Chapter 1
Carmilla and LaFontaine were in brunette’s office having a discussion about Carmilla’s participation in her friends experiment. Perry and LaFontaine are re-conducting an experiment to see how many people will fall in love based on 36 well constructed questions. Study about this was done so many times before, but they wanted to see it for themselves and capture what participant’s thoughts about it.
“You have to”, they said firmly.
Carmilla shook her head, “no I don’t”.
“Yes, you do”, LaFontaine was not giving up that easily. “You need a life”, they pointed out.
“I have a life!”, brunette huffed.
“Social one!”
“I have that one as well.”
“Sleeping around doesn’t count!”, they were starting to lose patience and Carmilla noticed.
“Fine! Text me when and where it takes place. And just so you know I’m doing this just so I can prove your stupid experiment is worthless and wrong!” Carmilla pointed out and LaFontaine just beamed, happy that they managed to convince broody professor to be a part of a study.
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The room was cozy, with two big scarlet armchairs in the middle of it, a wooden coffee table between them, with soft golden light coming from floor lamps. In the middle of the table were white cards, on the right side were pots of coffee and cocoa, while on the left side were cookies and muffins.
Carmilla entered slowly, eyes roaming around the room, looking at the carefully designed space, everything there was strategically placed to make participants feel comfortable. She noticed, at the far end of the room an iPod hooked on speakers, so she slowly reached it and played the first thing in it. Vivaldi’s “Four season”, started playing and brunette immediately recognized it, she sat down, closed her eyes and enjoyed the melody.
Carmilla was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of door closing; she slowly opened her eyes to a sight of a beautiful, dirty blonde standing awkwardly and waving at her. Carmilla smiled and stood up, “Hey”.
“Hey”, blonde repeated, they stared at each other for a minute, just getting familiar with faces in front of them. Carmilla’s eyes roamed all over other girl’s face, all over her dark blue button up with a bowties on it, and they landed on deep brown eyes.
“I’m Laura. Laura Hollis”, blonde offered stretching her hand to shake Carmilla’s. She was surprised by how she said her name without stuttering since the girl in front of her was breathtaking, hot in the lack of more sophisticated words because brunette was wearing plain black shirt and leather pants, her hair was falling freely over her face and shoulders creating a mysterious vibe around her.
“Carmilla. Nice to meet you Laura”, Carmilla was surprised by the lack of a snarky tone in her voice, the one she usually has when she is meeting new people. Will once said it was a defense mechanism.
Carmilla poured Laura a cup of cocoa, since the blonde said she doesn’t drink coffee that often. They exchanged basic information like age (“you are 30? You look so much younger!”, “Says you cupcake, you don’t look 28”), hometown, professions (“Journalist? I could tell you were some kind of know it all, with all the questions you are asking”, “Oh shut up! I defiantly see you as a philosophy professor”). And when they made themselves comfortable enough in their chairs Carmilla offered, “So cupcake shall we start?”
Laura nodded, not being able to say the words since she was in the middle of a bite.
“I see you are busy over there, so I’ll read the first question”, Carmilla teased, receiving another nod and an appreciated look from dirty blonde. “First one goes: Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”.
Laura finished eating and offered, a long humming noise before answering, “my dad, or Perry and LaF or, or, or Doctor Who, Harry Potter, or maybe… this is hard”, she whined, looking at Carmilla. The brunette just shook her head, finding the dilemmas of the other girl cute. “Okay, okay, Doctor Who”, she finally blurted, “how about you?”
“My mom”, Carmilla answered honestly, “and before you say it’s a lame answer, I have to say that my mom died when I was very young”.
“Mine too”, Laura added in a dulcet tone. They just looked at each other again, Laura stares at brunette’s pale cheekbones, fighting the urge to ask her about her mom, about what happened, it would be too personal too soon, and even Laura knew that. And Carmilla just thought about Laura’s life, wondering if they might have some less gloomy things in common.
“Okaaaay, next question: Would you like to be famous? In what way?”, Laura broke the silence.
“I don’t think I would enjoy being famous, all those people wanting to know about you, you lose your air of mystery when you are famous. And fame gives you responsibilities I’m not on board with…”
“Responsibilities?”, blonde interrupted.
“Yes, like being a role model, making a difference in a world…”, Carmilla stopped for a moment, looking at Laura like she is asking if the answer was good enough, “how about you?”
“I guess I would like to be known for my work, I don’t know how would I feel if I was a movie star or a pop star, but being known for a work you’ve done is kind of appealing.” Laura answered and picked up the next card, “Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?”.
