Part 27: link


    Saturday comes and Gwen leaves a pouting Arthur at his flat, promising to meet him and Merlin at the pub sa pamamagitan ng one.
    “Or two,” she hedges. “Ish. I don’t know how long we’ll be. Freya is beginning to get a little anxious about her trip.”
    “Gee, don’t know what that’s like,” Arthur rolls his eyes.
    Gwen punches him on the shoulder, gives him a thorough halik that has him clutching at her sundress, and waves goodbye at him as she flounces out the door, blowing a halik to Iggy on the way.
    He sits and stares a moment, then stomps off to the shower. His body doesn’t seem to want to accept that she’s gone and he ends up spending part of his paliguan clutching himself, panting, with his head against the cool tile of the paliguan wall.
    Gwen stops sa pamamagitan ng her flat for five minutes, picking up her souvenirs for Freya and collecting a few items for Phil as well. She finds a few pairs of shorts, careful to stay to the dark colors, two pairs of sweats and at the last minute, she impulsively grabs a black palda from a Halloween costume two years ago. She puts all these things in a bag and heads out.
    “Ooo, presents,” Freya gushes when Gwen arrives at her flat. “Finally,” she teases.
    “Well, I would have brought them Thursday, but I figured today would be easier. So,” Gwen reaches down to the bottom of the bag, groping, “the important thing first.” She pulls out a pen from the hotel.
    “Yay! I can add Chicago to the collection!” Freya exclaims, setting the pen on her mesa until she can add it to her special box of hotel pens.
    Gwen laughs, and shrugs. “Well, it’s a cheap hobby, at least,” she says, pulling out a refrigerator magnet with a litrato of the Chicago skyline at sunset on it.
    “Cool,” Freya says, peering closely at it. She runs her thumb over the glossy surface, then trots to the kusina and sticks it to her fridge.
    “And, finally,” Gwen now hands her the bag.
    Freya reaches in a pulls out a stuffed madala dressed in a baseball jersey and cap.
    “El took me to a baseball game. I got a t-shirt for myself, but he was too cute to not get for you.”
    Freya hugs the bear. “He’s so cuddly,” she declares, setting him on the couch.
    “Oh, I almost forgot,” Gwen now reaches into her pitaka and hands Freya a folded piece of paper.
    “Oh, no…” Freya says. “He hasn’t let it go, has he?” She opens the paper and reads, My door is always open if you ever want to visit. –E.
    “I’m hoping he mainly does it now just to tease you, but somehow I think if you showed up at his door unannounced one araw he would definitely not turn you away,” Gwen laughs.
    “I never should have gone tahanan with you that weekend,” Freya laments, grabbing her pitaka now.
    “He was a hormonal 16-year-old, what did you expect?” Gwen says as they walk back out to her car.
    “Well I certainly wasn’t expecting him to ipakita up at the guest room door in the middle of the night asking me if I wanted to make a man out of him,” Freya laughs now, remembering skinny young Elyan trying to be suave.
    Gwen laughs with her, closing her car door. “Where are we going?”
    “Portabello,” Freya declares.
    “Of course.”
    They spend the morning poking in and out of shops, trying on clothes they don’t need. Freya purchases a wide-brimmed hat, some new sunglasses, and some new clothes for her trip. Gwen finds herself mainly and almost inexplicably looking at shoes, not even realizing she’s doing it until Freya busts her.
    “Gwen! How many pairs of sandals are you going to look at?”
    “What? I haven’t looked at that many,” she argues.
    “Au contraire, you are simply fixated on cute sandals today. And don’t even pretend you don’t know why,” she challenges, raising an eyebrow.
    “Oh, God, I have been, haven’t I?” she laughs suddenly, blushing a bit.
    “Has he sinabi it yet?”
    “No,” the smile falls from her face.
    “He does though. It’s totally obvious.”
    “I know,” she sighs. “I think he came close to telling me a few times, but he always chickens out.”
    “So you say it first.”
