DISCLAIMER: You know I don't own them, but as it's required by fanfiction law, I must remind you that Amy Sherman-Palladino created Gilmore Girls, Hofflund-Polone helped produce it, Warner Bros. Television put them on the air, and David Rosenthal was more than likely enchanted by shiny objects or Project Runway repeats while he was executive producer(get over it dude, she's married to Seal). I still can't explain Olivia and Lucy however, I think they got lost on the way to Gossip Girl or that CW infomercial they air every Sunday night. Or they were looking for Zoey 101. Who knows, they weren't Madeline and Louise.
All the programs, networks, universities and products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied. The spelling bee jokes were based on humor seen on Cheap Seats from Randy and Jason Sklar, an ESPN Classic production. I know I don't have to credit them, but I feel better doing so.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have been very surprised at the positive feedback I've seen from the first chapter of this story. I wrote it as if it could be a one-shot if it didn't happen to work out that Paris and Lorelai weren't an in-demand couple, but even though this was posted to fewer venues than usual, I still received wonderful reviews and positive feedback about what I could do in future chapters, so thank you to all my reviewers for their kind words.
I did want to bring up one question addressed by a reviewer; why I'm using 'Lor' and 'Par' as the women conversate with each other, when the 'Lor' name apparently has a history with Lorelai/Christopher shippers. Personally, I don't read L/C fics and stay away from them entirely as you might know from my past stories and author's notes, and I don't think that guy should have ownership over a nickname. To put it simply, Paris is a blunt girl. She would shorten Lorelai's name, and you have to remember this is femslash. The awkwardness of another guy using that name with her isn't there for Lorelai, and in the heat of passion they aren't going to use full names. Do I see Luke using it? Not really, because we've seen them on-screen and in many stories and that he uses her full name. But Paris is comfortable with nicknames well enough that she could definitely get away with calling her 'Lor'. Whatever history that name has with Lorelai within her relationships, it doesn't matter to me because these are women growing towards realizing they love each other, and the focus should be on their relationship, not what they call each other. Also, Paris is about to leave school here, so she can become more relaxed and use 'Ms. Gilmore' less than she had to during her time at Chilton. I hope this clears up that question.
You may note that this chapter is a bit rough...unfortunately I ran into a force too great for even me to overcome...my beta Danielle's last semester of college. I still love her though, even if school's keeping her from doing things she really likes to do...well, almost ;) (Hint, it involves another adorable young woman named Shannon, who is so perfect for her in every way). Thus, beyond a couple of once-overs here and there, I am putting this out unbetaed, so if there's anything to fix, please, let me know. Also thanks to The Raven for her views on the first chapter, which were much appreciated and welcomed. I really enjoy reading her reviews, and the long ones with plenty of points are the ones keeping me pounding out the words in Word.
I'm hoping once again this inspires others to try out Lorelai/Paris and I want to read your feedback and stories to compare and contrast if you do. Also, remember this will be written in times where I have low Longing inspiration, so updates are more here and there than they are with that. Still, enjoy and let me know how you liked it so I can write more!
SPOILERS: Nothing spoiled; between Here Comes the Son and Those Are Strings, Pinocchio. Again, Paris is undecided about going to college, Lorelai's ready to buy the Dragonfly, and both Rory and Jess are Boston-bound. Also I bumped up the auction one day after graduation for future plotting purposes because we're not confined to 44 minutes in fanfiction and Lorelai deserves to concentrate only on getting the inn.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

The Innkeeper's Lover
By Nate

Chapter Two
A Growing Connection

"Gah, why do I bother paying Comcast $100 a month? I have all the channels I could ever need, yet I can only choose from COPS, three year-old multiplex duds, one Lifetime movie, another Lifetime movie on the Lifetime devoted to only Lifetime movies, and awful teen shows? No wonder there's no one watching TV on a Saturday night!'

That grumble, emanating from one Lorelai Gilmore as she circuited around the channels on her couch, was currently defining this last Saturday of May, where she was stuck at home alone, while her daughter had somehow talked her into staying upstairs at the diner as Luke made his annual post-Memorial Day trip up to the Berkshires to fish. Though she was leery about exactly what Rory and Jess were doing up in that apartment, she put it out of her sight and mind for her own sanity. She was thankful that her offspring had spent $30 on things like spermicides and other items to add onto the protection of her birth control pills, 'better really, really safe than sorry' being the watchwords that assured Lorelai that the Harvard freshman would not meet her same fate.

Her mind wasn't on that however, since it was now in the upper 400's, watching the blurs of guys using fat sticks to hit small balls on various channels with weird initials, like YES, MSG, OLN, NESN, FSN, ESPNEWS, GRUNT, BOOM, MESTRONGSPORTSGUY. Well, those last three were within the woman's alphabet soup of her mind, though they weren't real networks. "I knew I shouldn't have turned down more Dragonfly research with Sookie," she said to herself, feeling like she'd never find something to watch. She wasn't in a movie mood, nor did she have any inclination to turn on Channel 59's horrible 80's movie of the weekend which filled time when UPN was off for the weekend for mocking material.

Eventually though, she found something to enjoy, and finally rested the channel buttons when she hit What Not to Wear. This week's featured catastrophe for Stacy and Clinton to deal with, some alderwoman in suburban Kansas City looking to be mayor of her town, but still stuck thinking Florence Henderson was the height of a well-dressed woman. "Plenty of Wessonality, but no personality," Lorelai quipped after she cracked up watching the secret footage reveal in the Common Council room in front of her constituents and close personal friends. "This is going to be fun, she has some potential."

She continued to watch, zoning out of her current life with her daughter sowing her wild oats, while her love life had come to a screeching halt. Thoughts of being a future cat lady danced in her head for a bit, at least until the show got to Lorelai's favorite part, the 360° mirror, where the unlucky recipient of the gift card had their wardrobe and current style mocked.

Slowly, her concentration started to wear towards other things, especially when Stacy had her hands all over the contestant, going over each of the flaws of her outfit, how she could do better with her accessories and a different cut of skirt. Those hands sliding and pushing all over the woman, in a usually innocent way.

Except, Lorelai found herself returning to ten days ago, and that afternoon in the classroom with Paris, in her mind. Every moment of their meeting on the desk was now etched into her mind, and the slim feel of the girl's fingers inside of her had slowly turned her sex dreams from a romantic Darcy type sweeping her away in various modern and historic guises, and instead towards a direction where she felt pleased only with a woman as her sexual partner.

Specifically, Paris. She couldn't stop thinking of the girl at all, and it had changed her view of women. Before, she tried her best not to think of them as sexual objects, easily done since the only other woman she had dreamt of being with was Luke's old flame Rachel, and that was only a three-day detour before she realized that there was no way they could work out, just based on Rory's reaction alone from a small joke.

Whenever the blonde savant came to her mind since then, however, Lorelai found herself a mess of nerves. She couldn't think of another time where a sexual afterglow took so long to fade. The girl's words, how much trust she put into Lorelai for her ranting about Jamie, she couldn't forget all of them, because Paris had never had a close friend who listened to her, no matter how much she seemed to make everyone feel uncomfortable with her uninhibited candor.

It also moved into Lorelai's real life, as she took closer looks at the women in her coffee table magazines, spending more time looking at the young celebrities than she did reading the editorial content on beauty supplies. And for some reason, she found herself watching an entire episode of J.A.G. Tuesday evening after work, a show she usually mocked as silly and old, "Matlock on a Boat" as she called it once.

It had nothing to do with how Catherine Bell filled out a naval uniform at all. At least that's what she kept telling herself, over and over again in her mind as the hour went on and she ate cheese puffs whenever the lead guy got on-screen, she didn't even really look at him at all as she watched, keeping her eyes on the leading lady. Not that she was looking, really. Or finding herself licking her lips at how Paris could probably do better than Catherine at wearing that, while getting off her client with a strong case.

I didn't mean 'get off' literally!! She screamed internally as she got up on Wednesday morning after having an intense sexual dream between her and Paris like that which shocked the heck out of her, and left her sheets damp.

She was thankful not to see Paris all week, trying to avoid staying out of her way as Rory went on and on about how Paris was driving her crazy with last-minute demands to make their last Franklin issue the best ever, and at the same time, driving through several things in student government that would be nice now, but regretted in the next year by underclassmen. The Paris of old was back, Rory was telling Lorelai, and that one moment in time that they shared was going to be fleeting and would have to be treasured forever, because it would never happen again.

She knew Paris being intense was an everyday modus for her. But for once, Lorelai wanted to tell Rory that she was most likely overreacting to how she really was, and that she should calm down, because it was hyperbole. "She's kind," she told herself as she thought of her in a quiet moment at Friday night dinner. "Does no one see this, and will they ever?" The new perspective softened how the woman felt about the intense girl, that it was a defense mechanism for her rather than just how she acted, period. Recalling the evening in February after Paris learned Harvard didn't want her, the empathy she felt as the girl's heart broke and she wished she could have been the one to be the shoulder for her to cry on, recalling her own moment (and subsequent week in isolation) after the strip turned pink. That she had no one to talk to at all before she decided to announce her rejection, it had affected her. She wished she could take back all the worse things she thought of her.

That exploring Paris was with her as she began to involuntarily wander her hands on her shirt as she watched Stacy 'size up' the woman. The touching was more at her end, but she enjoyed the feel of those slim fingers on her, showing her that Paris was the type to wander and play, even during the most bodice-ripping of encounters. Her thoughts wandered to the girl playing Stacy and squeezing her hips with her hands, the girl's soothing monotone replacing the dry voice of the dark-haired lady with the proud grey streak in her hair. She couldn't even imagine Paris going into fashion design, but the thoughts she was having were so appropriate to her fantasy.

As the hosts went on and on while the lady tried to defend her 'Wardrobe by Dress Barn', she moved on herself, thinking of Paris's classic combination of casual wear, a sweater paired with a form-flattering set of pants, usually corduroys, and how much the fashion showed off her womanly curves perfectly. She had a feeling that she had been oft-mocked for her conservative wardrobe, but she always came back to places where the girl barked at her for something silly like a wrong food choice that would affect their debate strategy, or having Rory zig when she wanted a zag. Paris had a mean streak within Lorelai's mind, but she used it perfectly to get what she wanted. Never mind that the authoritative tone of voice she carried with her had been the major force to drive her to orgasms before bed and in dreams as of late.

"Parissssss..." Lorelai hissed as she kneaded a breast through the flannel shirt, at first trying to resist the call to get herself off in such a way, but finding her sex drive beginning to rev up. She had starved herself of fulfillment the last three days due to other obligations, and to try to bring herself off without the help of her one-afternoon stand. Remembering how she was touched, and Paris's voice though, along with how she might look within something that her favorite makeover show host would wear, she fondled herself, thinking of Paris admonishing her for not having a dress bodice fitted to accentuate her bust.

For once, she was thankful that she decided to have a wild night, going without sleep bottoms, content with the oversized flannel shirt covering down to mid-thigh. Fondling herself, she had an imaginary conversation with Paris, thinking of them in a mirrored room, Paris behind her as her fingers roamed the woman. She thought of herself in a t-shirt/jean skirt combination that she knew would piss Paris off, and the effect within the daydream helped her along.

"Ooohhh, shit." Lorelai thought of herself being revered by the girl, bringing all her strangled thoughts through the week to the forefront. All the stress of trying to go after the Dragonfly built inside, along with not seeing the girl all week. She also felt a touch of jealousy, thinking that Paris would talk down Jamie like she suggested, and that things were better between them. For some reason, her inner monologue wasn't rooting for that end result.

But she wanted Paris to get her way, and thinking about her be assertive was getting her hot. Thinking of Paris's hands as hers, she kneaded her nipples through the shirt, and brushed against her stomach, her body so sensitized and tightened in anticipation. She was doing things slowly, warming herself towards moving things up to her bedroom, glad to have the house empty so she could be as loud as she wanted while she tried to get herself off.

She went on and on, nipples prominent in her current laying position through the flannel, dreaming of Paris helping her with undergarments. Her voice, tired and hushed, was used to relay the fantasy as an audible reality in her mind. Down from her stomach, she slid her hand across her mid-section until she was at the hem of the flannel, preparing to unbutton the shirt from the bottom to hasten the process further. So tight and wound up, Lorelai was on a tenterhook, her eyes shut as her fingernails brushed against the exposed top of her thighs...

"God, I want you Par..." A sound was heard from the front foyer. She couldn't figure it out immediately, rising up, her eyes widening to wonder what it was. Out of habit, she threw the sofa throw across her body, to cover up despite her lack of nudity and buttoned up. Her blue eyes immediately darted towards the source, where she waited a few seconds to see if it was just some fly-by-night home mortgage broker posting an encouragement to refinance on her door, or something else besides that.

