Regina is startled from her discovery of the beanfield by the ringing of her phone. AT&T might suck everywhere else, but their coverage inside a magical forcefield is actually pretty decent.
"Madam Mayor?" The accent makes her recognizable in an instant, and Regina bites back a sigh of frustration. If Rumple has already broken his new toy, she really is going to have to take some serious action against him this time, really teach him a lesson. And if that's also some kind of payback for daring to be biologically related to Henry, well, so be it.
"Lacey," Regina says in her friendliest possible voice. "Is everything alright?"
"I think so?" Lacey replies, her intonation rising in question. "It's just, I find myself at the Rabbit Hole all alone, and I wondered if... oh, it's silly, really."
"What is?" Regina asks, intrigued by the openness of the conversation.
"I just wanted to buy you a drink, say thanks for you being so nice earlier today. Not many Mayors would take that kind of time to check up on a scared mental patient, you know?"
"That's just how we do things in Storybrooke," Regina assures her, hesitating for just a second before pocketing one of the beans. "And to continue that personal touch? Well, I'll see you there in ten minutes."
"That's great!" Lacey says before Regina hangs up on her, stomping through the muddy field towards the car.
The newfound knowledge of the Charmings' farm project can wait until morning, Regina decides as she guns the engine and turns the car around. Right now, a drink sounds like a lot more fun.
"Tequila?" Regina asks when she steps up to the bar behind Lacey somewhere around eleven minutes later. "You do like to live dangerously."
"That's right," Lacey agrees, without missing a beat. She throws back her shot and waves the bartender down with a gesture for two more. Regina could decline, beg off with her newly-restored Mayoral duties or the prospect of seeing Henry in the morning, but she already knows one of those things won't be happening, judging by the happy families routine and Emma's quiet defense of it.
So what the hell? She's been alive for a really long time, and they've yet to invent a drink that she can't handle.
The tequila barely burns when she throws it back, and she waves away the lime when Lacey does.
"You don't act like a Mayor," Lacey accuses, but her eyes are sparkling with genuine interest, even in the dull lights of this dive bar.
"Some say I'm more of a Queen," Regina replies, lips twitching at what is essentially a private joke with this audience. "And I'm surprised you're drinking with me tonight. Shouldn't you be getting wooed by Mr. Gold somewhere?"
"Oh, he tried," Lacey replies, distracted by the sudden quiet when the jukebox falls silent. "Come pick a song with me?"
"Mr. Gold tried?" Regina asks lightly, following the girl in the skimpy blue dress over to the dusty machine in the corner.
"Oh yeah," Lacey confirms. "Another guy too, and he got a little further. Until Gold beat the crap out of him, anyway."
The opening reverb of Alice Cooper's 'Poison' fills the room then, and Regina smiles in recognition. In twenty-eight years, she spent more than one night here, whiling away time with people who once hated her, safe from them in the oblivion of the curse. And if she played this song a few times? Well, a girl has to find her amusement somewhere.
"So many suitors," Regina says, leaning against the jukebox and letting the power chords vibrate through her for a moment. "And yet, here you are with me, half an hour from closing."
"It's the darndest thing," Lacey says, leaning close with a conspiratorial whisper. "But any time someone lays their hands on me, I find myself suddenly thinking of you."
"Well, I have that effect on people," Regina says, barely concealing her smirk. "Maybe it's the pencil skirts."
"It could be," Lacey muses, blatantly checking Regina out from head to toe. "And I'm sure I'd remember if I'd ever been with someone as hot as you."
"You're very bold," Regina comments, hoping it covers her mild panic at memories of Belle's room in the asylum, of the slow-burning affair fifteen years ago when dear, sweet Belle had tried to cure yet another monster with love. Regina had taken the feverish kisses and the slow but spine-tingling sex. But whatever affection Belle had offered just rolled right over Regina, another magic cloud that she had every protection from.
"I don't see the point in being polite," Lacey admits. "Seems to me polite girls end up sitting by the bar, all alone."
