wrapped me in that perfect gaze of hers, had physical repercussions in every cell of my body. It felt like she was filling me with some unearthly kind of magic that made me feel stronger, better and even more myself than I was without her.
"I don't think I ever want to wake up without you," I said.
And I meant it. I didn't know how I could have meant it after such a short span of time, but I knew that I did.
"What's happening to us?" asked Naomi.
"You're supposed to be the clever one," I smiled. "I was hoping you could tell me."
"I have nothing to compare this to," she said.
"Me neither."
"I mean, I understand the physiology of attraction, but that knowledge has always undermined my sense of the romantic until now," she said. "I could give you a detailed chemical breakdown of desire, but this… I have no understanding of this. All I know is that I must have been a fucking awesome bastard in a past life to deserve you in this one."
"A scientist who believes in reincarnation?" I grinned. "That's novel."
"I don't really," she smiled. "That's more my Mum's kind of thing. I like the idea of it though, that you have lots of lifetimes to work out your shit."
"Most people would need several lifetimes," I laughed.
"But not you," said Naomi. "You're fucking perfect as you are."
"That's very generous of you," I said. "But we are in the honeymoon period. I'm sure you'll discover lots of my faults as we go on."
"Is that what you want, hun?"
"That you find out my faults?"
"That we go on?"
I tried to imagine a future without her and it seemed like the most absurd notion on earth.
"I love you," I told her. "And I want to be with you. I can't even begin to think of an alternative."
She leaned over and kissed me softly on the lips, and then immediately broke away so she could look at me again. Her smile was as bright as the sun breaking over the ocean when the new dawn was full of promise. It felt like every day would be full of promise with this most fabulous of creatures by my side. I was so happy I was fit to burst.
"I love being in bed with you," I said.
"Yeah right," she smirked.
"No, I don't just mean for the sex," I said urgently. "Cause with our track record I think we've proved we don't need to be anywhere near a bed for that to happen."
Naomi got flashback face, and it was the sexiest thing in the world, but I wanted to get my point across before we travelled down that road again.
"What I mean is that I love being in bed with you like this. This beautiful private intimacy in a space that's purely ours. I love the way you look at me. I love the way I wake up all tangled in you. I love the way you fill my senses. I love just holding you. I love talking to you when we're sleepy. I love the way I can just stare like an idiot into your eyes for hours. I love the way that everything about me just seems to fit with everything about you. I love sleeping next to you and absorbing your amazing energy, and I always wake up feeling better when I do. I love sharing my space with you. I love sharing myself with you. I love the way it feels like you're supposed to be here, like it's just so fucking right."
During the course of my speech, Naomi had somehow seamlessly and gracefully slid herself on top of me.
"I know," she whispered, looking down at me. "This is a perfect Utopia. And it scares me sometimes. I keep wondering when something's going to go wrong, and tear you away from me."
"Nothing's going to go wrong," I assured her. "We just have to trust each other, and believe in each other, and not let any of the stupid little things get in our way. We can choose to make this work for us. We can own our fate together."
"I like that," she said. "We can take this random encounter and turn it into something unbreakable. All it takes is chemistry."
"And we've got bucketloads of that."
"Emily Fitch, you are fucking fantastic," she said, kissing me.
"So are you, Naomi Campbell," I said, kissing her back.
We kissed and kissed again. Warm fresh baked scones and muffins of kisses. Nourishing and utterly delicious. With her long limbs wrapped around me I felt like nothing could ever hurt me. Somewhere out there I knew there was a vicious world, but it could never penetrate the fortress of love that we were building for ourselves. Even if someday we had to be an ocean apart as we fought to save the fucking planet, I would always have this moment, and the hundreds of other moments like this we would make for ourselves. We kissed and stared and laughed our way into a promise. We kissed and stared and laughed our way into a union. We kissed and stared and laughed our way into a future.
Maybe we would have just kissed and stared and laughed all fucking day, if the door hadn't burst open and a tiny me-shaped whirlwind flew into the room.
"Ems, can I borrow that blue top of yours, the one with the starfish on it? I've got that hot new rep from Quicksilver coming in and I wanna look all surfy… and Oh my God, fucking naked lezzers."
Naomi slid off me and lay on her back with a dirty smile on her face.
"Relax Katie, we might be naked, but we're not fucking," I laughed. "Just snogging."
"Ok," she huffed. "I'm just still not used to that kind of thing going on in this house."
"You're not going all Jenna on me are you?" I said accusingly.
"No, no, no," she said hurriedly. "I'm sure you and the professor here do beautiful things together."
"Then you should stick around," I teased. "You might learn something."
"Pfff, I don't think I need to learn anything about sex from you my little rug-munching sibling," she scoffed.
I turned round grinning to share the joke with Naomi, only to find that her dirty smile had been replaced with what looked like a sudden frown of concern.
"Second drawer down," I said to Katie, before turning back to my lover.
"What's up?" I whispered.
"Nothing," she said. "I just remembered something."
