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Maggie genuflects quickly, crosses herself, and stands up -- right into a tiny blonde girl. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she says, flustered.
"No worries," says the blonde, moving back out of Maggie's way. She squints then, adjusting one of the many sparkly ornaments in her hair. "Hey, you look familiar."
Maggie sighs. "Magdalene Grace Garcia," she says, and adds, "Yes, that Garcia," before the girl can ask the question that always comes next.
She blinks at her. "...Jerry Garcia?"
Surprised, Maggie laughs. "Garcia Pharmaceuticals."
"Oh, them." She doesn't sound impressed, which makes Maggie like her immediately. "But you were one of the guest bloggers on The Cloud By Night, weren't you?"
"Yeah, I was! You were too, right?"
"Buffy Meissonier," she says with a little wave.
"Oh my god, of By the Sounding Sea? I love your work!" Maggie blurts out, then claps both hands over her mouth. Way to sound like a fanpoodle, Magdalene, she scolds herself.
Buffy giggles. "Thanks!" she says. "I love yours, too. I always wanted to ask you, were the parallels to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in In It for the Chase intentional or accidental?"
"I'll tell you all about it if you'll come hang out at my house for a while," Maggie says. She doesn't like talking about porn in church.
"Done!" Buffy skips ahead of her to the holy water font -- no mean feat in her high-heeled sandals -- where the motion sensor dispenses a small splash of sterilized and blessed water onto her fingers.
Maggie follows a few steps behind. She has a feeling she's really going to like Buffy.
***
...Charity pressed Lissy to the wall, laughing, their faces so close that Lissy could almost taste the waxy flavor of her lipstick. "So you think you're hot shit, huh, Blondie?"
"I..." Lissy couldn't think of a comeback when she could feel Charity's thigh pressing between both of hers, Charity's hands on her shoulders, Charity's breath on her neck. "I think you're hot shit."
"Damn right," Charity said, and that must have been the right thing to say, because she crushed their mouths together in a searing kiss...
--From Part 17 of In It for the Chase,
originally published in Dandelion Mine,
the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, November 3, 2039
When Maggie shows Buffy into her van, Buffy's eyes light up. "This security system is amazing!" she cries, caressing the array of lights in a way that nearly makes Maggie blush. "How did you get your hands on this? I've never seen anything like it!"
Maggie blinks at her. "That's... not what I thought you'd say," she says. "And I got it from my parents."
"Can I play with it?" Buffy asks, eyes shining.
"Sure," Maggie says, "once we're in my garage. There are -- you know." She waves her hand around expressively. "Sensors."
"Awesome," Buffy says. "So I get to see the home of Magdalene Grace Garcia-yes-those-Garcias?" Her smile is wicked, and Maggie realizes that she wants to kiss her very badly indeed.
"Unless I decide to throw you out on the side of the road," Maggie says. Buffy's laugh is delicious.
Buffy doesn't complain about Maggie's driving, and her reaction to the pack of teacup bulldogs is to fling herself down on the floor and squeal, "Oh, the darlings!" Maggie is nearly ready to propose even before Buffy reveals that, yes, her name is from the pre-Rising television series.
"So of course you saw how I was trying to echo the arc of season 3!" Maggie says, overjoyed. "I keep trying to convince a few of our fellow Fictionals to educate themselves and watch the whole thing, but they don't think they have the time."
Buffy sips her tea and scratches Kitty under the chin. "Maybe if you did a watchalong, a few episodes at a time," she suggests. "Sort of ease them into it, and before they know it..."
"Oh, and I could loop the same episode two or three times at a go, so people could drop in and out if they needed to!" Maggie sugars her tea and stirs it. "Would you come?"
"How could I miss it?"
***
They decide to watch Wait Until Dark together, because Buffy doesn't want to go home, and Maggie doesn't want her to either. As the plot thickens, Buffy edges closer and closer to Maggie's side of the couch. Maggie casually moves the bulldogs between them to the floor.
At the startle moment -- one of the finest in pre-Rising cinema, they agree -- they both shriek and jump, and somehow Buffy ends up in Maggie's lap. Maggie loops her arms around Buffy for the rest of the movie.
When the credits roll, Buffy shifts in Maggie's lap to face her. "Hi," she says.
"Hi," Maggie says. She tightens her hands almost reflexively on Buffy's waist. Buffy seems to take that as permission: she leans in and kisses Maggie, slow and thorough, while Maggie clenches her fingers in the glittery fabric of her top.
She pulls back after a bit. "Good?" she asks, wiping her red, red mouth with the back of her hand.
