Morgan, Adri, and the Ducati

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Monday, August 4th.

In the name of distraction, Morgan takes Adrienne for a motorcycle ride to an amateur boxing match.

Adrienne had never taken a ride on a Ducati before. She'd sat on one once, for a photoshoot. She'd ridden on the back of a Harley, and had driven plenty of Vespa scooters. But she'd never had a ride on a racing motorcycle before, and was ashamed by how excited she was feeling at the prospect of it. It had been a hellish week, and the upcoming week was sure to be much of the same, if not worse. The idea of having her mind blanked by the sheer joy of bonebreaking speed was a welcome one.

Anticipating that Morgan might get upset, Adrienne refrained from sitting on the Ducati in the garage, contenting herself with standing next to it and staring as she waited for the other woman, self-consciously brushing invisible dirt off the never-worn-before pair of blue jeans she'd found at the bottom of a box she hadn't even unpacked since moving to the mansion and tugging at the sleeves of the long-sleeved tshirt that had been crumpled in a ball next to the jeans. She felt common, but supposed that for a ride on the Ducati she could put up with it for an evening.

Morgan wandered in with an armful of stuff for Adrienne. She had on her favorite pair of motorcycle boots, which she wore most days anyway, a pair of leather pants and a simple, fitted tank. All the black only made her blue skin stand out in starker relief. "Hey there, cupcake. You ready?" She grinned, waggling her eyebrows. Her pile was deposited on the hood of a nearby car. "Aye, c'mere." Morgan jerked her head to the side, indicating for Adrienne to get her butt closer to where she was. Promptly, she began sorting through everything. Her own jacket was pulled out of the mass and she slipped it on, feeling more comfortable with it than she ever did without it.

"Alright, try this," she held out one of two leather jackets out to Adrienne. She had one of the heavily armored but cloth ones upstairs but Morgan wasn't really as much a fan of those. These all had armor in them as well, but it wasn't so much like sliding into the kind of armor you saw in museums as the other one was. "I've got a smaller one if that one doesn't quite do it."

"Hot," Adrienne said with a grin, though she wasn't revealing whether it was Morgan or the jacket she was speaking of. She slipped the jacket on and held out her hands, which had been swallowed. "Umm, can I try option number two? And what else did you bring?" she asked with a wary eye towards the pile of clothing pieces. "Rob a Hell's Angels headquarters, did you?"

"I raided my closet." Morgan looked down at the pile, then herself and then at the jacket on Adrienne and shrugged. "If you're going to ride you need the proper gear and sometimes your preference changes, that's all." She held her hand out for the jacket with the too long sleeves and picked up the other jacket to offer it to Adrienne. "Just chaps for you. You could do with jeans but I'd rather have you more geared than less. It's a safety thing. You already wear leather gloves all the time so no worries there, though my gloves are hiding in there somewhere."

Adrienne traded the jackets as she nodded at what Morgan was saying about safety. "You'd better be worried about safety if you crash us," she muttered, "cuz if we crash I'd have to kill you. Or at least try," she amended, not about to ruin her good mood by hearing from Morgan about how much weaker she was than the blue-skinned woman. The second jacket fit like it was custom-made and Adrienne smiled approvingly as she looked down at herself. "Bring on the chaps. I have a bad-ass image to protect. They aren't the ones with the cowboy fringe on them, are they?" she asked with a wrinkle of her nose.

Morgan had no intentions to make any comments about Adrienne being weaker than her. She wasn't in the mood for the pissing contest she usually started with people. "If I crash us you get first shot, love. As long as you do what I say and don't scream like a terrified schoolgirl we should be good." She watched as the other jacket was tried on and grinned when it fit. Morgan even gave Adrienne a playful, leering look to accompany it. "They've got cowboy fringe and glitter and pyramid studs all so that it goes through the whole gamut of looks in one." She grinned and held out the sadly plain, fringeless, glitterless chaps out to Adrienne. There were, however, pyramid studs down the outseam of each leg, however. "Think of 'em like crotchless pants. I haven't worn them in forever so they might not be as long as my normal pants."

