Fic: "Summertime Girls" (Heroes; Elle/Claire; NC-17)
Elle loved to swim. She always had. Up until recently, when she’d learned to control her power better, swimming had been a risky proposition. She’d never really known when she’d lose control and scorch everyone nearby in the pool, including herself. It had always been worse when she’d been angry or nervous, and that had been... pretty much always. Now that she could swim without being a human hair dryer, she was enjoying herself every chance she got.
The Bennet family’s new house in Downey had a lovely in-ground swimming pool, and it had been Elle’s suggestion to break it in with a party for the whole neighborhood. She and Claire had offered to pay for all the food and a keg of beer, and a couple of the neighbor guys had readily volunteered to do all the grilling. Suburban men weren’t really happy unless they were standing next to a grill, with a spatula in one hand and a beer in the other.
The party gave Claire’s mother Sandra a chance to get to know her new neighbors better, and her brother Lyle a chance to have some of his “buds” over. But best of all, on this beautiful SoCal Saturday in July, it gave Elle a chance to strut her hot bod around in the new bikini Claire had picked out for her.
It had been a Fourth of July surprise. Claire had driven Elle to Newport Beach and they’d stopped at a swimsuit store there. Claire had made a beeline for one bikini in particular, handed it to Elle without a word, and hustled her off to the changing room.
Once she had it on, Elle couldn’t stop checking herself out in the mirror. It was sapphire blue, and was covered with jagged yellow lines that looked like forks of lightning against the sky.
She emerged from the changing room, struck a pose and beamed at Claire. “So, is this my new superhero costume?”
“Lady Thunderstorm,” Claire agreed with a smile and a wink.
Elle sidled over beside Claire. “Let’s see how it looks against your skin color,” she said.
“Why? You’re the one who’s going to be wearing it.”
“I’m gonna be wearing it,” Elle said. “But you’re gonna be wearing me.”
And then Claire smiled and blushed and bit her lip in that adorable way she always did whenever Elle said something like that to her.
After that, Elle had spent one of the nicest hours of her life watching Claire try on swimsuit after swimsuit, trying to pick something out for herself. In the end, the choice came down to three finalists:
1. The bright orange one-piece. (“OMG.”)
2. The black-and-white bikini with the frilly bottoms. (“OMFG.”)
3. The two-toned hot pink bikini from Heaven. (“Claire... if you don’t buy that in the next thirty seconds, I’m gonna rip it off you with my teeth and they’ll make us buy it anyway. I bet Frederick of Hollywood had to stop and jerk off halfway through designing that thing.”)
And so the hot pink bikini it was.
The two new swimsuits were the hit of the pool party, Elle knew. There were a couple of other nice-looking young women from the neighborhood in attendance, but for the most part all male eyes were on the two rockin’ bikini blondes.
Barefoot in her bathing suit, armed with a pair of Wayfarers shades and a glass of awesome lemonade courtesy of Sandra, Elle made several circuits of the patio. The party was a big hit, with dozens of people showing up in the Bennet backyard for varying periods of time. Neighbors, Lyle’s friends, a few of Sandra’s friends, and even a couple of Claire’s friends. Elle was confident that her own friends would have attended, if she’d had any.
Lyle had a digital camera and was all over the place snapping pictures... more pictures than really seemed necessary for a plain old summer pool party celebrating no particular occasion. But, Elle supposed he was a growing boy who needed his Twitpics.
Sandra seemed really grateful to be able to play Suburban Stepford Mom again, after all she’d been through lately. Dressed in a pair of cutoff shorts and a t-shirt, she mingled happily among the crowd, passing out glasses of her famous lemonade (did Elle mention it was awesome?).
Since she and Claire had taken their exuberant plunge into lesbianism, Elle had come to realize three new truths.
First: until the day she died, she’d remember Claire’s tropical fruit lip gloss as her favorite taste in the whole wide world.
Second: if a genie ever appeared and gave her three wishes, one of those wishes would be to have a threesome with Claire and Nicole Kidman.
And third: Sandra Bennet was damned sexy.
No, really. Claire had been showing Elle some old family photos one day, and a couple of them were of Sandra back in the days of pastel and MTV. With her long, pleated blonde hair and beautiful smile and eye-poppingly tight tops, she was an undoubted Hottie, 1983 style. There was one particular photo of a beaming young Sandra, rollerskating in short-shorts at Venice Beach, that made Elle wonder why she’d been looking at men for all those years.
