Work Text:
Girl Talk
by LavenderJade
Abbie stood in the doorway to Jack’s office, smirking as he rattled off a long list of things to be done while he was gone. She knew it was really just nervous energy. Jack was headed to Albany for the State Bar Association’s Annual Conference. He had been invited to speak this year, which was a great honor. Now if she could just get him out the door and on his way . . .
“Jack, it’s OK. The office will survive without you for a couple of days.”
He spun around to look at her, and realized she was laughing at him. He laughed and shook his head. “OK, you win. I’m leaving.”
She helped him carry his things down to the rented car. “Hey, Abbie, do me a favor, will you? Check in on Lennie while I’m gone?”
This was the first time the two would be apart since they had become lovers back around Thanksgiving. She had a feeling Jack was more nervous about that than his big presentation. “Sure, Jack.” // Besides, I have my own reasons for wanting to talk to him // “But he’s a big boy; he can take care of himself.”
Jack tossed the briefcase with his laptop computer into the back seat. “I know that, but . . .”
Abbie smiled. “We’ll all be fine, Jack. Now go!”
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“Yeah, well thank YOU oh so very much!” Lennie slammed down the phone. Ed looked across the desk at his partner. Ed was just happy that on this bitter cold February day, they were in the precinct pounding the phones instead of out there pounding the pavement. But Lennie seemed a bit on the grouchy side. “Hey, man, what’s up? You get out of bed on the wrong side this morning?”
Lennie glared at him over his coffee mug. // Aw, hell, go ahead and tell him. But might as well have fun with it! // He kept his voice low. “Nah, that’s for tomorrow when the other side of the bed is empty.” He watched Ed’s face pucker, the eyebrows raising.
“TMI, dude, TMI!”
Lennie laughed. Ed was one of the few people who knew about him & Jack; it would have been pretty hard to keep his partner in the dark on this one. Ed was basically cool with it, but Lennie could tell it still sorta wierded him out. He didn’t talk about it often, but occasionally when Ed was being particularly annoying, he’d let drop a tidbit, just to watch Ed react. “TMI” – Too Much Information – was Ed’s favorite response.
Ed remembered now. The EADA was headed up to Albany for some lawyer conference for the next couple of days. “So, Lennie, you got any big plans now that you got your bachelor status back for a few days?”
Lennie just looked at him. “Yeah, right.”
“No, seriously, man, you gotta do SOMEthing!”
“Most likely work, unless we get these calls made.” Ed sighed, and they got back to work.
That afternoon, Lennie and Ed had a conference with Lt. Van Buren and ADA Carmichael to go over a case. It was pretty late when they were done. On the way out, Abbie caught his arm. “Hey, Lennie. Want to grab some dinner?”
Lennie was surprised; while he and Jack often ended up sharing meals with Abbie, this was the first time she had ever approached him alone. “Jack asked you to check up on me, didn’t he?”
She laughed. “Yeah, but that’s not why I asked. Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
Lennie was intrigued. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
They ended up at a pub Abbie knew that was near her apartment. They got a booth in back where it was quiet enough to talk but there was enough noise all around that nobody would hear them. They made small talk about work and sports while they ordered. The waiter brought Abbie a glass of red wine and Lennie’s usual club soda, and they settled back for some serious conversation.
“So just what have you been ‘meaning to talk to me about’?” Lennie’s curiosity was in high gear.
“It’s about you and Jack.” Lennie’s eyebrow raised a few notches. “Lennie, you know I’m very fond of both of you. And if I’m way out of line here, just tell me and I’ll butt out. But hear me out first – I think I can help you.” She stopped to sip her wine.
“I didn’t know we needed help?” Lennie made it a question – he was really curious about where this was going.
Abbie chuckled. “Jack sure does. He’s so out of his element. He couldn’t even find the right words to tell me what was going on, and he WANTED to!” Lennie had to agree with that one. “He’s my boss, Lennie. I do need to keep a certain amount of decorum in the office. But I really want to help him. From what little he’s said, I get the impression you’re a bit more comfortable with the whole situation than he is, but still very new to the whole scene?” Lennie felt the color rising to his face; he was beginning to see where this was headed. Just how much did Abbie know about “the scene” as she called it?
“You could say that,” he managed to reply.
She could see his embarrassment. “You know, over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that women are generally a lot less hung up over sex than men are. We talk about this stuff all the time. And most gay men I’ve known get pretty comfortable with it too. When you’re changing the rules, you have to discuss them. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Lennie.”
“Yeah, well, 50-odd years of habit is hard to break, Abbie. But you’ve got me curious enough to try. Do I get the impression that you’ve changed a few rules in your day?” He actually managed to look her in the eye as he asked.
Abbie laughed. “Oh, yeah. Little Miss Innocent, I’m not.” At Lennie’s inquiring look, she continued. “OK, it’s only fair, I know your secret, you can know mine. I’m bi. You remember Toni Ricci?” She tried to keep her expression even.
“The one who was killed in that Russian Mob thing a couple of years ago?”
She nodded. “We were lovers. That’s why I took it so hard.”
“Oh, god, Abbie . . .” He reached out to cover her hand with his. She squeezed back, then shook off the melancholy.
“It’s OK, Lennie. I didn’t come here for sympathy. I just wanted you to know that I do know what I’m talking about here.”
