"Where is she?" Mary-Margaret demanded of David, as if he could produce Emma in their loft like a magician's trick. She was tapping her shoe, tapping her fingers, pretty much doing a samba all by herself.

"Probably cleaning Regina's house," David replied nonchalantly. Maybe it was just that Regina wasn't his arch-nemesis, but he wasn't too worried about something nefarious happening to his daughter. Regina had given her word, after all.

After getting back from Neverland, everyone could see the benefit of having another magic-user on their side. Gold flatly refused to teach her, though—he just wanted a quiet, normal life with Belle. Regina, on the other hand, was almost frighteningly open to the idea. She gave the Charmings the most common deal: an apprenticeship in exchange for the apprentice's service. In this case, simply doing some menial tasks around Regina's home. "I never could figure out how to program the VCR myself," as Regina put it.

Emma was fine with it. She almost preferred a blue-collar job, of sorts, to living as a princess, not doing anything except for settling fairy tale disputes. This would keep her honest, she said.

It'd been two hours, though. Not the one and a half Regina had said she would need for Emma's work and first lesson. Mary-Margaret checked the clock again. Definitely two hours.

"I'm calling her," she said.

"Emma said not to call," David reminded her gently.

"I'm calling," Mary-Margaret repeated, just as Emma came through the door.

"Hey," she said, and noticed the bug-eyed looks coming her way. "Why so tense?"

"Where were you?" Mary-Margaret demanded, like Emma was a teen out past curfew.

"At Regina's. Like I said I would be?"

"You said you'd be there ninety minutes, not two hours."

Emma had apparently resigned herself to the argument, because she headed to the fridge to get a drink. "I got soot all over myself cleaning out Regina's fireplace, so she let me use her shower."

Mary-Margaret's arms were crossed. "There's no soot on your clothes."

"I'm wearing one of Regina's shirts. Not like it's the first time." Emma drank some orange juice from the carton. "I'm finishing this, by the way. It's not going back in the refrigerator."

"I was worried," David said of the oj.

"You don't find this the slightest bit suspicious?" Mary-Margaret asked him incredulously. "Emma, did Regina take any of your hair?"

"No."

"A scrap of clothing?"

"No."

"How would you know? She has your dirty clothes!"

"No, I put them in a Zip-Loc bag and carried them in my purse so I could put them in the laundry," Emma said patiently. "Regina has, like, a million Zip-Loc bags. Some of them are this big…" She held her fingers just a little ways apart.

"Emma, I know this woman, she is up to something! She's not going to be content with embarrassing you! She's going to want to break you down, hurt you, control you, use you for whatever sick game her twisted mind comes up with."

"Sounds like a real hard case," Regina said.

Like a cat dropped in water, Mary-Margaret jumped and landed turned to face Regina.

"The door was open," Regina said, firmly shutting it behind her. "I need a word with Emma. Is there someplace private we can talk?"

"Bathroom," Emma said, indicating the open-air ambiance of Mary-Margaret's loft. Even the bed was out in the open, as much as Emma would like to forget that after walking in on her parents' 'reunion.'

Regina nodded briskly to the Charmings. "David. Mary-Margaret." And without a look back, she followed Emma into the bathroom.

"Problem, Regina?" Emma asked, for once glad Mary-Margaret was so anal-retentive about the cleaning. The bathroom was spotless, from the gleaming white bathtub to the porcelain sink. Good thing, too. She imagined that if Regina saw so much as a cockroach, the queen would just puff herself back to her manor and count her Lysol containers.

Weird, how much alike Snow White and the Evil Queen could be.

Regina's eyes sumptuously took in the bathroom, maybe looking for that hypothetical cockroach Emma had imagined. Not finding it, she locked the door behind her and sauntered a few steps toward Emma.

"I find your laundry services unsatisfactory. Whatever you've done to my pants, they're impossible to remove. I'll require your assistance."

Emma knew that look (and that voice) all too well. "You remember I'm not really your butler, right? You didn't bump your head on a Hanna-Barbera cartoon or anything?"

"Are you going to help me or not?"

Emma put her hands on her hips. "Damn, woman, I just gave you sweet loving five minutes ago!"

