Mercedes looks at Kate, hard, for a moment. She loved this woman with all her heart, but she could be so goddamn frustrating.

"I'm more repulsed at the idea of you even thinking I'd betray your confidence. But you're clearly upset and confused, so I'll let it slide. I would never, ever do anything to make you look bad, Katie. Or weak. Or stupid. Whatever words are swirling around in your head.

"But as far as this Bullitt guy goes, what about sleeping pills? Surely I can get those at a drugstore? We can crush up a bunch and drop them into his drink. He's not a large man, shouldn't take much...?"

Kate grinned and kissed Merc on the cheek.

"Sorry. I've had a long day. And it's not even dinner yet. Sleeping pills sound great. We'll grab those on the way. I'd really like it if we could just relax for a bit before we change up and head over."

"Sounds good to me!" Mercedes says as she flops back on the bed and reaches for the newspaper that had arrived with her coffee that morning. After a moment, she sits back up again. 

"Well, well. Lookie here. It just so happens that Monsieur Bullitt will be attending some restaurant called...'La Fermette Marbeuf' tonight, after some symphonic performance." Mercedes says, completely mutilating the translation. "Thank youuuuu gossipy society page!" she says, smiling. Tossing the paper aside, she intends to rest for a bit. All that they needed to do now was wait.

The car pulled up to La Fermette Marbeuf and, simultaneously, a long, bare leg stretched out from opening doors on either side. Quickly catching her balance, having not worn heels like this in... well, ever, Kate walked carefully around the car to where Mercedes was smoothing her dress down. The women smiled at each other as they entered the restaurant.

The opulence was astounding. It seemed like half the walls were windows, painted with sunflowers and, as the window-walls stretched up past golden columns, the trees painted on the ceilings made one feel like they were dining in some sort of magical forest. Kate just stared for a few minutes and, as she followed Mercedes in, Kate grabbed her by the elbow and whispered.

"Mercedes. We have a problem."

Mercedes started to look concerned.

"Not like that... I never know what to fucking order in places like this. And I don't even pretend to be able to speak French. You need to order for me. That's an order."

Grinning... but entirely serious, Kate followed Mercedes to their table. Bullitt was seated with his back to them at a table nearby, well within earshot.

As the maitre d' settles them at their table, slim, elegant menus are placed before them. A sommelier approaches and murmurs a string of French words at them, so Mercedes smiles and indicates both Kate and herself as she replies "Beaujolais Nouveau", which elicits an approving nod. No sooner has he departed than a reedy little waiter with a disturbing moustache approaches them, pinning them as the filthy Americans they are.

"Mademoiselle...?" he asks, looking down his nose and into Mercedes' cleavage. He offers no specials, no recommendations...only an attitude problem. He smirks ever so slightly, waiting for one or both women to make fools of themselves verbally. 

"Escargot pour deux," she says confidently, then proceeds to turn her back on the little weasel entirely, shifting not just her attention but her whole body around on the chair in order to face Kate more directly. Shocked stupid for a moment, he starts to say something else but she waves him off with the back of her hand. Go away. We're done with you.

Lacing her hands together under her chin, Mercedes bats her eyes at Kate and says, just loudly enough to be heard by the bald man she can see just over Kate's shoulder,

"If these snails are the aphrodisiac I've heard they are, you're in trouble tonight, Katie. Have you got anything on under that dress? I think I'd rather eat you instead."

Kate was a practiced poker player, so she covered her surprised fairly well- although Mercedes knew her well enough to register both the genuine surprise and the fun expression that flashed over Kate's face. She took a deep breath and hissed, though still loud enough to be overheard.

"Mercedes! We're in public!"

The som...soma.... wine guy came back and began pouring for the two women.

Tilting back her wine glass in order to give herself a moment to calculate, she hesitates for a second...damn, this wine was really good...and then has to just trust that even though he can't see them, he'll at least hear what she anticipates Kate's 'reaction' will be. 

"Have some wine, relax. We came here to try something new, do something different. Let's go back to Kansas with stories the girls in the secretary pool will envy," she says, sliding a hand up Kate's leg beneath the dress. An audible smack can be heard as Kate slaps her hand away. 

"You promised me!" she says in an enraged non-whisper. "What if we involved a man, then? Would that make you more comfortable?" She pretends to look around the room. 'Pepe Le Pew is out. How about the sommelier? He's attractive. Or..." 

Just as planned, Bullitt has turned in his seat and is trying to catch her eye. 

"Bonjour, Monsieur," she calls out with smile and a wink. He can't see it from this angle, but the smile on Kate's face matches Mercedes'.

