Madison can’t hide her relief as you drop the lingerie back in the bag and don’t immediately shove it towards her.
“Thanks,” you say. Your tone is a little sharp, but Madison takes it without flinching. Still, you swallow and repeat it. “Thanks,” you say more gently this time.
She shakes her head and grins widely at the same time. “I just want to see you in it,” she says naughtily.
A small grin tugs its way up your own face. “Soon,” you promise her. “Come on. We’d better go pay if we want to buy you any more clothes tonight.”
She pads along beside you, clutching your free hand with her own, carefully holding her own bag to the side. Thankfully, the woman who had pushed her way in front of you earlier has gone, although the clerk is still emanating irritation. It’s strong enough that it’s slightly rankling at your own nerves. Why is she even here, if she obviously hates her job so much?
The irritation does fade somewhat as the two of you stand in front of her and present your products, though, replaced with curiosity and a slight attentiveness as you tug Madison forwards. She hands her bag over to the clerk with a demure smile, looking up at you with a grin, and the clerk’s attentiveness shoots right up.
The price is surprisingly low— less than two hundred dollars for four full sets of lingerie made of silk and lace. The perks of being a rogue with the power to make lingerie, you guess; it must make it much easier to produce this kind of stuff quicker and cheaper than usual.
You double-take slightly when the clerk gives you a quick wink when Madison turns her head away for a second, and you can’t help but blush. Mumbling your thanks, you grab the bags and hurry out of the store, trying your best to ignore the amusement now radiating from the clerk.
“Alright,” you say slightly more loudly than you need to. “Let’s get a coffee and go buy you some clothes.”
There’s a small store that sells coffee and cakes down the ways a bit. You order, taking careful note of what Madison orders— a vanilla latte with one sugar, and a simple blueberry muffin— and order a coffee and banana-nut muffin for yourself. Madison goes to pull money out of her purse, but you put your hand on her arm and shake your head. You might not be able to afford extravagancies like that lingerie, but you can at least afford to buy her a coffee and a muffin while you’re out.
Once you’ve got your order, you wander over to the nearest clothing store. You’re pretty sure it’s a chain, but it’s not one of the really big chains. At least the prices aren’t too bad, you conclude— you only see a single shirt in there priced over forty dollars.
The two of you roam through the store, confident in the knowledge that you have an hour before you need to leave, and that Madison can actually try these clothes on before she buys them.
“So what clothes do you actually like?” she asks casually as she picks through a rack of shirts you’ve just looked through. She doesn’t even stop to look at any of them.
“Skirts,” you reply, instantly and without any hesitation. She giggles, but gestures for you to continue, so you have to actually stop to think about it a little. “Well, it can depend.” You gesture vaguely around. “Some clothes fit some girls better, you know? Some girls look really nice in dresses, while other girls look better in jeans and a t-shirt.”
She hums, looking out the corner of her eyes at you, then down at herself. You look self-consciously down at your own clothes, a simple set of denim pants and a high-necked t-shirt. “Yeah,” she says mischievously. “I can see that.”
You shrug. “It doesn’t bother me if I don’t dress very nicely,” you say. “I know I’m not very pretty, so what’s the point in dressing up?”
“You are pretty,” she replies matter-of-factly. There’s no hesitation in her words, no signs that she’s choosing her words carefully. You look disbelievingly at her, and she frowns slightly. “You really are,” she insists. “You’re not a supermodel, but that doesn’t mean you’re not pretty.”
You just shake your head. You’ve seen yourself in the mirror— you know that she is, objectively, wrong. It’s just not worth the argument, no more than it was when Dad tried to tell you the same thing last year.
“I think you should try this on,” you say instead. She gives you an unhappy look at the sudden change in topic, but obediently turns towards the shirt you’re pointing at and takes it down. It’s just a simple button-up blouse, coloured an attractive dark grey.
