My wingswing story - designed to appeal to the one or two people out there who are actually into both fandoms. I wrote it in past tense - which was such a fucking chore I'm kind of glad it's got a small audience. Still, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger - or something.

Here it goes:

Title: Just Another Word
Fandoms: Bad Girls/ The West Wing
Pairing: Nikki/ Laurie
Rating: Mild NC-17
Summary: “Nikki ran all the way to New York.”
Author’s Notes: Written for the wingswing 2006.

For the Bad Girls fans, Laurie is a high-class call girl who dated Sam (one of the President’s advisors) briefly while he angsted about it in a typically annoying fashion. For The West Wing fans, Nikki (pictured in my icon with Helen) is a hot (really hot) prison inmate of Larkhall prison in the UK. She’s also a lesbian who manages to convincingly sell the concept to the equally hot Governor of the prison (Helen). Their love affair is torrid, and way complicated. This story riffs on what might have happened if Nikki had done as she said she would and escaped to the US after her prison break.

This story features a cameo appearance by Madeleine Hampton. The woman who (with a lot of help from gatefiction and a little help from myself) started the Wing Swing.

Props to babylil who kept it going. That’s our girl.


The apartment smelled of coffee. Laurie was an early riser. Nikki found her at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and reading Kafka. It would have been strangely familiar if Laurie hadn’t been wearing a blonde wig.

It was Nikki’s wig. She wore it the night she escaped from Larkhall, the night she ran to Helen. She kept it on a hatstand by the door, a reminder of everything that brought her here. It was all she had left.

“It gets annoying after a while,” Laurie said, holding up Kafka. “It’s probably my adversarial leanings, but European legal systems confound me.”

“What?” Nikki couldn’t take her eyes off the wig.

“Oh.” Laurie touched her hair. “How do I look as a blonde?”

Laurie looked vampish, like a silver screen seductress. It was different, but appealing. “I could get used to it,” Nikki said. She sat on the other side of the table, took a cigarette from Laurie’s pack.

Laurie took off the wig. “So you do cabaret when you’re not managing the bar at Maisie’s parties?”

“It’s a long story,” Nikki said.

“I have all day,” Laurie said.

Nikki wasn’t used to telling her story. She didn’t know where to begin – whether there was a beginning. It might have started with the cop who tried to rape Trish, but it probably began much earlier, when she was expelled, when her first love ratted her out to their teacher, when her parents kicked her out of home.

“It’ doesn’t have a happy ending,” Nikki said.

She started with Trish, with the cop, the bottle and the blood. She told Laurie about the trial, and Larkhall and about the night she escaped wearing a blonde wig and a nurses uniform.

She didn’t tell Laurie about Helen. She didn’t have words for Helen.

*

Nikki ran all the way to New York. She was aiming for San Francisco but airports with their cameras and security checks were a risk, and with Helen a whole ocean away it no longer mattered where Nikki landed.

She got a job and a one-room studio, which the landlord optimistically called an apartment. She worked the student bars because they let her read during breaks. She leaned on a corner of the bar with a cigarette in one hand and a copy of Jude in the other.

The students were friendly, sometimes asking her what she was reading. They’d say, “Are you taking Victorian literature?” and she’d say, “No, I’m reading this for fun.” They’d laugh as though she’d told them a joke.


It was fine for a while, but the university reminded her of Helen and her room reminded her of a cell. After three months of bad plumbing and no heating she accepted the first ride out of there she was offered, and found herself in the nation’s capital.

She got a job in a laundry, dry-cleaning more suits than she expected to see in a lifetime. The customers only ever talked about their clothes so when Maisie dropped off her patterned Dolce and Gabana and brightly coloured Versace, it was no surprise she became Nikki’s first friend in DC.

Nikki told Maisie a prison story, the one about the prison guard strike. “A felon!” Maisie said. “What did you do?”

“Killed a guy,” Nikki said. “Don’t worry – he deserved it.”

”I bet he did,” Maisie said, not quite believing. She put her hand on Nikki’s. “You’re too good for this dump, darling. Why don’t you come and work for me?”

“I’m a illegal alien,” Nikki said.

“My favourite kind!” Maisie said.

Maisie gave parties. Large ones with celebrity guest-lists and reviews in the gossip columns. Nikki ran the bar.

Unlike the columns, Nikki didn’t find the clientele interesting. They were usually drunk and usually talking politics. In DC everyone had political aspirations. Nikki stocked the bar, managed the staff, and occasionally poured drinks. In her breaks she read Hemingway and Satre.

She met Laurie at one of Maisie’s parties. She wasn’t drunk, and didn’t appear to be pushing a political agenda. She was polite and graceful, happy to be ignored in a town where everyone had a driving need to be heard.

She came to Nikki for an aspirin. “I can’t seem to shake this headache,” she said.

Nikki looked across the crowd to where Laurie’s date was loudly making an arse of himself, talking in political rhetoric about something he clearly knew little about. “It’s going to take a lot more than aspirin,” Nikki said, nodding toward Laurie’s date.

