Fantasy A Morning After Amongst Equals by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

While using the bathroom, locked inside with her phone, Julie Andrews pulled up a number that she hadn't called in years. She took a deep breath, then pressed it. It took a couple of seconds before she heard the click indicating that the call was going international to Europe.

The first sound that Julie heard from the other side of the world was the sound of fire touching tobacco and cigarette paper, then being sucked into a soft breath. This was followed by a shout, not into the phone, but to someone in the immediate vicinity of whomever had just answered.

"It's a fucking routine hostage situation! We're a tourist destination; if you do something here, you get the world's attention. So, some asshole tries to pull something like this every couple months! If Santori can't handle a simple negotiation, tell the Ultimados 'Weapons Hard until I get there, that is an order from LA CONTESSA, not the Generalissimo' and have Ernst prep the chopper! Until he's ready to go, fuck all of you!"

A door slammed on the other end of the phone, and Contessa Helena de San Finzione leaned against it and took a drag of her cigarette before putting the phone up to her ear.

"Is everything all right?" Helena asked into the phone.

"Yeah, I think." Julie said after a little pause. "If this is a bad time..."

Helen cut her off.

"Nah, this one SAYS he's got a bomb, but I can see in his eyes that he's bluffing. Everyone's safe as long as my Generalissimo doesn't do something stupid and just lets him read his sick love letter to me or Jodie Foster or whoever without turning things into a bullet festival before I get there. What's going on?"

Julie searched her mind for the right way to tell her "You know the boy you've never stopped carrying a torch for? The one you'd probably abandon a kingdom and run to right now if he only asked? Yeah, that one. Well, I fucked him last night, just blew him before calling, too. What should I do now???"

"Ok," She said, trying to find it. "You know how sometimes, we command a guy to do something, and he turns out to be really good at it, and you can really feel something for this one..."

Helen interrupted.

"But you can never be sure how it would've gone if you hadn't been able to do The Thing to him and let him approach you like a regular girl. So, how much of it was really him and how much was you making him? And do you risk telling him our secret, then making him forget again, to find out? And if he wouldn't have, then you've got to give him a memory of a whole new night where he didn't have sex with you, because you feel bad now? Or you forgot to ask if he had a family who'd miss him before the evening started; so now, there's a bunch of people you have to go give memories of not having sat up worrying all night?"

Despite their personal issues, Troy, Julie, and Helen had made a vow years ago that because the ability to control minds brought with it problems and complications that someone who isn't able to do it wouldn't be able to understand; no matter what else was going on between them, if one of them needed to talk, the others would always answer. And everything else could go fuck itself. The scenarios she'd described had been the most common over the years. Given how they parted, Helen concluded that there had to be another reason that Julie would choose to call her over Troy.

"Not really. I'm pretty sure it was mostly him, and he knew what I could do."

Helen coughed out her exhale before answering, having figured out where Julie was going.

"Julie, there is exactly one 'him' in the world who knows what you can do, and we both know who he is."

Julie raised her voice, then lowered it so Troy wouldn't hear through the closed door from the bedroom if he'd come back yet.

"Yes, and that's who it was! We were drunk, we were playing 'What's Changed..."

Helen cut her off again with a laugh.

"I'd say something REALLY BIG has changed, hasn't it? And I know just how that can happen."

"We didn't plan it, Helena. It just happened."

"Hey, hey, Sunflower." Helena replied. "I'm past that. I've got a fucking castle and servants now, what do I care, right? You and Troy belong together. Everyone has said it. I'm sorry the last time that I said it, I shouted it at you, but that never stopped it from being the fucking truth. Does anyone know yet?"

"Yeah." Julie admitted after a few sheepish seconds. "I don't know if Mom walked in on us doing it or saw the bottles and us sleeping naked, but they already know."