"Really good," Maggie says. She reaches up to tuck a strand of Buffy's blonde hair back behind her ear.
"I don't have sex on the first date," Buffy says. She kisses Maggie again, quickly.
"Was this a date?" Maggie asks, head spinning.
"Better be, or else I can't fuck you the next time I see you," Buffy says cheerfully. Some of Maggie's confusion must show on her face, because she adds, "I want to."
"Good," Maggie says. "I want to too."
***
Buffy sleeps over that night. Maggie loans her an oversized shirt to sleep in and points her to one of the spare bedrooms, saying, "The door latches, in case you don't want company."
"I told you, not on the --"
"I meant the dogs," Maggie interrupts.
"Oh!" Buffy laughs, and Maggie laughs with her.
"I'll, uh, I'll leave you alone," Maggie says, when the silence stretches out almost long enough to be awkward.
"Kiss me goodnight?" Buffy asks.
Maggie grins. "If you insist." She thinks she does a good job of it, too.
Later, when Maggie is coming back from brushing her teeth and washing her face, she sees that Buffy has left the door open. She on her knees by the bed, with a bulldog -- probably Butch -- between her feet. As Maggie watches, she crosses herself and tucks a rosary back inside the shirt she borrowed, from the Garcia Pharmaceuticals half-marathon 3 years ago.
Maggie hurries back to her own room. Santa Maria, she prays silently, you loved God beyond all reason. Have mercy on me, a sinner, and don't let this beautiful girl break my heart.
***
Maggie wakes up being jumped on, which is normal for her, except that instead of a flock of teacup bulldogs, it's a flock of teacup bulldogs... and Buffy. That's less normal.
"Good morning," she says, hoping her hair is still in its braid and not doing a Bride-of-Frankenstein impression. "Did you sleep well?"
Buffy yawns. "I didn't really sleep much," she says. "Mostly, I stayed up and talked to your house."
"Oh." Maggie feels like she should have expected that. "Well, then, I hope your conversation was... educational?" she tries.
"Definitely!" Buffy smiles radiantly. "I picked up all kinds of ideas from it."
"Awesome," Maggie says. She doesn't really care about the technology her house uses, beyond "it works, so I can keep living here," but anything that makes Buffy smile like that is worth the price.
"I was wondering," Buffy says. She shifts her weight a little on Maggie's legs. "How do you feel about breakfast dates?"
Maggie can feel a grin blooming on her face. "That depends," she says. "Does it count if I cook in my pajamas?"
"Hmm," Buffy says, tapping her chin with one finger. "I think it does."
"How do you feel about waffles?" Maggie asks, swinging her legs out from under Buffy.
"Love them!"
By some miracle, they manage to eat two waffles each before jumping each other. Maggie is licking the last of the maple syrup (from Vermont, of course, even though she vaguely remembers Canadian being better) off her fork when Buffy leans over and says, "Do you know what they say about Catholic girls?"
She knows a lot of things people say about Catholic girls, and some of them are even true. "What do they say?"
Buffy grins. "That we're good on our knees."
Maggie knows a promise when she hears one. She barely has time to scoot to the edge of her chair before Buffy is kneeling under the table and pulling off her underpants. "Oh my goodness," she says.
Buffy leans in and licks into her, making her shudder, then pulls back. "You can pull my hair if you want," she says conversationally. "I like it." Then she gets back down to business.
This time, Maggie blurts out, "Madre de Dios!" Buffy gives head like she loves it, and when Maggie tentatively tugs a handful of her cornsilk hair, she moans. Maggie almost bites through her own lip when she comes.
Once she can move again, Maggie helps Buffy to her feet, then gets up the nerve to say, "I want you on the table."
"Really?" Buffy looks delighted.
"Why not? I have cleaning bots," Maggie says, feeling deliciously wicked.
Buffy boosts herself onto the table, and Maggie rucks up her borrowed shirt. There's nothing but Buffy underneath.
"If I were Georgia O'Keeffe, I'd paint you," Maggie says, drawing one finger alongside Buffy's petals.
She shivers. "Fictionals have the best dirty talk," she says.
Maggie laughs, and licks the path her finger took. It keeps her from saying something stupid, and -- even better -- Buffy likes it. She's not exactly experienced with girls, but she knows what she likes, which she figures is a good start.
Buffy makes some wonderful noises, and the way she flexes and shudders under Maggie's mouth and hands is... amazing. She pushes Maggie's head around with tiny, gentle movements until she gets it right, which doesn't take too long, because Maggie really wants to get it right.
"Oh God, Oh, God," Buffy cries, bucking her hips up against Maggie's face and clenching around her questing finger.