“That’s a weird question, but I’m going to have to say I don’t rehearse cause nobody actually call’s me, I mean except for LaFontaine or Perry or people from work”, brunette confessed, making Laura’s body twitch. “She sounds lonely, she shouldn’t feel that way. Nobody should”, dirty blonde thought.
“I sometimes take time to organize my thoughts, as you may have noticed I have a tendency to rumble”, Laura admitted almost shyly.
“That’s kind of cute cupcake”, the brunette said, making the other girl blush a little bit. “Okay, next one: What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?”
“It depends I guess, some days I would say that a perfect day is staying in, watching Netflix, having a hot cocoa, cookies, other times I would say the perfect day is going to a Comic con with a girl I love, we would geek out, hold hands and wander around enjoying the serenity of the day. But then again, there are days when perfect means getting a good story to write, collecting the facts long before anybody”, Laura admitted honestly.
She didn’t ask the brunette to answer the question, but she gave her a look that she is done talking.
“For me perfect is a rainy day inside, the one I can spend reading, having coffee while some music plays in a background…”
“How very broody of you”, Laura teased.
“Ohhh, shut it cupcake”, Carmilla mumbled, reaching again for the new card, “so when did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?”
Laura knitted her eyebrows, taking a deep breath, trying to remember when was the last time she really sang to somebody. “I’ve been told that I hum when I work and if that’s true, I’m going to have to say I did it this morning”, she offered a shy smile, “and to someone else, honestly I don’t know… it’s been a while I guess”.
“What do you hum? When you are writing, I mean”, brunette interrupted.
“It depends, but I hummed Ironic this morning.”
“I thought you are going to say something more of the lines of T Swift or Fifth Harmony”, now it was Carmilla’s turn to tease.
“Hey! I love them!”, Laura acted offended.
“Sure you do, creampuff.”
“Well, when you stop making fun of me, I would love to hear your answer”, the journalist said.
“I sang to JP”, and before Laura could ask who is that Carmilla explained, “he is a 3 year old son of my friends, so I was babysitting and we sang Itsy Bitsy spider, but of course cool punk version”, they both laughed at this, “and this morning while I was making breakfast I sang to myself”.
“What did you sing?”, Carmilla raised a brow at the other girl’s question, “Oh, c’mon you asked me”.
“It was a jazz song that I like”, snarky brunette offered.
“Jazz? So you are not in a committed relationship with all things punk?”, Laura concluded with a smirk. They smiled at each other and Carmilla only shook her head, giving the answer to the blonde.
“Next one is fun! If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”, Laura somehow managed to be faster than the other girl and grabbed the card with the question.
“I would retain a body of a 30 year old … and before you say anything, it’s not because I’m vain, it’s just the mind is something that shouldn’t be unchangeable, it needs to grow, transform, bend and break… I would never condemn myself to an inalterable mind, and body, body is just a vessel.”
Laura blinked, caught up in Carmilla’s answer, “Wow… okay, I was going to say the same thing about keeping my 30 year old body, but your explanation wow, mine has been that I would like to stay 30 because I would be in a better physical shape to do my job”, they both chuckled.
“Okay, let’s see if you have some deep, philosophical answer to the next one”, Carmilla said, reaching for the next card, “Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?”
In a moment atmosphere in the room shifted, it became serious, and Laura lost herself in thoughts for a moment before she started talking.
“When my mom died, I thought about death a lot. About how she felt, was she in pain, does that other life exists”, she used air quotes when saying other life, “it took me a while to stop, after that I tried not to think about death, so I don’t have the answer to that question”, Laura explained.
“It’s okay Laura, we don’t need to have answers to all the questions”, brunette said, reaching across the table to give Laura’s hand a gentle squeeze, “I just hope mine won’t happen anytime soon”, this time she offered a smile.
“I hope that too”, Laura added.
“Next one is on a lighter note cupcake. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common. I want to hear what you think we have in common”, Carmilla read with a curious look on her face.
Laura wondered for a moment before answering, “We both experienced lost of a parent, we would both be 30 for 60 years if we could”, she grinned, “and we are both committed to this experiment”, she finished, her eyes looking Carmilla intensely, wondering if brunette liked the answer.
Carmilla nodded, looking satisfied enough with the response, “I think we both like girls”, she offered a huge smirk, “we are both attractive people and we are both carrier oriented”.
“You think I’m attractive?”, Laura blushed.
“I have eyes, don’t I cupcake?” This made Laura blush even harder. “Okay, so the next one is… for what in your life do you feel most grateful?”
