(Note: The following is a much-delayed continuation in an ongoing series here. I recommend you read Chapter 1. If you already have, buckle up. This is going to get bumpy.-j)
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October 12, 2008
Blue lights bounce off bricks and look so damn beautiful in the night.
But I don’t have time to think about that. My legs, they’re pistons that could crack pavement. I’m an automaton that runs on fear and testosterone. I push Jim out of the way as I hear the V8 scream behind us. A door slams, and Jim lets out a curse. Tom and Dick split left and right at the tag. There had been a single car, and I’d been holding the can.
An idea worms it’s way from the cotton comforts of weed. I could give up. I could toss my hands up right now, and turn myself over. My lungs hurt. There’s holes in my shoes, and the soles are flapping. I bet the cops would give me shoes, it’s the dead of winter.
Then I remember that I’m poor and high and they’re on foot. I remember the storm drain a block away. Their pistons stopped, but mine haven’t. So I keep going even as I hear Jim get taken to the ground. He pops off a single “Fuck you, you fucking cock sucking pig!”. His anger echoes off the alley and into my nerves. I duck my head and pretend I’m Naruto.
My lungs are aflame but the lights still bounce from the brick. The cop behind me puffs like my dad. Pops had smoked a pack a day and hadn’t been able to catch me since I was 8.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
I almost smile thinking of that rhyme. But instead I grip a street light, and swing myself round it. I almost miss the alley to the right, but I let go at the last second. My feet hit the ground, and the bottoms of my shoes cough their last. The cop, I can’t hear his breathing anymore. He’ll find my soles, but not me.
I seal the thought by padding my way down the alley. The ground is slick from the culvert at the end, and I slide the last yard into it. I finally collapse about three feet in. The dark wraps around me with only the street light to tell my secret. It’s at least ten yards away, and looks like a stage.
The cop enters, stage left, five seconds later. He’s red in the face, and doubles over to catch his breath. I sit there in the wet dark, a hand clamped over my mouth. I didn’t think he could hear me, but I’d seen that shit too many times in movies. So I sit there trying not to have a panic attack, watching him. He’s still gripping his knees, every breath longer than the one before.
Then he pauses when he sees the new-balance rubbers in front of him. He stands up, his jaw slack as he stares at them. His eyes crane up, and for a hot second we’re staring at one another.
Tiger, Tiger. Burning bright.
I didn’t believe in a god at the time. I was doing that hip, hardcore edgelord thing. But when that cop didn’t move, I started praying. God, Allah, whoever the fuck is listening. I need a break. I promise I’ll stop jerking off and swearing and getting high. Just give me a fucking break. Please, fuck. I don’t want to go to jail.
I take the first breath I’d had since I swerved into the culvert.
Then the cop, his shoulders sag. He looks down at the soles one last time. He turns on his heel, his face still red. He walks to the left and disappears.
I sit there with my hand over my mouth. Not because I might breathe too loud, but to hold back the scream. There I stay, right until it starts to rain. Until the culvert begins to rush with cold water right under my ass. I hobbled out, every bone popping. My legs threatened to give, and I slammed a hand against the brick. It guides me right back to the soles of my shoes. I pick them up and stagger into the street.
There’s nothing there, nothing but the light and the rain and me.
Only then do I breathe.
Only then do I finally let out that scream.
@@@
“Jim got jumped Jack,”
“Yeah. I know,”
Tom and Dick sit with a bong between them. They inhale a forest and stare through me. Tom-he’s the one with the stick n’ pokes all over-he coughs out a cancerous cloud. Dick laughs, and digs into a trash bag at his feet. I knew better than to ask where he got a brick, but I still glance over my shoulder. Towards the doors, towards the two-by-fours we use as locks.
The warehouse belonged to somebody, somewhere. But they hadn’t kept house-so we did it for them. I shudder the chase from the last hour away, and take a seat by the cable-spool-turned table.
We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men.
Dick raises his hand, and packs the emerald green for me. I snap my fingers, and Tom hands me a lighter.
Another snap, and I have fire. Smoke fills my lungs, curling around my nervous system. My brain. The glass pulls from my lips. It meets the table, and I close my eyes. I hold it in, despite the protests of my paper thin lungs.
Leaning together, headpiece filled with straw.
When I opened my eyes, all I see is gray. Tom and Dick are shadows beyond the purple haze. They twist and cavort, Thanatos and Hypnos. Their voices come from the bottom of a well as Tom lifts the bong.
“Think they’ll hold him long?” Says Tom, bubbling away his scholarship.
“Nah, he’s what? Sixteen? They’ll call his folks,” says Dick. He giggles like a hyena, a cacophony from a carnival mask as his thumb births a spark. He takes a deep breath, and turns to me. I almost say no, but my hand reaches all the same.
Our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quiet and meaningless.
I take a light drag, and put it on the table. My mouth parts, and it’s then I say “I saw a tiger in the alley. Past fifth and main. Got in a hidey hole and spied him, but he didn’t eye me,”
Tom waits, then busts into a laugh. “A fucking tiger? Dude, the shit isn’t that good. The fuck are you on about?”
Dick snorts, and tilts his head towards me. “He’s drunk,”
“Was sober till I came in boys,” I say. My teeth feel fuzzy, and for a moment I think my cavities are fleas. I roll my tongue over them, all too aware of my body in that moment. I pull my knees to my chin and stare at the table. Dick picks up the bong, and takes another step towards the Sandman.
“Still, a fucking tiger. Heh. So-” he pauses, bubbling inspiration. When he pulls his lips back, he puckers his lips and tries to blow a circle. Staring at him reminds me of the time I fucked his throat on mushrooms. I came all over his face and kissed him after. Smearing the cum on his lips and cheeks, I told him he was the brightest star in the galaxy.
He had smiled and clutched my chin. He pursed his lips just like now, and blew a raspberry on my neck.
“-what do we do when Jim gets out?”
Tom shrugs, and reaches for the bong. “Tell him he’s a tough bastard and we love him, same as always,”
“Tell him we’ll butcher those pigs,” says Dick, handing it over. Tom tilts back his head and gives a squeal. Dick laughs, and reaches into his jeans. He pulls out a stiletto I’d seen too many times, a blue and rusted thing. He twirls it between his fingers and smiles with a madness that makes me clench my bowels.
I mutter about the tiger again. Tom rolls his eyes, and hands be the bong.
“Oh yeah, sure thing. Take another hit-your heads all fucky, and we need to be right. It’s only what, eleven?” he says. Dick nods, the blade of his knife flicking in and out, in and out. It catches in the blaze of the lighter as I spiral out.
Then the weed clutches my brain. It smothers the anxiety, and I exorcise it through my nose. I put the bong on the table, and Tom leans forward.
“Still plenty we can do, eh? Tis the season, all that,”
“Mmmhhhmmm,” Says Dick. He slips the knife back into his jeans, and gives a smirk.
“Almost the witching hour,”
“Damn right. So let’s get spooky,” says Tom.
I sit there, staring at the bong as the boys rise. I hear the two-by-fours hit concrete, the footfalls of Dick certain behind me. He claps a hand to my shoulder, and it’s only then I turn away. I meet his eyes, and he smiles. They’re red as tomatoes, but his grip is soft on me.
“Showtime big boy,” he says.
I shamble to my feet, knees wailing in protest. Tom is already gone, with only a swinging door into black to prove he was ever there. Dick keeps his pace with me, his stiletto in his palm. He gives me a kiss on the cheek like it’s the last either of us will ever have-but before he reaches the door. Always before the door.
Remember us-if at all-not as lost violent souls,
But only as the hollow men,
The stuffed men.
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We glide quiet on cat’s feet. Eyes capturing even the smallest light, we prowl the concrete. Heads heavy in toxic clouds and speech difficult. So we speak in grunts, hand gestures. Intuition leads us to piss on church lawns, tagging more buildings. Jim had artist’s hands-we did not. Every scrawl looked primal, guttural to the point of non-recognition. We laughed in the dark, our cackles echoing into the dreams of the town.
So we crawled and crept along every darkened foot. The shadows of the street lamps caressed us, and we relished their touch. Bad men we thought we were, boogies and bog monsters from the recesses of poverty.
Then we came upon the house.
Sloppy it wasn’t, though it leaned with a noted exhaustion. Friend to none and keeping the company of itself, the house reigned supreme at the end of a street. Two stories without so much as a porch light. Tom and Dick stood stock as we came upon it. Their barks and sneers turned to silent awe, spraypaint and knives in their grip limp. I joined them at the side, and tilted my head towards it.
“The fuck is that?” said Tom.
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious what it is,” said Dick. He let out a snort of contempt, accented with an elbow to Tom’s gut.
Tom leered, and took a step away. “No, I get that. What I mean is, the hell did it come from? Either of you ever seen this place?”
“Not even a tile,” I said.
Dick turned to me, his eyes focused on my lips. He tilted his head as he turned back to the house.
“Gotta say, I’ve never seen it. Lived her every day of 18 years to boot,”
Tom takes a step forward, and glances at the vandal’s talent in his palm. He smirks, and gives it a shake. It gives a dull clatter as he turns back to us.
“Well? What are we waiting for? I don’t see any car parked in the driveway. Free canvas?” he says.
Dick turns to me, but I can’t speak. The words in my head are a Scrabble bag being shook. Dick rolls his shoulders, and walks to join Tom. I follow, and the dark of the street rolls over us in a wave. There’s no light here, none to guide us as we fall upon the house in a pack.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space
Tom yipped with a voice plagued by rabies. The can clattered as his palm birthed an X over the door. Dick snickered, pirouetting like a court jester as he glanced at the windows. My feet were snails, the comfort of their shells holding them still. Tom ran, a howl escaping his throat as his youth dripped from the wall. Dick leaped from the porch, and was at my side in a moment.
With an arm around my shoulder, we time traveled. To the time we first met, to when we first kissed. Then Dick gives his knife a twirl, and I’m back.
“Wanna play home-maker inside?” he says. His lips twisted into the bastard child of a smirk and lust. I give a faint grin, and push his blade down.
“Oh happy dagger,”
Dick’s eyes roll in his head like dice. Another twirl, and the blade is in his pocket. His arm drops from my shoulder, his hand finding mine in the fall.
“C’mon Romeo. Let’s see if she’s as much a tomb inside, eh?” he says. With a tug and a glance back at the street, we’re one in a gallop towards the porch. Tom rounds the corner, and gives turns the can into a forgotten memory. He wipes his hands on his shirt and smiles. Self made-evidence with shit in his teeth.
“Not a fucking light. Think she’s abandoned?” he quips. Dick breaks our pairing, and glances at the door. His tongue clucks as his eyes slice just what he’s thinking towards me. I glance at the door, and step forward.
What it lacks in paint it remedies with pock marks. It’s surface is scarred and stippled, but it’s the handle that draws my eyes. It’s as dull as a forlorn dream, worn by years of regret and neglect. I slip a hand into my back pocket, and pull out my kit.
“We’re all lock and key,” I say, the picks in my grip. Tom snorts. I don’t have to look to know he’s crossing his arms.
“Tell us another Yorick. Or don’t I know you so well?” he says. His voice is edged with the malice only a loving brother or friend could have. The lock slides within, the knob giving a grave rattle.
“Every key fits two locks,” I say as I rack the tumblrs, “one for love, one for friendship,”
Dick gives a giggle, and I watch Tom’s shadow leer at him. A flick of the wrist, a turn of my hand, and the gates of our desolate castle swing free. Beyond lay the void, a darkness so absolute in its existence it becomes all there is.
There’s a hand at my shoulder, a squeeze. Then the smell of acetone, of pigment as Tom pushes past us both.
“Luuuuuucy, we’re home,” he says.
As his foot passes the threshold, the black consumes him utterly. All that is left is a wisp of memory and scent. Dick gives my shoulder another squeeze, and snaps golden flame into his free hand. He steps before me, and in the warmth of his lighter I see Apollo. Cunning and beautiful.
Then he pulls the blade free once more.
“Lemme suck your dick by candle light?”
The deeper he goes, thirst burns in his throat.
I embrace the void.
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BE MESMERIZED BY THE DANCING LIGHTS, THE SOUNDS! THE MIGHT, THE POWER OF TRUE MAGIC!
The poster stands big as a stained-glass Jesus. Dick’s dancing light passes over the words, then turns to us. His brow is raised without a hint of mirth. Tom, the ink on his arm splattered by his passions, tilts his head. He studies the words with a scholar’s guile, then laughs.
“Holy shit, a vintage poster. Think we can get it off the wall?” he says.
Dick chuckles, and tilts his head. “Dunno man-think you’d have to ask him first,”
He raises the flame, and lays bare the posters braggadocious subject. Clad in red and black, the thin profile of a man fills the center. His shoes draw into a point that puts Dick’s blade to shame. His black pants and red jacket are bygone relics from vogue freakshow hovels. But it’s his hands Dick pauses over. Both are clasped over the brim of a top hat, pulled low enough to obscure his face.
“Hah! Dude really knew how to sell his shtick-didn’t even show his face!” says Tom. He takes a step towards the left, and raises a paint stained hand. He fingers the edge of the poster with care reserved for newborns.
“I think it’s just glued in places-fuck, you think this would have been framed,” he says.
Dick takes a step forward, and brings the light towards the forthcoming vandalism. “Hey, be careful-don’t wanna rip it. Where the hell are we even going to hang it?”
The boys talk, but their voices are miles away. The edge of the lighter gives little to view, but cuts the room into frightful symmetry. There was no furniture about, nor carpet. All was wood and square-head nails. All was empty and quiet-save for we, boogeymen all. Bogies. Bog monsters snarling and ripping and tearing as we tore through the house.
Yet from those flames no light, but darkness visible.
“Hail horrors,” I said.
There comes a tumble behind me as Tom and Dick become scholars of natural laws. My head snaps whip-quick, and I hold back a jester’s smile. The boys sit up quick, the poster taught as a clothesline between them.
“God fucking damn it, did it rip?” says Tom. His eyes wide and feral, hungry for a prey only he saw. Dick gives a groan, and looks at the poster.
“Nah, seems good. Look, you wanna roll this up and us get the fuck out?”
“Where is he?” says Tom.
“Where is-the fuck?” replies Dick, golden light erupting from his thumb. I step closer, and kneel between the pair. We form an awestruck trinity as the boys hold the poster higher.
“Dude, you saw it, right? Like he was right there, wasn’t he?”
“I mean,” says Dick, his iris bouncing like ping-pong balls. “I mean like, yeah? The fuck?”
There, between the tilted and swirling words, was open space. Space without a tear or hint of displacement. Even the dust upon it hadn’t so much as stirred. The poster was whole, but it’s subject had vacated.
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Down into the dark we crept. Gone was the padded quiet of our confidence. In its place ran the panicked, quick feet of of our youth realized. We had taken but a single flight up. Just the one. But as Tom doubled over with his knuckles white upon the banister, I began to count.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said, “The fuck is this place?”
Three, four-
“You’re the one that brought us here!” cried Dick with ragged breath. “You fucking tell me!”
“I didn’t bring us here!”
“THE FUCK YOU DID!” replied Dick, his footfall hard against yet another step. “You fucking glided here. You scoped this place out, didn’t you? Another hidey hole, that it?”
Ten, Eleven-
Tom stands, his brow soaked with the agony of baby fat. He shook his head, and raised a finger towards Dick. “Look man, the street ended here. There wasn’t a light on, and now-”
“Thirteen,” I say.
The boys turn to me, Dick’s brow raised. Tom, too tired to question. I roll my tongue over my lips, and glanced between the two of them.
“It’s been thirteen flights. That’s how many we’ve gone,” I say.
Tom stands a moment, then twists his head in a denial that a criminal would envy. “No, no fucking way. There was one flight up, and we stopped at the poster. We turned and took a straight dive back, and-”
“And you still have that fucking poster!” cries Dick. He takes another step, and lunges. Tom’s hand flies up with the poster, his grip tight upon it. Dick snarls, and tugs it again. “Let fucking go of it man! Just let it go!”
Tom holds his vanity in check, but the paper slides through his fingers all the same. With a single twist, Dick rips the paper in half, forths, tenths and sixteenths. He tosses his hands, and paper snow at his feet. He gives a laugh then, one that lacks the humanity I’d fell in love with. It’s hollow and agonizing, artificial to the point of uncanny. His fingers meet his brow, and curl.
“Thirteen fucking flights, a disappearing guy. Yeah, some fucking hole you chose. Are we still high? You spike that with some synth, you fuck?” cries Dick.
Tom parts his lips-only to fall, along with the rest of us. Gravity takes her tax as we slide down the stairs.
Stairs that are now flat and smooth as glass. We-the bogeymen-scream as our feet hit and bump against one another. The stairs widen by feet, by yards as we toss and tumble. Then, sure as it started, we meet the floor. One atop another, the weight of our comradery crushing. I’m the first to land-then Dick, and Tom last. All for one, cursing and damning our spatial relations.
Tom rolls off the pile, Dick’s breath warm against my back. Tom lays on his back, coughing as he gazes up at the dark. He says nothing at first, but as he speaks it’s with a timidness I’d not heard in years.
“Guys, I don’t think we’re high still,”
Dick slips beside me, his hand finding mine. It squeezes tight, and he glances at Tom. He says not a word. With his free hand, he frees his knife. It clicks like a cicada, a bleeder’s icepick. He holds his gaze a Tom, and takes a breath.
“Well, that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all night. Now you’re going to keep making smart decisions, or I’m going to help you make them. Got that, you fucking-”
“If you’re going to run-then you better run from yourself,” came a honey sweet, bass salutation.
Heads rolled in slow, creeping brotherhood at the far end of the room. A wall of shadow, the bubbling abyss that had swallowed us when we entered met our gaze. Tom scrambled to his feet, and tucked a hand into his pocket. It reappeared with a glint-the knuckles he saved for his twitchiest of moments. Dick stood, my hand smacking against the floor as he rose for battle.
“We don’t want no trouble man-we just wanna get out, alright?” Said Tom. His feet swept behind and forward, hands raised. Dick flanked him, blade out. He could have been a fencer in a different world.
The sticky-bass dripped in a rolling chuckle, a reverb like thunder carried through the boards. I scrambled to my feet, sole-less and sliding. I joined Tom’s opposing side, and gazed into the dark. Tom’s fist glinted in a wide sweep as Dick’s back met my own.
“A magician’s got many tricks-of most, you’ve no clue,” said the thunderous voice. There came a clap, just the one. But it was enough to make our heads snap their direction with military precision. Our eyes as one, we beheld-
“Oh, fucking shit,” said Tom.
There he stood, in a spotlight from nowhere. Though the poster gave him no stage, he had one now. A simple wood box, tattered and ragged as he. The coat and pants were the same, but aged. Feasted upon by moths, the affair laid bare the gaunt man beneath. The firm spine of the posters was replaced by a crooked one, crooked as the cane he held in his gloved hand. But of all that captured my attention, it was the top hat upon his head. Pulled low past the nose, it edged a yellowed grin.
The hat itself however was pristine.
Save for his lips, he was still as stone. And as they moved, his teeth did not. The voice that escaped came from him, but wasn’t of him. It was of its one unique timbre, one that gripped behind the eyes to clutch the brain.
“Evening, gentlemen Have you came to enjoy my works?”
The hat tilted, the tip of a nose daring to peek from it’s safety. It was a butchered thing, diced and stitched like a ragdoll. Tom-stick n’ pokes good as warpaint-stepped forth.
“Mister, I don’t know who you are. Frankly, I don’t really give a shit. But it’s like this. We want out of-whatever the fuck this place is. We want gone right away, and if you’re nice enough to show us the door, we won’t trouble you no more. But if you ain’t, you’re a stick. And it ain’t nothing to snap a stick,”
The man smiled with a wolf’s delight. The gnarled digits which held his cane flexed, and he stepped forward. He kicked the soap box away, and it rolled without a clatter into the dark. Tom stood his ground, fists ready. But they wavered, the tremble like a guitar string post-plucking. Dick looked to me, and his eyes held as the back of his hand grazed mine.
“A stick, dear boy? Is that what you think I am? Something to snap beneath your heel, or twixt your mitts? Tell me true. Is that what you find me to be?” said the man.
Tom didn’t speak. He flexed the grip in his brass knuckles, the tendons of his forearm taught. The man took another step, and in his light I held my gaze. But it wasn’t his gait or the geometry of his being. It wasn’t his frightful resemblance. It was, as my eyes strayed along his figure, a singular fact that held my heart within my throat.
He cast no shadow.
“Tom, get back,” I said.
I reached, and gripped Dick’s fingers. I tugged him towards me-but Tom stood even now, his chest heaving. The man dared another step, and bent at the waist. The rim of his hat almost met the ground as he slid forward. His shoes didn’t make a squeak or squeal along the wood-but Tom did. He raised his fist, and let out a war-cry echoed from ages past. His fist gave a glint, and propelled forward.
Then he was on the ground, and the man was gone. Tom gave a grunt as his chin clacked against the floor, right into the unwavering light of the stage.
“A stick, he says. Do you have the faintest idea what a stick can do? Why, many a wondrous thing, if one has the will. And your friend here, well-his will is so singularly concentrated right now,” came the voice. From either side of us, from above. From behind, the sound warm against our necks. Our spines. Our heads.
Tom swept a foot and rose, his face flushed as he glanced about. He turned towards us, knuckles high as he said “Did you see him? The fuck did he go? Swear to christ I’m going to-”
His speech was broken along with his teeth. The knuckles had thirsted-and found purchase with Tom’s own face. He fell to the floor, limbs akimbo as his head clacked against the boards. His fist, though, didn’t join him. It stayed above him, the knuckles coated in a fresh paint of folly. Dick gasped, his fingers tight on mine.
Tom turned his head, and gave a wet cough. He spat, and blood splattered against the boards.
“A stick can bind,” came the voice, rich bass echoing through every synapse, “a stick can break itself-but others too,”
Tom screamed as the knuckles smacked wet into his jaw once more. Dick unclasped his hand from mine. His blade shimmered with captured light as he rushed forward.
“Tom! TOM!” he said.
Another punch, another wet smack of metal on bone. Tom wailed, and Dick leaned in. He reached forward with a fool’s haste.
The hand he reached with gave a final glint before diving into Tom’s chest. Dick screamed as it happened, a wail in such agony it nearly drowned the gurgles of Tom. Dick pressed a foot against his friend’s chest, and dared kicked away. But Tom stayed upon the blade, hacking and coughing and punching all the while.
He met the floor a final time as the voice spoke once more. As Dick turned to me, blood splattered against his hand. His wrist. His chest. His eyes were wide and white as Cain’s own guilt.
“Out, damned spot! Out, OUT!”
Dick’s eyes met mine. His adam’s apple bobbed live wire as the hand gripping the knife raised. With every muscle taut, with Dick straining against a will that wasn’t his own, he let out a scream as the voice broke through once more.
“And for my next trick, I’ll-”
“STOP!”
As the word rolled from my tongue, Dick froze. Every muscle, every tendon grew still as silence. There was a clap-and the light went towards the left. The darkness enveloped Dick and Tom, absorbing the space they had once occupied. Within a second, there was nothing there.
Nothing save the man and me. The crooked man, with his crooked smile and his crooked hat.
“Well, isn’t every day we’ve an intermission. And for what purpose could you possiblywish to interrupt me? No, wait-” he said, raising a single finger. “Under love’s heavy burden do you sink,”
My heart pulses right to my brain as every thought of Dick surges forth. The time we first met. Shoplifting comics. His lips on my neck after we spent all night, our minds past the darkest side of the moon. Tom yelling at us to “cut the gay shit”. Getting high and nude by a fire that felt cooler than he.
But I shake my head. I roll my tongue over my lips, and step forward.
“You can’t lose the game if you don’t play the game,” I say.
The man snorts, and replies “love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. How often have you done the latter, boy? Enough for him to deny you, isn’t it? Isn’t that just one time too many, hrm?”
There’s a clap, and the light splits. Dick stands there, not a single twitch to betray him. Frozen with his mouth agape, the knife ready to plunge. I stand there for a long moment, just looking at him.
Then my eyes close, and I turn my head away.
“Please, just-just not him. Let him go, and you can have me. You can do whatever you want, but just-”
“Oh, but boy?” says the man, his grin widening beneath his brim, “These violent delights have violent ends, don’t they? You know that tale, don’t you? It’s so much like this one, isn’t it? Why, your whole head is full of stories, isn’t it? Don’t lie to me either. I can see it all, every word. That’s why it bubbles out of you. But he-he doesn’t understand, does he? None of them do. Answer me boy,”
I dare to swallow the stone in my throat. It’s not easy, but it passes after a great while. I shake my head, and the man gives the slightest tip of the hat.
“Such a powerful will you’ve got there. So big and passionate, and yet you’re squandering it on these mongrels. Would be a shame to let that happen,” he says. He lifts his cane, and slams the tip against the planks once, twice. He lifts it a third time, and slams it with a clatter. The stagelight on Dick disappears. When I turn back to the man, I find him before me. Cane hooked over his forearm, the top of his hat greeting my eyes. His hands are spread wide before me.
In his grip are playing cards. Filthy, torn and bent things they were. I count thirteen in all.
“Pick one,” comes his voice from the back of my skull. “And whatever it might be that’s how your story will go. There’s a chance here-a chance for you all to wake as though this was a dream. A chance for you to die, a chance for him to live. All things are here-”
“Who are you?” I blurt.
His lips pause, then dance as a giggle erupts from him.
“Mayhaps that’s in there as well. But do be coy-you can only draw once,”
“What happens if I choose the wrong card?” I say.
“There’s no wrong cards. No wrong ends. Death, life-it’s all aspects of the same wriggling, writhing beast of will. What is it you will most, boy? It’s here, you know-”
His hand splays over the cards, his yellowed fingernails dragging against them.
“-all you need do is choose,”
I stare at the cards. These tattered slips of paper, filthy with possibility and worse yet.
I raise my hand, and I pull a single one from his grip.
Tale starts of a girl, always desired a chest ever since high school but never grew an inch. Once old she died without being in peace, her wish, her own desire never fulfilled and that was to grow at least a bit in the chest department. Her own life unfulfilled ended up turning her soul into a ghost but something was different, she was young again and she had breasts! But small ones, at least she had something she thought but not enough to satisfy her…so since she is a ghost, she had an idea. To go on a search for a perfect host to take over and make her host grow until she was happy enough. After long search she finally found the perfect host that desired the same as her. As soon as she is about to possess her, something goes wrong and ends up in a different body. So now she is stuck in that body while the soul of that girl is still in control and conscious over her original body, the ghost ignores the girl so she just goes to work on growing her breasts.
Note: I took some liberties with this request. While I didn’t adhere to the strictest letter of it, there was a story about the anger and loathing of our own regrets here waiting to happen. That’s what I went with, with a peppering of accepting our own inevitability. As such, the work comes off a bit harsh at the start. Stick with it, dear deviants. Likewise, I’d love to hear your thoughts.-J
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I hate to break it to you, but there’s no heaven.
Okay, so there might be. There might be a hell too. There’s probably a lot of other places I could be right now-but I’m here. Living and dying, they’re one and the same really. You spend every moment wishing you were anywhere else. Anyone else. Then poof-you close your eyes a final time, and that’s it. Times up. You’re done. Maybe you’re a rockstar, maybe you’re a shithead. But in death, everyone’s the same. Every life is the same.
I mean, unless you’re greedy. Unless you’re selfish. If you’re tuned up when you croak, congrats. You’ve cracked the code to immortality. There won’t be a white light or hellfire. No prompt chorus of angels, no cackling demons. That blink, it extends for one long moment. Then you never need to blink again.
Hi. I’m Phillis. “Phil” if you want. I’m a shade.
Oh, don’t shit your pants on me. I’ve heard all the scooby doo bullshit about “ectoplasm”, readings and all that. No, you’re not going to see me. You’re not going to feel me. I can yell until my non-existent lungs collapse. You’re not going to hear a peep unless I want you to. And I do want you to-but this? This, this ain’t a haunting okay?
It’s a warning.
See, I’ve got my eyes on that life support over there. That bouncing green line. The thing pumping with every breath. Those machines, that’s all that’s keeping you alive. It’s the only reason you’re here still at all. You could have been someone important before now. Maybe you gave your life to charity. You’re an organ donor. Or maybe you’re pure fucking evil, man. More than likely though? You’re just like me. Just like everyone else.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s coming. The great equalizer. It might be taking it’s time, but it ain’t stopping ‘til you do. So look, stop bug-eying me and listen up. What I’m gonna tell you, it’s the difference between heaven and hell. Between a waiting room and finality.
You don’t wanna live forever, right?
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Back when I was still a meat sack? Shit, there was driftwood curvier than me.
You’ve read “Sarah Plain and Tall”, right? No? The hell is wrong with you, it’s a classic. Okay, whatever. Point is, that title describes me to a tee. Six feet even, flat as asphalt. Puberty coughed in my general direction, then went it’s merry way. I got the height and hair, but none of the bounty. Oh, all the other girls did. That’s how they got husbands and wives. People, they say “love isn’t about appearances”, but some G-cups sure as hell get a conversation started. It’s not that I hated the others, not really. I mean, it’s a petty thing, hating someone for their body.
The truth is? I just hated myself. I hated how thin I was, hated stuffing my bra. I hated all those little tricks your friends tell you. “Just get a push up bra,” they’d say. “Oh, try these water bras!” they would mutter. Thing is, for a bra to be worth a shit? Ya’ had to have something to hold up. It had to be forty five degrees outside for anyone to even notice I might be a woman. Do you know what that does to someone? Day in, day fuckin’ out all these fucking gazongas bouncing around you. And there you are, still as skinny as when you were five.
Plane and tall. Right up until I died.
It’s petty to hate someone for their looks. But I say it’s damned human to hate yourself for it. Nobodies really happy with themselves, I think-but at least they could make due. They could take those tricks, those countless underwires and be somebody. When I finally croaked, ya’ think there was a husband or a wifey there? A bunch of kids surrounding the bed, clutching my hand?
No.
No there wasn’t.
I barely made the sheet rise beneath it. The orderlies, they were surprised when they walked in. Until they looked at the mattress, they thought the machine was malfunctioning.
My life, it wasn’t something a bra could fix. It wasn’t something countless rolls of toilet paper was gonna make better. “You have a great personality” wasn’t going to fill out my ass or tits. No amount of makeup was resistant to tears. Every time I drew a breath, the rise of my shirt so shallow? It was just another reminder. Just another moment nobody heard me but myself.
Death makes us equal.
But sometimes, if you’re living like me? It frees you, too.
You know how in the movies, they make death look all dramatic right? Or maybe they make it super sexy, like in Meet Joe Black? Look, I know this isn’t what you wanna hear. Especially as close as you are. But death, it’s neither. It happens, and then you’re done. You rattle one final time, shit your pants, and that’s it. Someone comes in to clean you up, and it’s over. Maybe you go somewhere better, maybe not.
But I’d be willing to bet, sitting here in this hospital bed, you’ve things on your mind don’t you? Between the pills and the morphine, the light flicker still. Memories bright as super eights in the back of your head. Every triumph, every fuck up. You can’t even skip to the next scene.
