Author ~ Just Human ~ website ~ jounal
Title ~ A Mile in my Pradas
Timing ~ Summer between s3 and s4 Rating ~ NC-17
Author's notes ~ Huge thanks to Kath for beta the first and Wesleysgirl for beta the second. I love you both. I might have written an NC-17 version of this fic and then realized I wasn't supposed to. If such a thing happened, the other version might be in my LJ ;-)Challenge:
Story written for ~ Buffyx
Two requirements ~ Lilah and shoes
Two restrictions (optional) ~ no restrictions
Spoiler level ~ no restrictions
Rating level ~ less than NC-17
A Mile in my Pradas
Driving loafers. Lilah wasn't sure she was in favor of the thick-heeled shoes or not. It wasn't like she'd ever think it was stylish for a man to wear them in public, but she debated the need for men to wear them while driving. Sure, there was the practical aspect of not wearing out good shoes in stop and go traffic, but sometimes that heel wear spoke of character. Lilah supposed that some might find her obsessive for considering the matter one way or another, but those were just the people who didn't pay attention to detail--paying attention to detail kept you alive.
People at Wolfram & Hart came and went. Abruptly. It was important to know not only whom you were working for, but also whom you could be working for. Neither of Lilah's most recent bosses actually drove himself, so no heel wear. There were other fashion tips that did tell. Holland's wardrobe was about newfound wealth that was trying for an old money image. In Lilah's book, he had been a role model.
Linwood's Cole Haan loafers were always pristine. Of course, all Linwood knew about fashion was spending money in the right stores. Once a year, he was the type that walked into an expensive but bland men's store and bought everything that the two mannequins up front were wearing--like a rich man's version of Garanimals. Not that there was anything shabby about what he wore, but his choices were more about showing that he could afford it. Stylistically, his management methods weren't much different. Find a couple of competent employees to dress up his record, who were also willing to bend over and let Linwood have a step up on their backs. Lilah wasn't feeling particularly willing, but that didn't mean she didn't bend when the time came.
Now a style she could have really respected was Lindsey's--too bad that they had spent much of their time at each other's throats. He knew about talking the talk, walking the walk and kicking ass, when needed. There was always a distinctive wear on his heels and a scuff on the toe of his Prada's. Country boy took that designer look and dressed it down, just a bit, to match his own style, because Lindsey wasn't the kind that let the clothes wear him. Lilah had only seen the cowboy boots once, when they were both called into the office late one Saturday night--that was the one and only night they had had sex--on his desk, while she ran her foot up and down the leather.
Feeling like she was getting in a little deep, Lilah finished her wine and pushed thoughts of work out of her head to get to the character study at hand. Gently turning each shoe, Lilah smiled. Wesley wasn't remotely the same as Lindsey, but there was a certain attitude that carried through. There were worn heels on all of Wesley's shoes, from the Timberland boots, to the pair of expensive, no-name dress oxfords, to the casual loafers that Lilah knew he sometimes wore as a pair of slippers. There was also a pair of boots that Wesley said he used to wear when riding his motorbike. Yeah, Lilah was into the accent and had a fantasy or two about those boots. Wes knew quality, functionality and practicality. His clothes were like that lately--nothing like the priggish stuff he was wearing in the pictures in his file. Leaving behind youth and naivete, Wesley was becoming the master of his own style, not the other way around. Lilah decided that she liked driving loafers because they separated the men from the losers.
With a smile, she kicked off her own designer heels, leaving them on the floor next to his shoes, thinking it was a sappy thing to do, but not so obvious that anyone else would notice. Her blouse and skirt were neatly draped over the chair, but she knew it would only be a few minutes before her panties and bra were in the company of her shoes.
It was a strange thing though, all his shoes lined up neatly under the dresser. The fanatical neatness wasn't a surprise; every item in the apartment was meticulously placed even if it was draped with a thin layer of dust. Lilah had experimented during her early visits, surreptitiously shifting a knick-knack, only to find it back in exactly the same place next time she visited. A little obsessive compulsive was good in her book, which made the shoes, under the dresser, a mystery.
