Layla & Korvus and Layla & Sarah | Stupid AM Monday

[x-mandelbrot.livejournal.com]

Layla and Korvus meet for the first of many days of...full body oil foot massage. It's not awkward for any of the reasons Layla would think.

Korvus sat patiently on a couch in the recreation room. He suspected Layla would be late for their five o'clock appointment but he had the scene prepared regardless. A blanket was spread out on the floor and the far corner of the room had a small lamp on an obviously custom made platform that consisted of seven short tiers, the base of which was filled with water and rose oil. Until his student arrived, the young man watched the early morning programming of the Science Channel.

If Layla had thought waking up for classes at 6:30 in the morning was hard she was going to need a whole new word for getting out of bed at quarter 'til five. She'd gotten up early so she could spend five minutes yawning and whining to herself, then showering quickly and glaring at her "uniform." The rec room wasn't exactly far away and the mansion wasn't exactly awake and bustling yet...but Layla still put on a baggy pair of lounge pants over her, uh, uniform before going off to find Korvus.

When she walked in to find him watching TV the blonde was in the process of pulling her hair up into a ponytail. "It's like someone looked at a toga and went 'hey, how can I turn this into a thong,'" she told him by way of announcing her presence.

"Kalari Payat predates the thong, I have no doubt." Korvus offered as he stood. "I will be unable to perform the massage with you in pants..." Certainly that was obvious. Perhaps Layla didn't realize it was going to take place in the recreation room, he thought.

She held up a hand and made a vague motion with it indicating he should wait. "I know, I know. And okay like half the people here have already seen me naked but I didn't wanna like wander around in my stylin' toga thong." Layla's thumbs hooked into the waist band of her pants and she slid them down, revealing her sumo wrestler loin clothed glory. "The outfit's part of the initiation, isn't it? It's like 'real men can wear loin cloths and get rubbed down' or something, huh?" She tossed her pants over to land on the back of the couch even as another hand covered her mouth while she yawned. "Do I get pointed taken off if I fall asleep?"

"That initiation does not sound as though it would be relevant. You are not a man." Korvus stated factually as he stood and moved to stand at the foot of the blanket. "Begin on your stomach, please. It will not alter the effectiveness if you fall asleep. Just turn over when I request, please."

"But I'm damn manly," she insisted, the effect somewhat diminished as she yawned. Layla moved over to the blanket and was on her knees by time it occurred to her to ask something. "So, this is like a...full body massage? With the flipping and the, uh," she looked down at herself, "lack of clothing. And stuff."

"I will massage your torso and limbs, yes." Korvus tilted his head when she paused. Something was culturally odd for her again, he could tell.

"Riiiiiight." There was a moment where she seemed to be processing and then Layla shook her head and continued to lay down on her stomach. "'Cause that makes sense. Because people have muscles all over. And only having some of them flexible is stupid." She was mostly talking to herself, but it was a little....yeah she was gonna stick to weird again. It was weird. "Sarah is so never witnessing this." And if she could help it then Layla wouldn't witness it either. Because it was sort of....wrong. Even though it was Korvus and she was pretty sure he was as close as you could get culturally to a Ken doll.

"Why is that?" Korvus asked, genuinely curious, while dripping oil across her back and down her legs. Afterward he raised his feet one after the other to coat the soles. Once he was ready to begin the entire affair was exceptionally slick. The young man used the ball of his foot initially, beginning at the small of her back and pressing across her hip to hit all the muscles likely to strain during a rotation.

Layla scrunched up her face for a second, the pressure being a touch more than she was prepared for. But then what did she expect? She'd never had any sort of massage and if the point was to loosen muscles well...being sort of weirded out probably wasn't helping to de-tense them or whatever. "'Cause, girlfriends don't like approve of full body massages usually," Layla muttered. "Done by other people, I mean. It's kinda...I dunno. People aren't that, uh, familiar with other people in this country. Unless they're, uh, intimate?" And cue Layla getting more awkward the moment she used the word "intimate." That's right, she was totally mature. Riiiight. Not so much.

Korvus laughed softly, "I have seen American massage parlors. Are they different than this?" He asked curiously, the ball of his foot working one side of her hip before he switched feet to massage the other side. "I have heard many people say this is unusual but the availability of massage as a commodity suggests that it is not as unusual as I am led to believe."