“Hmm?” Laurie said, and she turned around to follow Nikki’s look. “Oh.” She smiled apologetically. “I think he’s had too much to drink.”

Nikki found Laurie an aspirin and Laurie returned to her date. Nikki didn’t see her again that night.

Nearly a month later Laurie appeared at another of Maisie’s parties, a different man on her arm.

“Pretty,” Maisie said, when she noticed Nikki staring. “Expensive too, I imagine.”

The penny dropped loudly. “She’s a prostitute?” Nikki said.

“I see her around,” Maisie said. “Top of the line. I bet she makes more money than I do.”

By the third time Nikki saw Laurie, Nikki had moved on to the Russians symbolists: Bely first, followed by Dosteyevsky. Laurie’s ‘date’ didn’t seem to need her so she perched at the bar, extracted a cigarette from her handbag and asked Nikki for a light. Nikki quickly leaned forward, lit Laurie’s cigarette with her own zippo.

“What do you recommend?” Laurie asked, nodding at the bar.

Nikki shrugged. “A party with more women and less wankers,” she said. “But I’ll make you a martini.”

Laurie laughed. “Keep them coming,” she said.

“Rough night?” Nikki wondered whether it was prudent to ask about a prostitute’s day at work.

Laurie threw a quick glance over her shoulder at her client. “He’s fine - one of the better ones actually. I think his mom told him never to enter or exit a party alone. He only needs me coming in and going out.”

”You’ve – ah – dated before?”

“He’s a regular client,” Laurie said, stressing the client.

“Wasn’t sure what you called them over here,” Nikki said apologetically. Nikki made two martinis – one for herself. She leaned on the bar and chinked the rim of her glass against Laurie’s. “Bottoms up,” she said.

Laurie shrugged. “The façade is for them. I try to be honest with everyone else. And this is the third time we’ve met?” She looked at Nikki for confirmation. Nikki nodded. “That’s practically a relationship.” She leaned into her hand, sipped her martini thoughtfully. “So what brings you to the capital?”

“I’m heading south for the winter,” Nikki said.

Laurie looked at Nikki for a moment, like she was figuring her out. “In that case,” she said. “You’d better leave soon. Traffic is a bitch come December.”

Laurie’s date called her over and they left soon after. Nikki noticed he put his hand at the small of her back, almost affectionately.

Winter came and the parties were fewer. She didn’t see Laurie again until December when the festive season began and Maisie’s business kicked into high gear again. Nikki hung decorations in a marquee on some rich politician’s lawn and remembered it was her first Christmas on the outside in five years.

She saw Laurie Christmas eve. Nikki noticed a similarity to Laurie’s dates. None of them were distinguishable or memorable. They wore dark grey or black suits, depending on the occasion. Same suit, different guy.

Laurie smiled when she saw Nikki. “We have something in common,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“We’re working Christmas eve,” Laurie said.

Nikki looked at the Christmas lights overhead. Maisie went overboard but it was freezing outside and the lights looked warm and friendly. “I can think of worse places to be over Christmas,” Nikki said.

“Me too,” Laurie said. She told Nikki about her strained relationship with her parents while Nikki counted the wine glasses and champagne flutes under the bar. “In the end it didn’t matter what I did,” Laurie said. “They were never going to approve. So I thought, may as well become a hooker. “

She was wearing a sedate black dress with chiffon sleeves and a bow at the top of her midriff. Laurie didn’t look like any hooker Nikki knew. She told Laurie this.

“You know a lot of hookers?” Laurie said, raising her eyebrows sceptically.

”A couple.” Nikki thought of the two Julies and their girlish hairstyles and dress sense. The Julies loved Christmas. Even on the inside it was their favourite time of year. By contrast, Nikki was Scrooge, too ready to bah and humbug every attempt at festivity. Keep your expectations low and you’ll never be disappointed; her father probably told her that. Her father was full of useless advice. “Do your parents know what you do for a living?”

“No,” Laurie said. “I don’t seek their approval but I don’t go looking for trouble either.”

Nikki lined up the glasses on the bar. “I lost my parents approval years ago. I don’t remember what it was like.” She smiled sympathetically at Laurie.

Laurie smiled back. She glanced over her shoulder at her date and turned back to Nikki, leaned in closer. “Have a drink with me – after the party.”

Nikki blinked. She paused with her finger on the stem of a champagne flute. “I – Maisie is having a party for the staff…”

“Invite me,” Laurie said. “I’m practically staff.”

Nikki looked across the room. “What about your date?”

“He has a flight in an hour. I’ll see him to the airport.”

Nikki felt her heart beat in her throat. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

*

It seemed the party was for anyone and everyone who had nowhere else to go. The staff were vastly outnumbered by other guests, people Nikki had seen at Maisie’s parties. Laurie pointed out faces she recognised: politicians, members of the press, rich campaign financiers and political pundits.

