Like Burning
He's blaming Rose for this. This is Rose's fault for getting herself possessed by an evil trampoline and sort of ending up kissing him and making him think about sex. It is also Rose's fault for reminding him of Platform One and thus reminding him of Gallifrey. And it's Rose's fault for being blonde.
Sex and Gallifrey in the same mental image throws up a fairly short list of possibilities, and adding 'blonde' and 'female' to the criteria narrows it down even more. Narrows it down to one woman. Two women, actually, because the Doctor is a sick bastard sometimes.
He's far lucid in all of this to pretend it's not a bit his own fault, but Romana has her tongue in his mouth and the other Romana has her tongue somewhere else entirely and oh. Both of them giggle in a manner that is a little unlikely, but not that much more unlikely than the fact that he's having sex with two dead women who are in fact the same person.
"You always preferred me as a blonde," says the brunette, pouting and not doing something she was doing a moment ago and which was a lot more interesting.
"No, I didn't," he says. "I loved you."
The blonde shakes her head and runs her fingers through his hair with an affectionate sigh. "You did like me more. I think you found me less intimidating."
"And," says the first Romana, "I look a bit like your mother."
The Doctor puts a hand over his eyes and curses his own fucked up imagination. "Can we not talk about my mother? Please?"
"Would you rather we talked about how often you have this particular fantasy?" asks the blonde one.
"To be honest, I'd rather there was less conversation and more sex." As well as being sick, he is selfish. Which is only fair, since he's asleep and it's not like he ever gets to do this sort of thing when he's awake and busy saving the universe for the millionth time. "Not that I don't love you for your mind, but that's not really the bit of me that wants priority right now."
"Bastard," sighs the brunette, moving off him to crawl up the bed and start kissing herself. Which is, he has to admit, quite interesting in its own way.
"Only technically," he says, not even pretending not to stare at the way lips pull on lips and breasts press against breasts. His mind throws up the words 'Hot Romana Action' and he blinks at that because he really is getting perverted in his old age.
"It's perfectly normal," says the blonde, flushed and shivering under own touch. "After all, both of me are almost certainly very beautiful."
"I could do with some help," says the brunette, pointedly. He'd forgotten how incredibly hot she was when she was being arch at him. Some nice eyebrow action on that one, oh yes.
He moves a hand between the two Romanas and earns a wonderful little gasp from the blonde one because, yes, he does have nice long fingers now. Very good with his hands, and he can't help feeling rather smug about that. The other Romana smiles at him and maybe he didn't prefer the blonde after all. Not that it's right to compare them, but this whole thing is so wrong on so many levels that he can't really help it. He moves again, because even in a dream there are certain things he doesn't want to say to her and there are better things he could be doing with his mouth anyway.
The second Romana - the one that absolutely did not love just the tiniest bit more - arches off the bed hisses something in a beautiful dead language.
The other one nods approvingly. "Very supple. I'd hate to think I lost that when I regenerated. I can see why you like her."
He looks up at her and sighs. "She's you!"
She raises an eyebrow and shrugs. "This is your fantasy, so it's not like I'm the one pointing this out."
"I'm trying to concentrate," he says, returning his attention to the blonde and flexing his fingers carefully inside her because unless his memory's acting up there's a spot somewhere near here that should get some good results. Bit to the left? Apparently not. There? Interesting to see Romana swearing like that, but not quite what he was looking for. There? Oh, yes.
Respiratory bypass. Finest piece of genetic engineering in the history of ever. He can't actually see anything, but it sounds like a job well done. Slightly OTT but then he's always that felt realism is over-rated anyway. When she's finished he licks his fingers clean and makes his way up her flushed and trembling body to kiss her slowly and thoroughly and only slightly sadly.
"That was nice," she says, after some uncertain length of time.
He stares at her. "Nice?"
"Well, I don't want you getting arrogant."
"Oh, it's not like you can make him any worse than he already is," says the brunette, with a smirk that really is quite astonishingly sexy. And he's still not comparing them, but she's the one he fell in love with in the first place and that has to count for something.
"Isn't it funny," he says, settling onto his back, "that we say someone falls in love and in every other use of the word falling is a bad thing." He's about to start on the significance of this, but then Romana is sinking down onto him and she is hot and tight and wet and her mouth is on his and it wouldn't have been a very insightful commentary anyway.
Some wit from a less tedious planet once described Time Lord sex as 'glacial'. Which isn't always true, because they're just as capable as any other species of being quick and messy, but does have some accuracy to it. There's only one person left in the universe who could prove it either way, and it's never going to happen in reality again. Whatever else he ever does with Rose, it won't be like this.
"Take your time," says Romana, and he's ashamed to admit that he isn't quite sure which one uttered the words. It doesn't matter anyway, because she's the same woman and he is deep inside her and she is moving so slowly and precisely and he's not sure he has enough self-control to do this properly. His hands on are on her hips trying to coax her into moving faster and her mouth is at his ear, hot breath telling him to calm down and slow his hearts a little.
"Romana," he sighs, and she answers with a name that no one living knows. And that's what tell him that he should stop this, that he should exert a bit of artistic licence and stop being so bloody romantic about the whole thing. This is an irritating biolgical urge and he doesn't need this sort of stupid emotional deception. Romana is dead, and she is never coming back.
She moves faster and it becomes less of a lie. It's like a bad edit in a piece of film, but continuity is for people who like things to be linear. Her hands are on either side of his head and she is looking down at him, breathless and a lot less like a sentimental invention. She's angry because he is and because if this was real she would never, ever forgive him for what he did.
He killed her, and her hips set rhythm and tempo. She'd hate him and he hates himself and oh fuck it would be exactly like this. It's the wrong Romana, but it's the right one, because she's the same person and that's exactly the sort of thing that humans don't understand.
This is what it would be like. He'd find her somewhere and she wouldn't love him and the sex would be like this, all sweat and skin and hips and hearts and anger.
"Bastard," she says, and means it this time, her muscles shuddering around him and her fingernails tearing into skin that shouldn't look so innocent. 'The little death,' they call it, and horror of the euphemism still isn't enough to stop his body reacting to hers.
"I'm sorry," he tells her when he can breathe again. "I'm so sorry."
Romana rests a hand on his chest. "You're the one who has to wake up alone again."
And he does.