"Jimmy?" Regina calls out to the bartender.
"Yes, your-uh, Madam Mayor?" Jimmy replies, almost dropping the beer glass he's wiping dry.
"Time to close up for the night," Regina says in her firmest tone, turning a reproving glare on the few other occupants, who start hastily drinking up.
"The license stays we can stay open 'til eleven," Jimmy starts to argue, but a simple roll of Regina's wrist is warning enough. The poor fool hasn't even worked out that she won't do magic in front of poor, cursed Lacey.
"You want to get out of here?" Lacey asks. "Only I don't really have a place of my own. There's this B&B-"
"Here will be just fine," Regina interrupts.
"We're having a lock-in?" Lacey asks, face lighting up in excitement. "Well, you go get us the rest of the bottle, Mrs Mayor, and I'll rack 'em up."
"Pool?" Regina questions, raising an eyebrow in mild disgust.
"Yeah," Lacey says with a nod, leaning in again to whisper hotly against Regina's ear. "I mean, you want to see me bent over in this dress, right?"
"Lacey, you really are a bad girl," Regina gasps, and the shock isn't entirely feigned. Sometimes the curse is just too delicious to be believed, and this time Regina has outdone herself.
"Tequila," Lacey instructs, and Regina makes a show of considering it before marching over there and pulling the bottle right from under Jimmy's nose.
"I'll see that everything's locked up," Regina assures him. "Enjoy the early night."
Jimmy knows a veiled threat when he hears one, scuttling out of there behind the last of the other patrons, not throwing so much as a glance back towards the two women.
"So," Regina says, making sure to put the extra swing in her hips as she approaches the pool table. "Are you planning to hustle me?"
She sets the bottle on the edge of the table and shrugs off her coat and scarf at last, revealing the black dress she put on in a flash of inspiration that morning. Lacey doesn't miss the way it rides up on Regina's thighs, or the flash of lace at the neckline. Poor Gold had been oblivious earlier, but his true love has a wandering eye.
"I don't hustle," Lacey corrects. "And besides, a nice lady Mayor like you probably doesn't play much pool. Go ahead, I'll let you break."
"Standing right behind me, I presume?" Regina questions, taking a hearty swig from the bottle before trading it for the cue that Lacey offers her. "Because honestly, this dress looks fantastic from that angle."
"I have no doubt," Lacey says. "Just focus on breaking up the balls a little, you don't have to pot on the break."
"Thanks for the help," Regina says, voice dripping in faux-sincerity as she bends over the table and runs the lacquered wood over the curve between her thumb and index finger. Lacey, sure enough, stays a bit behind Regina to appreciate the view. That distraction is heartbreakingly easy to smash when Regina sends the white ball crashing into the neat triangle and pots three solids on her first shot.
"What were you saying about hustling?" Lacey murmurs, suddenly much closer.
"It's still my turn," Regina points out, right before she feels Lacey's thighs against the back of her own, and determined fingers taking hold of Regina's hips.
"You know, pool's pretty boring," Lacey says, pulling Regina back to standing with surprising ease. The cue is tugged from Regina's hand and sent clattering to the floor. She turns, partly to test the resolve of Lacey's grip, and is on the receiving end of a distinctly predatory look as a result.
"What else did you have in mind?" Regina breathes, trying not to lose herself in those startlingly blue eyes.
"Well, we can still use the table," Lacey suggests, lifting Regina far enough from the floor to sit on the table's edge in one smooth movement. "And we definitely don't need the balls."
Lacey moves away for a moment, rolling stripes and solids alike into the pockets with practiced ease, but she's back in front of Regina before she can seriously think about putting her feet back on the ground.
"Aren't you going to kiss me?" Lacey asks, and for a moment she's Belle again: sweet and just a little shy. Regina ignores the pang of guilt, and leans in to claim those pretty lips with a kiss.