Their food arrived and they veered off to more neutral subjects while eating. While they were waiting for dessert, Abbie picked up the conversation. “You know, Lennie, you and Jack have both lived in the ‘straight’ world all your lives. But there’s a whole other world out there, and it’s not just about being gay or bi. I see the world as being divided into ‘straight’ and ‘not-straight.’ The ‘not-straight’ is anything that goes beyond the puritanical ‘man/woman/missionary position’ sort of mindset. I’ve known hetero couples, you’d call them ‘straight’ who were anything but. Swingers, mild kinks, voyeurs, exhibitionists, group sex, anal, BDSM, they run the gamut. I don’t get into the really rough stuff, but I’ve usually been willing to try just about anything once.” That got Lennie’s eyebrow back into the “up” position. “Tell you what. When we’re finished here, why don’t we go back to my apartment.” She saw the panic start in his face. “Woah, Lennie, I’m not propositioning you. I’d never do that to Jack. // unless he offered to share! // But there’s lots of stuff I can show you on the computer, and maybe a few stories I’ll share in private. You know, ‘girl talk.’” She grinned at him.
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A little while later, they were back at her apartment. She booted up her computer, showed him how to log on and launch the web browser. They took a tour of some of her favorite web sites; some purely informational, others voyeuristic with people broadcasting from their web cams or posting photos of people in all sorts of combinations and activities . . .
Lennie was confused. “Um, Abbie, can I ask you a personal question?” She nodded. “OK, I get that you go both ways. But why do you have all these gay sites bookmarked?”
“Why do guys always ask that? Most guys don’t think twice about seeing two women go at it in the middle of a porn flick. Why shouldn’t the reverse be true? Seriously, Lennie, tell me you never got off on some girl-girl action?”
“Uh, actually, no. I guess that’s further evidence that I’m finally on the right team.”
Abbie was surprised. “Wait a minute; you’re telling me you’re really gay, not bi, always have been, but just didn’t figure it out until now?”
Lennie nodded. “Abbie, I grew up in a different world. We didn’t have all this,” he waved at the computer, “to help us figure things out. You just didn’t ask these kinds of questions back then. I never enjoyed sex all that much, but I never really thought about why. Hell, most of the time I was too drunk to get it up anyhow.”
“But it’s different now?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He was blushing again, which she found almost unbearably cute. She grinned at him. “Damn, Lennie, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do! Is Jack going to survive this?”
“Well, he’s holding up his end so far . . .” Lennie wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say here; after all, she did work with Jack every day.
She realized he might be uncomfortable talking directly about Jack. “Look, Lennie, anything we talk about here STAYS here. For now at least, I’d rather Jack not even know we talked about this.” She saw the relief in his face.
“OK, Abbie, you got a deal. It is good to have somebody to talk to, especially somebody who actually understands.” She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and squeezed.
“So how IS Jack handling all this?”
Lennie shook his head. “He seems to be enjoying it. But he gets conflicted sometimes. Being raised Catholic isn’t helping him any.”
Abbie smiled at him. “There are a LOT of former Catholics out there who do get over it, Lennie. It may take a while, but if it really matters to him, he’ll get over it. And from what I’ve seen when he talks about you, it does matter. A lot.” He was blushing again. She couldn’t resist pushing him a little further. “So, how far have you two gone? Have you tried anal yet?”
The poor boy looked like a fish out of water, his mouth opening and closing without any sound coming out. He finally found his voice. “Uh, yeah.”
“Let me guess – you’re bottom? I just can’t see Jack as anything but top, at least to start.”
“Um, . .?” She explained the terminology. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right.”
// Time to share. // “Lennie, would it surprise you too much if I told you I’d done it too? I’ve been with a couple of guys who liked the ‘back door.’ I can’t say it’s the same for me, I’m missing an important piece of anatomy, but I enjoyed it. How does Jack feel about it?”
Without getting into too much detail of the circumstances, Lennie told her about their first encounter, as Jack’s fury at his father and the bastard who had attacked him had exploded into a white hot passion.
“Ouch. That must have hurt.”
“Yeah, but not entirely. It was the weirdest combination of pleasure and pain.”
She nodded. “But you went back for more?”
“Jack was afraid of hurting me, so I stopped into an adult shop and picked up a few things . . .”
“Oh, good you’ve found toys!”
“Yeah, but something just doesn’t feel right about walking in there, who knows who you might run into.”
“You know, you can order that stuff online, Lennie. Shows up in a brown shipping box, no hint what’s inside. And lots better info on what you’re buying from the web site in any case.” She turned back to the computer and took him to her favorite online shop. “In fact, if you want, you can use my account and have things shipped here until you two get more comfortable with this.”
Lennie was overwhelmed. “Abbie, you’re too much. I can’t begin to thank you . . .”
She smiled at him. “Lennie, when I realized I wasn’t straight, I was young enough and computer literate enough to dig this up myself. But I know you, and I know Jack. Neither one of you was going to find this on your own. And since you’re not tapped into the local scene, it was unlikely that you would find it any other way. I’m just glad I can help. In fact, let me do one more thing.” She got up and dug around in a desk drawer. “Here’s a key to my apartment. I know you can’t surf this stuff at work, and Jack probably isn’t ready to do it at home, so whenever you have some free time, just call to see if I’m around. If I’m not, feel free to come use the computer.”
It was getting late, so he thanked her again and got ready to leave. As he was reaching for the door, she laid her hand on his arm. “And Lennie? I’m here anytime you want some more ‘girl talk!’” She grinned at him as he wandered homeward.
end