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7.21am
Lix wakes to the sight of a grey sky outside her office window, and an empty vodka bottle on the desk. She frowns at it. If she had drunk it all herself, she certainly would not remember, and she is sure she remembers drinking at least some of it. A further look around explains a little: two glasses sit on the desk alongside the bottle and an unidentified pile of tan-coloured fabric (a stocking, perhaps?), which suggest the warm weight resting against her back must be a person. She is also now entirely sure she is naked, which places another piece of the puzzle.
The arm over her waist twitches, tenses, and withdraws, and she feels the weight at her back shift. "Lix?" says a voice she recognises.
Yes, now she remembers.
9.09pm
As Lix washes her hands, Bel is methodically putting on lipstick: red across her lower lip, pressing her lips together, red again, more delicately, tracing along her upper lip. She uses the tip of her middle finger to carefully remove a smudge from her cupid's bow. It makes Lix smile, and she says, "Going out tonight?"
Bel shoots her a wry smile. "Having more doubts about it by the minute, believe me."
"Well, I may not know why you're having doubts, but I do know one as young and lovely as you are should never miss the opportunity for a party. Carpe diem, as they say!"
"Oh? What's your excuse?"
"I am neither young nor lovely," Lix laughs, "and I had plenty of days to seize while I still was."
Lowering her gaze, Bel takes her time sliding the lipstick tube into her handbag and closing the clasp. She looks up after a moment with a serious expression. "I don't think you're nearly as much past it all as you try to make out that you are. And I," she adds, "have a bottle of vodka in my desk drawer and a date with some outrageously unprofessional behaviour. If you'd care to join me."
7.24am
Sighing, Lix rolls over. "Good morning," she says to Bel's mournful, pillow-creased profile.
"My head feels like I trapped it in a vise," groans Bel. "I'm not sure 'good' is really the word for it." A moment's pause, then she says, "Did we... that is, what exactly -"
"Darling, we have just woken up naked in bed together. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions."
"Right." She visibly draws in a deep breath, then pulls the blanket up to her chin, fingers clenched on the hem. "Right."
11.21pm
They are absurdly drunk.
Lix thinks fleetingly that she is going to need to replenish her whiskey reserves tomorrow. Then Bel stumbles into her, leaving her pressed against the edge of the desk. It would be an uncomfortable position, except the drunkenness is pleasantly numbing, and Bel is warm and close and looking up at her with glinting eyes.
"I think you knocked over the bottle," Lix murmurs, and Bel giggles.
"Have I ever told you, Miz Storm," says the younger woman, laughter bubbling through her words, "that you are a very handsome woman?"
Putting her hands on Bel's shoulders to push her away, Lix finds them taking hold of her lapels, lingering instead. "You have never told me that," she says very seriously.
"Well." Bel is very close. Lix feels her hot breath, then her lips touching Lix's: first gently brushing, hesitating, then pressing hard without finesse, a fervent slide of mouth and tongue and teeth. Bel's arms wind around Lix's waist. In kissing as in everything else, it seems, Bel is fiercely goal-oriented.
Lix breaks away, breathless. "This is a very bad idea." Her traitorous honest hand is cupping Bel's jaw, smearing a thumb through the wreck of her lipstick.
"Yes, it's a terrible idea." Bel kisses her again. "Reckless" - kiss - "stupid" - kiss - "and absolutely unprofessional. Is that all right with you?" She draws back, beautiful gleaming eyes searching Lix's face.
"Yes, of course," Lix breathes, and all at once her mouth is again on Bel's and Bel's hands are untucking her blouse and fumbling with the buttons and just for now absolutely nothing matters.
7.26am
Lix smiles a little and says, "You're doing better than I did the first time I did this. Much more composed, not that I would have expected any less."
A hesitant chuckle followed by a meditative pause. "Then this isn't the first time you've -"
"Oh, heavens, no."
"But you've also - with men?"
"Yes, of course."
"Right." The rhythm of Bel's breathing is not quite natural yet, but no longer sounds on the verge of panic. "It was the first time. With a woman. For me."
"I know," Lix tells her. "It's all right, it's really not that unusual. And you don't have to make a habit of it if you don't want to. Although -" she hesitates, then decides Bel isn't easily frightened and plows on - "I wouldn't complain if you did want to - you were lovely."
Bel laughs more freely this time, and turns over to face Lix. "Thank you for the compliment. And the offer. I won't take you up on it, but only because I would rather not make a habit of sleeping with members of my team."
Even though she wants to, Lix doesn't voice the observation that Bel's certainly making progress on sleeping with all the members of the team except for the one she's actually in love with.
"Anyway," Bel goes on, "I need a change of clothes, and if I leave now I might be able to get home and back before nine, because goodness knows what our Mr Brown might do in my absence this time if I'm late." Then, to Lix's surprise, she leans in and presses her lips to hers, not insistently but surely and comfortably. For a strange moment, it almost feels routine, the companionable kiss of a lover of years. She draws back and Lix looks into startling eyes and damns herself for a romantic. "You were lovely, too," Bel whispers, and is gone.
12.02am
Lix trails her fingers over Bel's shoulder. The younger woman is curled up against her side, head resting just below her collarbone. In the darkness of the room, their slowing breathing is the loudest sound.
Bel says drowsily, "Lix?"
"Yes, darling?"
"Am I going to regret this in the morning?"
She sighs, presses a kiss to the top of Bel's head. "I hope not," she tells her.
There is no response, but Lix feels a warm hand come to rest against her lower ribs.
10.05am
When Lix gets back to her office, Randall is standing by the desk. He is looking down at something tan-coloured in his hands. Hearing her come in, he holds it out to her, eyebrows raised.
It's a stocking.
Lix clears her throat. "That's mine," she says mildly. Randall looks down at her trouser-clad legs pointedly; she sighs and says slightly less mildly, "It's none of your business." Sweeping past him, she grabs it from his hand and tells him, "If you don't mind, I have work to do, and your presence in my office is keeping me from it."
When he's gone, she smooths the material of the stocking between her fingers for a moment, then pulls open the bottom drawer of her desk. With a small smile, she slips it into the drawer next to the full bottle of whiskey.