You continue distracting her by pointing out clothes she should try on. Most of them trend towards being more formal than the clothes she normally wears— neat button-up blouses with upturned collars, pencil skirts, and skirts that flutter up easily in your hands. It’s an intentional distinction between the clothes she normally wears and the clothes she wears for you.
And she does look nice in them. Very nice, in fact. Dressed in a neat white button-up blouse and a simple black pencil skirt, she looks like the kind of respectable girl nobody would be ashamed to present to their parents. Nobody would ever guess the kind of things the two of you get up to when you’re alone together.
Yeah, you’re going to have to buy her that choker sooner than later. You can’t have people eyeing her off. She’s yours, even if she has weird ideas about how attractive you are.
By the heavy blush on her cheeks when she models the clothes for you, she’s obviously thinking along the same lines.
You’re forced to finish up your purchasing early so that you can make it back down to the car park before Dad gets there. The total is higher than the purchases at the lingerie store had been— nearly three hundred and fifty dollars for six complete sets of skirts and shirts, plus two sets of high-rising socks you think will compliment her legs nicely— but she doesn’t look concerned, just tucks her card away without a second thought. When you voice your concern about the price, she just shrugs and tells you, “I don’t have much to spend my pocket money on.”
She truly lives on a different financial level to you and Dad.
Dad hasn’t arrived yet by the time you get down there, so you end up leaning against a wall waiting for him. Madison joins you, relaxing into your arms with a contented sigh. Occasionally, she glances down at the bags held in her hands and gives you a big smile, but mostly she just stands there contentedly against you, smiling a small, happy smile.
When you see Dad’s car finally pull into the carpark, you give her a quick kiss on the lips before he gets close enough to see the two of you, then spin her around so you can pull her into a more proper goodnight hug.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you promise her as Dad arrives. She repeats the sentiment back at you, squeezing you one last time, then stands back. Across the parking lot, you can just see Rick arriving, too.
You climb into the car— in the front, this time. Dad gives you a smile as you climb in.
“Did you have fun?” he asks, pulling away and beginning to drive off.
You nod vigorously. “Yeah!” you answer. You hold up the bag with a proud grin. He looks at it, and the symbol of Parian’s shop, without any signs of recognition. “Madison bought me some stuff.”
“Hm.” You’re outside of the mall now, heading in the opposite direction of home. You worry for a little, before you realize he’s just moving towards a nearby takeaway store. “That was nice of her.”
“Yeah,” you answer. You move the bag back down to your lap and look into it, a smile rising unbidden onto your face. “She’s really nice.”
There’s no answer, but when you look up at him, he’s got a soft smile on his face. Something inside you loosens, as though there was a knot of worry inside you that you hadn’t even known about.
The burgers the two of you end up getting aren’t very exciting, just plain burgers with beef patties, cheese and some basic sides. They’re made in minutes, and the two of you drive away, with a hamburger each clutched in your hands.
You have to eat it quickly so that when you arrive home, you can run inside and shower. Dad comes inside, but doesn’t sit down in the living room; when you come running out twenty minutes later with your hair still damp, he just pats you on the head and leads you back out to the car. You give him directions to the theatre, and he makes it there in plenty of time.
“Have fun!” he calls out behind you.
You don’t.
It’s nothing against the theatre— it’s just not a very exciting job. Your co-worker is more than happy to leave you to the maintenance work, walking around sweeping up popcorn and taking bags of trash out to the dumpsters behind the theatre. Despite that you’re not being forced to interact with all the people who walk into the theatre, though, it’s just… it’s boring. That’s all you can say. Nothing happens, at all. The most exciting thing that happens all night is when you accidentally hit a piece of popcorn wrong and it ricochets twice off the walls and stairs, rather than just once.
By the time you get home at eleven thirty, you’re tired and thoroughly ready for bed. You collapse into it immediately, and are asleep in minutes.
You’re still groggy by the time you get to school on Tuesday. The near-freezing temperatures of your jog, the cold spray of water as you stepped into the shower, and two cups of coffee had all helped somewhat, but not enough.