Laura exhaled, she was happy that Carmilla changed subject not mentioning a red color on her cheeks.
“For my dad, he has been a great support and even though he can be overprotective most of the time, he was always there for me when I needed him”, the blonde said.
“I understand. Mattie, my sister and I have the similar relationship. She is always there for me and she was the person that raised me, so I’m lucky to have her”, Carmilla was almost surprised by how fast she was opening up to the girl in front of her.
“That’s sweet, I’m an only child, I always wished I had a sibling”.
“They can be a pain in the ass cutie, you are not missing out a lot”.
Laura nodded, “if you say so…”, she smiled and took the next card, “the next one is - if you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”
Carmilla had looked at Laura for a while, thinking should she brush off this question or should she actually give a meaningful and honest answer. She decided that she is too far gone to stop honestly talking with blonde across her, “I don’t think I would change things even… Well, my adoptive mother was… is not the warmest person, but I guess I learned to keep my feelings to myself because of her and that’s what kept me away from hurting… How about you?”
“I just always wished that my dad was less protective of me, I wished that he would let me make my own mistakes… sometimes I feel like I haven’t lived in a real world, like everything is new, dangerous.”
Carmilla nodded, offering a smile. “Read the next one cupcake, I’m too comfortable to move.”
“Oh, I’m going to love hearing your answer to this one. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.”
“It really says that, give me that card”, Carmilla snatched it from Laura’s hands, looking at the black ink, grumbling, “Okay, if we got to do it”, she huffed again, “you know my name is Carmilla, Carmilla Karnstein. I was 4 when my parents died, I don’t remember much about my life with them, just a feeling of warmth, belonging, and happiness. I was adopted by Lilita Morgan the same time when Mattie and Will were. I was not too happy in the beginning, it took some time getting used to mothers ways, but when I did she stopped being some stranger, she became a person that took me to my French classes, the first person that I wanted to show a new song I learned to play, she became my mother. For a while I lived in a fantasy, a world where mother could do no wrong, world where I thought she would never hurt me, but I was wrong. I fell in love with a girl, her name was Ell, and I was happy, it was a new kind of happiness but my mother didn’t like her. Soon Ell stopped returning my calls, she was avoiding me, and when I confronted her, she said she doesn’t want to see me again and that I should just leave her alone.”
Laura wanted to ask, did Carmilla leave that other girl alone, but she stayed quiet.
“It took some time to get over her, you know how irrational those young loves can be. But I moved on, finished college, cut strings with my mother and now I live and work here, at the university, teaching philosophy, trying daily to be a better person. Sorry if that wasn’t too detailed, I had like 4 minutes”.
Laura looked at brunette with a serious look on her face, “you could talk all day, I like listening to you”, she blushed at her own admission, “so my turn?”
Carmilla nodded, giving Laura silent approval to start.
“My parents had a happy marriage, I remember wanting to have that one day, somebody to dance with me in the kitchen when we are making dinner, to hug me, twirl me around the room. I grew up with that kind of ideal of love carved in my mind. When my mom died, I was 7, my dad transferred his whole attention to me, afraid that I might disappear just like my mom did. I couldn’t have a normal phone like the rest of the kids because he was afraid I’ll send photos to sexual predators. I was not allowed to go out, to party, that’s why I spent my days in school trying my hardest to make normal high school memories. When I went to college, my dad filled a bag with bear spray for me to bring with me, just to keep me safe. Until this day I still have it in the back of my closet. I was sheltered, protected and when I got to feel the freedom or the glimpse of it I did the only thing I wanted to do, I found somebody and I fell in love. It happened spontaneously, fast, it burned and it left me broken, since then I am carefully picking my life experiences and that brought me here.”
“Whoever broke your heart Laura is a jerk”, Carmilla said softly.
“It’s okay, we all get one broken heart before we find somebody that’s going to defend it with their life”, blonde smiled sadly.
“You might be right cutie. So the last one from this set is - If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?”
“Flying, no, no, time traveling, or mind reading…”, the brunette looked at her with an amused look again, blonde was rumbling again, “don’t look at me like that, it’s a hard question”, Laura whined.
“Sure is creampuff”.
“Fine!”, she stuck her tongue out making a face at Carmilla’s direction, “what power would you like to have?”
“I would love to have an ability to be among the stars, to see the darkness that surrounds Earth, to feel the quiet and cold of the universe.”
Laura gave her a puzzled look, “You always have to have better answers than me, I choose time traveling”.
“ That one is also good cupcake”, brunette stated.