It wasn't that; she then heard a hard knock on the bottom of the door, below the glass. Lorelai was startled by how strong the noise was. Who could that be? She hadn't expected any company at all, and could only guess who it might be. She smirked, thinking of one possibility. Christopher was probably left alone with Gigi for the first time. He doesn't know how to burp her, and he needs my help. Laughing to herself at first, the next thought she had was on the other spectrum entirely.

No, it couldn't be. Mom? God, I hope not, what could she ever want? Probably to spend six hours tonight trying to iron down the dress Rory's going to wear at graduation. Never mind it won't be seen under her robe at all. She hesitated, but a third knocking brought her out of her haze at trying to find out her houseguest through her lacking psychic abilities. She got up, pushing down the shirt as far as she could, and made her way to the front foyer.

Just in case someone was trying to strong-arm her, she grabbed an umbrella for protection in the foyer. The frosted glass blocked her view of the guest, and she had to ask aloud as to who was knocking.

"Ms. Gilmore," the person's voice asked. "Is Rory here?"

Lorelai immediately rested the umbrella up against the wall, relaxed hearing the familiar voice, but only for a moment. Her motherly instinct kicked in because of a hesitation she heard within the question.

Opening the door, she was surprised at 9 o'clock on the Saturday before final exams, to find Paris, who she knew should have been in the middle of Long Island Sound south of Bridgeport on the Grad Night cruise, on her doorstep instead.

Not the usual strong and independent woman she found herself knowing, however. Still, knowing she couldn't breach privacy, Lorelai had to hold back probing further.

"She's out with Jess tonight, Paris, at Luke's." The small slip of a woman was staring down at her shaky hands, clutching the thin strap of her handbag with a death grip. She was dressed up well, but Lorelai was too concerned to stare at her for long, wondering what Paris might want. "Did you want me to call her, I'm sure--"

Paris held up her free hand, sighing. Her voice was normal, hiding the turmoil of the moment. "I guess I'll depart then. Obviously she's not in the position to help me out." She looked up at Lorelai, her solemn features betraying her current appearance. "I'm sorry to have taken time from you."

As Paris apologized, Lorelai knew something was wrong from how Paris was in front of her. Usually standing proudly, the blonde was slouching where she was, her shoulders tense, the burgundy open-toed heels she wore stressing her feet. But it was her face that gave Lorelai a true picture of what was wrong.

She had always envied Paris's clear skin, but Paris was so pale in front of her, it was if she had all the life sucked out of her. Her cheeks, flecked with streaks of mascara, the carefully applied lip color around each of her lips mussed along them, out of place. Her eyes were red, and Lorelai needed no closer examination to know that the girl had probably been crying, up to the moment she opened up the door.

Lorelai knew what she was about to be told...she dealt with it moments after Dean's misconstrued confession of love to Rory.

Only she knew that this time, it would be so much worse.

Paris tried to turn away after her apology, preparing to call her driver back and grabbing her cell phone. She has no need for my problems, she thought to herself. Better leaving them unmocked by her.

She was surprised to find Lorelai reaching out with one of her hands, and she grasped the hand holding the small grey device. She moved closer to take Paris into her.

"Paris, I have ears too." Her hand resting on Paris's shoulder, she tried to calm her jitters. "I might not be her, but you need someone to talk to, right?"

Paris nodded at her, but again, tried to hold back. "I do, but I shouldn't bother you."

"I don't have anything better to do, there's nothing on TV, and my daughter is doing who knows what with that boy. Being here is giving me a respite from wanting to choke Hildi for another one of her hideous decorating choices."

"Hildi? Who is she?" Paris directed a strange look at Lorelai, and she shook her head.

"Never mind." She smiled, guiding Paris into the house and shutting the door, closing off her escape route. "The point is, I'm not letting you leave here without venting and calming down, you look like you need it." She stared at Paris while Paris draped her bag by the strap on the coat rack on the other side of the front foyer.

"I don't though," Paris denied, her voice betraying her in that moment and cracking, "I'm fine, it's nothing you need not be concerned about."

Lorelai sternly suggested otherwise. "The way you knocked on that door, you actually need to talk." She watched Paris start to fall apart in front of her eyes, looking defeated, filled with sorrow. "Come on, tell me what's happening."

For the woman, getting Paris to talk about her problem was on par with having Michel and Sookie have a civil conversation for five minutes, if not impossible, a major exercise in frustration. Paris tried to deny any kind of problem, finding her way around all of Lorelai's openings over the next five minutes to start a discussion. The blonde tried to avert with talk about school matters, but was unsuccessful. Annoyance began to set in, and Lorelai felt like she was talking to another person in Hartford society who was just as stubborn as Paris, who just happened to have mothered her.

"Ms. Gilmore, there's nothing to say," Paris implored, sitting on the couch, looking at her hands. "I would rather talk to Rory about these problems!" She rolled her eyes, trying to communicate that should take herself out of the situation.

"Paris, come on, you need to get real here! You should be on a boat, but instead you're here, looking for a shoulder to cry on!"

"I don't cry!"

"Oh, can the 'we don't show emotion' bullshit, Par!" Right in her face, Lorelai found herself becoming angry with the girl. "You can't repress your feelings all the time."

"I can and I will," Paris stated. "I have to talk about things in a calm, rational..." As she struggled to find words, Paris started to feel the stresses of the night come back to her, which she was holding back for her own sake. "I have to...have a clear head about this. I won't let my feelings get to me."

"If you're so calm, why are you here?" Lorelai looked down at her, conveying concern as she continued to watch Paris's 'calm' hands shake, a leg bobbing up and down with a nervous energy. "And what feelings are going through you exactly?"

"I don't know. I shouldn't say anything." Paris's lip quivered as she tried to dissuade. "How...how do you...how can you put this into words? I mean I've done everything right, doing all the perfect things, gave up some of my control issues, and--" As she went on, the blonde's voice became wracked with cries, her eyes cast down to the coffee table. Lorelai noticed that the girl was hyperventilating, her stomach rising and falling in and out.

"Paris, come on, nothing leaves this room." She set her hand down on Paris's; hoping the familiar touch would calm her down.

"I'm a failure." Paris said them, and then broke out into a sob. "Harvard doesn't want me, Rory wants nothing to do with me, and now Jamie..." Her usual statuesque composure was lost in the confession as her eyes tightened, and Lorelai watched her cry.

"What happened with Jamie?" She was in shock, hearing from Rory only three days before that Paris was willing to work it out with him to the end.

"More like what's not happening with him!" Paris looked up at her, and they began to move closer together. "He...he...he picks me up in the limo, and--on the way down to the harbor, he says that we need to talk." Trying to calm herself down, she bit down on her lip. "At first, I didn't think it was serious, but we get on the parkway, and suddenly, Jamie, he...he sprung something on me." A pause for hesitation, she brings up the courage to remember the moment. "He asked me if I had decided on a college yet."

"Have you?"

Paris shook her head, and from there, told Lorelai all about the limo ride from Hartford to Bridgeport, and how everything fell apart for her. Of how, instead of having a quiet and romantic ride down, maybe getting in a few snogs, she was treated to her boyfriend whining that he needed to have his rental agreement firmed up by Tuesday, and that she needed to decide whether she was going to the Shore for the summer or not.

"I told him that I could visit, but living there wasn't happening. I have my nanny moving to Idaho in July to set up a knitting business, and I want to get her settled in before heading off to college. He's never understood my cling to her, but really, she's pretty much my true mom, she understands me more than Sharon." She sighed, recalling his reaction. "He thought I was being selfish though, and said that if I wanted to I could go to Idaho for a week with her, but no longer."

"Then he started to go into the whole 'Princeton will be good for you' speech, again!" Watching the woman in front of her react with shock, Paris gave Lorelai all the details of how that went. "And...I just wanted to tell him I don't want to go there, I have negative opinions about the school that I just can't get over, especially of his clique and fraternity. Frankly, I don't see myself enjoying the curriculum there."

"Did he end it there?" Lorelai tried to keep her focus on Paris's eyes, but was having problems, trying to keep her own averted from her deep cleavage.

"Oh, how I wish he did." Paris rolled her eyes as she got to another attempt to rein her in. "He then said if Princeton was unacceptable, surely I wouldn't mind Penn."

Lorelai felt her fists clench, really wanting to see Jamie in pain. "How is that any better?"

"It isn't. He's trying to control me, like he did his ex in high school." She furrowed her brow, looking down at her lap. "I talked to her Thursday night, and she's at Arizona now. It seems like her breakup happened for the same reason. Once she said where she was going, he got angry with her, verbally abusive, domineering. She also didn't want to do the Shore thing last year, but eventually did after her parents whined about her not getting out of the house. It didn't take her but two weeks in New Jersey before she ditched him and joined her friends in Australia for their summer trip."

"So this is a pattern with him." Paris nodded. "He harangues you until he gets his way and become his little plaything."

"You could say that."

"I take it you're just as cool to Penn as you are Princeton."

Paris hesitated for a moment. "Penn is a joke, really. They might have a thriving off-campus scene, but their dorms are cramped, their medical program seems a little too packed in order for me to score one-on-ones with the professors, and frankly, I can't imagine myself so far away from the megapolis. It's true I'd be right between New York and DC, but its way too far from home, and Philly just isn't a town I've really taken to."

"Well, that and their mascot is the guy on the oat container." Lorelai smiled, trying to lighten things up. "Quakers? Really? Who plays him, Wilfred Brimley?"

For the first time that evening, Paris giggled, humored by the idea of cheering on a team represented by an anachronism. "Heck if I know, I don't even know what the Princeton mascot is, that's how 'not even close' it is on my list. I'll attend Princeton Community College before I attend the University. But yeah, I told him there was no way I was going to Penn."

"So that was it?"

Paris shook her head. "Would you believe he then said I should lower my standards and look at Rutgers, 'Nova, and Temple?" Rolling her eyes, she seethed. "Fucking Temple? Are you kidding me? Three words; low athletics GPAs. What makes him think I'd go there if their damn team can't even win a football game or a C in the classroom!"

"If you say he wanted you to look in Delaware next..." Lorelai jokingly threatened with a lightly closed fist.

"Oh, he didn't," Paris said. "But finally, he suggested; are you ready for this?" Paris's voice softened as she tried to find the words to describe Jamie's last offer. Nodding, Lorelai signaled that she was listening, and brought herself closer, wanting to hear what final cockamamie idea the boy had for her.

"He suggested that I live off my trust fund, abandon school, and..." As she recalled his words, Paris tried to keep herself composed. It was turning into a struggle, however. "He thought that maybe I could be less, and this is the word he actually used with me." Cringing, she spat it out like it was a profanity. "I'd be less snippy if I decided that I would want to be a...a..."

"Something Louise aspires to?" Lorelai knew what was next, the same term that Straub and Francine Hayden would have tried to define her life under if she hadn't decided to be independent. "Please, tell me he did not use those two words on you."

"He...he said them. He said if I had such a hard time choosing, I should be a...trophy wife. That I didn't need school." Paris began to feel the tears coming. "I should give up."

"How did you respond?" As Lorelai watched the girl break down, she felt bile rising in her throat that Jamie had blown his final chance. She remembered how firm and devoted Paris was that it was the end if he didn't bite.

"I...I slapped him." She looked down at her lap, her face reflecting the building anguish. "Then I told him about my dream, how much being a cancer researcher meant to me, that I would go to the ends of the earth to attain it. If I had to go freeze my ass off up at Alaska-Anchorage, so be it. No one here on American soil wants me? I'm sure McGill in Montreal would happily enjoy me as a student. I poured my heart out to him, told him that the school didn't matter to me. I made it clear though, that if he wanted me, he would follow me anywhere I wanted to be."

Stumbling over her words through a sob, the blonde then made it known what the nail in the coffin was. "I gave the most passionate monologue I've ever had, off my head, ad-libbing, giving him a final thread to latch on to. And then he just turned around in his seat, faced away from me." Handing over a tissue, Lorelai's heart lurched as Paris took her hand tightly. "He said to me, 'Enjoy your life without me, Gellar', shut himself off from me, and called...he called...oh God."

"What...what did he do?"

"He called his friend at Princeton and told him he was on the market again!'"

With that last word, Paris lost her tenuous grip on calmness, relaying that her last words to him as she got out of the limo in the Gilmore driveway was a cold 'I hate you' which didn't receive a response. She had offered her heart, only to be turned down, and Lorelai did the only thing she could in the situation.