I was like that.
Wanna know what my movies looked like?
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Self love and self loathing, they’re kinda the same thing.
We’re all equal at that final breath. The curtain comes down, and it doesn’t make a damn if you’re Ron Pearlman or Ron Jeremy.
Those super eights in my head, they’re filled with hours of porn.
Take a guess which kind.
Macromastia. That’s what it’s called, but it’s not sexy enough to market. Instead, they say “plumpers”, “whoppers”, “hangers”, “Saggers”. Every damned thing they can so it’s got a pretty bow for public consumption. The real thing is too cold and clinical. No, even in porn, you can’t get away from Joe Black. I watched it all. Hitomi Tanaka, Samantha 38g. Every no-name who could make their boyfriend’s cock disappear. If they were over a D-cup, they flickered on my screen while I was knuckle deep.
Death and sex, hate and love.
If you live a full, happy life? You never taste these baselines.
I’d watch these girls lift their tits. They would pull them right up to their lips for a suck. I watched as they smacked against their stomachs. How they would clap as they were getting fucked. The whole time, I had the sound off. The only thing I would hear is the squelch of my own cunt, the ragged inhale of every breath. The things I said as I smacked chest.
“Whore,” I sputter, “You don’t fucking deserve those,”
“Fucking bit-tittied slut,” I’d say, shoving another finger in.
The more fervant my phrasing got? The harder I came. It got to a point I couldn’t even orgasm unless I was practically spitting at the screen. I’d get off work, come home, and lock the door. I’d go into my room, and pull out my laptop. Then I’d curse. I’d scream. “Cunt!” I’d yell, “You fucking cunt! You like that, those fucking funbags getting sucked?”
The super at my building got called so many times he eventually stopped caring. My neighbors stopped talking to me at all. They would just pass me by as I left my apartment. Eyes at the floor, in such a damned hurry all the sudden. I knew why. I got it, I understood. My life, it wasn’t so pretty for them. They didn’t like what they heard, what they saw.
Yelling and screaming like that, it was the only time I felt alive. That I mattered. Plane and tall, but still here with my blood pumping. With my cunt shuddering as I soaked the sheets, I’d scream.
“Bitch! Fucking big tittied fucking bitch!”
Some people go to confession for that. They turn to god, they turn to meditation.
My nirvana was in my right hand.
Then the tumor finally won.
I started losing track of time when I came. First it was an hour here, a few there. I just assumed it was exhaustion. Between work and my self communions, I was running thin. Then it was an entire day. The first time it happened, I woke up on sunday morning. Samantha 38G was screaming as she took a twelve inch cock. My eyes fluttered, and I peeled myself from my sheets. I stared at the screen, watching her get pounded by a guy who spoke only in grunts. “Ooooh, fuck me! fuck me! fuck me!” she said. Every thrust made her breasts smack against her stomach. It might as well have been a hammer against my skull.
I clutched my temple, and closed the laptop. I turned towards the night stand, and picked up my phone.
It was at ten percent power, and a day off. I blinked, and got up to find my charger. I figured it was just acting screwy because of the battery-phones do that, right? I swung my feet over the mattress, and rose.
The first sign something was off was my legs. It wasn’t that they were unsteady-I always wobbled a bit when I got up. No, it was the fact they didn’t want to work at all. I hobbled around, my arms flailing as everything became a blur. I shot a hand out, my palm smacking against the wall. I was breathing fast-way too damned fast.
Then my stomach rolled and I vomited.
I pulled my phone to my ear, and dialed 911. The operator on the line, they spoke to me. I remember that much. When I tried to talk though, all that came out was word salad. Things I’d said so much over the last few months they rolled from my tongue on instinct.
“Bitch, big bapping whore, you fucking like this don’t you? Fucking tits,”
Love and hate.
Life or death.
As I laid there, vomit still warm beneath me, I reached up. I rolled my hands over my chest, and looked down as the operator assured me someone was on their way. As they pleaded with me to stay on the line. I sat there, smacking my chest so loud it clapped.
“Cunt! Fucking fat tit cunt!”
One slap, two. My skin was tender and red, each slap so hard it left a print. Looking down at it, I thought for a second the marks were cupped in prayer. As the operator told me they were sending the police, the camera roll changed.
The light flickered, and a different film started playing.
One of me when I was twelve, and on my knees praying to god for boobs. Just like the other girls.
Another slap, the operator’s voice crying that I had so much to live for.
Jeremy, Pearlman.
Confession, masturbation.
When death comes creeping, when that equalizer gives the first gasp down your neck?
It doesn’t make a damn if those paramedics find you seeking your own way to heaven. Right there, reeking of spent sweat, dried cum and vommit. Screaming “Whore! Fucking WHORE!” as you shudder one last time, squirting all over their uniforms. It comes all the same despite your planning. Despite your assumptions, despite all those hopes you might have stored away.
Just like love.
I do wonder though if they wish they’d sent a priest.
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Breathe.
Take as deep a breath as you can, and hold it. Keep it in your lungs until they start to strain. Good, that’s good. Just like that.
Taking that breath, it’s something you do every day. Your life is measured by it. You don’t think about it. You just do it.
But three minutes without oxygen, and you’re dead. Okay, so technically you can be revived six minutes after. But the point remains. Something so small that it doesn’t warrant a thought can kill you in less time than it takes to get a burger. How long did that feel just now? Between the morphine bouts you’ve clarity still. So tell me. How long did that actually feel?
Forty-five seconds.
It felt like hours, didn’t it?
The things we take for granted, the things we ignore? They’re in it for the long game, and they’ve far, far more patience than you.
My body-my plane and tall body-it waited twenty-four years to kill me. The tumor had attached itself against my brain stem. The passing out? Yeah. That had been going on for over a year. Looking back now, I realize they weren’t just afternoon naps. I’d pass out and forget to breathe. Forget to do the one basic thing we all need.
All because my focus was elsewhere.
Being dead, being a shade? It didn’t dull the brightness of those super eights in my skull. It didn’t quell the echoing din of their slapping. My hands were still smacking my chest when I opened my eyes.
When I looked down.
When I saw them try to revive me.
The first thought I had wasn’t “oh shit, I must be dead”. They do that in the movies all the fucking time. Someone dies, and they freak out seeing themselves. These shows, they try to make death out as this trauma. This psychological scarring that leads to things like me. But do you know what I thought when I looked down?
That I needed to shave.
That I’d never stop laughing about the paramedics faces.
I knew I was dead-there wasn’t a turn back. I knew right away how it happened, too. I mean, I didn’t stick around to see them open me at the morgue. Didn’t have to, really. The realization was right there, filling the same spot the tumor did. I knew, and that was enough.
I spent the first three minutes just standing there. Just watching them work. Listening to them swear, and talk about where they were getting lunch. Then I was on a gurney and wheeled away. They shut the door behind them, and flicked the lock.
Then I tried to move. I could get around easy enough. It was the simple things, though. Picking up my phone just wasn’t gonna happen. The TV flicked on, but all that came on was static. When’s the last time THAT was a thing? The lights popped as I passed beneath them. You would think I knew this was going to happen, but it was a massive pain in the ass. I even tried to flip the breakers, all that. If my fingers didn’t slip right through, things just didn’t work.
That’s why I say “shade” instead of “ghost”, you know. Ghosts, they can make shit float. They toss lamps around rooms. People hear them. See them, feel them. Whatever mortality they’ve shed, they’re still human. They interact, they’re part of the world still.
Shades aren’t.
We can’t do any of those things, but we’re here still. A half-life between the cradle and the grave. Love, hate. Always afraid, always hopeful.
It’s not like we wanted to live forever-we knew we were gonna die. We knew we were dead. But who the hell plans for this?
Hold on, hold on. I know what you’re thinking. “Hurrdurr if I that’s true then how are you here?”
Well, I’m not.
All this you see, it’s not me. Not a single jiggling inch of it. I’m flat, remember?
Can you raise your hand still? Good.
Take a deep breath, and feel me. Touch me, caress me. Feel how warm I am. Hold that breath, and keep squeezing.
You can’t see us, you can’t hear us. Us shades, we’re pretty damn limited. But there is one thing we can do. It’s so very, very easy.
Squeeze a little tighter-here, let me free them okay?
Shades can do the one thing they never could in the flesh. Our flesh, at least.
We can be happy.
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I could pass through walls like a voyeur’s wettest dream. All those people who annoy you on their phone in public? It was so easy. I just had to walk by them. Poof, their calls dropped. All of this was amusing for a hot minute. I gave thought about doing crazy stuff. Go to the white house, go to Area 51. See what Brad Pitt was up to. Thing was though, it wasn’t like I could fly. Oh, yeah-hate to disappoint you. Ghosts don’t float, and good luck if there’s a body of water. It’s like hitting a brick wall. You’ll make it right to the edge but no further. When I thought about how I’d have to walk everywhere, well.
Shit, it was just exhausting. Do you know just how tenuous something has to be to make me tired? I can’t even physically FEEL anything anymore.
With all that dashed, I decided to sit down and think. Try and work it out, you know? I mean, I’m no genius. Lack of grip didn’t help with that. But I could shadow people-stand right behind them, read over their shoulder. It’s creepy, I know-the first few times I did it, I approached all slow. I’d tip toe behind somebody, and lean as far as I could. I kept being afraid they would feel me. Like a cold chill, or something. But-but then they didn’t. They didn’t give the slightest tell at all. So I stopped being careful. I snooped full time.
Old habits, rules of common courtesy-these go with you well beyond death. If you were ever worried a ghost was watching you jack off? At least a few turn their backs.
I kept looking for people to shadow. Goth types, with their inverted crosses and horror shirts. The over worked that constantly looked up suicide hotlines on their phones. Our town had one or two self-proclaimed psychics. I shadowed them-and found them to just be very tired cat owners. It was all a gamble, really. Shadowing people. I kept chasing all the folks you would think-only to strike out. The goths just liked angry music and spikey shit. The corporate drones thought “Ghost Adventures” was real. So I took a shotgun approach.
The library was great for this-when I got lucky. I figured if I hung around the paranormal section, I’d get the odd goofball or two. Libraries, though? They’re more day cares for like, grandmas who read cozy mystery novels. The kind of people who use public wifi to surreptitiously look at porn in the corner. Trust me, happens more often than you would think. Those same psychics I shadowed, they would show up. Brow knit, jaw clenched. I thought they were ready for serious ghosty shit.
They would pass right by the paranormal section for the Harlequin romances.
I got so fucking mad at them that I balled up my fist, and swung at one.
Now, you’ve got to understand something. Being a shade, a ghost? You grasp the basics really quickly. It’s not all torment and rattling chains. You’re here, not there. It’s a lot like it was, but it isn’t anymore. You learn by doing just like before. So when I swung at her, I thought it would land.
I swung, and watched as I whiffed right through. The lady stiffened up, sucked in some air. She stood there, Raunchy Ranch Hands firm in her grip. Her weave shivered, and her head twisted to look at me.
If I still had bowels, they probably would have dropped it all right then. She stood there, her eyes frantic as she looked down the aisle. I took a step back, and put my hands up.
“Whoooooaaa there,” I said, my voice strange. It sounded like an echo at the bottom of a well. I hadn’t spoken in months-to people, to myself. Every syllable was frantic and garbled as I tried to think.
“H-hey, there’s no reason we can’t be friendly, okay?” I said.
She turned her head from the aisle, and went back to facing the stacks. Nothing said, no indication she had so much as seen me. I stood there a long while. Trying to hold my breath, trying to give in to an old habit.
Trying to live again.
I can’t say what motivated me to touch her once more. The fact I got any reaction at all, probably. But I did, and my hands sunk right through her with the same ease they had all else. Then I snagged on something. Well, snag isn’t the right word. It was like my fingertips reached a point they felt sucked in. Like right towards the center of this woman was an event horizon. She had been standing there, breathing way too hard over ranch hands until then.
But when I touched that-when I got snagged on her most inner self? She went rigid. Her breathing slowed, the tips of my fingers pulling closer towards it. Soooooo I figured, hey. Can’t die again right?
This existence, it’s a lot like the one before. You learn by doing.
I found out I could possess people by being a fuck up.
Story of my life, eh?
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This nurse-this lady you see, right now? Her name’s Tina, right?
God, I hope so. That’s the trouble with possession, you know. It’s you inside-not them. Their memories, their ideas, feelings? When your fingers snag, it’s not on any of that. It feels more like pouring through a sieve. The pressure, it’s small but sure. A crack on their heart that lets you in. Sometimes it’s easy-there’s hardly any tug. I just slip right in, slip right out. Other times though, it’s just this tiny little thing. A black hole in someone’s chest pulling towards destruction.
It’s not so easy getting out of people like that. When I’m in them, it’s what I bet drowning is like. Their skin feels stretched so tight over you, and their heart just pounds.
I’m really glad Tina was one of the easy ones. If that’s her actual name.
Little things like that, they’re three minute killers too. Especially when people have family, especially with their friends. You can keep the act up for a while, but then you inevitably get “Hey, are you alright? You’re acting weird,”
The first time, you blame it on a cold.
The second time, you’re having an off day.
But that third time, they sit you down. They spill their guts to you, and you’re sitting there trying to meander through someone else’s trauma. The post mortem of someone else’s foul ups. It’s so, so damned awkward that now I hunt instead of slipping in whoever I like.
That-and, well. The changes.
Imagine having the freedom to put yourself through hell. To rob a bank, to do all the lines you ever wanted. You can check out at any time, scott free. I did both, and laughed when I slipped out. I couldn’t help it, okay? When you’re staring down eternity, when every single moment blurs into just holding on? You take what you can get. The value of those around you, it takes on way less meaning. People, consequence don’t scare you anymore.
It’s time. It’s realizing how long your death really is going to be. That’s what scares you. So you run from it. You bury it in sensation and try not to think. The drugs, the thrills-it’s all so fun at first.
But then you need something a little more. Sex and death, they’re a serpent eating it’s own tail.
I decided it was time to chase mine. Find something a little long term. It was going to take the perfect storm to make it work.
I needed someone single, or dating at the worst. I needed someone in fairly decent health. And I wanted someone hot. In a lot of ways, finding the ideal candidate was a lot like buying a used car. I’d shadow them, watch their routine. Watch their entire day. Their friends, their associates, their work. What they did when no one was looking. All for the slightest ding, the slightest scratch. I can’t tell you how many people made it right to the end-only for me to find out they smoke. They’ve a diagnosis they haven’t told anyone about. Their ride, it looked fine on the outside. The moment I was ready to strap in though, I saw the wear. The rot.
Times like that I thought about my own body. I wondered if I’d been buried, and where. Then I’d go possess a degenerate and fuck off from the planet.
No, don’t worry-Tina’s not weird. I think. She’s just temporary.
Above all this though, I needed someone I could improve. Someone that, if I wanted, I could mold. A life borrowed-then made to fit.
If you think that’s reeking of entitlement, you’re damn right it is. An entire fucking life ignored, only for my afterlife to be the same? Nah. Nah, fuck that. And fuck you for thinking it’s entitled. After all the shit I had to deal with only to die alone? I earned a better take. A second fucking chance, one I couldn’t screw up this time. Sure as shit wasn’t a shortage of options.
I went for the men first. Men, with their physiques, their cocks. For a while that was fun. But after the first month it just made my stomach twist. I had to be smart and funy, a brute in the sheets. I had to fuck like a porn star with a dad bod. I had to know how to repair any damned thing someone needed, and I had to do it all without complaining. No amount of jerking off is worth that.
And besides, your prostate is in your ass. Never been a fan of anal and I’m sure as shit not starting.
Smile. You’re safe.
I could have been absolutely anyone else. Anyone at all, but after six months with a dick? I craved the familiar. I still wanted them healthy, hot and homely enough to make a glow-up rewarding. I had my eyes set on this red-headed, five foot nothing brunette. Mop-topped and freckled, she was damned adorable. Beneath her clothes was a set of perky b-cups. I’d wanted double D, but exceptions breed exceptions on exceptions. Her ass helped to balance it out too. It jiggled, but not so much it was laughable.
What I saw wasn’t a fun afternoon, a few lines. It wasn’t sensory overload until I got tired.
It was my take two. Another start, already set up with wiggle room to mold.
At least, she was going to be.
Sally-that was her name-Sally had a nice life. Friends that seemed not to pry, family a few states over she called once a week. She didn’t go out for drinks, didn’t hang out at weird places. No, she woke up, went to work, and came home. She watched TV and ate whatever BlueApron had sent. A perfect blank.
I decided to get her while she was sleeping one night. She had already dressed down for the night-an oversized college shirt, plane cotton panties. She was texting on the couch while Big Bang Theory bled into NCIS. Every time a show ended, I’d check the clock. She’d check her phone. Every stroke of the minute hand made me want to grin. Sally finally put her phone down, and got up. She was going towards the bathroom.
I couldn’t wait another minute.
If I still had a heart, it would have matched the machine gun fire blaring from the living room. I reached out, fingers spreading as I graced that college shirt.
Then the phone rang.
Sally turned on her heel, and I dove head first through a Yale logo. Sally jogged towards the living room, and there I was. Arms flailing, my first grasp at a real life a hack job.
Only it wasn’t.
Remember when I said you learn by doing? Being a shade, there’s no guides. No cutesy Pinterest posts with simple how-tos. No clickbait possession posts with “just one neat trick”. No, you do. Then you fuck up, and learn what not to do. Possessing Sally wasn’t what I would call a fuck up-not quite. And I’ll be honest with you. Shit, you’re dying. We’ve come this far. You deserve it.
I just slipped out of her body Monday.
This wednesday would have been two years. Before her, the longest I’d been with anybody was a month. So no, I wouldn’t say Sally was a fuck up. Not by a long, long stretch. But I learned a hell of a lot that night.
Like the fact I didn’t need the entire host.
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In hindsight, it’s a silly thing. One so many fucking people would laugh at. Being upset that I didn’t have tits, pre-worm bait. But the thing is, tits weren’t just that. They weren’t something I could just ignore. Love and hate, life and death. Chasing my own damned tail any way I could, but it didn’t matter.
Nobody cared because my shirts weren’t filled out.
Sally, she was a B. Not massive, but not much. But she did have her share of looks, stares. The occasional cat call. All this seems so absurd to envy, but if I’d been above ground? I would have hated her for it. Because these, pert nipples and all?
All the crap she endured because of them?
It was life. The good, the bad. The love and the hate of it all, it was hers. She could cup all that potential right against her palm and smile.
At least, she did. For a while, Sally was really, really happy.
Then came my learning.
Until that night, when I possessed people? I took the whole thing. Head and flesh. Their hands, their feet, their breasts, their swinging dicks. I took it all in stride, every second of breath held on to as long as I could. Every sensation a private, separate heaven away from the void. But when Sally turned, when I landed smack dab into her tits?
It was all I needed. All I’d wanted, even. Round and supple, every step making them-making me-bounce. It was damned confusing at first. Being boobs, it lacked the autonomy of the whole. Then Sally would lay in bed, her shirt forgotten on the floor. She would reach a hand up cup me. She’d pinch, she would tweak me as the other hand slipped past her panties. Every caress, every touch sent shudders through me. I’d grow so warm against her finger tips. So tight, and Sally would just tug harder. She’d slip another finger in, pulling her hand away as she reached for the night stand. She’d pull the first drawer out, her hand smacking blind as she rode herself.
Then she would pull out the clamps. The suckers. All stuff I’d never had a reason to use. Stuff that made me snarl when I saw it.
Something I know now that I didn’t then is storing. Some call ’em “chakras”. Those psychic cat ladies in our town, they called it “latent energy” or something. Me, I go with storing. It’s nice, it’s simple, and that’s exactly what it is. Basically, us shades? We’re leeches. Hey, it’s true. We attach ourselves to people, and feed off their lives. We use them up, and as soon as we’re satiated we’re out. I hadn’t thought of it until now, but that didn’t change the tugging of Sally. It didn’t hold back every nerve ending firing off, the radiating warmth of life pulsing through me.
Even cumming didn’t stop that. Sally was a hell of a squirter too.
No, no matter what Sally did, I just kept holding and writhing. Every rub, every adjustment in a finicky bra, I felt. I reveled in. I held on to it all as much as I could.
Then her bras started getting tighter. She went through quite a few B-cups before finally going for something bigger. Poor girl worked herself nearly to death at the gym. She thought she was getting fatter. She was-just in one very, very specific spot.
She would come home, sweat dripping from every pore. But it wasn’t a shower she sought.
Sally, poor thing. She would peel right out of her sports bra, and I’d smack right against her.
Heavy hangers. Saggers. These cute little B cups, they were becoming something more. Something I’d always wanted-and something Sally fed as often as she could. She cup them, stretch marks and all. She would lift them right to her lips. At first, she had to reach with her tongue. Roll it right over her nipples. Lapping away at me, at herself.
I’d hold on to those moments. Store them. After a while, those licks turned to suckles. Then smacks right against her face as she rode her toys. She even had to get bigger clamps.
The slight looks, the tilt of the head turned into full-on staring. Sally would blush and the warmth would go right to me. The catcalls grew more frequent, the whistling longer. Three minutes without oxygen can kill you-Sally and I, we were damned lucky we didn’t commit manslaughter.
When she couldn’t find bras in her size anymore, she just stopped. She let me hang free and full, the hem of her shirt nothing against a summer breeze. The slightest draft would send it flying up, and there I’d be. Bathing in every single second of the glow.
Men came. With their hands, with their cocks. They would smack right between me, squeezing tight as they grunted and thrust. Just like on my computer screen so long ago. When they came, their loads would pelt all over me. All over Sally. Every drop would soak right in, and Sally would just shiver.
She joked about doing porn. We almost did, too.
Sally-cute but bland Sally, with her itty-bitty B cups-she was the first I didn’t feel like a parasite in. The first to revel in what I did to her, to us.
I didn’t cut her free because I was done. Far from it, actually. I was having a damned good time. Not, it was for a much simpler reason than that.
But before we get to that, I need you to do something.
Take a deep breath for me. Ignore the beep of your vitals. It’s coming, whether you want it or not.
Hold on to that breath, and just listen.
People say all the time that life is short. It’s so fucking trite to hear that. It’s not what you want to hear, I know. We’re so caught up in our own personal tragedies that quaint, greeting card wisdom just isn’t enough. So we try to take it into our own hands. I did, at least.
But that wasn’t a life. This, for all the fun I’m having, it ain’t one either.
What’s yours been like?
You don’t want to live forever, right?
But if you lay there, if you lay and watch all those super eights in the basement of your mind, you’re going to be just like me. Fumble-fucking around even post-mortem, trying to make sense of it all. It’s not hell, but it’s no heaven either. Just one, long continuous hitch in your lungs.
So after all this, I want to make you an offer.
Sally’s had a great life. She’s going to die well. When she does, I’m hoping I go too. The tits were what drove me all this time, but I’m starting to think now it’s her. Not just her body-her. I’m still around because she’s what I need to focus on, what I can pin my happiness and healing with. But I can’t do that at the risk of placing her right here. Of making her just like me. She’s changed so much-but she’s still her. Still a girl trying to be happy with her body. To be noticed, to live as full as each long second can give.
Damned if I can’t relate.
Can that thing of yours still get up? Yeah? Good. I’m going to slip out of Tina here. She’s probably gonna be real confused-just tell her to check your vitals. I’m cutting her loose, and I’m getting back in Sally.
Then I’m coming right up here, and the three of us are gonna make damned sure none of us stay shades.
Death didn’t give me much. But what it’s given me without the tire of flesh is clarity. The realization that staying in my apartment, spouting pure diesel madness and slapping my tits wasn’t a life. No, that’s made with people. With happy moments.
(Normally I write for you, my lovely deviants. But over the last week, I took some much needed time off-and wrote something for myself. Enjoy-j)
The wretch shudders into a foul cough. For a moment, I think this is it. Our Father will take him. He’ll ascend directly through the roof of this carriage in a brilliant light. His lungs and rheumatism, they’ll fade in the brilliance of a just God. A compassionate deity who will release me from my bondage.
Spittle parts from his lips as he beats his cane to the floor. I watch him, the lid of my eyes still even as his face turns blood red. His hand shakes, and the couch ceases at once. He draws in, the phlegm collected into a slurry as he reaches for the carriage door and spits. He slams it shut with a snarl as the carriage wheels jostle us both.
All the while, rain sieges against the carriage’s thin walls. A peel of thunder cries from above. It’s the first light we’ve had since the storm started.
“Damn it, damn it all to hell! This blasted driver means to be the death of us both. Godless bastard, cross eyed son of a whore!” says the wretch as his jaundiced eyes set upon me. He smacks his cane to the top of the carriage. Once, twice as he cranes his neck.
“Do you hear me, you bloody heretic? Or has God sought to strike you deaf as well as mute?!”
The storm replies with another clap of electric death. If the wretch jumps, or if the carriage skipped, I can’t say. Instead I clutch the bible in my lap tighter. My nails sink into its leather cover as they have countless times. I close my eyes for one long, silent moment.
Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:9.
The wretch scowls at the roof, and mutters a silent curse. He sniffs, and wipes his nose upon his vestments. His eyes turn to me, and hold there for a moment. The flick across my features, fat yellowed orbs in search of secular truth. When he finally finds the scar, his tongue rolls over his lips. He smiles, his teeth as crooked as his collar. When he speaks, it’s in the tinny voice of a carrion bird.
“I’ve heard many, many a good thing of you from the archbishop. It’s true then?”
I say nothing. The carriage rolls on. Deeper into the storm, deeper still as water slaps against the doors. The wretch gives a dry heave of a laugh and taps his cane.
“Aye, a man of few words? Or is it a vow? You know, I see that all the time. With your lot. You take these vows, and you think it’ll make you a martyr. That it? You think there’s some spot reserved just for you in the after life?”
I purse my lips, and grip my bible even tighter as the wretch snorts. He laughs again, and it’s with the sound of bones against rock.
“Damned foolish, that. You know what I think? I think this, all you see before you? It’s hell, boy. And we deserve nothing less,”
He turns to face the window, and the storm greets him with another blast. The carriage rocks for a moment, then settles to the low tug of the road.
“I know better than to claim the mind of God,”
The wretch turns to me, his brow angled in fury. But he stays his words a moment, his eyes flicking back to the scar. He snorts again, and his lips twisted into a cynic’s smile.
“Oh, isn’t that just sweet? After all you’ve seen, and you still claim ignorance? All the wit of a babe fresh off mother’s teat?” he says.
I shake my head, and meet his horrid gaze. “Ignorance is the greatest blessing we can have-and how fortunate you’re far more blessed than I,”
The wretch, he’s about to retort when the wagon begins to slow. The horses whinny, and our driver shouts at them with a Frenchman’s drawl. The carriage rocks once more. A moment later, the door opens. The wretch looks upon the aperture, his jaw still slack. It shuts abruptly, and he turns towards me. He lifts a shaking, gnarled finger as he speaks for the final time.
“You better be all they’ve said you are. Because if you slip even a moment, your tongue won’t be enough to douse the fire,”
He turns back towards the door, and he waves the driver off with a scowl.
@@@
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5.
The verse crawls to the front of my mind as Sister Vanille meets my gaze. A small thing, her habit hides all but the tinge of her cheeks. Her smile is a slice of warmth that makes the storm outside but white noise.
“I’m so glad to see you Father-erm, pardon. I don’t remember your name?”
The Wretch, his headdress slipping, snorts. “News travels quick as pitch in this hovel, then? Pay your respects. This-” he says as he turns towards me, “-is father Loudon. Trained exorcist, hunter of witches, warlocks-”
“I don’t hunt warlocks,” I say. I step before the wretch, and extend my hand to the sister. She stares at it a moment, then takes it. I grip it tenderly, fearful I’d snap the twigs of her fingers. Behind me, the wretch scoffs as his cane drags against stone.
“Don’t hunt warlocks, you say? And why wouldn’t you? They’re heretics just like the rest of the lot, aren’t they?”
“No,” I reply. I pull my hand away, Sister Vanille’s own jerking back as I do. Her eyes flick towards me, and hold as her hands slip back into her sleeves.
“No?” coughs the wretch.
“No. Warlocks are oathbreakers. They’ve their own after them, and aren’t my concern. The rest however, is true. Cardinal?” I say as I turn to face him.
“Your wisdom won’t be necessary here. I’ll fetch your driver?”
The wretch, his wrinkled continence pinching, stares at me as a street mutt would scraps. The tip of his cane meets the ground once. He shakes his head, and begins to hobble towards the door.
“Oh, no. Don’t want to put the golden boy out, do we? Got all you need, right? Well, so do I. I said I’d see you to the door, and have. Good day monsieur,” he says. He approaches the door, his head pitching back in a snort. He spits by the door, muttering to himself as he pushes it ajar. The wet embraces him, and the door slammed closed behind. I turn back to Sister Vanille-who gazes at me like a startled lamb. She takes a step back, and her lips tremble into a smile.
“Sister,” I say, “Do you know the gospels of Matthew?” I say.
“I uh, I suppose I do. Why Father?” she says.
“Matthew ten-sixteen. Behold, I send you as a sheep into a den of wolves, so be cunning as snakes and innocent as doves. Which of those four are you, Sister?”
“One would hope the lamb?” she replies. There’s a tone to her words, one which makes the last utterance a question. I give her a nod, and hold my hands behind me.
“Excellent choice. I’m the serpent. And together, we’re going to root out the wolves. You can handle that, can’t you?”
I watch the soft, supple nape of her neck as she swallows. She nods, and I return it with my own.
“That’s a good girl. The hour is quite late-I suppose the Mother Superior is aware of my coming?”
Sister Vanille nods, and gives a slight smile. “That she is. She was eager to greet you, but as the evening went-”
“No need to apologize. All children of god require rest for the lord’s work. I assume you’ll show me to my quarters?”
“O-oh, yes Father! I can do that. Do you have any…baggage, or-?” she says as she tilts her head, eyes cast behind me.
I shake my head, and pull my bible before me. “None but this. My things will arrive on a separate delivery. Cardinal Gastone was quite-” I bite my tongue, and exhale through my nose. “-eager to begin our journey. As you could tell,”
Sister Vanille grins, and for a moment I see the blush of her cheeks once more. She lifts her sleeves, and hides the comment away as she turns. “This way, Father. We’ve a room just at the end of the hall,”
She begins to walk, the flat of her shoes clacking against stone. I join her just a stride behind, the candle light flickers casting our shadows long. “I do hope I’m not imposing upon anyone. No one had to give up a room, did they?”
“Oh, no no no! Don’t you worry. We’re a small sisterhood. Just myself, Mother Superior, and three others. You’ll meet them tomorrow,” she says.
We speak not a word more as we shuffle down the hall. It’s but a short jaunt, and before long we’re in front of an sagged, pock-marked door. The iron upon it is thick, with a simple metal loop to pull it out. I eye it a moment as Vanille turns to me.
“It’s humble-but I suppose that won’t bother you?”
“Not at all. Thank you dear sister,” I say. I raise a hand towards the iron loop, but stop as Vanille speaks once more.
“Erm, father? Is it true? The reason you’re here? It’s uh-it’s about the incident the other night?”
