Chapter 21 – The curious allure of the truly bad movie.
Usual disclaimers apply – just having fun, don't own anything...
The M-rated version. Just felt like trying to write this. As before, this won't work that well without the rest of the story (especially the bit at the end of the chapter, which will just seem really odd taken out of context).
So, having left you all poised on the edge of the cliff, I'm … going to change the subject. Mwa ha ha.
On the Monday morning after Lottie's birthday, Helena awoke to realise that, in her satiated daze, she had forgotten to set the alarm.
"Oh shit, I'm going to be late for the seminar," she said. Legolas rolled over and looked at her. A very busy Sunday had left him sufficiently tired that he too had succumbed to sleep.
"I'm already late," he said.
"You shower first then," said Helena.
"We could speed things up by sharing the shower," said Legolas, with a smile. "I could wash your back..."
Which was how Helena came to find herself with her back against the tiles, legs wrapped round Legolas's waist, feeling his cock deep inside her. His thrusts drew gasps from her in time with his motion; her hands gripped his shoulders, encouraging him to bury himself to the hilt. She felt wave upon wave of pleasure building within her before crying out as the sensations became too much and she reached her climax. He shuddered his release, and they slid down the side of the shower cubicle, coming to rest in a tangle of limbs as the hot water cascaded over their bodies.
"Now we're really late."
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
They had agreed to try to keep things quiet to start with while they got used to the idea of being together; this plan had lasted the best part of ten minutes that morning.
Helena had blown it first; when she had arrived, pink and breathless and several minutes late for her seminar, Matt had given her a knowing look. At coffee after the seminar he had come up to her, smirked at her and enquired how the rest of her weekend had gone. She had murmured something non-committal. Matt had then informed her, helpfully, that she might as well have had a neon sign above her head reading 'Spent whole weekend shagging: it was great.'
Not surprisingly, Legolas had not fared any better when (incurring the boss's wrath) he arrived late at the café. Cathy had been merciless. Later, however, when they had found themselves alone for a few moments, she had been more interesting.
"Be careful with your lass. Be gentle. The men of your kind have a certain reputation."
"What do you mean, men of my kind?" Legolas had never been more amazed in his life than by the moments which followed his question; Cathy had reached up and brushed the hair back from his ears.
"My family are from the west of Ireland originally. We still remember about the fay folk there. You'll not up and leave her heartbroken, will you?" Legolas had looked at her in astonishment. Then he had decided to answer her question, taking it at face value.
"Nothing could be further from my intentions. In fact, I think it's rather more likely that I will be the one left heartbroken one day." He remembered deciding on the spur of the moment to explain everything to Cathy, who, to her credit, had listened in sympathetic silence, and had proved unusually discreet.
One brief intrusion into their happiness had been caused by Helena's unwanted dinner with Evans. She had gone to the event with no enthusiasm and considerable trepidation. However, she had steeled herself to think of the importance of the information she might be able to gain, and had tried to draw out of him what his project involved; he had, to her annoyance, refused to be drawn. Then, as he escorted her out, in one of the dark passages between quads, he tried to kiss her. She had pushed him away angrily. At that point, he had made it quite clear that he expected 'payment' for dinner.
"You utter shit,"Helena had shouted at him. "You invited me assuring me it was just a friendly, collegial dinner. And even if it had been a date, only a total misogynist arsehole would assume that that gave him the right to expect more." She had pushed past him, and marched to the porters' lodge, where she insisted on having a taxi called. When she got home and recounted events, Legolas had been torn between fury at Evans' behaviour and amusement at the dressing-down she had administered.
"Did you tell him about us?" he had asked.
"No, because it wasn't his business, and it wasn't the point anyway. I'm not off limits because I belong to you, I'm off limits because I choose to be. And he really is a total arsehole. Even if I'd never met you, even if he was the last bloody man on earth, I wouldn't touch him with someone else's!"
"I'm guessing you didn't get any useful information out of him, either," Legolas had said, with a laugh.