She offered her shoulder, and her arms, and wrapped around tight as the petite young woman cried for her lost love. Lorelai found her almost inconsolable, but used her motherly instincts to assure Paris that it wasn't the end of the world for her. "You still have so much to live for," she reassured, "there will be others out there for you, I just know it."

Paris shook her head, trying to argue that there wasn't, but the sobbing blocked her from forming any words. Just hours before, she was composed and beautiful, all made up, her hair perfectly sleek and shiny, done up in an upswept style, with curls and other beautiful embellishments.

But now she was plain, tired and exhausted. In Lorelai's arms, she wished that she could act on her building feelings for the woman, built up since she left that classroom a week and three days before, using them as a distraction to dampen her sadness over Jamie.

I would be in the wrong though, she thought to herself, knowing that she'd rather have the older woman's friendship than nothing at all. As Lorelai told her that she didn't deserve such a jackass and rocked her back and forth in her arms, Paris pushed any romantic thoughts with Lorelai towards the back burner, just wanting comfort and understanding for the moment. It was all that she truly needed.

She was free, away from Jamie, at least physically. But as she began to settle down from her venting, she didn't know what was going to happen next with Lorelai. But she was going to keep herself from thinking of the brunette as a sexual object, no matter how much she was pained, wishing that she was the one for the woman. To be involved with the 'Scandal Girl', as some of the snider society mavens called Lorelai, would be a kiss of death for her.

Quieting her sobs, she was able to take in Lorelai's words of wisdom. "How could he be so cold and hateful towards you at all? I just don't get it, you were willing to give him one more chance, another opportunity to make things right."

"He's so traditional though, really. I don't agree with him on a lot of things, but he loved me, and I loved him. I wanted to make it work out, even if we didn't agree on everything."

"I know, I know," Lorelai said, rocking her back and forth in her arms. "The thing with you is, he's not seeing how you were last year, or the year before. You're changing your ways to come off kinder and more empathetic, and I've seen that with you through the bitter moments you've had. Before, you would have blown up, but now you calm before you speak."

Paris confessed that maybe she'd never know the trigger point for Jamie's attitude change. "All I know now is that my future isn't with him."

"Good riddance to heavy baggage." Lorelai smiled, letting her grasp slide from Paris. "Trust me, you'll bounce back. It's in your blood to do so, Paris. Pretty soon, all the ditzy sorority pledges at your new school will be running for their lives when you protest them using a Bratz doll as their mascot or something or other." She smiled towards the girl, her right hand on Paris's left wrist. "This is just a bump in the road, a problem to be dealt with. And actually..." she brought herself close to whisper in her ear. "One day you'll get to debate him on Fox News over stem cell research via satellite, and you will make him cower out of the studio with your kick-ass points."

Despite her usually serious self, Paris laughed at Lorelai's remarks, blushing a bit from how close she was to her. She could smell the woman's hair, a mix of an unplaceable berry blended with orchids within her shampoo. Shuddering internally, she tried to keep herself back on the track of wallowing over Jamie, rather than the overwhelming desire she felt for the older woman.

"I will, won't I?" Paris blushed, trying to be modest.

"Will? You're probably the only one who could make Bill O'Reilly pee his pants, you're that passionate." The first part of Lorelai's statement was said in her normal smart-aleck way, but when she reached the last word, her voice suddenly took a low timbre, as if she was trying to restart her flirting with Paris. She felt her heart hammer against her chest as she looked for a reaction from Paris, while her eyes widened. Please, don't have noticed that inflection change. It wasn't meant that way, honest. She felt Paris still for a moment, before returning to normal. Lorelai hadn't felt so nervous around someone for at least a couple of years.

Like the time she tried to break up with Max in the classroom, as she reminded herself.

Of course, that had lead her to remember who was watching that failed 'break up' in the window of the classroom door. Funny how circles define us, 'cause this one is full, she thought to herself, wanting to hold back building emotions.

She had to find a way to distract herself, and maybe help Paris recover for awhile and calm her nerves. For some reason, her heartbeat remained hard and fast, even after pulling away from the girl. For some reason, her sex hormones were suddenly on a full alert.

"Um, Lorelai?" Paris distracted her, her voice soft, and a bit tired. The elder Gilmore jarred her attention back towards her. "I would...I mean, I've heard that you wallow at the end of relationships, is that right?"

Wallowing. Yes, I can talk about that, it's safe and usually sex and anything else is out of sight, out of mind. I can do that. Smiling, Lorelai nodded in the affirmative. "Anything special you'd like to do?"

Paris shrugged. "Actually, for right now, I'm all cried out, sort of exhausted from all of these pre-grad preparations and tired." Pausing to think about what she wanted, she had to run far, far away past a white elephant of a statement that simply consisted of "You." But she managed to keep her wits and come up with a minor list of things. "I know you're not much for cooking, but do you have any cocoa packets in the house?"

"With marshmallows, yes."

"Can you make me a mug up of it later?"

"You can't live it up just a little?" Lorelai shook her head. "Swiss Miss is for sucky dates which end with your toes stepped on during a dance. I think you're looking for cookie dough fudge ice cream more. Now that is the ultimate first break-up kind of treat for yourself."

"But I--"

"Will get lactose pills for you, my treat, everything." She grabbed a piece of old mail from the coffee table and a pen next to it, and wrote down items on a list. "How about hot fudge with it? It's hot, like hot chocolate."

Thinking about it for a moment, the girl went over it, and against her better judgment, ceded to the crazy woman. "Before I do that though, I want to rest for awhile, take a nap."

"Alright," she agreed. "Like for how long?"

"About a couple hours." Paris looked down while she yawned softly. "Can I nap on your couch, please, Ms. Gilmore?"

Lorelai smiled, shaking her head. "I'm afraid not. Since you dropped the proper name on me, I'm sending you up to my room." A pause, as Paris directed an odd look at Lorelai. "But I would have anyway, since you'd either have to be batty, or my mother, to consider this thing a comfortable place to lie down."

"I won't impose--" Paris was stopped immediately by Lorelai taking her by the hand and helping her up.

"On what, me staying up until 4 o'clock going over exciting liens and awesome promissory notes while watching QVC for background chatter?" Another smile directed towards Paris. "I need to run to Doose's anyways, and if you'd like I can make you some mac and cheese."

"What kind?" Paris cast a wary eye towards her, knowing that even with the innkeeper's friendship with a master chef, she still made a soupy Kraft dinner.

"Fine, Easy Mac!" Lorelai confessed. "Sure, rub it in that I can barely sustain myself on anything that doesn't come on a menu, my best friend, or the line 'cook on HIGH for 5 minutes' next to it."

"Hey, it'll do, I'm not in much of a position to complain." Paris serenely smiled, feeling a load off her shoulders at being able to grieve. "So you're sure, in your room?"

"For tonight, me cama es tu cama. I'll get you up around eleven o'clock and then we can pig out and just be two wild and crazy gals. Also, if you'd like I won't mind you staying overnight."

"I'm kind of stuck out here," Paris admitted. "I sent my driver home for the rest of the night; if I didn't come back around the block in a half-hour, he could drive off."

"Good plan, I'd rather you be here than alone at home," Lorelai admitted, thankful that although Paris's mom wasn't the best, the people around her were supportive. "See you in a couple hours then?"

"Yeah." Paris felt nervous as she began the climb up the stairs as Lorelai ran into Rory's room to borrow a pair of jeans. She felt thankful that her insides were no longer twisting as hard as they were about Jamie, and did feel more relieved after sharing her doubts with the mother of her best friend.

She felt mixed, bitter that the girl she thought would be by her side at Harvard was letting her wander, not even saying a word about Jamie after asking her advice throughout the week, saying she wouldn't interfere. Of course not, she thought to herself, he's just enough for me. Meanwhile you get with Reb and it's all screw me over because he has that bad boy thing going on. It hurt her that Rory hadn't been there to hear about her worries, and that she didn't care.

Thankfully, Lorelai gave her better guidance as she thought about it going up the stairs. She lived through some of the same things, something her friends had never done. Lorelai had struggled and clawed to come out the way she was, and for Paris, to hear the war stories and advice from her, it gave her comfort that Jamie wasn't the be-all end-all of everything. Paris sighed to herself, letting unease out as she reached the top landing and looked over the bed of the innkeeper. It looked comfy, lived-in, very much homey. Not at all like the bedspread on her bed, changed out weekly and as antiseptic as could be.

It even smells of her...this room. She took in the air of the room, letting it filter through her nose. She knew already that the unfamiliar space was more than offset by the woman who usually lay between those covers and the way she had comforted her so much in the worst moment of her life. Paris was settled to the fact she would have a nice, long calming nap, and as she unzipped her formal dress, hoped that no matter what sexual tension she felt with Lorelai, both of them could build something of a bond that she couldn't seem to find with Rory at all.

Lorelai double-checked the slide lock to make sure that it worked on the front door as the last minute ticked towards eleven, to make sure in three years of disuse it would still engage, and it did. So she was a little paranoid that she had a girl with a $20 million trust upstairs in her bed, but she also wanted to make sure that no one walked in without warning. Especially not her daughter. From how she felt, she didn't want anything to do with Rory after I answered the door, she remembered, and hoped that she was tired out across town. Paris deserved a bit of peace and quiet after her hectic week, and the painful end to her relationship.

Along with no flirting on her end. She kept telling herself that she would only be a friend to the girl, no matter that even a thought about her as she grabbed the wallowing supplies at the market brought very un-Puritan images through her mind of their encounter the week before. They warmed her cheeks, and in the middle of the cereal aisle she could swear she could feel Paris's slim fingertips softly rub at her lips. But she managed to survive, and grabbed everything she needed for Operation Cheer Up Paris.

Everything was all set on the coffee table; two large bowls of fudge cookie dough ice cream, a jar of Smucker's hot fudge, Utz cheese popcorn (she had a feeling that it was so artificial it had absolutely no real cheese or lactose in it), huge spoons and everything else she would need to keep Paris in a light mood. Lorelai felt sort of bad, though, since Taylor had pulled the Easy Mac because 'it makes the children of the town lazy. If they want something to eat after school, they should learn to boil pasta on the stove like the rest of us.' After all of these years, the woman still couldn't understand the strange shelving choices the seemingly permanent selectman made to stock his shelves.

Taking a look over everything, she grabbed the remote and turned on the news on channel 8, figuring that Paris probably knew what was happening anyways, but background noise would be welcomed. Looking over her spread, Lorelai smiled to herself, thinking about her ingenuity after giving herself another hour of quiet time after she returned from the market.

"If this doesn't cheer her up, I guess I'll dress up like a clown." In her mind, she didn't understand why she undertook all of these preparations for what was supposed to be simple wallowing. Was it the residual effects of last week's encounter, or was she just feeling extreme empathy for a fellow rich girl stuck with a life she didn't want? Whatever it was, Lorelai knew one thing.

"She needs all the support she can get. I'm surprised she hasn't made up her mind on a college yet." Trying not to think so seriously, she tried to distract herself towards other non-Paris thoughts.

Her aversion failed though when she went back to Rory and how she felt about her being alone. The 'I'm 18' excuse had been used, and eventually the younger Gilmore had worn her mother out and convinced her to have a night of fun. She remembered how unkind she felt she was becoming, unappreciative for the advice, maybe even getting a little cocky after the mid-May progress report came in, showing her topping Paris by about 20 hundredths of a grade point on the chart. She thought Jess was beginning to rub off on her in more than one way, but she wanted Rory to taste her own medicine if things went wrong.

She was in no mind to think about her daughter right now. The emotional state of Rory's friend was much more important to her. Walking up the stairs towards her bedroom, she had her fingers crossed that the blonde had managed to find enough peace to snooze.  She tiptoed up the steps slowly, not wanting to startle her, and ended up on the landing without a problem.

Walking into her room, she was glad that Paris indeed was calm and napping soundly, all of her blankets still straight, nothing thrown around the room at all in a nightmare of any kind.

As she approached the bed though, Lorelai noticed next to the girl's shoes a lump of fabric on one side. The wine red garment was familiar to Lorelai immediately. She clenched up, sort of nervous.

She wouldn't be. Right? I don't know how she sleeps, but she didn't have anything to wear under. Lifting Paris's formal dress up on bended knee to hang it up on a closet door hook, the older brunette also ended up with her bra too, the light blue strapless lace odd in her hands. She tiptoed to the hook, hung the items up, and turned her attention back to the girl in her bed.

