Work Text:
Even nightclub owners need to unwind. Katrine makes sure she's seen making the rounds of the competition. Once a week she turns up to watch Helen Jones perform, and slips backstage afterwards with a bottle of champagne. People talk.
Helen's mouth arcs up at one corner while she pours. Katrine kisses her on the half-smirk, palm sliding under Helen's lapel.
Helen turns her face away, demurely. "Drink to me while I undress," she says. Katrine sips champagne and watches her hang up her tails, open her tux shirt button by button, inch her pants down endless legs. Helen pulls a robe on over her camisole and lifts the flute from Katrine's fingers, putting her lips where Katrine's had just touched.
"An excellent vintage." Helen's tongue teases the foreign consonants. "Expensive, no doubt."
"Only the best for you, ma belle." Katrine's hand is brushing Helen's bare thigh.
"I like a woman of independent means."
"And I like a chanteuse." Katrine embraces her.
Forty minutes later Katrine is leaning against the vanity, naked and smoking a cigarette. "You were playing quite the hausfrau tonight," Helen says languidly, toes toying with the frumpy skirt and sweater puddled on the floor. "Shall we give you some glamour to take back to Le Coeur de Lion?" Katrine laughs and lets Helen dress her in the discarded tuxedo.
On Helen's mouth again: that inviting half-smile, tinged with bitterness. "Ah," she says, as Katrine strikes a pose, "resplendent. You'll wear that tonight, for your mademoiselle De Neuf."