After all, Wes was the kind of guy that would have a shoetree in the closet. This meant that there was probably something worth seeing in the closet. The closet, Lilah noted from her vantage point at the foot of the bed, that had an exterior deadbolt on it, requiring a key. Smiling at the idea that Wesley might be so old-fashion as to hide something in a closet, Lilah bent over and peeked under the bed just to see what monsters might lurk there.
The hard smack on her rear was accompanied by a kiss on the base of the spine. "Anything interesting?"
Remaining bent over, and wishing she had left the heels on to accentuate her legs, Lilah smiled over her shoulder. "You do know that dust bunnies can spontaneously mutate and attack?" Her breath hitched before she finished the sentence as Wesley's hands began tracing mystical runes against her inner thighs and other interesting places, making Lilah forget about shoes and bunnies and closets.
***
While neither of them was opposed to variations in positions, locations, or toys, they frequently ended up in something very vanilla and missionary. What it lacked in originality, it made up for in intensity. Wesley was the kind of man that stared into his lover's eyes--not looking for love and light, but seeking honesty and passion and other things that he had been so often denied. Lilah never backed down from the hard needful edge in his eyes. If she was bored, she let her expression convey it, just as she honestly expressed her desire. It was only when she was being swept to a place filled with too much raw emotion, places where lovers accidentally screamed, I love you, that she let her mind drift away, burying the inappropriate.
Tonight that place was office politics, wondering where in the world the key to the next apocalypse had wandered off to. Psychics, mystics and even ordinary detectives were working in overdrive to find the vampire, leaving no stone unturned, no closet unsearched...
"God!" Lilah's back arched as Wesley's mouth became more aggressive against tender flesh.
Could it be a coincidence that Wesley was hiding something in his closet? A short laugh escaped Lilah, easily mistaken for the pleasure she was receiving. Wesley's dossier made it very clear that the man wasn't fussy about gender. Lilah didn't need the dossier to tell her that Wesley wouldn't be fussy about his lover being able to do the whole breathing thing. But she could tell on the rare occasions that Angel was mentioned that the bitterness in Wesley's eyes was about having been ignored, instead of being dumped.
Angel chained in the bedroom closet--a far-fetched fantasy, but one with tons of poetic justice. Wes was smart enough to pull it off.
Teeth nipped hard at Lilah's lower lip. "I expect you to pay attention when you're here with me; where did you go?" There was a smile in Wesley's voice as his long fingers slid between their bodies, only bringing frustration instead of satisfaction. Neither of them needed Cosmo or Psychology Today to tell them that fantasies were a part of this and they enjoyed the sharing, but...
I was in your closet--where I'm sure you've got a horny vampire chained-up.
Probably not the best answer. She moved, seeking more friction, and then smiled between little gasps of breath. "Oh, were you trying to get my attention?"
Attention. If Angel was in the closet, they probably had all his super-senses on high alert. Painfully, Wesley pinched with one hand while giving pleasure with the other.
"Oh god. Okay, you have my attention." Wesley's pace increased. Lilah moaned a little louder for Angel, while the temperature in the unair-conditioned room seemed to shoot up. Sweat was pouring off them both; all the better for Angel to smell. She was picturing the vampire chained, gagged and needy. It was making Lilah hotter and hotter just thinking about it.
Lilah thought about other things Angel might like to smell. Wesley grunted and moaned even louder as she sank her nails into his back, drawing blood. Their pace doubled as each of them moving faster.
Poor Angel, in the closet. It was all a little too unrealistic, but Lilah was betting that she wasn't the only one in the bed who had improbable fantasies about a certain souled vampire. Angel had gone missing mid-May. The shoes hadn't appeared under the dresser until sometime mid-June, so unlikely, but...
Thoughts of Angel and the feel of Wesley sent Lilah over, and she made it loud for Angel. Through glazed, half-lidded eyes she could see Wesley's his entire body shuddered in pleasure.
***
Still having a job to do, Lilah sent a special operative into the apartment one afternoon, while she and her lover met for a quicky over lunch. Simple information gathering - do not disturb anything. On the ninety seconds of videotape, Justine looked like a sad dog from an animal shelter commercial. Gag in mouth, iron collar around her neck, hiding her eyes from the blinding flash that the operative used so she couldn't identify him.
