∞ 74 ∞
BOOT LICKING FREAKS!
Finding the metal thing was by far Lucius's easiest task. His first real job was to clean out the stable and he found just lifting a few shovelfuls of muck, to be insanely tedious (and it gave him terrible blisters – and it was, well... mucky). So after the first day (and having gained a new respect for Muggle labourers) he decided the best plan of action was to use Magic for all of the jobs entirely. Naturally he couldn't risk Valentina catching a glimpse of things flying around on their own, so he insisted she stay in the house while he did his work.
When she came and found that he had cleaned out the entire stable in half an hour (especially considering he had hardly made any progress on it in several hours the previous day) she naturally became suspicious. She made some offhanded comment that: "I'm sure you have an army of little worker elves waiting behind the barn to come in here as soon as I leave," which he found unsettling and didn't know how to reply. He quickly learned how to pace himself and resolved to research the length of time Muggle work was meant to take before taking on each new task.
After the fourth visit and Lucius continued to have little interaction with her for most of the six hours he was there, insisting that she remain in the house the entire time while he remained outside and did a considerably large amount of work, Valentina became worried. She wondered if he was one of those S&M freaks that 'got-off' on being humiliated, because they were so overly dominant in their ordinary lives they needed that release – or whatever reason it was they liked being spanked and led around in dog collars behind closed doors.
It wouldn't be the first time she had attracted the type. When she lived in London, she had actually had offers from wealthy, shockingly conservative looking men, who were interested in that sort of thing, with startling frequency. She had had a note from one man (an MP, she thought) whom she had met at a function at the Victoria and Albert Museum (or perhaps it was the National Portrait Gallery). She had only been normally pleasant and friendly as one should be, as far as she was aware. Somehow he had gotten a hold of her mobile number and sent a text asking her if she wanted "a slave". She hadn't understood what the man meant and assumed he was speaking metaphorically until he explained it to her that he would very much like to come over and wash her underwear and clean her shoes, the house, et cetera. She was shocked that people were actually into that sort of thing! She was the sort who would probably have wanted to bake the man a cake to try and make him feel better for whatever it was that he was missing, rather than want to order him to polish her shoes – "without making eye contact" (well, alright, at least not when he hadn't done anything to her to make her cross with him). She was worried what her ex husband, Alexey, would have done if he found out and had been very stern, making sure the man never contacted her again. Thinking back, her sternness had probably excited the man for all she knew. It was too bad she had the wrong temperament to make that work really, because she could have used the free housekeeping... Then there was some Dutch (or Belgian... probably Belgian) business man who would show up on his business trips every few months, sit at the bar and take photographs of her when she was just walking around helping at Alexey's club. (Alexey noticed and beat the man pretty badly; the incident was what made her finally realise he had an aggression problem and couldn't stay with him.) And there had been another foreign businessman in the Caribbean who had done similar things actually. And there was this other guy when she was in university... Come to think of it, percentage wise, it was seeming like this was the main type she attracted! (Okay, there were also quite a few 18 and 19 year olds, but she knew she looked younger than she was and figured guys at that age were pretty much attracted to whatever they could get, so she didn't think that really counted.)... It wasn't as if she was that type of girl, for goodness sake!! FAR FROM IT!! It must have been the haughty side that appealed to them. But that was only a little part of her! The rest of her wanted to be (was) delicate and girly and passive (with the right man)... all right maybe not 'passive', but something like that. And she wasn't really haughty. (Was she?) She just took certain things seriously and thought it was important to be respectful about certain things and to receive respect in return. (What was wrong with expecting to be treated with respect?!)
She had had a complex about the issue for a while, but now saw people so infrequently in her current circumstance, she had forgotten that certain insecurity for other, more immediate woes. And anyway when she did come into contact with the opposite gender nowadays, the large majority hardly had thoughts or urges past the most basic level, so Complex Deviances wasn't a category she currently had to worry about. Men could be so dirty. ECKHH!
She realised it might have because people often thought that she looked very grumpy when she was just standing there with a relaxed face, not thinking about anything in particular; that was probably part of it. She couldn't look THAT grumpy all the time!