Lorelai watched, quiet as she tried to sense what was happening. She heard some mumbling, barely discernable with other activity going on, but quiet and still, she tried to make it out. Paris had the blankets curled up around her, probably feeling a chill due to the window air conditioner against her back in the far side window of the dim bedroom. Lorelai barely breathed, trying to find out if Paris was dreaming about something horrible.

"No, no, not right there." She coughed, pushing herself a bit more against the comforter. "Idoeneedeh thatide." The words were muffled against the pillow, until she turned to the cooler side of the pillow. "I wanna breathe in it."

Dreaming about graduation, probably. Lorelai felt confident she was dreaming about something innocent, probably her cap and gown fitting. Relaxing a little, she backed a bit more towards the closet, preparing to wake Paris up.

"Lorelai!!" Paris screamed out her name tiredly. "Oh, my God. No, I don't care how much you pay me, I'm not going in there naked underneath!"

The woman's mouth formed into a round 'O' shape, and she held back a gasp. She closed her eyes, and suddenly felt as if she was violating a private sanctum. She shook her head, owing it more to frazzled nerves than anything sexual between them. It's nothing, really.

"Ms. Gilmore, what are you doing?" Paris turned back to the other side. "We only have twenty minutes...what do you mean you don't give a damn? Your daughter will kill me."

It was at that moment that Lorelai noticed that within the lump of blankets, one part was sticking out the most against Paris. Also, that it seemed to poke out as if attached to the end of an arm.

"Lor...don't pout, I'm sorry I called you Ms. How can I make it up to you?" She was hyperventilating, and the older woman watching her in the shadows of the moonlight was on the other side of the room, her legs still, no matter how much she wanted to move.

"I do want to, really, but there's no time...someone could walk in!"

The tall woman felt her heart hammer against her chest, hard. This was so very wrong for her, to be the fuel to this girl's fantasies. She should be concerned about the end of her relationship, and her future.

Instead, on her own bed, the girl who was running through Lorelai's mind since their fun of last week, was having a sexual sleep-talking dream about her.

It was killing Lorelai inside, as she watched the light on Paris's face go from a happy kind of calm, to sexually enflamed. Her nose wrinkled up, her body straightened, and next...

"Oh, fuck!" She said the profanity with full force. "Lor..."

The dream's subject let her eyes pop open wide, and she tried to breathe again, mumbling to herself that she was breaking open that one thread of sanctuary Paris had left in the world.

"I...I better just get outta here. She's not ready to get up." Lorelai blushed deeply, trying to direct her thoughts towards something boring as she tried to make her way back towards the door from between her closet and the foot of the bed. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have, I need to--"

As she retreated, Lorelai forgot for a moment that a housekeeper she was not for twelve years, especially in her own bedroom. She had to step over a pile of clothes to get to the closet door, along with a leg for her vanity's seat. But with her focus on Paris's dreams, she forgot where to tread, and before she knew it, she was tripping over the heap. She tried to grasp for the end of the bed without success, and with momentum carrying her on, she fell to a hard and inglorious heap to the deep carpeting below after a twist or two, back first, her ankle trapped against the straps of a vintage black slip at the bottom of the heap.  Her ass hit the ground first, and because of the old construction of the floor below her, it shook everything within a seven-foot vicinity of the impact.

It also woke Paris up. In her dream haze, she was startled by the shake as she regained her bearings in real life. She was pulled away from her dream, and her first reaction was that the peace of the small town was broken by some nut with an elephant gun. Don't tell me Kirk provides midnight roofing services! She screamed internally within, not putting it past him to do so. She rubbed the sleep out from her eyes and tried to bring back her focus to see what the matter was.

The first thing seen when she turned on the bedside light was the lady of the house on her back. Not surprisingly, Paris was much concerned about why she was. The comforter around her thankfully-to-Lorelai-clothed body, she immediately got up from the bed to offer Lorelai a hand up.

"Uh, hey," she said nervously.

"Hi."

"Can I ask why you're on a heap next to the bed?" Paris smiled at her, with sleepy eyes.

"I'm OK, really," Lorelai responded lamely. "I...I was trying to hang up your dress. It's satin. You don't want it to wrinkle."

"And?" Paris brought down her hand.

"I tripped on a pile of clothes going the other way."

"You wouldn't have that happen if you could keep your room clean," Paris reminded.

"I do...I can maneuver around." Lorelai tried to defend herself, while the blonde shook her head. She grasped Paris's hand and began to get up. "It's a little cramped, but it's homey."

"I'm not complaining about the space in the room, just how you use it." Taking her by the other hand, Paris kept her gaze northward, away from the flannel shirt riding up her legs. "Up, Ms. Gi--er, Lorelai." She helped Lorelai up the rest of the way, figuring that she would be out of danger after that.

At least, until Lorelai hissed out, some signals being sent up her neurons from her left ankle.

"Yooowwww...stupid ankle!" Lorelai cursed at herself. "Damn it, I've meant to get a hamper. I also have that elevator shaft like thingie in the hall to the laundry room, I should use it more."

Paris filled in the vague term to take the focus from the woman's pain. "A dumbwaiter?"

"You mean me at 19 in the Inn's dining room, right?" Lorelai shook her head. "I really haven't gotten injured in my room before. Strangled by a zipper, uh-huh. Attacked by my own laundry, that's a new one!" She tried to distract herself, while Paris bent down to detangle the slip from her leg.

"I would suggest from now on your lingerie goes in a corner pile, not in the middle. Strappy items and shoes should be out of your way." Paris felt around the ankle with her hands, trying to determine if there was a sprain. "Just let me know where it hurts, I can judge whether I'll have to immobilize you."

"What?" Lorelai paled hearing the complicated medical word. "I...you don't think I did that much damage."

Paris looked up at her. "My Nanna tripped on a small marble and shattered her hip; it can happen with that, or a bowling ball. Now stay still, it won't take long." She circled her thumb and index fingers around the thin area of Lorelai's ankle, letting her fingers guide her. "You're standing and not hopping, so that's a good first sign. Just let me test...here." Lorelai felt nothing. "And...here." Moving her fingers down, she probed again. Again, no pain. "How about here, do you feel anything?" She touched her fingers to a small spot at the top of her ankle.

"Owwww..." Lorelai didn't scream, but it wasn't a good sensation for her in any way. Paris sighed in relief, the panic she had washing away.

"It's not too bad, thank goodness."

"But I sprained my ankle," Lorelai cried. "It hurts." Paris shook her head.

"Trust me, I'm studying this stuff, and I'm in a family of doctors. If it was bad you would've raced for the bed to take pressure off and been anguished with each step. Things would have been worse with a heavier piece of clothing against the ankle, but since it's just a spaghetti strap, just a minor hyperextension, and no sprain." She helped Lorelai to the bed, where she sat down on. "You're going to be fine."

"Do I need ice?" Lorelai asked, worried. "Or Icy Hot?"

Paris shook her head. "No, but you're going to need to lie down on the bed against your pillow. If you stay on the leg you may aggravate something, but I know a little something that might help."

"So you'll borrow me a Vicodin from your purse?"

Paris rolled her eyes up. "Actually, something with a personal touch to it."

"What do you mean?"

"Lie down, Lorelai," Paris ordered.

"Alright." Lorelai pushed the blankets over, and pouted. "I don't know what bedrest is going to do for it though, it hurts a little. I could use a Tylenol PM."

"Not bedrest." She had Lorelai move towards the right side of the mattress to get just enough maneuvering space, and then pushed the blankets out of the way. "There's no need for pills either. It's an involuntary reaction to go after them right away, but if you treat it immediately, you'll be able to sleep well."

"What are you doing?" Lorelai felt babied, a bit less independent. "Really, whatever it is, you don't need to do anything for me."

"God, you're so stubborn." Paris smiled at her as she sat down on the mattress, trying not to let Lorelai's childishness get to her. "Relax, close off your mind."

"Says the girl who had a coronary over Harvard," Lorelai teased, which sent a dirty look her way. "What?"

"Hey, they can't handle me, fine. But they're going to miss me using my medical skills in a speedy and expedient manner meant to calm the patient."

"Like--" Lorelai was about to ask what Paris was going to do, but was interrupted, as she found herself with the young woman's thin hands wrapping around her left foot, around her leg.

"As I said, keep calm." Paris smiled as she began to knead her fingers across the thin skin at the top of Lorelai's foot. "This is what's going to unkink the bloodflow and let things get back to normal." Closing her palm across the side of the foot, Paris rubbed Lorelai slowly, letting herself guide where she needed to go.

"Oh, wow." The other woman was surprised a bit, feeling so strange. "What is this? How...how do you know to do it? I don't see you being a major in the art of massage."

She smiled slightly, letting her fingers drift up and down up the lower portion of the leg. "Does that feel nice?" Lorelai nodded. "I got it from my nanny; one of the things she used to do for me when I was younger would be to massage stress away from me after I came home from school. I learned it from her, and then I'd practice on her in turn after long days at the Manor. I just find it very therapeutic: that's why if I'm stressing I clench my fists. I let my thumb rub over the inside of my palm, circling it slowly, like this..." She slid her hand further up the woman's ankle. "I deal with problems internally, and most of the time, it helps."

"Mmmm, yeah." Lorelai could already feel the numbing pain melting away from her, smiling and closing her eyes. "Oh, you don't know how good this feels. I don't usually ask anyone to do this at all."

"Why not?" Paris asked, curious.

"Too intimate," Lorelai responded, sighing. "Besides, that's what a foot bath is for."

"So when you were with Max...never?" She saw the woman shake her head. "I'm surprised, you seem like you enjoy to be touched."

"He didn't offer."

"He should have." Paris huffed, annoyed at what they were talking about. "What is it about guys and always going for the obvious parts?"

Lorelai, seeing an opening in the conversation, bit. "Are you thinking about Jamie again?"

"Maybe, a little bit." Paris was nervous about bringing him up, feeling calm before then as her hands rubbed just below the sore spot. "I just keep thinking, should I have pushed him more? Was there something wrong with me that necking and slow making out was something that he didn't enjoy?"

"He didn't enjoy foreplay, I take it."

Paris felt a bit raw revealing her inner stress, but wanted to get it out in the open with someone. Looking at the woman, she felt she could trust Lorelai enough with the conversation. "I'm surprised he'd let me build him up for ten minutes at times. And on my end, I wouldn't be in the mood, but I'd do it, even if I felt so wrong and had to fake through things. I'd try to tease, be slow, but he'd be all 'Jake is getting back soon, suck me off!' I mean in that dorm, not the most romantic place in the world."

"So he rushed things."

She hated to bring up last week again, but felt an example was needed. "I didn't even know I could orgasm like I did. Thinking about him, trying to get off in bed, it never worked. I'd think about someone else, it was painful." Paris rubbed harder on Lorelai's ankle, on the sore spot. "I hate to be mean to him, but he was just so fucking vanilla, the guy had no imagination to speak of when it came to me." She clenched her teeth as she pushed another example. "Hell, I tried the old teacher/student chestnut, and he told me he wasn't into it because, get this, 'I can't imagine you getting into trouble or being disrespectful of authority!'"

Lorelai felt herself tensing up even more. "You wore the uniform, right?"

"I even flirted, it didn't work!"

"Does he understand the meaning of fantasy?"

"Who knows? All I know is, you were right. Thinking about him all week, into tonight, I was regretting that I gave him another chance. I expected him to change, but he didn't, and after baiting me in the car, I'm just so pissed at him. I put all of this effort into loving him, and he makes me seem dirty for being a woman with needs." Paris felt herself tightening up, wanting to close up, but kept herself open for Lorelai's sake. "I wasn't so much with the 'come and get it' like Louise does, but I thought I had a more understated kind of sexuality, that I built away from my mother and the influence of the other girls. I mean, I want to be surprising and open to things, but at the same time, I want to have a good head on my shoulders."

"I think you do," Lorelai demurred. "Was it wrong that my first thought of you having a relationship when Rory told me about Jamie was of you into S&M?"

Paris shook her head and gave Lorelai a dirty look. "Careful there, Lorelai. I can easily break your leg right now." There was a teasing smile on her face.

"I don't think I'd feel it...mmmm." The hotelier shut her eyes, as Paris's working of her ankles began to turn more towards the massage direction. "And I know you wouldn't do it, you're more of a mental injurer than a physical one."

"But I know three forms of martial arts, so you can't count me out." The girl slid her fingers up to just below the injury spot. "How is it doing? It looks like it's cooling down."

"Like I never even tripped over anything, you were right." Lorelai began to settle more into the bed, previously feeling nervous and pained from the trip. "It's settled then, the next time I get injured, you're on call for me."