I stand still, my head turning towards Vanille. I search her face, every curve and line.
I give a small nod, and watch as color drains from it like water on lead panes.
“Good night, dear sister. Do rest-tomorrow we begin,” I say.
I lift the loop, and pull the door back as Vanille stands there. Eyes wide, staring not at the floor but boring into hell itself. Her gaze doesn’t break until the door intercepts it, snug in it’s frame. I exhale, and turn to face the furnishings.
There’s a shoddy table, with an equally shoddy chair I dare not put weight upon. A single thick candle burns. It’s fresh, without the wax having dropped a single centimeter along its sides. The bed lay shoved in the corner. A gray woolen blanket lay atop it, with a pillow the size of a pillbox. I walk towards it, and press my palm against it. It holds firm, and I suppress a sigh. Instead, I turn, and sit down upon it. I pull my boots from my feet, and lay my head down. The candle flickers along the ceiling, cutting odd shadows. They twist and dance about, shapes indiscernible.
I only rise to snuff it out when my eyes threaten to hold close, and firm. It’s only then I realize my bible is still in my hands.
I toss it upon the table, and don’t give it another thought.
@@@
The pounding at the door bellies the pounder. But it’s not the urgency that bolts me upright. It’s that when I open my eyes to behold the room, it’s still dark.
“Father-father please, come quick! It’s happening!” says a voice beyond the door. I twist upon the mattress, toes deft as they slip into my boots. I rise, and slap my balm against the table. It graces leather and my grip tightens about the book. I walk to the door, and feel for the loop. My hand finds purchase, and I shoved against the wood as it sways.
Sister Vanille, candle in hand, stands in the hall. Her eyes are wide and manic, and beside her stands a plump woman perhaps a year younger. Her features are difficult to discern in the light-but the few I grasp match Vanille’s own.
Pale faced terror.
I turn to Vanille, my brow knit. “Sister? ‘Tis time for morning prayer already?”
“No father! It’s-” she says, her lips a thin line. It’s only then I see the steady, cyclical rise of her habit. Fast and steady. I raise a hand, and grip her shoulder firmly.
“Dear lamb, what’s the matter? Tell me, and tell me true,”
Vanille takes a draught of air, and tilts her head past us. Down the hall. “It’s the mother superior, she’s-she’s sick sir,”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we thought she had a summer cold. She was irritable, rather snappish at dinner. After I tended to you, I went to tell her you had arrived. But she wouldn’t open the door. And now, she-”
Before Vanille can finish, there came a howl from beyond us. Beyond the darkness of the hall, beyond the landing. It’s a tinny, shriek of a thing that echoes through the stone walls. My head snaps as my ears perk-and once the sound dies, I turn back to the pair.
“Vanille, you’ve done well. You’ve been very brave, you and sister-” I said, turning to face the shadow.
“Fey,” says the shadow. I nod, and turn back to Vanille.
“You and sister Fey have been brave. But right now, I need you to return to your rooms. Bolt the doors if you can, do you understand?” I say, with a hope the breaking of my voice stays in check.
Vanille stares, then gives a slow nod. Her lips purse, and she turns to the other. “Come Fey. Let us back to the beds, yes?”
“Before you go-” I say. I turn back into my room, and bring back the candle from the table. Vanille lights the wick, and the pair abscond at once down the hall. I follow them a pace beyond, the sickly light of our candles nary enough to hold off the dark. They stop near the entryway, at a door not unlike mine.
Fey grips the handle, and Vanille looks back to me. “Father? Do-do be careful please?”
I turn to her, and search for her eyes. Gone are it’s eerie glooms from earlier. In their place resides the gaze of panic. I try to smile, a verse pelting from my lips.
“The lord is with me. I will not be afraid-what can man do to me?”
But Vanille’s eyes don’t falter. Her lips pull tighter as she gives a simple shake of her head. “It’s not mortal ailments I fear, father. Be well, and Christ be with you,”
The door opens, and the pair disappear beyond it. Their door shudders into place, and beyond it I hear the faint whispers only hearsay can birth. I turn back towards the corridor-another scream breaking the peace.
I step forward, my bible tight within my grip as darkness parts from my light.
@@@
I sit, grip still tight upon the book as I watch the bed. It doesn’t rattle, it doesn’t shake. It doesn’t spin within the air. It’s occupant doesn’t float. All of these things, they’re folk tales. The idle chatter of the illiterate and lame. No possession-be it one I’d been privy to or no-ever had such an occurrence. None reported in all the church’s archives held such details.
Possessions manifest in much more mundane ways.
The woman before me breathes as Vanille did. Her habit lays about her body, ripped and tattered. The flesh beneath is mahogany rich, and just as supple. Her eyes, though wide, are voids within the reach of the candle. She moves not a mote, save for her breathing. She hadn’t said a word as I’d knocked, nor spoke after I entered the room. The door, like mine, held fast in it’s frame.
I’d taken to her chair, and pulled it from the table. I sat, bible in my palms as I stared into her unblinking eyes. I couldn’t tell how long we had sat-there wasn’t a window to track the sun. Only the candles, only the both of us. Only the sweltering heat to envelope us both. I had felt it the moment I entered. It caressed, it engulfed. It swallowed me utterly, sweat beading within my collar.
The chair creaked as I straightened my spine. I opened my bible with my thumb, fingers quick to find the exact page I needed. The woman before me, her lips twinged into a smirk. She rises from her bottom to her knees, right at the footboard. Her fingers curl around it, and I watch as her nails sink into the wood. She leans forward at a deep angle, her smirk widening. It’s only as her habit falls from her hips forward that I look upon the holy script.
I raise my hand, and begin to read.
“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our day of battle,” I say. The woman lets out a snort, and I hear the stiff mattress shift. I hear the slip of cloth-perhaps the blanket, perhaps her habit. I curl my hand into a fist, my brow arched as I project my voice.
“Be a safeguard against the wickedness and snares of devils-”
“Father?” comes a soft voice, “Father? Look upon me. Do I appear a wicked snare to you?”
“Silence, ‘lest you give me your name,” I reply. I clenched my fist tighter, so much that I feel my nails dig within the flesh of my palm. There’s the sound of soft footfalls, but I don’t look up from my book.
I can’t, not even for a moment. For as I continue to speak, I feel it draws closer. That warmth, so sweltering as I entered, it’s here. Right before me, pouring upon me like the sun itself.
“Jazamine,” comes the voice, “Mother Jazamine. But you knew that already, didn’t you father?”
“May God rebuke them, we humbly pray-”
“Father? Feel me. Lay thy hands on me, and know you’ve nothing to fear. I’m but flesh, just like you,”
“-O’ prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all other evil spirits that might prowl-”
“Funny,” says the voice, “You didn’t cast out sister Agatha, did you?”
At the mention of the name, my tongue falls still. The fire in my throat turns to charred coals, and I almost close the book. My mouth, slack and mute, shuts all of a moment. Then it opens as fury bubbles from my stomach, broiling my mind and tongue. Both move to speak.
Both are silenced by the flesh of the sister appearing in my view. By the grip of her hand as it cups the back of my neck. Her thighs envelope me as her legs wrap about the chair. She grips the bible absently from me, tossing it into a corner. The tips of her fingers grace my cheek as she tilts my head-up, up into the dark void of her eyes. She smiles, and taps against a fingertip against my scar.
“She loves you,” she says.
Were I to clench my jaw any tighter, it would snap the word of the pope himself. Jazmine brings her face closer, and presses her lips the gash. Her hands sink as she pulls me into an embrace. Her head finds my shoulder, and when she speaks the voice reverberates inside my skull.
“She still loves you-even now. And she forgives you,”
“She’s dead,” I say. I spit the words out like a curse, and cinch my eyes closed. I take my hands, and grip her hips tight enough to feel the bones. I shove her from atop me, and she meets the ground with a thud. The Mother gives a yelp, her thighs splayed to reveal a throbbing, girthy sex. She frowns, her hand reaching for the meat of her flank as she looks at me. I rise, and walk towards my bible.
“Awfully rough for a priest,” comes the echo in my head.
“Silence your lying tongue,” I shout back, bending to grip the book. There comes a chortle from behind me, one I rise to face. The Mother is perched upon the back of the chair, her girth hanging over the back. The tip drips upon the seat, and she cuts a foxes smile at me.
“So, let me get this right,” she says, “you can believe a man came back from the dead, you can believe in the holy ghost, and demons-but you can’t believe a possessed woman loved you? That perhaps her guest did as well?”
I open the book, and cast my gaze upon it. “Soul of christ,” I shout, “Sanctify me-”
“Oh, do shut up. You claim ignorance to the mind of god, and blindly follow his rites? How can you be sure the words you say will hold any effect upon me?”
“Oh God, Oh Jesus, Hear me-”
“Did you think perhaps the reason it doesn’t work is because all you know is wrong?” says the Mother, rising to her heels upon the chair. Standing as such, her shadow grows long in the candle light. It encompasses me utterly-and blots out the words like spilled ink.
For the second time, my jaw slacks and closes. I shut the book, and shield my eyes from the heat, from the sight before me.
“Father-did you ever stop to think that in all you’ve done, perhaps you made a mistake about us?”
The words beat about my brain, the echo a constant dirge. The book falls from my hands as I clap my palms to my skull, as I try to focus on anything else. On and on it goes, one voice growing to thousands as I try to pray. All of which falls silent as her hand graces my chin, and pulls my face higher.
Her feet are still planted to the chair, but she stands upon it. Parallel to the floor, dark eyes wide as they look to mine. When she smiles, it’s not with malice-nor with lust.
It’s a love only Mary herself could give.
She laughs again, like a mother does when a child warms her. When she speaks again, it’s with her own voice-not the echo.
“It’s okay to be wrong, Father. About yourself, about your work. All I’m asking of you is to listen for a moment. Can you give a sinner that?”
My nostrils flare as I inhale. The Mother superior twists and cavorts her body until she’s sitting upon the chair. Her arms hook over the back of it, and I don’t fight back a glance at her supple bust. Her cheeks darken, and she parts her legs wider. My eyes cast down, and linger for a moment before they snap back.
“Agatha forgives you. She’s not in Hell, and she’s happy. Do you understand?”
My thoughts-once again my own-race to meet my tongue all at once. A thousand things wrestle to escape first, but what comes is the simplest words of all.
“How do you know that?” I say, every word rasping upon the next.
The Mother superior-Jasmine-she smiles and lifts her palms. “Oh, it’s quite simple-she wasn’t possessed. Not by any of us, at any rate,”
“But I-” I start, but my tongue falls dumb beyond my lips. A moment passes, and Jazamine leans forward.
“You gave her all the love you could. And when the church-that fuss of a cardinal and his goons-found out? She cried witchcraft. Because she loves you more than that. All this time, all this belief you have in a loving god-and you thought love was what brought us in? Truly?”
The candle flickers, casting off a brilliant light. Far more than it’s single flicker can contain. In it’s glow, I see Jazamine in full. Her braided hair, the softness of her smile and flesh. The warmth, it’s more than the sweat beneath my color.
It’s her. She embodies it utterly, and it rises with her lips.
“Demon,” I say with a parched throat, “Why would you tell me this? For what purpose? To torture me?”
Jazamine shakes her head, and lets out a laugh. “Do you know what we were before your church cast us in a villains light? Demon, father? It’s a perversion of Djinn. It means being of wind. Truth travels within us. And regardless of the distance, we hear all truths. Would you like to know the final thing Agatha told me?”
Memories play before my mind of her. Of her smile, her warmth not unlike this.
I think about the way Agatha held me. The way she smelled, the way she laughed. Her lips as they met mine, risking excommunication and heresy.
A tear rolls across my cheek, but I pay it no more mind than I do the others that follow.
I answer with a solemn nod.
Jazamine rises from the chair, and the only sound is her steps as she closes the distance between us. She lifts her hand, and speaks as her finger trails across my scar to my lips.
“She told me,” she starts, “that you’re far too into your work. That you look cute with a collar, and without it. And that were I to kiss you, I wouldn’t want to stop. Now why would she tell me such a thing, Father?”
“I…I don’t know,” I say.
Jazamine smirks, and brings her face close to mine. She grips my chin as her fingers deftly reach for my belt. “Oh, I think you do. She encouraged it, really. And you know-I’ve got to see if a serpent like yourself can truly escape a lamb’s lure. Can you, father?”
“There’s-there’s only one way to find out, I suppose,” I say.
She laughs, her lips nearing mine as she whispers. “Then let us see if the tale of that garden holds fast, shall we?”
Her lips press to mine, and I’m engulfed by her. Her warmth, her caress. The feel of her sex against my own.
A Lovely Day (BE/Ass Expansion, Lesbian, Witchcraft)
Two girls are loudly and publicly arguing about which is better, Ass or Tits. A nearby witch who’s tired of their nonsense casts a curse on them so whenever they say one is better, the other grows. The two are totally unaware that anything is different.
@@@
So, you’re out in public. It’s an absolutely beautiful day. The kind people pray for. You’re sitting there after a long night. You’ve your first coffee of the day, and things look great. The thought of maybe taking the rest of the day off crosses your mind. Almost nothing could ruin this, right?
Except you’re overlooking one critical detail here.
You’re in public.
There’s people.
The kind who exist in such a way to undo every earned moment of calm. The kind of people you pray to avoid. These people, they’re sitting across from me right now. Perched on a cement wall, cackling like ravens. It’s not the content of the conversation that matters. This preening pair, they’re hashtags come to life. But it’s the volume at which they express it that makes me sigh. You can’t block and mute loudmouths in meatspace.
Believe me. I’ve tried.
“Giiiiiirl, I’m telling you. Ass! Everyone loves a big, fat ass!” says one, smacking a hand against her rump. She’s shaped like a spray-tan pear. The spaghetti straps of her tank top cling loose, but her daisy dukes strain to contain her. Add a bottle of blonde on top, and she looks more at home on someone’s DeviantArt page.
The girl beside her scoffs, and flips her black hair over her shoulder. She’s inverse embodied-the yin to her friends yang. Her skirt lays flush against a flat ass-and her white button up looks ready to burst. She hooks her thumbs into her lapels, and tugs up. Even from behind, I see just how much of her jiggles.
“Are you out of your mind?! Tits. TITS. People love tits. Ass is only useful for anal,”
I close my eyes, and try to breathe. I try to remind myself I’m bound to the same laws as anyone. Both societal, and those of my own. I try to tell myself confessing before a coven isn’t worth it. But as I bring my cup to my lips and take a draught, they cackle again. It startles me for all of a second. But the cup tips all the same, and a jilt of cream, bean juice and sugar pelts my skirt.
“Girl, no. Nobody likes fat tiddies giving them a black eye!”
“Says who?!?”
The first rule of witchcraft is “do as you wish, just don’t hurt anybody.”
The fun part about that?
It doesn’t say anything about lessons that need taught.
These girls, these living tumblr tags-they wanted attention. Full attention. From each other, from the rest of us. What happened, it was only wish fulfillment.
I put my coffee down on the iron-grate table before me. I turned, and reached into my canvas bag. It was a ratty brown thing-something a thief would laugh at. Perfect for the contents.
The spellbook was just as rancid and ratty-a tome beyond it’s time. But as I flipped it’s velum pages, I smiled. The script inside still held true. In the hundred years I’d been practicing, I’d yet to have a single misfire.
That’s the funny thing about magic. Most assume you need newt eyes and a cauldron. You’ve got to dance with a demon, sell your soul. It’s a load of shit. That’s stuff actualusers propagate to keep the scamps out. No-real magic is so much simpler. You take desire, and focus it. It helps if you attune it to your targets, but you don’t have to do that.
No, all you need is a motive, and the belief you can. It’s such a beautiful way. These two cackling harpies? They gave me plenty for both.
I never had to search or scour the tome. It always found what I needed and when. When the page spread before me, it’s black script clear against the page, I grinned. I scooted my seat towards them, and made sure I had them in full view. The pair kept going on and on-cupping and caressing, smacking and tweaking. People had begun to clear the park. They’d toss the two a glance over their shoulders, and scuttle towards the gate.
Poor things. If they had only stayed behind another moment.
I looked at the girls, at their lewd jiggles and touch.
Then I lifted my hand, and snapped my fingers.
The tome closed with a thud, and I slipped it into my bag. I gripped my coffee, and let a smirk crossed my face. The last component of the spell was simply to wait.
Blondie rolled her eyes, and jiggled her hips. Ample flesh threatened the seams of denim as she said “Oh puh-lease. You should feel the way they throb when their hand sinks. They grip every roll, and shove it even deeper,”
She leans towards the busty one, and smirks. “Betcha can’t say that, can you?”
It’s so subtle I almost don’t catch it. So quick a hummingbird couldn’t match. But there it was all the same-the slightest press of her shorts. A stretch where there had been none just a second ago.
Busty laughs, and raises her hand. She flicks Blondie’s nose, and says “Girl, haven’t you ever wondered why my face is clear? Take a guess. Double dog dare you. When they press between these?”
She raises her hand, cupping her flesh. This far away, you would think it was a trick of the light. The way the fabric strains, how so much more seems to fill her hands. She jiggles them in her palm as Blondie glowers.
“Well, boys just can’t help themselves, can they?”
“Oh screw you, I get plenty of dick!” says Blondie, giving another smack at her rump.
One that brings a much more obnoxious jiggle than before.
Busty snorts, and pulls away her hands. Her breasts smack against her leg-and a button goes flying. Neither seems to notice.
“Oh I’m sure you do. Why, you can fuck anyone with their face down, can’t you?” says Busty.
I snorted then. I couldn’t help it-I shot a hand to my mouth in a vain attempt to hold it in. But neither of the girls seemed to pay me the least amount of mind. Blondie rose, her shorts disappearing as she spread her cheeks.
“Face hasn’t got anything to do with it! It’s this, allllll this. Something you’ll neverhave!”
Another smack, and all one can spy of the shorts is the waist. The rest disappears into spray-tan skin, supple and round as a peach. Busty glares, and stands to face Blondie.
A hundred years ago, they would have drawn pistols. They would have walked ten paces and turned. One would die in a pool of her own glory. The other, barking bragging rights. It’s not all that different now, with the way Busty’s buttons pop. With the rise, one sprung free. It ricocheted off my table and out into the park. I’m just glad she missed my coffee.
“You take that back you-you fucking big-assed slut!” shouts Busty. She shoves Blondie-which doesn’t take much. Her chest meets the girl, and does almost all the work. Another button is sent flying. Busty, she’s barely holding it in now. The least amount of movement, and-
“Slut? Slut?! Ohhhh, you’re one to talk, missy. ‘Oh, all the boys love cumming on my face! Tee-hee!”
There’s a tear-and a blur of denim flies past my table. I sipped my coffee, and tilt as the last button goes flying. Both the girls, they’re wrestling on the grass now. Blondie takes top for a minute, and sits her massive ass on Busty. Busty flails for a moment, her hands smacking against Blondie’s rear.
Every hit, it just adds an inch. I smirk, and think of quicksand.
“You wanna play? Huh? Oh I’ll fucking play with you!” says Blondie. She leans forward just a degree, and cups her friends ample breasts. Her mouth widens as sweat breaks on her face. She rolls her tongue over her red lips-then right against Busty’s palm sized nipples. The way she suckles, it’s how people dying of thirst drink. Gulping and gurgling, desperate and hungry.
I just go on sipping my coffee. Even as Busty tops, her feet useless as she rolls onto her bean-bag sized tits.
“Fucking-fucking come here, damn it! I’m not done with you!” she shouts. But Blondie, she’s not having it.
It’s not like she can move. She just sits there, rocking on her rump and snarling.
“Fucking do it then, bitch! Roll a little bit closer!”
The two keep going at it, even as the sun sets. Even as the cops show, absolutely baffled and scratching their heads. They have to call in transport, even.
Not like either of the girls could fit in the car.
These beautiful days, the kind you pray for? If they get disturbed, just remember one thing.
In The Court of Mabb (Body Horror, Animal TF, Witchcraft)
(fic) OK, just trying to think of a story for the fic which might be Original like a blend of fantasy and modern stuff let’s see….. It takes place in a magic college for starters. As much as a small fraternity group consisting of nerds (maybe four in total) wanted to be cool and be macho by summoning a large harem of Succubi to get them all the popularity, the sorority neighbouring them had already claimed the Demoinfernatome so they were left with Faerune Consortium instead and summoned a large harem of pixies instead who are more chaotic and unstable compared to Succubi as they’re not bound by pacts. The pixies turn the nerds into either all horny heifers or at least horny animals in general consisting of a cow, sow, ass and ewe? And this might be pushing it but what if the pixies perpetually torment them with their ever-growing arousal?
@@@
The thing with Tommy was, you had about five seconds. That’s it. Five seconds to figure out if you needed Nar-can or a meat wagon. Five seconds to figure out if it was a suicide attempt, or another assignment. It was always the latter, but fear of the former kept the sweat at your brow. You checked his pulse and hunted for a text book in one fluid motion.
It was never far. Always open, with it’s pages earmarked. This semester, he was studying how to astral project past the veil. Last semester, his class had used a spirit board. Same trick, same school of magic. Way fucking different means of doing it. At least with the spirit board, Tommy’s ticker kept on. Which, with my finger pressed to his wrist, I didn’t feel a trace of.
Paulie stood by the door, big barrel chested bastard. His hands cupped either elbow across his massive pecs. He just shook his head and sighed, then lifted his eyes towards the ceiling. His lips moved, but it wasn’t a conversation for the rest of us. It was just for him and the Old Man, which was fine. Except he shot me a glare when I said “Paulie, if you ain’t gonna do anything, move your ass,”
He snapped out of it, then glared at me. “Language,” he spat. But the big fuck moved all the same. I passed him in the hall, and shouted “Keep an eye on him,”
“I know,” said the back of Paulie’s head.
“If he starts breathing-”
“I know, and he’s not. Get Shawn,”
I gave a sigh, and turned back to face the hall. I looked down, and checked my watch. We had maybe forty five seconds to a minute, if that. It all depended on just how deep Tommy had gone in his studies that afternoon. I was at Shawn’s door in a pace, and had just lifted my hand to knock when it opened. Shawn, clad in nothing but his face mask and goggles, peered at me. Out of the room came the smell of sulphur, saltpeter. There was a copper tinge over both, and Shawn’s naked frame was soaked in sweat.
“Oh, hey. Tommy-” I started, only for Shawn to close the door. A half second later it cracked open, and a corked vial was shoved towards me.
“Make him drink it,” came a filtered voice.
“Uh, okay. Thanks,” I said.
I turned on my heel, and sprinted-not ran-down the hall. Shawn’s stuff, you had to be delicate with it. Shake it too much or too little, and it could explode. The glass would shatter, and lacerations could be the least of your problems. You might grow a second head, another arm. Paulie and me, we’d been playing monkey in the middle one time with some. Shawn tried real calmly to tell us to put it down-only for it to shatter right in Paulie’s hand. He lifted it up, and looked over at Shawn.
Shawn just pulled out a pen and paper, and watched as Paulie’s entire arm turned blue. Then his face, his legs.
For his troubles, Paulie got humiliated. Shawn got an A on his pigmentation transmutation paper. Me? I got a black eye when I dared to utter “papa smurf”.
Paulie heard me coming, and stepped aside. His gaze was still high, so deep in his galdr that I could only spy the whites of his eyes. Tommy hadn’t moved. I hadn’t expected him to. While Paulie kept talking to the Old Man, I slipped a hand under my friend’s head. I lifted it up, and pried the cork away with my teeth. By luck, his mouth was open.
“Sorry buddy,” I said under my breath as I spat the cork out, “I ain’t repaying your student loans,”
I tipped the crap, this purple-blue liquid, right past his lips. Paulie went on praying. I tossed the vial to one side, and massaged Tommy’s throat.
Right as Paulie was getting to Uruz, Tommy kicked. His face contorted, and he sat up with a wet, hacking cough. Paulie finally broke his concentration, and rolled up his sleeve. He pressed his lips to his fingers, then rubbed the runes inscribed on his arm. All the while, Tommy just sat there doubled over and hacking. He splayed his hands out on the carpet, and looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.
“I-” he said, only to cough, “-I was almost there. Fuck me, I was almost there,”
I took a deep breath, and patted his back.
“Dude?” I said, “We really gotta get you out of that necromancy course,”
@@@
“Your mom says hi,”
“And she’s still dead, Tommy. More boar?”
“If you please?”
Paule takes the knife from the counter, and wipes it against his apron. He lifts it, and hacks another cut from the slab before him. He turns, and snaps his fingers. I lift Tommy’s plate, and he tosses the chop to it wordlessly. It lands with a greasy smack, and I lay it before Tommy. He gives a nod, and rolls his tongue over his lips. He grabs it right off the plate and sinks his teeth into it. There’s silverware, but times like this, he’s oblivious to it.
It’s his fifth chop since he woke. Shawn’s elixir brought him back, but food and water is what makes him living. So he eats the boar Paulie brought, and Paulie keeps on smoking at the stove. He hasn’t said much since Tommy came back, but he never does.
Tommy didn’t mean anything by it. That about Paulie’s mom. Paulie doesn’t talk about his folks much. Tommy does plenty of that for the both of them. But it always brings this awkward silence from him. I guess it’s a soft spot, but it’s hard to think of a guy that big having any.
Paulie takes a drag, and turns to me. He tilts his head towards the stairs, and says “Shawn coming down, or nah?”
“You know him,” I pipe back. I’m keeping an eye on Tommy-it’s weird, watching him eat. It’s so Romero in execution, you can’t help but question if it’s really him at the table.
Paulie grunts, and takes a step towards the stairs. “Hey, Mr. White! Food!” he bellows. He stands there a minute, knife in hand before he turns back. He shakes his head, and walks back to the massive ribs before him. He gets to work cutting the pork just as boots tromp down the stairs. I turn my head to the hall, and see Shawn there. Rail thin as ever. He’s donned a lab coat, but it’s so cheap of material it’s almost transparent. It’s like looking at an x-ray.
He’s got these two vials in his hands. He’s passing the liquid between them-this emerald green shit-back and forth, back and forth. He walks beside Paulie, and tosses one of the vials into the sink. Paulie turns, his cherry flaring as he takes him in.
“Got real food here. Plenty of it,” he barks, but Shawn shakes his head. He tilts his head back, and swallows the mix. He grimaces as he does, the other vial hitting the sink with a clink. His mouth opens, his tongue rolling out of it as he scowls.
“I’m good man,” he rasps. Paulie snorts as Shawn pulls out a chair, and takes a seat.
“Bullshit,” Paulie says, “When’s the last time you had a meal?”
“Freshman year. Solid foods mean digestion, which means time wasted. That was everything I needed. I’m fine,”
Paulie rolls his eyes and mutters something in scandinavian. He goes back to cutting the hog, and I shoot Shawn a smile. I hooked a thumb towards Tommy, whose sitting there patting his stomach.
“Chalk up another win for formulas,” I say. Shawn waves the comment away, and leans in close. His eyes narrow on Tommy.
“How are you feeling?” he says.
Tommy laughs, and patted his stomach. “Oh, good. Albert says you’re still wrong,”
For just a second, I see Shawn’s face fall. Then Shawn laughs, and his wry lips spread into a smile. “Well, that’s nice. I’m glad to see you’re up. Remember, if there are any side effects, you need to-”
“Shawn,” says Tommy, cupping a hand to his mouth. He lets out a burp, then frowns as he swallows. “I’m fine, dude. Seriously. Nothings happened since the first time, okay?”
Shawn nods, then leans back in his chair. “Damned rigor mortis. I’m just surprised we reversed it. Not unhappy we did, but-”
I snort, and say “-bullshit you’re unhappy. That grant came through, didn’t it?”
Shawn smirks, and rolls his shoulders. “Well, what’s alchemy if we can’t save a life? Right?”
“HAH. Fuck that,” shouts Paulie. I turn to see him stubbing out his cigarette in the sink. There’s a massive plate of boar-chops before him. He wipes his hands on his apron, and turns towards us. Leaning against the counter, he says “The first fucking goal of your discipline was turning lead into gold! Come the fuck on man,”
Shawn frowns, and twists in the chair to face him. “We’ve been over this, Paul. And if I remember correctly, your discipline started as a death cult. Wanna talk about that?”
Paulie, he’s a big fuck. A real big fuck. He was here on a weight lifting scholarship from the armpit of Nowhere, Vaguely European. So when he lets out a snarl and takes a step from the counter? That’s my sign to leave the room. I push my chair back, and clap a hand on Tommy as I pass from the kitchen. Paulie and Shawn, they’re not screaming yet. As I find the stairs and grip the rail, I hear insults in Scandinavian. A plate smashes, and Shawn says “Oh that’s just like your kind, isn’t it? Let’s crack a few skulls, that solves EVERYTHING doesn’t it?!”
One step, five. I top the stairs, and take a breath at the height of the landing. I close my eyes, and turn towards my room blind. I find the door handle by habit, the metal warm against my palm. It turns, and the smell of sulfur washes over me as I step within. The door closes on its own terms, not mine. It nips the back of my heel, but otherwise closes without a noise.
Only then do I open my eyes, and look upon my work.
@@@
Tommy, Paulie, Shawn.
They’re smarter than they sound, really. Despite the argument downstairs, they’re good guys. Tommy scares the shit out of me with his stunts, but he’s always the first to laugh about it. Paulie cooks like nobody’s business-and it’s good to have guys like him around. Shawn, well. What he lacks in people skills he makes up for in other ways. He’s useful. That’s a good way to describe him.
All of them though, they butt heads. They jab fingers, yell. Stomp. Scream. It’s the same macho posturing bullshit you’d find in other frats. Oh, I’m going to get paid XYZ dollars. Yeah, well I’m going into Blah Blah field. These arguments, I’d heard them since freshman year. Moving in had raised frequency, but not the fervor. When you’re sleeping a few hours a day? When you really, honestly think your entire future is on the line over a single grade?
You see if you don’t seek validation over petty things. Double dog dare you.
The thing is, they complimented each other just as much as they argued. Shawn used Tommy to test brews. Fuck, if he killed him, it’s not like he couldn’t bring him back. Tommy needed Paulie to make sense of what he saw. Paulie sometimes used Tommy in his shaman practices. All three, they worked. They fit like links in a chain.
Except for me.
When it came to my studies, the “unspoken arts” were left that. I’d told them a single time freshman year, and they hadn’t asked since. They had warmed up to me, sure. But they still didn’t ask me for help. More like, I was the hands and eyes between them. I relayed messages, gave scrawled test results and accounts. I’d offered to use my discipline before. Several times, at that. But the boys always gave some bullshit excuse.
Paulie, he’d scrunched his face and resolutely turned me down. Tommy didn’t say anything, just looked at me wide-eyed. And Shawn, he just laughed.
I viewed the frat as a good litmus test for how most treated demonology. That’s what my field was.
It gets a bad rap, too. I mean sure, in a specific viewpoint, demons are evil. I guess. But it’s no more or less odd than others. At least, that’s what I told myself. Standing in the chalk circle at the center of my room? It happened again. That nagging, clawing thing since I told student planning my major.
I doubted, if all for a second, what I was doing.