"Was that okay?" Maggie asks.
"Are you kidding?" Buffy retorts. She's breathing hard, her stomach fluttering up and down. Maggie rests one hand on it, gently.
"I've never eaten a girl out before," Maggie says. "I can learn."
Buffy sits up and kisses Maggie hard. "That was really good," she says, like a children's blog host -- no, no, Magdalene, derail that train of thought! -- then adds, "That better not have been beginner's luck."
***
...3. Watch a movie together at home and snuggle, or do more than just snuggle...
--From Five Great Dates to Take a Fictional on,
originally posted in By the Sounding Sea,
the blog of Buffy Meissonier, December 12, 2039
It wasn't beginner's luck. On this topic, both Maggie and Buffy are as thorough in their investigation as any Newsie. They try it all different ways: secretly, under a blanket, during a grindhouse party; spread out on Maggie's bed, where they can make as much noise as they want; curled up on Buffy's bed in her tiny apartment where the neighbors bang on the walls and catcall.
Every time, Maggie thinks it can't get better, she can't fall more in love, something has to go wrong -- and every time, it does get better, and she does fall harder.
She takes Buffy out to Bronson's for her birthday -- indoor seating, because she's not suicidal. They sit at a nice table, close enough to the huge window to see the view, but not so close that people with guns won't beat them there if anything happens.
"There's an online job fair next week," Buffy says, twirling the straw in her virgin daiquiri. "Are you going?"
Maggie shrugs. "I might, if I remember," she says.
Buffy smiles at her. "You don't mind being a beta?"
"Nah," Maggie says. "Why, do you?"
"I mean, I don't hate it," Buffy says. "I just have bigger dreams, you know?"
Maggie doesn't know, not really. All she's ever wanted, she has, pretty much. "Of course," she says, and takes a sip of her iced tea. "Tell me about them."
She does, over seitan stir-fry and chocolate cake and espresso. Buffy is so full of dreams that Maggie imagines her floating away, buoyed up on them like so many balloons. They range from becoming the alpha Fictional on a real site to making money off the computer... things... she makes (Maggie was a little distracted by her mouth during that part) to maybe getting a job with the government someday.
By this time, their coffee is down to the dregs, and the restaurant is empty. The maître d' isn't coughing at them, but he is starting to look a little impatient. "Let's go clubbing," Maggie says impulsively.
"You want to go clubbing," Buffy says. "Seriously?"
"I go clubbing sometimes," Maggie says. It's technically true.
"Not since I met you," Buffy points out, which is also true.
"No, but you like it," Maggie says.
Buffy glances around. "Well, it'll keep the maître d' from murdering us," she says reflectively.
"Don't be silly," Maggie says, scrawling her signature on the check, which has been waiting for... some time. "He's much too polite for murder. He'd sell us to an experimentation facility and allow us to be killed there."
"Completely different," Buffy says, hiding a smile.
***
Maggie strips off her sweater and camisole, leaving her in a lacy black bra and long black skirt -- not as fashionable as Buffy's glittery tunic dress, but daring enough to get by.
"Let me do your makeup," Buffy says, when they're parked by one of her usual clubs.
"Okay," Maggie says. She doesn't usually wear any, but that's more because she doesn't go anywhere people would see it very often than out of any real feeling against it.
"Really?" Buffy claps her hands in glee. "Awesome!" She takes a little kit out of her purse and starts to flip through it. "Close your eyes, okay?"
Maggie does. She feels a feathery touch on her eyelids, and tries not to blink, then a light tug on her eyelashes.
"Open," Buffy says, and Maggie feels the disquieting sensation of someone looking at her eyes, rather than into them. "Good. Can I do your lipstick?"
"Whatever you want," Maggie says earnestly.
Buffy smiles and pulls out what looks like a felt-tip marker. She cups Maggie's face in one hand and draws on her lips, carefully. It tickles, but Maggie forces herself to stay still.
"There," Buffy says. She turns the kit around to show Maggie the mirror.
She almost gasps at her reflection, which is too trite for words. The smoky eye makeup and wine-red lipstick (lip... marker? She's not sure) make her look mysterious and dramatic, like a heroine from one of her own stories. "Wow," she says.
Buffy nods and puts away the makeup kit. "I like it," she says.
***
Inside, the music pounds and thumps like Maggie's rabbity heart. She watches Buffy dance off into the crowd, spinning and sparkling like a toy, and leans against the wall. Being around this many people makes her nervous, even knowing how many layers of security they went through, even seeing all the guards with their guns stationed around the room.