"Glad to see my fingers are of some use." Laughing, Paris began to move her massaging strokes down towards Lorelai's feet. "I'm afraid I'm not grasping a whip with them anytime soon though. I actually..." She lowered her voice a bit. "...I don't mind being the one under control. It's sort of rooted in me."

"So you don't mind being on the bottom?" Lorelai asked the question without thinking. She had been holding back from broaching anything about the classroom meeting, afraid that Paris would say that she regretted it all.

But in Paris's mind, she was totally playing along, the residual effects of the dream still going through her. She felt tight and wound up from her nap, sexual tension running through her. Her eyes stayed on Lorelai's lower portion, ogling her legs and her hands enjoying the soft feel of her skin. She's so much unlike Jamie, she thought to herself, thinking in broader terms besides her skin. She let me go on without a dull interruption about a fraternity activity or the goings on of King of Prussia society. What kind of city name is that anyways, did they secede from the Union for awhile at the behest of that guy? What a presumptuous town name...wait, I never have to worry about that stupid town again! But I do need to take my mind off her, we can't work. But I have to continue the flirt, to bait her.

Paris smiled at her after a pregnant pause, just as Lorelai was ready to apologize, while circling her fingers around the arch of her foot, near the heel. "It doesn't matter to me where I am." She then slid her tongue across her top lip. "I quite enjoyed being against the blackboard, for instance."

Lorelai closed her eyes, trying to draw out the reminder from her head, and just enjoy the bare touch of the massage. She remembered back, trying to shake it out of her head. She's just playing with you, don't bait her on.

But her heartbeat and breath picked up, as Paris's circling drove closer within the deeper parts of her sole. She was blushing, so embarrassed she was getting this way over Paris. I need to forget this, I can't continue to think this way. What if this is just a thrill detour, something out of "American Pie"? What do I look like, Stifler's mom?

She tried to distract, bringing her thoughts towards something neutral, at least to her. Opening her eyes, she scanned Paris's body, trying to get an idea of what she was wearing, losing her distraction from the trip.

"Umm, I'm sorry I didn't find anything for you," she said, honest and annoyed with herself. "I know normally, that would be your last choice to wear." She looked at the large t-shirt Paris had found in her top dresser drawer.

"It's just a shirt, it's nothing." Paris hadn't looked at what she was wearing before she put it on, and as she followed Lorelai's eyes, finally realized that maybe she should have looked at what the green shirt's message was. Her eyes widened as she read the words out loud.

"Aye am shampeon uf thee Tori Spell Lang Bea." Surrounded by a pattern consisting of bees and a cheesy trophy reading "#Won", the words stuck out like a sore thumb to her, and she immediately felt embarrassed to have chose it in her frazzled state. "Someone sold this shirt?" She was shocked. "I don't get it."

"Uh, Tori Spelling is stupid?" Lorelai summed up the joke.

"Well I knew that, but...oh, never mind." Paris shook her head, the point of the words getting through to her. "It's a good joke, just a bit 'hammer to the head' getting it across, though."

"But it's a conversation starter, you have to admit that." The two women began to relax, letting any tension fall away slowly. "I would have never expected you to choose that one. When I wore that into Luke's, Taylor said I needed to take it off immediately." She lowered her voice to imitate him badly. "He said 'Lorelai, our school district is among the best for towns with populations below 7,500, you're going to confuse the young people of this town by wearing it.'"

"Take it off?" Paris felt herself warming. "But then you'd be in violation of the decency laws."

Upon hearing Paris's words, Lorelai's mouth opened, and she gasped out. "Oh, that pervert! I knew there was a haughty tone hiding his real purposes in there! Hmmph, I should bring that up at the next town meeting!"

"Somehow I don't think we need to publicize the deviant fantasies of that guy." Paris laughed nervously. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not think about him anymore."

"Sorry. Actually, I wasn't even thinking of the message of the shirt," Lorelai confessed. "I think you look kind of cute in it, actually." She was heartened to watch Paris blush a bit.

"Green really isn't my color though."

"I know, but um...you look nice just wearing that." Lorelai turned her head to look towards the window, trying to keep her eyes from Paris's small form. She slid her hand from Lorelai's foot, releasing it upon seeing her fully calmed and relaxed, not even remembering the injury. She got out of her sitting position on her legs, stretching out across the bed. The two women felt heated up, trying to avert from the flirting, but failing to do so.

"What do you mean, nice?" Paris questioned. "As in, it fits well despite being an extra large shirt on a petite body, or in the other sense of a 'my shirt' kind of compliment?" She was startled to see Lorelai, usually so bold about her sexuality, become so shy about it. Lorelai was questioning herself internally, trying to bring things back to normal, not intending to flirt with Paris.

"As in...as in you just broke up with your boyfriend, and I shouldn't be saying these kinds of things." She averted her gaze as Paris relaxed on the bed, laying lengthwise to her. "I shouldn't be saying you're cute, even though it's my opinion that you are."

"I'm sorry." Paris didn't know what else to say, trying to formulate some excuse to take her mind off the track of wanting Lorelai again.

"You shouldn't be though. Just think of me as the wacky old lady who can't control her libido." Lorelai laughed at herself without mirth. "I can't be doing this."

"What is that?"

"Taking joy in...in Jamie blowing his chance with you," Lorelai admitted. "Thinking about you all week, wondering if our meeting was still on your mind, but I kept thinking that you got your rocks off and it was over, I could go back to thinking normally about you."

"Ms. Gilm--er, dammit! Lorelai, it's OK." She brought her eye contact straight with her. "I know what we did was so unexpected, but it was nice, enjoyable. I couldn't get my mind off it either at all."

"But what about Jamie?"

Paris sighed. "I gave it a shot, it didn't work, and you're right, I have to move on. But that doesn't in any way reduce what we did in that classroom. I know I cheated on him, and that maybe if we had some more control or a working air conditioner, we may not have. But then again, it may have been inevitable."

Lorelai bit her lip, feeling suddenly nervous, as Paris moved closer against her. "What do you mean by that?"

"First of all, who do we usually talk to about our problems in life, about your doubts over buying the Inn, or where I'd be in the fall?" Her voice tightened. "Rory is distracted by Jess, and she tunes us both out lately. I was talking to her about Jamie during pagesetting at the paper, and she hijacked the conversation towards how much she feels for Jess. Meanwhile, you're feeling all stressed out, and she's gone, while your red-haired chef friend is all about starting her family, which I understand. Max is gone, Louise is daydreaming about New Orleans, and who knows where Madeline is? We both doubt ourselves, and somehow, we tethered to each other in that classroom. You helped me out, and somehow, I felt closer to you."

"But that doesn't explain, why me? You have other adults in your life; you have a therapist you can confide in."

"Because, Lorelai, you're there. You understand things. With my therapist, my situation was brought up in a case study example in her second year in college, but you've actually experienced some of my crises. You've freaked out about bad grades and dating doubts." Paris lowered her voice, moving her other hand towards Lorelai's cheek. "Somehow, I know there's a trust with you too. Sure, we got off to a bad start with the whole 'tell the entire dining hall about you and Max hooking up' problem, but that was insanity brought about by the parent's divorce. Since then I've been pretty complimentary of you, haven't I?"

"Th--that's true." Lorelai looked down. "You did compliment the Bracebridge Dinner, except for the shirt thing."

"Then I want you to be truthful with me." Paris let herself take in a breath, hoping her next move didn't backfire. "Tell me that last week didn't mean anything to you, or not much. I won't get mad, or hurt because you said so."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's see here. If I would've tried to massage you, say about four months before, you would've been freaked out." She pushed closer, sliding her hand up Lorelai's smooth left arm. "I wouldn't be able to do this at all, until we spent a day forced together." She let her voice take a softer tone. "Certainly, your reaction to Jamie dumping me would have been more disconnected, as if you didn't care about me beyond your daughter's friend."

Watching the stunned woman, Paris felt she was cornering her, making it clear that her want for the woman wasn't influenced by either loneliness or just a need to confide in someone. "The sad thing is, I felt closer to you for nine hours than I had with Jamie over the last seven months, and you make me want to confront things, which I did. I lost my drive before we ended up talking, and you brought it back."

Lorelai thought carefully about what Paris was saying, and tried to deliberate that she shouldn't be closer to her. That in her mind, this should not be happening at all.

Or in the deepest part of her mind, that she should be telling Paris to leave. But that was an extreme opinion, hurtful, and she wouldn't dare even consider it in any way.

Staring at the girl, thinking about what she may have done on the sofa, Lorelai knew the blonde was stuck in her mind, no matter what.

After a long pause, Lorelai finally spoke. "I'm flattered, really. And I definitely care about how you're feeling, especially about Jamie. I'm just, frankly, uh, concerned about whether you're, well--you know..." She tightened her voice, trying to neutralize the bite the words might have. "I'm afraid that with me, you're thinking like a teenager."

The word echoed through Paris's mind, sounding almost like an insult. Yet, she filtered it, knowing that Lorelai was offering a perfect out to the situation. That she didn't need to say it as if she was a baby, Paris was heartened by Lorelai laying it out raw. Thinking it through internally for a moment, Paris looked to turn the tables.

Smiling slightly, she bit on the woman's phrasing.

"Are you then, Lorelai?" The words were said softly, without a hint of malice, in the form of a come-on. "With your mindset, I need to know if you think this is right."

The woman next to her blushed, suddenly tightening up at the very insinuation. "I don't know if I can really say I am. It's complicated, the situation. You're hurt so this may not be the right time to act."

"The only thing that's been hurt lately is my pride, and it's being remodeled," she responded confidently. "To tell you the truth..." she began to shift, moving her small body closer to the flannel-clad woman, their legs brushing together. "I was hurt by Jamie's words and his actions, but all week, remembering us making love on that desk, it balmed the pain. It disappeared." Her tone turned serious as she went further. "Remembering your wisdom and comfort, how even though it could have been just sex, but I know both of us took something from that. I felt confident and desirable than I ever have."

"Paris..."Lorelai closed her eyes. "Oh God."

"What did you feel?" She asked.

"Funny," she said simply.

"Can we go beyond that?" She stroked the woman's slender fingers, and her toes, with her body fully stretched out, rubbed against her left ankle.

"I...I'm still shuddering from the feel of your leg against mine," she confessed. "Just thinking about it right now, I'm all wound up. But everything also helped. That was pretty much a day off, and I was on my last nerve with Fran's estate because they won't sell me the Dragonfly outside of auction, Rory, my mother...it was a relaxant to me, even though most of the conversation was one-sided towards you. I needed to hear that I wasn't alone in being pissed off at the world."

"So, you enjoyed it." Paris smiled, as Lorelai nodded.

"It made me forget, to have that time with you. To only fret about a cashbox, not my daughter's future."

"Me too." They stood stuck, staring at each other. "How many times have you relived it so far?"

The brunette blushed deeply, feeling mortified to admit her fingers had done the walking to Paris's moans and thrusts several times since then, either in the bed or within a shower. "I cannot reveal that under my Fifth Amendment right?"

Paris shook her head, revealing a tell she held back since she got to the door. "I know of at least one time."

Lorelai froze up almost immediately. "What do you mean? I haven't been near you since last Wednesday, I--"

"You wanted me when I got to the door, right?" Before Lorelai could do any kind of aversion tactic, she found Paris's left hand drifting up her thigh. "I...I was ready to leave when you said Rory wasn't home, because I heard you otherwise occupied. That's why I almost diverted."

To put it lightly, Lorelai was mortified by the revelation. "Was I really that loud?"

"No, the front window blind towards the other side of the porch away from the neighbors was really that opened, actually." Lorelai's heartbeat picked up even more. "I made out my name through the shielded noise, and I felt myself flare up. But since you were just warming up, I thought it would be fine to interrupt, of little consequence to you, unlike if I caught you in a full stroke."

"So...so you watched me...for a bit?" Lorelai cursed herself out. "I will make sure to have that shade fixed next time!"

Paris pushed her hand up until she met the hem of the flannel shirt. "I apologize for stopping you, because in the darkest part of my mind, I wanted to watch, be a voyeur. But my rule is, I don't violate privacy, so I stopped you."

"What did it do to you?" Lorelai asked, her voice becoming a whisper.

"I was still crying and depressed, but I bit down on my lip, and my legs just gave out. I mean, God..." The girl's nails raked within the inner thigh. "Playing with yourself over the shirt, stroking, moaning my name. Talk about giving me a confidence boost."

"And a pair of wet panties?" Lorelai suggested, laughing.