    Gwen ponders this a moment. “I… I think I want to hear him say it first. I can’t explain why. Just feeling makaluma about this particular detail, I guess,” she says, picking up another sandal, a wedge-heeled espadrille with ties that balutin up around her calves, criss-cross style. Red ties.
    “He would pag-ibig these on me.”
    Freya groans as Gwen asks the clerk for her size.

    “So what did Merlin say about your going to Venice?” Gwen asks as they walk down the road with their bags.
    “He was okay with it. sinabi he’d be able to get some work done without feeling guilty about possibly ignoring me.”
    “Sounds like him. He’s really great, you know.”
    Freya smiles. “I know.”
    “Did you find out where he lives before he took you home, sa pamamagitan ng the way?” Gwen smirks.
    “Yes, that little sneak! ‘On the way,’ indeed. Lives above the bloody pub,” Freya laughs.
    “So you like him, then?”
    “You need to ask? Like you said, he’s great. Not handsome in a traditional sense, but he’s definitely cute. And charming. Smart. Which makes him even cuter. I don’t know, there’s something… magical about him, you know?”
    “I got that, too, when I met him. You can’t not like him. He’s like a puppy.”
    “A puppy?” Freya stops walking and looks at her friend.
    “You know, cute, endearing, eager to please. And if you’re lucky, maybe he’ll nibble on you a bit,” she grins.
    “Guinevere!” Freya exclaims.
    “I meant you, not me.”
    “Obviously.”
    They tumawid at a crosswalk, hitting the susunod block.
    “Hmm,” Freya says, “I don’t think there’s much down here… hello, what have we here?” she says, angling her head to admire a fit young man painting a doorframe in a storefront. It looks like a new establishment is opening on the block, and he’s working on sprucing the place up to open.
    “Fray,” Gwen laughs. “Merlin,” she reminds her.
    “Hey, not official, though I would like that, and I’m definitely not dead,” Freya defends herself.
    Gwen laughs louder now, taking a look herself now. Not bad, she allows.
    Then the man turns his head as they approach.
    “I’d know that laugh anywhere,” he says, setting his brush down and looking fully at them. “Hey, Gwen.”
    “Lancelot, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Paris?” she asks, flabbergasted, rooted to the spot.
    “Hello to you, too,” he answers.
    “Sorry, hello,” she says, stepping over to hug him. “You remember Freya,” she motions with her hand.
    “Um, yeah, hi, Freya,” he says, a little uneasily.
    “Lance,” she says coolly.
    “I was in Paris. Then I was in New York. Now I’m back here,” he explains. “Opening my own place, actually. Gallerie Etienne.”
    “Your own gallery?” Gwen asks, jaw dropping. Bloody hell. Thank you Lord, for answering my prayers. Freya is pulling urgently at her elbow now, and Gwen glances at her, raising her eyebrows. Yes, I know!
    “Yep,” he nods. “Named after—”
    “Your father, of course,” Gwen smiles.
    “Thought it would be nice to honor him this way,” he says. “And there is the whole name recognition thing, too, that I’m hoping will help.”
    “Shrewd,” she says. “Um, Lance, I’d pag-ibig to catch up, but Freya and I have to meet our boyfriends for lunch. Will you meet me for lunch on Monday?”
    Lance’s brow furrows, a bit puzzled. “Um, sure. What time?”
    “12:30. Taliesin Publishing, do you know it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’ll meet you out front. Um, I… I actually have something I want to talk to you about,” she confesses.
    “Oh?”
    “I’ll explain Monday. Place looks great, sa pamamagitan ng the way. pag-ibig the red door,” she says. “See you Monday.”
    “’Bye,” he says, still looking confused as the two women walk away.
    “What was that about meeting our boyfriends for lunch?” Freya says quietly once they are out of earshot.
    “A lie. We’re having lunch alone. I told Arthur we’d meet them at the pub later.”
    “He’s going to flip,” Freya says.
    “I’m not going to say anything until I talk to Lance on Monday. Don’t want to get his hopes up if Lance isn’t interested.”
