Episode 135: Dancing Queen (Mim)

Mim was in trouble. Her body was moving with Liam’s on the dance floor in a way that was polite but made her buzz with excitement.

Not buzz like the people here, the fairy folk, but buzz inside with excitement about what might come next. See, Liam had asked for one bedroom for them. The one bedroom had one bed. They’d shared a tent together but this was their room, in a place they were planning on staying and where her dad would see her soon, and where they were dating.

She was also in trouble because her dad was still missing, except their talking cat had promised he was fine, and all she could think about was Liam and the way his deep chocolate eyes shined in firelight and the way his body moved across the dance floor.

Mim wasn’t sure how much of the past few days was a dream, but she knew if it was a dream she was going to enjoy it. She was Liam’s girlfriend.

Liam pulled her in from a spin and held her almost too close to him. “Bed? People who are dating sometimes do that. It would make it seem more real.”

There was not much more that would make it feel or look or seem much more real to her, but maybe she was too caught up in her own feelings.

She smiled. “Bed.”

She took his hand, because that’s what two people who were dating would do, and she started to walk from the dance floor toward the big building they called the main palace. The whole thing was a palace, like someone had made a giant building and decided it was too big and so they made smaller building on top of it. Maybe it was about the windows.

Mim had a lot to learn, but as long as Liam was holding her hand she didn’t feel so shaky and scared about everything that was changing around them. It was still a shock though, and some sleep would feel nice.

The first few paces were in silence, with the sound of animals in the grass and shrubs that were everywhere making little chirping sounds. The dance floor had become more empty but it was almost a distant sound now. Mim looked back at the open floor and the various creatures, some more human and some with wings and pointed ears and magic that clung to their skin.

This area, with the plants and the quiet was nice.

“It almost sounds like home,” she pointed out. “All the chirping.”

Home didn’t make her eyes itch, but it wasn’t anything a shower couldn’t fix.

“It does,” Liam agreed. He held the door for her and they began the ascent to their room. “Drier though.”

She agreed.

The rest of the walk was quiet, their shoes tapping on the wood floor as they walked. The art and vases and flowers everywhere gave Mim a feeling like this was a place where family not just lived but blossomed. Like a whole town in one place.

Liam stopped at the bedroom door. Their bedroom, with one bed. She’d never slept with a man before. She wasn’t sure tents, with sleeping bags to keep them apart, counted very much.

This felt different to her. Bigger. Like something she ought to be ashamed of because she was an unmarried woman but also like something that she needed to do. She felt safer near him, and this whole world was just asking for her to freak out or get into more trouble.

She felt his lips on her hand and looked down. He smiled. “Couple of things, Mim.”

Her heart was pounding, harder than she had ever felt it pound and that included when she had to run in gym class or when her cat had talked to her a few hours before.

She just stared at him.

He let her hand fall and straightened himself. “First, I don’t have to sleep there. Second, just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t mean we have to sleep together.”

Mim tried not to blush too deeply. She brushed some of her blonde hair off to the side of her face. “First, I want you to sleep here. We slept together last night just fine. And at some point we will. Maybe.”

Well the first part was easy to get out. Maybe she wasn’t going to be professing her feelings tonight, but she’d told him she wanted him to stay.

He smiled and reached the key to the door. “At some point we will, maybe.”

The door fell open into the dark room and she turned it on. By the time she looked back, he was just in front of her and his hands reached for her waist before she could take a step back.

She inhaled quick before she felt his lips.

For a second, she was stuck with her eyes open and his eyes shut and his lips on hers and hers not quite sure what was happening, but she caught up and she kissed him back and shut her eyes. She took a step closer to him.

He took that as a good sign, because he slid his hands up her shirt, just enough that he was holding the skin of her hips instead of her shirt. Her heart pounded louder and louder until there was nothing else except Liam and herself. She slid her hands into his shirt, just so she could feel his skin too.

Once she did she knew why she shouldn’t be sharing a bedroom with him. Her hands slid toward his front and she felt his chest, the one she had admired time and time again while he worked on their fencing.

He’d brought it up earlier, and he’d been right.

“You know,” she said after their lips had parted. “It’s been about four months of making holes in the fence.”

