In Venere Veritas

Chapter 10 - Drag The Mirror Ball & Chain

Before Ville and Serena knew it, their time in LA had come to an end and it was bittersweet. Ville liked the fact he wasn't as well known in the US as he was in Finland, so he was able to be out and about with Serena and not have people take much notice. When they went back home, he knew they would inevitably have to go back to pretending like they were just friends, and that was getting hard for him to do.

If the incident with Derek was any indication, he couldn't stand the idea of Serena being with anyone else, but they had never discussed exclusivity. Why would they? Ville had made it clear in the beginning of their dynamic that this was strictly friends-with-benefits... though he only did so because Serena was openly telling people she didn't want a relationship, and Ville just said whatever she needed to hear in order to get her attention. If he had asked her to go out with him in a romantic sense, he knew she would say no. So friends-with-benefits, as much as it disgusted him, was his only option to have her around.

Serena on the other hand was relieved to get home and back to somewhat normal. She missed her job at the studio and she was ready to go back to Helsinki and start planning out moving out of Juhani's place and into her own apartment. She had been mostly staying with Ville for the last month and knew it wasn't going to last forever, but whenever she mentioned finding her own apartment Ville would just shrug and tell her to just stay with him as his roommate. Supposedly he wanted someone to be in his house while he was gone touring... but Serena knew this situationship couldn't last forever. They were friends-with-benefits and officially moving in together would make it more than that. Serena knew that, so why didn't Ville? Did he really think they could just stay in this for the long run? Surely not... Serena thought to herself. She was done depending on other people and her ultimate goal was to move out once her lease was up with Juhani and get her own place. The security deposit they'd put down would be returned to both of them, and she wanted to use that money for first and last month's rent at a new place.

But Serena's thoughts were interrupted when Ville came and sat down beside her while they waited at their gate at LAX airport. He slipped her a brown paper bag, "Go in the bathroom and put these on." Serena side-eyed him, Matti was sitting right next to her. "Now." he commanded under his breath.

Serena rolled her eyes and did as she was told. She walked to the bathroom that was 10 feet away from where they were sitting and popped into the first empty stall she found. Opening the bag, she saw it was a pair of black lace panties with a device slipped inside of an inner pocket. Vibrating panties. Serena was excited but also nervous. She knew that she was seated next to Ville on the flight, but also surrounded by literally everyone else in their production team, plus the band and management.

But regardless, she did as she was told, threw the panties she had been wearing into the bag and put the new panties on. But she was confused, because the on/off switch on the device didn't seem to work. She flipped it on and off a few times, but nothing happened. She verified there were batteries inside, but maybe they were dead? Either way, Ville had said to put the panties on, so she did. He didn't tell her to make them work too.

As she exited the bathroom Ville made eye contact, and suddenly her knees buckled as a powerful vibration went off between her legs. His hand was hidden within the pocket of his hoodie, clearly concealing a remote control. Serena knew immediately what he'd done, but had no time to react because now everyone was staring at her, she looked as if she had tripped.

"You alright?" someone asked.

"Yeah, I'm good." Serena replied, trying to play it off casually. She sat back down beside Ville and he was smirking. "Very fucking funny." Serena hissed.

"Figured you wouldn't mind a little in-flight entertainment." he muttered quietly so only Serena would hear.

"We have an 18 hour flight ahead of us, how the fuck are you expecting me to keep these on until we reach Helsinki?" Serena argued. "They're not particularly comfortable."