by Jade Alters
The slide of Rock’s fingers between mine sends a tingle down my arm. Everything under my dress dances alive, like the stars. My body wants him, of that I’m certain. And this dinner date… I don’t think I’ve ever been treated to something quite so extravagant, yet humble, at once. It lifts me out of my chair, without letting go of him. I round the table to stand behind him, draping my hands down over his chest. The harsh lines of his muscles are familiar to my touch, even through his shirt. I lower my head over his shoulder and put my lips to his cheek. I feel the hair stand up on the back of Rock’s neck, against my bare cleavage. The goosebumps transfer over into my skin, climbing down through my chest, to my stomach.
“Why don’t we move this party back to the room?” Rock whispers. But, for once, things seem clear, here and now. If we wander too far, the fog might sweep in again.
“Why don’t we throw a party right here?” I counter. My hands glide down inside Rock’s shirt. I unclip button after button, on a trail leading me straight down. My fingers dance across his thighs, converging on a bulge between them that pulses to life. It only takes a few circling rubs before Rock surrenders. He melts back in his chair, head sideways to find my lips. Just as he does, I find the button of his khakis. A snap and a zip unleashes his eager muscle.
My fingers swirl around it to the base, and climb back up. He lets out a little grunt into my mouth. Then I tighten my grip on his cock, and Rock surrenders at last. He reaches up. Scarred fingers slide along my neck as our lips lock every way they can. This is it. The final showdown. At the end of it, we’ll both know exactly how we feel. I float around the chair to straddle Rock’s thighs.
I get an implication from Rock in the way his penis throbs in my hand. He gets one from me in the groan that escapes my throat when he slips his fingers between my legs. Under my dress, warmth leaches through my underwear against his touch. I push into it to heighten the effect. To savor every second. Before I know it, I’m rocking forward with each stroke of my partner, and my partner’s of me. We press closer and tighter together, until I feel his head graze my underwear. He pushes up, past the bulge of my clitoris, which generates a quake all throughout my nervous system.
I let out a breath of anticipation as I retreat an inch. Just far enough to get my hands under the edges of my dress. Rock helps me pull it up my body. It coils in a pile on the edge of our picnic blanket. My breasts flop loose into Rock’s waiting hands. He pushes them up and into a wide circle. They tense up in his gentle, firm hold. I lean forward to let him do what he wants with them while I slide my underwear down my legs. Before I know it, Rock has pulled me in by my chest. He kisses my nipple, then pulls it in with his tongue. The art of suction and a few tongue flips puts me over an edge of anticipation my body can’t handle.
A hum of pleasure vibrates my throat as I grab his cock, and guide it up to the lips between my legs. A little pressure, a little wiggle, and I slide myself down over him. Rock tilts back as his muscle seizes against his will inside of me. All he can do is grab my hips, push up, and enjoy the ride. My ride. I brace my feet against the picnic blanket and slide up the whole length of his penis. Right when it’s about to slip out, I arch my back to come down on it slow, breasts floating freely above him. I give him another three slow rises and falls, to open up the passage inside me. Once my insides have reshaped a little to take him in more comfortably, I quicken the pace.
Rock’s indecision on where to look is priceless. It only deepens the tingle of pleasure between my own legs. It flings my mind forward into heightened excitement. He watches my tense nipples flop with the shockwave of each sexual pounce. He watches my thighs tremble as I slide up and down his cock faster with each pass. He watches my flushed face contort with pleasure as I give in to my every urge. He wraps his arms around the ridge of my lower back, pulling me down close to him. The chair rocks a little, threatening to tip as I crash into Rock with more and more force.
“Can I…” Rock breathes, but he hardly has the constitution to get the rest of it out. Not when he’s focusing so hard on controlling himself. Containing himself. But I don’t want him to. I want him to let loose. How else will I know what I really feel? Besides, I’ve been on birth control for a few months now. I bring my nose down to his, interlocking the bridges of our faces. I look into his eyes from only an inch away, merging their colors as one, new sight.