Lilah was glad that she'd stopped putting in the effort to corrupt Wesley. The man was much more creative than she gave him credit for. Hitting the rewind button, Lilah watched again. How much was Wes getting off on having sex with Lilah and having a slave girl in the closet? In Lilah's mind this was completely different than fantasy Angel in the closet -- at least they were both getting something out of that.
It wasn't her Wesley.
And that thought was from the danger zone.
Pausing the videotape, Lilah blocked out the girl and studied the closet. Quality, functionality and practicality--that was what Wesley's shoes had told her. The operative's report said the walls were at some level sound-proof. In his estimation, the girl couldn't be heard outside the apartment. But Justine could probably hear sounds from the bedroom.
It wasn't jealousy; it was about not being in control, or at least, that was what Lilah told herself. Focusing again on the tape, Lilah picked out the details. Soundproof walls, built in restraints...a bucket -- quality, functionality and practicality. Yeah, it was her Wesley.
Okay, so the slave girl was dressed, jeans, t-shirt --nothing sultry or risque. The operative's report said that she was cursing through the gag, so it wasn't like Justine was into bondage. It also wasn't like she had given up the fight. So what did Wes do to control her? No visible bruises. Lilah wouldn't put it past Wesley to hit a woman, but that was crude. It probably had a lot more to do with starving her. Lilah was also thinking that Justine wasn't real keen on listening to the activities in Wesley's bedroom.
It was a quality bit of vigilante justice to keep your would be murderer as a prisoner in your bedroom closet. But despite all the changes in Wes, pointless torture wasn't in his repertoire. Functionality. Everything he did had a point. So, Justine had something that Wesley wanted. Angel? It was the only thing that came to mind, but Lilah wasn't seeing the connection.
The file pictures of Justine showed her in work boots, tough steel-toed things that apparently matched her personality. Lilah wanted a little rush of relief; she wanted to look at the picture and be able to say that this wasn't the kind of woman that Wesley would want. She wasn't sure and that was a condition that happened a little too often where Wesley Wyndam-Pryce was concerned. And she had to admit; it was the part that kept her coming back for more.
Underwater welding and diving? Curiouser and curiouser. What was her man of mystery up to? Justine was little better than a religious fanatic in Holtz's holy war. Like all fanatics, Justine didn't actually think, and that had to weigh in Lilah's favor. With a smile she hit the power on the VCR and closed the file, feeling more confident in her position.
All the same, she took the time for a pedicure and a trip home to change into clothes that matched her Manalo Blahnik strappy sandals, his favorite pair.
***
"Mmmm, that's good." Lilah bit the other half of the tiger-prawn in black bean sauce that Wesley held out for her. She started raising a hand to wipe a drop of sauce from her lip, but he stopped her and kissed it away instead.
Whispering against her mouth, Wesley nipped at Lilah's lip. "See, you don't get service like this from a restaurant." Lilah was sure that there were some private establishments where she could be draped in a man's lap while being fed shrimp and having her thighs stroked--although, probably not in the dining room of the four star bed and breakfast, that she had suggested they spend the weekend at.
Wesley hadn't batted an eye, but had raised many reasonable objections about the traffic to get there. It also seemed that his new business wouldn't let him get away; he needed to stick close to home. To make it up to Lilah, he surprised her with gourmet take away- a shrimp dish that was a specialty of the bed and breakfast she had wanted to try.
The situation at work was becoming tenser, confrontations with Gavin and Linwood on the rise. More than ever, Lilah needed to keep her professional life separate from her private life. Unable to assign a team to follow Wesley around or put surveillance in his apartment, she started investigating on her own. It became commonplace for the two of them to phone frequently and share their daily schedules. This provided Lilah with some insight into just how long Wes might leave Justine locked up alone. That, and it was nice; nice to talk to someone that gave a crap about how Lilah's day was going.
Justine was apparently little more than a carefully placed object in the decor of Wesley's home. There was a weekend where he spent a day and a half in Lilah's apartment; the plastic plants got more attention than Justine did that weekend. The fact that her lover could be this kind of bastard...didn't faze Lilah at all. On the contrary, it reminded her of Holland, who would happily wield the knife to slit the throat of a human-sacrifice and then tell you how his daughter was doing at medical school while he cleaned the blade. The important part was knowing which side of the equation to be on.