"No. Bloody hell, I'm so angry. I should have kneed him in the balls." Legolas had wrapped his arms around her.
"I believe this is a rather hackneyed expression, but you really are beautiful when you're angry. Especially when you're angry with someone else."
The other thing which had changed, or perhaps more accurately, developed, following Lottie's birthday was Matt's friendship with Legolas. Matt had been delighted by the two finally admitting to each other how they felt, though he remained worried about the implications that Legolas had explained. But, worries aside, he greatly enjoyed the irony involved in finding himself cast in the unlikely role of advisor on the progress of a heterosexual (and furthermore, interspecies) relationship. Perhaps the strangest conversation this had led to had been the one Legolas had had with Matt while out for a run. The elf had admitted to feeling a bit sad and slightly guilty about how things had started between Helena and himself; surely, he had said, she had deserved to be wooed properly, for him to have taken his time, for him to have taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the customs of her people and court her accordingly. Matt had burst out laughing.
"But you did woo her in accordance with the customs of our people. You both got totally rat-arsed on a Saturday night and ended up shagging each other senseless." When they had got back to Matt's place, he had handed him a slightly dog-eared paperback, Watching the English, and had explained that it would help the elf to make sense of a lot of things about the culture in which he found himself.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
One morning a couple of months after Lottie's birthday, Helena woke up to the warm May sunshine coming throught the bedroom window. Legolas lay on his side, head resting on his hand, looking down at her, a faint smile on his face.
"Do you like what you see," asked Helena, raising her eyebrows.
"Maybe... perhaps...," said Legolas, the smile growing broader. "I think I need to take a closer look to be sure." He ran his hand over her shoulder, then down to her breast. His lips sought hers in a long kiss, tongue teasing hers, teeth tugging gently at her lower lip, before his mouth began to trail downwards, down the side of her neck, his tongue licking at her collar bone, before he reached her breast and swirled his tongue round her nipple. Helena let out soft moan and let her head fall back on the pillow.
Encouraged, Legolas resumed the trail of kisses, letting his lips drift over the ridges of her ribs, then down to let his tongue flick into her navel, before kissing her belly. He kissed and licked his way down over her hip bones and the front of her thigh, before gently parting her legs.
"Mmm, your skin is so soft," he whispered, his words a puff of air against the inside of her thighs. He licked her skin, then started to move his lips upwards. Helena threaded her hands through his silky hair and murmured soft words of encouragement. She felt her pulse quicken and the blood rushing to bring heat between her legs. Closer and closer, his lips trailed upwards towards the moist centre between her legs.
"Yes, oh please," was all she could manage to say.
Suddenly he drew his head away, very very slightly, the tiniest distance between his lips and the sensitive skin where her legs joined.
"Meleth nin, you are so very beautiful," he said, his voice the merest whisper, his breath stirring the triangle of her hair, leaving her aching for contact. Agonisingly slowly, he lowered his mouth, and his tongue licked slowly, deliberately, achingly across her clit. He brought his mouth down onto her, sucking gently, swirling his tongue round in delirium-inducing circles. His mouth was hot, so hot, and wet, and as she writhed under him, he slid a couple of fingers inside her and began to stroke them within her.
She lost all sense of anything beyond the heat, his tongue and fingers working on her, until, hands tangling in his hair, the world became a kaleidoscope of colours, waves of heat broke, crashing round her, and she screamed his name. She lay, breath coming in gasps, the world spinning round her, unable to tell where her body ended and his began. She was dimly aware of the fact that she had actually screamed as she climaxed, and felt both embarrassed and at the same time strangely smug.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Later that day, Legolas and Helena lay on a picnic blanket on the bank of the Thames as it wound its way through Port Meadow. The vivid blue of the sky was reflected in the water, and all the colours, from the green of the grass and trees to the brown of the river bank, seemed preternaturally sharp and vivid. An eight slid gracefully through the water, making a rhythmic splash-swoosh-clunk.