Buffy loves it, though, so Maggie is here. She orders a vodka Red Bull from the bar, thinking she could use both the alcohol and the caffeine, and drains it. Maybe she'll enjoy herself more this way.
It feels like the vodka goes in a path of warmth and looseness directly from between her lips to between her legs. She desperately wants to have sex, or, a close second, go back to the van where she can write porn and touch herself. Would Buffy even miss her?
"Hey," Buffy says, pressing herself to Maggie's side out of nowhere. "You're not dancing."
"No," Maggie says, placing one hand on Buffy's hip.
"Want to make out instead?"
"Yes," Maggie says. She lets Buffy drag her into a little hallway off the dance floor, past one of the security guards, who just winks at them. Buffy backs up against the wall and pulls Maggie in.
Maggie kisses her desperately, like all of the clichés she can think of: like she's drowning and Buffy is air, like she's surrounded by the infected and Buffy is a rope towing her to safety, like she's losing her mind and Buffy is her only link to sanity.
"Hang on," she says, and hoists Buffy up against the wall, pressing one knee into the wall with her body weight so Buffy can straddle her thigh. It wouldn't work if Buffy weighed more than dandelion fluff, but Maggie manages it.
"Oh, wow," Buffy says. She winds her legs around Maggie's and kisses her hard, grinding herself down.
"I want you to get off like this," Maggie whispers in Buffy's ear. "Right here, with the guard ten feet away and all those people so close. Just you and me."
Buffy groans, and Maggie can feel how wet she is through her skirt. "Yeah," she says. "Keep talking to me like that."
Later, Maggie isn't even sure what she said, just that if she put it into her fiction, she'd probably have to label it NC-17. All she knows is that Buffy sinks her teeth into Maggie's neck when she comes, and everything glitters like her dress.
***
Text message conversation: Buffy Meissonier, Magdalene Grace Garcia
I got the job!
What job?
omg I didn't tell you? you know the Masons?
Everyone knows the Masons, first family of blogging
well, now I KNOW the Masons! I'm going to be their fictional! the younger Masons, I mean, Georgia & Shaun
Are they trying to go alpha?
not just that -- they're applying to follow the Ryman campaign!
Holy shit! We have to celebrate!
I've got a bottle of wine with our names on it
No, I mean REALLY celebrate. I'll pick you up in an hour!
***
"Oh. My. God." Buffy is trying to look cool, but her eyes are as wide as the sky. "This is... oh my god."
"I know, right?" Maggie preens. "Come on, I'll take you to my room."
The staff is polite and deferential, as always. Only one person stops them on their way across the lobby, a man who murmurs, "You and your guest should find every comfort in your usual suite, Miss Garcia."
"Every comfort, eh?" Buffy says in a low voice, nudging maggie. "What, will they have champagne and strawberries to have in the hot tub?"
"Veuve Cliquot, chocolate-covered, and big enough to seat eight," Maggie says, glancing at her out of the corner of her eye as they get into the elevator. "Ten, if you're really friendly."
"Now that sounds like a party," Buffy says.
"It was." Maggie laughs. "Back in my misspent youth."
"What, like you've settled down now?" Buffy pokes her. "Old Grandma Garcia, that's you."
There are a thousand things on the tip of Maggie's tongue, like angels on the head of a pin: I'd settle down with you, or Who are you calling Grandma, or Will I live to be a grandmother, or Maybe my parents will figure out how two girls can make a baby, or just Let's make out -- and the elevator dings before she can say any of them. That's probably a good thing.
Buffy's jaw drops when Maggie opens the door to her suite. "All of this, just for us?"
Maggie hugs her, swinging her clear off her feet, and whirls them around. "All for us!"
"I could get lost in here!" On her feet again, Buffy makes a beeline for the bedroom. "There are clothes in my size!"
"Biometrics," Maggie says, following her. "They did say 'every comfort,' and I hear some people are more comfortable dressed."
"And the drawers are stocked, too!" She pulls out a hot pink, glittery dildo (which means that Maggie wins the private bet she made with herself: there was, of course, a selection). "Just how many dimensions did your hotel measure me in, Miss Pharmaceutical Heiress?"
Maggie laughs. "That one stretches," she points out.
"Care to test that?" Buffy bats her eyelashes.
"Check the drawer on the other side," Maggie says. She turns her back and pulls her sweater off over her head, since this room is kept warm enough that clothes just get in the way.
When she turns back around, Buffy has the harness dangling from one hand and a delighted expression on her face. "Let me guess," she says. "It's perfectly broken-in, even if you've put on a little padding since you were here last."