“Do it,” I whisper. It’s all the permission Rock needs. Ever the gentleman. Not a second later, I feel the first gigantic tremor of his penis, followed by the surge of warmth. I slow my approach, one push down over him for each blossom of love inside me. Rock’s lips shake while he tries to kiss me. I smile when he misses twice, hitting my chin and the side of my jaw instead. Then he pulls me down, hard. He shoves himself as deep inside me as he can reach, faster for each weakening pulse of his orgasm. “Faster,” I tell him before I know what’s come over me. Feeling him in so deep opens the gates of a new sensation.
Rock follows the lead I demand. His face twists up in overstimulation as he hammers his cock up into me, even after the end of his own climax. He fights with the natural urge of his body to slow down. He stays hard from the constant friction against my muscle walls. A few last warm pulses pour out while our pelvises crash together over and over again. A shiver rises up into my gut and sinks back down. Then the scream breaks free from within me. Rock seems to understand my wordless notion of passion. Harder.
My rises and falls can hardly compete with Rock’s thrusts. He endures, long after the strength begins to wane in his cock, for me. It hardens from the constant stimulation even as he starts to sweat. Only when we both realize that his thrusts and my lifts don’t need to compete, I finally inch over the edge. Rock leans back to chafe the top of his penis along my clitoris each time I glide down. The dual sensation ripples the muscles inside me until, at last, they seize up around him.
I shout my ecstasy across the clifftops. Pure pleasure surges up through me in the shape of Rock’s cock, prodding deep within. Rock slows the pace as I do, synchronizing each thrust with the way I bob up and down on top of him. The warmth trembles its way up into my gut, then my chest. There it is. This is it. I feel my heartbeat in the tips of my fingers, my cheeks, and the walls of my vagina. And, as soon as my orgasm rumbles down to a few heavy breaths, it slows. It normalizes. No butterflies. No excitement. No elation. It was amazing. It was pure physical pleasure, but nothing more.
It’s like Rock can smell it. Maybe he can feel it through the pulse of my insides, too. There’s a shift between us. Something once there has passed. He knows as much as I do that when he slides out of me, it will be the last time. So, when he wraps his arms around my back, I lean into his embrace. Neither of us needs to say goodbye. We feel it in one another’s arms.
Sure, I’ll still see him. Probably every day. But the outcome of our little showdown is written on both of our faces. We can’t see one another anymore.
Olive Branch
Darius,
I open my eyes to darkness. Pure darkness like nothing else. It might go on for eternity. It might end a few feet away with the stone wall of a cell. I never get up to check. I wouldn’t dare. Only two answers await me, both equally horrifying. Either I’m not trapped at all, and the darkness really does go on forever, or I’ll hit the wall that marks the edge of my clammy, dank world. I roll over on my back to pass the time, only to be disturbed by the feeling of something sliding off my lap. It tumbles off the side of the bed to the floor. The crinkle of paper pulls me back from the edge of my dark, imaginary hell. A book. I didn’t have any books in my cell. I’m not in my cell.
I reach over to flick on the lamp beside my bed. Its yellow light jumps from wall to wall inside my old bedroom. The same one I used to sleep in years ago, adjoined to Serge’s. It feels both like a lifetime ago, and just yesterday at once. I rub my temples hard to work out some of the twists in reality.
It all started with the dreams. I knew I was screwed the second I started having those
. Vampires don’t dream, because they don’t sleep. Not normally, anyway. But, after over two years in solitary darkness, my body and mind started to develop some odd habits. To help bridge the lengthening gaps between visits from Magister Reynold, Serge, and Emery, my body and mind began to shut down. It had a fairly regular sort of cycle to it after a while. The darkness behind my eyelids was somehow more comforting than the dim near-darkness of my cell, with the distant torchlight teasing me.
I would tune out everything and everyone, sometimes for hours at a time. I had to. To make it to the next time I could see Serge and Emery. To survive. It was in that darkness that my first dreams were born.
I thought about things I saw no point in admitting out loud. Would I like to wring Lucidous’ throat between my bare fingers? Of course. But I’d never get the chance, locked away beneath the Academy. I wished similar fantasies of revenge for Magister Reynold, but surprisingly, nothing fatal. Sure, the fat bastard wasn’t my favorite character around the Academy, but at least he was decent to me. As annoying as the Council’s self-righteous crusader act is, at least my back was free of their knives. At least they’re honest with me.
