Verdigris

An Exercise in Restraint - Leni/Risa

Rating: M
Pairing: Leni/Risa
Summary: She wasn't cheating on him. He wouldn't believe her.

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She never told him she liked women like that. In all the months he'd known her and in all the years he'd watched her from afar, he never had any inkling. As a public figure, she was a favorite of rumors — whispers of affairs with this person or that, married or otherwise, but it was always with a man. She always dismissed them, of course, with a coy laugh, always with a surprise in her eyes as if she had never heard of them before. Then, she'd insist, that she would never marry again, that from her deceased husband, she'd already received enough love that would last her for the rest of her life.

He believed her. Why wouldn't he?

-

Their first meeting was at a party after some political function or other. He wasn't the type to rub shoulders with politicians, but he had been invited by a friend, and he thought, Why not? It wouldn't hurt, and his night was free.

It was a lively crowd. He recognized faces from previous campaigns and the television, some he had met before and some whose names he couldn't remember. He was nursing his drink by the bar they had set up when he saw her in person for the very first time.

He had seen her before, on TV like everyone else, but he had never seen her like this. She was wearing a patterned, form-fitting dress that hugged her curves so nicely. Her lips were nude — the lipstick had already been rubbed off by food and drink. She was sitting at a table, talking to someone, and it was her laugh that drew him closer, like a moth to a lamp.

"Excuse me," he said. She was smiling when she turned her face to look at him. He had never seen someone with so much joy on her face. "Sorry to interrupt, but, may I have this dance?"

She looked at him for a while, then she turned back to the woman she was talking to. Only now, up close, did he see how they were sitting so closely together, knees touching, one person's hand on the other's thigh. He recognized the woman, and he had expected that they would be friends, but he never knew they were this close.

"Risa," he heard Leni say. There was a quiet conversation between them that he couldn't make out. At that time, he thought that it was because the music was too loud, that was why their faces were so close to each other. Then Risa nodded, smiling at Leni, and only then did Leni turn back to him again to grace him with her acceptance.

He had thought nothing of it at that time. He was too excited to dance with the Vice President of the country.

-

"Is she here?"

That was the first thing he said when Risa opened her door to him. Her hair was mussed. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed.

She sighed heavily as she put a hand against the door frame, clearly keeping him out. "Ano'ng ginagawa mo rito?"

"Alam mo bakit," he said firmly. They had this conversation before.

"She's not here."

"So asan siya?"

"I don't know," she said. She looked at him, and he couldn't decide if that expression said she resented him or she pitied him. "You're her boyfriend. Dapat alam mo."

There was a few seconds of quiet between them, and hurt from his side. He expected that she would close the door on his face, but she didn't. If anything, she looked like she regretted everything she just said.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You want to come in? Coffee?"

Risa's hand left the door frame, and she stepped back to make space for him. Her body language was open; she wasn't hiding anything from him. But he still couldn't shake the suspicion that Leni was right there, in her bed. And if Leni were to come out of the bedroom — Risa's bedroom — after having spent the night there, he wouldn't be able to take it.