And she did know she could be harsh when people were nasty, but felt it was absurd that people felt it was perfectly acceptable to act without regard to anyone else's feelings and then seemed to be absolutely shocked when she turned their shitty behaviour back on them. She supposed they expected her to do lie down and take it?
She thought that it really must have been the dark hair and the 'exotic', 'foreign' features. It was never any of the blonde girls that had worked for Alexey (all of them also foreign and many of them highly promiscuous) or even any the not-foreign, not-so-exotic local English, or American girls she knew in either country when she was there. THEY always got the random invitations to go to weddings and polite business dinners from apparently decent, normal men. Some might have said it was sour grapes, but Valentina thought it was very ironic that the ones that always seemed to be randomly chosen over her to make good impressions at respectable events –or even to make a respectable girlfriend by some guy who had decided the night before that it was time to settle down– were invariably shockingly slutty and often fairly mindless, if not all together coarse and completely uncultured. Pffft! Fine! Whatever! She supposed none of them had a naturally grumpy face or came off as mildly haughty though. Or in other words they didn't think or say too much and didn't mind being to be treated like a doormat... (Or at least it wouldn't seem so, until they got the ring on their finger – then the imbecile would find out Mall Girl had an opinion!) Oppfh!! So what if she was a little complicated and didn't have a pre-fabricated way of looking at the world and she was a little uncommon looking and wasn't the typical: 'English Rose', 'All American Girl', « fille d'à côté », or whatever type these insecure idiots wanted and thought would make suitable small talk with their parents. Didn't anyone notice that so many of these 'girl next door types' were total «putes»?! It really did get on her nerves! She wasn't interested in those stupid men anyway... but still.
This brought Mary Beth Cummings to mind, a British, girl she had been friendly with in America: strawberry blonde, sweet smile, a sprinkling of cute freckles, Catholic private school, not in the slightest bit complicated and not much to say for herself – the whole, 'perfect girlfriend material' package. SHE always got approached by the nice men. Now, Valentina wasn't judging Mary Beth that due to her indiscriminate habits she had had intercourse with nearly every man she had ever met who hadn't been a close relative (including the superintendent of their building, when neither spoke the other's language and the guy had the mental acuity of a slug – but MB had needed a favour from him). Valentina also wasn't judging Mary Beth on the fact that her acceptance to go for a coffee pretty much guaranteed the asker sex if they were up for it (which they invariably were). However it did occur to her that it was because of 'nice' girls like MB, that the 'exotic' (or in other words: 'hot and gagging for it – obviously') girls like her had it hard. It was the reason why she had long since given up on going for invitations to coffee (or anything else) with anyone. The expectations were just too hazardous.
If MB wanted to sleep with every person in New England, that was her own business. Perhaps the girl had self esteem issues – or perhaps she just liked an extraordinary large amount and variety of sex. Everyone was different... Valentina had other reasons for detesting Mary Beth: firstly she just wasn't very nice (not consistently anyway and honestly she preferred people who had broader interests). They were never close friends, but Valentina finally broke off contact with her for good after the treacherous incident that happened when she and her boyfriend Jonathan had invited MB to go away for 4th of July weekend with friends. MB had seemed genuinely devastated and depressed after breaking up with a new lover and Valentina had felt sorry for her... On the second night, Valentina had gone to bed early with a headache and woken up looking for Jonathan, only to find this man she was besotted with, with MB having 'just a kiss!' in the hot tub. That was pretty much the last straw (and the end of her relationship with Jonathan). «OH LA PUTE! » Both of them!
Valentina heard Mary Beth was happily married to a paediatrician from a nice family in Long Island now. That was nice. No paediatricians EVER wanted Valentina. She got approached by plenty of 'misunderstood' playboys and bankers in rehab (who expected her to 'save them' from their debauchery) or alternatively ultra conservative politicians with skeleton filled closets (who hoped she would spank them). Was she just being oversensitive and bitter in imagining that the moment they found out she was part French, or when she corrected them that it was Spanish –"even better"!– that they made all sorts of crazy assumptions? (The bit about being raised in a monastery only added to the multitude of wild assumptions and fantasies.) Was she just 'bringing it all on herself'? "Negative thinking makes people attractive negative situations to themselves"... So really, it was her fault. Yep, she was asking for it – or so she had been told by all those nice, thoughtful people in perpetual self help therapy. (You know, those well meaning, totally-not-screwed-up, totally-not-fake or gloating people, who totally had their own lives together.)