"Something I know we're sharing." Paris blushed. "Trust me, if I wouldn't have seen that, I would have felt very uncomfortable coming in tonight."

"Why's that?"

Paris brought her mouth close to Lorelai. "Because I thought you were regretting me."

"I wasn't."

"I know. But I manifest regret internally." The fingers moved ever so close to Lorelai's core. She seized up, thinking of any way to turn off the warming want building within her. "I don't know what to think about the situation. One moment I'm enjoying that we were together, but the next I go back to it and think about what may have happened if it backfired. If I would have taken that backing up against the blackboard as something aggressive, or something I did would be taken as something you didn't enjoy."

"Then don't think about it," Lorelai said, softly. "I had them too, but we can't change the past. I enjoyed it, and I know you did." Paris nodded. "I don't regret things; I learn from them."

The courage was building up within Paris. Looking at the woman next to her, the dim light of the lamp highlighting the sheen of her cheeks, along with the glow within her eyes. She felt so wanted, but tried to hold it back. This isn't the time, really it isn't. She tried to rationalize to herself that looking for comfort in the small town mother was the last thing she should do, and had to shield herself from the burgeoning emotions she was feeling.

She began to avert a bit. "But you were just feeling under stress from everything, that's why we did what we did, right? The tension was getting to you, and also to me, so we just..."

As she attempted to voice her theory, Paris was startled to find the other woman brushing her leg against hers, not lifting it up to keep the ankle from flaring up, but still pushing against her. Distracted, she then had another delayed reaction to another sudden touch, as the woman's now purple-polished nails scraped above her shirt, above the side of her waist. Paris softly gasped from the contact, her thoughts interrupted from the woman. Lorelai brought her hands up, turning herself to face the girl, and her left hand trailed up along her side until she reached Paris's delicate neck, her fingers grazing the mole on her left side that always drew the eye naturally. The erogenous spot brought out an unexpected moan from Paris, especially from seeing Lorelai be this way with her. She then caressed along Paris's jaw line, her eyes fully focused on her.

Lorelai made Paris see how hollow her statement was. "What tension? If I remember, the entire day ended up how it did because we found each other so alluring, not just from tension." She licked her lips inside, finding herself resisting not asking to resist the advances. "What are you thinking right now?"

Paris lowered her gaze. "Trust me, you really don't want to know."

Smiling, Lorelai lowered her tone, pushing the flirting within it even further. She knew this was no time to be joking at all, about either her love life or the exes they shared. This was about them. "And why not?" she teased.

"Because," Paris said wearily, "I'm...nervous about saying it."

"So I make you nervous?" Lorelai's other hand shifted across the girl's clothed belly.

"Oh, of course," Paris responded, distracted. "But do you really want to know?"

Lorelai, feeling confronted, wanted to be truthful as to why she ended up tripping over her ankle. She took in a deep breath, hoping she wasn't playing her hand too early.

"What if I already do?" Lorelai asked confidently, her voice firm.

"You don't." Paris was confident of it.

Another move to Lorelai, and this time, she said it with her actions along with her words, dipping a couple of fingers near Paris's navel. "What if I did?"

Paris seized up at the close intimate touch. "You...don't!"

She found the hand wandering from along the trail to her intimacy, and then up towards her breasts, which were doing the thing Lorelai hated the most about borrowing shirts, as they'd be stretched out by the wearer.

Except in this case. Without a bra on, Paris was showing off, and the heat the women were sharing, along with the dissipating effects of her nap, were getting Paris hot and hard. The outline of each nipple was obvious, and as Lorelai's hand pushed closer towards her breasts, they both felt themselves opening up.

"I do. And I'm very open to whatever you might want," Lorelai suggested, her voice filled with lust. "You can't hide from me; you're an open book, Paris."

The girl stared at Lorelai, trying to see if she was truthful. She was concerned now about what Lorelai held close. What is she going on about? She thought to herself, hoping it wasn't one of her psychoses coming into the limelight at the wrong time.

"I know I shouldn't be doing this," Paris communicated, her voice wavering. "I should not feel this way for you."

Lorelai felt the same way. "You and me both. I don't know what I'm really doing."

"You're sure?" Paris felt as if she was the most inexperienced girl ever. "What you're doing..." Her heart beat faster as those fingers trailed up. "Oh God, your nails."

"Ticklish?" Paris nodded furiously, taking in a deep breath. Her face was flushed, eyes slitted as she took in what Lorelai was doing to her. "So you do have nerve endings. From how Rory describes you, it's almost like you're cold and inhuman."

Paris took Lorelai's other hand into hers at that comment, not letting it get to her. Rory's not here, she thought internally, blocking her classmate out of everything going on. She shouldn't be judging us, or you. Wrapping her fingers around her counterpart's hand, Lorelai felt herself still in a cool shock as Paris guided it towards her left breast. To anyone else, it might be immediately construed as sexual, but there was a connection between the women that was building even deeper within the moment. Paris placed her hand atop Lorelai's as she set it where she intended to.

She spoke softly, the usual bitterness completely gone from her now warm and seductive voice. "What is this then?"

"That...that's your heart," Lorelai stated numbly, the constant rhythm of Paris's beat thumping against her palm. She attempted to brush off the effect of the intimate touch with sarcasm, but she came off much softer than expected. "I do know my basic human anatomy."

Letting the feel of Lorelai's fingertips surround her, Paris found her own voice disappearing. "I guess I am human then, contrary to popular belief." The two of them moved ever closer, inches separating their lips. Smirking, Paris rubbed her thumb against the pulse point in Lorelai's wrist. "Your pulse is steadier than expected."

"And here you go, teasing me about my coffee addiction." The other woman shook her head, feeling so warmed by the slow teasing. "So I have six cups a day, that's pretty normal, right?" A pause of silence. "Right?"

"Hey, far be it for me to judge your caffeine intake, I can't even drink it the way you do." Paris then explained she had to have it buffeted by soy milk and sweeteners because straight black didn't agree with her stomach.

"I'm sorry. Darn your genes." Lorelai stared her down, scanning her eyes down towards Paris's crossed and bare legs, a definite rarity for a girl she assumed stayed clothed as much as possible. She tried not to show Paris was throwing her off the caring yet detached track she usually had with her daughter's other friends and classmates. Paris brought her hand down to her lap, circling her palm with her index finger.

Paris stared Lorelai over, trying to keep herself from being distracted with a bit of exposed skin through the shirt between the 35 year old woman's breasts, something about as asexual a stare as possible in that erogenous zone. Still, it was killing her to think of Lorelai nude. Especially since I know she probably has no bra on, she thought to herself. She closed her eyes again, trying to distract herself from the building thoughts and tension.

At that point, Lorelai's rational side reminded her exactly what she was doing in definitive terms. What the hell are you thinking here? Sex got you into trouble many times, and here it is, doing the same thing. Don't let her attach to you! She's not exactly the kind of woman you'd take home to Mother...you wouldn't want to take anyone to her in the first place! She's latching on to you as a voice of reason, and what happens when she comes to her senses? Have you even considered that? You can't give her this new stress on top of Jamie and school, she needs time to herself, to cope, to heal.

Paling from that very thought, Lorelai realized she was getting close...too close, to be a calming influence in Paris's life. The way she looked, wearing her shirt, the green contrasting perfectly with the young woman's olive skin, and the stare of those warm brown eyes upon her. Going back to last week, at the moment they crossed that line in the classroom, Lorelai knew she went too far.

But she thought about her past relationships, how she got off on the illicit. I'm a thrillseeker, she hypothesized, thinking about how much the parents tried to dissuade her from Christopher, and that with Max, being with someone who taught her daughter gave her such a naughty buzz.

I can't do that with her though. What am I thinking, taking advantage of her at a time where she's so uncertain. I'm not for her, I shouldn't be encouraging this.

Lorelai tried to drown out all the opposing voices in her mind, to try to cool down the situation. It was to no avail though, as watching the girl kept her hot, and wanting of her further touch. She still felt the girl's heartbeat within her hand, a minute after breaking contact with her chest.

Suddenly, she felt a need to do something, anything to take her mind off what she wanted from Paris. She thought she had a perfect opportunity to slip away with Par's eyes shut. I can do this, she thought, as she began to slide the held hand out from Paris's loose grip on her wrist. She slid over towards the end of the bed to get out of it and head downstairs.

"So..." Paris opened her eyes again, smiling. "What exactly do you know?"

Lorelai paused, confused. "Know?"

"Yes, know." Lorelai felt Paris overpowering her again. "You were saying I was an open book." Paris shifted her hands from Lorelai's wrist and the bed, to begin to envelope her. "So, what kind of book?"

"I can't say," Lorelai admitted shyly. "You'll hate me."

"No I won't."

Lorelai sighed heavily. "It's really nothing; I promise you."

"Which means it is." Paris was matter-of-fact. Laying down lengthwise to Lorelai, she pushed the woman back down onto the mattress. "I know you don't usually hold back what you have to say."

No matter what, Lorelai couldn't find a hole to dive through, to avoid the line of questioning she was being barraged with. Trying to figure out a way out if it, she tried an aversion technique.

"How about...if we talk about it downstairs?" Her tone was final, firm, and she thought Paris would get the hint. Beginning to calm, she thought she was off the hook.

She wasn't counting on Paris to get on her game. The silence during that time built up her reserve and want to go further, and as she sensed Lorelai's unease about the situation, she adjusted and adapted to what she felt was Lorelai fleeing from the entire idea that they were together, and there was chemistry between them. Planning perfectly, Paris sensed what she was probably going to do, and adjusted.

Moving to straddle Lorelai suddenly, Paris laid the foundation.

"About what, exactly?" Smiling, she pushed her hand up towards Lorelai's right side. "We're perfectly relaxed right here." Scanning the woman with purpose, her mouth watered at putting the middle Lorelai in her place.

"Things, of course." Lorelai began to lose her thoughts, watching Paris span across her, setting a trap. Nervously, she tittered. "Non-Jamie things."

The blonde nodded. "Good, I'm glad you don't want to talk about him either." Her other hand moved up the outside of Lorelai's thigh. "Frankly, I'll be glad to finally let thoughts of Chilton go after next week." Inching up slowly, she dragged her thin nails along the brunette's thick, smooth skin. "It's been a nice school, but I'm ready to move on, wherever that might be." She watched the woman shallow her breathing, becoming overwhelmed by her desire. She brought her eyes down, just in time for each hand to reach the hem of the flannel shirt.

Still, Lorelai lamely tried to distract. "Wouldn't you be more comfortable on the couch? I mean, this can't be."

"Oh, I'm fine, but you still seem tense." Breaking her hands away for a moment, Paris brought them to Lorelai's side. "Why would that be? We cleared the air on everything, I thought."

"We did..." Lorelai continued to fight the words from coming out. "It's clear as can be, like Crystal Pepsi."

Letting herself smirk, Paris found the woman right where she wanted her. "So why, when I look into your eyes, I feel like there's something there? Something you're hiding, because you're mortified about? It's nothing big, but yet..." Paris let her left hand run through Lorelai's smoothed out hair, sinking the fingertips scalp-deep. "That you're trying to protect me, as if I'm Rory and shouldn't know about it."

A sensory overload beginning, Lorelai again tried to misdirect. "How do you know if I'm hiding something?"

"Give it up and fold, Ms. Gilmore." She brought her mouth closer to the hotelier's. "Your hand is showing, and you have a bad deal."

"Par--" All the denial Lorelai buried herself in, it suddenly came crashing down, as after that moment, Paris touched her lips to Lorelai's, and left a simple, soft and quick kiss upon them, letting her tongue flitter softly upon the lips as she pulled away.

Looking at the woman below her warmly, Paris pulled back her hair, which was falling onto her face. Lorelai's stomach spun, and tingles shot through her spine, and all over. She didn't want to reveal, afraid. Never had such a simple kiss stunned her so quickly.

She heaved out a deep breath, trying to gather herself together. "Honest, I didn't mean to linger, I--"

Paris saw the clouds disappear from her view, and knew immediately what had happened. Thinking about it for less than a second, she knew if it was Jamie, the next action she would take would be a blow to his genitals.

Instead, she brought her fingers across Lorelai's lips, and smiled. "I slept-talked a fantasy about you, didn't I?"

Lorelai nodded slowly, hoping not to ire her anger. "I'm sorry...I was trying to leave, and I, I tripped over my clothes."

The blonde slid her other hand down Lorelai's side, her face heated from the confession of the woman. "No need to apologize at all. It's my psyche, and obviously it's showing you what I truly want."