Kate sighed exasperatedly as she slapped Mercedes' hand away, trying to cover the warm, drunk feeling that was spreading throughout her- and it wasn't the wine. As she greeted Bullitt, Kate turned red.

"Uh. Please excuse my friend! She's very drunk!"

Leaning forward, Kate whispered privately like she was scolding, but she grinned.

"Nice job getting him on the hook. But don't reel him in so fast. Make him think it's his decision. Besides, I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this conversation."

Huffing with haughty pride, she sat back in her chair.

"I just don't know I'm comfortable with that kind of story, Merc. I know what I promised, and we spent our whole savings on these dresses and everything, but this just seems so crazy. Let me... let me have some more wine. And I'll listen to you. Remind me again why I decided to use my inheritance money to come out here and... and everything."

Mercedes leans back in her chair, feigning a pout while giving Bullitt an eyeful of breasts.

"Where do I start? Poor Katie here had never left the farm until we met in secretarial school in Witchita. She looked like a doe caught in headlights," she says, giving Bullitt a tipsy grin. 

"We've known each other for three years now, I've been trying to get the girl to loosen up a little. No luck yet," she says, leaning close to Bullitt. She play-whispers in his ear, "I think she's still a virgin!"

Kate's mouth dropped open as Bullitt, who she thought had returned to his meal, had instead given them more of his attention.

"Oh- ohmygod. Mercedes. I meant to please explain things to ME again. Not this gentleman here- Oh, sir. Please forgive her, she's had... so much to drink. Mercedes, PLEASE!"

Kate reached out and took Mercedes hand, squeezing it once, before turning back to Bullitt.

"Enjoy your meal, sir. I'm very, very sorry!"

The waiter then arrived with their food.

As she stares down at a plate of snails, Mercedes hesitates a moment before pushing forward. Picking up the strange little fork used for plucking out the shell's oyster-like contents, she pauses with a bite halfway to her mouth. Bullitt is watching every move, a predatory hunger in his eyes. 

"Let's not be rude to our new friend, Katie," she says, turning more fully in his direction. "Would you care to join us, Sir?"

She's barely finished the sentence before Bullitt is snapping his fingers and standing. A waiter hustles over and moves his entire place setting in under five seconds, long before Bullitt crosses the few feet over and has a seat on Kate's other side. 

"It would be my pleasure, joining two beautiful women from my part of the world," he says, running his eyes over the side view of Kate's bare shoulder, back, and glittery, perfectly shaped ass."Kansas, you say. Been through there a time or two. Never saw anyone as attractive as you, though, Miss...Katie, is it? I'm William," he says, grinning wolfishly.

Kate raised her hands to her face, nearly shrinking in embarrassment. 

"I, uh, my name is Katherine. William, I am so sorry about my friend or if we're disturbing you at all. You certainly don't have to feel obliged to join us... she's just very... bold."

Kate takes a long sip of wine.

"And, um, Kansas, yes. And thank you for the compliment."

She nervously continues drinking fast.

Bullitt watches as Kate's wine disappears. With a twitch of his fingers, which are now resting on the back of her chair, he summons the sommelier, who freshens each glass. As he turns to leave, Bullitt calls out to him. 

"Leave it," he commands. The server obliges and disappears.

"Katherine. That's lovely. My paternal grandmother was a Katherine," he muses. "So, Katherine, are you ladies enjoying Paris? Have you seen all the sites yet? This city is particularly breathtaking at night," he says with a practiced nonchalance. He'd done this many, many times before. In her head, Mercedes was waiting for him to sink the hook in...a casual comment tossed out there about how important he was.

"My position as Ambassador has afforded me several luxuries. For instance, the presidential suite of my hotel where I reside...they send tours through there. People pay good money to get a glimpse of the view. But you should see it at night," he says, lifting an eyebrow as he leans back again, confident that he's roped these rubes. 

"It is against protocol to allow anyone into the suite with me without proper security measures, but I think I can sneak you two in for a peek, if you promise not to tell anyone what you've seen," he finishes, honestly believing he's doing them some sort of favor. 

"Tell me, Katherine...have you ever ridden in a limousine?" he asks, lightly stroking a finger down her arm. 

Mercedes' blood curdles as she watches. Her hand shakes slightly as she polishes off her wine and pours herself another generous glass.

Kate feels Bullitt's finger slide between her shoulder blades and channels her emotions into a silly grin. At least Mercedes couldn't see.

"Well of course this place is just amazing, and we've tried to see some things but there's just so MANY."