In truth Valentina had had plenty of advances from apparently nice guys who had suddenly decided they needed to settle down. (Since that very first night away from the monastery there must have been five or six declarations of: "You're the woman I'm going to marry," from guys she had only just met and hadn't even given a friendly kiss on the cheek to.) It was just that they were always head cases! Talk about unfair!
If she thought she had avoided developing that complex over this stuff – well, she was wrong. With Lucian there, she was even more acutely confronted with the worry that she didn't fit completely with anyone. After growing up feeling completely happy and secure that she was a very lovely girl and that she was totally "okay" (much more than just okay in fact) in recent years she had come to realise that others considered her to be 'eccentric'. Perhaps she was just not The Nympho Barbie Doll they had expected (or was it The Strong Woman, or The Demure Catholic Girl)? Whatever the reason, she didn't fit. She wasn't the blank canvas suitable for reflecting others' egos and tastes. She wasn't good at saying what others wanted her to say (unless it was to save their feelings). She wasn't good at talking about the weather. She had too much to say for herself and about everything around her. (Too-much-information had struck again!) To make matters worse, she wasn't able to fake that everything was 'just fine and dandy' when it wasn't. Too much feeling. Too introspective... Valentina had not yet grown up enough to realise that Mary Beth and the self help brigade were just very skilled at pretending everything was great – when in fact there was a train wreck in the spare room. She had trouble hiding a broken saucer in the cupboard.
This all suddenly made her feel like something must indeed be wrong with her!
At 32 (or 33) she was only just realising that people didn't really want to hear how a person was when they asked: "How are you?" and that they didn't really want to know exactly what a person's opinion was on something when they asked: "What do you think?" And when they asked: "Do you want to go for a coffee?" what they really meant was: "Do you want to go for a fuck?" And when they didn't get that fuck on the first try (second tops) the sane and reasonably decent ones gave up, because they thought too much was being expected of them or that they had been rejected. Ordinary people KNEW this stuff. SHE was the oddball! It was all very disappointing.
And so Valentina was considered: hot, sexy, sweet, interesting, exotic, fuckable and even funny – but alas, too opinionated, too not-what-the-parents-expected, too confident and challenging... too complicated. And although no one ever seemed to have any complaint about her looks, she had the frustrating misfortune of not ever looking like ANYONE'S idea of the girl next door.
What was worse, she didn't even fit in with the other misfits. She wasn't good at acting wild and free-spirited or unpredictable and troubled (because she wasn't.) Apparently this appealed to many of the other people who weren't looking for the basic model. A lot of them WANTED a train wreck. It was so exciting and unpredictable. (But she wasn't that either.) Not: The Tortured Artist, or The Domineering Diva, or The Fragile Addict.
She just wasn't anyone's type.
She was herself!! She was fed up of being shoved into a box and expected to perform!! What was odd about that? PUFFHT! If she were a man, she would want a woman with their own character. What was too challenging about that? It wasn't like she was a feminist or anything. (Well, she didn't think she was anyway.) UGHH!! When they got married to the dumb-dumbs and the girls couldn't add basic maths (and had sex with everyone else who asked them for coffee... oh yeah the imbeciles didn't think about that one, did they!) then the Mister Nice Guys regretted going for the magnolia walls! HAHA! «Salauds»!! They deserved it!... And as for those 'conservative' types obsessed with appropriateness and tradition like Mr Snellbrot-Thomas: they were happy to marry the mind-numbing, factory-fresh versions of their well behaved mothers, but then they snapped and went looking for excitement –always overboard with the freaky «connerie» because they were wound so tight– when they could have just let their feelings out in any way that might have approached Normal or Healthy in the first place. They deserved what they got too!... And who was it that the feckless pillars of society invariably came looking for? Always the dark haired, 'exotic temptress'! Oh no, she wasn't good enough to take home to the uptight mother, but they wanted her to listen to their whining about their problems and shove a vibrator up their bottom! «Tordus!»
"I'm my own flavour!" she carped bitterly to herself aloud. "«Putains de monstres!»... Fucking weirdos!"