Take that, Rumple Regina thinks, victory coursing through her veins as Lacey slips her hands behind Regina's neck and pulls her into a much deeper kiss, laced with intent.
"Buttons," Lacey murmurs as they finally break for air, and sure enough she starts fiddling with the ones that will undo the front of Regina's dress. Soon there's more than just the edge of Regina's bra on display, nipples harden at the first careless skim of Lacey's palms.
"Lean back," Lacey commands, and Regina feels a surprising lack of power despite the fact that she looms over the girl even more than usual. She hesitates a moment too long though, and there's a gentle shove at her collarbone, because apparently this cursed personality doesn't have much in the way of patience. That, Regina can certainly sympathize with.
The shortness of Lacey's dress is shown up when she clambers on top of Regina, their thighs touching as Regina reclines against the not-terribly-comfortable green felt. What would the citizens of Storybrooke say if they could see their Mayor now? Regina closes her eyes for a moment and she can picture the lovers from her idle daydreams forming a semi-circle behind Lacey, waiting their turn to have their way with her. Really, Regina thinks, she should have taken far better advantage of the curse before it broke; look where being nice and playing Mommy got her.
"You really are gorgeous," Lacey sighs, dipping her head to kiss her way along Regina's collarbone, tongue swirling in the hollows and teeth scraping where the skin is at its thinnest and most sensitive.
Regina shrugs off the compliment, because she's been hearing them all her life.
She responds, after a fashion, by slipping her hands beneath the remaining inches of Lacey's dress, confirming her earlier suspicion about a distinct lack of underwear. A knuckle grazes bare skin and then a whole lot of wetness that Regina isn't sure she's entirely responsible for. Not caring, she digs her nails into the soft curves of Lacey's ass, laughing quietly at the happy gasp Lacey makes against Regina's throat.
"And I thought you were such a nice little thing," Regina growls when Lacey bites a little too hard. That's going to require a less daring neckline tomorrow, and Regina's just starting to enjoy having some flesh on display after a long, cold winter.
"Nice?" Lacey scoffs, sitting up and straddling Regina's hips more comfortably. Lacey grabs one of Regina's hands and steers it around to the front, nodding in encouragement when Regina presses one tentative fingertip against Lacey's clit. "I don't think either of us can be accused of that. Nice girls don't throw people out of a bar so they can fuck right here on the table, do they?" Lacey's own hand slips between them, nudging black lace aside and pressing her own fingers against Regina's wetness with much more confidence. "And nice girls don't get so fucking turned on by it."
"That's quite a mouth you have on you," Regina says, hissing when Lacey's other hand cups Regina's breast, squeezing firmly before sweeping a thumb in firm strokes over the nipple, playing Regina's arousal like something tangible, almost like an instrument.
It builds quickly, the surging need, because in these past few months of curses breaking and hearts right along with them, Regina hasn't really been tending to her own needs in any of the ways she prefers. But now, with the prized possession of the man who never forgives or forgets, Regina is reckless and half-tempted to conjure him into the round, bound to a chair and forced to watch his love thoroughly defiled.
She pulls Lacey down beside her then, their hands still occupied as they face each other on the baize. Something in Regina wants to make this girl scream, and it takes almost no effort at all to hike the dress out of the way altogether, and of course Lacey rolls on her back like it's her job, and Regina gets to vent countless frustrations with the course of her mouth - the licking giving a false sense of security before she starts to nip at the sensitive lines of Lacey's hip bones. The soft sighs give way to breathy moans, and Regina in her opened dress knows she looks less put together than normal, but she finds it hard to give a damn.
She blows a flicky strand of hair out of her face before settling between Lacey's thighs, and the girl meets Regina's look with a cheeky grin before shuffling her thighs a little further apart in anticipation.
"You've done this before?" Regina asks, testing her own magic one last time.
"Do I strike you as some blushing virgin?" Lacey asks, propped up on her elbows and scrunching her face in impatience. "Come on, Madam Mayor. I'd like to find out what that fancy mouth of yours can really do." She confirms as much by lifting her legs over Regina's shoulders, effectively pulling her back into position.