"You should be mad though, not happy." Lorelai felt mortified. "I watched you having a sex dream and was enjoying it!"

"So? I watched you feeling yourself up and felt the same way. We're even." She could feel Lorelai's resistance begin to melt away.

"No, I violated your privacy and you watched me behave like I was in a Cinemax film!" The words were lightly said, the woman trying to make sense of what she was about to do. "Paris, this...this..."

In her mind, she had the suffix to the sentence planned out; this should have never happened. Normally, when she got too close to someone, she'd cut it off to reduce the damage of her decision in Rory's mind view. Her doubts quashed her engagement with Max, and she didn't take the initiative with Alex to see if he was still interested in her.

But, why are you questioning this? Her conscience attempted to clear the waters. Do you have to numb your own happiness? What happened to that woman who went after what she wanted sexually? She seems to have moved on to try to get the Dragonfly, but I can tell you that every bit of you still has that classroom in your mind, every gasp, touch, groan, the feeling of that hand between your legs. So she's young, so what? Better you help her figure out what she wants in life rather than some crackpot billing $300 an hour. Or God forbid, her mother!

Oh, and you like how she makes you feel. You're still wet, right?

She closed her eyes, her body overheated, looking up towards Paris. The other woman, looking down with her, unquestionably decided on her own that she felt good with Lorelai, and most of all, appreciated for who she was. I don't have to be different with her, she thought, her mouth watering at a peek between flannel buttons. She knows me as intense, and she is to me too. Whatever the age difference might do to make us odd, everything else makes up for it.

Brown eyes meeting blue, Paris dragged her hand back up Lorelai's side, but closer towards her breasts than towards the back. An open invitation to make it known she wanted to go forward with the innkeeper.

Lorelai felt rational thought melt away with the touch, another set of words falling from her mouth to complete the hanging sentence. Her voice barely discernable, her eyes filled with desire, the caution between the two was gone.

"...This shouldn't be a one time thing."

With those words, Lorelai felt herself resigned to her burgeoning emotions for one Paris Gellar. Internally, a tight knot of unease twisting her stomach seemed to unravel as Paris looked her over, trying to judge her words as true and from the heart. She had never felt so caught between her emotions and how she was supposed to behave.

For now though, she'd put that debate aside, to focus on the only thing that mattered.

She brought up her hands to grasp at Paris's arms, and pulled her close to her. Paris reacted immediately, wanting to stretch the tension further, and stunned at her confession.

"Lorelai, if you don't want to--"

She was cut off by a hard and searing kiss as the brunette brought her flush against her body on the mattress. Not a soft exploring kiss, but one to bring the girl to her knees. Nibbling at her lips, nipping her tongue, Lorelai made work of exploring a girl she once described to Sookie in an after-work conversation at a local bar as 'that plaid-skirted pain in the ass'. The woman's hands nested within her hair as the sexual tension of eleven days apart unraveled from the woman. She felt so hot, so daring.

Definitely naughty, internalizing the thought in her now-emptying mind. The petite academic weighing her down was giving Lorelai a push she hadn't felt in years to let herself go, experiment and play. For tonight, she would let Paris do that, knowing the girl probably had so many sexually feelings pent up in her, the kinds not even breached within that half-hour in the classroom.

Lorelai's kissing quickly moved down towards her neck, Paris keeping her eyes closed, letting the emotions flood her. The dream of earlier still within her mind, of coming over to have her gown fitted further from the factory, and then finding a flirtatious Chilton mother riling her up. She had been prepared for more since the moment she woke up. The small-town woman's teeth scraped across the tender flesh of her neck as she peppered the tanned flesh with pecks.

"I want to," Lorelai responded breathlessly, her hands breaching the hem of her own shirt on Paris's body so she could have skin-to-skin contact. She went back to kissing, not concentrating as Paris began to return the kissing, forcing her way back up to Lorelai's mouth. The sleeping article began to ride up as Paris rocked back and forth, while Lorelai pushed it up purposefully along the small area of thigh it was actually covering.

They said nothing, enjoying the feel of kissing free of the stress of time and interruptions. Paris could sense the chocolate eaten by the older woman as a snack, the taste of her mouth delicious and sweet, and it gave her more of an illicit thrill since chocolate was usually denied to her on the order of her mother to keep her skin clear. Mixed with a thin film of melon lip gloss, she was falling into a chasm she didn't want to crawl out from. Lorelai welcomed the slow kissing, just enjoying being able to spend time wandering rather than having to prepare for some guy to get all grabby and demanding to let him into her. I have to butter her up, she thought, noticing how forceful Paris was above her. I want her at her best. She couldn't believe her thoughts were this far out, but she couldn't find any reason to stop them.

Keeping her hands on Paris's sides she attempted to stay neutral, but was having a hard time doing much beyond that, as she slowly released from her mouth after an agonizing two minutes, moving down towards the woman's curved chin. Paris examined Lorelai closely, the innkeeper so beautiful in the dim light. Down her chin, along the curve down towards her neck. She found no resistance from Lorelai and felt encouraged further on.

"Do you...enjoy this?" she questioned, catching her breath between kisses. She felt the woman nod her head mutely. "Tell me how you feel."

"Really good," Lorelai responded, as if a frog was in her throat. "I enjoy this."

"How much?" Paris trailed towards the hollow of Lorelai's throat.

Lorelai felt her vocal cords tighten. "You doing this, I've never dreamed." Tightly, her eyes shut as her body stilled, the blonde lining soft flecks along the hollow of her throat. "Never." She shuddered in place, the softness so alien to her after years and years of rough stubble within her sexual dealings.

"You smell nice..." Paris took in a breath as she continued. "Natural." Smiling, she let her hand slide down, towards the side of Lorelai's flannel shirt in the middle, and then hooked a finger at a button opening. "Better than my dream."

"Sounded pretty good to me," Lorelai purred, the small touch against her sternum giving her a cold chill.

"It...was...very...encompassing...of my emotions." She opened the top button of the flannel and kissed the woman along the newly-exposed skin. Smiling, she felt Lorelai shift her legs, a sure sign that she was pushing the right trigger points. Paris was methodical in undressing the woman, voicing her desire for the woman when she needed to, but otherwise concentrating on the task. The emotions in her mind, earlier clouded by doubts were concentrated on being able to be passionate, something that had been sorely lacking with Jamie.

Lorelai shifted up so her back rested against the headboard, kissing Paris's forehead with the same fervor. Undressing each other slowly, Paris let herself take in Lorelai in small bits, the soft feel of her skin contrasting with the flannel. Closing her eyes the elder Gilmore let her hands caress softly as she pushed her own shirt up slowly. The dim light of the room amplified the intimacy, the only thing shielding the women the thin sheet of the bed as the other blankets were pushed aside.

Paris felt safe and comforted as the woman brought the shirt up, a different feeling from the awkwardness of Jamie taking her in naked for the first time. "I'm going to touch all over," Lorelai promised to her. The promise was kept, as hands went over supple flesh, and Lorelai teased her with words and touches, taking her time. Fingernails scraped across Paris's stomach, finding an erogenous zone which resulted in a deep throaty call of Lorelai's name out loud. Lorelai was overwhelmed by how welcoming Paris was of slow touches, completely different from the classroom setting. Taking her time, she was open and willing to explore everything possible between them.

Slowly, they took their time, kissing and caressing. Paris's small fingers eased each button out slowly as she kissed down the center of Lorelai's body. Reaching the button which was below her bra line, she brought her gaze up to the woman, who nodded the permission.  She didn't push aside each side of the shirt immediately however, letting her other hand circle along the flesh of the innkeeper's thigh as she built the mystery in her own mind of how the woman looked outside of the sweaty confines of a Chilton classroom.

"You are wearing underwear, right?" She asked, moving towards the last three buttons. The answer to that question was...interesting.

"You'll just have to see." Lorelai felt a bit odd, and Paris could sense it in her voice. Not like she's feeling weird though, she surmised, but that I might have caught her when she wasn't expecting me. She didn't have much time to ponder further though as Lorelai took the green shirt off Paris the rest of the way to her neck and out of the arms. She worked it off the rest of the way, and tossed it behind her where it went to the front of the bed. Static built up as she took it off in her hair, and as she came back down, Lorelai could help but catch her breath.

She was shocked at how sensual Paris looked with bed hair, her brown eyes still a bit sleepy. She couldn't help but stare at how a couple hours in bed had taken that formal hair into something else that made her heart swell. Like a hidden treasure, she was beginning to see the side of the youngblooded woman few if any had ever seen.

Straddling above her, Paris felt hot from Lorelai's gaze. Jamie had never given her those eyes, and with her hair falling down against her breasts she was in astonishment that the heavy breathing from the woman beneath her wasn't coming from staring at her exposed bust at all. She pushed herself back down, letting her hands make quick work out of the last of the buttons on the flannel shirt. She was hungry to please the woman, to know that someone enjoyed her for more than a number on a test. She played more, letting her hand dip across and circle Lorelai's navel.

"Ohhh, mmmm..." Obviously she was hitting a spot. Down another button, an anticipation building at the one layer obscuring her from seeing the hotelier in all of her glory.

"Are you scared, Lor?" The woman shook her head. "How off-guard did I catch you, actually?" Her voice deep, she pinched the last button between her fingers and undid it, pushing the two halves of the shirt off lightly. The puzzled look on the woman as Paris brought her gaze to her almost told the whole story, but as Lorelai scooted up to work the shirt up, she blushed.

When Paris looked down, she figured out why. Lorelai finally spoke about the shy subject.

"I had no idea you were coming, seriously. If I had, well...I might have chosen better." She had expected the girl to laugh at her choice or suddenly realize that they had different senses of humor that were incompatible.

She was shocked instead to find Paris's fingers gliding along the gold waistband of her panties, with a sensual smirk as she took in the sight.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised. You are sort of a dead ringer for Lynda Carter." Laughing softly, she began to unbutton the cuffs on Lorelai's shirt to fully divest themselves of anything beyond panties. "And you are an amazing woman..." Laying a soft kiss upon the woman's lips, she completed her tease. "A wonder woman, as it were."

Paris did something that hadn't been done in twenty years. Lorelai, usually the silly one during an encounter, felt serious. Her shallow breathing deepened as Paris slid the shirt off from her, and she couldn't muster much speech.

"Par, you...don't say those kinds of things. I'm just who I am." She wasn't one to boast, but Paris attempted to set her straight as she continued to flirt with her.

"But you are a wonder. Most would have given up and been content to be what others wanted them to be. Not you." Letting the shirt fall, she laid Lorelai back down, careful not to weigh too much of her frame on the strained ankle. "I may have started thinking of you like everyone else, but in two years I can't do that anymore. You're amazingly kind and gentle, strong. You don't bullshit anybody and you call Rory on her stupidity when she's about to do something idiotic. You have smart business sense, you contribute to the community, and after so many others wouldn't have given a fuck, you got an MBA to prepare for your own inn." She circled her fingertips around a hard nipple as she went on. "You speak up when you can at school meetings, unlike every other parent who either shuts up or puts their kids first. I don't know what draws me to you, but I can't deny that there's this amazing pull that brings me towards you as sympathetic."

She looked up at the woman, familiarizing herself with the skin-to-skin contact she had never enjoyed with Jamie. "I'll be honest. When you told me to 'can the emotional bullshit' earlier, I wanted to slap you for what you said, because no one says that to me but my mother. But she never has, because I don't show emotion, period. If I cry, I'm weak and vulnerable. But when I was talking with you, I felt validated." Her hands slid up to palm at the sides of Lorelai's breasts. "I knew Rory would tell me to give him a third chance and get over myself. I don't know why, but I wanted what I felt numbed down, not to be told it was OK to cry."

Lorelai felt so guilty for her outburst. "I'm sorry if I laid into you too roughly. You didn't deserve it."

"I did, though." Her fingers began to circle and move inward. "I was afraid to talk to you because of how you feel about Jamie. You know that he's not good enough for me, and if I would have held that back and Rory was here, I may have gone back to him. Probably regretted it right away. I'm a 'good girl'," she stated sarcastically. "If Rory or Louise told me I was stupid to dump him, I might have given him that new chance. When I directed my driver to come into the Hollow, it was to talk to Rory, not you. I was scared because of everything I felt, and shared with you in that classroom. I mean, you have to remember, I didn't care about Jamie at all before he wooed me. He was the one to go after me, and I didn't care at all."

"But because he came all the way up to Hartford, you gave him that attention, and you grew to love him." Lorelai thought she understood Paris clearly. But Paris shook her head.