But I sat down, I crossed my legs. I fumbled in my pocket for my knife, a small Case folder with a bone handle. I flicked the blade open, and closed my eyes.
I breathed in, and began to speak.
“I come again to talk, to council. I offer a part of myself for a moment of wisdom. I beseech thee, all those-”
“Oh, stuff it ya’ damned tosser. Give us a sip already,” came a voice. Distant, like from the bottom of a well. The sound echoed inside my skull, and I smirked as the blade met my palm. The sting that followed was small, like the cut itself. I felt the wet surge of blood to the surface, the faint drip as it hit the floor.
I opened my eyes, and unfurled my fingers.
There was nothing there.
I folded the knife, and slipped it back into my pocket. There came a cough from behind me, and I craned my neck to look.
The first time I’d seen him, I jumped. I hadn’t been able to help it. I mean, what I do? It’s a lot of hearsay. Lots of reading, with very little to show for it. But show he did, then and now, in his ratty suit jacket. It had probably been a fine black silk once, but the stains upon it had lacquered. My eyes trailed from his loafers to his cupped hands, then the distorted swirling mass of his face.
Crowley told me once he was whoever I needed to see. I’d mentioned the distorted static of his visage, and he’d just laughed.
I gave him a slight wave, and turned to face him.
“Hey buddy,”
Crowley tipped his head, an indistinct nose and eyes swapping places. “Oy, what is it then, whelp? Need studyin’ for another final, thassit?”
“No, not yet. More like-”
Before I could finish, there was a stamping at the stairwell. Shawn voice echoed, “WELL IF THAT’S HOW YOU FEEL, FUCK YOU AND YOUR ANCESTORS!”. A door slammed, and Crowley just laughed. His cheeks jumbled into mouths, then eyes as he looked at me.
“Lads got their knickers in a bunch again?”
I took a deep breath, eyes widening as I forced a smile. “Yeah, something like that. Tommy bit it again, and of course that lead to this. I was wondering if, uh. Well, if it’s not too much trouble, could you-”
“The fuck I look like, mate? A pimp? No. You want that particular cut o’ weird, ye’ have to do on your own, savvy?” Crowley shot back. His face melded to a set of eyebrows, arched high in anger. I sighed, and pleaded with my palms up.
“Come on man, just this once? Look, it would give them something to direct that anger at, okay?” I said. Crowley chuckled, his voice like a grade school classroom. His face shifted into a single watchful eye as he leaned in.
“The answer is no, Love. The answer will be no. Succubi ain’t somethin’ you boys need to meddle with. Lechers, the whole lot,” he said. He made a sound like he was spitting, but his eye didn’t so much as blink. I sighed, and gave a nod.
“Buuuuut,” he cooed, the eye splitting into several, each blurry and contoured to contrast those beside it. He drummed his fingers against their tips, and lifted from the bed. Levitating, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. But Crowley did it effortlessly. He stretched his legs, and pulled his hands behind his blurry head.
“But what?”
“Well. What you’re studyin’, issa essential science, right? Right. Demonic invocation, it’s damn near adjacent to other styles. The song, issa same innit? Just the dance is different,”
I took a deep breath, and crossed my arms. Crowley, still afloat, stood up and looked at me with dozens of eyes. Not the scary, blurry ones from before. Wide, curious blue orbs met my gaze.
“All I’m sayin’ is, I won’t help ye’ dive for my cousins muff. I’ve no qualms about othermuff though. Whaddya say, boyo?”
He raised his hand and jut it forward-only to pull it back. I smirked. Crowley, he wasn’t a terrible demon. Not really.
But he knew better. Always did.
I stood up, and dusted at my shirt. I stared at his hand a long while, and was about to say something as a door slammed in the hall. Crowley didn’t stir-but it was enough to make me jump. I whipped my head towards the door, the faint sound of some icelandic insult be muttered from beyond the wall.
“A night o’ peace with some fine company-that’s worth something, right?” said Crowley.
I let out a sigh, and turned back towards him. My hands met my hip, and I focused on his face. I tried-tried so damn hard to make sense of what I saw there, but in the end I gave up.
“This company,” I said, bringing my forefinger and thumb to the ridge of my nose. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
@@@
The first thing they tell you about demonology?
Don’t listen to the demon. It’s a simple rule. But what it really means is, don’t projectupon the demon. Projecting is different than listening, and is a hell of a lot harder to avoid. The best demonologists? They’re stuffy academics. They don’t smile, they don’t laugh. My own professor cracked a joke about our midterm, and nearly sent us into shock. His face was stone, and then he let out this dry laugh.
“I’m kidding,” he said. Voice flat, so monotone it sounded artificial. Throughout the class, he kept reassuring us that it was just a joke, he didn’t mean it.
All because he lacked a single drop of human emotion.
Real demonologists, they burn that shit out of themselves. Either by seclusion or practice. Because when you project, you’re doing so in a human way. You’re trying to make sense of what you’re seeing on a human level. At least, that’s what we’re told.
The truth is, you don’t project on demons because they’re tricky fucking bastards. Not because they’re evil (some are). Not because they’re malicious or want your soul (few do). But mostly, it’s because they’re bored by us. By people like me. They’ve lived since the dawn of existence. The old adage about “seen it all, done it all” actually applies.
By this point, you’re lucky they don’t fall asleep on you. Crowley had a few times.
Demons though, they’re like us on precisely one point. They get bored.
That’s where the tricks come in-and that old warning takes root.
Demons aren’t evil. They don’t purposefully want to hurt you. But they never, everoffer you something unless it’s going to be funny. I’d known this well before I met Crowley-but not once in my entire time with him did he dare extend his hand.
Until tonight.
For my troubles, I got a book. That’s it. No terms, no formalities. Crowley simply saw a way to provide-and he did. I hadn’t taken that hand of his. Didn’t need to, really. Verbal agreements work just as well. He’d given me a thousand smiles in that swirling mess of a face. Then he reached in his ratty coat, and tossed this thing at me. With it’s emerald cover and it’s velum pages, it reeked of wildflowers and honey. I’d almost been afraid to touch it.
Almost.
It now sat square in the center of the table, each of us taking a seat around it. Paulie sat drinking mead from a horn, his brow furrowed. Shawn sat across from me, his legal pad out and hand poised with a pen. Ever the researcher. But it was Tommy that spoke first, his face deathly pale as sweat beaded on his brow.
It was good to see that, him sweating. Life flowed through him yet.
“Just where did you get that?” he said, his voice a rasp. I felt the side of my mouth twinge up, but racked my brain for an answer.
“Damn weird looking thing,” said Paulie. His nostrils flared, and he let out a snort. He took another sip from his horn, his gaze dead set on the book.
Tommy cut his eyes towards him, and scribbled something on his pad. I raised my hand to my lips, and cleared my throat.
“I uh, well. I figured we could have some fun. Together,” I said, darting my eyes between the boys. Paulie looked towards Shawn, who was too busy scribbling to care.
“Oh? And what kind? This isn’t some kind of-like, bullshit demon thing is it?” said Paulie.
“Near as I can tell, no. They don’t keep books-I think,” I said.
Tommy turned to me, and pointed towards the book. “Yeah? Well where did you get it then? ‘Cause last I checked, they didn’t carry fae tomes at the campus library,”
I blinked, and looked down at the book. I took my fingers to the edge of it, and shoved it towards Tommy-who reeled back from it. I smiled, and said “Guess that means you can read it then, right?”
Tommy’s brow knit tight, and he glared at me. Shawn kept on scribbling, and Paulie just chuckled. “Oh c’mon man. ‘Sides, how the hell do you know anything about the fair folk?”
Tommy opened his mouth, then closed it. He took a breath, and looked at Paulie. “Enough to know they’re anything but fair,”
He turned to me, and scrunched his brow again. “Take this fucking thing-”
“Language!”
“Fuck you, Paulie. You’re drunk,” he said, rolling his eyes. He turned back to me, and continued.
“Take this thing, and get rid of it, okay? You don’t want anything to do with them. You think your little friend is bad? They’re worse,”
“What little friend?” Said Paulie, his words slurred over his tankard. Tommy sighed, and looked over at him.
“Crowley,” said Tommy. “Danial’s personal demon,”
“Demons aren’t real,” Shawn chimed. Paulie gave a snort, and tipped back his cup. After a long draught, he tilted his head towards the alchemist.
“Says the fucker that asked for dragon’s milk for yule,”
The pen in Shawn’s hand paused, then kept on moving. I took a breath, and tried to smile as Paulie chuckled again.
Tommy hadn’t moved. He just sat there, staring at the book like it was a dirty bomb and the timer was rolling. I laced my hands on the table, and looked at all the boys.
“Guys, look. Yes, Crowley gave me the book. No, I didn’t know what it was. But I didn’t ask for unlimited power or immortality or some shit. I asked him for succubi-”
“You what?”
“The hell is a succubi?”
“They’re not real either,”
I rolled my eyes, and pointed towards the book. “-and he said no. But he gave me this. I was trying to, fuck. I don’t know. Loosen you all the fuck up,” I said. I leaned back in my chair, and exhaled through my nose. The boys, all in turn, looked up at me. I rolled my tongue over my lips, and gave a nod.
“Guys, we’re about to graduate. We’re at the end. And you’re all so damned high strung, it’s just-is this how you want to remember college? Being straight laced and grinding all the time? That’s it? I barely remember the last few years. It’s all just,” I paused, taking a breath.
“Just tests. And papers, and studying. The hell is that, in the end?”
The table, save for Tommy’s breathing, was silent. Even Shawn’s pen had stopped. I watched as Tommy’s throat bobbed, and he tapped the book.
“Well, I ain’t gonna be a part of it. You all might have no idea what you’re fucking with, but I do. At least one of us needs needs to have a clear head,” he said. He got up, his chair trailing across the tile as he turned from the table. I watched him go, and raised a hand.
“Tommy, wait-what’s so bad about the fae? C’mon man, just tell me!”
By then, he was gone. I heard the tromp of his feet up the stairs, and the slam of his room. Paulie laughed, the loud bass of his voice filling the room. Shawn scribbled, and I turned back towards the table. My shoulders slumped as my chin met my hands. Shawn glanced up from his bad, and laid his pen down.
“I could take a crack at it, if you like?” he said.
Paulie grunted, and looked over at the alchemist. “You know fae tongue? Really?”
Shawn shrugged, and pressed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Languages are a side hobby. I know enough. The book, if you please?” he said, extending his hand. Paulie slid the book towards him, and sat his tankard down on the table. Shawn brought the book closer, his eyes narrowing as he brought his face inches from the cover. His nostrils flared as he audibly sniffed. A smile cracked his face as he thumped the cover with his finger.
“Oh, this babys the real deal alright. So how’d you get this again?”
I snorted, and said “You mean to tell me demons are a stretch, but faeries aren’t?”
Shawn wagged a finger towards me, and said “I said demons aren’t real. And they aren’t. Demons, by definition, are a matter of classification. I didn’t say personified naturally occurring elements of chaos don’t exist,”
Paulie rolled his eyes, and leaned back in his chair. He laced his hands over his stomach and gave a sigh. “Right, right. Well get on with it then-see if you can get us something with tits, yeah?”
Shawn’s nose wriggled, but his hands still lifted. The cover flipped open, and his finger trailed down the page. For a long moment, the room fell quiet. Paulie sipped his mead, and Shawn read. He had flipped to a new page on his pad, and scrawled notes at a manic pace. I coughed into my fist, and both looked over at me.
“So uh, can you-” I started, only to stop as Shawn broke into a giggle.
“Can I read it? Absolutely. I’ve no idea what Tommy was so damned worried about. It’s a grimoire-”
“Oh, bust out the four dollar words, why don’t you?” said Paulie.
“-a tome for contact. Nothing more. There’s something here about consuming food, but overall it’s pretty standard dreck. So,” he said, giving us both a shit eating grin. “-you boys wanna talk to anthropomorphic forces of nature?”
Paulie grunted, and poked a finger towards him. “Faeries. You can just say faeries you know,”
Shawn looked towards Paulie, ready to fire off again. Then I leaned forward, and said “Hell, if it’s harmless? What do we have to lose, eh?”
“Damned straight,” said Paulie, slamming his tankard down.
Shawn snorted, breaking into another giggle as he flipped the book open. “Right, right. Okay, so where was that page…”
@@@
Beautiful girls that burst into locusts aren’t your friends.
There’s not a lot of info about dealing with the fae. Our college doesn’t even offer courses on it. So if you’re curious and need a hard rule, like with demons? There you go. Don’t trust pretty people. Especially if they burst into locusts.
We had needed sugar and flowers. Honey-real, natural honey from the hive. Not that processed store bought shit. Shawn tried his hand at the incantation, and kept sneezing. He said the flowers irritated his nose. Paulie said something about huffing chemicals, and the boys almost got into it.
Then there was a breeze that started out of nowhere. Of all the things I’ve dealt with over the years? Crowley, watching Tommy bite it and come back? That breeze unsettled me the most. We were in a cramped dorm without a window open. It stillrustled through, pulling the sugar and flowers into a lazy funnel. Shawn had been ecstatic when that happened. He slammed the book shut, his eyes wide as a kid on christmas morning. Paulie had finally ran out of mead-but looked far too sober for how much he drank.
The funnel spun, tighter and tighter as the breeze lapped against our clothes. It climbed from the floor, petals and sugary grit blasting at us. By the time it met the ceiling, the three of us had ducked wherever we could for cover. Then the breeze died, just as quick as it started. Paulie, Shawn and I peered from our corners-and gasped.
Have you ever seen something so damned pretty your jaw falls slack? Like a great view at a mountain top, or over a field? Stuff like that, trying to describe it, you just fail. Because you’re trying to put it on human terms. Your terms. You fail, but you grasp at it all the same. The being that stood in the center of the room-they were like that.
Gorgeous beyond measure, their skin the color of autumn leaves. Their eyes were almond-cut emeralds that gazed unblinking from marble cheeks. Their hair was the palette of summer, cascading over their shoulders. Beyond that, their wings-less insect, more the hazy hint of air disturbed-flapped twice as they stared at us.
Shawn, he was muttering something by the couch. His pen moved line by line as he tried to take down every single detail. Paulie stood up, eyes curious as he took a step forward. I rose, and placed a hand on his massive chest.
“Dude, no. Just a moment, okay,” I said. I turned towards the being, my eyes drinking her in.
I tried to turn my head-really, I did. At least I made the mental effort. But it took Shawn stepping between us for me to snap back.
“Hrm, I’d say you’re-” he said, flipping through his pad,”-Mabb, queen of the fall court? Is that right?”
Shawn glanced up, but the being didn’t speak. It stood there, eyes wide as she gazed down at us. Shawn swallowed, and looked back down at his legal pad. Paulie pushed around me, his shoulder knocking against Shawn’s as he approached with a smile.
“Well, aren’t you just a fine hora? So, Miss. Does royalty care to slum it with us? I promise I pack what those kvistr you shag don’t. Well, I suppose I speak for myself, but-”
“Uh, Paulie?” Shawn stammered, but the big fuck didn’t hear him. He took a step forward, so damned close she could feel his rank mead-sodden breath.
“-I’m sure between the two of them, they’ll be enough to match my bollr. Plenty enough for a queen, aye?”
“Paulie, step the fuck ba-”
But that was all that Shawn was able to get out before Mabb started to laugh. A high, shrill sound like a flock of jeering birds. Her supple lips parted as her mouth widened, the sound piercing as every octave climbed. Paulie’s face fell slack, and it was then the shaman finally took a step back.
Mabb laughed and laughed as she slapped her hands at her chest. She doubled over, her jaw distending as her eyes fell upon us again. The laughter seeped over us, into us. The very sound made my skull throb, and even Paulie staggered back. He clutched at his head, and jeered towards Shawn.
“Send her back!” he shouted, his booming galdr voice not loud enough to drown her out. “Send her back, gods fucking damn it!”
Shawn, his face twisted in pain, glanced around the room. He looked towards the table, then towards me.
There was the sharp snap as Mabb’s jaw cracked, and hit the floor like some cartoon. Still she laughed, right along to the pulsing of my heart.
“Where’s the book!?” Shawn shouted, jabbing a finger towards the table. I glanced towards it, every breath harder than the one before. We had left the book right there, right in the center. The last I’d seen it was before the scramble-and now it simply wasn’t there. I turned to Shawn, sweat pouring into my eyes as Mabb let out a vicious scream.
I shook my head, his eyes widening as I did.
“Oh fuck,” he said, the scream breaking into straining vocals as our eyes turned towards the faerie queen. Paulie stood, his hands over his ears as his lips moved. The ink on his arm, hidden by his polo, it was glowing bright. His eyes, cinched so tight the lids were red, began to open. Radiance poured from his sclera as his hands dropped. His face grew still, and he turned towards the snarling queen.
He lifted an arm, and I watched as light poured from the runic tattoos down to his palm. His lips parted, a deep sound echoing from the depths of his stomach. Shawn grabbed my shoulder, and dragged me from the pair. “Get down, get the fuck down!” he spat as we slid behind a couch. My heart was pounding as my head met the cushion. Shawn peered around, his lab coat transparent with sweat. He was breathing heavy, a hand fumbling at his pockets.
“Chaos can be contained, chaos can be contained” he muttered, the clink of vials faint in his digging. All the while, Paulie’s chant-his galdr-roared in a volume that rivaled Mabb’s own incessant caterwauling.
“Shawn! What’s going on?” I shouted-but I didn’t have to wait for an answer.
There was a wet pulsing thrum that shook the floor. Shawn covered his head, a vial in either hand as Paulie was sent flying into the wall. The glow on his arms and eyes faded, and the big fuck shook his head and spat. He looked up, his face pale as he glanced forward. Shawn and I peered from behind the couch, blood pounding in our ears.
I wish that we hadn’t.
As we peered from beyond the couch, the void of sound once filled by the scream gave way to a much different tone. There was no gore, no ichor. Not even a spot on the carpet to mark where Mabb had been. What there was instead was the buzz.
The buzz of a thousand locusts swarming every single part of the living room. Creeping and flying, their incessant chittering drawing close as they fell upon us by the hundreds.
@@@
With Tommy, you had about five seconds.
Five seconds to decide if the stagger in his step and the white of his eyes was a sign. If today was the day his brain finally had rotted into mush. If all that’s left was the meat puppet, limbs smacking dumb against his sides as he came for you.
Did you know they eat bugs in some cultures? I mean, I knew. Me and the boys, we’d even bought candy made from it. Cheese dusted mealworms. Chocolate covered ants. It wasn’t bad, all considered. But those same bugs, they tasted a hell of a lot different when they’re forcing your lips open. Squirming down into your throat, every flap of their wings smacking against your esophagus.
Tommy hadn’t had the pleasure. He hadn’t been there. In the room, on this physical plane. So he had no one to check on him, no one to shove a vial of gunk in his throat.
He got back too late.
Mabb hadn’t minded one bit. She didn’t mind much of anything at all, so long as it was her way. In this house, everything went like that now. She wasn’t here anymore-but she was. In every skitter, every buzz. Every wildflower that sprouted from the spot she had stood, every beehive that formed. It wasn’t a frat anymore-it was her court.
We’d ate of the fae. She’d granted us our heart’s desire, even.
I just wish she had left me my hands. Maybe my vocal chords, but that’s asking a bit much.
Tommy staggers towards me, his eyes rolled until there’s nothing but white. Drool seeps from the side of his mouth, and he stands there for a long while. Then he tilts forward, his kneecaps meeting the hardwood floor with a meaty clack. He sits there like that, mouth agape and wet.
I’d tried to fight it at first, you know? I really did. But as the days passed, it just got so fucking hard. So I made a mistake.
I projected.
I rationalized it on the human level.
I figured-being a dog now, it wasn’t so bad. I slept when I wanted, did what I wanted. I wouldn’t have to pay back my student loans. And whenever I got hard, I didn’t have to get a demon. A book. I didn’t have to do any of that shit. Because Tommy, well.
Tommy could take it.
If he wasn’t busy getting rutted by Paulie-who had become a boar. If he wasn’t getting chased by Shawn, his horse jackass screech echoing as he’d mount him. Tommy laid there, eyes rolled back as cum coated his face. As his stomach bulged, and his ass gaped.
Every time one of us came, I heard it. That screeching laugh I’d heard that day. It reverberated in my skull, and then I’d glance around. I’d sniff, and try to find it.
But I never did.
None of us did.
If it was Crowley’s or Mabb’s in the end, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think it mattered, really.
Truth be told, I’m trying to handle things like Tommy.
Lamia can take size and strength from whoever she coils around, getting more than she really should from it. She has an agreement with the succubus bartender at the bar she frequents though: I can use the bed in the back whenever I want, but you get to feed on me and whoever I grab for the night. When she grabs a cute little mage, she and her partner get much more than planned as she slowly releases the seals on herself.
@@@
Sleazy’s isn’t the kind of place nice people go.
That’s what makes getting one inside so damned hard.
It’s not that it’s an ugly bar. It’s not. There’s a lot grosser watering holes along the highway. It’s more it has that look. You know the one. The kinds of places you pass as you’re driving, and they’re the only building for miles. You see a motorcycle out front, and already your mind is taking off. They sell crank. Women. The burgers are made from human flesh. Everyone’s on some kind of drug.
You’ve no idea how badly Lila and I wish that were true. At least then the rubberneckers might get out.
No, we’re just a bar. A clean one, a nice one, but one forgotten by the simple nature of poor location. I could weave you the whole sob story about how a highway was supposed to come through. Lila, she took everything she owned and sold it for this place. But that isn’t going to fill the stools at the bar. It isn’t going to put chink in the tip cup.
Everyone loves a sob story until it’s time to pay up.
No, Sleazy’s wasn’t where nice people went. It’s not even the kind of place people at all went. But I did, along with a few regulars.
It was the only place where I didn’t get yelled at for my tail.
Oh, Hi. I’m Tina. Mind the tail. It’s not for show. Yes, it’s real. Yes, it’s attached. No, I can’t grow it back. There. That’s all you were going to ask, right? If you were cute, I’d add something like “oh honey, I’m all natural”. If you were a guy, I’d even wink. It’s so creepy to be on the receiving end of that, but gods. Do the warm-bloods go nuts when I do it. Lila, she’s the horned lady by the bar. She’s real, too. She’s a tad more playful about it than I am-but don’t you dare make a short joke.
Over there is Ol’ Russ. I’m sure his real name is “Russel” or something. He doesn’t talk much, but between the poncho and the eight legs, most folks don’t talk to him either. Over there, long fingers at the piano? That’s Langston. That’s not a crack on him being a skeleton, either. He’s Langston. You’ve read his works, right? Stick around long enough, and he’ll make you cry. Promise.
There you go. That’s Sleazy’s most nights. Sometimes we get a scraggler from the road. Some road-weary biker, the occasional cocaine cowboy. They come in, wide eyed and shaky. But they still sit down, they still order. They oogle like we’re some kind of zoo, then leave. Always in a damned rush, their stool swiveling. We’re lucky if they pay. Poor Lila. But I’m not here to piss and moan about them.
No, see? On occasion, we get a real interesting customer. I don’t mean that as some euphemism either. I’m not slithering around bias or some crap. No, when someone purposefully comes to Sleazy’s?
It means they’ve came packing. A story, coin. The latter is nice, but it’s the former I wanna give you now.
Before I start, you’re going to buy me a drink. You’re going to say I’m cute, and you’re going to put your hand on mine. I need the comfort, alright?
Lila, two fingers of whatever. They’re paying.
@@@
Okay, listen. It’s a shitty start, but it WAS actually a stormy night.
Russ was propped up in his booth like always. Tequila dreams and his hat pulled down. Langston had just got done for the night and lit one up. Doubt he gets anything from it, but habits die hard right? I think that’s why he keeps playing too. Even the grave couldn’t keep him from the keys. Lila and I were at the bar. I was helping her with her nails. You think being a succubus she could do it herself, but that’s the unpretty part. See, her horns? Hooves, nails? All that shit, I gotta help with. Poor girl grows ’em like wild and if it weren’t for me, she’d be too thorny to get close to. Much less pass health inspection. We were talking about nothing at all. Me and her, we’ve always been like that. Maybe it’s because of what she is-a barkeep, I mean-but talking comes easy with her.
I like that about her. It’s why we’ve an arrangement-but uh, I’ll get to that.
So like I said, we got odd types. The occasional idiot following an urban legend. The religious cult down the road-Children of the Crow Mother? I’ve no idea. They wear all these black feathers. Then there’s this one guy, he comes almost enough to be a regular. He says he’s a writer, but he’s got this look about him. Most of the time, these oddballs are just pure entertainment. That’s it. They come in, they buy some drinks, and act nuts until they pass out. If they don’t look dangerous, we call them a ride. But if they scare us? There’s a bed in the back. Real comfy like, all goose feathers. They sleep like a babe, wake the next morning and stagger off. There’s a feel to these customers, a baseline you get the moment they come through the door. You can call it a feeling if you want to be romantic. Most of the time though, you just now.
This night though, with the rain pouring and the thunder?
Well.
Nice people don’t go to Sleazy’s. Least of all on nights like that. So when that door swung in, I pulled away from Lila’s hands and looked.
I guess I’d expected the boogeyman. Not THE boogeyman, naturally. He only comes around once a year. But you know, a metaphorical one. Some real twisted son of a bitch that would brave flash floods for a beer. Hell, I half expected the writer. But standing there dripping on our mat? With a peel of thunder tearing ass across the sky? Well-I’m not saying short people can’t be intimidating. I’m not SAYING their height alone made me snort.
But I am saying I knew for a fact Lila was going to card them.
They weighed maybe a buck ten in their soaked clothes. They had a wide brim hat, gray as the water falling outside. They had on a navy coat, and these black rubber boots that disappeared into a simple gray skirt. The coat is what got me thought. It wasn’t like you see most wear-those sport, sterile affairs with zippers and logos. This thing, it was ratty. Had holes in pockets, and these garrish loop straps. Most of all though, it looked ten sizes too big. Like it was supposed to fit their dad or something. This sentient pile of rags, it stepped forward and lifted it’s hat.
Doing that, it just made Lila sigh.
If they didn’t have ID, this was going to get very awkward.
The face that peered from the hat was smooth, pale and pink. It had simple lips like a doll. The cheeks were round, and framed by straight, white bangs that poured from the brim. The thing that caught my attention most was the eyes. One was covered by a simple black patch-and the other was a radiant blue. Like a clear summer sky without a single cloud. It’s not that they were pretty-it’s that “pretty”, as a rule, is hard to come by here.
They smiled, and stepped towards the bar.
Maybe it was the fact Langston wasn’t playing. Maybe that was emphasized by the fact Russ had stopped snoring. But things got really quiet in that moment. Which, considering the way the windows had been rattling with the thunder, only made those footsteps louder. Wouldn’t think such a small thing could step like that, but their boots squeaked the whole way. When they finally got to the bar, I had to hold back a snort.
Their head JUST cleared the stool. They clambered up all the same, and took their hat off. They laid it right on the bar with a smack as white hair cascaded down their shoulders. That doll face, it grinned real big and said “One whiskey sour, please!” with a squeak.
There was a pause-one that broke seconds later but uproaring laughter. From Lila and I to the rattling of Langston, the dry heaves of Ol’ Russ. We all let loose one hell of a rip, and the newcomer frowned.
“Did I say something wrong? Th-this is a bar, right? I didn’t come to the wrong place?” said the voice, it’s alto squeak making it that much harder to stop.
Lila shook her head, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “No, no. We’re a bar alright. Got some ID kid?”
At this, the doll face perked up. The newbie pulled at neck of their coat, and reached within. “I sure do! Hold on just one sec. I swear it’s just right here-“
I watched as the hand plunged deeper and deeper. It was just momentary-but I saw a sliver of skin. Pale, just like the rest of them. Soft as snowballs, judging by the jiggle. The newbie pulled out a tube of paper, and laid it on the bar. They unfurled it from the top, and turned it to face Lila. The succubus arched her brow, read for a moment, then snorted as she waved the paper away.
“Well, it’s not a driver’s license. But it’ll do. Whiskey sour, right?”
“Y-yes ma’am!” said the newcomer. They lifted a hand, and snapped their fingers.
I still think sometimes I was just too drunk. That it was a trick of the light, some crap like that. But the paper was there-then it wasn’t. Not a single scrap. There was a slight smell in the air just then-like flowers and electricity, but it passed. Lila turned towards the bottles behind her, and went to work. I leaned closer to the newbie, and flicked my tongue.
See, when most see me do that? They think it’s some kind of sensual thing. Like with the winks, right? You probably thought the same thing. It’s okay. Fact is though, I’m not looking for you to gag me. That’s an entirely DIFFERENT thing with my mouth.
I’m testing the air.
See, snake folk like me? Our tongues are sensitive. If there’s a minute change in heat, taste, in the air? I can tell it all with a single flick. It’s how I know if someone’s going to be a “problem” or not. Most people and stragglers, they stay at their same levels. Warm. Lila, she runs a bit hotter. Langston is cold, and I’ve never dared flicked at Russ. This newcomer though?
They ran hot. Really, really hot. Think of pressing your tongue to a scalding tea kettle, but a thousand times worse. So I flicked again, half convinced I was having an off night.
Flicking at this person, I might as well have tongued the sun. This pipsqueak, this dimutive little fucking nerd, they radiated like nothing I’d ever tasted. Lila turned, her eyes cutting to me as she slid the drink over. I smiled, and leaned in closer to the newcomer still. Lila smirked, and snapped her fingers at Langston. Keys struck chords, and I smiled as that face turned towards mine.
I gave them my name, just like I did you.
They bought me a drink, just like you.
What came of that night though, well.
Have you ever wondered how the bar got its name?
@@@
Let’s take this from the top.
We’re monsters, all of us. Don’t give me that look. It’s not a slur, not around here. It’s a fact of life. A succubus barkeep? Her friend, with their entire lower half encased in scales? A skeleton, and-well, WHATEVER Russ is. Monsters, all of us. And while our needs might be different, we’re a lot like you. We like friends. We like a good drink. That’s why we’re here.
But there’s another part to it, something I don’t suppose I need to tell you. I mean, it’s nothing bad. You didn’t see bodies, bones and skulls around, right? I bet you didn’t. You figured to yourself you were safe then-even after stepping through the door. Good. That’s good. Because our feeding, it is safe.
Oh, don’t pale on me like that. Hold still. Your hands still in mine. You haven’t ran away just yet. And you’re not going to, are you?
Yes, we feed. And it’s safe. Lila and I, our needs are just alike. That tongue flick? The whole reason I do it is to gauge energy. That’s what helps me keep these curves you’ve been eyeing. Lila’s the exact same. Her and I, we’re not just friends. We’re dinner buddies. See, I flick patrons and see if they’re up to snuff. If they are, we take them in the back. It’s where her bed is. Big, king sized and soft. It’s the same one we toss the rowdies on.
Sometimes they go for me, sometimes they go for her.
Nobody gets upset when their second choice shows up.
We kiss, we fondle. We let them squeeze wherever and whatever they want. Then we pin them. Lila, she likes to spread them flat and straddle. I wrap my coils around them real tight. Either way, we get the legs. The hands.
