Authors: Palladian
“What do you think?” she asked with a smile.
“You look gorgeous,” said Lex, shaking her head in disbelief that all of this had happened while she’d been talking with Casey.
“You could turn a girl's head,” Serena replied, her smile deepening as she gestured to her bed, “but I'm not quite done yet, so have a seat. I put some other things out for you to wear that I forgot earlier, by the way.”
Lex looked at the clothes on the bed. She picked up a silver metal belt with small open links that ended in a dangling ankh. She fingered the end, giving her reflection a grin, and then put it on.
Serena returned her smile in the mirror. “I also put out some stockings that I got for myself that ended up being too big. They should fit well on those muscular legs of yours, though.” She shook her head as she paused. “I can see that if I hang out with you I'm going to have to work out more, or you'll steal all the attention away!”
Lex laughed as she smoothed the stay-put black fishnet stockings over her thighs. “Thanks, but I wouldn't be too worried about that!” She held up another article of clothing she found on the bed, her fingers sliding over the fabric’s slick texture. “Should I wear these, too?”
Serena gave Lex’s reflection another look and nodded as she continued to adjust her hair. “You can if you like. I noticed that you’d scratched your hands up a bit, so I thought that if you wanted to wear those, you could. I was about to get rid of them because they're old and I've stretched them out, but I thought they might look like nice with that outfit and I was sure they'd fit your deliciously strong arms. Try them on and see what you think.”
Lex finished unfolding the clothing to find a pair of long black satin gloves. She put them on to find that they reached high onto her upper arms. Stepping behind Serena to look at the whole effect in the mirror, Lex nodded, liking it.
Serena smiled, looking at her in the mirror again. “You look hot enough to start a fire. Now sit and let's chat while I finish.”
Lex perched on the edge of the bed and looked down at her gloved hands, feeling a bit nervous. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Well, I remember something about your family from what Casey asked during your interview, but one thing you didn't mention…are you a native of this area?”
Lex shook her head, relaxing a little at the rather innocent question. “I was born on an army base while my father was still in the service, but we moved here by the time I was about two and it’s all I remember. My father had left the service by then and came here to look for work. He ended up getting some old service buddies of his to invest some money and set up a martial arts studio. I guess they got paid back eventually, since he ended up opening a string of them in the area. You may have heard some of his advertisements on the radio.”
Serena shrugged and shook her head as she adjusted her makeup in the mirror. “I don't usually listen to that thing.”
Lex sighed and felt her shoulders relax. “Thank goodness. Sometimes when people hear my last name they start chanting the damn jingles at me.”
“So,” Serena said, looking at Lex in the mirror again, her curiosity evident, “it doesn't sound like you were destitute as a kid. Did something happen later?”
“Well, I guess you could say that,” said Lex, swallowing as she felt the familiar tension in her guts yet mentally vowing to tell the truth nonetheless. “My father and I…disagreed when I turned 16. I wanted to get a job to make my own money, but that meant I’d have to stop training with him, or cut way back. Our disagreement finally came to the point that he told me to leave home or he’d kill me. So, I left and it took years until I could build the sort of foundation for myself that a lot of people take for granted.”
“What a flaming asshole,” said Serena. “I hope you never let him off the hook for that.”
Lex looked up from where she’d been clenching her hands together in her lap, surprised at Serena’s words, to see the woman shaking her head in the reflection as she brushed a big, open makeup brush over her whole face, wafting the scent of powder in Lex’s direction. She met Lex's eyes in the mirror and continued.
“I'm sorry to have asked about that; I didn’t know the answer was so terrible. I'm not a prying bitch all the time, but I haven't had a chance to talk to you yet, and Casey is pretty tight-lipped when it comes to talking about other people. I bet she hasn't told you too much about anyone else, has she?”
Lex shrugged uncomfortably, not wanting to say anything too negative about her friend. “Well, she told me that it's tradition to let people here talk about themselves, or to ask.”