Regina did that little head tilt that was supposed to make her look like the villain in a slasher movie, but always reminded Emma of a confused puppy. "Was that meant to be an impersonation of me?"

"It was Chef. From South Park? Isaac Hayes?"

Regina turned her head away. "I don't care for it and I won't respond to it. Now, have you worked out a solution yet?"

"To your pants problem? Yeah." A little begrudgingly, though she did play that up, Emma approached Regina. She crouched down in front of her. "I'll get right on that."

With all the hours Emma had spent examining how each of Regina's various ensembles hung off her hips, it was pretty easy to see something had changed. But Emma couldn't tell what until she actually opened Regina's belt, popped the button on her trousers, and pulled down the zipper. For a moment, Emma just stared. Then, giggling, she hauled the flaccid cock out into the open.

"Seriously?"

"Well, as you are straight, I should think this would simplify matters a great deal. You were attracted to me, even though I didn't have a penis, but now that I do—for the moment—you should feel a great deal less conflicted."

Emma tried really hard to stop giggling, but it was a huge dick. Obviously, Regina wasn't going to magic herself up a small dick, but she was pretty much the black guy in a porno here. "Babe, we're not going to have the labels talk again? I told you, I mean obviously I'm not straight-straight, it's just that I'm not attracted to a lot of women besides you. Some people would be happy to hear that!"

"Excuse me, could we please continue this conversation with this," Regina gave her new phallus a shake, which made Emma snicker like a sixth-grader hearing a fart joke, "in your mouth? I would definitely prefer that to hearing how you're not really as butch as a set of power tools."

Emma looked up at her. "Okay, I was going to, but now I'm thinking this is some weird way for you to get me to admit I'm into Ruby or whatever so you can stop worrying that, I don't know, I'm going to leave you for George Clooney, in the tradition of heterosexuals."

She started to stand. Regina put her hand on her head—Emma was somewhat embarrassedly reminded of how Bball players could 'palm' a basketball—and held Emma in place.

"What's the safe word, Emma?"

It worried Emma that she knew exactly what Regina was doing. "You know what it is."

"It's Japan," Regina said.

"And I still think that's a little racist. I mean, a little…"

"Have you said that word, Emma?"

"No."

"Would you like to, while your mouth is still empty?"

"No."

"Then I suggest you get my cock in your mouth and suck, because you're not getting up off your knees until you do."

"But I'm crouching?" Emma noted.

Regina wrapped her other hand around her cock and held it up to Emma's lips like a microphone. "Come on, girlie. Give me one of those world-famous teen mom blowjobs."

"Okay, I know you're being you and all, but just because I got pregnant when I was seventeen or whatever does not make me a slut! What Neal and I had was very special and—"

Regina waited just long enough for Emma to form a particularly wide vowel, then shoved her cock into Emma's mouth.

It was quite satisfying. Next time Emma came over to 'clean', she'd have to have a gag on hand.

As she probably always would when giving a blowjob, Emma thought back to how this had all started.

She and the family were back in Storybrooke. She needed to learn magic before she started flambéing people in her sleep. Gold had said no. So she'd talked to Regina and—

"Seriously?" Emma asked, putting her hand on her breast. "I have to be your maid?"

Next to her—in bed—naked—Regina lit a cigarette. She only smoked after sex, and Emma thought it was only for the visual. The bitch looked so damn hot, topless with a cigarette in her hand.

"I don't make the rules," Regina said, "but I do enjoy the look on your face when I inform you of them. It's the perfect thanks for the gift I just bestowed upon you."

"I went down on you."

"Precisely." Regina took a long drag and blew it out. Goddamn, did she look hot.

"Regina, we're dating," Emma reminded her. "Can't I get, you know, the friends and fucks discount?"

"It's magic, Emma, not who went to the next round on American Idol. I can't just send you a text. It's a mystic transference of eldritch knowledge and part of that is a nominal exchange of services. Surely, you've heard someone say 'all magic comes with a price'? I get that more than I heard 'where's the beef?' in the eighties."

"But still, doing odd jobs around your house?"