"Um, I dunno about massage parlors. I mean, they're around. And they're different because they're professionals. And people use their hands. Which is...like more...uh" she didn't want to use the word intimate again because she was already blushing. "Uh...personal? But they're professionals so it's also less personal? And like the whole 'full body massage' thing sort of has this 'happy ending' association? Where dudes go in and it's a 'massage parlor,'" she raised her hands to fingerquote the words, "but they get, uh, sexual acts of some sort as part of it. Hence, the, uh, happy part. Y'know? And, um, people...sort of think of massages as...uh..." she didn't wanna say the word. She really didn't want to say the word. Fuck, there was no other word. "As foreplay."

"I am a professional..." Korvus offered as his mind sorted through her ramblings. "I do not offer sexual favors, however. My apologies." His feet began to work up the big muscles along her spine.

Her shoulders noticeably tensed at the apology. "Uh, I don't want sexual favors." Her reddened cheeks deepened to a bright scarlet. "It's two different things. Professionals are one thing, girls who give 'happy endings' are another." The teenager visibly shuddered.

"Then I am not sure why the latter made an appearance in this conversation." Korvus observed. "This topic is resulting in tension. If you would like to continue this discussion, you should present your thesis at a later date."

Layla's hands flailed eve as she pressed her forehead to the ground. "No, I totally don't want to continue the discussion. Discussion over. I just, I....you are not allowed to make me explain cultural shit at five in the morning!"

"Am I to stop you if you attempt to?" Korvus asked in an even tone as he continued with the massage diligently.

Layla's hands flailed incoherently to accompany her mumbled, emphatic, "Yes!"

"Understood." Korvus assented as he continued the massage. It lasted nearly thirty minutes but, by the end, Layla would certainly feel more relaxed and flexible than she ever had before.

* * * * *

Coming back to a sleeping Sarah, however, manages to be more amusing and more awkward than the mostly naked massage.

The term "wet noodle" came to mind as Layla shuffled down the hall toward her suite. She'd sort of woken up more and then been relaxed back into severe sleepiness during the course of her massage session with Korvus. She was hoping she was tired enough to totally ignore the awkwardness inherent in a complete body rub down with foot. Maybe she'd get over that by tomorrow. As it was, she was more focused on the sleepy and how insanely loose her entire body felt. And how quiet the mansion was because that meant no one was really awake yet still. And if people weren't awake then it totally didn't matter that she was basically dragging her pants behind her as she walked into her suite and headed for her bedroom.

About a foot from the bed Layla stopped and looked down at herself. Did she really want to wake up wearing this thing? Deciding, no, in fact, she didn't, she turned around and headed for the closet. The loin cloth-meets-thong toga thing was slid off, tossed into the closet and the lounge pants were pulled on while she headed back for the bed, hopping clumsily while she tried to get them on.

Sarah hadn't really woken up when her girlfriend had left for her meeting with Korvus. She'd stirred but she'd just rolled over and went right back into a deep sleep. It had been getting a little easier to sleep as time went by, and whenever she was able to enjoy a good night's rest - normally when Layla was at her side - she took full advantage of it.

Layla's return had stirred her once again, however, and she lazily opened her eyes at the noise of someone entering the room. Squinting, it looked like it was Layla herself - a quick pat of the empty spot next to her confirmed her girlfriend wasn't there any more - but she was wearing... what was she wearing? Was that a thong? Rubbing her eyes and sitting up a bit, Sarah mumbled as she watched the blonde girl head for the closet.

"Mmm, wasgoin'onLayLay? Dijoohavtopeeorsumthin?"

And then there was a heavy thump as blonde met floor. Sarah's voice hadn't been expected and had surprised Layla just enough for her to lose her balance and wind up on the floor. "Ow..." She laid there for a second with her pants on one leg and sort of hanging around her other calf. "I had to meet up with Korvus." The answer had come in a whining mutter. Then Layla was squirming her way into her pants and standing back up. "Sorry, I wake you up? The alarm on my phone didn't so I figured you were, like, out."

Her eyes went wide as Layla went down to the floor. "Ohmygosh Layla!" Sarah sat up and swung her legs out over the edge of the bed, getting to her feet and over to where she'd fallen down. "Are you ok?" Seeing that had jolted her awake with a shot of adrenaline, though she calmed down a bit as Layla started talking and didn't seem to be too hurt. Sarah's nose wrinkled up at the mention of Korvus and her eyes darted to the clock then back to Layla. "You were meeting Korvus this early? In... that?" What was going on? She was pretty confused and opened her mouth to say something but stopped. "You... you're covered in..." Words failed her and instead she just reached out and touched the other girl's arm. What the ffffffffffffff...