Then it’s our turn to get our fill.
No, we don’t eat them. No bones, remember?
You look fairly smart. Take a guess for me. If you’re right-I’ll let you see it first hand. How’s that?
That good with you, Lila?
But anyways, this newbie. The one running hot as hell. I’d never tasted something like that before, so I started the pitch right away. Lila kept the drinks coming, and I signaled to her to make SURE they kept coming. The short with the doll face, her name was Lizzy. Cute thing, really. Just graduated from some college, Miska-something or other. Got some useless anthropology degree, yada yada. Lotta good that’s going to do her in the desert. But we get her drink, and I tease her with my tail. Wrapping it around her. She gets all giggling and talks about how warm I am. I smirk, and crack some joke about getting warmer. Then she blushes.
That’s how it usually goes. People get all giggly, a little handsy. Then they’re in the back, all the color drained from their face. Lila’s laughing and smacking our new boobs against each other. So when the moment was right, I kept to the script. Langston rolled out with a rattle, and Russ clambered up the wall and out a window. I gave Lila the signal, and she leaned over the counter. Her breasts smacked against the top, and I watched as Lizzy peered right at them.
Gotcha.
A few jokes, a few more empty glasses, and Lizzy was riding atop my tail as we slithered to the back room. Even with both arms wrapped around me, she wobbled atop me and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“I’m THE next *hic* SUPREME!”
Lila snorted, and said “Sure thing, sweety. And you can show us alllll that power in just a sec. Let’s lie you down, okay?”
Lizzy didn’t have to be asked twice. Hell, we didn’t even have to ask her to “make herself comfortable”. Miss five-foot-nothing peeled out of her coat, her skirt. They met the floor, and she jumped atop the bed in nothing but boy shorts. She bounced atop the mattress, Lila and I just staring on. It wasn’t unexpected-but it was pretty bold. Getting naked with a bunch of strangers, I mean. But Lizzy kept on bouncing, her b-cups jiggling as she laughed and laughed.
“Y-you two wanna fly too? You want to?”
I snorted, and said “Sure kid, uh-could you make some extra room on the mattress for-“
That’s as far as I made it. Seriously, ‘for’. That was the last word out of my mouth before Lizzy snapped her fingers, and that smell came again. Flowers and electricity filled my nostrils as I floated off the ground, my tail flailing manically as I rose. I just stared at the floor, jaw slack as Lizzy giggled.
“You too! You too!” she said. Lila’s head whipped around-and then came another snap.
Lila floated alright-only she rose too fast, and almost hit the ceiling. I wrapped a coil around her in time, and pulled her in. Her eyes were wide as her face came into view, and cut between Lizzy and me.
Then it struck me like a ten pound hammer on a tin nail.
Lizzy was running hot for a reason. One very specific, magical reason.
“Oh shit,” I muttered.
“Mage,” sputtered Lila.
Then came Lizzy’s laughter as our faces met. It wasn’t like Lila and I haven’t kissed-but this was like a kid shoving two dolls together. Our faces rubbed and rubbed, and I caught a glance of Lizzy. She lay on the bed, her breath ragged as her fingers wavered back and forth.
“Awww, you two are super cute…and hot…and I…fuck. Is this weird? Is it weird if I touch myself?” she said, each word slurred on the next.
Lila jerked her neck back, and forced a smile. “U-uh, no! Not at all, we uh-we don’t mind. But could you put us down?” she said.
Only Lizzy didn’t. Lizzy didn’t do that because her hand was already in her panties, fingers rolling beneath a thin layer of white cotton. She cupped her breasts, her hips bucking into her fingers as she did.
“Oh fuck, fucking-this is good, this feels so fucking good,” she cried out as she writhed.
Which, frankly, wasn’t the problem. Hell, under other circumstances, I might have even thought it was really hot.
But Lila and I were still under her spell.
Every thrust, every buck sent Lila and I rubbing against one another. Our lips pressing, our tongue rolling over each other’s skin. Lizzy would raise her hips to fuck herself harder, and Lila’s cunt would meet my mouth. When Lizzy tore away her panties, Lila’s top split down the middle.
To this day, I’ve no idea WHY Lila left her dildos laying out. But Lizzy found them, drunk on drink and herself as she was. She raised the biggest, thickest one she could find. It was this dark green number, meant to look like an ogre. Her eyes were wide as she looked at it, her mouth slack.
“Oh helloooo handsome,” she muttered as my tail lifted into the air.
As she worked it against her slit, Lila’s legs were jerked open.
By the time the head was inside, I was writhing and wriggling within Lila’s walls. My friend’s eyes spasmed, her face blushing deeper as she arched her back. As she took me deeper, the mage mounting the toy on the bed.
Do you know how hard it is to make a succubus cum? Like, actually have an orgasm, not just faking it for someone?
Do you have ANY idea how long I was inside of Lila? Because I do. Long enough to get wet myself. Long enough for both of us to realize just how nice it felt to be bound, to be controlled. By the time Lizzy came, her eyes rolling back?
Lila and I didn’t have to be controlled anymore.
We wanted to be.
@@@
So.
There you go.
Welcome to Sleazy’s. You know all the regulars, and you seem like a nice enough sort. But I’d also like to introduce you to a friend of mine. No, not Lila, you lush.
This other girl, she’s a real brainiac. She’s got a space in the back you’re just going to love. And don’t worry if you stagger-she can work with that.
Here’s a fic request. A girl who’s bullied by the cheerleading squad finds the incantation for a love spell and decides the best revenge is to make their boyfriends publicly fall in love with her. If she had read the fine print she would have seen that the spell only works on women.
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“Amelia, I just wanna talk, I swear!”
She says this while her fist pounds against the door. With her voice raised. It’s six, the sun is just starting to set on the neighborhood. All these little pill box houses so close together. Their walls a termite’s feast, so thin already. There’s no way one of my neighbors hasn’t heard. I flick my eyes over windows and doors from the second story. Lia, she just goes right on, without a single care.
“Amelia, please!”
The knocks come louder this time. So much that I can hear them clear in my bedroom. I try to think of when my mother will be home. Then the banging stops, and I glance down. Lia stands there, her fists curled. She stamps her foot against our concrete step, and turns around. Just when I think it’s going to be okay, just when my shoulders start to slack, she turns. I’m not quick enough. She spies the curtain closing, and the door rattles yet again.
“AMELIA, open the fucking door! I fucking saw you!”
I slump beneath the window frame, and clasp my hands together.
I pick a god and pray.
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The first rule of magic is, don’t believe in it.
No.
Really. That’s it.
Don’t believe in it. Treat it like Santa and the Easter Bunny. Put as much faith in it as you do the tooth fairy. Tell yourself it’s not real, tell yourself to laugh every time someone calls themselves a “witch” or a “warlock”. Do this, and never stop doing it even for a second. Roll your eyes at the “new age” section in your book store.. Be a skeptic. Don’t even go to church.
That’s the first rule. Follow that, and I promise you’ll live a perfectly normal life. It may not be the one you want, but it’ll be calm. Typical. Absolutely pedestrian. Yours. See, I didn’t do that.
Because I’m a fucking idiot.
No, I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons. No, I don’t have tarot cards or runes or I-Ching. I’m not a wiccan. I didn’t study magic to “empower me” or some crap. It’s not an assertion to my “divine feminine nature”.
No, this started because of spanks. Choreography. Tights. Cock.
Yes, go ahead. Laugh. Get it out of your system now, and then do shut the fuck up. I don’t know how long I have. That’s the thing I miss in all of this-reliable measures. Facts. Boundaries we can point to and say, “That’s it, that’s the end, that’s the limit”. When you have those, you know when to stop. To close the book.
Only this isn’t a story. It’s not some National Geographic article from the sixties, with its word count requirement. It isn’t some pulpy dime store novel. It’s me, it’s my fucking life, and all those quaint little boundries are gone. That’s what all this does to you. It takes those limits, and shows you they were never really there. It throws you out screaming into the void.
Follow the first rule and you’ll live. You’ll be bored to death and the happiest idiot in town.
Don’t, and you’ll be just like me. With textbooks from the 1950s on ancient religions stacked to the ceiling. Out of print softcovers from the 70s tucked beneath your mattress. These ugly cloth hardcovers, so old and worn the title is missing. You use those for coasters. This becomes your day to day. The constant musk of half-mildewed paper complimenting angry white men screaming about heathens.
Oh, that’s the second rule.
Magic-or magick, if you’re an asshole-it’s not sexy. Sorry. You’re going to be spending a lot of time at the library, at garage sales. On ebay snipping books literally no one else is betting on. Whatever friends you thought you had, whatever fledgling social connections you aspired to make?
Kiss them goodbye. Do it now, get it over with. It’s better than calls evaporating into texts, both saying the same thing. Sorry, can’t make it-I gotta study! <3
I know, I know. I’m all over the place, and all this sounds so damned confused from the “nerd”. I get it. But when you’ve been floating for months, years by yourself?
When the first social contact you’ve had is because you forced the universes hand?
You look at me, and tell me with a straight face you wouldn’t be scatterbrained. That you wouldn’t look just as manic and looney as the books you’ve buried yourself in. In the end, that’s what magic does. It takes your brain, this lovely little box, and turns it on end. It scatters everything all over the floor. Just like your room.
I’ll try and make this pretty for you.
Hi.
I’m Amelia.
This is how magic fucked up my life.
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What do you hate about yourself?
I’m sure you can cite something. Some mole, some crook of the nose. Your earlobes, your freckles. Your eyes, your arms, your legs. There’s something fucky about you, but you’ve lived long enough to ignore it. People say “accept it”, but that’s a load of shit. You’ve learned to ignore it because noticing it just breeds anxiety. The anxiety, it turns into self loathing. Hate. It makes you uglier than you already are. So you pretend. You lie, and on a long enough time line, you even believe the lie.
Everyone thinks “abra cadabra” is some kind of magic phrase. It’s not. “I’m a good person and I love myself,” now that’s magic. Those words have turned people into millionaires and success stories.
But they’re a load of shit.
Magic is a load of shit.
Keep saying that, and don’t stop.
I’m sure you’re really, honestly proud of yourself. I bet you wake up every day, say that little phrase and kick the entire world’s ass.
You’re not in high school anymore either, are you?
Don’t worry, it’s not gross you’re talking to me. I mean, it totally is. But I’m a senior, and I’ll probably be dead before too much longer. It’s cool. You’ve your trick, and I’m going to tell you mine. Deal? Deal.
All these things you will away with a few words? Imagine if you didn’t have that luxury. Not because you actually believed in any of it (you don’t, right?), but because someone poked holes in it. This squaking parrot, this fucking contemptable bitch of a bird, it kept calling you fat. It said your freckles were gross. It told you when you had acne, it called you four eyes. Nothing particularly smart or intelligent-just the most baseline things. The rough grating of it’s squaks a cheap imitation of human words.
But close. Close enough for you to register, to hear with every repetition. Your magic trick, it falls to taters under that. A single person poking holes. The catholic church burned people alive for less. Cotton Mathers, he drowned people. With a full crowd cheering him on, even. One fucking person. That’s all it takes.
Now imagine a whole group of them.
A flock of crows, its’ called a murder. Did you know that? I found that out reading about wiccan symbolism. The Gilmore High cheer squad? That describes them perfectly. A murder. Because if you so much as came near them, that’s what they did. Every call, every little squawk just drove it all so much deeper.
By the time you’re coughing on blood, all that’s left is pissing away what’s left. All that remains is to become a spectacle. Cheryle Brodenberry, she loved that part.
My own personal Cotton Mather.
I’d love to give you some tragi-dorable reason I hated her. I could waste time making myself into some underdog, but we’re dealing with facts. Actual, provable things that we can clutch to. So here’s the truth:
Cheryle was a raging fucking cunt to everyone she knew. Except her boyfriend. Let’s call him “Chad”. He’s forgettable, really. The kind of guy that plays on the football team, graduates and works for his dad. You know the type, right? Right. He’s a nice little baseline, and we’ll keep him as such. Cheryle? She loved this walking dildo. Loved to kiss him, to hug him. Shove her tongue down her throat after she insulted you.
Spectacles are nothing without performers, after all. Cheryle and Chad, their livesdepended on it. They wouldn’t exist without the roar of the crowd. Alone they just were, but together they were an experience. Another bar, another baseline.
I can’t say at what point ruining that seemed like a good idea. Maybe it was after she tossed a bottle of menstrual blood at me. Maybe it was during halloween, when she wore a witch costume and said she was me. It could have been the first day of freshman year-I don’t fucking know. Like Chad, it doesn’t really matter.
Like him, she chose the path of least resistance to make herself feel good. Me. She went after me because I was easy, because she thought I’d not fight back. You know what?
She was right, too.
I took it all in stride. What the hell else could I do? This isn’t like Twitter or Tumblr, with it’s roving call-outs and “cancels”. In the real world, nobody gave a shit. I was on my own. The concepts of “friends” became a moot point after a while. So I weathered it. I took it as long as I could.
Then came the Salem research.
I think back to that moment. That first reading in our history text. These women, they didn’t do a thing wrong, not really. No, they were burned, drowned, and beaten to death because reasons. Because it was okay to these uncultured luddites, these apron clutching peasants. There was a witch master general for fuck’s sake. They turned public humiliation and blood shed into a national pastime.
And for what?
Reading over those cases, something clicked. Something far back in the lizard portion of my brain, the raw intuition that kept my head low. That told me to deal with Cheryle like I always had, that it could only last so long.
For the first time in years, it made me want something just for myself. Something More. About the witches, about the concept. So I started reading when I got home. I started those ebay snipes, those weekend ventures to garage sales. After the first month, I was learned.
By the second, I was curious. The third, willing.
Now, magic is a load of shit. It’s all fake. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that even when your head tells you there’s no harm in trying. A simple curse, a simple spell. You’re just going to burn some sage and meditate, right? Hell, they sell kits for that at Sephora now. It’s not anything unusual. It’s just an interest.
Something you do to grind time until you die.
Keep saying that even as you notice the changes. Your skin, it clears up. Your hair darkens. You lose some weight. You get that promotion at your part-time job. You do another ritual, another charm. You invoke another god because it’s cool. You won’t admit it’s working despite the proof before you.
Then comes the bright idea. Something so selfish but blinding in how obvious it is, you do it anyways. Because what can it hurt? All these little events, they’re not connected. The burning sage and the chanting. The fliers for missing pets in your neighborhood. It’s this distant patena so hazy it can’t possibly connect to your reality.
Mine came when I saw Chad smile at me. Just once. We were in the hall, and I was trying my best to turn into a locker. He was on the other side, book in his arm. Clad in a letterman jacket. He turned to me, and his lips curled with a warmth I hadn’t felt the four years I’d been there.
It actually made me stop. I waved at him, and he waved back. Then he kept right on going to class.
Those bright ideas? These concepts that seem so fucking brilliant when they first pop in?
That’s the first sign you broke rule one.
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Lia’s been turning over the living room for an hour. Just a single pleading voice asking me to come out. Then the clash of dishes, the banging of cupboards.
A window. She threw a rock through a window, and climbed in. I would have screamed, but I’d covered my mouth in time. She was still turning over the first floor of the house-then Cheryle came. She had the rest of the squad with her.
They were all yelling at each other. I’d heard the meaty smacks of palms on cheeks.
“She’s mine you fucking bitch!”
“FUCK YOU, I’ve known her longer!”
“You made her miserable!”
All this, it’s the soundtrack of a horror movie. Only there’s no monster, no giant dead guy with a machete. Just me, with my door barricaded by books. I’d tried calling the cops, tried posting about it on Facebook. That didn’t change the fact they were downstairs right now, searching.
See, where I fucked up? It was breaking rule one. Then it was the bright idea. That’s the truth, the hard facts. But where I’d really screwed up was thinking I knew what the hell I was doing. Magic, it does that. You get a drop of power, and suddenly you think you command the universe. The world. That spells will always go precisely the way you need.
To that, I’ve got to ask: has anything else up to this point? Are you the rockstar porn star president you always wanted to be?
Did you get the Chad you wanted?
Or did something flub up along the way?
They’re at the stairs now, all compliments and grunts. A chorus of my praises peppered with snarls at each other.
I’d only wanted the one guy. Just the single chance for something I wanted. Something just for me.
But instead, I’m going to be the most popular girl in school.
I have a fiction request, Sir. The greatest negotiator has come to town after hearing about strange things in the area. Satan is looking to make a deal for Jack’s soul or his service, and she won’t take no for an answer. I’m curious to see you write the dialogue and whether certain lesser demons would get involved.
(Note: I’ve oftened referenced “Splathouse Lore” works, which involve OCs I created while this blog was still on Tumblr. I’m unsure how many of you have read those, but that’s what this request is referencing. In the spirit of catering to a growing and new audience, I’ve decided to take the opportunity to re-boot those works for new people. The Devil and Jack will be a multi-part series, starting with this entry. This will be something new I’m attempting, and I would greatly enjoy feedback. I am going to try my best to crank out a chapter every week, week and a half. It’s my sincere hope you all enjoy meeting Asmo, Jenazebelle and my “lore” half.-j)
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“Asmo, get my knife. The big one,”
My boss, he’s standing with his back against the door. He’s just flipped the deadbolt, the lock, and the latch. Sweat beads at his brow, and his chest rises in such a small fashion I just know he’s holding it in. I watch his throat bob as he swallows, his eyes wide as they meet mine. His robe-an old, ratty thing fading from black to gray-hangs loose about him. It’s open to reveal the ponch of his belly, the steel hair at his chest.
The ink on his skin, it rolls, roils and coils about every tendon. His tattoos, they do that sometimes. I’d asked him once why, and he just told me he forgets what they’re supposed to be. That the ink decides its shape. Right now, it surfaces in dark, firm lines at his chest. His shoulders. It grays along his stomach and pecs. Geometric shapes, shaded and hardened.
Steel plates. They were supposed to be steel plates.
Watching him, my stomach tightened. I rolled my tongue over my lips, and finally found the courage to speak.
“Uh, Jack? You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than-”
“The big one, with the leather sheath. It’s in my sock drawer-just go, okay?” he says. He almost spat the words out. His tone softened, but I could still hear it in every syllable. If it was worry or fear, I couldn’t say. He hadn’t spoken like that in a long while.
I turn to my sister, and look up to study her face. Jenazebelle stands, her tail rigid and angled towards the ground. Her black lips are pulled into a thin line, and she watches our boss for a long moment. She crosses her arms, and turns towards me. That gaze, I’ve seen it over the years too. People made statues, paintings of it before. No mortal ever captured it-but none had been with her as long as I. Or the boss.
My stomach tightens just a little more.
“Asmo? Go. Go get his knife, and then I want you to go into your office. You’ll lock the door after, understand?” she says, her voice monotone as her eyes bore into me.
“B-but why would I-” I start, but my sister holds up a hand.
“Get the knife, go to your office, lock the door. Now,”
So I did. I took the stairs that lead to his office turned study, a disaster of a hole. I sheafed through paper products, under the mattress worn with age. By the time I’d pushed ten or so odd books aside, I finally uncovered a battered, scarred dresser. The drawer groaned as I pulled it out.
As it drew towards my hip, there came another loud rap at the door downstairs. Firm and sure, like a salesman that knows he can stick his foot in the frame.
“ASMO?” cried my boss, the fervor in his voice melting into a pot of anxiety.
As I dug under faded black socks and boxers, under half-used bottles of lube, I heard the clatter of hoofs on the stairwell. That’s when I found it.
The sheath, like the table, was ragged and battered. Worn at the edges and fuzzy. It was tanned the color of tired skin, and from the top stuck a handle just as ragged. If it was wood or some ancient bone, I couldn’t tell you. I lifted the knife into my hands, afraid the leather would crack on contact.
It was as long as my forearm. Even encased, I let it lay flat across my palms. Not because I’d never seen it-I had, just once. Not because it frightened me. Though my scalp tingle just looking at it, that wasn’t it. The reason it laid across my hands was far more simple.
It was warm, and getting warmer. I pushed the drawer back in with my knee, and laid it atop the dresser.
The hooves clattered more manic, and grew closer with every step. The door to Jack’s office had been cracked open, just a sliver. My sister swung it open so hard it rattled against the wall. Her eyes cut across the room, then towards me. She drew close, her hooves deftly stepping over papers and boxes, trash and clothes. When her eyes fell upon the knife, she grasped my shoulder and squeezed.
“Good, you did good. Now go down, and into your office. Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone-Jack or I will get it, okay?”
She took the hem of her shirt, and lifted it. She wrapped it around the sheath, and held the blade as far from her stomach as she could. She stepped over the piles of crap again, and made it to the door before I spoke.
“Jen? W-who is that? Down there, beyond the door?”
She paused, a hoof raised to step out towards the hall. She took a breath, and shook her head.
“Someone old. Someone I hoped we’d never meet again. C’mon, let’s get you locked in, okay?”
So I followed her. Not of my own volition, but my legs move all the same. Every step we took down the stairs agitated the vipers of my guts. We hit the landing, and Jen tossed the knife to Jack. He had just gripped the handle as my sister guided me towards my office.
“Remember-keep it locked. Jack or I will get you. And don’t open just because we say it’s us, okay?”
I nodded, and met her eyes. Over her shoulder, I watched as Jack slipped from his robe. It slid over his shoulders to his hips. He took the sleeves, and tied it there. He stuck the knife, case and all, beneath it. The ink underneath his skin-in this light, it looked like dulled steel. The designs held firm, and didn’t waver.
As he turned, I watched his face. His lips moved ever so slightly, his eyes narrowed.
He was concentrating.
That’s why the designs held.
“Jen?” I say, “Are we in trouble?”
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Hell? People think it’s all fire, all brimstone. Preachers across the country talk about the screams, the smell of charred flesh. Dante layered it like a cake. People use it as an adjective, a noun. They tell everyone to go to Hell. They say they’re going there themselves, even. This is hell, that is hellish.
That’s all thanks to our misinformation department.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re still Hell. But just as the world changed, so did we. It’s a streamlined process, the kind of automation CEOs have wet dreams about. Fully automated, with little need for stop processes or employee involvement. The Hell we have now?
It’s focused on customer service. A call center that works every second. I hadn’t seen blood-or semen, or shit-until I came topside. The most violent thing I’d come across at my old job?
Tabulating genocides.
Numbers on a screen that meant nothing after the first year.
But then came the summons.
At one point, a summoning happened one in every six hundred and sixty-six cases. Then six thousand, six hundred and sixty six. Before I came up, it was six hundred and sixty six million. It wasn’t that humanity had lost faith, or didn’t believe in us. They always had that. If they projected on a horned god or a celebrity, faith was always around.
They just didn’t need us anymore.
Getting a summons now, it was like winning the lottery. My brothers and sisters were so excited for me. They kept clapping me on the back, telling me how lucky I was.
“You’re finally getting out,” they would say. And “You’re so lucky”.
The only one that didn’t was my boss. My step father.
I never asked how old he was. Downside, we don’t really measure time. Everything is one long moment. All your triumphs and screw ups, they stick with you. Everything piles and piles upon you. Layer and layer, the totality of your existence crushed beneath it. So you do your job, and answer to your boss. You don’t think, you do. Baphomet-father and leader, boss and tyrant-he was the only one that didn’t smile when he heard the news.
He called me in to his office.
Without the fire and brimstone? Without the heat at a melting point? We’d ascended to chairs. To desks. Some were nicer than others. My father, he had the nicest I’d seen. Everything was neon and bright, a rainbow of color the moment you opened the door. The slab rocks that made the walls, they had been smoothed. Murals of fish, lush vegetation and more had been painted over them. If you stood there long enough, you would swear they could move. But they never did. I’d touched the walls plenty of times to be sure.
He told me once it reminded him of the earth Before. He said it just like that, too. When he did, he’d give a crooked smile from his goat mouth, and just stare at the walls.
My father, he didn’t smile often.
He was one of the only people that smiled in hell.
I think that’s why despite everything, I loved him so much.
Sitting there in his office, he turned to me. He said “Asmodeus? It’s a fix. The summoning, I mean. You remember Jen, right?”
It took me a moment to remember Jenazebelle. Buried beneath everything else, I saw a face. Blue, like mine. Rounder, softer. Kinder. A succubus. My sister was a succubus, and she’d been summoned, too. I calculated the odds of that. The two of us, summoned so close. Two demons in the same traitline at all being called.
It was well beyond six hundred sixty-six million.
Baphomet brings a hand to his beard. He strokes his goatee, and twirls the ends in his black nails. He leans back, his office chair squeaking. His hooves meet the top of the desk, his yellowed eyes firm upon me.
I nod, but don’t say anything. He returns it, and lets go of his beard.
“Well, she’s past due. Her paperwork. We’re still waiting on a signing from her-and we’re hundreds of days over. Can you talk to her? Go topside, maybe figure out what’s what for me?”
“Yes father,” I say, “It’s no problem, Father.”
Baphomet gives a bleat, and smiles. He takes his hooves from the desk, and stands.
Sitting in this chair like this, gazing up at him?
It reminds me of the brood nest. When I was born.
He passes the desk, and comes towards me. His hand meets my shoulder, and gives it a squeeze.
“That’s a good boy,” he says, “That’s a good, good boy. Let’s get you ready, then. You know about topside, I take it?”
“As much as any of us Father,” I say. He squeezes my shoulder again, and pulls his hand from my suit jacket.
“Well, I’ll try to get you up to speed before then. Come along, boy. We’ve much to do, much to do indeed,”
His hooves clacked to the door. I followed, the sound of my own hoofs so much fainter. He loomed massive in the door, his hand straying a moment. He stood there, and tilted his horned head back at me.
“And boy? Don’t fuck this up,”
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With the cigarette at his lips, It could be almost any other day. But then he wipes his brow, and smears red over his eyes. He glances at the back of his hand, and lets out a sigh. Standing there in the doorway, he’s dripping blood. Gore. The folds of his skin are a deep burgundy as gray matter sops from his head to the floor.
His tattoos, they’re a mash of scenes. The steel plates are gone. In their place, I see the execution of french royalty. The bombs dropping on Nagasaki, Hiroshima. They melt and give way to imperialists being shot to death. Firing squads and tomahawks. Flesh flayed and people being burned at the stake. I stare, and I keep staring until his words pelt from his lips.
“Hey, you mind getting a mop?” he says.
When he walks away, his boots stick to the floorboards. For a long moment, I don’t say anything. I just stand there and stare out the door. Then my eyes flick towards the frame, towards the handprint smeared against the wood.
I wasn’t a stranger to violence, but it had always been on the other side of a screen. Seeing it in person? It was like getting a call in the middle of the night. You scramble to the phone, already angry, already cursing. Then you pick up the phone, and the voice on the other end isn’t friend or foe. It’s an assertion of who you once were. You might have tried to ignore it or forget it. Most of the time you can fool even yourself. But the moment you hear that voice, it all comes back.
I took a step towards the door, and paused. I gazed into the hall, the crimson trail of boots that went towards the living room.
I tried to remember the last time I saw real, actual blood.
If I ever had seen it.
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Finding my sister, it was supposed to be hard.
Downside, you grow numb fairly quick. You mature from the brood nest in a blink, then they stick you in a suit. They seat you behind a desk, and give you an assignment. Drive by shootings, stillbirths. Wars without end, stick-ups at convenience stores. White lies told by parents to placate children. Rapists dumping bodies. At first it’s all stimuli, an avalanche of things too horrid to process.
The first hundred thousand, you keep feeling like you’re going to vomit. Lots do. Then you keep feeling like you should, but nothing comes up. You get the dry heaves. Past that, nothing.
It’s just numbers.
It’s just a job.
Going Topside, all those murders, rapes, mass graves and unpleasant jokes. They’re right there, overwhelming your senses. They’re not just figures in a report. They’re in front of your eyes, under your nails. The charnel house smell of death and shit and cum is all around you.
Only this time you can’t get away. There’s no amount of vomiting that can make you feel better.
Finding Jenazebelle was supposed to be difficult. Not because she’s a demon, but because of the rest. Most demons that go topside, they get retired when they come back. They keep associating pictures to the numbers. Like they’re fresh out of the nest. That morality they had spent so long trying to forget and bury?
It’s back. They’ve yanked it kicking and screaming to the forefront of their brain, and it won’t shut up.
When my sister yanked me from the broom closet I appeared in, it was a lot like that.
I wasn’t sure where I was at first. It was a cramped space. Black as pitch. I tried to turn, and stuck a hoof in a bucket. My tail hit a shelf, which knocked a broom against me. I flayed an arm out, and tried to set it back-which just made the entire shelf topple.
Not on to me, but with such a clatter I wished it had. Then I heard the turn of a door knob, the grip at my shoulder. I was dragged out into the hall, my hooves kicking away at the bucket. When I turned, I had to look up just to see her.
She looked like the others-tall and round and full. Her lips and hips plump by design. She still wore the same suit we all had. A jacket black as ebony over a snow white button up. A black skirt that ended just above the knee. The horn rimmed glasses were new-at least, I thought they were. Her skin shimmered like cobalt, the color iridescent in the newfound light of the hall.
But it was her eyes that made me grow still. The sureness of her grip on my shoulder as she spoke, it was all so real. So here and now, a bleeding part of reality.
Only my father had touched me in Hell. Only ever a grip at my shoulder, nothing more.
“Asmodaeus? That’s you, right? Listen to me-I’m only going to say this once. I need you to do something for me, something big. You’re listening, right?”
I’d been Topside an entire minute. I blinked, the light of the hall so much brighter than anything I’d known. I turned my head, and took in the details by degrees.
Wood floors. Old walls. A staircase, a landing. Doors as big and old as time to the east, west and north. My sister, towering over me. Her eyes were wide, her grip tighter as she spoke.
“No matter what this guy upstairs says, I need you to trust him,” she said, “I need you to trust me-and not report back. It’ll all make sense later, but for right now, I need you to do this. I need you-do you understand?”
I was too overwhelmed to do anything but nod. Jenazebelle smiled-and that’s when I knew. The roiling in my guts, it started to calm. She patted my shoulder, and reached for my hand. Her fingers laced between mine, and she turned.
“Good-just trust me. No matter what you think, we’re going to need this to work, okay? So just play along. No matter what,”
“Why?”
She paused, and turned towards me. Her grip grew slack for all of a picosecond. She bent at the hip, her face inches from my own. Her eyes searched mine, my cheeks, my lips. Then she lifted a hand, and cupped my face. The roiling in my gut, it wasn’t gone. But in its place came a warmth I’d only known when Baphomet smiled.
“Asmo? You’re more than your job, you know that right?”
I stood there for a long moment, jaw wavering. Words coming to the edge of my tongue only to fail. My sister stroked my cheek, and kept talking.
“You’re more than that cubicle, those reports. I know it doesn’t seem like it, I know this is all scary. But just stick around. Don’t file that report just yet. Don’t write home right away, okay? Can you do that for me?”
When I don’t respond, my sister rises. She squeezes my hand again, and tugs at my hand.
“Come on then-it’s time you met him,”
“H-Hi-Him who?” I say, the words a jilted mess of noise.
Jenazebelle just laughs, and says “Oh, you’ll see.”
