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Helen hates getting her hair wet, so she surprises even herself when she agrees to meet Madeline for a romantic pool date this evening.
She’s not surprised to find that Madeline has gone all out for the occasion, as she steps out of the house to find the pool completely surrounded by what must be hundreds of lit candles and rose petals, the bar cart situated close by. It’s actually extremely difficult for either of them to get drunk since taking the potion, Helen finds she usually only feels tipsy at best, but that doesn’t mean she won’t try her hardest anyway.
The pool even looks oddly inviting, but it could just be that she’s feeling grateful for a change in routine and scenery. Even so, she still won’t be getting her hair wet. They’re both going to need a new coat of paint after this and that’s bad enough.
When Madeline steps out of the house wearing an azure blue bikini, Helen once again finds herself feeling grateful that she’s no longer able to blush. It wasn’t too long ago that she wouldn’t be caught dead blushing over Madeline Ashton and the irony of that isn’t lost on her. Sometimes she actually feels bad that Madeline doesn’t know the full extent of the effect she has on her.
Especially when Madeline says things like, “You’re so fucking cute with your hair up like that.”
But then again, Helen can’t hide the smile that instantly appears on her face, so adding a blush to the mix might be a little overkill.
“Cute?” Helen repeats, grabbing Madeline by the strings of her bikini bottoms and pulling her close enough that their bodies press against each other.
Madeline wraps her arms around Helen’s neck, softly tickling the skin there, as she leans back and says, “Sorry, what would you prefer to be called? Stunning? Exquisite? Perfect?”
“I was just thinking, like, hot, but sure those work.” She replies, making Madeline smirk as she leans in to kiss her.
“Want a drink?” She asks when they part, before making her way over to the bar cart and fixing a martini for Helen and something fruity that tastes nothing like alcohol for herself.
“After you.” Helen tells her, drink now in hand, as Madeline steps down into the refreshingly cool water. She reaches out for Helen to follow her, placing her own drink on the side of the pool so she can grab her by the waist the second she’s within reach again.
“So, how’s the book coming along?” She asks, knowing Helen spent most of the day writing.
“Great actually, I just gotta tie up a few loose ends and I’ll be finished.”
“You didn’t really kill off my character, did you?”
“Your character? Oh, you mean the evil, narcissistic blonde?” Helen asks, dryly.
“Uh-huh.” Madeline nods, unfazed.
“No.” Helen gives in with a small smile. “I did not kill her off in the end.”
Madeline lets out an excited gasp. “Oo, yay! So, I get to play her in the movie?”
“You mean the movie that hasn’t been confirmed or offered or even discussed? That movie?”
“Oh, it’ll happen. I mean, after the success of Hollywood Ending, are you kidding? And when it does, I’m going to get that third Oscar nom, Hel.”
“And who's going to play your love interest?”
“The adorably unstable and sadistic redhead? I haven’t thought about it yet. Someone good, but not too good, y'know? Are you sure you’d never go back to acting?”
“Bitch.” Helen says, shaking her head but trying not to laugh.
Madeline doesn’t try so hard. “Come on, I’m just kidding. Besides, haven’t you ever heard that having chemistry off-screen ruins any chemistry you have together on-screen? No, it should be someone like… Jessica Chastain or… Oh! Or Julianne Moore!”
“Right, right…” Helen nods. “The famously good but not too good Julianne Moore.”
“Exactly.” Madeline agrees, disregarding any sarcasm in Helen’s tone, making her giggle as she takes another sip of her drink. “Wanna hear about my day?”
“Sure.”
“I decided to switch over my summer closet with my winter closet.”
“So, your winter closet is now in our room?”
“Mhm.”
“Even though we live in California?”
“Yes, this way it gives me something to do tomorrow when I switch them back again.”
“Of course it does. What did you do after that?”
“Then I asked you to meet me here when you were done writing and spent the next three hours lighting candles. Do you like them?”
Once again, Helen can’t stop the grin that spreads across her face. “I love them. Thank you.” She tells her, kissing her again.
“Hey, you wanna see me do a handstand?” Madeline asks when they part, looking like an excited puppy.
“I can think of something I’d rather do more.” Helen answers, her hands returning to the strings at Madeline’s hips, playfully tugging as she leans back in and their lips briefly touch.
“Okay, but just one?”
“Fine.” Helen agrees, knowing it will be quicker than arguing and also knowing full well there’s very little she’d actually deny Madeline.
“Okay, watch. Are you watching?”
“I am watching.” Helen assures her, drink now back in hand.
Madeline backs up a little, before swiftly going down under the water and into a handstand, her perfectly painted toes now pointed directly at the night sky. When she pops back up again, she smooths her hands over her hair and asks, “Did you watch?”
“Yes, baby, you’re very impressive.” She tells her, reaching out her arm to beckon Madeline closer again.
“Wait, one more, time how long I can go for!”
“But–” Helen starts, but Madeline is already back under water. After about thirty seconds and with no sign of her reemerging, Helen reaches out and tickles her foot, making her reappear.