I also thought about things I would never admit, sometimes not even to myself. I’d entertain myself for hours with internal arguments, even when I knew the truth under it all. Things I missed, besides the obvious ruby fluid that the Magister kept coming in small rations. The sun. Grass beneath my bare feet. A good burger. A cold beer. Emery. Emery. Em - no I’m trying to think of something else! Anything else, damnit. But once she pops into my head, she just won’t pop back out.
The way her skinny little body looks so brittle, a hard tap might break it - until you touch her. The second you get a hand on her, you feel the strength of her spun-up muscle. The tension in every, intentional move she makes. How the slightest breeze or turn sends cascades of motion through her long, jet-black hair. Those eyes, like a lit match dancing behind a full jar of honey. I’d let her dance around my head for hours to wash away the drab shadows of my cell. I saw her in the city streets, in the forests of Six Rivers, in the backseat of a beat-to-shit old car. Sometimes she’d appear on the other side of my bars, even when she wasn’t there. Calling me. Haunting me.
That’s how the dreams started. I’d think of something so hard, with my eyes closed, that it appeared. I’d see it. I couldn’t believe it. I recognized the feeling from well over fifty years ago, when I still slept. When I was human. How did I ever deal with it? How do humans even tell what’s real? Dreams. What a miserable sickness.
And it’s only been more confusing since I’ve left my cell. Though I’ve forgotten this time, I leave the lights on often just to remind myself where I am. So it’s easier to sort out reality when I wake up. Serge checks on me frequently, which is as helpful as it is annoying. Often, his appearance does drag me back to reality, only to frustrate me that I let it slip away again.
And the one person I’ve wanted to see most… the face that haunted me in the dark… I can’t see her. I can’t go near her. She probably thought I was fucked up before. Hell, maybe I’m actually better now. A few years back, I would never have let something so trivial as hesitation bar me from something I wanted. But that’s exactly what’s holding me back. I can’t tell if I’m better or worse. I can’t tell what’s going on around me, or even inside me. How can I be sure of what I’ll do? Of anything? No, after two years apart, after so much time spent with Hoster and Rock… I can’t drop this on her.
At least, I have my dreams now. At least, I can pass the time with torture from my own mind.
“Darius!” Serge appears in the door that adjoins our rooms. Light glows in from the window. My lamp switches off. In a second, the room transitions into an entirely different part of the day. Damnit. Now, I’m awake.
“The hell are you yelling for?” I counter, because it’s the pattern my brain remembers. Done something wrong? Get defensive and turn it around on the accuser! reads the habit engraved on my soul. Part of me is still convinced that if I follow through with the motions, everything will start to make sense again. All the missing pieces will fall into place. But even Serge can tell my heart’s only half in it. He frowns at me, instead of yelling back like he used to.
“Calling gently for five minutes didn’t seem to be working,” Serge sighs. “You ready for the meeting, or what?” The meeting? Shit. That’s today? I seize sheets in a fist on either side of me. I have to choke something to alleviate some of the pressure on the inside of my skull.
“You could ask me that in another ten years and the answer would be the same,” I tell him. There’s no need to elaborate on what the answer actually is. If anyone gets it, it’s the guy whose parents tried to murder both him and his sister. But, I shake my head, I release my sheets, and I stand up. “It hardly matters if I’m ready. Both my chaperones are attending, so here we go.”
“Here we go,” Serge sighs, and follows me through the door. The meeting with the Kyrie. Just about the only thing that could make me long to return to my dreams.
Darius,
The Broken Academy, D-Wing Courtyard
I can think of a few good reasons why the Academy and Kyrie leaders would want to convene in this odd location. For one, the Chamber of the Six simply isn’t big enough for a gathering this large. It hardly contained our last meeting of the Council and the ASTF. It was also a good call on the part of whoever suggested the Courtyard to avoid a certain natural air of tension. What better way would there be to ignite an olive branch than to seat the Kyrie leaders in the very Council seats they were stripped of? Instead, four long tables have been set up nose-to-nose in the D-Wing Courtyard. Every hall that even leads to it has been blocked off by other instructors, who let only us through.