"Aw, that's fucking mint, babes," came Katie's voice from the other side of the room, as she held up the top. "I'll let you two get back to Lezville."
Naomi's frown of concern was soon mirrored by my own, as I watched her watch Katie leave the room. Whatever it was that was worrying her seemed to have something to do with my sister.
"She doesn't mean anything by it, you know," I said. "They're just words. It's just the way she talks. It's not meant as an insult. She loves me, and if you make me happy, she's gonna love you too."
"It's not that," said Naomi. "I know Katie's alright."
"Then what?"
"You have secrets," said Naomi. "Aren't I allowed to have secrets too?"
"Well yeah, you got me there," I conceded. "It's just, it's my sister."
"Then you're just going to have to trust me like you said we should," she said softly. "There's no life threatening drama going on here, but I won't break a confidence. It's not honourable."
Jesus Fucking H Christ in a basket with balloons on. Every time I think that Naomi has reached the limit of everything that is perfect, she says or does something so unutterably adorable that I have to constant redefine my parameters for love. The thought of her living by her own personal code of honour to protect the people she cared about was almost too fucking wonderful to bear. I jumped on top of her and smothered her face with kisses.
"I fucking love you Naoms, you fucking wonderful fucking lioness of a girl. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and if I ever forget that, just slap me."
"Maybe I could spank you instead," she smirked, raising one eyebrow at me.
"Now that would only encourage me to be bad," I argued.
"I have to encourage you?" grinned Naomi. "I thought it came naturally to you… Ninja."
I'm sure it wasn't her intention, but her use of that word yanked the outside world back into my consciousness.
"I need to go and see Effy," I said.
"Oh," said Naomi, her cheekiness deflating in an instant.
"I have to make sure she's alright," I said.
"She was getting laid by a hot blonde. I'm sure she's doing just fine," pouted Naomi, but the look in my eye stopped her dead.
"Can't you just phone her?" she asked.
"Effy tends to ignore her phone. It's always better to turn up in person," I replied.
"Ok," conceded Naomi with just a hint of pout. "So is this private Effy seeing, or together Effy seeing?"
"Jesus girl," I hissed. "How many more times are you going to try and make me fall in love with you this morning?"
"Infinity times?" she suggested with an innocent little shrug.
"Together," I shouted, as my heart swelled to a size that could barely be contained within my chest. "We can go together. Um, in a bit…."
Naomi's face suddenly didn't look so innocent any more…
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A couple of hot shags later and I was still encased in the fortress of love as we breezed out of the house past my mother. And all the way through the scooter ride to the harbour. Even walking down the jetty with Naomi's hand clasped in mine I was still riding safely through the world in our charmed little bubble. It wasn't until I saw the blonde girl lounging on the back of Effy's boat looking like she owned the place that the pinprick of reality pierced my protection. I mean it was good right, Effy moving on? Even if I still couldn't quite believe it. But I couldn't help it. It was in my nature to worry about my best friend. Effy was the coolest fucking person in the world, and she was hardcore in ways even I didn't want to think about. But for as long as I had known her, Katie had the power to unravel her. And I had seen her get into some epically tragic states over my sister. What if she had slept with the blonde and was now being torn apart by guilt? What if she was heading into another phase of fuck the pain away shagging? Maybe I should try to be more optimistic, but I knew my friend too well. I had to find out what was going on so I knew how to support her.
"Hi girls," said the confident American, as we walked over the gangplank. "It's Emilio, right?"
"Emily," I corrected her from Cook's stupid nickname. "And this is.."
"Naomikins," smiled the stranger. "Though I'm guessing that's really Naomi."
"I didn't catch your name last night," I said.
"This is Cat," said Effy, emerging from the cabin with a full pot of coffee.
I took a good long moment to check her out. She didn't look stressed in the slightest. In fact she looked relaxed, and coherent and surprisingly bright-eyed for this time in the morning. Ok, I admit it, I was confused. I had expected angst and drama, but all I got was two extremely chilled out girls enjoying a spot of breakfast. Had this Cat girl actually broken Katie's spell? Effy caught me looking and sussed me out in a heartbeat, and I was treated to one of her most classic of smirks.
"Cat wants to hire the boat," she said.
"I am tracing my family tree," said Cat. "My great granddaddy was from these parts, but he was lost when his boat went down. I want to try and find the wreck."
"Of course we'll have to work it round Naomi and Thomas's schedule, and your classes," said Effy.
"Why my classes?" I frowned.
"I need a dive buddy," smiled Cat. 'And Effy said you were the best."
"Can't you do it?" I said to Effy.
"But these are deep and dangerous dives," she replied. "And you're much more experienced than me."
"Hang on a minute. Dangerous?" interjected Naomi.
"Not for the Queen of the Deep here," smiled Effy. "I swear she's got fish genes in her somewhere."
"I thought we were going to go with mermaid genes," I pouted.
"Mermaids are pure nasty," laughed Effy. "And you, my beautiful Emily, are the loveliest girl alive."