"You think I like it? Well, I do appreciate the thought." Regina knew just when to take a drag and savor Emma's indignation. Emma shivered at how hot she was. If Regina weren't pissing her off so much, she'd probably have to ravish her. Might anyway. "But I have a system. You're probably going to mess up my entire house, rip the lining on the garbage bags, kill my flowers—do you even vacuum so that the lines are horizontal?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about. Do you mean using the little hose thing on the vacuum?"

"No. I don't." Regina tapped some ash out of her cigarette. At least she'd stopped doing that on Emma. "Probably be easier all around if you just—no. Not even going to say it."

"What?"

"Forget it. It's much more… it wouldn't be a good fit."

"A worse fit than me as someone who cleans for a living? This I gotta hear."

"Well, the magic acknowledges two forms of 'favor'. There's the obvious physical labor, where you just fulfill whatever tasks I set for you. And then there's… well… sex and sexual fluids have long been considered mystic by many cultures…"

Emma sat up. "Whoa! Whoa! You're telling me that I could learn magic by being a squirter?"

Regina blinked. "No. I said nothing like that. Just that magic recognizes sex as a form of exchange. But it's tacky, no one ever does it. If you have world-shaking magical power, you can just use that to get laid. No need to actually make someone your sex slave in exchange for learning to cast spells."

"But in theory," Emma insisted, "what we did just now could've taught me how to cast Magic Missile."

"I don't understand that reference."

"But in theory…"

"Yes! Well, no—there's an element of satisfaction. It can't just be going through the motions…"

"Excuse me!? Five minutes ago, you shattered all the glass in the house. There's a fire in the fireplace now!" Emma pointed at it. "Unless you sleep with a flamethrower under your pillow, I'm pretty sure that was me!"

"I was speaking in theory," Regina said, and patted Emma's head. "You are the best at lovemaking. Good Emma. Top marks."

"Thank you."

"My point is, you can't just give me a handjob and expect to learn Magic Missive."

"Missile."

"What? Oh. Shame. I quite liked the sound of a Magic Missive…" Regina nursed her cigarette a little more.

"Regina, I. Am. Your. Girlfriend. Doesn't us having sex make more sense than me cleaning up after you?"

"I'm not talking about nudging you in the side while we're watching Letterman together and asking you if you want to fool around. This would be… intense. Dark." Regina took a deep pull on the cigarette and exhaled through her nose. Great, now she looked noirish. If she lit up a second one, Emma was going to trib her so hard she'd learn Expecto Patronum. "To obtain true power, you would have to satisfy my darkest, most intense desires."

"You said dark and intense already, Christian Grey."

"I'm serious, Emma. I'm perfectly fine with our relationship simply being… holding hands and Eskimo kisses. I'll only go this route if you know what you're in for and it's what you want too."

"Regina… I don't want a vanilla relationship. I want your kinky fuckery." Emma burst out laughing. "Sorry, sorry! I swear, I only know about that book because of my mom. Snow is weirdly into it. She has these Photoshops of that Vampire Diaries guy and—hey, you're not going to shave my head or anything super-weird, right?"

"No. Your hair is one of your few qualities I am unreservedly positive about."

"Good. I mean, I'm cool with roleplay, threesomes… some of the Nazi stuff, not all, but I don't think it's too soon for that… but anything that's not human and anything that used to be food or water, right out."

Regina took a long puff on her cigarette. "I can't believe Mary-Margaret is so upset about missing your childhood. Clearly, it's still ongoing."

"That reminds me. Mommykink, ageplay, a little of the diaper stuff, I'm surprisingly okay with it, but you can't do that thing where you make jokes to my mom about it like 'Emma is such a baby'."

"But it's funny because you continue to keep our loving relationship a secret from her!" Regina protested.

Emma let that pass. "Anything else? I don't want you to spring something on me, like 'oh, we're in the shower, I peed on your leg, ha ha, were you into that?' That didn't happen to me, but that happened to a friend of mine. Not Belle, though."

"I do believe you've covered every scenario exhaustively." Regina then furrowed her brow and stubbed out her cigarette. "Although… Emma, have you ever seen one of those Japanese cartoons with the tentacles?"

"Umm… yeah?"

"What were your thoughts exactly?"

"I'm going to come!"