Valentina had worked herself up so much, she had convinced herself that Lucius was also this sort of man and that he might be out there fantasising about licking her boots at that very moment. The thought made her angry.
Her mental mega-rant over, she marched outside to where Lucius was supposed to be working. (He had been multitasking: as a shovel Magically lifted heaps of unsightly building rubble into the wheelbarrow, which then emptied itself into the foundation for one of the unfinished gîtes, he was reading through an article about what the Muggles referred to as "new media". He was trying to get his head around it, so he and Acacius could take it over and sell it back to the Muggles before any of the other big players in the Magical or Illuminari world got there first, so he was deeply engrossed. Luckily he had placed a alerting spell over her door, or else he likely would have been caught off guard.)
"Lucian... don't get mad..." she said looking both flustered and guarded (and a little haughty).
Lucius stared back with a mild look of terror at what was coming.
"You aren't... one-of-those-freaks-who-wants-to-lick-my-boots are you?!" she blurted out, looking really quite distressed.
Not knowing what to say (or even to think) Lucius just stood there as if he was pondering the question. Had she gotten it wrong with her excellent, yet not completely native, English and meant to say something wholly different and even banal such as: ... ... ... Well, he could not think of anything else she could have possible mixed up with either verb or noun. Perhaps it was some sort of Muggle in-joke... or some sort of idiom in French, or even Spanish that didn't translate and had a completely different meaning to the actual string of words like: 'letting the cat out of the bag' or 'the apple never falls far from the tree'. Yes, it was likely something that, if he were a Muggle (instead of pretending to be one) he would have understood straight away.
Finally, after she gave him no hint as to what she meant, he apprehensively responded in a sort of half answer, half question: "No...?"
"You're not into anything weird like, uhmm... trying--tying... people up, are you?
"No," he said with plain certainty. After processing things for a few seconds however, he imagined she was accusing him of being wicked and inwardly took offence. Although why would she? She didn't know anything about that Death Eater stuff. But then it was no secret how beastly and morally corrupt Muggles were. She must have assumed, for whatever reason, he came from a similar set.
Anyway, his answer seemed to satisfy 'Mademoiselle' Valentina and she promptly returned inside... She returned twenty minutes later looking flustered again and said she wanted to make it clear that she wasn't being presumptuous in asking him about his sexual practices, or accusing him of having "deviant plans" towards her (because she accepted that he said he did not –or would not– rather). Reflecting further, she admitted that she probably WAS being presumptuous, but that she didn't mean anything nasty by it and explained that she was just unsettled because he made her stay inside and hardly talked to her while he was there. 'She just wanted to be clear.'
'Sexual?!' What did tasting a person's shoes (eckkh!) or tying anyone up have to do with 'sexual'?
Lucius was very confused.
He was used to people making assumptions about him in his own world He had been judged all his life, in fact – most especially when he stepped outside of the shelter of his small circle, where having impressively old blood and the security of family vaults was more or less standard. Even those strange and reclusive Magicals who kept out of society and therefore, somehow, did not know who Lucius Malfoy was, seemed to judge him. Even when he had tried to disguise himself it was the same. (Apparently it was the so-called 'Perri accent'.) He couldn't deny he had a great many privileges, but the moment he opened his mouth, people who didn't know anything about him thought they had every single detail about him figured out – from how 'easy' his life was, right down to how much sugar he took in his tea.
He wondered now if SHE was the same. He had felt so safe with her and now perhaps she was judging him – just like all the rest. He assumed she had mistaken him for some ridiculous Tommass (as in: tight old money Muggle ass). As insulting as it was, it made sense if she was speaking about something sexual to do with that particular set within her people; everyone knew they were worse than the proles in their carnal deviances.
∞
At home that evening, Lucius looked up the term "lick my boots" on the internet and was totally amazed and disgusted by what he learned. Why would he want to do any of THAT?! What sort of people did she know?!! He blamed it on the men. No wonder Muggle women had such a hard time. Disgusting beasts! Lucius thought if he had had a daughter, it would indeed have been completely correct to insist she marry a Pure-blood Wizard. Not that he had ever thought anything different, but here was clear confirmation if he had ever needed it! If this wasn't a staggering example of why Magic folk ought to stay with their own (females especially) he didn't know what was! Abhorrent, twisted...
"Fucking weirdos!"