"Now that's something I can agree on," said Naomi, wrapping her arms around me from behind and kissing the back of my neck.
"So, do you have any plans for today?" asked Cat.
"Um no, not really," I said, feeling Naomi tense slightly behind me.
"It's a good day to go to sea," said Effy.
There was something in her look. It was only the tiniest of inflections, invisible to anyone but me, but it told me there was more to this than just a charming piece of business. Something that meant I ought abandon my ideas of a day of fluffy kitten love with Naomi. Nope, no running through meadows hand in hand for me. I needed to get Effy alone and find out what the fuck was going down, and until I knew, I needed to keep Naomi out of it.
"Ok," I said. "I could do with the extra money anyway."
"Cool," said Naomi. "Should be exciting."
"Boring more like," said Effy. "They'll just be underwater for ages."
"Yeah babes, you should take the chance to get some work done," I added. "I think I've been distracting you far too much lately."
"I suppose," said Naomi reluctantly. "Thomas has been getting on my case since his bloody girlfriend went home."
"I'll make it up to you," I promised her.
"I like the sound of that," she replied.
I swivelled round in her arms to kiss her goodbye and for a few precious minutes we brought ourselves back to Utopia. I lost myself once more in the softness of her lips and the endless waves of love that radiated from her. Whatever challenges the day might bring, if I had this to come back to I had no doubt I could defeat them. We left my lover on the shore, and as we sailed out of the harbour, I turned my attention to the two girls on the boat. The pair of them were just too bright and sweet and perfect to be believable. Effy doesn't live in bright, sweet and perfect land, and Cat, well let's face it, who the fuck was she? I was desperate to grill Effy for information, not that I'd get anything out of her that she didn't want me to hear, but it wasn't until we were well out on the open sea, and Cat went below to check her dive gear that I had the chance.
"So?" I said firmly, trying to show that I wasn't to be fucked with.
"So what?" smirked Effy, fucking with me anyway.
"What the fuck, Eff?" I said angrily.
I had come here thinking she might need my help, and instead I was getting the silent superior treatment.
"Did you fuck her?" I hissed, deciding to take the direct approach.
Effy laughed at me like I'd just asked her the most ridiculous question in the world.
"No," she said.
"Why not?"
"She's not Katie."
Ok, so not moving on then.
"I have a girlfriend, and she's amazing," said Cat from behind me, making me jump.
Ok so they may not have been shagging, but they shared an alarming ability to be able to sneak up on a girl.
"So what was all that crap about last night?" I challenged her.
"They way those boys were perving on me I deserved to have a little fun," she answered. "Besides, it was a useful way of finding Effy without arousing suspicion."
"Suspicion of what?"
"Cat's a Ninja," said Effy.
Shit. I wasn't expecting that. We weren't supposed to have active contact with the other cells, that's the way we remained untraceable.
"So that whole granddaddy's boat thing?"
"A bunch of bullshit," laughed Cat. "I figured people would buy some crazy Yank on a nostalgia kick."
"Yeah, they probably will, but why are you here?" I asked her.
"Stingray," she answered.
"Is that a mission?"
"It's a person," said Cat. "A hacker. We think he or she is based in the UK somewhere, but wherever they are they are bloody good at what they do. We get a lot of useful information from them, and it always checks out."
"So what does it have to do with us?" I asked.
"Stingray has uncovered some information that leads us to believe that the pipeline you attacked was secretly a dual core pipe," said Cat.
"What does that mean?"
"It means there is a pipe within a pipe," said Effy. "And that as well as it's legitimate use for fuel transport, they were also going to use it for secret illegal waste dumping."
"What you guys did was amazing, and slowed the company down," said Cat. "But if we can prove the pipe was dual core, we can cause them some serious damage and expose the true nature of their operations."
"But that would mean…" I stuttered.
"Going back," said Effy. "To get evidence."
"Isn't that a bit risky?" I said.
"It's very risky," said Cat. "And I'll completely understand if you want to turn me down. You've already risked a lot, and it will always be your choice if you feel you can risk more."
"But if anyone can pull this off it's us," said Effy.
"You're right," I said.
I knew she was right. We were local. We had a reason to be out on the water. Cat was right about her cover story, people would buy it. Whether there was a wreck or not, people would happily believe me and Effy would take the money off the dumbass American anyway. We knew exactly where the breach was and we knew what we were fucking doing. The question was, did we have the balls to do it? Before Naomi I wouldn't have cared. I would have taken the challenge without hesitation. But I wasn't single anymore. I had someone else to live for, someone else's life to take care of. The thought of waking up without her in a cold prison cell, instead of in her arms in the warmth and luxury of Bed Utopia seemed suddenly fifty times more horrifying than it had before. Saving the fucking planet had just become a whole lot more complicated.
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Cat also wanted to be a Sea Ninja, so I made her one. Ha Ha. You were all so suspicious of the mystery blonde, but she's definitely one of the good guys. Only a few more days, and she will be out of that damn hospital and off on her journey to save the fucking planet for real. Go CatAttack. You're every kind of awesome.