Serena laughed, then turned a critical eye to her hairdo, eventually causing her to tumble her hair down and brush it out. “I guess that means she hasn't told you much about anyone; I figured as much. So, I should probably fill you in on myself, then.”
Lex smiled at Serena in the mirror, watching her braid some tiny plaits into her hair as she wove it into another complicated style. “You don't have to, but I'd like it if you did.”
“OK, then, first off, I'm going to have to warn you that I come from a rich family. Oh, don't give me that look! I'm not like your ex.”
Lex laughed, continuing to meet Serena's eyes in the mirror. “
That look
, as you put it, is more surprise than anything. You don't seem like it, from what I've seen, and I do mean that in a good way.”
“Oh, I understand, unfortunately. I had my whole childhood to learn that it seems like some people look at everything in life one way—how it can be of value to them. I just never fit into that, I guess. I always spoke my mind, wanted to dress and act how I felt like, and be with people who interested me. I wanted to be free to be who I was. There was no percentage in that to either one of my parents. My mother just wanted a little, well-behaved doll to dress up in fancy clothes and take to tea parties, which didn’t work out since I was sort of a tomboy. My father just wanted an heir to the family business. I didn't fit in to either of those things. I think they were so disappointed after they had me, they decided to give up the whole business of reproduction.”
Lex bit her lip in sympathy but watched entranced while Serena carefully worked with her hair as if it were in some other universe than the words she was saying, at least until Lex noticed how tightly her friend was holding her hairbrush. “Well, it all really started going to hell around the time I was ten and my teacher caught me in the school coatroom sucking off one of the boys in my class.”
Lex caught herself before she gasped, but her eyes flew wide open for a second, which Serena saw in the mirror. She gave a little laugh and smiled a small, rueful smile as she continued. “Well, I got switched out of that school right away!”
“You know, it's perfectly normal for kids to do things like that. Just because your parents overreacted—” Lex began, tentatively, not sure how to help to take that sad look from Serena’s eye.
Serena sighed, interrupting Lex. “I know, I know. Most of the shrinks they took me to said stuff like that, but it didn't make any difference to my parents.”
Lex met Serena’s gaze in the mirror, her expression serious. “I'm sorry. That didn't make what they said wrong, though; you were just acting like lots of other kids.”
Serena's eyes dropped for a moment, and looked brighter once she looked back up at Lex, blinking quickly. “I guess, if you say so. Anyway, I had a cousin who made a big impression on me. She was a few years older and very wild. After she heard about my adventure in the coatroom, she sat me down to have a safe sex talk with me and to give me pointers. Boy, did she have some advice!
“Anyway, for the next few years, my parents bounced me from school to school as they heard about my antics. They sent me to a whole bunch of shrinks, some good and some horrible, but it finally ended up with them locking me into a crazy house when I was in my teens to try to treat my 'sexual addiction' issue, as they put it.” Feeling her eyes widen again, Lex put a hand over her mouth, which she’d opened in disbelief. Serena scowled and shook her head before continuing.
“I hated it, but the place was on lockdown, so I couldn’t leave at first. Fortunately, after a month or so there, I learned how to use my special skill, so I just showed up at home one day and asked my mom, 'What's for dinner?' She almost had a heart attack she was so scared!”
Lex caught Serena's eye in the mirror, intensely curious now. “What is your special skill? That was another thing Casey told me to ask you about.”
Serena smiled widely, gave a few final touches to her hair, and stood up. “Get ready,” she said, and then she vanished.
Lex blinked, shaking her head quickly, then began looking for Serena.
“I'm over here,” she heard the other woman's voice from the far corner of the room behind her.
Lex turned to see Serena walking in her direction, away from the projection of the seascape. “What—” Lex began, not even sure what question to ask.
Serena grinned freely and laughed, coming back to sit in front of the mirror again. “I'm not exactly sure how all of that works, really. The only thing I know came from a scientist they brought here to study me. He finally ended up talking a lot about some Uncertainty Principle and the movement of electrons around atoms; he seemed to think it worked something like that. All I know is that I finally figured out at that crappy hospital that if I could think hard of someplace I'd rather be, I could just go there.”