She laughs nervously as more wine is added to her glass and her mouth drops open as he mentions his role as an ambassador.

"Oh my goodness you're an Ambassador? OUR ambassador? Of the UNITED STATES? Mercedes we are going to have to get an autograph or a picture or SOMETHING. And do you really think you could get us in there? That would be... I mean wow."

Kate laughs a little too loudly, the wine obviously affecting her.

"I mean WOW, right Mercedes? I've SEEN a limousine a few times but I've never been inside of one."

She smiles as the ambassador touches her tanned arm. With her other hand she slides her hair over her far shoulder, seemingly just reacting in shock to their good fortune- although this exposes a naked shoulder and miles of smooth, tanned skin on the ambassador's side. . The Kate who had opened up so much to Mercedes earlier was gone. Mercedes glances at Kate and it's almost like she sees two women: she sees a beautiful, naive farmgirl standing next to a clear pool, except the reflection in the water has the eyes of a killer. 

Under the table Kate quietly kicks off her heels and exposes her bare feet. She stretches out and touches Mercedes's foot with a single, reassuring bump- squashing the part of her mind that wishes her feet were soft, and not the hardened, leathery soles of a young adulthood spent on the edge of society. Continuing to gulp her wine, she slides her naked foot over to Bullitt and gently slides it up his calf, returning the predatory look in the man's eye with youthful excitement.

"This wine is AMAZING; I haven't felt like this since prom. But you're pretty quiet over there. You must be thinking NAUGHTY things again."

Reaching for her wineglass, Kate knocks over her water and laughs way too loudly. 

"Oh I am such a MESS! I knew we shouldn't have had those drinks before dinner, Mercedes! Why do I let you talk me INTO these things?"

She tries to mop up the water with her napkin, even as two servers appear to help her. As they're leaving, Kate wipes her chin with her wet hand, sending several drops of water on a slow, ponderous path down her neck and chest, until they're lost in the shimmering gold of her dress.

Mercedes remains silently stunned at Kate's performance. If she didn't know better, she'd have fallen for the entire act herself. Admiring her ability, she tries to step up her own game, mixing a bit of reality in. 

As Bullitt watches the water tread slowly down Kate's chest, Mercedes grabs her own linen napkin and runs it down Kate's neck and into her neckline, studying Bullitts's face as she does so. He seems to be breathing a bit harder that he was a minute ago. Smiling, she speaks.

"Maybe we should take you up on that limo ride, Ambassador. Pepe Le...umm, the maître d' doesn't look like he much appreciates visiting American women out on the town, trying to have a little FUN," she says, a bit loudly. Bullitt glances at the maître d', and whatever look he's given the little troll has turned him pale. Lifting his fingers again in some boys' club secret signal, Bullitt turns back to face his new friends.

"Well then, by all means, let's take that ride, ladies. My driver is out front waiting," he says, already standing. He waits for the women to follow suit, which takes longer since Kate is missing a shoe and both are feigning inebriation. Kate stumbles into Mercedes, and reflexively, Mercedes grasps her to steady her....one hand holding Kate's hand, the other firmly gripping her rear. Bullitt smiles widely at this and ushers them towards the front door as the two women giggle nonstop. Part act, part utter satisfaction.

Gotcha, jackass.

Kate eagerly drinks more of her wine until the other two stand and begin exiting. As they move through the restaurant, Kate reaches out and covertly swipes a bottle from a nearby table. She giggles wildly as Mercedes grabs her ass outside. Between the shots she'd taken earlier when Mercedes wasn't looking and all the wine from dinner, Kate was only pretty sure she was pretending to be drunk. But she'd also killed seven men before when she was so fucked up she could barely stand. Particularly impressive since her gun only had six bullets. She'd had to do the last one with a toaster. 

Bullitt and Mercedes got into the limo before Kate did, which was probably a good thing, since she almost fell climbing in. She wound up sprawling facedown across Mercedes's and Bullit's laps. Her naked back shone in the dim light of the car for a few moments, her face near the man's lap and her thighs on the woman's. Laughing loudly, and spilling a bit of the bottle of wine, she rolls over to stretch out on her back, sighing contentedly and looking like she was about to fall asleep for a moment, before she righted herself and sat up, eventually sitting in between the other two. 

"WOW! A limousine. Where are we going again? To the Eiffel tower? Or do we have to go back to the hotel room already?"

She wickedly pouts at Mercedes. 

Mercedes' head rolls to the side, addressing Bullitt. 