"Oh, Christ, the glitter," Adrienne laughed, shaking her head in amusement. "That was great." She put on the chaps obediently, admiring herself in the reflection off one of the cars in the garage. "Not too long," she mused."I don't even think I know how to scream like a girl, come to think of it." Poking at the studs, Adrienne raised an eyebrow. "How is it that putting studs on pants keeps one safe in a crash? Wouldn't they just slice up your legs?"

"Ugh," Morgan groaned. "Is that twit always that fucking obnoxious?" She shuddered a little at the memory. "My violent tendencies kick in so badly when she speaks. I never did like those girls who think they're the bloody cat's meow either. Especially since, yeah, she's not. Some guy will fuck her because she's probably easy and that's the extent of it." Once Adrienne had the chaps on Morgan gave her a low wolf whistle. "Damn, now there's a sight I like to see." She went over to grab her helmet and a spare she thought would fit Adrienne. "The studs are just decorative. I had a stud phase, sue me." She came back with two full face helmets. "Here, try this. There's going to obviously be room near your chin but you want to make sure it's not tight on your head and that it's not too loose when its on after to do the strap under your chin."

Smirking, Adrienne nodded her head. "In my experience, yes, she's always that obnoxious. I doubt she'd be an easy lay though," she contradicted, striking a pose in response to the wolf whistle. "She's probably that annoying with men, as well; she'd contradict anything anyone said, and she's definitely the haughty type who'd require a shitload of wining and dining to get into bed, I think." Morgan's remark about the stud phase made her grin. "If I had my way I would be able to sue you for that." Putting the helmet on her head cut off further conversation for a moment, and prompted a shift in topic. "It doesn't feel too tight or too loose, but should I have tied my hair back first?"

"All women are pretty easy. I mean, I hate to say it like that, but it's remarkably easy to get into most girls' pants if you just know how to play them." She shrugged. Morgan had perhaps spent too much time with the male point of view, but she'd found it to be more or less true. "A little alcohol and the right words, she'd be putty." There was a surety in Morgan's words to suggest she spoke from experience.

Morgan slid two fingers under the side of the helmet and pulled on it a little to check the fit. She nodded, satisfied it was good enough for a loaner. "You don't have to but you might want to put it into a loose braid or a low ponytail. A high ponytail might be uncomfortable in the helmet." Her own hair was in a very loose braid that went halfway down her back nearly. "The wind's going to whip it about otherwise."

"I'm so glad I'm not most girls," Adrienne remarked, rolling her eyes. Actually, she desperately wished, especially these days, that she could be like 'all women', but there was no sense wishing for what could never happen. "I'm assuming those of us with deep-seated psychological trauma are exempt from your categorizations and attempts?" She pulled a hair elastic from around her gloved wrist and held it out to Morgan, sashaying around the side of the car to where Morgan was standing and turning her back to the other woman. "Braid it for me?" she asked hopefully. "I can't do it because I can't see."

"Yeah, well, you chicks with deep-seated psychological trauma get to be the exception to the rule. Mostly because you're all fucking tweaked and crazy and shit and can't be labelled as anything but 'approach with caution.'" Her tone was light when she said it because Morgan wasn't going to actually make fun of someone's mental trauma, but then she wasn't about to get all serious when the point was to distract Adrienne. Taking the offered elastic, Morgan moved behind the other woman. "Aye, love, no problem." Morgan's hands were gentle, something most people wouldn't have expected. She wove the long, brown hair into the plait tight enough to hold but loose enough not to pull fairly quickly and secured it with the elastic at the bottom. Quickly pulling her gloves on and hanging up the unused jacket, Morgan grinned. "You been on the back of a bike before? I don't need to explain what I mean when I say you move with my body or you'll make us crash, yeah?"

Adrienne grinned widely. "'Approach with caution.' I like it. It's good for my image. Thanks," she said with a nod of her head, letting her braid flop. "I've been on a Harley," she answered. "Bought my asshole husband one for our six-month anniversary. Thought it would improve his disposition. But I'm guessing a racing bike's a little different?"