"No," Layla began, her voice very calm and very patient. "No, I did't meet Korvus in this. Well, I did, but I wasn't wearing pants most of the time." Wait, maybe that sounded wrong. She moved back to the closet and grabbed the...well she wasn't sure if there was a real name for it so she was going to keep calling it a toga thong. Her hands held it up from the thin waist band which wasn't much thinner than the band on the underwear she was wearing. A single piece of white cloth attached to the band at each end making something of a hammock...though it wasn't particularly big. "I was wearing this. Uh, and this," a finger snapped at a strap on her bikini top. Last thing she needed was for Sarah to think she had gone off and hung out with Korvus at ass o'clock in the morning all topless and in a toga thong. "He's really traditional about stuff."

None of what Layla was saying made any sense at all. In fact, it was confusing her even further. "I... you were... traditional about what, exactly?" What kind of tradition required her girlfriend to be dressed up like that and with him early in the morning when everyone else - she presumed anyway - was sleeping? It did not make sense at all. Sarah scratched her head, forgetting that she hadn't put a hat or a wig on or anything in her haste to get out of bed to help Layla. "What's going on?" It was way too early in the morning for her to make with the braining, it seemed. She did have enough sense to reach down and offer a hand to Layla, however.

"About the oil massage thing." It was clear both from Layla's tone and her expression that she fully expected Sarah to know all this. "That he's traditional about, I mean. The weird outfit? The massage? The feet? Am I ringing any bells here? 'Cause I sort of feel like a puddle and I'm a little slippery and I'm really, really tired so maybe I'm like not coherent or something. Why doesn't this make sense to you?" She'd told her, right? Layla could have sworn she had told Sarah about this. She even raised her hand and shook her arm in a vain attempt to bring Sarah's attention to the kara she wore.

"Oil massage?" Korvus was giving her massages now? How long had she been asleep and what had happened while she was sleeping? "I... don't think you did, I think I'd remember something about someone massaging my girlfriend." Which probably sounded a bit mean but she'd already blurted it out before she could think about what she was saying, whoops. It wasn't that she thought anything was going on but it was just so bizarre to her half-awake brain. Shaking her head, she tried to process it again, looking at Layla's arm as she shook it. "Yeah, your... oh wait, I thought you'd lost that?"

"You mean you thought Genosha made it evaporate when they fucking hijacked us?" Layla offered as a correction, clearly waking up a bit more. "Yeah, it did. Korvus replaced it when I asked him where I could find a replacement. He insisted. He dropped it off yesterday with the," she raised the toga thong thing in her hand, "uniform. How do you-" Layla cut herself off. It had finally dawned on her. She totally hadn't told Sarah. And she hadn't told her because she'd stopped having to tell her stuff because she was always around when stuff happened. Except now her sister was here and she wasn't always around and she totally wasn't when Layla was e-mailing Korvus or when he came by with her package...as tiny as it wound up being. It was like a light bulb had just gone off in her head.

And then, instead of explaining, Layla detoured again. "Wait, are you...jealous?"

Sarah had flounced back onto the bed, pulling her feet back up onto it and wrapping her arms around her legs, hugging them to her. She listened as Layla spoke, frowning when she stopped. Her eyes went wide at the last question. "Jealous? About the bracelet? You've had that for awhile, before Genosha anyway, the other one, I mean. Or do you mean the... whatever the... the stuff that happened, which I still don't really know about?" She wasn't going to get out of an explanation that easily, and Sarah wasn't about to answer her question until she knew what she might have been jealous about.

Layla's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped a little. "Oh my god, you totally are. Do you think I'm having like a secret affair with Korvus and we're like oiling each other up in totally not platonic ways and that's why we're sneaking around at like five in the morning even though I'm totally coming back to fall back asleep with you?" She didn't sound like she really believed what she said, like it was too ridiculous to possibly be true. And it was, right? "You're really not like legit sorta jealous, right? Right?"

"What? No, don't be silly, I don't think that at all! I just..." It wasn't that she thought something untoward was going on because, well, she was sure of what her and Layla had, and she knew how her girlfriend felt, not to mention that Korvus was going steady with Meggan. But if someone was going to be massaging her girlfriend, well. Sarah shook her head petulantly, sliding back into bed and pulling the covers up to her chin. "I'm not, even though I don't know why you needed it." And why she hadn't asked her, though really she knew nothing about oil-y massages or whatever they had done so it wouldn't have mattered anyway, really.