Regina doesn't appreciate being goaded, but she runs the very tip of her tongue around Lacey's outer lips, swallowing a cruel laugh when the girl hisses in pleasure. It's almost too easy, and the scrape of Lacey's heels against Regina's back is a welcome jolt of pain.
Lacey isn't content to lie back and quietly wait for an orgasm though, and a moment later strong fingers are grasping at Regina's hair, pressing her face closer in a bid to gain more pressure from her tongue. Usually she'd resist, consider it an insult, but there's something refreshing about being wanted quite so badly.
So she concentrates on every whimper, every jolt of Lacey's hips and the responses beneath her tongue. Regina alternates the stroking massage and gentle circles with firm strokes that sound like little slaps against wet flesh. It takes her first suck on Lacey's clit, trapped in that infamous pout of Regina's, to make the girl come so hard it seems she might snap in two, given how suddenly her back arches.
"Jesus," Lacey gasps when her voice comes back a few moments later. "You're relentless."
"Yes," Regina confirms, dipping her head once more and teasing a still rock-hard clit with the faintest of licks, slipping two fingers inside and curling them on each thrust until Lacey is yanking Regina's hair again and coming every bit as loud all over again.
Wriggling off the table, Regina surveys her handiwork, hands on hips as Lacey tries to catch her breath. Eventually she sits, beckoning Regina back with one crooked finger.
"Oh, I'm going to have to try and top that," Lacey breathes, tracing Regina's lips with her tongue, moaning at the taste of herself as they kiss slowly, a lazy effort considering what's just happened between them. Regina can feel how painfully close she already is, and her entire body is just one thrumming need yelling at her for satisfaction.
Thankfully, Lacey doesn't appear to be in the business of needless delays.
She leaves a less-than-sophisticated hickey at the base of Regina's throat as she strips her, and when Regina is left in nothing but her knee-high boots and stockings, Lacey urges her back onto the damn pool table, and if it weren't for the dash of exhibitionist in her, Regina might well have insisted they take this back to her empty house and lonely bedroom by now.
"Uh uh," Lacey corrects. "On your hands and knees."
"You're joking?" Regina sputters.
"I don't really joke about this kind of thing," Lacey replies, smacking Regina's bare ass with a resounding 'crack' that echoes in the otherwise empty room.
"I did mention that I run this town?" Regina attempts, unsure why she's bartering with the girl and not storming off to collect her clothes.
"You did," Lacey confirms. "But all that power can go to a lady's head, don't you think? So I figured it was time you give up a little control. Speaking of which..."
Regina watches on in disbelief as Lacey snatches up the silk scarf Regina has been wearing all day and briskly folds it a few times lengthways.
"Okay?" Lacey asks before placing the silk over Regina's eyes. She nods, because her mouth is suddenly dry and she can't form the words to answer.
It should feel ridiculous, blindfolded and naked in a place like this, but Lacey has opted to begin whatever plan she has by lavishing attention on Regina's nipples again, with each lick increasing the intensity until it's almost too good and too painful to tolerate, but Lacey pulls back just in time, switching to the other nipple and letting it build up all over again, this time flashing her teeth until the sharpness of the sensation makes Regina cry out.
"Good," Lacey says when she next pauses. "You have a very sexy voice, and I want to hear you."
"You're very demanding," Regina argues, trying not to pout. Truthfully, she's a little off balance at the prospect of sex for the sheer enjoyment of it, without a political agenda or a lesson to teach an unruly underling.
"Now," Lacey replies. "Get up on your hands and knees, right there on the table."
It would be nothing at all to refuse, to yank the scarf down to her neck where it belongs, and yet Regina does neither. With a stretch that, yes, could be construed as putting on a show, she turns around and crawls into position.
"Very nice," Lacey comments, and Regina smirks at the hitch in the girl's breathing. Regina is surprisingly comfortable, apart from the leather of her boots sticking to her shins, but that's a minor irritation.
