Week 1: Elise's Date, Part 5

Both letting out a sigh of relief upon making back to the Lily Suite, they walked through the mahogany doors, Elise taking her turn to admire how nice Aífe’s personal quarters were. 
 
“Bathroom is over there if you want to wash off before dinner.” Aífe gestured to one of the doors that was to their left upon entry. “Other door is my room—you can find your clothes in the guest section of my closet.” 
 
“Thank you.” Elise nodded, taking a hesitant sniff of herself. “I really need one—I smell like sweat and smoke.” This works. She thought to herself. I can get cleaned off, and the spell from before should have worn off by the time I’m done. Hopefully, that’ll make things less awkward. She entered the lavish bathroom, closing the door behind her before examining the spacious shower and bath. “A bath would be lovely right about now.” She muttered. “But that wouldn’t be fair to Aífe. I can’t leave her waiting for her turn—it’s her bathroom to begin with.” 
 
As Elise was waiting for the shower to heat up and looking through the various hygiene products available, she was startled by a knock at the door. She quickly covered herself with a towel. 
 
“Yes? What is it?” She called out to her date on the other side of the door. 
 
“Can I come in?” Aífe responded with her own question. 
 
“Um… yes, I suppose.” Elise gulped. She wasn’t expecting company while she was in there. 
 
“Hey.” Aífe had averted her eyes until she could tell that Elise was covered. “I’m sorry about what happened with your clothes. Let me know if you want to go shopping sometime, and I can buy you a new outfit.” 
 
“I appreciate the concern, Aífe, but couldn’t this have waited until w—I—wasn’t naked?” She barely caught herself making a slip up. 
 
“That’s actually the other half of my apology.” Aífe smiled, successfully hiding any ulterior motives. “I wanted to make things even between us, and apologize for pushing your magic too hard, so…” She left Elise dumbfounded as she started miming taking off her clothes. It wasn’t until the clothing appeared, piling up on the floor that Elise realized that Aífe wasn’t miming—she was actually disrobing. “There.” Aífe said with a tone of finality as a pair of lacy, black panties fell to the small pile of clothing next to her. “Now we’ve both seen each other naked. Let’s go ahead and get cleaned off—let me know if you want me to wash your back.” She became concerned when a guilty expression fell on the professor’s face. “What’s wrong? I can go back outside if you need me to, but I’ll feel a bit silly after all this.” 
 
“It’s not that. It’s… I actually have to come clean about something.” Elise squirmed uncomfortably. “It’s about that spell I cast in the café earlier. I said it didn’t work, but that’s only half true.” 
 
“So, what did it half do, then?” Aífe playfully asked, hoping to ease Elise’s nerves. 
 
“It technically did 100 percent of what it was supposed to do—only we were wrong about what that was.” Elise gulped. “It made my eyes able to see through clothing.” 
 
“Oh.” Aífe’s eyes widened. “Like… to the undies or all the way?” Elise’s expression was all the answer Aífe required, and she blushed furiously. Oh, God! She yelled internally as she recalled her posture as she stood or sat several times throughout the afternoon. No wonder she was so out of it—not to mention constantly ogling me. I was flashing my lady bits at her all afternoon! Fuck, I don’t know if I should be mortified or turned on right now. “So, uh… what’d you think?” 
 
“Pardon?” 
 
“Y’know… I mean, you don’t really have a big sample size, so far, but now that you’re a lesbian… am I your type?” Aífe nervously fidgeted with her hands. 
 
“I really don’t know how to answer that.” Elise averted her gaze, busying herself with checking the water’s temperature. “It’s not like I have any idea what my type even is. Besides, I’m a decade older than you—I’m sure that someone closer to your own age would be better. Not to mention how inappropriate it would be for me to date a student.” 
 
“Do you really think I care about any of that?” Aífe raised her voice slightly, causing Elise to turn around, startled. She stormed forward with a determined expression on her face, backing Elise up against the shower wall. Hot water cascaded down on them as Aífe placed one of her hands on the wall next to Elise. “You’re the one who made a big show about not being my professor anymore—but now all you’re doing is hiding behind the relationship we used to have! Could you please—for one day, at least—stop looking at me as your student and try looking at me as a woman, instead?”

“I-I guess I could try…” At this point, Elise couldn’t be sure which source of heat she was feeling the most—the water, Aífe’s body, or herself—whether the blush creeping into her cheeks or another heat deeper within. “What happened to ‘whatever pace I feel comfortable at?’ Isn’t this pushing it a bit?”

“Don’t worry.” Aífe assured her. “We’ll take a totally normal shower once you promise me that you’ll make an honest effort to see me as a potential romantic partner.”

“I still don’t get why you’re being so insistent about this.” Elise attempted to deflect. “You already have two girlfriends who are much younger than me and a few other beautiful women who at least seem open to the idea, so why are you this hung up on whether I’m one of them?”

“Well, there’s a more serious one that we can discuss when we’re not naked and dripping wet.” Aífe purred. “And then there’s the much more selfish one. That being that I’ve had a crush on you since I was 18. If you got the chance to go out with a gorgeous woman for whom you’ve had feelings for the better part of a decade, wouldn’t you do your best to make her fall for you?”