You’re cheered up a little when you arrive at school to find Madison already wearing one of your shirts, at least— the least formal of all of them, a very simple red blouse with no more decorations than a shirt-pocket on her right breast. It’s hard to refrain from giving her a kiss for wearing it so promptly, but you manage.
Solidly cheered up by that, you manage to muddle through school for the day without growing too irritated. You don’t make any steps towards approaching that girl you’d sunk your hooks into yesterday, though. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to try and manipulate her emotions while you’re this tired.
And Madison’s shirt does serve part of its intended purpose— you’re able to undo the lowest three buttons of the shirt and rest your hands against her warm stomach as the two of you eat lunch together without half-lifting her shirt for anyone who walks past.
Afternoon classes pass quickly, now that you’re not bothering to even pretend to pay attention to what the teachers are saying. You flip open your borrowed textbooks and spend the rest of school reading through them, only stopping when the bells ring.
Madison did end up reading the sections of her textbooks you’d assigned her, and she understood them well enough that she only gets two questions wrong when you quiz her on it. As a reward, you spend a few long minutes nibbling and sucking at her neck until a large, noticeable bruise appears there. Maybe large enough that her parents will notice it, but definitely large enough that anyone checking her out will.
Okay, so maybe it’s more of a reward for you than her. She doesn’t mind, though, and you can always find a better reward for her on Saturday. It’s not like being marked by you is a turn-off for her, anyway.
The two of you part reluctantly when the clock eventually ticks over to five. For a brief moment, you consider asking her to come with you, but you quickly dismiss the idea. While you’re pretty sure Amy and Madison would get along moderately well, they don’t seem to have many similar interests, and you haven’t even told Amy that you have multiple girlfriends yet. You should probably do that soon. Maybe. Later, probably.
Doctor Fitzgerald is at least happy enough to see you, greeting you with a tired smile when you walk in. “Hello, Taylor. Back again?”
You snap off a mock salute to him, causing him to let out a huff of laughter. “Yes!” you say happily. “Do you have anything you need me to do?”
He glances around the waiting room, as though considering something. Then, “We have some extra staff in today, so I don’t need you to inventory our supplies, and Oliver is already mopping the floors,” he says slowly. “Our break room is a bit of a mess, though. Maybe you could go clean it?”
“Okay.” Your answer isn’t as enthusiastic now, but you dutifully trudge off, pouting slightly at the clinic walls. Somebody else had taken over your job. Rude.
Your negative feelings melt away immediately when you open the break room and find its other inhabitant, though. Amy is sitting in here, with a clipboard sitting in front of her as she sips at a cup of coffee from the terrible coffee machine over against the wall.
Carefully and quietly, you walk over to her and lean beside her, trying to avoid standing anywhere you’ll cast a noticeable shadow over. Then, “I thought we agreed that that coffee is terrible,” you say mock-disapprovingly. She startles slightly, the remaining coffee in the cup sloshing dangerously around. “Weren’t we going to get our coffee from the cafeteria from now on?”
She turns her head to look at you, a slightly annoyed expression on her face. “It’s more expensive there,” she mutters. “And I’m trying to save my money.”
You lean against the back of her chair, moving so that your hair falls over her shoulder and into her lap. She brushes at it with an even more annoyed expression, but her attention is solely on you now, not whatever’s written on her stupid clipboard. “Ooh, saving your money?” you say brightly. “Planning on taking a poor, innocent girl out on a date some time soon?”
She rolls her eyes. “Like anything about you is innocent,” she mutters sourly. Then she must see the growing grin on your face, because she pauses, then throws her head back with a long-suffering sigh. “Fuck,” she groans.
You don’t let the fact that she’s already realized her misstep stop you from pointing it out, though. “I never said anything about me,” you say in a sing-song voice. “I’m glad to know you’re thinking about me, though.” You tack a little giggle on at the end of your sentence just so you can watch her roll her eyes again.