She drags me along, and eventually my hooves start to move on their own again. We went up the stairs, her pace steady, her grip unwavering. When we made it to the top we turned left and walked down the hall. The floorboards beneath us creaked so much it made me nervous.
The ground never creaked in hell.
My sister, she didn’t seem to mind. So I pretended not to as well. I failed, but I tried the whole way down the hall. I almost bumped into her as she came to a halt. Her hand dropped, and my own strayed in the air another moment before it met my side. Jenazebelle took a deep breath, and turned towards me.
“Okay, so that bit about your job? It’s true-but it’s also your cover. Being a worker. So no matter what he asks you, just say yes. Just believe in it. This whole thing, it’s powered by that. Got it?”
“Jenazebelle? W-who is i-it t-that called us?”
The question lingers in the air, and I watch her eyes stray for just a moment. She blinks, and I watch as her lips curl into a smile. She gives my hand a final squeeze, then pulls hers up to wrap upon the door.
“Eh, I guess that depends on how he’s feeling today. Here’s hoping he’s in a good mood,” she says.
Her knuckles tap against the door, and beyond the wood I hear a loud, wet cough. My sister knocks again, and a bass voice calls out from beyond the door.
“What the hell is it? I’m working, damn it!”
“Jack? Remember last night?” calls my sister. There’s a pause, and the voice that replies is softer if only by degrees.
“Which part?” it says.
“The latter one. After the warm up,” she says.
Another pause, one that makes the pregnant silence all the more heavy.
“Yeah?” says the voice-Jack.
That’s was his name, Jack. At least it was for now.
“Well, someone’s here to see you. Do you have a moment?” she says. Jenazebelle, she stands there with her hands poised, her blue ears pinned against her head. Her yellow eyes flick towards me, and she closes one of her eyes quickly. It’s a gesture I don’t get, but it gets her smiling again.
The silence stretches, and it’s then it dawns on me. The smell, the house, the touch of my sister. It’s all so real, so here. My legs grow tense, and I want to run. To get away, to claw the earth until I’m home again. Back in my cubicle, with numbers and charts. Tabulating deaths, tabulating horror too distant to care about.
Then the door knob turns, and the black wood swings inward.
My sister turns her hand, her palm presenting the darkened doorway.
“Well, there you go,” she says. She takes a step back, the clack of her massive hooves echoing in the house. She raises a hand, and prods me forward.
“Just remember, say ‘yes’. Just believe. It’s not anything hard, nothing deep. You made it this far-the worst is already over, okay? No matter what, the worst won’t happen. Promise,”
I’d stepped over the doorway, into a darkness I’d not even seen within the deepest pits. I had just turned to ask her so many things. Questions that buzzed and throbbed in my skull like a hive.
Then the door closed, and I was left with that wet, hacking cough.
I’d been topside ten minutes, if that. If they even used time here. I’d already broken one of the rules Baphomet-my father-had instilled in me.
I trusted her.
@@@
The face smiles despite being severed at the neck.
There’s an arm in the umbrella stand, slender fingers angled and clutching.
By the end table, there’s the rest. Ribcage spread wide, small intestines splayed over a ragged couch. It had been brown, but with the blood had darkened to a gushing black. Jack sat on it, cigarette burning away.
In his hand was the knife, it’s clipped point singing against a whetstone. Three strokes, and then he would flip it to the other side. He paused only to pull the cigarette from his lips, and tap the ashes away in the visceral beside him.
I saw all of this in swaths of colors. The pale skin of the body, the crimson of the blood. Jack’s tanned and inked skin, the gleam of the knife. Every image made my stomach roll. The need to up-chuck my breakfast crept to the back of my throat. I’d turned left before I let it all go, eyes cinched as tight as I could.
A murder, just one. Unextrodinary in how old a sin it was. Mudane by the body count despite it’s brutality. I’d filed millions of these away every single part of the long, on-going moment of my life without so much as a blink. But here, with the blood and the smell and the swaths, I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t send it back with a simple keystroke, send it off to join countless others in our department.
I only opened my eyes when I heard my sister speak.
“Asmo? Asmo, look. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine,”
Her hand was at my shoulder, the slurry of my breakfast at my hooves. She squeezed and tried to pull me up. I shuddered and seized against her touch, and my hooves kicked manically at the air as I was lifted.
“Just breathe,” she said, “It’s just a trick, okay? Look-”
“N-n-no!” I spat, knitting my lids closed again. “I d-do-don’t want to, I can’t, I-”
“Don’t tell me this is the finest that old goat had. Why, top of collections-and thisbothers you?”
The voice, it made both of us pause. I didn’t-couldn’t-open my eyes just yet. Through those syllables came a realization, though. I’d heard this voice before, this cadence. But there was a schism between them. The voice was supposed to soothe-but the cadence, it was all wrong. A mockery of genteel nature, like a lamb with a wolf’s maw.
As my sister lowered me, I took a breath. I opened my eyes.
The blood, the gore. The arms and the intestines, it was all gone. The couch was brown, and Jack sat atop it still. Shirtless but clean, the ink beneath his skin swirling into a Cross. Christ suffering at the hands of the Romans. Angels descending with spears on winged horses. Thunder striking against clouds. The flood, the destruction of Babel, the-
“Boy? I was talking to you,” came the voice again.
Inch by inch, I turned my face away from my boss. Across from him, to the other side of the room. Atop an old parlor couch, not so unlike the one Jack sat upon, sat a thin, pretty woman. She wore delicate heels on her slender, pale feet. A form-cut cocktail dress the color of night wrapped around her. It rose to reveal her shoulders, pale as milk and without a single blemish. Her arms were clad in black gloves, one which held a long, skinny cigarette holder. The face, it was the one I’d seen a moment ago. Atop the shoulders again, without so much as a bruise. Clad in thick shades, it smirked as the woman raised a hand. She tipped her glasses down, and eyed my sister and I.
She said “Well now, look at the both of you. Are our little delinquents going native? Hrm?”
“Shut the fuck up Audrey,”
The three of us looked to Jack, with his terrible knife across his lap. His tattoos formed into solid black caricatures. Depictions from the turn of the century vaudeville. A man in a red cape, with horns and a goatee. A smirking red imp, prodding at a child.
The goatish head of my father, his arms extended.
The woman-Audrey-she just laughed and laughed and laughed.
“Or what? You’ll butcher me again? You didn’t find it the first time because it doesn’t exist,” she said.
She took a drag from her cigarette holder, and looked towards my sister and I. When she exhaled, the smoke came out black as pitch. “Besides,” she said with a roll of her shoulders, “There’s no reason we can’t be civil, is there? I chose a form you’d find appealing. The least you can do is humor me warlock,”
She turned, the couch squeaking beneath her. She gazed at Jack, who held her eyes with his own fervor. For a few long minutes, neither of them said a word.
Then Jack looked away, and picked up his knife again. The blade sang, and caught the light with every note.
“Human form,” he said, his voice monotone, “Means you’ve a heart somewhere. One time, ten times. I’ll find it. So you go right on talking your shit. I ain’t nearly tired enough yet,”
The woman snorted, and pushed her sunglasses back up. She took another drag, and watched him as she sighed. “You know, I had a choice. Thousands. But I chose Breakfast at Tiffany’s just for you-and this is the thanks I get? Steel through the brain in some vain attempt to beat me?”
When she laughed, it sounded like nails grating against the world’s biggest chalkboard. She leaned forward, her sunglasses tilting down once more. Only the eyes that laid upon my boss, they weren’t the almond shaped ones from before.
I tried to look-tried to guess their age, their color. But it was like staring into a black hole. The more you tried, the closer and colder the event horizon became until there was nothing at all.
“You’d have better luck with a fiddle you god-forsaken bumpkin,” she spat.
@@@
The first day of my new job, I didn’t do a single calculation.
I didn’t even look at a screen.
On the very first day of my new job-a lie, a cover my sister had called it-I got in a beat-up truck. I rode with my boss, and ordered something called a Thick Burger at a drive through. The lady at the window, when she opened it, she stared at me. At my horns and hair, at the slit of my eyes. Her brow arched as she handed Jack a grease stained bag.
“Y’all going to a comic convention?” She said. Jack just smirked, and gave her a nod.
“Eh, something like that. You take care, okay?”
Then we drove off like nothing happened. We hit the highway and twisted through curves and back roads. Pavement gave way to gravel, dirt. By the time Jack hit the breaks, the cabin smelled of cooked meat and grease. He set the car in park, and unbuckled his seatbelt.
He gripped the bag with his other hand at the door. “Well, this looks as nice a spot as any, don’t it?”
I turned towards the window, and gazed out over the hood. Beyond it lay a field, big and green and empty. Grass rose past our ankles, and wildflowers bloomed in every direction. Then it Jack jumped on the hood of the car. He sat the bag beside him, and unfurled the top.
I finally opened the door and got out. The sun met my skin, and I felt warm. Not hot, not broiling. Just warm. I stood there a solid minute, just soaking it in. Then I clambered on top of the hood with my boss. Jack pushed the bag towards me, and eyed it. In his grip, meat and bread dripped grease right onto his shirt.
“Eat up now-and tell me about yourself,”
I stared at the bag, and rolled my shoulders. “I-I-I d-don’t know w-what you w-want me t-to-”
“Whatever you want,” he said, mouth full. He lifts a hand, and dabs at his mouth. “This ain’t no interrogation. You get to choose who you wanna be-alright?”
I sat there, and thought on that as I looked out towards the field. Wind blew, and every stalk of grass, every flower swayed along with it.
It was how I thought the ocean might look.
I rolled my tongue over my lips, and said “W-what if I d-don’t know who I-I wanna be? J-just who I’m supposed to be?”
Jack swallowed audibly, then bust into a laugh. “Well, it’s a trick question. Ain’t none of us really got the former figured out, though we’re guided with the latter. Best guess any of us got is just who we are in the moment. So, I’ll start. I’m Jack. I’m a writer,”
He smirked, and turned towards me. He extended his hand, and as I go to grip it that’s when I see it. The first smudge, a swirl of black that scurries away beneath his sleeve. I stared at the hand, and raise my eyes to his face. Jack smiles, and brings the hand closer.
“I didn’t say that’s all I am. But we’re gonna start off small. Okay?”
I nod and take the hand. His palm is callused and rough, but the fingertips feel smooth. His grip comes firm, but it’s gone a moment later. He reaches into the bag, and pulls out a lump wrapped in foil. He places it next to me, close enough to warm my thigh.
I watch as he pats at his jacket, a black and ragged thing that would have looked at home back home. He pulls his lapel away, and reaches within. I lift the lump, and unwrap it.
Tobacco and charred beef both meet my nose at the same time. As I’m chewing, Jack takes a drag.
“So. You uh, like your sister?”
I almost choke on the burger. I manage to swallow it down, but only after I nearly gag. Jack, he hadn’t once brought up what I was. He hadn’t bat an eye at my horns, my skin, my hooves. But sitting here now, hearing those words peel from his lips, it made me aware of two things.
I didn’t know this man.
I was alone with this man.
As my spine went rigid, I tried to think. Tried to tabulate all the ways I could bolt from this spot. How far I could run in the woods. He was a smoker and overweight by twenty pounds, so surely I had enough time to-
“Into the uh-sex side of things,”
“I-I ca-can’t say that I have ever v-viewed her in an i-intimate context,”
Jack turns his head by degrees, his mouth slack. Then he bursts into a laugh, one so hard it turns into a hacking cough. He smacks his chest, and shakes his head. “Uh, not quite what I meant there chief. I mean are you like, a sex demon? Like her?”
“O-Oh, I uh. Y-yes. Well, n-no. I’m n-not an i-incubus by t-trade. I w-worked accounting. B-by trait and broodnest, t-though-”
“So you get sexy with numbers. Good. We can work with that. What else?’
I sat there, maw full of food. I forced a swallow, and tried to think. The wind blew, and all the flowers before us swayed. A verdant carpet that seemed to breathe. I took a breath, and shrugged as I took another bite. Jack didn’t say anything for a while.
Then he lifted his boot, and put his cigarette out on his heel. Tobacco and paper shredded away, and he tucked the butt away in his pocket.
“S’okay,” he said, “S’alright. I already told ya’, it’s a trick question. So. It’s like this. I need a gopher, you need a place to stay. I ask you to go fetch something, you do it. I ask you to come with me out, you do it. Can you handle that?”
I swallowed, and gave a nod. I turned my head, and saw Jack smiling. He lifted his knees to the hood of the car, and wrapped his arms around them as he looked back over the field.
“Good, good. You and me, we ain’t gotta be friends. I’d like to be though. And I hope you do too,”
“I-I t-thi-think I can ma-manage that,” I sputtered.
Jack laughed, and reached over. His hand met my shoulder, and gave a squeeze. “Yeah, kid. You’re going to do just fine. Promise,”
We didn’t talk after that. I got done eating, and tossed the wrapper in the bag. Jack smoked another cigarette, and we sat there. Warm in the embrace of the sun, watching the flowers. Later we got in the truck, and we started back over the dirt and gravel.
It was about that time I realized I’d broken another rule, one my father had given me.
(FIC)Here’s something for the fic queue. Gaelira is a tall, buff Orc woman with a simple plan: kidnap princess Aolani and hold her hostage for an absurd ransom. The two of them falling for each other was not part of that plan
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(Note: I decided to take a different approach with this request. I did so to increase my own interest in writing it, and to try something different. The following story is all dialogue, a first for me. If you’ve any comments on it, please feel free to contact me anonymously on CuriousCat)
“Oi! There she is! What a lovely day, aye love?”
“Stuff it, Tomlin. I’ve a puzzle in my head missing pieces, and I’m in no mood for trite,”
“Hey hey, we can’t have that. Take a sit and a pint?”
“By all means. You’ve coin?”
“For my chieftess, always. Malrek! Two grogs, inna snap! And smile while you do it-Gaelira’s here,”
“Didn’t I tell you I’m in no mood for trite, Tomlin?”
“Aye, to me. But that’s Malrek’s natural state-he can’t help it, savvy?”
“I suppose. How goes it?”
“Well as it can, well as it can…and our guest?”
“That’d be the puzzle I mentioned,”
“I figured. Oi, here’s the grog. To your father?”
“Indeed,”
“May he bloody skulls in the hereafter, ever and ever. Blech, right bitter that is. So. This puzzle. What pieces are we missing?”
“Well-they’re not missing, per say. She’s still here-”
“Aye, I’ve seen her about the camp,”
“-and therein lies the problem. Her continued presence. You sent the messenger, didn’t you?”
“U-uh,aye. We did,”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Tomlin, don’t play the daft greenskin with me. Did they return?”
“Well, we had the one messenger, right?”
“You need to keep count?”
“Well no, but see, there was two that came back?”
“Two?”
“Aye! He made a friend!”
“How the bloody hell did a messenger for a kidnapping make a friend?!”
“Well, that bit about the kindness of the king, right? And how it extends over and over all his lands, right?”
“…Yes?”
“Well, what I’m trying to say is-”
“Tommmmlinnnn-”
“-That might just be the piece we’re missing in all this. We accounted for the guards, aye. And our guest being guarded-but gods above, who knew they’d be so damned accomodating?”
“Are you telling me that we’ve another human running about in the camp? Do you REALIZE what incredible danger that puts our entire operation in?!?”
“Oi, I do. But he came unarmed!”
“Well I’d like to think that at least our guards searched them for-”
“Not a single arm on him! Lad hops around like a chicken, but real congenial like. Loves to talk about all our banners and shite. He said he’s some kind of scholar? A ‘sociologist’ or some shite? But he writes with his toes! It’s incredible to watch him work!”
“….”
“Gaelira? Something the matter? You’ve gone that verdant shade of anger again,”
“Buy me another grog. Now,”
“Oi, right up, right up! Malrek! Another round. And smile again! It’s a new day, and whosawhatsit,”
“Thank you, Malrek. Tomlin? Love? Dear? I’m going to go over this very, very slowly. I want you to pay attention to every word I’m going to say, alright?”
“Ugh! Right, but could you let my beard go? You’re tugging it so-”
“It’s to ensure I’ve your full attention. Tomlin? We spent months orchestrating a kidnapping of the most valued asset in the kingdom, didn’t we?”
“Aye, we did,”
“And we executed it flawlessly, thanks to my leadership and planning, right?”
“Yes, we most certainly did! Without a hair harmed on her head, like you said!”
“After? Did I not delegate the care of the prisoner to you, as well as the management of the exchange? Was it not you who sent the messenger?”
“It was! And if I do say so myself, it went splendid. Better than I could have hoped!”
“Then why do we have a surplus of pink skins in our camp now?!”
“Well, like I said-we made a friend. Possibly several thousands if we play this right,”
“I-ugh. Tomlin, you realize that every single day she’s here is another day of planning for the kingdom, right?”
“Well, I suppose-”
“And having a set of eyes-a sociowhatsit-that’s to check our defenses. Our ranks. To see just how well we could take a full frontal assault. You know all of this, correct?”
“In a certain perspective, I’m sure that-”
“Tomlin, it’s the ONLY perspective. Order me another grog, now!”
“…I will, but on one condition. You’ve questioned my choices-and in fairness, that’s your right. But I’ve questions for you as well Chieftess. Indulge me?”
“As long as you do me,”
“MALR-well, that’s snappy service. Thank you, kin. So Gaelira-care to tell me why we don’t keep the princess bound anymore?”
“Well what’s the bloody point? Every time she sings, the damnedable song birds come out of the trees and pick at the hemp. Do you realize how much rope we’ve gone through at this point? We even bound her mouth-and she still hummed. A happy tune at that! She was overjoyed about it!”
“Aye, alright. So why does she stay in your hut?”
“You dare to ask me that after our exchange a moment ago?”
“Dare I do! How do we know you aren’t coercing the lass under force? Is a chieftess above the standards she holds her own?”
“…You know damned well that isn’t true, Tomlin. I hold her there to keep an eye about her. That’s all,”
“Oi, alright. And the headband?”
“What about it?!”
“Gaelira, love-you made that headband. We saw you do it last summer! A beautiful design, that. I’d know it anywhere!”
“She asked for something to keep the hair from her eyes. That’s all,”
“Aye? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,”
“And the dress? You mother made that for her, didn’t she?”
“I can’t control my mum any better than I control the clouds,”
“True, but I know Bertha Bonegnasher. She’s not one to do nice things for kin-and it’s an awfully pretty dress,”
“Tomlin, if you’ve something to say-”
“I do. I say you should ask her out already!”
“TOMLIN!”
“WHAT? The whole damned camp is talking about it! You smile around her, Gaelira! The last time I saw you smile was your father’s funeral! That kind of happiness doesn’t come around often!”
“And what of it? It’s vanity, all just damned vanity. Just like the thought of you keeping that scholar for a pet. They humans will come for us as they always do-and the next time you see me smile, it’ll be bathed in blood,”
“D’ya ever think maybe it doesn’t have to be that way? I mean, the king? They call him ‘Harold The Incredibly Generous and Kind’ for a reason,”
“So he gives to the poor. So he’s doteful on his daughter-but raising a well bred, well learned polite lady doth not a king make Tomlin,”
“Aye, but it makes a name, doesn’t it? And names, those last beyond death. They speak of the person, their history. And what might your name be when we’re both bones, Gaelira? Bonegnasher, like your parents?….Or Gaelira the wise? Gaelira the good, the just?…Gaelira the peaceful?”
“…”
“Right o, right o. You know what I really think? I think you’ve all the pieces to that puzzle. You just don’t know how to place them. Life is short and brutal, love. If nothing else, that should give you the courage to just do it. That is, if you’re the chieftess I know. If you’re the orc I’ve known since we were whelps,”
“…Tomlin?”
“Aye?”
“You’re a bastard,”
“Hah! Never said I wasn’t,”
“But you’re right. Thank you,”
“Oi, think nothing of it. But do ask her out. She’s a delight,”
“I’ll think about it. And Tomlin?”
“Yes love?”
“Give the scholar anything he needs. Let me know if he wants an audience,”
All female high school gang wars, 3 factions that have been fighting each other ever since the establishment of the school back in the 1880’s. Now in the times of 1990 and technology and science ever-changing, new pranks and ways to battle each other have been changing. Here comes our main character, Lea. She, by no means, has not pledged to any of the factions, she has basically been put herself in the middle of the battlefield. The only thing she just wants to do is be on her lab all day without a bother. One day, because of a mishap from one of the girls from a faction, decided it’ll be funny to throw unknown chemicals to Lea she thought, she was going to be fine…that was back then and now telling her story as one of the leader’s of a new faction. “Bust up”
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I’ve got to give her credit-at least she’s not sobbing.
That’s almost always what happens. They get to this point, and turn on the water works. Their make up runs, and they give me these big wet eyes. Sometimes they ask for mercy. Sometimes they tell me they’re sorry. But this girl, she’s got her jaw clenched. She’s got her eyes on me, sure. There’s not a drop of sadness there though. Just pure, unadulterated rage. I know if she could move, she’d just rip into me. Suspension or no.
It’s so adorable I can’t help but smile. I cross my legs, and finger a button on my blouse. Her eyes cut to it for all of a second, then back to me. She snarls, and tries to twist her way out of Milenda’s grip. That’s the other thing they all do-try to escape. They always get the dumb idea that if they just twist hard enough, they can break free.
Milenda was on the wrestling team. Despite her massive baps, she could run circles around anyone here. During class, she’d sit with her boots propped on her desk, a weight clamp in one hand. She’d squeeze, release, and toss it to the other hand.
She did this all day, every day. Even when she was doing class work, she’d just use her free hand for it. The other would be right under the desk, veins bulging as it flexed.
In the four years I had been here?
No one ever got out of her grip.
Not even once.
She liked to play with them, though. She would smirk, and let the girl twist for a moment. Then she would just adjust her grip. Her fingers would sink through the uniform, right into the soft flesh of their shoulder. She’d hook her index finger into a joint, a socket. Right against a nerve. The girls would yelp, then go limp.
The only reason this girl didn’t?
It was Lizzy. Thin Lizzy, at that. Appearances were everything to her lot. She didn’t drop or flail even by a degree-but she did stop twisting. She sat there, Milenda’s finger hooked into her collar bones, and just glared at me.
I finally smiled, and slid from the desk. My breasts smacked against my knees, but I didn’t pay them any mind. Lizzy? Her eyes went right to them. All the malice, all the hate she held for me gave way to a tinge at her cheeks. Redder and redder she became as I stepped closer, my finger idle at my buttons.
I giggled, and decided to quote the old girl. I rolled my tongue over my lips, and said something she had told me years ago.
“Let’s make a deal, okay sweetie?”
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They keep the lawn so you don’t notice the bars.
Adora High, it’s not a nice place. It just imitates one. They keep the lawn trim, and fresh flowers out. Roses of every shade without a hint of wither. They bunch them right around a wooden sign, ragged with age. It’s quaint, though. Cut into the shape of a butterfly, it has our school’s name right on our mascot. Go Monarchs.
But peek past that, and you see the bars behind the windows. Yep-bars on the inside. They were there the first day of class. Then came the metal detectors, the drug dogs. Someone told me that there was even a bomb disposal bots on sight. I didn’t believe them.
In retrospect? I should have. Maybe if I had actually listened, I wouldn’t be here right now. Typing away, trying to make sense of it. Sometimes I wonder if other people felt like this-that prattling away their own history was weird. In trying to stay objective about what happened, realizing there’s no real way to do that.
Maybe that’s all life really is. Trying to find the one version of your story that doesn’t make you look like an asshole. Me? I wasn’t an asshole. Not always. No, really. That first day going in, I’d heard the rumors. But I figured if I kept my head low, I’d make it out. I’d be in the graduating class of ‘94, and then off to MIT.
If you’re a freshie and you’re reading this, let that be your first lesson:
Don’t plan. Seriously, just don’t. It’s not going to happen. You’ll survive, sure. But all these goals and aspirations you pretend to have, toss them out right now. Be real with yourself from day one.
Be smarter than I was.
Adora High, with flowers and bars. Telling so much in a single view that took me years to understand. But I stepped past the glass doors that day, backpack on one arm. I pushed my glasses up, and took a deep breath.
The halls were choked with bodies. Uniforms of all shapes and sizes going here, there. At seven-thirty AM, class still hadn’t started. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out my schedule. In barely legible dot-matrix type, I read HMERM-A2-LAURELS. I glanced up, and stared ahead. Over the roar of the crowd and trampling of feet, I realized I was at a four-way cross of halls.
Without a single sign to point the way. I swallowed, my stomach fluttering for just a moment. But I stepped forward-I told myself I had this. I was a junior honors student. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.
Yeah, I know. I said I wasn’t an asshole-but I didn’t say a bit about ego, did I?
I exhaled, and join the mass of bodies. I walked right into the cross section, my bag getting smacked and jostled all the while. Someone walked by in a hurry and almost ripped my schedule from my hands. They hadn’t even looked at my way-just walked forward like they were Sonic. I turned with them as they passed and my eyes bolted open.
“H-Hey!” I stammered.
The stranger-with perfect, straight blonde hair, thin as a rail-stopped. They had two other girls by their side, just a bit shorter. They all held still, and I felt all the air get sucked from my lungs. When they turned, my heart turned to a lead thud in my ears.
Have you ever seen that movie They Live? The cheesy one with Roddy Piper? So like, the monsters in the movie, they were these aliens. Roddy knew something was off because of how stiff and perfect they were. These girls, they looked just like that. The center one had a smile that looked wooden, painted on. Her bangs were even over her thin eyebrows, which rigid these emerald eyes. Her chin was sharp enough to stab someone, and dimpled. Her little cohorts looked exactly alike, just with their bangs cut in sideways swoops. The center girl stepped forward, her pleated skirt stiff over her knee.
The whole time, she just kept smiling. Big and full, her teeth gleaming in the hall light. Every step she took made the fourway feel distant. Quiet. She was about a foot away from me before she stopped. Her head tilted, her eyes bouncing between my schedule and my face. I swallowed hard, and tried to take a step back.
She took one forward, and spoke in a tone that felt as forced as the rest of her.
“Oh, look girls. We’ve a freshie! Isn’t that nice?”
My schedule trembled, and I wanted to recoil all the way into my bag. The two other girls stepped past her. They flanked either side of me, keeping pace as I stepped back.
“That’s what you are, right? A little lost freshie, just tossed into the jungle? Do you know why they nicknamed the school that? Do you?”
“I-” I stammered as my eyes bounced in their sockets. “-No I don’t. Why’d they call it that?”
Miss freaky, with her perfect smile and doll-like eyes, she didn’t blink. Not even as I backed into a locker, my bag rattling against the door.
“Because of the song. You’ve heard it, right? Guns and Roses?”
I gave her a nod as she and the others pulled in closer still. Close enough for me to smell their perfume-an overpowering mix of wildflower and spite. My knees started to wobble, and miss perfect pinched my schedule between her index finger and thumb. She tugged it out of my hands, the edges of it tearing away in her speed. She glanced it over, and her smile grew wide as she looked back at me.
“Awww, look at that. We have home room together. Why don’t I walk you there?”
“That’s uh,” I said, “That’s okay. I can get there on my own,”
There was a moment of quiet. Then the girls threw back their heads and erupted into shrieking laughter. It went on for tens of seconds, long enough for my face to grow hot. Then it dropped abruptly-first with Miss Perfect, then her cronies.
“I said we’re taking you to class. You’re walking with us. Got it?”
I swallowed, and shook my head. Even with my heart pounding, the thought of keeping pace with her-of looking like those others-curdled my breakfast.
“No, thank you. I’ve got it,” I said. I tried to step between her and the others-but they just sidestepped, and blocked the way. The smiles they once had, they were gone. In their place was nothing but a gaze of a curled jungle cat.
Then came the yanked at my back pack.
If it was Miss Perfect or one of the others, I couldn’t say. But the yank took me to the floor-and sent my bag spilling.
“Awww, baby fell down,” said miss perfect. I heard my books get kicked down the hall, and tried to sit up. As I did, the bottom of a shoe met my chest-and pressed me right back against the tile.
Miss Perfect leaned on her knee, her caramel thighs splaying as she looked at me. Her face twisted into a sneer, and she spat as she spoke.
“Listen to me, you little shit. This is the jungle. Jungles eat. They don’t forgive, they don’t hold your hand. You either follow the food chain, or get turned into ground chuck. But lucky for you? I wanna make a deal. Are you going to play nice, or-”
I’d been squirming, trying to just breath. Trying to get out from the stabbing pain of a sneak on my diaphragm-and like that it was gone. I took a deep breath as my eyes jerked open.
The first thing I saw was feet. Dangling Adidas in the air, kicking and pedaling. Next was the massive arm. It wrapped under Miss Perfect’s armpit, right around her neck. As it flexed, I watched as she gasped. As she struggled to breathe. She slapped useless against the arm, and it just flexed tighter.
Then it turned, and tossed her onto the floor. Miss Perfect clutched at her face as her friends came to her side. She screeched and batted at them, as she snarled, and looked towards who had been gripping her.
She had to tilt her head up.
Standing in front of both of us was a mountain. All muscle and chest stuffed into a uniform, one far too small to contain her. Her skin was blasted by the sun-not a tanning booth. Red hair was braided into a pony-heart, pulled high on her scalp. Coupled with the scar at her smirking lips, I felt something I’d not felt all morning.
Relief.
“ ‘Ello Liz,” said the girl, her voice a rasp. “Believe you were making a sweetheart deal, aye? You know better, don’t you?”
Miss Perfect-Liz, Thin Lizzy I’d come to call her-scrambled to her feet. She spat at the girl’s face. The loogie landed on her cheek, but the girl didn’t flinch. She didn’t so much as move as Lizzy tore ass down the hall, screeching at her friends.
The girl lifted her hand, and wiped the spit away on her coat. She turned to me, her smirk giving way to concern.
“Well, ‘ello there,” she said.
“U-uh. Hi,” I answered back.
“Looks like you dropped something,” she said. She gave a nod to my backpack, one I returned.
“Would you like some help, love?”
I sat up, and gave a small nod. The massive girl bent to pick my books up-and I watched as the crowd parted for her. I reached a hand against the lockers, and lifted myself up. By the time my legs were steady, she had already gathered my stuff. She extended her arms, and I took them.
“I-um, I don’t really know what to say,”
The girl shrugged, and gave a small grin.
“Well, fortunately I do. Hi! I’m Mum,” she said, thrusting a hand towards me. I stared at it a moment, then took it into my grip. I would have squeezed it, but I stopped when I realized how callus her hands were.
“Lea,” I said, my voice breaking.
“First day in the jungle?” said Mum.
I nodded, and watched as she crossed her arms. For a second, I wasn’t sure where to look. At the muscles on her forearms as they rippled-or the button that strained to hold the rest of her back. Mum laughed, and tilted her head down the hall.
“I spied your schedule. You’re this way. Follow me, aye?”
She turned on her heel, her skirt twirling as she started to march. I fell in lock step behind her, and marveled at how people pulled to the side.
If it was to avoid her anger, or just her in general, I couldn’t say. Years later, and I still just don’t know. But of all the things I learned about Mum, that first day taught the biggest lesson. You can change what people think of you simply with your presence.