“So, you can travel anywhere?” Lex asked breathlessly, finding herself grinning as well.
“Well, there are some limitations,” Serena replied. “I have to have gone to the place before, but if I've ever been there and remember it, I can go back. If I can see where I'm going, though, I don't have to have been there before. It takes more energy the farther I go, too. For example, to go to the back of the room like I did is hardly anything, but if I go to my parents' place in New York, I feel a bit tired once I get there, I guess because it's farther away.”
“But you can really just go wherever you want, pretty much, whenever you want to? That's amazing!” Momentarily overcome, Lex got lost thinking about what she could do with an ability like that.
Serena smiled at her in the mirror and then turned around to face her. “Thanks. It's probably less cool than it seems, but I like to be able to do it because it keeps me free. If I'm somewhere I don't like, I don't have to stay. If I want to be somewhere else, I can just go.”
“Can you take anyone else with you?”
“Sure,” said Serena, grabbing Lex's hand with a firm grip and pulling her off the bed.
The next moment, Lex was looking at the room from a different perspective. After taking a moment to readjust, she realized she and Serena stood in the corner of the room where Serena had appeared a few minutes previously. She shook her head and just looked at her friend for a moment, wonderingly. Serena smirked in return.
“It's less amazing when you're used to it, I guess. What do you think?”
Lex shook her head again. “It didn't seem like anything. I was just suddenly somewhere else.”
Serena smiled again. “From my perspective, it's about as interesting as walking somewhere, because I'm so used to it. Anyway, are you about ready to go? I'm starting to get hungry.”
“Yes. I'm ready to eat, too,” Lex agreed, hoping her stomach didn’t start growling in protest at the wait.
“I forgot to ask: how's Casey coming along?”
“She's probably watching TV, waiting for us. I made a few suggestions about what she might want to wear.”
Serena grimaced in response. “Thanks. She was probably just going to wear whatever she had on, right?”
“Uh, well…” Lex trailed off, squirming a little and looking at the floor.
Serena grinned and grabbed Lex's arm. “Figured! All right, let's get Casey and get going. We're going to go to one of my favorite places to eat first, my treat. Then, we're going to go out and be seen.”
Lex nodded in agreement, taking one final glance at herself in the mirror, as if looking at a stranger, before they went out the door.
Serena and Casey remained mostly silent during the cab ride to the restaurant, with Lex's occasional forays into conversation going nowhere as they virtually glared at each other. She sighed to herself as they all got out and went into an unassuming one-story brick building, thinking about how she should break the deadlock.
Lex blanched as they entered, since the older man who greeted them actually wore a tuxedo. The last time she’d eaten at a place like this she’d gone out to dinner with Kurt in that ridiculous pink dress, which had probably been more appropriate clothing for a restaurant like this than what she was currently wearing. The man showed them right in to the main room, however, not taking note of what they wore. Lex looked nervously at the cream-colored tablecloths, the intricate silver settings on the tables, and the wall coverings, which appeared to be made of silk.
Serena and the man who led them spoke as if they knew each other well. He asked after Serena’s health and her work, and showed them to a table that had a commanding view of the room but felt private since it had been situated in an alcove shaded by potted trees. Some of the other diners dressed more in keeping with the black tie motif looked put out, but he ignored them steadfastly. Casey and Serena ordered drinks immediately and Lex got a soda.
She found herself waiting patiently through the silence and glares until they had all ordered dinner. Finally, with her two companions looking in opposite directions, she struck.
“OK,” Lex said, knowing her annoyance was showing in her voice, “it's time to talk about this! What’s going on between the two of you?”
Casey and Serena stared angrily at each other across the table for a moment, both of them looking as if they almost wanted to attack the other. Finally, Serena looked away.
“Ask her,” Serena said, her tone harsh.
“Casey, what’s the problem?” Lex asked, her hands open on the table in front of her.
“She asked me out!” Casey replied, glaring at Serena.
Lex considered this for a moment. “Serena asked you out, Casey? Is that it?”