Work Text:
Every once in a while finds Francesca in a place like this. Whenever the gilded cage of her marriage feels like it’s shrunk her down too far, whenever she needs a reminder that her wings are not clipped beyond all salvage.
She escapes, one evening at a time. Goes somewhere where if any of her husband’s circle found her, they’d need as good an excuse as her. There’s three acquaintances thus far that she has such mutually-assured destruction pacts with.
Tonight, it’s a dingy bar frequented by students and those who wish they were still students. As Francesca takes a sip of her vodka coke and surveys the room from her perch at the end of the bar, she muses that perhaps her therapist would say she’s looking to revisit her youth. Looking to go back to before she walked herself down the aisle and into this trap of a marriage. Too bad her therapist will never hear of this – there’s only so far her confidentiality agreement goes.
Besides, Francesca has the plausible deniability of a more concrete aim tonight, if she can. If there’s anyone suitable in this crowd of sweat and hormones. Anyone who can help her put aside the thoughts of yet another frustratingly brief encounter with John Deed.
That man. The last sip of her drink settles in her belly next to arousal that flutters at the memory of the way he looked at her, ignoring her husband beside her for all but bare politeness. One shag was not enough for the way she’s drawn to him. But that would be too risky.
So something different. Something to help her forget him. Or at least tide her over for a little while.
“Can I get you another?” It speaks to the class of bar Francesca usually frequents that she thinks it’s the bartender interrupting her train of thought.
It’s not. Francesca would judge the woman in front of her to be an actual student and not one of her fellow pretenders lurking around the room. Curly hair pulled half-back out of her face, dark jeans and a halter top that shines silver even in the dim lighting. There’s an undercurrent of nerves she is clearly trying to hold back, and Francesca nearly declines the offer.
“Go on,” she says instead. After all, she did come here for something different, although she’s not sure yet if she’ll take it, “A vodka coke, please.”
And there’s something in this woman’s smile that draws her in, though precisely what is still a mystery. She considers it as she watches this stranger order them both another drink. A confident request for a top-shelf vodka that Francesca is mildly surprised this bar carries. Interesting. Out to impress?
As she hands Francesca her drink, she leans against the bar as though she’s been practising the casual pose. She introduces herself as ‘Charlie’, and Francesca returns in kind.
“What brings you here?” Charlie asks. She’s pegged Francesca as ‘not a student’, then.
“A change,” Francesca replies truthfully, but doesn’t let Charlie linger on her answer. Instead she asks what the other woman is studying, lets that guide the conversation and finds herself genuinely interested in the ramblings.
This younger woman is pretty, and enthusiastic, and Francesca is terribly tempted. She tucks a stray curl behind Charlie’s ear, lingering a little to test the temperature of the water. Charlie’s sentence stutters to a halt with a soft blush.
“Sorry, I’m chattering away,” Charlie takes a gulp of her drink and Francesca frowns, “You probably didn’t need that much information, my mum always says –”
“I asked,” Francesca cuts off her rambling, “I want to hear.” She would also rather like a stern word with whoever instilled this nervousness in the woman. Charlie blushes again, and resumes her story, leaning in such that Francesca catches the edge of her perfume.
Francesca does wonder – as Charlie’s hand meets her thigh in emphasis and then stays there – she wonders whether Freud didn’t have the right idea about a few things. There’s a thread stitching together Charlie’s stories, showing what her subconscious is dwelling on and it spells out a complex relationship with her mother.
Should Francesca really take advantage of that?
Charlie cracks a joke and there’s a sparkle of mirth in her eyes as Francesca’s laugh startles out of her which feels comfortingly familiar. There’s an energy between them that keeps Francesca there, a magnetic pull that she doesn’t want to walk away from yet. It’s not often that that happens, but it’s something Francesca does know. It’s the same pull that led to her digging her heels into the back of an untucked shirt in chambers she should not have been in, and again to this bar to forget the encounter.
The hand on her thigh slides higher, slips under the hem of her dress and Francesca stills it with her hand before it reaches somewhere it really shouldn’t be whilst in public. Even with the way Charlie looks at her like they’re already halfway to bed, with how much Francesca knows she looks the same, her earlier worries come to the fore.
“Surely you’d rather flirt with someone your own age?”
“Nope.” Charlie holds her gaze, steady and sure, “You’re the most beautiful woman in this bar.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” she demurs but there’s no flick of eyes elsewhere. Charlie leans in closer, and Francesca is about that close to giving in.
“I would never,” she murmurs the declaration and Francesca can feel the honesty against her lips as a kiss.
****
Charlie shushes Francesca as they walk down the hallway of her uni accommodation. Francesca raises an eyebrow at her but waits for Charlie to usher them into her room before she says anything.
“This isn’t a nunnery,” she points out, “You are allowed overnight guests, are you not?”
“Well, yes,” Charlie acquiesces, tossing her keys on her bedside table, “But it is polite to not make too much noise.”
“There goes our plans for the evening,” Francesca teases, stepping into Charlie’s space. She notes the way the other woman’s breath catches, the way she waits for Francesca’s move here where in the bar she’d been so forward.
Francesca pulls her into a kiss with a hand on the back of her neck. Charlie’s hands go to her hips, pulling them flush against one another. The kiss is all heat and passion, with hands wandering to agree that kissing is not the final destination here. She feels Charlie fumbling with the zip on her dress and withdraws her hands from under her shirt to undo the fastening. She helps Charlie pull her dress over her head and tosses it next to a pile of textbooks on her desk, no care for where it ends up when she can return to kissing or her own hands at the button of Charlie’s jeans.
It reminds her so vividly of her own university days. Those early fumblings in a room with a different selection of posters on the walls but still very much like this one. Everything was new, and everything was exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Pleasure before things got complicated by marriage and money and life in the real world, and Francesca slips back into those memories gladly as she undresses with Charlie.