Emma looked up at Regina, who was staring wide-eyed at her. The fact that she wasn't shooting the usual eye-daggers meant she wasn't kidding. It'd only been about a minute, so apparently Regina's new cock suffered from premature ejaculation. That never happened in the fifty percent of things written on the internet, which were about women with penises (Google was not Emma's friend).

Emma pulled herself off Regina to say "Don—" but Regina heaved a great sigh and—well, it was a bit like that time Emma had dropped a jug of milk last week. If her face had been Mary-Margaret's favorite rug.

"Mmmm…" Regina hummed, leaning on the sink. One deep breath later: "Sorry, you were saying?"

Emma got up to spit in the sink. "I was going to say, 'don't come in my mouth'." She turned on the water and, cupping her hands in the stream, started washing off her tongue.

"Now, see, if you just kept your mouth shut more often, like I told you, this wouldn't be a problem."

Emma splashed her face a couple times. "How is having cum all over my face, but not in my mouth, a non-problem?"

"It's an exfoliant, Emma. I just saved you forty dollars at any spa." Noticing her cock was still covered in Emma's saliva and bits of spunk—Emma wasn't sure which Regina resented more—Regina grabbed a handtowel.

"Not the good towels! Use toilet paper!"

Regina rolled her eyes, but did as Emma said. "Why do you even have towels if you're not going to use them? That's a bit much even for me."

"They're hand towels. Not penis towels."

"There's a Kickstarter for me to create," Regina mused. She rubbed at her crotch a little and was surprised, but gratified to find her wand (Emma immediately hated herself for calling it that) standing up again. "Well! Did Neal's ever do that?"

"No, Neal's penis turned into a tiny guitarneck after ejaculation. In other news, why are you asking me about Neal's penis?"

"I'm sorry, as a straight woman, I thought you would like discussing penises in general—"

"Swear to God, babe, you're like a—do you want me to cut my hair short and start listening to Ani DiFranco albums? Because I will!"

"I just want you to be honest about what we have, not couching it in all sorts of denials and half-justifications. Also, I would really like it if you bent over something and dropped your jeans."

"You're kidding."

"Not that I dislike your jeans, they're very becoming, but—"

"Damn, woman, I just gave you sweet loving five minutes ago! Literally this time!"

"I still don't get that reference. But, unless you're like me to bid my adieus to your parents looking like this—" Regina gestured down at her tumescence.

Emma put her hands on her hips. "If I said Japan and asked you to jerk off or think unsexy thoughts until that went down, would you do it?"

"Of course! But—" Regina bit her lip. "Did I make it wrong somehow? Is it not big enough?"

"It's not the size that—no, I'm not doing that. Regina, it's fine. I just…" Emma took a moment to knead her temples. "You really care about me, right? The bickering and the domming and all, that's just our… well, our personalities, but there is, like… you know…" She held her hands out. "Respect and love and gay stuff like that?"

"Emma, I was teasing earlier, but I really did think you would like this. I mean, you liked the strap-on well enough."

"It vibrated. No, Regina, I mean… the way you want to know I'm really into you, I want to know you're really into me. That you're not just sexing me up because it's an Evil Queen thing to do."

Regina smiled a bit ruefully. "If you're asking me to say I love you, I'm not going to do it in your mother's bathroom while you have jizz on your chin."

"Huh? Oh, missed a spot." Emma grabbed a handtowel. Regina rolled her eyes, but otherwise didn't comment. "So, uh, yeah. I'm not saying it either, given the circumstances, but… there's no one else I would give a blowjob to in my mom's bathroom. Even dudes."

"And I wouldn't cast a magic spell to give me a penis for just anyone."

"Cool. Cool, cool, cool." Emma looked down. She'd marked Regina down as weird a good while ago, but now she was pretty sure this conversation had given Regina a double-boner or a love-boner or… okay, maybe she should look into full-on Ani DiFranco lesbianhood, because this was just odd. "I don't want you to think unsexy thoughts. Or jerk off in the toilet."

"I'm actually somewhat liking the thought of that second one while you watch me."

"Just get up on me before I change my mind. Un-japan or whatever."

Regina smiled. "'Get up on you'. How could I resist an endearment like that?"

Emma hopped up on the sink. "We doing this or what?"

"Coming, dear."