Anyone who knew Clara Sheik-Fitzpatrick - Claire to friends - would've said that she was not a woman given to impulsive decisions. Yes, she was an artist, and common wisdom dictated that artists were flighty and frantic and as inconstant as the sea, but that simply wasn't her. Oh, she felt deeply, and perhaps she took those feelings into account a little more than some did when making choices, but she valued the stability of her life. She valued plans, valued knowing what was in her bank account, valued knowing what was on the meal plan for the following week - her design work was deeply fulfilling, but it was the whimsical exception to her ordered life rather than the rule of it.<br/><br/>She was not an impulsive woman...and yet, somehow, the most consequential choices of her life had happened as a result of decisions made in the spark of a moment. When she'd met Karen, she'd known that her wife would play a deeply consequential role in her life; after one working session photographing the University soccer star she'd written in her journal that she was not, apparently, as above love and sex and all of it as she thought, but rather that her desires had been waiting for her to find them in the body of the handsome woman whose pictures she sighed over in the dark room. One of those pictures from their first session had a place of pride in their living room.<br/><br/>It was too soon to say for sure, but she suspected she'd done it again, made a call that set a whole new world into motion. A girlhood love of Nancy Drew had also sparked an interest in how, exactly, it felt to be kidnapped by bad guys - it turned out that if by "kidnapped" one meant "tied down" and by "bad guys" one meant "one's wife," the answer was "pretty damned good." She and Karen had played their little games for years, but despite only having a few years between them it had felt like it had taken her much longer to grow up, and the woman she'd grown into was far more interested in playing with pretty toys than being one...well, most of the time. They'd invented the fantasy of their shared girl, not a partner in their marriage but simply someone they could enjoy both together and alone, someone to scratch the itches neither of them was interested in scratching for the other.<br/><br/>When an old lady at her parents' church had praised her for choosing a job she could do from home to allow her to "take care of the kids," the solution seemed so obvious, like it had been in front of them all along in the dark and they'd had only to flip on the light to see it. She and Karen had talked and strategized late into the night and throughout the weekend; by Monday morning they had an ad on a popular kink website looking for their girl.<br/><br/>The interview process had been long and tedious, but Claire had had a good feeling the first time they met Celeste. The girl was pliable, beautiful, willing, informed, and - a bigger draw than Claire had expected - clearly needed them. Children weren't in the cards for Claire and her wife and that was as she willed it, but she'd regretted not having the ability to use their relative privilege to help others in a more direct way than their usual giving. Now there was a chance.<br/><br/>Preparations had been underway for the move for some time. The guest room had been properly cleared and outfitted not just for a guest but for someone to stay, a sweet lace comforter purchased in Celeste's favorite color. Less...innocent purchases had also been made, but those weren't in the foreground of Claire's mind as she waited for her wife and their new girl to arrive. She was too busy focusing on chopping vegetables for the big pot of soup she was making for lunches for the coming week.<br/><br/>She heard a car in the drive and popped the lid back on the pot, wiping her hands off on the little blue half-apron she wore over her jeans and then taking the apron off and leaving it on the counter. She wore a cream top a few shades lighter than her lightly freckled skin, a peplum with short sleeves and fitted bodice that flared out from beneath her breasts. She'd pulled her red hair half up to keep it out of her face and had put on light eye makeup before leaving for breakfast, and it was still in place as she stepped back into her suede ankle-high boots and opened the door to usher the pair in.<br/><br/>"Come on in!" she called, the gesture of leaning over to kiss her wife automatic. "I'll help you all get things loaded into the guest bedroom. Our princess' room now," she added with a bright smile, though her tone was lightly nervous as she squeezed past to get a load from the car.