But that’s not who she is any more. Charlie lowers her mouth to Francesca’s breast – her bra discarded somewhere on the floor – and presses open-mouthed kisses to sensitive skin that wrenches appreciation from her.
“That’s perfect, sweetie,” and Francesca sees eager eyes looking up at her, waiting. Oh, yes, this definitely isn’t to the tune of her old university hook-ups – where experience just about matched and the give and take was worked out from one moment to the next. She has a hunch she knows what Charlie wants here, and confirms it by threading her hand through curly hair and guiding the other woman’s lips to hers again with a grip just firm enough to mark her intentions. She swallows Charlie’s moan, accepting the control, the responsibility.
It makes a change. She and John had been entirely in step, and with her husband… There’s no incentive to take the lead when you don’t want anything on offer.
She pulls back, offering a reassuring peck and a ‘be patient for me, sweetie’ in response to the way Charlie had followed with a frown. Francesca takes a step to the bed – a single, of course, why give uni students more than the bare minimum – and rearranges the pillows so she can lounge, comfortably propped up against the wall.
She reaches out for Charlie, taking a moment to appreciate the view in front of her – smooth long limbs of youth, with the edifying sight of darkened eyes drinking her in in return. Charlie settles herself on her lap and Francesca meets her halfway in a kiss.
Skin pressed against skin, and the younger woman seems just as interested in exploring every inch as Francesca is. She presses her forehead to Charlie’s, wanting to see where her hands roam over soft skin, wanting to see Charlie’s reactions, what she likes best.
A soft gasp as Francesca presses a kiss to her collarbone, a bitten lip as she smooths a hand across the curve of her arse, Charlie’s face pressed into the crook of her neck as Francesca cups her breast and the vibrations of a moan as she draws her thumb across a hardened nipple. Their earlier conversation comes back to Francesca – she’s trying to keep herself quiet. She allows it for now, Charlie’s not entirely wrong about uni accommodation etiquette.
Where Francesca’s paused in her movements, Charlie’s hands begin to wander again and Francesca brings her attention back to their embrace. She runs her hands along lithe limbs and hips that still have the stretch marks of teenage growth as Charlie peppers kisses across her chest. Francesca guides her with praise, her own desire building from every pleased sound Charlie muffles against her skin.
She gives an encouraging smile as Charlie presses a tentative kiss to her nipple, and looks up at her through long eyelashes in an image Francesca savours and saves for later. Charlie takes the hardened bud between her lips, sucks and teases with her tongue, and Francesca moans out, “Just like that, good girl.”
At her words, Charlie rocks her cunt against Francesca’s thigh. She feels it, hot and wet and matching the heat in her own belly. Francesca wants more, wants the other woman closer; she nudges Charlie to lie down, the bed’s so small that Francesca has to stand again for them to change positions. She moves as smoothly as she can from leaning over to kissing Charlie where the younger woman cranes her neck up with the unbearable break in contact, and she feels the bed dip under her as she lies back down.
She nudges Charlie to roll over a little, lying at an angle, and settles her weight partially on top of Charlie, slotting their legs together. She braces herself with one hand while the other slides along Charlie’s waist and pulls them as close as she can get.
Francesca starts to move; grinding against the younger woman’s thigh as she murmurs, “Are you going to follow my lead?”
She does. Francesca feels fingertips dig into her arse, hot breath between them that doesn’t compare to the metaphorical heat that fizzles with every thrust.
And yet. Charlie pants into the space between them, choked-off moans that take effort that Francesca can feel against her. She moves her hand to Charlie’s breast, palming the flesh, rolling her nipple between her fingers in an attempt to dispose of the woman’s restraint. It very nearly works.
“Ahh, hold on, someone’ll hear!” Charlie manages to gasp out.
“And?” Francesca looks down at her, eyebrow raised and a smirk playing about her lips.
“Fran…” Her name in Charlie’s mouth is not quite as convincing as the thought of hearing the other woman moan with abandon.
“What if I want to hear you?” She pairs her trump card with movement of her hand to Charlie’s inner thigh, fingers hovering inches from where the other woman wants them, if the way she hooks her leg over Fran’s and nudges her insistently is any sign.
Francesca noses at where Charlie’s curls have come undone, trailing part across her cheek. She presses a kiss under her ear, and Charlie sighs in pleasure. Quiet, but not holding back any longer. Satisfied, Francesca brings her fingers to Charlie’s clit, stroking as the moans that mark the other woman’s satisfaction echo round the small room.
Every one is music to Francesca’s ears. She indulges herself with the memories of youth by sucking a hickey into Charlie’s neck as they move against each other. Only for so long, before the rhythm they’ve set begins to fracture, coordination and thought lost as pleasure builds and builds and… Breaks like a wave on the shore, one after the other.
Francesca stays for a little while. Curled round one another, soft kisses and reassurance. A good memory for Charlie to take forward as a talisman, she hopes. She doubts they will meet again, but that just makes this time more precious.
One more soft kiss as Charlie’s eyes flutter closed with a sleepy smile, and Francesca slides off the bed to leave. She collects her underwear from the floor, starts getting dressed again. She picks up her dress from the desk, knocking over a picture as she does. She pulls her dress back on, and then picks up the picture to put it back in place.
And freezes, picture in hand.
She recognises that man. Is intimately familiar with him, in fact. John Deed. Her erstwhile lover, in a photograph of the woman whose bed she’s just left. Clearly father and daughter.
Francesca turns round to look at Charlie as she sleeps, the hickey Francesca left visible under her duvet. She nearly laughs. What are the chances?
Or perhaps the real question is – does she have a type? Or do they?