"You like my padding," Maggie says, patting her hips.
"I do," Buffy says. "You're still wearing too many layers."
"So are you," Maggie says, stepping out of her flowy skirt.
"Good point." Buffy puts down Maggie's harness to strip, but once she's naked, she picks it up again and comes over to stand behind her. "How does this work?" she asks.
"Oh, like any other," Maggie says. She's more interested in the feel of Buffy's hands and the supple leather on her skin than in things like mechanics.
"No, I mean --" Buffy buckles the waist strap. "Do you want me to call it your cock?"
"Oh," Maggie says. She's only used it on boyfriends before, and they scared easily. "Um. Would you like that?"
Buffy shrugs, coming around in front of her to do the thigh straps. "It's you fucking me, whether it's your dick or a dildo, right?"
That makes Maggie smile. "Yeah," she says.
"Do you want to see me suck it?" Buffy offers. She drops gracefully to one knee and looks up at Maggie.
"Um," Maggie says. She does like the sight of her on her knees. "...Sure?"
So Buffy does, hollowing her cheeks and sucking the glittery length into her mouth. It doesn't feel like much, except when it bumps against the roof of Buffy's mouth and nudges Maggie's clit, but watching is... wow.
Finally, Maggie's legs start to shake, and she says, "Buffy," kind of desperately.
Buffy grins, letting the dildo slide out of her mouth, and clambers up onto the bed. Her legs fall open, and Maggie feels suddenly greedy -- she pushes between Buffy's legs and licks her way inside. She could live on the noises Buffy makes, like breath, she thinks.
"Maggie, fuck, Maggie," Buffy says, half on a groan, and Maggie lifts her face up.
"Are you ready?" she asks.
"Please," Buffy says, so Maggie lines up -- her dick? Would she like that? She's never thought about it -- and thrusts in, bracing herself over Buffy. That makes Buffy's face look, ay Dios, like she's been transported.
"You like that?" Maggie asks, her voice sounding rough and strange to her own ears.
"Yeah," Buffy says, arching her back into it. "Come on, please, more --"
It's different, like this -- Buffy facing her, rather than her boyfriends bent over away from her -- and Maggie wonders what the difference is. Her motions are the same, if not the angles, but her Fictional brain won't shut off. Social conditioning, the orifice, or...
Buffy wraps her legs around Maggie's waist, and Maggie shifts a little, going deeper. "Yeah," Buffy says, and "Please," and something in French that Maggie hopes is complimentary.
Maggie kisses Buffy's collarbone. She's never been in love -- or is it that she's never been in love before? How would she know? She rolls her hips, wringing a moan from Buffy, and wonders. It's not like she's never written about love, but any fool knows that "write what you know" is garbage. Hell, she's also written about the bite of the infected, and Mother Mary knows she's never felt that.
"Stop thinking so hard," Buffy says, and kisses her, and Maggie decides that's all the answer she needs.
***
Later, in the hot tub, they feed each other strawberries in between kisses and sips of champagne, and Buffy says, "I have to get a class A license."
"Really?" Maggie tries to imagine Buffy casually holding a gun on someone, even one of the infected, but it's hard. The reality, neck-deep in bubbles, keeps intruding.
Buffy shrugs. "I have to, if I'm going to try to follow a campaign trail. Georgia and Shaun said they'd help me."
"That's nice of them. Are you excited?" Maggie pops another berry into her mouth.
"About being an alpha someday, of course. Following the campaign, maybe even more, I think. The guns..." She shrugs again. "I mean, if I have to."
"Well, then, may you get what you want and never have to fire a gun," Maggie says generously.
"Would you..." Buffy takes another sip of champagne. "If I do end up an alpha, would you want to work for me?"
"You know all I can do with my computer is download, upload, talk, and write," Maggie jokes. "I'd be awful in an IT department."
Buffy kicks her underwater. "I'd be running the Fictionals, too, silly. As if I'd let you touch my babies!"
Maggie splashes her. "I'd love to work for you," she says. "If you're a terrible boss, I'll just quit."
"I'd be a great boss," Buffy informs her. "Just you wait."
"Will you whip me into shape?" Maggie asks, wiggling her eyebrows.
"You could use it," Buffy says. "How long have you been promising me the next part of In It for the Chase?"
"Maybe you'll have to bribe me."
"Maybe I will." Buffy moves into Maggie's lap, and for a while, Maggie stops thinking at all.
***
...the grace of keeping our faith,
sweet hope in the midst of the bitterness of life...
--From a prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe,
patroness of those who have lost loved ones to Kellis-Amberlee