@@@
Mum graduated by the end of the year. She was shipping off to the marines, which she seemed all too eager for. All of us met her right there on the field when she walked. We damn near drowned her in hugs and kisses. She tried to hold it in, but she let the tears flow. Which made all of us cry that much harder. She yelled over the fifteen of us that there was going to be a party at her house-so we went.
It was just us-her girls, I mean. Her folks were away on some kind of trip. I almost tripped over the cooler full of Guiness when I opened the door.
It was one of six-and we drank every single last can. We laughed, we told jokes. We kissed, we tasted the most tender and wild parts of each other. Being in Mum’s girls, it was just like that. Free and full. I loved that about her. Still do. When things started to finally die down around three in the morning, I went on the back porch to get some air. I’d been there just long enough to fill my lungs when I heard someone slur behind me.
“Aye, Lea? Issat you, love?”
I turned around, my braid smacking at my shoulders. I never used to wear my hair like that. But halfway through the year, Mum sat me down on the bleachers. She’d twisted it and talked, telling me how to care for it. I wore it like that every day after.
I smiled, and waved over at her. I leaned heavily against the rail, and tried not to stagger.
“Hey girl. What’s up?”
Mum chuckled, then broke into a wet cough. It’s then I smelled it-distinct, rancid pine. A cherry glowed in the dark, and I watched as Mum came into the light. Her eyes were red, but she chiefed another drag down. Every step took hours, but she came to stand next to me. She gripped the rail, and handed the joint towards me.
I wasn’t one to smoke-but when Mum offered you something, you took it.
Mum knew best, after all.
I took a deep drag, and held it in. I handed her back the joint, and she smiled as she pinched it. I finally let the smoke out, and we stood there for a long while. Just staring at the stars
When Mum finally spoke, it wasn’t with her usual loud bravado.
“Lea, love. I’m scared,” she said, her voice a tiny whisper.
I didn’t know what to say for a moment. I stood there, and rolled my shoulders. “Well I mean, yeah. The marines are pretty damn scary. I can see why you’re-”
“Oi, that ain’t it,” she said. Dank plumed from her nose as she turned towards me. “I ain’t fear no war or man. I fear for you. For the girls,”
She turned to me, and for the first time in a year her eyes were wet. She let out a low exhale, and sagged against the rail. While the others weren’t afraid of being hormonal?
It was the first time I had ever seen Mum upset. Normally she was smiling or snarling, but this-this was new. I rolled my tongue over my lips, the sour taste of Guinness still there. I took a step forward, and wrapped my arm around her.
“We’re going to be okay. You know that, right?” I said. It was a lie-I didn’t have any idea what next year was going to be like. With Mum gone, that left the rest of us wide open.
Being Mum’s friend, it was an understanding of sorts. We helped Mum with the Lizzies, and she kept them off our backs. It was a reciprocal arrangement, sure. But being around Mum also meant learning just what Adora High was really like. Something that, hopefully, you’ve grasped by now.
They say public education is a dual enrollment around here. On the surface, you’re trying to turn into one of those roses. The pretty ones near the sign. You’re trying to preen yourself for the real world, for what’s to come. But then there’s what lay just a few feet away. Bars, hard as steel. Drug dogs roaming the halls. Metal detectors at every entrance, at the library. You’re a flower-but your roots settle in the grime and muck of the place.
Just what kind of growth do you think that creates?
Mum snickered, and rose. She turned to me with a half smile as she raised the joint to her lips. She jabbed a finger at my chest, and gave a nod.
“That’s true. ‘Cause you’re going to look after every chicken-headed ninny for me, ain’tcha?”
I blinked, and choked as she blew smoke in my face. “I-uhm, what?”
“I said, you’re gonna lead ‘em Lea. You’re the smartest of the lot. It only makes sense,”
“I heard that,” I muttered, raising my hand to my forehead. I raised my palm up as my brow arched. “But like-Mum, what do you mean? Like, lead who? I thought we were all just friends, you know?”
Mum turned to me, and gave a snort. “Don’t tell me ye’ survived freshman year and earnestly think that. Not now, Lea. You’ve got to have some idea-ye’ think the Lizzies hate you because of me? Do ya’?”
“Well, I mean, that’s some of it at least, right?” I said. I crossed my arms, and leaned against the rail. Mum turned, and plopped herself down in a chair. She snorted, and crossed her massive legs as she looked at me.
“Aye, it is. But that ain’t the lot of it, and you know it. So. Tell me, my little egghead. What exactly do you think of Adora high? Ye’ had a whole year. Surely you get it by now,”
“I-” I started, “-it’s gross. Really fucking gross, and nobody talks about it. Like all the girls kind of…well, they-”
“Segregate based on clothing? On styles? Ye’ are on to something. So say it,” she said, a smirk on her face widening.
I’d known.
I’d known since week one, but I’d never uttered the word out loud. At the time, it felt so wrong. So sleazy to describe Mum, to describe all of us. Because when you’re friends-when people really care about you?
You ignore the obvious. But I swallowed hard, and forced the word from my lips.
“A gang?”
Mum’s smile was genuine-but all teeth. A curl of lips I’d never seen before. She lifted her arms, the joint still burning as she parted them wide.
“That’s what we are. And a damned good one at that,” she said. She brought the joint in for a final drag, and jerked a thumb at the seat beside her.
I pushed from the rails, and sat down.
We spent the rest of the night talking, Mum and me. She told me how it had all started. She had met Lizzie her freshman year. They had been in the same homeroom.
Lizzie hadn’t liked that Mum-whose real name was Sifa-had got close to one of her girls. So she had cornered her, and given Mum her scars. The one at her lips, it was one of dozens. All because Lizzie couldn’t stand someone having more attention than her.
She started lifting weights, taking self defense classes. Judo, Tae Kwon Do. Krav Maga. Wrestling. She said every time she looked in the mirror, every time her scars hurt, she went to do reps. She spared, she practiced with the sandbag.
Then came the day she saw Lizzie and her goons cornering another girl. By then, Lizzie had forgotten all about her.
Mum smirked, staring off into the sky as she talked about it. But I watched as her fists curled. Even in the faint light of the house, I could see just how white every knuckle got.
“Ye’ know what I did then? I did a prank of my own. I reached into her skirt, and hooked a finger right on her bloomers. Then I yanked-and hung her arse on a coat hanger,”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it-but I stopped when I realized Mum wasn’t laughing. Her smile had faded, and she sank back into her chair. Her palm met her forehead, and she let out a massive sigh. She turned to me, and nodded.
“That’s why it’s got to be you. Ye’ got to be smarter than I was, Love. We could’ve avoided the whole lot if I’d kept my hands to myself, but here we are,”
“Well, it’s not all bad, right?” I said, “I mean, if you hadn’t done that-then maybe we wouldn’t have met. Maybe I wouldn’t even be here, you know? Or like-maybe I’d be one of them,”
Mum gave a dramatic shiver, and shook her head. “Ewww, don’t give me such a cursed thought. Not tonight,” she said. She busted into a chuckle, and eased back into her chair.
“Go back in now, agra. Drink, get warm with someone. We’ll talk more in the morning, ya’?”
“Okay. Uh, you sure you’re going to be okay out here? You want me to bring you a blanket, or-”
Mum waved me away with her hand, and a smile. “Nah. I’ll be fine. Go be worry-free for one more night. But do find Melinda-and talk to her,”
I stood, my face screwed in puzzlement. “Uh, okay. She’s the one with the-”
“Big arms, right. Find her, and talk to her. Become friends if you can. Just trust me, alright?”
I nodded, and turned towards the door. I paused, then turned back on my heel and came to her. I leaned down, and wrapped my arms tight around the girl. Mum laughed, and lifted her hands to embrace me back.
Then-spur of the moment as it was-I kissed her head. I pulled back, suddenly all too aware of how weird I was being. I took a step back, my cheeks far too warm for the chill night.
“I-just-just thank you. For everything. For being good and being there for me,”
Mum snorted, her eyelids drooping. “Aye, I love you too. Now go find Melinda, alright?”
“Yeah,” I said, “Sure,”
And like that, I stepped back into the house, the noise, and the warmth of everyone I’d gotten to know.
If you’d told me then that we were a gang, that I was a gang leader, I’d have laughed in your face. I’d have made fun of you. If history is just finding which version of your story doesn’t make you an asshole, it would have been this one. This night.
It was the last time I felt sure of absolutely anything.
@@@
The start of next year, I learned two things very quickly. And you, the gal reading this? I’m going to tell you precisely what they are. I want you to take them to heart-or at the least, learn them quicker than I did.
One, if someone puts a responsibility on you? You live up to it. You can do it willfully, or get forced into it. But if they trust you enough, neither motive matters in the end. You become the thing they want, or get your shit kicked in.
You don’t wanna get your shit kicked in, right?
Second, there’s a reason we don’t have a chemistry class anymore. You’ve probably heard all kinds of bullshit about it. Not a shred of it is true, though. What happened in that room, it’s the entire reason I’m writing this.
Just as Mum told me how her girls started, I’m carrying that story to you. You need to know it, be aware of it. While what happened to me isn’t going to define you-it can give you a guide. At Adora High, that’s as good as kevlar.
Here’s the thing-we weren’t always “Bust Up”. I wasn’t always a G-cup. Trust me, puberty didn’t have shit to do with this.
In the beginning, we just kept on. We were Mums, and we were pretty damn happy with that. We looked after our own. We stomped and snarled at the Lizzies when they stepped out of line. So, every day. Melinda and I got to be close. She had been with Mum a LOT longer than I had, and knew the ins and outs. I flat out asked her to lead, but she just shook her head and laughed. She said if she did that, Mum would get discharged just to come home and beat her ass.
I believed her, too.
For the most part, everything during sophomore year was calm. Calm as could be in a gang, at any rate. We took a few freshies in, lost a few girls to graduation. We drank and partied, and tried to keep our grades up. We were still in school, even if it was a shit hole. It wasn’t a problem for me-but the other girls, they struggled with some subjects.
Chemistry being foremost among them.
I mean, I get it. Chemistry is this thing that looks really cool until you try to do it. Then comes the math and measurements. A few of the girls-the real roughnecks-could barely read. So I went to our professor, and tried my best to be a pretty little flower. When I asked if I could stay after class to tutor some of them? My professor didn’t bat an eye. She just stepped back, smiled real awkwardly and raised her hands. Like I was some kind of rabid dog.
“U-uh, sure thing Lea. You girls can have access to the lab-y-you want my key? I’ll give you my key, how about that?”
I took it, and thanked them. I started to plan some lessons in my head, real basic things. Stuff to just keep people with a C average. That should have been it, the whole thing.
But then I wouldn’t be telling you this. Would I?
Adora High, it’s not a nice place. Sure. You know that by now. But when it comes to actual violence? We had a few scraps. A few girls got tossed to the ground, but never anything serious. Nobody got sent to the hospital, stabbed, shot. The real reason wasn’t that we valued other people. If you were a Lizzie, you were dirt. No, it’s that we didn’t want to serve jail time. Despite being as hard as we were, the end game was still clear. Graduate. Get out. Go live.
Instead, there was the pranks. Now, I know you’re looking at that word. You’re probably a little puzzled, maybe laughing. But this wasn’t whoopee cushions and super glue. Pranks at Adora High weren’t about cheap gags.
They were about humiliation on a grand, public stage. They flayed whatever rep you had from your bones in a matter of seconds. Sometimes people bounced back and got respect. Sometimes they didn’t. The pranks came all the same, and no one was ever spared. Ever.
My dad, he’s a biologist. He has this sexist joke that goes something like, “I’d way rather get in a fight with a male than a female. Males just tear you. Females though, they gut you and watch you bleed out”.
If you’ve survived freshman year? If you’ve made it far enough to be reading this? You probably know that’s not a joke.
So. The chemistry lab.
It had been a oddly quiet week. The Lizzies had kept to themselves. They hadn’t so much as harassed a freshie. We should have been happy for the peace, but when gangs go quiet like that? They’re planning. Don’t ever think for a moment they aren’t.
I was in the lab, mixing a few things. Growth hormones mostly, experimental stuff. I was trying to show the value of chemical induced mutation in single cell organisms. With the lug-heads I was tutoring, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. I had to break it down to the bare essentials, and go slow. I was at a table, waiting for my bunsen to get a tube bubbling.
I heard a scuff in the hallway. It was the kind of noise you learn to tune out in High School. If you paid attention to it, it’d just drive you crazy. So I didn’t think anything about it, even when it happened again. And again. When the door knob to the lab turned, though? I finally looked up.
In the three seconds before it happened, I could have braced the door with a chair. I could have bolted out the window. I could have done anything, but I didn’t. I got. It happens to the best of us.
Consider that lesson number four.
The door swung in, and three girls stepped forward. Three girls so damn pretty and well manicured they looked like dolls-not a spot or scar of acne on any of them. The one in the middle was a bit taller. Those to the side, they looked like smaller versions of her, their bangs swept to the side. I took a deep breath, and closed my notebook. I laced my fingers together, and looked over at them.
“Hi Elizabeth. To what do I owe the displeasure?” I said.
Lizzie smirked. She stepped forward, her heels clacking against the tile as her hands met her hips.
“Well aren’t you a sore sight? Having to teach your dumb-dumbs how to math, that it?”
“This is a chemistry lab, you illiterate cunt,” I said. Perhaps a bit firmer than I should have-but her insult was so fucking lame I could barely hold back my contempt.
Lizzie just smiled wider, and reached into her bag. She pulled out a plastic bottle, and raised it. Inside, something solid and grey crackled. Lizzie gripped the end tight between her fingers, her eyes setting upon me.
“Oh, I know. See, you’re not the only one a bit gifted in the subject. I love chemistry. I love it so, so much because you can do so many things with so little. Like this right here? Just dry ice and a few other things. Wanna see what happens when you add motion?”
I opened my mouth to speak. I can’t even remember what I was going to say now. Probably some stupid retort. But by the time it hit my brain, Lizzie had already tossed the bottle. Right at the table, at me.
She missed, and hit the tube instead. I turned, and tried to shield my eyes with my hands. The bottle made contact, and smashed the tube and itself. Both hit the flame, and a deafening pop sent me to the floor. My head cracked against the floor, just as my shirt was drenched in chemicals and glass.
As my eyes turned dark, I tilted my head towards the door. Now open, still banging in it’s hinges.
The girls were gone, and all went black.
@@@
I was lucky.
I was really, really lucky.
The janitor-an steel-haired, shrewd hobbit of a woman we called Gram-found me. She said she came when she heard the blast. Before she pushed a mop, Gram had pushed gurneys as an EMT. She got me up, checked me for cuts and scrapes. Aside from a few knicks and holes in my shirt, I was okay.
Gram looked at me, the crows feet at her eyes narrowing. “You tell me who did this-was it those prissy bitches? I can fix them. I’ll talk to the head master, and-”
But I held up a hand. I got to my feet on my own, glass tinkling as I did. I lapped my lips, throat dry as I turned to her. I opened my mouth, and felt my throat cracking.
“Water,” I rasped. Gram obliged.
I drank it down, Gram fluttering about like a magpie. She gathered up the glass, the beakers. She picked up the shattered bottles and stared at it, then me.
“Missy, are you sure you don’t want some help? This-they could have killed you. Blinded you,” she said.
I shook my head, and slammed down the measuring cup turned tumblr. Gram got me another drink, and gave the blasted bottle an absent glance before chucking it in the bin. She finished cleaning as I gulped down another cup. Mop in hand, she took a deep breath.
“At least let me walk you out. Can I do that for you?”
I was too dazed to argue. Gram walked near and extended an arm, but I waved it away. We made it to the door before she spoke again. Her feeble hand gripped my shoulder, and I swiveled my head towards her. Her face was stitched in concern, her mealy mouth a thin line.
“Go to the hospital-please, alright?”
I gave a weak smile and nodded.
Then I staggered my way home. I clambered into my house, my parents still at their shifts. I met the bed, and passed out. I rolled on to my back, the street lights cutting amber glows from my blinds. My eyelids were heavy, and fell.
They didn’t rise again until I heard the ripping.
See, I’d forgotten to take my shirt off.
My shirt, drenched in growth hormones meant for something much, much smaller.
Shake your head in disbelief all you want. Roll your eyes, crack a joke. But I said puberty didn’t have anything to do with this-and considering this was just a year ago?
What the fuck do you think happened?
At first I thought it was just a dream. You get those sometimes, you know? Your body doing weird stuff. But when I clutched my hands at my chest, I knew. It wasn’t dream fluff that met my fingers, but flesh. Warm, jiggling flesh. I gasped as I found my nipples, my finger swirling over them. Feeling the warmth radiating from the center out to the rest. That warmth, it got bigger.
And bigger.
It kept growing until it billowed out of my hands, over them. Until it smacked against my navel, until it was hard to breathe. I rolled over on my side, one smacking hard and full against the other.
I didn’t go to school the next day. Melinda stopped by, but I was passed out. She left a note, wanting to know where I was. How I was doing.
What I wanted to do about the Lizzies.
It hadn’t occurred to me until I sat there, reading her notes. With my breasts heavy over my lap, covering my thighs. If Melinda knew-that meant the other girls knew, too. Our crew, the Lizzies. The entire school. They may not know what, but they knew something had happened.
Knowing was just enough when it came to rep. I’d been struck, struck bad enough to warrant Melinda coming to see me. Things were gnarly, and they needed fixed. Right away.
Which brings us to lesson five:
If you have to make a plan, you can either have it be quick or good. Quick works, but the results are fleeting. Good plans, though? Those last forever. Right until the end, right ‘til graduation takes you.
You can be a flower, or you can be the bars.
Flowers are quick.
Bars aren’t.
@@@
She isn’t sobbing, but she sure as hell doesn’t look calm.
Thin Lizzie, she’s squirming still. Squirming against Melinda’s hook despite the pain. As I slip from the table I was on, every part of me bouncing, that’s when I catch it. For the first time in the four years I’d been at Adora, Lizzy was afraid.
It made me wet watching her.
I snapped my fingers, and one of my girls came to my side about ten feet away. She set up the tripod and camera I gave her, and flicked them on. She gave me a thumbs up, and I smiled. I turned back towards Lizzie, and watched as her face reddened.
I bent low enough for my breasts to smack right against her face. She twisted and kicked, glaring up at me. All the girls-my girls-the busted into laughter. I joined them, but then held up a hand. The laughing died right away.
My girls, though? They were still enjoying this. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as they cupped themselves. Each other. A few bras snapped and met the floor.
They had been so eager to be just like me. God knows how much growth hormones we stole from the lab.
“Eight months,” I said, inches away from Lizzie’s face. “Eight months I’ve been planning this. Literally since the start of this year. Did you know that?”
Lizzie, she wasn’t kicking anymore. She just stared at me, her nostrils flaring as rage flooded her. But it didn’t matter. Not as long as Melinda had her.
“And you know,” I said as I fingered the hem of my skirt. “I thought about giving it up. I really did-but then you called me cow tits. You threw milk at me. Almost every day. Remember that?”
I watched as her throat bobbed, as her eyes widened. My skirt met the ground, and I kicked it away. Melinda smiled as I rose, and yanked my shirt off.
There was a point in my life I was really sensitive about my body. About any part of me being naked around people. But here I was, cupping my massive nipples. Moaning as a finger rolled against my clit, slipping into my cunt. I heard the snap of more bras, of skirts being unbuttoned.
I pulled my finger from between my thighs, and smeared it on Lizzie’s lips. She squirmed-and made the dumb mistake of opening her mouth. I pressed my fingers in, and watched as disgust gave way to something far more terrible. Her eyes widened, and her whole body slackened.
People knew about the growth. Lizzie had taken a decent guess about me lactating.
But only my girls knew about the taste.
It’s what kept them loyal, plump and mewling for me.
I smirked, and leaned forward. As my breasts smacked her in the face again, Lizzie didn’t squirm. She didn’t kick.
She gasped, opening her mouth wide instead.
I cupped my breasts, and pulled them right up to her lips. I squeezed and squeezed, trying to contain myself as I poured into the spiteful bitch that had made my life hell for four years. Within just a few minutes, Melinda didn’t have to hold her anymore.
Lizzie was pinned by me, just as she had pinned me that first day. She was far more eager with this role than anyone ever could have imagined. I laid against her, and looked back up at the camera. I smirked, and gave it a thumbs up as she greedily suckled.
“Whose the fucking best, bitch?” I said. When Lizzie mewled in response, I sat up. My nipple left her lips with a wet pop. I lifted my leaking tit, and smacked her in the face with it.
“Speak. Whose the fucking best?”
“Y-you are,” she muttered, her eyes rolling as she stared up at me.
“Who runs the fucking school?”
“B-bu…bu-”
I smacked her again, this time getting a gasp from her.
“Say it. You want a fucking drink, you need to say it. Hear me?”
“BUST UP!” she shouted. She met my eyes for just a moment, then pressed her head back. Her lips wrapped around me, and she drank her fill.
Even as the girls around us circled in, even as their hands found her cunt. Their breasts, her tongue. Even as she came, her hips spasming as she rode their faces. We kept going. We kept filming.
We kept winning.
Now, you’re probably wondering what the prank here was. I get it, it’s not obvious. There’s no whoopee cushion, no laugh track. See, a few of my girls? They were in our AV club. They tended to make mass copies of VHS tapes for teachers. When your budget is spread over all kinds of security equipment, you can’t always afford multiple copies of tapes. Piracy made that an easy fix.
One tape became thirty. First there was one in every classroom.
Then there was one on every video rental place in a thirty mile radius.
We even mailed ones to her parent’s jobs, and her home.
Lizzie didn’t walk at graduation. She graduated, sure. But after those tapes came out, well.
She suddenly didn’t want to be at Adora anymore.
We’d offered her a deal-and she’d taken it. Get out of Adora. Forever.
Her cronies were easy to sway. They came over to us, wringing their hands. Begging forgiveness, touting loyalty. We took them in, and that was that.
So now that we’ve reached the end here, I hope you get it. I hope you realize just what you’re getting into here at Adora. Don’t fall for those flowers outside, don’t get trapped by the bars.
human girl is a big strong personal trainer while the slime girl keeps the form of an extremely curvy short stack that works from home. When the slime finds out the human wishes she had any curves at all the slime girl in a night of passion pours part of herself inter her lover leaving her as curvy as her girlfriend would be at almost twice the height. While she is at work though, the slime likes to toy with her lover and do things like making her swell up just a bit before speeding the growth up on her way home. this growth is course intensely pleasurable, and once she gets home all growing stops as sensitivity skyrockets and she ravishes her lover and makes love to her without even touching her.
@@@
Just one more.
Three words, ones I’d echoed in my head for two decades.
Just one more. Then I can rest.
That second half, it had changed a few times. At first it was “and then ice cream”. Later, “and then the girls will like me”. Now, with sweat pooling beneath me on the ground?
I just want to sleep. I just want to lay down. A shower would be nice, but the bed is better. It doesn’t require me to stand. My head drips to the floor and meets it. I rise again, and hold my spine straight.
Then I give a sigh and fall to the floor.
I hated one handed push ups. I hated them so, so much. But as I rolled onto my back, I took a deep breath. I felt my pecs tighten beneath my sports bra, every second of inhalation burning. Nothing else made me feel like that. Not burpees, not butterfly presses, not even diamonds. I closed my eyes, and tried to focus on my breathe. The fan above me cut the light into patterns, shadows that twisted and turned every second.
I sat there, the room quiet save for the flare of nostrils, until I felt it. The cool caress of her at my brow. My eyelids fluttered, and I looked up at Nancy with a weak smile.
“Hey babe,” I said. Just the words made my teeth hurt. Nancy-clear and translucent, every sapphire inch of her held in place by her own will-frowned. She shook her head and her chubby tendriled hair smacked against her shoulders. It stuck there for a moment, then broke free. It rejoined the rest with a thwp, then swayed still. Her face, it’s so cute right now. The darker orbs of her eyes are huge and wet. Her brow was arched, but softens as I meet her gaze. When she speaks, it’s like rainwater against a tin roof.
“You pushed too hard,” she says. I snort, and try not to grunt as I pull myself off the floor.
“Not really. Not any more than I do every day,”
“That’s still too much,” she says, her hand meeting her side. “It’s way too much and you know it,”
I shrug, and reach to the right for a towel. It’s only when I look to the left, my face warmer than it already was, I realize Nancy has it. She extends it to me, and the cool wet terry cloth meets my brow. I dab, and dab again. It feels so good in that moment I just don’t speak. Nancy reaches down on the back of my neck. Her fingers feel wonderful, and as her touch spreads I realize she’s melting. Down my neck, down my shirt. Every inch of her that goes searching brings her face that much closer to mine.
When she kissed my cheek, I finally smile without an ounce of pain. She giggles, and kisses me again.
“You reek,” she says curtly. I snort, and turn to her.
“That bad?” I say.
Her nose pulls back into her rounded face, then appears again. We both laugh, and I rise to my feet. Only one of my knees pop-but that doesn’t stop her face from contorting with concern.
“Syd-” she says, but I hold up a hand.
“I know, I know. Draw the bath for me while I grab some clothes?”
She smirks, and gives me a nod. She turns, every bit of her waddling and jiggling as she passes through the door. She’s cute, damned cute, and the fact she barely reached the handle only emphasized it.
I lift the towel in my grip on my head, and dab again. When I pull it away, I realize it smells just like her.
@@@
I’m never sure what I enjoy more.
Working out is actually self harm. People don’t get that. When you’re doing strength training, you’re pushing your muscles. Your tearing and ripping yourself apart from the inside. You push, you bend, you break. It’s not that the warmth of a bath feels good-it’s that it’s one sensation deadening another. It’s something against your skin, rather than from within. As the warmth seeps into every aching joint and tendon, only then do you relax. That’s only because of increased blood flow. Pain for pleasure, that’s why a bath feels so good after almost killing yourself at the weight bench.
But then there’s Nancy.
Sweet, jiggly nancy.
She draws the bath for me, but she enjoys it just as much. She’ll watch me undress, her own clothes sluicing to the floor. Then with a giggle she climbs in beside me.
Then it starts.
She’ll be so overwhelmed her face loosens. Her eyes, her mouth, all these features she holds just disappear. They melt within her, and her hair follows. Her body gives way, and every drop of her seeps beside me. Over me, over all my aching muscles. Enveloping me utterly, still talking like soft rain. I look down, and I don’t see myself anymore. Just endless, deep blue. My eyes grow heavy, and I slip into her like a dream. Sometimes she’ll sing, sometimes we’ll talk.
Tonight’s a talking night.
I feel the water stir alongside me as she says again, “You pushed too hard. I can feel it all, you know,”
“I know, but really it wasn’t-” I start, only for the words to fall mute as my jaw slacks. Nancy, she’s stirred along my thighs. Currents made solid pressing against me. Higher, higher still until she meets my cunt. I close my mouth as a wry smile rolls over my lips.
“That’s not fair,” I say. The last word curls into a gasp as water swirls against my clit. I clutch myself, squealing as she whirls to the small of my back.
“Oh, it’s totally fair. What’s not fair is you killing yourself with that iron. You can relax still-can’t you?” comes her voice. The bath bubbles with every syllable, and I sink my teeth into my lip. Holding back the squeals used to be so easy.
That was before she realized I liked anal. Now I just flex my ass as hard as I can, and try to fight her off. But Nancy always finds a way. She’ll sluice and caress, flick and roll with every drop until I finally part. The truth is-I always let her in. Every time. Right now though, I’m clenching my cheeks. So she goes back to my fingers, swirling against them like she’s suckling.
“I know how to relax, dork. I just-I just can’t quit, you know? I mean with the Youtube channel and everything, Daily Burn. People expect me to look a certain wa-ayyyyyyyyNancy!” I squeal, gripping the sides of the tub.
I’d only unclenched for a second. Just the one. But it was enough time for her to press a firm wave right between my cheeks. I’m laughing and splashing in the water, trying to get away. I know I can’t unless I get out-and I’m sure as hell not doing that. I slide to the other side of the tub, and bring my knees to my chest. I slipped a hand between my thighs, and watch the surface of the water. It rises soon enough-and the loose shape of her starts to form. She crosses her flipper like arms, splattering herself back to herself.
“Look WHAT way, Syd? You’re already a freaking amazon. Isn’t there any kind of body positivity in all that? A few pounds isn’t going to kill you, right?”
I scoff, my arms easing. My feet slip towards her, and I watch as she pours up along my thigh. She creeps slow, undulating and caressing me. I smile, and slide my legs farther towards her. She takes a more solid shape as her face draws close. I blink, and her breasts are at my chin. She’s atop me now, warm and wet and solid. She drips and caresses my cunt, and I let out a moan as her hand pushes from her chest. It meets my chin, and lifts it towards her face.
“Chunky girls still rule, right?”
I smile, and kiss her. She tastes like fruit punch-and parts my lips effortlessly. She presses inside my mouth, writhing and talking from within me. Her words vibrate against my throat, and as she fills my cunt with her warm jelly cock I can only gurgle.
“No,” she says, “A few pounds wouldn’t kill you at all,”
@@@
They tell you not to read the comment section.
That’s your first, and only, commandment if you do media. Don’t read the comments and preserve your sanity. But when you’re shedding yourself, when you’re ripping your body apart? It comes with the job. You post a video, and then you wait. There’s always the inevitable ones. People who hate you for being fit. People who still think you’re fat with a two-percent BMI. People who call you a whore for being in front of the camera at all. The death threats, the people pimping their own videos. Weight loss supplements-naturally not approved by the FDA. All of this is before we get to the bots, the robo-comments, the referral links. It’s all so much noise that I rarely give it more than a cursory glance.
This time I did, though.
The video wasn’t anything unusual. Just yoga stretches and poses. I barely even said anything. I was just hoping to get some content up, something to close the week out. That’s all part of the game of what I do. Either you get something out, or you cease to exist.
Most of the time, after I load a video? I let the notifications roll for an hour. Maybe an hour and a half if I’m bored.That way if there is something relevant or a real question, I can answer it. I can engage with people that need actual help. It’s the easiest way to market yourself-being nice, being kind.
This time I didn’t turn them off.
There was the usual gaff. The bots seem to leap with referral links the moment a video is done processing, I swear. I was scrolling through them, but then came upon an actual, human-made comment. I started reading it-and couldn’t flick away. My cheeks grew warm as every word hit harder than the last.
“Has she had work done? I swear her boobs are bigger…”
I looked away from my phone, and glanced down at my bust. They still LOOKED like B-cups. I poked the side of them with my fingers-and felt a slight give. My brows rose, and I scrolled up towards the video. I passed by two or three other comments, each of them making my heart pound.
“She’s about to bust out of her top lmao”
“dudE when did u git so STAXED?”
“Been hitting the squats a lot harder lately babe?”
I hit play, and watched myself. Everything started off normal. A long shot of me, in my sports bra and tights. I wave at the camera, a smile plastered on my face. I tell everyone we’re going to do some yoga, and then I break into downward dog.