The more time Elle spent around Sandra, 21st century style, the easier it was to see flashes of that Inner Babe.
Elle spotted Claire lazily treading water out in the middle of the pool, her lovely smiling face turned up toward the brilliant sun, eyes closed. Finishing off her lemonade, not bothering to take off her sunglasses, Elle dove in and swam out to join her.
“I half expected Noah to show up today,” Elle told her.
“Hmmm. Why should today be any different?” Claire didn’t bother to lose her smile.
“I dunno. I thought he might like to show up and shoot me, or you, or somebody, and fuck my life up again. I’m happy for the first time in... oh, ever. If your dad isn’t going to wreck it, then I guess there’ll have to be an asteroid strike or a terrorist attack or something.”
Claire reached over and squeezed Elle’s hand under the water. “Isn’t that the kind of thing we superheroines are supposed to take care of?”
“I guess so,” Elle sighed. “Easier than taking care of me, that’s for sure.”
Claire made a thinking-hard face. “Let’s see. Would I rather take care of an asteroid, terrorists, or Elle? I’m gonna have to give that one some thought.”
“Ooh, I know this one! It’s sarcasm, right?”
“Riiiight.”
“You know what I wanna do, pom-pom?”
“Should I ask?”
“I wanna kiss you, hard, with tongue, right here and now in the middle of this pool in front of all these people. In front of your mom and your brother and everybody.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “Are you volunteering to perform CPR on Lyle afterwards?”
“Pfft. The mouth-to-mouth would be enough to finish him off. In more ways than one.”
“Ewww,” said Claire, and splashed Elle.
“Seriously,” Elle said, pushing her sunglasses up on her head. “I don’t wanna have to keep pretending we’re not in love with each other. I’m not good at lying and hiding stuff. It’s why I sucked as a Company agent. Just ask your dad, if you ever see him again. I’m all about blowing shit up and not caring.”
“The Elle I fell in love with,” Claire said, “learned when to blow stuff up and when not to, and when to care and when not to.”
Elle sighed sadly. “Not ready for the big reveal yet, huh?”
“Maybe not.” Claire leaned close and gave her a sexy smile. “But you know what? It’s past noon, and I think it’s time I had some suntan lotion slathered all over me. And I think you need some too. We’re both fair skinned and we can’t be too careful.”
Elle licked her lips. “Hmmm, I’ve been told I give good slather. Where’s your lotion?”
“Up in the back of my underwear drawer, next to my vibrator.”
Elle gave her a skeptical stare.
Claire grinned. “It’s on top of my dresser. You know where my room is, right?”
“I think I can find it. I’ll just follow the pheromones.”
Claire leaned in very close. Elle’s breath caught.
“Marco,” Claire whispered to her, then pushed off her and glided lazily through the water toward the side of the pool.
“Fucking Polo. Dammit, Claire,” Elle murmured to herself, frustrated. A moment later she was out of the pool and on a quest for suntan lotion.
“Dude, check it out,” she heard a male voice stage-whisper as she headed across the yard toward the house. “She’s soaking wet. Get a picture. Fuck, dude, get a picture.”
“I can’t find my camera,” she heard Lyle reply desperately. “Which of you assholes took it?”
Elle grinned wickedly to herself. Spotting an empty beer cup somebody had left sitting on the ground, she bent waaaaay over to pick it up. Shouldn’t leave litter lying around like that, after all.
She heard Lyle groan in despair. “Ohhh, dear God, where’s my fucking camera?”
* * * * *
Up in Claire’s room, Elle chuckled to herself at what a girly-girl her lover was. White and pink everywhere. Stuffed animals lined up neatly on the bed. Shelves full of Claire’s beloved manga, and a big Sailor Moon poster on the wall.
Elle picked up the suntan lotion and was just leaving when, on a wicked impulse, she pulled open Claire’s underwear drawer and stuck her hand in. There were bras and panties, chemises and leg warmers, thongs and... was that a garter belt? Mmmm. It was so sexy to run her hands through these soft, frilly things that spent so much time pressed snug against Claire’s most precious places.
There was no vibrator, though. Smirking, Elle held up her hand and let electricity play between her fingers. Why would she need a vibrator when she’s got me?
As if in reply, there came a strange noise from the other side of the wall to Elle’s left. It sounded like a cross between a cough and a gasp. Frowning, Elle wondered if anyone else was supposed to be up here.