"Eh, well, it leans more when you turn. You can corner better, cornering being the term for turning a corner, on a sport bike and it can freak out people when they realise they're actually leaning sidewise over the pavement while the speed keeps you from falling over. Most crashes are because people take curves or corners too wide so when the bike leans it goes too far and it drops." That maybe sounded a little scary. Morgan pulled her helmet on and got on the bike. In quick succession she kicked up her kicked stand so she was balanced on flat feet, turned her fuel then her ignition on, flicked her kill switch to ON, pulled in her clutch and made sure she was in neutral before hitting the start button. The bike roared into life as she twisted the throttle a few times before letting it settle into a purr. You could see her grin as she looked over to Adrienne and nodded for her to hop on.

Over the noise of the bike she called, "Just remember to hold on tight, but not so tight I can't breathe, and keep your body in line with mine. And trust me, I've never crashed."

Jumping eagerly on the back of the bike, Adrienne settled in close to Morgan and wrapped her arms around the other woman's waist. "I trust you," she shouted back to Morgan. And she did. After India, and after Morgan had helped her by going to intimidate the man she'd hired to kill her husband, she trusted Morgan implicitly. "If I was anyone but me, I'd probably take advantage of this opportunity for a good gropefest," she laughed, squeezing Morgan's hip teasingly.

Morgan laughed as she watched the garage door open in front of them. "If it was anyone but you I might be annoyed at your taking advantage of this position." She pulled the clutch she'd released while Adrienne mounted the bike back in and shifted into first gear once the door was clear. She wiggled a little and then pulled out of the garage. Once they were off of school grounds, past the gate and view of the place the bike quickly went from first to second to the third gear. Within ten minutes they were in fourth and Morgan had them zooming down the quiet streets, purposely sticking to back roads and heavily wooded areas that were less travelled. She liked the open road and the lack of stop signs, traffic lights and cops lingering nearby. In her short tenure at the school she'd mapped out all the roads nearby and had found a route to the city that she could take at high speeds without much chance of being pulled over. The first time they went into a curve Morgan didn't take it easy on Adrienne, the bike torn around it in an arch as they leaned over with it enough that some people would be convinced they were about to drop.

Leaning with Morgan on the turn, Adrienne turned her head so that her cheek was brushing against Morgan's back (or would have been if she wasn't wearing the helmet) and watched the ground rushing up and whizzing by. What a rush. It was wonderful. She felt like screaming, just for the hell of it, but reined the impulse in, though she did give the blue-skinned woman's hip another squeeze, this one in silent thanks for taking her along for the ride. She wrapped her other arm a little tighter around Morgan's waist, though- the ground was coming up very close to them. A little whoop of joy escaped her lips.

Morgan grinned when she felt the squeeze on her hip. She made a mental note that cupcake had balls and decided to take the curviest path to the city she could think of. The bike straightened as they came out of the curve in the road and she leaned down as she brought the bike up close to ninety now that they were on a straight shot. The next thirty-five minutes were a series of twisting and curving roads taken at the highest speed Morgan thought was safe, particularly with a passenger. In the city she split lanes to get by more quickly while she thanked herself silently for being a bike person. She navigated the city more easily than she thought she could have, honestly, and brought them out of Manhattan and into Brooklyn where she found somewhere to park near the place they were heading.

When Morgan parked the bike Adrienne jumped off and removed her helmet, jumping up and down a couple times both out of pent-up excitement and to get her knees to stop the slight shaking she attributed to being held in the awkward position for an extended period of time. "God, that was incredible!" she exclaimed happily, pulling the band out of her hair and shaking it out. "I can't wait to do that again on the way back. Can I drive?"

Once Morgan had the bike off and the kickstand down she dismounted it and stretched. When she pulled off her helmet and unzipped her jacket she was laughing. "Uh, no, love, you can't drive back. Mostly because you might crash us. I'll teach you if you want, just not on that bike. It's not about the attachment, though damn ain't she pretty?" Morgan grinned. "That's an eight-forty-nine cc engine, love. It's too much to handle at beginner level. We'll get you a two-fifty to learn on, then you work your way up."

"You can take me motorcycle shopping and teach me. If I'm not in jail doing twenty to life," Adrienne retorted with an annoyed sigh.