***
Another day, another chewing out. Lilah and Gavin apparently were not doing enough to find Angel and that was making Linwood cranky. It was interesting to Lilah that Gavin had a faint smirk on his face--like he wasn't being yelled at. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that Gavin wasn't being yelled at, not really. Linwood was yelling at Lilah, while Gavin stood quietly off to the side and an assistant played valet, trying different pairs of golf shoes on the boss's feet. Top of the line; the best money could buy, confirming everything Lilah already knew about Linwood's priorities. God! It was so predictable!
Soon Lilah would be dismissed from Linwood's presence so that the good old boys could chat about a trip to the driving range. This reprimand was all for show--building up the paperwork to get rid of Lilah. She had no idea what pissed her off more; the fact that she was a woman struggling against a glass ceiling like she worked at some mundane job, or the fact that Gavin was the favorite.
Gavin wasn't about to swim the deep waters of couture, but he paid attention--he just didn't pay real money. It dawned on Lilah one day that the detailing on Gavin's Prada loafers was wrong--knock-offs, all of it, from shoes all the way to the collar. Gavin was the kind of man that drove back to Korea Town once a week, local boy done good. After visiting his grandmother in the nice two-story walk-up that he bought as a fixer-upper and underpaid day workers to renovate, he'd make a stop at a sweatshop, populated by Asian immigrants, smuggled into the land of opportunity to work like slaves. Gavin's heels were picture perfect, probably because of the amount of time he spent on his knees, kissing ass.
The other thing that separated Gavin from a Lindsey or a Wesley was that they actually got things done. Ultimately, Linwood was going to blame Lilah for the complete stagnation of all operations concerning or related to Angel. For three years she had busted her ass arranging activities around Angel to keep the Senior Partners happy. What the hell were these two afraid of?
And that thought gave Lilah an idea.
***
Having finished her morning meeting, Lilah stopped in the restroom to touch up her lipstick and smooth her skirt before climbing back into the elevator to make her next meeting. It had taken a trip to a hypnotist before Lilah could remember the exact sequence of buttons to press before the large white one appeared.
No turning back--she pushed it.
As the white walls formed around her, Lilah was facing the Little Girl. "I hope I'm not disturbing you, but I was hoping to speak to one of the Senior Partners." Mary-Janes, now there was style--completely classic, utterly sweet and perfect because only something unrepentantly evil could make the look work.
"Thank you. Most people are too busy cowering to give a lady a complement." It didn't surprise Lilah that her mind was being read. It didn't mean that she liked it, but Lilah didn't really have anything to hide. "Not even Wesley? Some people think that sleeping with the enemy is a great sin."
Lilah blinked and frowned. "Wesley has nothing to do with my job. He's just interesting and convenient." Her breath was coming a little harder because Lilah knew that wasn't a completely accurate description and present company would know that.
"Lilah and Wesley, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S -- ING!" There was a sneer in the evil little thing's voice because they both knew it was more than kissing. "They say, first comes love."
"I do not-" Lilah stopped, catching her breath and standing a little taller. "The only feeling that matters is loyalty, and I'm not talking about to a boss or a lover. I'm talking about to this firm and the objectives of the senior partners. I haven't forgotten what my job is, and I've the balls to do it or else I wouldn't be here. Wesley doesn't get in the way of doing my job--not like Linwood Morrow does."
The little girl's smile was wicked, but what else was to be expected. "Mr. Savarti will see you."
The hairs prickled on the back of Lilah's neck as she turned and smiled. With a force of will that she hadn't been entirely sure that she could muster, Lilah offered her hand. Apparently it was difficult to find shoes for cloven feet, which told Lilah all she needed to know about Mr. Savarti.
***
That morning, Lilah had considered slacks and thick-heeled Pradas, which would allow her a wider range of physical action. But Lilah wasn't one to get up in combat gear. Instead, it was a plain white blouse, short gray skirt, and sensible two-inch heels. The selections would allow quick dressing after a visit to Wes' place. It wouldn't be long after that that Lilah would have the resources she needed to tail her lover and find out what he and the closet girl were up to.
The business of Lilah's review should be civilized and genteel. Or, if there was running required, Linwood Morrow had better hope that his brand new pair of Bruno Magli oxfords was broken in.
~end~