    “Right.”
    “Hey, Fray?” Gwen asks.
    “What?”
    “You were checking out Lancelot,” she teases, unable to hold it in any longer.
    “Piss off. I didn’t know it was him.”

    “Afternoon, Miss Gwen, Miss Freya,” Justin greets them, opening the door for them.
    “Hi, Justin,” Gwen says, patting his arm as they pass.
    “Bloody hell, Guinevere, where on earth did you find those?” Arthur says immediately, pointing at her new sandals, which she put on in the car.
    “Store,” she shrugs. “Do you like them?” she asks, stepping into his arms and looking up at him.
    “You need to ask?” he purrs into her ear, halik it once before moving to halik her lips.
    “Hi, Merlin,” Freya says, sitting at the bar, ignoring Gwen and Arthur.
    “Hi,” he sagot shyly back, biting his lower lip a second.
    “Oh, just halik her already and have done,” Arthur calls, earning him a slap on the chest from Gwen.
    Merlin leans across the bar and kisses Freya once, quickly but not too much so, her hand reaching up to touch his cheek lightly.
    “There. Feel better?” Arthur asks again, enjoying watching his friend blush as he turns to get Freya a drink.
    “Is Phil around?” Gwen asks Merlin, sitting susunod to Freya. “I have some things for her.”
    “She’s in the kusina with Leon,” he says pointedly, looking over his shoulder at her.
    Gwen smiles, and Merlin pokes his head carefully through the door, as if he is afraid of what he might interrupt.
    “Sorry. Phil, Gwen is here. She says she has some things for you.”
    A minuto later Leon opens the door and Phil comes through on her crutches, hobbling around the end of the bar to sit on a stool, wearing a pair of baggy sweats that surely belong to her brother, one leg shoved up above her cast. Leon brings over a chair for her to rest her foot on.
    “How are you feeling?” Gwen asks. “Your toes aren’t as blue,” she observes.
    “Yeah, that’s something I guess. It doesn’t hurt as much.”
    Gwen looks at Leon a moment. “Um, Leon?” she pointedly swipes her thumb along her own bottom lip, indicating he needs to do the same. Blushing, he picks up a kaktel napkin and wipes the incriminating merlot lipstick smudge from his lips.
    “I brought you some shorts,” Gwen says, chuckling as she turns her attention back to Phil. She pulls them from the bag and hands them to her. “I didn’t bring kulay-rosas or any pastel colors,” she smiles.
    “I do appreciate that,” Phil says, taking a look at a black pair approvingly but eyeing the purple ones suspiciously.
    “Some sweats that probably fit you better than Gwaine’s there,” she pulls these out next.
    “Obvious, hey?”
    “Little bit,” she laughs. “And…” she pulls out the skirt.
    “I don’t know about that one,” Phil says immediately.
    “Just try it. It’s a palda I made for a Halloween costume two years ago. I was a witch,” she laughs. “Haven’t worn it since.” She holds it up, ipinapakita her a full black palda with a jagged hemline, falling to points at various levels.
    “Hmm. It is kind of punk,” she allows.
    “It would look really good with your boots,” Gwen recommends. She puts everything back in the bag and hands it to Leon.
    “Keep it as long as you need. And if you find you like the skirt, it’s yours.”
    “Thanks,” Phil says, smiling a small smile.
    “Let me know if you need anything else. Like I said, I can sew. And you’re a little taller, but you’re about the same size as me, so it really would be no problem at all.”
    “She made that dress,” Freya says, leaning over.
    “You did?” Phil asks.
    “Yep. Piece of cake.”
    “I’ll let you know,” she finally says, and Gwen smiles. “Hey, actually…” she starts.
    “Yes?”
    “These sweats are hot as hell. Can you help me change, now that I have something to change into?”
    Gwen smiles, reaching into the bag, still in Leon’s hands, and withdraws the black shorts. “This do?”
