rainbowfic | Lust 5, Tractor Red 9: Laundry

Author: Kat
Title: Laundry
Story: In The Heart
Colors: Lust 5 (stockings), tractor red 9 (suds in the bucket) with Nikki's paint-by-numbers (A lot of Joy's stripper clothes require handwashing.).
Supplies and Materials: Canvas (takes place about fourish years before the story starts), fabric (this picture), oils (drips), pastels (guardian), seed beads (Joy and Maya).
Word Count: 1405
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Joy and Maya do laundry and talk about the future.
Warnings: blink-and-you-miss it reference to abortion, some cussing.
Notes: I've been wanting to write about that routine of Joy's for AGES.

Joy and Maya arrived back at Joy's apartment breathless with giggles, groceries in both hands. For once, Maya didn't even mind the weight-- there was nothing but good food in there, and Joy had made the walk easy with her outrageous behavior.

"...he looked so flustered!" Maya giggled. "Did you have to say that?"

"He did have a cute butt," Joy said, unruffled, but still grinning. "Can you deny that he had a cute butt?"

"No," Maya said, and giggled again. "It's just I bet he doesn't usually get leered at in uniform."

Joy scoffed, and set her groceries on the counter. "Then everyone in New York who's attracted to men must be an idiot. Men in uniform are hot. This is a universal truth."

Maya couldn't argue with that, and didn't intend to. "It's not that," she said. "It's just that not many people leer at cops."

"Again," Joy said, "idiots. Here, can you put these in the crisper?" She handed Maya a head of lettuce, and then a bunch of carrots.

"On it." Maya turned to the refrigerator and swung open the door, then bent down to pull out the vegetable drawer. To think a week ago she'd thought that she would never see a refrigerator again, and here she was, stocking one up with food meant for two people.

Three, now. In another week, it would be two again. She clenched her hands at the thought, and straightened up. "Anything else?"

"No," Joy said, putting the last of the cans into the cupboards. "This was a light grocery week. You want an apple?"

"Yes, please," Maya said, and got out a bowl and some honey while Joy cut up one of the apples they'd gotten at the farmer's market. Joy dumped the pieces in, Maya dribbled them with honey, and the two of them leaned against the counter while they ate, looking out over the room.

"The laundry should be back by five," Joy said, breaking the silence. "Just dump the bag on my bed and I'll take care of it when I get home from work."

"Okay," Maya said, privately resolving to put it all away. "Is there anything else we need to get done today?"

Joy licked some honey off her fingers, considering. "Let's see, we hit the laundromat, mailed the bills, deposited my tips, went to the grocery... that's all the errands." She looked around the apartment again. "Have to remake the bed, but that'll wait until the sheets get back. Should probably sweep the floor..."

"I can do that while you're gone," Maya pointed out, and picked up another apple slice. "I can do the dishes, too."

Joy shot her a grateful glance. "Would you, sweetie? Thank you. I hate dishes."

Maya giggled. "I dunno, I kind of like them. Making things clean, you know?" She ate the apple slice, and licked her own fingers clean.

"They're all yours," Joy said, and sighed. "Well, no help for it. I'll have to do my laundry."

Maya blinked. "Didn't we... I thought you just took it to the laundry place."

"They're not good with delicates." Joy rummaged under the sink for a moment and came up with a plug and a bottle of detergent. She plugged the drain and turned the water on, feathering her fingers under the stream until it reached a temperature she liked, then flicking them dry. "The last time I sent one of my bras there it was wrecked."

"Ouch," Maya said, watching Joy add three generous squirts of detergent to the sink. The water began to foam almost immediately. "So this is your work stuff?"

"Not all of it." Joy pursed her lips at the sink. "Could you get that basket by the door, please? Thanks. It's my stockings and bras and stuff. Some of it's for work and some of it's just because."

Maya picked up the basket, set it on her hip, and came back to Joy. "Here. Can I help?"

"Darling," Joy said, fervently, "I would love it if you helped. Let me turn the music on and we'll get started."

"Just Dance" pounded out of the speakers, shaking the floor a little bit, as Joy went through the clothes-- stockings in one pile, bras in another, the filmy half-skirts and shawls that she used as props in a third. Maya started with the stockings and swirled them around in the water, which was pleasantly warm, scrubbing them against each other. The feel of the fishnets and nylon rubbing rough against her hands felt kind of good, contrasted with the soapy silk of the water.
"Why don't you like this?" she asked, as "U & Ur Hand" came on. Joy's dance mix, then. "I think it's nice."

"Try doing it every week," Joy said dryly, scooping stockings into a bucket of clean water to rinse them. "It gets old pretty fast. But hey, many hands make light work."

"Yeah," Maya said, and began on the bras. Joy had such a variety of them, from a light lace-edged pink to a basic nude to a daring black transparent bra that had to be for work. She paused, and held up a bra striped in red and white. "Is this a special one?"

Joy glanced up, and laughed. "Hah, yes. Awhile back, the club I worked at was doing a Fourth of July thing, and Team America World Police had just come out the year before, so I decided to combine the two."

"Oh?" Maya lowered the bra back into the water and began to scrub it.

"Never seen it?" Joy asked, and got up, shaking off her hands. "Hang on a second, I'll play you the song I dance to." She bent over the stereo for a minute, then came back to the strains of a choir singing "America."

Maya blinked. "Did you..."

"Wait for it," Joy said, and just as she sat, the stereo blared "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!"

Maya had to sit down after a minute, she was laughing so hard.

"That's what everyone else thought," Joy said, grinning. "I got so many tips from that routine, I repeat it every year."

"That is ridiculous," Maya said, as the stereo shifted into something slow and country.

"The movie's made by the same guys who did South Park," Joy said, rinsing the bra that had started it all, "so yeah."

They washed in silence for another few songs before Maya, very quietly, said, "Thank you. For taking me in."

Joy had her head bent over the rinsing bucket, now slick with suds, which was probably why she responded flippantly. "You do the dishes. If I could I'd keep you forever."

Maya smiled involuntarily. "But you can't," she finished, seriously.

At that, Joy looked up, and caught her mood. "No," she said. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't. I've been thinking, though, and I think I know someone who can."

Maya paused a moment in scrubbing a skirt, then resumed with deliberate, hard movements. She wouldn't hope for too much. She refused to. "Oh?"

"I'm an only child," Joy said, so irrelevantly that Maya could only blink at her. "My parents always wanted a lot of children, but..." She paused herself for a moment, staring at the opposite wall. "Well. I’m the only one who survived."

"I'm sorry," Maya said, politely.

Joy waved that off, and said, "My mother's been pining over kids lately. The last time I talked to her, she and my dad were considering becoming foster parents. They'd be thrilled to have you." She smiled at the bucket. "You'd be doing them a favor, too. They haven't had contact with a genuine kid in ages. You'll remind them what it's really like."

Maya wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, so she let it go. "You really think they'll have me?"

"Yeah." Joy shook out a pair of stockings, stood up, and began to hang the laundry in her pot on a drying rack. "I really do."

Maya kept scrubbing, even though what she really wanted to do was throw her arms around Joy and leave ugly wet spots on the back of her shirt. But she had a job to do; she had to finish scrubbing these skirts, and then help Joy rinse all the rest of them.

And if the sink was a little blurry, if occasional relieved tears dropped into the water, that was okay too.

Lust 5, Tractor Red 9: Laundry

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