"My drink here has had too much to friend. I mean, uh. What was I saying? Oh. Hotel, yeah. We should go to one. Isn't my friend pretty? Like, really, really pretty. I would do stuff to her if she'd let me. She won't let me, though. She's into these, probably," she says, grabbing Bullitt's crotch. He flinches initially, then hardens immediately. Mercedes fights repulsion as the driver pulls up in front of Bullitt's hotel. When the driver opens the car door, two women, a man, and a bottle of wine crash onto the sidewalk. Now completely disheveled, the three are quickly brushed inside by the doorman, who has unfortunately seen this several times before. In the elevator ride to the top floor, Mercedes ignores Bullitt for a moment and presses her weight up against Kate as she makes a sloppy 'pass' at her, kissing her deeply before Kate pushes her away.

'Hey! I tole you I'm notta thespian!!' she says bitchily. Smiling at Bullitt, she strokes her finger across his chin. 

"You'n me, we could have some fun, huh? You got the right 'quipment," she slurs into his face.

Kate is half on fire with lust and half entirely doused by the wine as they stumble out of the elevator and make their way down the hall. Mercedes struggles with the key, but the room finally opens to them as they fall inside. Kate locks the door behind her and sneakily tosses the key in the trashcan. She's drunker than she thought. Mercedes doesn't exactly seem sober either. In fact, Bullitt seemed the most sober out of all of them.

Which was an issue. To say the least.

Giggling like a schoolgirl, Kate kicked off her other shoe and grabbed a bottle of whiskey out of Mercedes's luggage.

Um! Game! Who wants to play a game?!

She hands the bottle to Bullitt.

You're the Amdassabor, so YOU get to be in charge. You dare us to do something. If we do it, then YOU have to take a swig from the bottle. If we don't, then WE have to take a swig.

Kate glanced at Mercedes and tried to communicate her thoughts. They could potentially try to navigate this situation to avoid anything they didn't want to do to him- while doing things to each other that they were entirely comfortable with. They just had to make sure that he was enjoying watching them more than getting involved himself. 

"Okay, William. First dare!"

William opened the bottle as he spoke. 

"You two. Kiss each other. Or have a drink, eh?"

He smirked- and Kate nearly leaped at Mercedes before she remembered she was supposed to be the reluctant one. So she did her best to blush.

She wasn't entirely faking her surprise as Kate came at her for a kiss. So it must have looked pretty convincing when Mercedes' eyes went wide and her hands remained at her sides. But the feel of those lips on hers did her in, as they always do, and she smoothed her hands up Kate's figure as Bullitt looked on, drinking from the whisky bottle. It took everything she had not to unzip Kate's dress right then and there, regardless of some creepy fucker watching them. Which meant she'd drunk too much. A tiny, sober voice in her head screamed at her to GET THE PILLS! before she reluctantly broke the kiss, giving Kate a cockeyed smile. 

"Not so bad for a girl, huh Katie?" she murmurs. More loudly, she addresses Bullitt. 

"Now you, Ambassador Bullitt," she says, walking over to him and taking the bottle from his hands. "I dare you to...kiss her better than I did," she says, hating herself but knowing it's the only way she can pull this off. As Bullitt moves in on Kate, Mercedes quickly grabs the crushed sleeping pills from her purse and dumps the contents into the whiskey bottle. Holding her thumb across the opening, she imitates swallowing noises and then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Bullitt is still kissing Kate, and that shit needs to stop.

"Okay your turn!" she calls out, a bit more forcefully than intended.

Kate's eyes flashed with simultaneous betrayal and understanding. Both emotions motivated her as she stretched up her arms around Bullitt's neck, exposing her back to Mercedes as her tongue gently probes the mouth of the man, luring him out of control into a more bestial lust. Mercedes yelled out, which seemed to suggest she'd succeeded in her mission. Kate slowly pulled back from Bullitt with her eyes closed, pretending she'd been carried away, before slowly opening them to bore her blue-grey eyes into his with a look of innocence. She blinked quickly and bounced back to Mercedes, laughing.

Bulllit, perhaps a little carried away by the kiss, laughed arrogantly.

"You! Katherine! Why don't you blow me, eh?!"

Kate took a couple steps toward him and started to kneel down before popping back up and laughing.

"Too fast! Too fast! I'll guess drink instead!"

She grabs the bottle of whiskey and takes a swig. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I guess I'll be the one who's passed out with blood on me, Merc. Because I'll die before I blow this asshole in front of you. As long as you're not drinking, you'll be able to handle it all yourself, no matter how drugged up I am.

"Okay! Okay!"

Bullitt laughed.

"You two! Strip each other. If you do that, I'll take TWO drinks!"