"No, I didn't. I felt neither heads nor tails about how things would work out, I just went along with it like it was all expected of me. I never said 'I love you' to him like I meant it. My heart didn't feel a thing, he didn't excite me. I've spent so many hours since that afternoon thinking about this, whether I wanted him in my future. Being with him, with Jamie." Her voice lowered to a whisper as she let herself open up to the woman beneath her. "I never felt like I was with him, heart and soul. The night of the rejection, I called him on the phone, and he didn't understand, at all. My dream was Harvard and here I'm crying into the handset, like my heart was actually broken, arteries bursting, ventricles in shambles, and all he said was 'I'm sorry.' I...That's why I couldn't go back to school for a week. Rory didn't visit except to drop off homework, Jamie didn't call. The two most important people in my life couldn't spare more than fifteen minutes to realize that I had lost my way. I had a boy I didn't love, a school that didn't want me, and a best friend who doesn't give a fuck about me." Tears slowly streaming down her face, Paris opened up to the woman. "I don't mean to disparage your daughter at all, Lor."

"It's alright," she said, trying to keep herself from numbing the blonde's pain. Paris bit down on her lip, suddenly unsure.

"Umm, I hope you don't mind if I call you by that name, Ms. Gilmore." A beat of hesitation. "If someone else intimate with you called you that, I don't want to ruin how you associate it."

"Ruin?" Lorelai sighed. " I don't care at all. Actually..." She brought the confused girl into another slow kiss, showing how much she appreciated her beautiful speech. Every word of it had impressed her, made her feel appreciated by the girl. Everyone else seemed to take her for granted in town, but it was nice to have positive reinforcement. Breaking apart, her hands roamed the soft, supple skin of her younger love. "I think the way you say it is wonderful. It's less of an aside, a shortcut like other guys who said it. I think the way you speak is very cute." She smiled. "You've got that Katherine Hepburn voice going on, and I loved her as an actress. But from now on I hear her, I immediately think of you."

"Lor..." Blushing, Paris felt silly, and didn't realize she said the name again, until the woman moaned.

"See, you say it that way, I'm gone." Getting back to the original point of the conversation, she touched upon Rory. "Are you OK though? If you really wanted to talk to Rory, I'm sorry if she wasn't here."

"I wanted to talk to her tonight," Paris said, her voice beginning to take on a husky tone. "But I think I find you and this situation a little more...attractive." Surprising the woman with her strength, she cupped Lorelai's right breast, her thumb brushing up against the hardened nipple, as she let her mouth settle against the tender neck of the older woman, taken completely by surprise. She always thought Paris was aggressive, but this was completely baffling to her.

"Listen, Paris...you don't have to do this..." Her eyes closed as Paris laid soft trailing kisses down her sternum. The faded perfume she wore flooded Paris's senses, giving her a content sense that what she was doing was right, and drew her in. Slow kisses and caresses, taking in the softness of the woman's hipbone, her hands raking the woman's smooth stomach, hidden behind the fabric of the dress the first time. Her small hands sent tremors through the woman that were unlike she ever felt. She forgot for a moment all the awkward pawing and roughness of the touching she had with men. It melted away, along with her wariness of pushing things further.

"Oh God...God...Par..." She closed her eyes, Paris kissing down her middle. Little fluttery touches, her head backing up against the headboard as she sat upright while Paris's hands brushed against the undersides of her breasts. She felt sensitized, overheated. All rational thought melting away from her as those same hands made circles lower and lower. Her nose, softly scraping across her skin, down back towards her navel....

"Saturday mornings most often contain my most vivid dreams," Paris noted between kisses. "No need to rush before an alarm. I thought of myself doing this to you, for instance." Her left hand then moved towards the waistband of Lorelai's panties, a finger scraping within the waistband, the thumb brushing along the woman's mons. "Just caressing, being soft, without any kind of care."

"Are you saying..." Lorelai thought for a moment. "Even before you were up today?"

"Yes, I was." Paris teased her tongue slowly along the panty line, her nose dipping within the indentation. "I had a long society dinner last night I had to attend with Mother, compulsory attendance because I had to get a scholarship which should be just enough to buy a graphing calculator. I fell asleep in my slip, woke up this morning all worn out. But I thought about you there." She laid more kisses down the line, salivating as she pushed down the material blocking her view. "Thought of us, meeting, being secretive. It was at the grand mansion of the Kurtzbergs, beautiful hallway, boring atmosphere." Her teeth scraped the waistband. "You made your way to me slowly, moving away from your daughter, from Emily. You hated being there too, it being Friday night and part of your mother paying for school and all."

Having Lorelai move down on the bed, Paris positioned herself so the foot of the bed was parallel with her feet. "Then you see me. And I'm not my usual boring self. Last night I was regal, and I wore a silk cocktail dress that showed off the girls in full force. No thanks to Jamie having an important foosball final four to play back in Jersey, it didn't seem to have a use, until I came across you in the room. I smiled your way, feeling bold enough to toss my hair, a signal of what I wanted." She began to roll the lingerie off slowly, kissing the woman in tortuous circles. "We were playing it subtle, slow. Mingling around, talking to people here and there as we circled the room, moving in close with each person. My mouth waters, anticipating..." Paris blew out a slow breath up Lorelai's stomach. "I see you, you see me. The room seems a dark fog as I move in closer...closer."

"Uhhhhh..." Lorelai squirmed, overwhelmed by the desire in Paris's voice.

"Still ten feet in front of us, and Ava is in our way, rambling on about the electronic sign to be donated by the class. Yes, I have the funds ready to send to Daktronics. Yes, I want it in color and to be set in with the campus décor. No, we don't need it as big as a flagpole at a Perkin's and visible from 93, just put it in front of the school and move on. Watching you in a blue dress that brings out your clear blue eyes, showing yourself off. You lure me in."

She continued to go into further detail, about how she imagined Lorelai trying to show that she wasn't going to fall for Paris's advances, despite close whispers and sneaked touches giving her overwhelming images of the passion building between them. She was amazed at the detail, how Paris tells the story of her daydream. They moved in close, and Paris dropped the bait to meet her in a pantry off the main hall on the first floor.

The panties came off in a roll, the red/white/blue pattern such a lovely surprise to the teenager. Exposing the woman's glistening mons, she furthered the vivid image.

"Last night I actually knew that tonight would be the last time I would see Jamie, and thinking about you, wishing you were in that situation, I let myself fall into the fantasy." Her nose moved closer to the dampened slit, the raw scent of the hotelier driving her on. "I'm wanting of you, all week long. I couldn't go past that one classroom in the halls and not be reminded that on that desk you broke through my defenses, giving me the words for comfort, the need to have someone there for me to talk to, that frenzied yet beautiful intimacy." The tip of her nose scraped across the sensitized dark curls patterned into a small triangle, and Lorelai gritted her teeth, holding back an obscenity.

"I thought of us in that small room, clothes askew, hair undone, nips and hickeys patterned like footsteps all over ourselves. The naughty talk from you, Lor, pushing my worries away."

Paris then went to the trigger point. "Were you thinking of me all week, Ms. Gilmore? In the middle of all that paperwork, in that temporary storefront where you have to do Inn business, a small room for your office." She blew more air down the woman's exposed cleft. "In your bed, too. You want me, don't you?"

She struggled for speech, shrieking between her words. "What...about...Jamie?"

"I gave him his second chance," she clarified sweetly, and then lowered her voice. "He failed to take advantage, which is a weakness. I don't often respond this passionately to someone who I desire sexually."

"How do...you know that?" Lorelai's words were no longer said fast, but in short gasps as Paris teased her opening with her fingers.

"Because, when Tristan kissed me, I didn't feel much. I felt just enough for Jamie, but when it came time to get to brass tacks, I was sorely disappointed. This has been building for months, watching you, having dreams of you. To have you respond the way you did, I'm surprised. Actually, more like baffled. Never would I thought I would be attractive to you."

"Well, you are," Lorelai responded. "All that skin, those womanly curves, your soulful eyes. I know we shouldn't be doing this."

"Me too." Something the two women agreed on. Lorelai stared down at Paris's head, so sensitive. "But it's just too damned tempting not to do."

"You want me then?" Lorelai questioned one more time.

Paris quickly nodded, looking up at the nervous woman. "How could I not want you?" Circling her fingers around her clitoris, she wound Lorelai up for what was about to happen. Deep within her the temptation built to tease herself with her own fingers, but she held off for her own sanity. "I'm just glad I have you in a place where your wit is deadened by my tongue." She smirked as she moved herself closer, triggering Lorelai right where she wanted her.

"What, just because you think you're going down on me means I can't...be...oooohhh fucccck!!" Lorelai threw her head back, her vocal momentum thwarted when Paris pushed in as her tongue circled the stiff flesh. Starting slow Paris balanced out what she wanted to do with Lorelai with that of another thought.

We're gonna take it nice and slow, Lor, she thought sliently. Give you time to enjoy it. Making small circles with her strong tongue, Paris felt the woman melting against her, panting, growling her name. I'm not some guy who wants to relieve their hardness, just someone who enjoys you, like this. Off-guard, beautiful, able to be yourself, not how you are to buffer your pain. Her tongue patterned a wide ellipse up through her left lip, down the right, alternating clock circles with each sweep of her tongue. She tuned herself to the mother's cries, gauging how slow the woman wanted it.

"Oooh...ohh, yeah. Yeah, like that, come on..." Lorelai's hand kneaded her own breasts, twisting the nipples and caressing the pale flesh. She felt herself slowly building back up to where she was before answering the door, the wanderings on the couch.

"You're so wet," Paris said. "Come on, push yourself in...and...out....in...and...out."

"Par...aaaahhhhh..." Hissing as fingers slightly twisted her nipple. "Oh my God...God..." Paris picked up her strokes, going faster while Lorelai used her right hand as a guide to keep her in line. "Yeeessss...so good...yeah." She kept her eyes closed, reveling in the unique touch of her counterpart. More circles and ovals, Paris brought herself closer to push her tongue against Lorelai's clit as much as she could. She pushed hair out of her way, losing herself in the moment.

"You...taste...so good." Paris felt herself dampening with each thrust in and out, her mind running in a million directions. Lorelai pushed her back tight against the headboard as she opened wider for the girl.

Paris as she promised herself went slow, dipping her tongue in, enjoying the tightness she felt within her body. Getting wound up, wanting, remembering her dream of the morning where they were in the kitchen. The raw scent of Lorelai guided her on, the groans and passion from the woman adding so much to the situation.

"Fuck me...oh, fuck me, Par...God!" Lorelai felt herself quickly losing control of her swelling emotions. Her entire body was dampened, sweat dripping from her brow. Paris circled slowly, deeply, twisting her tongue in various directions to guide her clit in directions she never thought possible. Lorelai became so turned on she dipped her left hand down, tentatively pushing two fingers in for extra stimulation. It was something she always wanted to do, have someone below while she furthered the orgasm, but male pride had always made her fingers come to a shrieking halt.

Not Paris, for she encouraged it further. "Wanna see them only to your knuckle," she begged. "Get them in, I wanna make you come. Come on, Lor, push 'em in, give me some help." The combination of the two stimuli built Lorelai into a bliss, but one she wanted Paris to enjoy with her.

She clenched her leg against Paris, her hand moving toward her ass and forcing the dark red panties down just enough. "Help yourself. You're so damp...I know it. I saw you were going to fuck yourself...in your dream." Her voice was disconnected pants and rough demands. "Fucking me in a pantry...letting your hands wander...I wanna make sure you're happy too, Par..." She slid her shaky finger along Paris's slit from the outside of her slik lingerie, wet with her arousal. "Fuck me, fuck yourself too."

"I...want you to enjoy this," Paris argued, before Lorelai shoved the material aside. "Lor...come on...all for you."

"Not for you...us. Please, baby, enjoy yourself...Make me see how you are when you come with me...I want this."

"Fingers in my pussy...while my tongue's in your pussy?" Paris threw back her annoying hair. "You want that, don't you? Want me to finger myself?"

"Yes...yes..." Lorelai gasped, her body warming. "Push your fingers in...like you think about me...fuck yourself for me...fuck me...I wanna make you forget about Jamie." Paris grinded herself against Lorelai to start things, her panties slowly rolling down with each thrust.

"Oh...Lor...ugggh...uhhhh...like that?" She opened her legs so her clit could find a rhythm. "Do it to you like that...make you feel my cum on your smooth legs, running down them. All for you, my thoughts...ohhh...ohhh...fuck!"

"Feels...so good." The women undulated in the bed, pushing the orgasms they wanted though themselves slowly, trying to draw them out. Lorelai's mouth opened wide as