Elle tried to remember the layout of the house. The room next to Claire’s was the upstairs bathroom, with Sandra’s (and technically Noah’s) room on the other side of that.
She pressed her ear against the wall. She heard several short, sharp gasps in a row, followed by a low groan, and what sounded like an episode of rapid huffing and puffing.
It sounded like someone might be in distress over there. She wondered if she should go pound on the door, see if everything was alright.
But... oops. Elle was pretty sure people having heart attacks didn’t moan “oh yes, oh God yes.”
Elle recognized Sandra’s voice. She knew she should mind her own business, get out of there, get down to the pool and rub lotion into her beautiful girlfriend’s soft skin. But... Sandra. Wow.
Clearly, Mrs. Bennet was well along the way to finishing what she’d started. It was mostly heavy breathing... sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes devolving into rapid-fire gasps or low, purring groans... sometimes stopping altogether, to be replaced by the sound of sandaled feet shuffling and scratching frantically against the tiled floor... then a loud, sudden sobbing gasp...
Elle was surpised to find her own hand down inside her bikini bottom. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised at what she was hearing. Needs didn’t come to an end when you hit forty, after all. Noah sure hadn’t been around to take care of them.
Fascinated, Elle listened to Sandra’s rising passion, and felt her own welling up in equal measure as her fingers busied themselves between her legs. She called up a mental picture of the older woman, seated on the toilet with her shorts pooled around her ankles... teeth clenched in concentration... sweat flooding all over her body... tanned legs shaking with exertion...
Sandra’s moans and groans were turning into whines and squeaking sobs, and Elle could tell she was about to climax. Her own arousal was reaching critical mass, and she had to stop stroking herself long enough to let Sandra catch up. Finally, a few seconds of silence from next door... then tearful hysterics as Sandra’s orgasm tore through her. At the exact same moment, Elle felt herself sail out into space. She had just enough presence of mind to seize one of Claire’s embroidered pillows and shove her face into it to muffle herself.
Elle came back from wonderland to the sounds of Sandra’s breathing gradually returning to normal, as was her own. The breathing next door was punctuated by occasional moans of sleepy satisfaction as Sandra basked in her afterglow, not realizing she was sharing it with another woman... half her age... no more than six feet away from her... who had been regularly and secretly licking her sweet virginal daughter for several months now. Elle closed her eyes and shivered, biting her lip and chuckling with delight. It just didn’t get any sexier than this.
Elle heard Sandra sigh heavily. “God, what a mess,” the older woman muttered to herself. “You’re fucking pathetic, Sandra Bennet.” Elle heard the sounds of unrolling and tearing toilet paper, as Sandra mopped up the results of her release. Another heavy sigh. The rustle of fabric as her pants came up, and the sound of a zipper rising. The flush of the toilet, the click of the opening door.
Elle stretched and yawned. That had felt so good. Claire would be wondering about now where her suntan lotion was... Elle hoped she wouldn’t be blamed for a suburn.
Stepping out into the empty hallway, she noticed Lyle’s camera sitting on the little hall table outside the bathroom door. It certainly hadn’t been there when Elle had passed by the first time. Picking it up, she opened the viewer and looked at the slideshow.
As the images passed by, Elle grinned and shook her head. Every one of them featured a certain blonde in a blue bikini with forks of lightning all over it. Lyle had been taking pictures all over the yard, then secretly deleting all the ones that didn’t star Elle.
Elle’s grin turned thoughtful as it occurred to her that the camera hadn’t been sitting there when she arrived, but had been there when she left. Nobody else but Sandra had been by that way in the meantime.
“Why, Sandra Bennet,” Elle said to herself. “Have you been diddling yourself to pictures of little ol’ me? I guess it’s official... everybody in the Bennet family wants my bod. Well, except Noah. I hope.”
When she arrived back outside, Elle went over to Lyle and handed his camera back to him. “Impressive work,” she said, and winked at him. He gulped and said nothing.
Sandra was back on the job, unwrapping meat patties for the grill. Elle poured herself a fresh glass of lemonade and wandered over past her.
“You really know how to squeeze those lemons, Mrs. B,” she said brightly. “It’s delicious.”
“Thank you,” said Sandra with a quizzical smile.
Claire was lying in a recliner in the shade near the poolside. “Did you have trouble finding the lotion?” she asked when Elle came over and laid down next to her.
“No. I just needed to... use the bathroom.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, pom-pom?”
“Hmm?”
“I hope you don’t mind if I stick around for a while. I kind of like it here.”