He laughed, his air brushing against the side of her face.

She felt a shiver rush through her and her hands grazed his skin one more time.

He brushed her hair away from her face this time and held her in his gaze.“Just about as soon as it started being warm out, yep.”

He was good at this dating stuff. He’d done it before, so it was expected. She wanted to know how to be good at it too. And good at the maybe stuff, someday. He knew how to do that too. He had his girl.

Kissing felt like a good place to start.

She kissed him more, and he kissed her back. For awhile that’s all there was. The more he kissed her, the more she relaxed in his arms. Yeah, the world around them was new and scary, and everything she knew was gone, except him. He was a nice fixture going through all this crazy with her.

Somehow, they’d made it to the bed. They were lying beside one another, and she pulled back. “Do you think we’ll ever move back home, or do you think we’ll stay here?”

He laid on his back and pulled her onto his chest, his arms wrapped nice around her. “I think that depends what happens when we find your family. But it sounds like you’re from here.”

She almost laughed, but he looked at her. “You ever felt like you had magic powers?”

If hole-making was a magic power, maybe.

“Not really, no.” No one in her family had done any kind of magic ever, except her cat now. Something had changed, just like her house vanishing.

“What about Selmy?” She asked. “I don’t know if we can go home.”

“That’s true.” He rested his head back and ran his fingers along her side for a minute. “Maybe they’d let me bring my mom here.”

“Do you want to ask?”

If his mom saw this place and believed in it, then that was that. It had to be real.

“Tomorrow?” he turned again and started kissing down from her ear to her chin and along her neck. Her eyes closed on their own this time and she enjoyed the feeling of each kiss.

Without thinking, her hands pulled him toward her, on top of her. “Mmhmm,” she replied.

He pulled back a little. “Next time, you could just ask me out.”

She looked into his eyes again. The lighting wasn’t as good in here, but she loved them all the same. “I didn’t know how long you needed. After Maria and Sophia died, I didn’t want to push anything.”

She saw him hold back for a moment, and she ran her hand down his cheek. She knew it must be hard still. It was why she had waited so long, and why he had to ask her out.

He sighed, too. “Sometimes people need a push.”

Mim let her lips just touch his, then she pulled away and slipped out from under him. He fell to the bed and she cuddled into his arms again. This time she stretched her arm up his shirt and across his chest and held him too. She wanted to touch him, more, but she didn’t want to move things along any faster than they already had.

“I forgot to ask what you want, Mim.”

Everything him. But everything him meant the hurt parts too, and she wanted to go slow to make sure he was good and she was good and that they never got in too deep and didn’t have a way out if they needed it.

“Dating,” She settled on. “Maybe someday more. If dating goes well.”

His hand wove its way under her shirt again, and he kissed her while his fingers found their way to her ribs. They stopped there, but she wasn’t sure she wanted them to.

“I don’t think the rules are the same here,” she stated. It was for her too. They were sharing a room and unwed and it was their choice; no one seemed to think otherwise. “So,” she concluded. “We can take it a little faster than back home.”

Earlier, the lady that had found them at the river had given her some tea she said would keep her from getting pregnant. She’d taken it, just in case.

It wasn’t like her, but neither was fleeing from the police or dancing with magic folk.

She told Liam about the tea, and added, “If I need it ever.”

“Ever?” he asked.

She smiled and kissed him. “Sounds like a reasonable timeframe,” She teased.

She felt his hands pulling her on top of him. Legs on either side, she looked down at his wavy dark hair and his smile that stretched higher on one side.

“Sounds good to me,” he added. She pulled at his shirt and kissed his chest a little, then kissed his lips again. She could feel how much he wanted her, which was intimidating in its own way.

She wanted to feel more of him, but for tonight she knew just kissing and the little bit of touching was enough. She still needed to make sure she was okay in the morning, and he was okay, and they weren’t just going crazy because of everything else that was crazy around them.

So she kissed him, and he kissed her, and they were dating, and they were in a new place, and she wasn’t sure she would ever move out of a room they shared again.

She knew she didn’t want to.

Change, and crazy, and all the bucket of things life had thrown at them, were good. She wanted it. She wanted this life.

So she kissed him some more.

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