"I don't know what's got into me. I've been so tired the last few days. Not just ordinary tired, exhausted beyond anything I'd ever imagined," said Helena. Legolas frowned and propped himself up on one elbow.
"You should go to see a doctor – and I don't mean promising to have a word with Lottie next time you see her, then forgetting all about it. I mean really going to see your doctor," he said. He reached out and stroked her cheek. "Mortals are fragile. I don't want you to get ill. You work too much. I think maybe you've exhausted yourself."
"I work far less since you started finding ways of distracting me."
"I thought," said Legolas, raising an eyebrow, "that you rather enjoyed it when I distracted you."
"Mmm," said Helena and reached her hand out, pulling his head close for a kiss. As she felt their lips brush together, gently at first, then felt his tongue touch her lips gently, and dart inside her mouth, Helena marvelled that their kisses could still affect her as strongly as the first kiss they'd shared. Legolas ran his hand down her back, resting it in the hollow curve of her waist, and she felt desire course through her at his touch. He broke off from kissing her, and Helena felt his breath on her ear as he started to whisper to her of all the places he would touch her, kiss her, taste her, if they were somewhere more private.
"Maybe we should go home," she murmured in response.
"Later," said Legolas with a wicked glint in his eye. "I'm going to keep you here and tell you all the things I want to do, in the knowledge that we have to behave ourselves while we're out here. It will make things all the better when I finally take you home."
"How did my shy elf suddenly become so confident?" laughed Helena.
"I'm sorry I was so inexperienced when we started," said Legolas. "You deserved so much better." And he told her about the conversation he had had with Matt.
"Don't be silly," said Helena, stroking his hair. "It was lovely. Yes, we were both very shy – if it hadn't been for the beer, I doubt we'd have found the courage to do anything – and yes, neither of us had a clue what we were doing. But that's what made it so sweet. And we seemed to work it out just fine as we went along. And think how much fun we've had learning how to do it better."
"And am I better? Do I please you?" said Legolas, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"Are you fishing for compliments? I think after this morning, you know the answer to that."
"I think after this morning, the whole street knows the answer to that," said Legolas, rolling onto his back with a smug grin. Helena reached out and tickled him under the ribs. The unexpected discovery that the elf was extremely ticklish had proved a source of endless delight to Helena. He squirmed, and captured her wrists.
"I'm never going to be able to look the neighbours in the face again," giggled Helena, turning pink.
"Which reminds me. I was in the middle of telling you about all the things we were going to do when I got you home this evening. I want to hear you scream my name again." Legolas pinned her wrists above her head and rolled on top of her, his voice dropping to a whisper again.
"Which reminds me," said Helena, with the grin she usually reserved for announcing check-mate, "having got both of us all wound up, you may have to wait longer than you thought – Lottie's coming round tonight." Legolas released her wrists and sat up abruptly, and to Helena's surprise, started packing the picnic things away.
"What are you doing? We don't have to go yet."
"Yes we do, we'll only get a couple of hours at home before Lottie arrives."
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Helena sat in the corner of the couch with her arms wrapped round Legolas, who was stretched out along it, lying against her. Lottie snuggled in the armchair, remote in hand, channel surfing.
"Oh yes, we have got to watch this," she said.
"What is it?" asked Helena, then gave a sudden squeak as Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis appeared on screen. "No, we can't watch this..."
"Why not? It'll be informative, educational, a good starting point for discussion..." Helena reached over and made a grab for the remote, but Lottie was too quick for her. Helena resorted to covering her face with a cushion and moaning theatrically.
Ten minutes later, Legolas grinned at Lottie.
"Even your choice of films is evil. But I think I've got the joke now, you can switch the TV off. Oh, and just for the record, I'm not now and have never been bright blue."
"No way am I switching this off," said Lottie. "Earth Girls are Easy is a classic. Definitely in the category 'so bad it's good'."
Despite himself, Legolas got quite engrossed in the film. He began to wonder if there was something in the 'so bad it's good' theory. He was, however, puzzled when Geena Davis's character sat up in bed the morning after the night before and started eating small tablets as if her life depended on it.