She looked so cute and kinda pouty laying there like that. Well, no, she looked really pouty. Layla tossed the toga thong into the closet and crawled onto the bed. She crawled up to Sarah's feet, then over her until she could kiss her girlfriend's cheek. "It's initiation," Layla told her quietly. "Because I asked him to train me. And it's traditional." She remained hovering over the brunette, hands and knees to either side of her body. "And he's a lunatic who gets up to train at five a.m. every morning but Sunday. So now I get to be a lunatic with him. Six days a week at stupid early in the morning. But two weeks of massage is required because it helps flexibility and stuff."

It was really hard to ignore Layla - ok, not ignore her but not look at her and be all avoid-y - when she was literally hovering over her like that. The kiss on the cheek brought a little smile for a second before she frowned again, listening to the explanation. "Train you for what?" It did make sense, because Korvus was one who would stick to tradition and everything, so that explained the outfit and the whole oil-y situation. Sarah tentatively reached up and touched her girlfriend's skin again, wrinkling her nose at the oiliness. "Six days a week at 5am? Wow."

"Yeah, totally a recipe for Layla Zombie." Layla reached up to touch her own shoulder, mostly because Sarah kept doing it and she didn't think she was that oily. It had been rubbed in and her skin had absorbed a bunch and...okay she was oily. But showering it all off seemed way counter productive. That probably made no sense but it made sense to Layla. "I asked him to teach me to fight. And the, uh, style? No, that's not really the right word. The...form? No. Discipline! That's it. The discipline he knows has like stages. Initiation's two weeks of oil massage given to the student by their teacher. Then the next stage is all about preparing the body and making it more capable. So no actual fighty things, but like jumping and twisting and limbering and stuff. And the massage is supposed to help with that so you're more loose and get more flexible so you can have, I dunno, like a better range of motion you're effective with. Then after that comes staff stuff and then blade weapons and like if you're a super special snowflake you get taught how to fight without weapons. But that's like forever off and Kyle teaches me stuff that doesn't use weapons anyway."

That certainly was a lot of training. Sarah suddenly felt like such a slacker because wow, she didn't do anything near that much. And then she felt further embarrassed for the whole jealousy thing, which made her blush slightly, on top of the combined effect of Layla straddling her in what she'd been wearing, all oil-y, and yeah. Very weird way to be starting her morning, for sure. "Well, I guess that's ok then. I mean, not like you need my permission or anything, of course, but if that's why someone else is massaging you and not me then that makes sense. Not that I could because I don't know how and I don't own any oil." She'd started rambling again, one of the side effects of living with Layla Miller for so long. "My only question, though is when do you plan to sleep then, hmm?"

"Before five a.m.? And maybe, like, afternoon naps." Layla grinned and her hand started to bunch up the covers, pulling them slowly down off of Sarah. "Y'know, I'll just collapse whenever 'cause I figure after initiation week number two I'll get like actually awake doing stuff, right? So eventually when I crash I'll just crash. All annoyingly oily and stuff still." The grin was getting wider, taking on downright Cheshire qualities. Layla got the blanket down to Sarah's hips and her hand found her girlfriend's waist. And then it snuck just far enough under her shirt so Layla could pull Sarah up a little and snake her oily arm underneath the brunette's back.

Sarah didn't think much about the removal of the covers, since it was still extremely early and there was lots of time for more sleep, so surely Layla was just getting back into bed. "Well, you could maybe get a shower to get the oil off so you don't get it all over the sheets and m- hey wait a minute, what are you doin- LAYLA." She was too tired to struggle and was underneath Layla, who for all intents and purposes had her pinned. Her girlfriend's hand was under the back of her camisole and now she was pulling her closer to her.

Struggling would have been futile anyway, really. Or so Layla told herself. With her arm circling Sarah's waist, and her evil plan clearly discovered, Layla started to giggle. Playing innocent was definitely out now so she grinned and kissed Sarah. "What? You were all half jealous about me getting all oiled up by Korvus! I wanted to share!" Before Sarah could complain Layla kissed her again.

Closing her eyes, Sarah wrinkled her nose as Layla kissed her, trying not to giggle as well but it was hard not to do so. "Gah, you're all slippery and greasy, woman!" Anyone who might be awake and overhearing this would definitely be wondering just what the heck the two of them were up to in there. "And I wasn't jealous, I was just confused, and now I'm not confused but I'm oil-y too!" She couldn't help but laugh now and this time kissed Layla back, pulling her down because why not, the damage had already been done after all.