Elise could barely make any sound in response, unable to find the necessary composure. Just how much has happened to her in the past few days? She wondered. I would’ve never imagined that she could be this—this forward. She gulped, her heart pounding in her chest. Is this just from the transition or did those other dates cause this sudden change?

“Well, that’s more than enough flirting for now.” Aífe pulled her hand away and stepped back before turning to reach for the soap. She started scrubbing herself. “Sorry if I came on a bit strong—thought I’d try borrowing some of Erica’s strats. They worked well enough on me the other night. Don’t get me wrong, though—I meant every word of what I said, just now.”

“Yes, well, um… I’ll continue giving it some thought.” Elise found the words for a response. She began cleaning herself off, as well, focusing on that instead of the deluge of panicked thoughts attempting to burst through the dam. Soon enough, they were both clean and dry. Elise followed Aífe back to the bedroom so they could both get dressed.

“I’ll leave it up to you.” Aífe teased. “Should I put on clothes, or should I just spend the rest of the evening like this?” She winked at Elise. “I figure it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

“My eyes are back to normal now, thank you very much.” Elise narrowed her eyes as she pouted, their color having returned to their original shade of brown. “It was hard enough trying to maintain my composure this afternoon. I don’t need my evening going the same way.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for your lack of composure. I wasn’t the one ogling naked women all afternoon.” Aífe continued her teasing, though already getting dressed. Once they were both dressed, Aífe in pajamas and Elise in an old t-shirt and sweats bearing the name of their alma mater, they returned to the main living area. “So, what did you have planned for dinner?”

“I actually decided to cook something for us, myself.” Elise smiled, happy to be able to focus on something not sex-related for the time being. “I enjoy cooking, and I feel bad relying on Ember for every meal.”

“I don’t think you have to feel bad about it.” Aífe pointed out. “It’s literally her job, not to mention that she looked pretty disappointed when you told her earlier. So, what are you fixing?”

“I thought I’d make us some salmon on a bed of rice with a side salad.” Elise reached into the fridge, pulling out a plate of salmon that was already skinned and cut into filets.

“Sounds tasty! Let me help; I really like cooking, too.” Aífe got to work on their sides while Elise sauteed the fish. Working together, it was done in about 10 minutes, and it only took about as long for them to eat it once they’d sat down. They moved to relax on the couch once the dishes were taken care of.

“So,” Elise asked, “would you care to tell me what this more serious reason of yours is?”

“That one’s pretty simple.” Aífe looked Elise in the eye. “I’ve already decided to do my best to work with everyone to make sure all of you make it out of here. But that goes double for you.”

“Why do I get special consideration?” Elise had a few guesses, but she’d rather hear Aífe’s own explanation for her reasoning.

“Because you’re the only one with a daughter waiting at home.”

There it was. It was something that had been nagging at the back of Elise’s mind for the entire time she’d been here, ever since Sera revealed the twisted purpose they’d all been brought here to serve. Some part of her had been almost constantly worried about what would happen to Claire if things went wrong here, but she’d tried to push those worries down as much as possible—worrying wouldn’t accomplish anything, after all.

“That’s the other part of why I was being so forward earlier.” Aífe’s brow furrowed. “I’m serious about respecting your boundaries and how fast you’re willing to take things, but we’re working on a deadline, here. We need to get you to 100 points by the end of the season to make sure you’re safe. We could just stick to things that don’t involve any actual sexual contact like what we did today, but with the restrictions in place, we’d only get to 55 points. And that’s not taking into account whatever the challenges might entail.”

“That’s true.” Elise’s expression was grim. “Who knows how many points might get taken away if we do poorly in challenges?”

“Exactly.” Aífe nodded. “While I’m sure it’s theoretically possible to make it to the end without having sex, it’s designed to be as difficult as possible to do so. You’re going to have to sleep with someone before the season is over. I’d obviously prefer that you choose me, but that’s less important.” She pulled Elise into a tight hug. “I promise that I’ll get you back to your daughter, so please try to keep an open mind about what happens along the way.”

“Thank you.” Elise squeezed Aífe in return. Tears ran down her cheeks, the relief of having someone fighting for her sake causing her emotions to spill out. “I promise that I’ll try to see you the way that you see me. I can’t say for sure that it’ll be next week or even the week after that, but please keep trying for me too.”

“I will.” Aífe swore, and they held each other for a long while as Elise drained herself of her bottled-up anxiety. Once she’d calmed down, they got ready for bed.

“Any chance that your date could get a good night kiss?” Aífe joked as she laid there, looking into Elise’s eyes. Elise hesitated, not answering, until she leaned in and gently placed her lips on Aífe’s forehead.

“That’s all I can do, for right now.” Elise said, bashfully, as her hand reached out to hold Aífe’s. “I hope that’s enough.”

“Yeah. That’s enough.”

Author's Note: Hey, hope you've been enjoying the story so far! I apologize that the chapters have been coming out more slowly as time has gone on. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'll be taking a short break to work on a small side project for a couple of weeks. I should hopefully be able to start releasing new chapters of this season again in mid June. Thanks again for your support! - Luquier