It was so quick I thought I’d missed it. I rolled back ten, fifteen seconds. I tapped the bottom right of the window, and turned my phone sideways. The footage rolled of me bending at the waist. My heels raised, and I extended my arms. All of this was normal-I’d done too many times in front of the camera, and not. It wasn’t that, though. My form was fine. My chorded biceps and calves both looked fine.
It was the way my breasts hung that was wrong.
I rolled the footage back again, and again, and again. Every single time, they plopped and hung rather than held in place. The warmth I felt in my cheeks, it seeped down to my chest and held. I put my phone to the side, and looked down. My girls, they weren’t unappealing. They had a good shape to them, but they’d never been ones to wander. They did it even less now, but to see them hang like that?
I thought back to the comment section, and pulled my top off. My sports bra peeled away, and I went to the mirror that hung over our sink. My reflection-a bit harried-looked back at me. I lifted my breasts, and felt my eyes widen.
The red imprint beneath them wasn’t uncommon-but it was never this deep. This red. The last time that had happened, I’d gone up a cup size. I went back to where I’d dropped my bra, and picked it up. It was the same size I’d worn for years. I thought maybe it had just shrunk in the wash-so I went towards my dresser. I pulled a drawer out, and grabbed another bra. I slipped it on, and went back to the mirror.
“She’s about to bust out of her top lmao”.
Christ, they were right. My breasts were pressed tight together, a plump roll of flesh peeking from the top of the bra. I stood there, staring at them a moment longer. I tried to think of anything that might have changed-my routine, my diet. I’d sworn off sugar, cow milk, carbs and more years ago. I couldn’t remember the last time I had something that wasn’t grilled chicken and steamed veggies. I swallowed, my throat slick with worry.
That’s when it hit me.
Last night. With Nancy.
It hadn’t been the first time, either. I’d never protested-I loved her, after all. I loved the way she teased, the way she filled me. I loved the way she felt inside of me, but Nancy was the difference. Nancy was the-
I heard something. Like a seam about to rip. I looked into the mirror, and saw the most minute tear at my cleavage. I leaned forward, my jaw slack as I lifted my hand to finger the tear. Before I even touched it, there was another rip-and it widened. I gasped, and pulled back from the mirror. I stood frozen-then turned and hurried to my phone. Every step, the seam tore just a little more. I thumbed Nancy’s number-she’d only stepped out for groceries. It’d been a cloudless day, and she had wanted out. So I let her go, but had shoved a raincoat into her all the same. She gave me the same bemused look she had last night in the tub.
The phone rang, and I remembered just what she’d said. There was a click, and another rip. I closed my eyes, and tried to ignore the feel of air against my chest.
“Hello?” came her soft, watery voice. I swallowed, and tried to think of what to say. “Hello? Syd, are you there?” she said, her voice tinged with concern.
I opened my eyes, and turned back towards the mirror. The rip, one that had been so small before, was now a wide V in my bra. Barely held in place by the elastic, ready to give to the jiggly breasts behind it. It was like seeing a tsunami come for a dam.
It wasn’t just my bra, either.
“Uh, Nancy? Last night, when we-you know-did you…” I said, my words failing at the end. I couldn’t think to ask-couldn’t bare to.
But I didn’t have to.
Nancy, she gave it all away with a giggle.
“I told you a few pounds wasn’t going to kill you. And the best part is? We can keep going! Send me a pic, okay?”
She said it so cheerfully, with so much glee that I had to pull the phone away. I hung up, and sat there staring at the screen.
We can keep going?
I thumbed over to the camera. As the app opened, I stared at myself. My new body, ripping and tearing the old me apart.
I had to lift the camera up at an angle just to fit into the frame.
As I stood there, my tanned, full breasts in view, I lifted a hand. Up it went, over my plump hips. Over a full bust, once B cups but now so much more. I cupped them, and felt a rush of sensation as I billowed out of my own hands.
I’d ran track. I’d done jerk lifts, squats and more.
None of them made me as weak as that single caress, captured right as I took the pic.
@@@
“Just one more!” I shouted.
I smiled towards the camera, and Nancy gave me a thumbs up. She sat by the computer, her tendrils slipping manic over the keys. We had to get a waterproof one, but the money came quick after the first stream. I throw my arms up, and leap into the air. My breasts smack against my chin, and I laugh as I land. The moment my heels touch the ground, I can feel every part of my thighs jiggle. I bend over, and feel them smack against my rounded knees. Nancy turns towards me, and gives a nod.
Panting, I turn towards the camera and smile. “Wow, you guys really like the jumping jacks, huh? How about some squats? Or mayyyyybbbee some yoga? I can still bring my ankles right up behind my head, you know!”
I watch as Nancy smiles wider, her tendrils fwipping against the keys. Two of them lift from her hair, and form a diamond. I smile, and lift my arms again. I grip my wrist, and shake my chest as the stream goes wild.
“Huh? A mating press move? Hrm, you know-I think I might need an assistant for that. You guys are good with Nancy coming on, right?”
Nancy’s eyes go wide as she turns a deep, sapphire blue. I laugh, and watch the glow of her monitor go nuts. She stands up, her body shuddering as she parts her thighs.
Her cock is even bigger and thicker than the last show. I roll my tongue over my lips, and lie down on my back. I grip my ankles, and raise them right against my cheeks as she rounds the corner.
It had been a slight adjustment. Doing live streaming porn instead of work out videos. Our viewers though? They were a hell of a lot nicer. They complimented me, my new body. They loved Nancy, and told her how adorable she was. Sharing ourselves like this, it wasn’t painful anymore. It wasn’t torment, it didn’t hurt.
As Nancy’s massive, sticky cock filled me, I realized something. Something I’d never felt doing work out.
How about a high fantasy fic! The Princess has been kidnapped by an evil sorceress! In an act of desperation the King and Queen put out a call saying that any brave hero who can rescue their daughter will be granted her hand in marriage! Though they didn’t expect said hero to turn out to be a little Goblin woman! The Princess certainly doesn’t seem to mind at all
@@@
Dear Diary,
Okay so I know the last entry was super-sad. I was just in a rut-but guess what? I finally caught a break! I might not even have to work for my dad anymore!
So King Rollo and Queen Anne-remember them?-their daughter got kidnapped. Like they do. I swear, there’s a cottage industry on human trafficking around here. You think after the fifth time someone would decree a law or something. ANYWAYS, their girl got “got”. Something that should have been remedied with gold. Except no.
The person that grabbed her? Well, remember when I told you about that one witch? The one that lived like, wayyyyyy deep in the swamp? Yeah, her. She isn’t one to negotiate apparently. No one was really stepping up to volunteer either. So they put out this HUGE reward, and well-I put my name out there.
And they picked ME! Can you believe it? Gods, my father told me I was insane for going into adventuring. “DURR, you should just stay a banker Haley, DURRHURRDURR, it’s a steady life Haley, where’s my grandchildren?”
Jokes on you, old man! Haley Grunkstilts isn’t gonna be a smelly banker! HAH! I’m gonna save the princess, and I’m gonna be RICH!
– H
@@@
Dear Diary,
Okay, so uh. Maybe I got a little ahead of myself.
Just a little bit though, I swear! But well-ugh. It’s always just “a little bit”.
It’s not like I don’t have the same heart as everyone. Or the same will. I can fight just as well as anyone, but like.
LOOK, I know I said I wasn’t going to let my height get to me. I KNOW I said that I shouldn’t let it hold me back. That’s not it. It’s more-I need a helper. An assistant. Someone who can reach up on my donkey without needing a stool. That’s all! And besides, if I split a fortune with ONE person, I’m still technically rich. Half of insanely wealthy is-um, wealthy. Or insane. Either or, it’s at least DIFFERENT from how I am now. It’s has to be better, right?
I mean.
I hope.
I’m…I’m so tired of being the butt of jokes. I’m tired of people stepping on me, and not even saying they’re sorry. I matter too, dang it! I’m a person! Just because I’m short and green doesn’t mean I’m any less! So WHAT if I can only use a short sword? It’s still a sword! I can raise it just as well as these other berks can raise theirs!
You’re…
Really the only one that knows that.
I tried, though. I tried REALLY hard to get some help. I went to the tavern, got up on a stool and everything. I shouted as loud as I could, right over the piano in the corner. I told them who I was, and what I was doing. When I was done? People just…turned back to their drinks, their conversations. The piano went on playing, and the low roar of muffled talk drowned me. I sank back to the stool. I didn’t cry-really, I didn’t. I clenched my jaw, and held it back the best I could.
The barkeep-this old grizzled guy, with a beard and a huge gut-he slid a tankard towards me. I smiled, and tried to tell him I couldn’t pay. He waved his hand and said “Nope-on the house, miss,” and leaned forward.
“You serious?” he said, “You mean it? You’re gonna go after the Vitch?”
“The Vitch? Don’t you mean Witch?” I said. I wrapped both hands around my drink. I tried not to spill it as I raised a brow at him. The barkeep, his smile softened just a bit. She shook his head, which made his jowls quiver.
“No-the vitch, with a V. She’s not no bog crone, Miss. She’s a fair sight more than that. You’ve heard the stories, I take it?” he said.
I slurped my tankard, and gave a nod. “Something something crows and she’s immortal, or something like that?”
“Something like that,” said the barkeep grimly. He stepped away for a moment, and tended to another patron. When he came back, he took a deep breath. “Point is-and I’m not trying to tell you that you shant-she’s more than one wee lass could take. No offense miss,”
I didn’t say anything.
The Barkeep’s mouth became a thin line. He eyed the bar a long moment, then gave a scoff. “ ‘Sides, none of these jarheads would be of much use. They’d just git ye’ killed, and themselves. Whatcha want if yer fighting a mage-is another mage. Savvy?”
I watched him, and kept slurping my beer. He leaned closer still, and dropped his voice even more.
“I know a berk that might help. But he-well. It’s up to him if he DOES. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon-and that’s putting it lightly. Interested?”
“And just how do you know random mages?” I asked as I set my tankard down, empty. The barkeep took it, and refilled it at once. He laid it on the counter, and pushed it towards me with a smirk.
“Even wizards want a drink now and again,”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Well, tell me about him then,”
So he did. By the time he was done-both giving me directions to find the guy, and more about him-I wasn’t so sure. I mean, the guy lives in MURKWOOD. On the OTHER SIDE OF THE MAP. That’s AT LEAST a few days away, and who knows WHAT that creepy witch/vitch lady is going to do with the princess.
Plus what if I just showed up, and the guy is like “nah, not today, I’m tired?”
What then?
Maybe it’s the beer talking. Maybe it’s the fact I really don’t have many-uh, “professional connections”.
But.
Hells.
I set off for Murkwood in the morning, I guess. It would be better to have a partner, even if they’re an asshole. And if this witch lady is really that bad?
I kinda don’t want to get roasted alive.
Maybe this wizard can keep that from happening. I’d like that.
– H
@@@
Dear Diary,
Oh my GODS he smells.
Okay, so I don’t smell so fresh either. We’ve been hiking for a few days. No real water around to drink, much less bathe in. But at least he could have washed the blood off. Just-ew. Ew ew ew.
Oh, right. The blood. Let me backup a bit.
So I set off for Murkwood like I planned. Dad really wasn’t happy about it, but he gave me some coin. He wagged his warty finger and said “go sow your oats, and be done”. Like this was some phase or something. UGH. I took what he gave me though, and got some supplies. I had my sword oiled and sharpened at the smith. I laid in my bed, and tried so hard to sleep. I couldn’t-I was just a bundle of energy, you know? I mean, MURKWOOD! Like, ew, but MURKWOOD! Somewhere away from the city, from the bank! I passed out, and almost pounced out the door when the sun rose.
The road was-okay, so the trip was SUPER boring. I kept on expecting some bandits or kobolds or SOMETHING! But with the main road leading STRAIGHT there from town? With it being regularly patrolled and everything? It was so disappointing. I mean, I wasn’t asking for danger, but c’mon! A little sword play, a few pitfalls. Something to at LEAST make this exciting, you know? I made it to Murkwood unharmed, and tramped off into the marsh. As soon as I stepped foot off the path, it sank into mud. Right up to my ankles. I groaned, and remembered that I left my “business boots” back at the house. Easily a few days away.
But.
This is what I signed up for. Mud, bugs and all . So I winced, tried to ignore the squelch in my boots, and kept on marching.
The barkeep hadn’t been precise about where this guy lived. He said to “trek to the right until the sky was dark”. Gee, thanks buddy. That’s just as good as a landmark. But I marched all the same-and I’ll be darned if I didn’t see a shack, right at sunset. It was a hovel really. Made from fallen timbers, with the roof haphazardly thatched. There wasn’t even a door-just a rough cut hole in one of the walls.
There was a fire right outside though. After all that mucking I was kinda chilly. So I figured I would settle by the fire, and wait. The guy-the wizard, rabid hobo, whatever-he couldn’t be far off. So I drew a little closer, rubbed my hands together, and settled in.
For a minute, anyways. Right about the time I started to feel my feet again, I heard a branch snap. I turned around, sword in my hand. My heart was pumping as I peered into the woods-but all was dark. The sun had finally decided to set. The fire’s light only went so far. I huddled a bit closer, and turned my head.
I almost screamed. Okay, so I did. But it wasn’t one of those howling yelps, I swear.
Across me, past the flames, say this lanky, filthy guy. He looked a little older than me. Wearing just his breeches, I thought his chest was covered in mud. Until it moved. That mud, it wasn’t that at all.
It was ink.
He held his hands out to the fire, and I watched as ink swirled across his chest. Forming symbols, forming pictures. A wolf on his arm became two birds. The birds flew down, and turned into a bear on his chest. which All the while, he just sat there. Warming his hands, his bright green eyes never abating. When he didn’t speak or so much as react to my scream, I felt my shoulders ease. I sat there in silence for a long while, just staring at him.
I finally cleared my throat. I spoke, and tried to make my voice sound gruff and tough. Like a proper adventurer, you know? But the words just sounded creaky and strained instead. Like a kid pretending.
“Are you the magus of Murkwood?”
He grunted, and shrugged. “If I’m not, you’ve come a long way for disappointment. The question is better aimed at you,”
He lifted his eyes, and fixed them on me. They pierced right into my own, and didn’t break a single degree. Having him look at me like that, unmoving? It made my skin crawl. Those eyes, it’s like they were indexing my entire life. I felt my breath come quick-and then he broke away. He stood up, and walked from the fire’s light.
“Hey! Hey, where are you going? Come back!” I cried.
Then I made a mistake. Well, it wasn’t really a mistake-I couldn’t help it. It’s just one of those things you DO, you know? But it felt like one. A mistake, I mean.
I blinked.
When I opened my eyes again, the stranger was back in the light. There was a scaffold before him, with a boar hooked by the legs to it. My eyes trailed along it-and as I reached the snout, I saw blood drip from it.
Then it swayed as the stranger shoved a knife into it.
It’s not like I didn’t know where my meat came from. I knew animals had to be processed-but growing up a banker’s daughter? It was just something I hadn’t SEEN, you know? By the time it made it to my plate, it was cut up all nice and thin and seasoned. But standing there, watching the stranger flay the skin from the boar, I…
Okay, so I didn’t throw up.
Just like didn’t scream.
Either way, I turned my head. I cinched my eyes shut, and tried to tune out the wet smacking sounds as he cut.
“You hungry?” the stranger said. I heard the sizzle of meat, the smell filling my nose. I tried to shake my head-but my stomach growled. Inch by inch, I turned to face the fire. I opened one eye-then the other.
The meat, it was already cooked. The boar was nowhere to be seen. And the stranger sat there, huge slabs of pork on a plate before him. I blinked again-and caught him lowering his hand. He extended it with another plate, just like his.
I sat there, mind reeling from what had just happened. I lifted my hand, and took the plate. I sat it in my lap, and gave it a big whiff.
It certainly smelled like pork. It looked like pork. But I held back from shoving all of it into my mouth just yet.
“So. The witch and the princess, eh?”
I shook my head, and looked back up at him. The ink on his body, it had shifted again. A girl in a conical hat became a castle, which turned and twisted into a woman with her face hidden. She lifted her hands-and burst into a flock of crows that dissipated over his heart. The stranger, lifting a cut of pork to his mouth with his hand, jerked his head as he took a bite. The crows were gone. His chest was bare. He looked at me again-and I lowered my face to my plate.
It smelled so, so good. So I did something stupid. I lifted a piece, and took a bite.
It tasted like pork, too. I chewed, the sound loud in my ears as my stomach gurgled with satisfaction.
“How did you know?” I said. I chanced a look back at him-only to find his plate gone. Grease dripped from fingers that clenched a pipe. He shrugged-and the ink appeared again. It was a cat, one that gave a yawn as it curled into a ball on his stomach.
“Entrails,” he said. Smoke plume from his nose as his eyes settled on the fire.
“Uh, excuse me?”
“Entrails. From our dinner. That, and it’s always some princess, innit? Some lass or lad stuck in a castle somewhere. All over land, power, money. It’s a fucking lark. All of it,”
He leaned forward, and tapped his pipe over the fire. When he stood, the flames extinguished right away. My heart began to pound, my mouth mid-bite into some pork. I mean, I was in the woods. Alone. With a REALLY strange guy, and-
At that moment, a warm glow came from the shack. Orange and yellow, flickering like so many flames. A dark shape appeared in the rough cut door, more shadow than man. It leaned against the doorway, and I watched as the shadow crossed it’s arms.
Given all that happened, I figured it could be anything. Maybe I had blinked again, maybe I hadn’t.
But then it spoke.
“Well, come in then,” he said.
I sat my plate to the side, and started to rise. Then I wondered just where I’d placed my sword. It was strapped across the top of my pack-within reach, right by the fire. I saw the shape of it against the glow of the door, and almost reached for it.
I realized just how pointless that actually was. I looked back up, at the dark shape in the glowing light.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
There came a loose, dry laugh. It sounded like leaves blown in the fall, or bones clattering against one another.
“You didn’t answer it yourself. Are YOU the magus of Murkwood?” said the shadow.
“No,” I shot back, crossing my arms. “No I’m not. But you’ve got to be, right?”
The shadow shrugged, and splayed it’s arms wide.
“Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. Sometimes that’s what people call me, sometimes it’s another. I remember it one way, then others. I’m here, I’m there. I’m whatever you need me to be. Do you need a magus, miss?”
“I-” I started, swallowing what felt like a ball of cotton, “-I’m not really sure. But it could help,”
“Well, you’ve fine company then. I’ve no idea what the hell I need either-but I’m sure your king could think of something. Come in, then. Let’s get this business sorted out,” said the shadow. It stepped from the doorway, into the inner light. It disappeared within it, seemingly swallowed by the flame.
Diary?
What else was I SUPPOSED to do?
I walked in.
I talked to him, and I struck a deal.
Looking back at that night, I can’t remember much. Especially after I entered the shack. Oh! It wasn’t really a shack by the way. I’m not sure WHAT it was, or how he pulled it off. But it wasn’t a shack. Shacks don’t have twin staircases in them. All I know is, whatever I told him? It worked. The magus, he came with me. Knew exactly where we needed to go, too. We set off that night, took off right into the dark without so much as a pause. I didn’t feel tired all the sudden.
But the magus? He didn’t bathe. Not after all the mucking, the butchering. He’s still walking with the stains of it all on him, that ink of his shifting with every step.
I…
I really hope I didn’t make the wrong choice.
-H
@@@
Dear Diary,
So, uh.
It happened.
We rescued the princess.
It wasn’t quite the expedition I’d hoped for. I mean, in a lot of ways it totally was? The witch, she lived in this old abandoned tower, right? Real ragged affair. There were bricks missing. There was a hole in the roof. The path leading up was cobblestone, wet and slick. For as muddy as Murkwood was, I barely noticed the mud oozing beneath the stones.
I felt tense walking up to the tower. My spine coiled up like a spring. I’d reached for my sword, my hand choking it’s grip. The magus, when he saw that, he just laughed. We drew close, and I took a deep breath.
“S-so uh, how are we going to do this? Do we scale the tower, or-”
“We knock at the door and politely ask if we can come in,” said the Magus.
I stopped in my tracks, and looked at him. “We knock? Like we’re traveling merchants?”
“Yes,” he said, his pace unceasing.
“But-but she’ll know we’re here!” I cried back.
The magus paused, and I watched as the ink on his filthy back formed a giant eye. It split apart, and formed into hundreds. All gazing towards me, unblinking and far too real for what they were.
“She already does. And we’re in one piece, aren’t we?”
I didn’t respond. The magus started walking again, and I fell in step behind him. We’d arrived close to dark, just as I had with him. As the tower blotted out the moon, I felt my skin began to crawl. The witch didn’t have torches, nor lights. So I had only his footsteps to guide me, the squelch and thud of another person.
We arrived at the front door, and before I could speak the magus wrapped against it. My breath was tight in my throat. Every nerve fired off as we stood there, and waited.
The magus knocked again, and a tired voice yelled from within.
“I’m coming, I’m coming! Gods damn it, do you know what hour it is? Jocques? Is that you again?”
“Aye, if that’s who you need me to be,” replied the magus, “And I’ve brought some company. I do hope that’s alright,”
The wooden doors before us-so massive and aged they seemed a part of the wall itself-swung inwards without a single noise. The light from within was blinding, revealing a grand hall that-like the shack-belied the outside. Standing before us was what I could only assume was the Vitch. Or was it the Witch? You know, I’m really not sure. I guess, after all that’s happened, it’s whatever she wants.
Whatever she needed it to be.
But what I can tell you with certainty, dear diary, is that she absolutely wasn’t what I was expecting.
Standing before me was a woman not much taller than myself. For all the rumors of her age, she didn’t look much older than either of us. She held a fluffy black gown against her frame, with long black hair loose around her shoulders. Her skin was pale, and her blue eyes smoldered as they flicked between the magus and I. She gave a snort, and shook her head as she turned around.
“Well, bloody well come in, not like I can turn either of you away. Make yourselves at home,”
“Don’t I always?” said the Magus as he stepped forward. His bare, filthy feet slapped against the stone-and the witch snapped her head around.
“Jocques! What in the nine hells?! Wipe your feet, man! Wear some shoes!” she shouted.
The magus just snorted-and I blinked. I gasped as my eyes open, and the Magus stood before me. Fully dressed in an emerald overcoat, his feet shod in high boots. His hands were tucked into deep pockets at his side, and he lifted his shoulders as he smiled.
“Better, m’lady?” he said.
The witch rolled her eyes, and looked down towards me. “And you, miss. I hope he’s been a gentleman to you. Jocques can be so damned crude at times,”
“Nah, he uh-he’s been good,” I said, still a foot past the door.
The witch smiled, and beckoned with her finger.
“You too-no need to stay out in the dark. I take it you’re here about Cassandra?” she said, her brow arching.
I swallowed, and gave a nod as I stepped inside. “Yes, her parents were wanting her back. And uh-I’ve come to collect her. The magus and I,”
“Jocques,” she said with a smirk. She cut her eyes towards him-laughing to herself as he walked past. “You can call him by his name. He hates when people do that,”
“Except for you?” I said.
“Except for me,” she said, her grin widening. “Well, I can certainly admire you making the journey here. But I’d like to say, quite frankly, that Cassandra is a guest here. Regardless of what you heard? There was no ‘kidnapping’ involved. She came to me, miss…?”
“Haley. Haley Grunkstilts,” I answered, my eyes widening as I took in the hall. Like the Magus’-er, Jocques?-shack, it was so much larger than it looked. Dark wood and carpeting clung to every corner, with massive paintings along every-
“Is that your true name, dear?” said the witch, suddenly at my side. She had stooped to meet my eyes, her gaze wide. I stood there, my heart seizing as I looked at her.
“I, uh-”
“Don’t answer that,” came Jocques, seated at the foot of the stairs.
The witch turned to him, her brow narrowing as her lips pursed. “Oh, you’re no fun,” she said. She stood with a sigh, and tilted her head towards the stairs.
“Well, come along. We’ll wake the girl, and you can speak to her yourself. Fair enough?”
My grip eased at my sword for the first time. It fell slack at my side, and I nodded. “I guess so,” I said.
The both of us walked forward, and met Jocques at the steps. We climbed the stairs, and the witch chatted with Jocques in a tone so low I couldn’t hear them. We turned left at the top, and walked down a massive hallway. When we approached the end, the witch paused as her hand met a dark, oaken door. She took a deep breath, and pressed it inward.
Laying across a massive bed, piled high with pillows and silken blankets, sat the princess. At least, I guessed she was. She didn’t look like royalty. Her mouth was slack, and the snore that peeled from her was loud enough to wake the dead. The witch approached her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open, and she rose with a wipe of her hand at her mouth. She smiled as she saw the witch-one that dropped as soon as she saw us.
“Oh, oh gods no, my father sent you didn’t he?”
I swallowed hard, and waved. I gave a giggle then, a nervous thing that bubbled up from my stomach. “Uh, no. Just me. I uh, I grabbed him for back up,”
Jocques snorted, his eyes upon the princess. The girl rolled her eyes, and shook her head.
“I’m not coming back with you. I’m not going to mary that damned toad, just because Father wants me to,”
My lips wavered a minute, my mind racing to find the right words. “Uh, well I’m sure the prince is a real-”
“No,” she said, her voice firm. “He’s not. He’s a literal toad that I have to kiss. And I’m not doing that-because it’s bloody disgusting,”
“Oh,” I replied. I coughed into my fist, and took a step forward.
It was then I became keenly aware of the eyes upon me. The Witch, Jocques, Cassandra. All seemed to pause as I stepped towards the center of the room. My stomach coiled, and I felt myself break into a sweat on my head.
Honestly, It was SO embarrassing. Like this is the point the hero is supposed to say something really cool and reassuring, you know? But what came out instead was…well, the truth, I guess.
“Listen Princess-”
“Cassandra. Please, for the love of the gods, call me by my name. I have a name, alright?” she said, her voice tinged by anger.
“Er, right. Cassandra. Listen, I know what it’s like having overbearing parents. My dad? He’s a banker, okay? And he totally thought I was going to take over the business, and like, ew. No. It’s the most boring thing in the entire world, and I am NOT going to do that. So-so if you don’t want to kiss this frog, or get married? Just do your own thing. Tell your dad what you want to do, and rule your way. Being a princess has gotta be a lot sweeter than being a banker, right?”
The girl snorted, and broke into a laugh. I felt my face tinge a deep green as she scratched at her head.
“You think I HAVEN’T done that? I have! Every single day! And being a princess bloody well sucks! Do you know how many dances I’ve had to learn? And my GODS, the music lessons. That’s before we get to how to properly serve tea, and-”
“Spare us,” said Jocques. He stepped forward, his shadow wide over the girl. As he crossed his arms, I watched as the Witch scooted closer to Cassandra. She raised an arm, and brought it around her as she stared deep into the magus.
Jocques stood there a long while, unblinking. His arms finally fell, and he said “Girl, it matters not what you’ve done. It matters not who you’re supposed to be. All that matters is being whom you need to be in the moment-and right now, I’m asking you who that girl is? Who does she need to be?”
Cassandra watched him, the arm of the witch easing away. She took a deep breath, and met his eyes.
“Free,” she said simply. “She needs to be free. I don’t care about being pampered-I hate it, actually. I just-want to make my own choices for once,”
Jocques nodded, and turned towards the witch.
“Yaga? Can you shelter the girl?”
The witch smiled, and gave a nod. Jocques returned it, and turned back towards me. He splayed his hands up, and gave a grin as he stepped towards the door.
“Well, our work here is done. C’mon then. I’m wanting something to munch upon,”
“Wait, so that’s it? Just like that?” I said, glancing at all three of them. “We’re just going to leave her here? With her?”
Jocques stopped, his form filling the doorway. He turned slowly, shadows drawn across his face despite the light.
I blinked, and he was before me. His coat had parted, and his bare chest filled my vision. The ink there swirled-and showed a frog. With a crown. As I gazed, the frog parted its’ jaw-and swallowed what looked like the sun. The ink spread and smeared, plunging the world into the dark. The magus let go of his coat, and the picture disappeared into green. As my nerves turned electric, I looked up at him.
His green eyes pierced, just as they did before.
“How long have you been adventuring?” he said, voice measured and calm.
I rolled my tongue along my lips, and gave a slight shake of my head. “This-this is the first time, really. I just-it felt like the right thing to do,”
Jocques nodded, and glanced over my shoulder. “Sometimes, in the field and current of our lives? What we plan for, it changes. You were supposed to be a banker. She, a princess. And look at you both now,”
His gaze returned to me, and held a long moment before he spoke.
“Do you want to go back to it? Being a banker?”
“N-no. Not at all,” I said. Jocques nodded, rising once more. He tucked his hands into his coat, and turned back towards the door.
“Well, seems as though you understand her perfectly then, don’t you?” he said. He walked past the door, and was gone. Even his foot falls fell quiet in the hall. I stood there staring at the hall until a hand met my shoulder. I looked up, only to see the witch-Yaga, apparently-smiling.
“Come on,” she said, “Let’s get you something to eat. He didn’t bring supplies, did he?”
So I followed her out into the hall. I walked with her down, and there in the witch’s keep we had dinner. When we got ready to leave, the witch came and gave me a hug. “You, little one? You come back any time. You’re always welcome here-so long as you don’t bring the king’s army,” she said.
Most of the time when people call me that? I prickle. But it felt so nice coming from her. So I smiled, lifted my arms, and hugged her back. She squeezed me tight, then pulled away as she turned to Jocques. Her smile dropped, and she wagged a finger at him.
“And you? Stop scare-mongering people all the time. And bathe for once. I know there’s a river beside that hovel,”
“I got clean for you, didn’t I?”
Yaga rolled her eyes, and jabbed her finger at his chest. “Doing it AFTER the fact doesn’t count. Next time you decide to pester me in the middle of the night? You change before you come in,”
She turned to me, and cut a sly smile. “He’s decent sometimes. I promise,”
I couldn’t help but smile as Jocques took a step behind her, and steadily shook his head.
After that, we left.
I’ve been on the road for a month now. I do odd jobs for people, mostly. Lots and LOTS of animal control (I HATE rats so, so much now). I write Cassandra sometimes. I don’t deliver any of them-but somehow, they always find their way to her. And the next morning, there’s a little crow waiting, a letter in its beak. She always writes how happy she is now.
Apparently, Yaga is teaching her some things? What exactly could a witch teach-wait. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I haven’t spoken with the Magus since-but I hear about him all the same. About this strange, tall, filthy man with ink in his skin. He was at a carnival in a town I was at. Then he was a holy man in another, ranting and raving in the streets. But the weirdest thing of it all, the real catch to it?
I heard he became an advisor to the king.
Arranged marriages? Yeah. Illegal now. And we’re at war with some kind of swamp kingdom? I haven’t really kept up with it. There are signs in some of the places I stop at, with all these gross pictures of beheaded frogs. Whatever. It doesn’t matter, I guess.
If I learned one thing in all of this, it’s that. These things you’re dragged into, either by your choice or other peoples? You can push back. You can say no, you can do it on your own. I haven’t written to my dad yet-and I don’t think I will. Because all that, it’s behind me now. Through miles of swamp, through tiny towns with too many rats.
And you know, that’s okay. Every time I think back to it, I put a few more miles behind me.
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