Lacey is circling the table, pausing only to kick off her heels and make her position less obvious in the process. There's a rustling of fabric which is probably the dress being pulled the rest of the way off, and Regina swallows hard against the metallic taste in the back of her throat. She's forgotten the fear of being deprived of an important sense around someone who is, essentially, a stranger.
Try though she might, Regina can't stop herself from jumping at the first touch of Lacey's hand, skimming down her right side. There's a teasing slap to her thigh next, and Regina bites her lip in time to prevent giving away her enjoyment of it. Lacey is undeterred, though.
"I said I want to hear you," she reminds Regina, who pulls a face despite the blindfold no doubt ruining the effect.
The next slap lands right between her thighs and Regina has no hope of hiding her reaction. The yelp of pain and the shudder of pure pleasure betray how much she enjoys it, and Lacey responds with a sprinkling of further slaps, without regular rhythm and varying in intensity. If Regina had been on the edge before, now the arousal is reaching unbearable levels.
It's getting harder to focus on the details, but it's clear that Lacey is now on the table with her, and the next time her fingers land on Regina they stroke rather than slap, spreading her open and then leaving her bereft.
"Are you just a tease?" Regina grumbles through gritted teeth.
"You tell me," Lacey breathes, and then her fingers push inside Regina with no ceremony at all, pushing past the building ache in a way that makes Regina hiss through her teeth and then sigh in relief.
This, she needs.
It's base and undignified for a Queen, perhaps, but it's been almost three decades since she held the title, and she realizes now that she's in no mood to reclaim it. Let the Evil Queen trouble herself with Charmings and betrayals alike, right now she is simply Regina and Lacey is a brand new person with strong fingers and impeccable rhythm, and maybe just maybe that's going to be enough.
Enough is a distant memory as Lacey pushes a third finger in on the next thrust, and when her other hand is a little clumsy in seeking out Regina's clit with trembling fingertips, it doesn't do much to dilute the effect. Gritting her teeth, Regina tries to hold out just a little longer, but Lacey is every bit as unforgiving as Regina herself, and soon she's coming in one wave, and then a second, until her thighs start shaking and she falls forward onto the felt, not caring if she grazes or burns her skin.
Lacey lets Regina catch her breath before withdrawing her hand, but the final smack is a cheeky touch Regina can't help but appreciate. She pulls the blindfold down, blinking under the table lights, and meets Lacey's eye without having to search for her.
"I really feel like maybe we've done this before," Lacey whispers, and for a moment it seems her hand is destined to touch Regina's cheek, but it's pulled back in time.
"You just wish we had," Regina says, all business once more. She hoists herself from the table with as much grace as she can muster, trying to ignore how she's wet halfway down her thighs, and pulls her clothes back on with brisk motions. "We can always do it again."
"Maybe," Lacey says, shaking her head as though to clear it. "Now, I'd better find a way back to that B&B."
"It's not far," Regina says. "I can drop you on my way home."
"You don't have to," Lacey insists, but she reaches for her discarded dress with a little urgency, perhaps to avoid giving Regina excuses to leave her behind.
"Come along," Regina says, stepping behind the bar to wash her hands and trying not to cluck with impatience when Lacey then takes too long doing the same thing.
Gold, of course, is waiting in his car opposite Granny's. Regina knows her very presence is enough to unsettle him, but she can't resist calling Lacey back once the girl has slipped out of the passenger seat.
When Lacey approaches Regina's rolled-down window, it's just too irresistible, and Regina pulls the girl down for a searing kiss.
Lacey staggers off into the waiting doorway, and Regina lets her gaze wander across the street, where Gold is watching with an expression somewhere between disbelief and outright hatred. That he hasn't tried to turn her into a snail yet means he's still in some kind of shock. It's reckless, probably pointless, and yet for the first time in months, Regina feels like she won.
And that? She wouldn't trade for anything.