    “Yeah.” Phil stands and she and Gwen make their way back to the ladies’ loo.
    “Be right back, Fray,” Gwen tells Freya, then pinches Arthur’s backside as she passes.
    Arthur turns to watch her walk away, appreciating the sway of her hips, the confident way she carries her small body.
    Gwen helps Phil remove Gwaine’s oversized grey sweatpants, and bites back a smile as she tries not to notice that the sullen punk girl is wearing kulay-rosas knickers with daisies on.
    “One word and I will sneak into your flat and shave your head while you sleep,” Phil threatens.
    “Wouldn’t dream of it, my dear,” Gwen says, completely sincere. Nice to see a bit of femininity, even if she keeps it hidden.
    She helps her with the shorts, soft black cotton, and they slide up easily over the well-decorated cast. Gwen stands back and declares, “Phyllis, you have amazing legs.”
    Phil looks down. “Really? They’re really white.”
    “Well, you never let them see the sun,” Gwen laughs. “But they are very shapely. You should let them out madami often.”
    Phil twists her mouth to the side, not convinced.
    “Leon will like them. Come on,” Gwen says, gathering up the sweats and folding them neatly.
    “I have to pee,” Phil says, hobbling to a stall. “Hold these, please,” she hands Gwen her crutches and grabs the stall walls, hopping in.
    Gwen monkeys around with the crutches while she waits, trying them out. “Bloody hell, Phil, you’re going to have some serious shoulder muscles sa pamamagitan ng the time you get that cast off!”
    Phil actually laughs. “Yeah, and no skin left on my armpits.”
    “Yeah, that is a bit uncomfortable,” Gwen says, looking at the rubber pads meant to cushion, poking at them with her finger.
    There is a flush and a click and the stall opens. Phil hops out and Gwen helps her get her crutches under her. She hovers while Phil washes her hands, then opens the door for her as they exit.

    Arthur is leaning against the pader outside the bathrooms, arms crossed over his chest, waiting. “Hey,” he greets them.
    “Hey, yourself,” Gwen says with a smirk.
    “Nice legs, Phil,” he says.
    “Piss off.”
    “No, really.”
    “Oh. Thanks,” she ducks her head and blushes, leaving them to head back to the bar.
    “What’s up?” Gwen asks.
    “I want to ipakita you something,” he takes her hand and leads her back toward the bar, heading around behind it, brushing past Merlin.
    “Where are we going?” Gwen asks.
    “To the shop. Back way. We’ll drop Gwaine’s sweats off in there for him.”
    “We both need to go?”
    “I was working on a drawing yesterday I want to ipakita you,” he says, pushing through the door to the kitchen, leading her out through another door into the corridor between the two businesses beneath the stairwell, to yet another door, the back entrance to Excalibur.
    He opens the door for Gwen and she steps inside the dark shop. Arthur closes the door behind him, locking it quietly.
    Arthur drops the sweats unceremoniously on a chair sitting nearby and takes Gwen’s hand again, leading her to his workstation.
    “So what did you want to ipakita me?” she asks.
    “This.” He pulls her into his arms and descends on her lips, halik her hungrily, greedily, deeply.
    “Arthur…” she gasps, pulling her lips away for a second.
    He reaches out with one hand, groping for something, and Gwen hears the metallic scrape of a curtain being pulled, shielding his work area from the large front windows.
    “You can’t just… halik me like that,” he is talking while he kisses her, slowly walking them over to his chair, “and leave, then… come back wearing… those shoes.”
    Gwen pulls her lips away, laughing. Arthur growls and drops onto his tattooing chair, pulling her down on tuktok of him.
    “Arthur,” she protests weakly as he claims her lips again, “they’re going to know what we’re doing if we’re gone too long.”
    His hands are now up under the palda of her dress, sliding his palms on her thighs. He finds her paborito spot on her neck and growls, “I don’t really care.”
    His hand reaches higher, pressing against her warm center, feeling the dampness growing through her knickers. He sucks lightly at her neck and mutters, “Do you?”