By the entrance, a short, dark haired woman was in a loud argument with a much taller man. “Screw you and screw the entire state of Maryland!” she was saying, pointing her finger threateningly at the man.

“That’s Madeleine Hampton,” Laurie said. “She’s working on the Bartlett campaign.”

“Bartlett?” Nikki said.

”A professor from New Hampshire,” Laurie said. “He won’t win.”

“Win what?”

Laurie gave her a look. “You can’t live in DC and not be interested in politics,” she said. “It isn’t normal.”

Nikki didn’t belong in Washington. She knew that. But she didn’t belong anywhere so what did it matter? “I never intended to come here,” she said.

”In that case, let’s leave,” Laurie said. “The party, I mean.”

Outside Nikki made a thinly transparent offer of coffee, which Laurie eagerly accepted. They kept up the coffee façade throughout the taxi ride and all the way up the stairs to Nikki’s apartment. Once inside, it fell down quickly. Nikki closed the door behind her with one hand and pulled Laurie toward her with the other, meeting her mouth to mouth in a hungry kiss. Laurie backed Nikki toward the couch, unfastening the buttons of Nikki’s shirt as she went. They had fast and frantic sex, Laurie still wearing her dress and Nikki losing only her trousers to the floor. It’s Nikki’s first time in America, first time since Helen.

The made it to the bed afterward, curling up together under the covers, revelling in the afterglow. Nikki ran her hand down Laurie’s hip, her thumb trailing the crease where Laurie’s thigh met her pelvis. Laurie was waxed, buffed, exfoliated and tanned, unlike any lesbian Nikki had been with but not exactly a straight girl either.

“Do you date girls?” Nikki asked. “I mean, when money isn’t being exchanged.”

“The ones I like,” Laurie answered. She moved against Nikki’s hand, parting her legs slightly. “But I like men too.”

Without hair between her legs, Laurie was still slick from their session on the couch. Nikki’s fingers glided over the tops of Laurie’s thighs, dipped easily inside her as Nikki’s thumb circled her clitoris. Laurie hummed appreciatively.

“I don’t,” Nikki said. “I never have.”

Laurie leaned into Nikki’s neck, sucked the skin just below Nikki’s ear. “I didn’t think so,” she said, as she moved down to Nikki’s shoulder. “Do you miss her?”

Nikki froze. “What?”

Laurie lifted her head. “The one you left behind.” She shrugged. “Everyone leaves someone behind.” She dipped her head again, lowered her mouth to Nikki’s breast and took the nipple lightly in her teeth. Nikki arched into Laurie, forgetting the question.

*

When Nikki had finished telling her story, Laurie took a long drag of cigarette, let it out slowly. “You’re a fugitive?” she said.

“Yeah,” Nikki said. She hadn’t really thought of it in those terms before. “Guess I am.”

”You’re a fucking fugitive.” Laurie shook her head and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Everyone I’ve ever dated has a problem with what I do,” she said. “And here I am thinking, holy shit, I slept with a woman on the lam…”

Nikki smiled wryly. “I win,” she said.

“Congratulations,” Laurie said. She was suddenly serious. “Have you thought this through? You might never be able to return to England. You got lucky once with that passport. You won’t be lucky twice.”

Nikki thought about it when she reached New York. She was angry the night she left, then she was heartbroken and then she was on a plane. She never had time to think about what she was doing.

Alone in her tiny apartment in New York with nothing but the sound of the floorboards creaking overhead, she thought about everything: Trish, Larkhall, Helen and more Helen. She thought about being free and how it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Still, she was never going back to Larkhall. She’d die first.

Nikki put a hand on the wig, idly fingered the strands between her fingers. “I’ve got nothing to go back for,” she said.

*

Nikki didn’t stay long in DC. She dated Laurie for a while, came to understand why Laurie’s lovers never tolerated her profession. It wasn’t pleasant to think about your girlfriend with someone else, no matter how uninvolved she claimed to be. When Nikki left, Laurie gave her an address of a friend in San Francisco.

“She’ll look after you,” Laurie said. As an afterthought she added, “You need someone to look after you.”

Nikki kept running, all the way to San Francisco. She got another tiny apartment and Laurie’s friend found her a job in a bar that paid cash in hand. San Francisco was beautiful. Much prettier than DC and more relaxed than New York. She lived above a bar that played cool and sultry jazz music that filtered up to her window on the warm summer evenings.

She read The Scarlet Letter in the laundry downstairs: another woman taking the blame for a man’s fuck-up.

She was there for a week before she visited Alcatraz. It was touristy and obvious but she couldn’t help herself. She took photos, took the tour and took a boat ride around the island. She watched the sun go down on the water and thought about how the sunset must have taunted the inmates. Another day’s end, another day inside. She thinks herself lucky she never had to swim for freedom.

She bought a postcard and addressed it to Helen, scribbled a message on the back; “you can run, but you can never escape.” She never sent it.

End.