That hardly means it isn’t tense, though. Even I can feel the air heat with the knotted nerves of each new person to take their seat. They certainly took their damn time getting here.
Both the head or foot of the strung-together tables are empty. At the center of our side sits Dragonlord Thise, flanked by the rest of the Council, the ASTF, and its honorary abductee. Me. The dragon named Dorian sits opposite Thise, at the center of the Kyrie side of the table. On his right is Fey Rorelia and the Vampire known as Bart. I can’t place if I’ve seen his face before, years ago, but I hate him for what he’s done. For botching our chance at a different life badly enough to bring together two warring supernatural factions. To Dorian’s left is a presence so putrid, I can’t stand to look at him. I looked up to him, once. Idolized him, even. Then he turned his back on me, on the word of a stranger. I let my eyes dart everywhere but there to avoid even the slightest glimpse of the former VampKing, Lucidous.
Crystal blue eyes that swim with hatred every time we glimpse one another, now there’s a good distraction. The girl who’s brother I murdered. Cece. During my time in the darkness under the Academy, I’ve thought about it often. Jason Ford was the first person I actually killed feeding in years. Though I won’t tell her or anyone else, it wasn’t nearly as nefarious an act as my older self made it out to be. It was a temporary lapse in self-control. A mistake. One that resulted in the end of a life. Regret is too simple. It implies a desire for forgiveness, of which I had and still have none. No, it seemed more appropriate at the time to own the deed with a sense of desire. To make Cece hate me. That’s what I deserved, and it appears I was successful. Even with the confusion plaguing my emotional cortex, the look of contempt Cece reserves for me feels right.
Also on the Kyrie side are the former Magister, Horace, the Astral Stephanie, River Murtagh, Lee Kaiba, and the Demon, Bryant. Serge’s eyes flit between Cece and her two lovers constantly. I could zip right out of here in a second, and I doubt my chaperone would even notice. Zip out of here, or go straight for Lucidous’ throat. He’d probably turn it around on me, but then… either way, I’d be relieved. I scoot forward in my chair, heels tilted to launch as I fantasize about it. How easy it would be. How quick. Like one of my dreams. I�
�m stopped only by a hand on my thigh. My eyes shoot down to it, then trace the arm up to its owner.
“It’s alright,” Emery whispers. She squeezes me tighter. She must know I could break away, break all of her fingers if I wanted to. And yet… that’s exactly why I can’t. It’s alright, she says. How could she think that when she knows everything that hinges on this? When she knows everything we’ve lost, hell, that she’s lost? And why do I believe her? Why am I sitting back down in my seat?
“Everyone gathered here has been briefed on the operation in question?” Dragonlord Thise prompts to start.
“Yes,” Dorian answers in a grim rumble. “We were initially able to drive the Fiends from our stronghold, but… since then, we’ve had significant casualties and no luck in counterattacks.”
“The Fiends were drawn back by the remnant of the Blood Farm…” Lucidous’ voice grates across my consciousness. I hate the sound of it so much that I can’t help myself looking at him. His ruby eyes glint in the gray overcast, entirely free of remorse or responsibility. Even while he speaks of the loss of our future. That’s it.
I catapult up out of my seat. I make it about two inches forward before Emery’s hand seizes mine. The fire drains from my veins. They resume their usual weak, chilled pulse. Her slightest tug sits me back down without too many of the others even noticing. It’s her greatest trick, without a hint of magic. Or maybe it’s just a kind I don’t recognize.
“Needless to say, we were forced out,” Lucidous says. I fumble around in my lap for Emery’s hand. I squeeze it to keep from launching again. Peculiarly, it works. Emery keeps her face fixed forward on the speaker, despite the crushing grip I close on her. If there’s one thing I need to remember later, it’s to apologize to her for any cracked bones or bruising. But she squeezes back just as hard. Maybe this is for her, too, to keep her from lunging at her own personal object of hatred. Her father.