    She moves her hips against his hand and gasps, “No.”
    Arthur reaches down and pulls a lever, and the chair drops back, reclining almost like a dentist’s chair. Gwen straddles him now, reaching down to open his jeans, shoving them carefully but impatiently down just enough as he yanks at her panties, trying to remove them. He ends up shoving them to the side and sliding his fingers in, groaning as he feels her wetness.
    Frantic for each other, she takes him in her hand and lowers herself down onto him, pulling impatiently at her uncooperative knickers.
    She moves her hips, eyes fluttering closed as she throws her head back. His one hand reaches up to close over her breast, the other gripping her hip beneath her skirt.
    Gwen hears Arthur curse softly, feels his hand move, and then hears the distinctive sound of fabric ripping. Her eyes open as she feels the tangle of her underwear suddenly loosen around her hips.
    “You shit,” she gasps, but she is unable to even consider being angry with him for destroying her panties because it’s allowed her to ilipat madami freely, less carefully, and she increases her speed, her intensity, riding him furiously.
    Both hands are at her breasts now, squeezing, fondling, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples through the fabric of her dress.
    “Come here,” he whispers, sliding his hands up to pull her face down to his. She sucks his lower lip in between her lips, nibbling at the succulent flesh before he presses upward, halik her fully.
    “Oh…” she gasps, clutching his shoulders, bunching his sando in her hands. “Oh… Arthur…”
    “Guinevere…” he answers, licking at her neck, sucking her earlobe.
    “Oh… Ah… Again…”
    “Guinevere,” he purrs into her ear, and she cries out immediately, her hips grinding down into him, her hands on his head, holding him to her.
    “Ohhh…” he chokes out, his arms clamping around her body tightly as he releases into her.
    She starts giggling then, tucking her face into his neck. “You are terrible.”
    “Me? You were the one that went off shopping this morning and left me with a semi,” he counters.
    This just makes her giggle even more. She starts to climb off of him and he holds her there another moment, halik her again.
    “You’re spicy today. What did you have for lunch?” he asks with another kiss.
    “Tacos.”

    “Have a good time looking at Drag’s ‘etchings,’ Sparrow?” Gwaine asks archly from his place at the bar when they return looking slightly flushed.
    She calmly walks around the bar, back to her spot, and smacks him on the back of his head as she passes him before settling back down on her stool, the picture of a lady. Minus one pair of underpants.
    “You didn’t…” Freya whispers.
    Gwen just looks at her twitching the corners of her lips down as they try to grin.
    “You did!”
    “Shh!”
    “Drag, you didn’t defile the entire tindahan did you? I don’t have a janitor, you know,” Gwaine presses.
    “Nah, we kept it contained,” he says casually, taking a drink of his lager.
    “He had better not find those,” Gwen whispers to Arthur. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”
    “Don’t worry. They’re in my pocket.”
    She gives him an incredulous look.
    “What?”
    There is a minor commotion at the door and they all turn to see a tall older gentleman walk in, followed sa pamamagitan ng a slender well-dressed woman, also tall. The man is the image of Leon 25 years in the future, except his hair is short, straight, and dark. The woman is the one with the long auburn curls.
    “Pop!” Leon declares, stepping over and greeting his parents. “Mum,” he leans down and hugs his mother tightly, halik her offered cheek.
    “Hello, darling,” his mother says, smiling and placing her hand on his cheek.
    “What are you doing here?” he asks, fixing his mother a glass of 7-Up with a twist of dayap while Merlin pours a pint for Leon’s father.
    “Came in for my monthly visit,” he says, surveying the group. “Lads,” he nods.
    “Hey, Pop, Mrs. Foreman,” they all chorus.
    Gwen and Freya sit quietly, feeling a bit out of place suddenly, hoping that someone will introduce them soon.
    “And Phyllis, what happened to your leg?” he asks, noticing her sitting there with her foot on a chair.
    “Fell down the stairs,” she says simply. Leon comes over to stand beside her.