“What?” She asks, looking at Helen like there must be some kind of emergency since she’s been interrupted so soon.
“Mad, your heart has stopped.”
“So?”
“So, you don’t need to hold your breath under water and if I time you we could be here for eternity. Literally.”
“Oh, fine, killjoy. But just one more, okay? This will be the best one. God, I haven’t done this in years, this is so much fun. Are you watching?” Helen raises her glass to signal she’s ready and watching, and again, Madeline disappears under the water, only to reappear almost immediately. “Water up my nose.” She says, pulling a face of disgust. “Dead or alive, that still feels awful. Are my eyelashes still intact?”
“Remarkably, yes. What did you stick them on with?”
“Gorilla glue.”
“I thought you stopped using that after last time?”
“Can’t a girl learn and grow from her mistakes?”
“Your eyes were glued shut for three days, Madeline. Both of them.”
“And are they glued shut now?”
“No.”
“Exactly.” Madeline smiles sweetly. “Plus, we have the solvent now if anything like that ever happens again. Wanna race to the other end of the pool and back?”
“Really, really not.”
“Well then what do you want to do?”
“I thought I made that clear. At the very least, I want to finish this drink as I look up at the stars and you pretend not to stare at my rack.”
Madeline moves in close again, grabbing Helen by the waist, as she asks, “Why on earth would I try to hide a thing like that?” Before glancing down at Helen’s chest, biting her lip and meeting her eye once more.
A smile tugs at the corner of Helen’s mouth, before Madeline captures it with her own, letting her tongue glide along Helen’s top lip and the redhead lets her mouth fall open with the softest of moans, as Madeline’s hands begin to travel up Helen’s body.
“Oh!” She exclaims suddenly, breaking the kiss. “What if we both go underwater and you try and guess what I’m saying?”
“Just… Just shhh.” Helen tells her, leaning back in, thumbs stroking away the water droplets that fall down Madeline’s cheeks.
“What if–” She says, now between kisses.
“If you ask me to play mermaids with you I’m going inside.”
Madeline disregards her words, restraining from pointing out how fun she thinks that would be. “What if we both go underwater and scream as loud as we possibly can?”
This, Helen appears to consider.
“Alright.” She nods with a small shrug and Madeline’s face lights up.
“Really? Even if it means your hair getting wet?”
“What the hell? Sure.”
“Yay!”
Madeline dunks her head first, followed by Helen once she’s downed the rest of her martini. Madeline looks at her, holding up three fingers and when Helen nods, she begins to count, holding up the same fingers again one at a time. When she reaches three, the two of them open their mouths and scream with everything they have.
Their faces become obscured by bubbles and their ears are filled with the strange muted, yet high pitched sound of their screams. Once the bubbles clear, they look at each other and begin to laugh, causing more bubbles to rise up to the surface between them. And then Helen is moving in closer to Madeline, grabbing her face and kissing her.
They stay like that longer than any human should ever be able to, and when they finally rise back up to the surface, Madeline grabs Helen’s hand and falls backwards, until she’s floating on the surface and Helen joins her, the two of them looking up at the stars, thinking of forever.
She’s not sure how much time passes, but as they lie there with their hands still joined, Helen adds this to the list of moments she’s had since drinking the potion that make her think this is what her life has all been leading up to.
“We’re like those furry little rat things, what are they called?” Madeline asks, breaking the silence in true Madeline Ashton fashion. “They hold hands in the water so they don’t drift apart.”
“Shut the fuck up, I was just thinking that!” Helen replies, too excited about their apparent telepathy to question how bizarrely Madeline worded that.
“Awh, you were?”
“How the fuck do you forget what otters are?” She asks her, smiling up at the stars.
“I can’t be expected to remember all the animals.”
Helen says nothing to that, only continues to look up, contemplating if they could stay like this, like otters, forever. The only downsides to the idea being that her book would never get finished, it would never get turned into a movie and Madeline never would get that third Oscar nomination.
“What are you thinking?” Madeline asks, once again breaking the silence.
“I’m thinking we should do this more often.” Helen answers, because if they can’t stay here forever just yet, they can at least not wait too long before they do it again. And then, “And about how much I wanna race you to the other end of the pool.”
Madeline is on her feet again in a second and Helen follows, giggling at her enthusiasm. “Loser makes the next drinks?”
“Deal.”
“On go?” Madeline asks and Helen nods. “Okay, three, two, one, go!”
The two of them set off swimming and much to Helen’s dismay, Madeline takes the lead. She shouldn’t be surprised, considering Madeline’s love of water, but that doesn’t stop her from reaching out and grabbing Madeline’s ankle, stopping her just short of the finish line.
Madeline whips around, “Hey, that’s cheati–”
But Helen barely has time to register the crease between her brows before she’s cutting her off with a kiss, her hand running up the length of Madeline’s leg to her knee and wrapping it around her own thigh.
“I still won.” Madeline says between kisses, holding Helen’s face in her palms, as Helen’s hands travel to her lower back, pulling her as close as possible. “And you’re still making the drinks.”