"I don't get the joke," he said to Lottie.
"They're her birth control pills – the joke is that he's so virile that instead of having to take just one, she's necking the whole packet...," Lottie's voice trailed off, a worried look appearing on her face.
"You mean humans don't control when they're fertile? They have to take medicines to do that?" asked Legolas, curiosity aroused.
"Elves can?"
"Yes, well so I believe, I mean, obviously I'm not female so I'm not quite sure how it works, and I've never been, uh, romatically involved with anyone before Helena, so I never had occasion to ask, but I think female elves can choose when to conceive." Lottie looked in horror from Legolas to Helena.
"Tell me you've been taking the pill," she said.
"Well, of course not. We're different species, remember? I mean, that's more-or-less the definition of different species, that they can't interbreed..."
"Oh, Yavanna!" said Legolas, suddenly understanding Lottie's look of horror. "You still haven't read the book, have you? You don't know about Beren and Luthien, or my friend Aragorn's marriage to Arwen?" Helena looked in confusion from Legolas to Lottie and back.
"So let me get this straight," said Lottie. "You didn't bother with contraception because you thought Helena could control when she conceived," giving a sharp look at Legolas, "and you," giving an equally sharp look at Helena, "didn't bother with contraception because you thought you wouldn't conceive because Legolas is an elf." She gave a deep sigh. "We doctors have a technical, medical term for people like you." Helena and Legolas waited in a state of excruciating embarrassment for the inevitable punchline. "We call you 'parents'." She let the implications sink in for several moments, then switched into 'doctor' mode.
"When was your last period, Helena?"
"Oh, my …. I can't remember exactly, but before Legolas and I …. Oh shit!"
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
It had taken Helena a long time to go to sleep the night before. Legolas had lain with her in his arms, stroking her hair gently and singing softly to her. When she woke the next morning, he leaned towards her to give her a good morning kiss. But before he got anywhere close, she wriggled out of his arms and disappeared at high speed. Legolas followed her, worried that she was still upset by the previous night's conversation. He found her in the bathroom, on her knees, passionately embracing the toilet bowl. And vomiting.
"Bloody Lottie. I was fine. This is psychosomatic. It's the power of suggestion." Helena was still more than capable of engaging her powers of denial when pressed into a corner.
Legolas brought her a glass of water, tucked her back into bed, and went to the chemist's shop round the corner, where in addition to buying the necessary supplies, he had a very nice chat with the motherly woman behind the counter about the best tactics for combating morning sickness. He let himself back into the flat, and appeared in their bedroom with a small cardboard packet and a plate of dry toast together with some ginger biscuits.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
In addition to all the other forms of traffic analysis Galadriel and Mary Sue had been carrying out in their efforts to try to work out from internet chatter what was going on in the other world, Galadriel had come up with a rather nifty algorithm which tracked both Helena and Legolas's bank cards and flagged up any unusual purchases.
Galadriel looked at the alert which had popped up on the screen of her laptop and gave a little scream.
"What has happened now?" Celeborn demanded.
"Legolas... Legolas has bought... he's bought a pregnancy testing kit." There was a stunned silence. Eventually, Celeborn spoke.
"Madam, I am more disappointed in you than I can possibly express. You promised me faithfully that you would not subject him to an MPreg."
Author's note: Watching the English, by Kate Fox, is a real book, and Dr. Fox is a real anthropologist! Definitely worth a read – it explains why the English talk about the weather all the time, why they drink so much tea, and pretty much advances the hypothesis that as a nation the English are so uptight and romantically inept that without copious amounts of alcohol, they would never succeed in producing little English people.
I say they rather than we because I'm a Scot. This of course means I'm mean, dour, a drunkard, and doomed to be ever disappointed as a football fan. I have however lived in England for a very long time now, and have even become sufficiently culturally assimilated to have helped them out in their stiff-upper-lip induced population crisis by producing a little English person of my own.