    “The stairs here? Those stairs?” Mr. Foreman points.
    “Yeah. Completely my fault, sir, don’t worry.”
    “Nonsense. Leon, make sure her medical bills are taken care of,” he orders.
    “No, really, that’s not necessary,” she argues, clearly uncomfortable.
    “Phyllis, I don’t care if it was your fault. You fell down my stairs. I am responsible. I insist, dear.”
    She sighs. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
    He laughs, “For goodness sake, girl, how many times do I have to remind you that you can call me Pop like everyone else does?”
    “Apparently at least once more, Pop,” Leon laughs. It is then that his father notices that Leon has his arm around Phil’s shoulders and his thumb is absentmindedly stroking the side of her neck.
    “Oh, so… when did this happen?” he asks, smiling.
    “Sam, don’t embarrass them,” Leon’s mother speaks up, placing her hand on his.
    “Right after she fell down the stairs,” Leon grins. Phil even smiles just a little bit.
    Arthur clears his throat noisily and pointedly then, and Leon looks over to see his friend raising his eyebrows at him expectantly.
    “Oh! Sorry! Pop, I—”
    “I was waiting for you to introduce me to these two lovely bulaklak that I have never seen gracing our barstools before,” Pop interrupts, walking over to Gwen and Freya.
    “This is Guinevere, or Gwen. She’s Drag’s girlfriend,” Leon introduces.
    “Gwen,” he says, grasping her hand warmly between both of his.
    “Gwen, my father, Sam Foreman. Or Pop.”
    “Nice to meet you, Pop,” she says, smiling.
    “The pleasure is all mine, dear. I daresay Drag is a very lucky man,” he smiles at her.
    He’d be kind of creepy if he wasn’t so sincere, she thinks. Plus his wife is right here.
    “And my mother, Ella.”
    “Lovely to meet you, Gwen,” she says, stepping pasulong as well.
    “You, too,” she smiles at the older woman. Leon has madami of her reserved personality, she thinks.
    “And this is Freya, Merlin’s… um… uy Merl, I’m a little stuck here,” Leon looks over at Merlin.
    “Girlfriend?” Pop supplies with a wicked grin.
    “We’ve been on one date,” Merlin says, turning a deeper shade of kulay-rosas now. Freya bites her lower lip nervously, put on the spot.
    “Well, do you like her?” Leon’s dad presses.
    He nods.
    “You like him?”
    She nods.
    “Okay. Got it. Lovely to meet you, Freya. Merlin’s a little odd, but he’ll take good care of you,” he says, taking Freya’s hand the same way he did Gwen’s.
    “Nice to meet you as well, sir. Pop,” she stammers, her blush now rivaling Merlin’s.
    “Don’t pay any attention to him, dear. He’s all bark,” Leon’s mother intercepts, taking Freya’s hand now.
    “Thank you, Mrs. Foreman,” Freya says, wanting to glance over at Merlin but too afraid to do so.
    “I am not!” Pop blusters.
    “Bark, bark, bark…” Ella says dismissively, walking back to her upuan while the lads all laugh.
    Leon and his father discuss business for a bit, and Merlin leans over the bar, close to Freya.
    “Sorry,” he says, taking her hand shyly.
    “Not your fault,” she says. “No pressure, huh?” she laughs nervously.
    “Right,” he chuckles.
    Gwen and Arthur drink their drinks, fiercely not hanging on their every word.
    “I did like the sound of it, though,” Merlin ventures, playing with her fingers.
    “The sound of what?” Freya asks, almost whispering.
    “The sound of someone referring to you as my girlfriend.”
    “I liked that, too.”
    Gwen can sense Arthur growing impatient with them, and she places her hand over his, stilling him. “He’s getting there, settle down,” she whispers.
    “So… um… when you go to Venice and some tan muscular Italian bloke comes up and propositions you, wanting to whisk you away to his villa…?”
    “I’ll tell him no thank you, I have a boyfriend.”

Part 29: link