Sheets
Noel gets out of the car. The parking lot is empty. He goes inside.
He's at the convention center.
He rushes down the hallway toward the balcony railing.
The cavernous hall's main lights are out; the floor below is feebly lit by security lighting along the walls.
But there are moments of blue-white brightness, like the flashes of an arc-welder at work.
Loud staccato rhythms multiply in echo. Gunfire.
Noel draws his weapon and peeks carefully over the railing.
A semicircle of twinkling fireflies. The muzzle flash of automatic weapons.
Their target flickers and flashes and strobes angrily with the impact of each bullet.
Ricochets chip concrete and crack windows and ting fixtures.
But Sapphire is not hurt.
She is angry.
Open-hand thrusts send walls of invisible force at her attackers; by one and by two they are slammed backwards, each time skidding back twenty feet or more.
Suddenly there is a strange grinding sound. Noel takes a moment to find the source: there, at the other end of the great room, a half-dozen figures crowded around a large object.
Noel's head snaps back when he hears Sapphire scream.
She is down on one knee, hands on the floor. The gunfire has stopped. Is she...?
No; she raises her head, shaking it clear. A tentative hand reaches in the direction of the nearest gunman; a moment later, he is flat on his back.
Noel's eyes strain through the darkness to discern a strange device, like a cross between a tire balancing machine and ridiculous raygun prop from a B-movie. A cluster of men in lab coats swarm around it, looking frantic as Sapphire rises to her feet and turns her attention toward them.
Even from this distance, the girl looks nervous, unsure of herself, afraid of the weapon that has apparently felled her. The men around her have stopped firing; someone barks an order and they resume, pressing in on her. But the superheroine shrugs it off, ignoring the shooters and homing in on the team of technicians. In an instant she's airborne, a blur of feminine form the shooters struggle to track as it streaks across the cavernous building in a shallow arc. Everyone can see its destination -- right on top of the weird weapon. There's a spin-up whine, as if the machine anticipates and protests its own death. The technicians scramble, anxious to get clear of the impending collision...
But suddeny Sapphire's trajectory changes. She falls short, hitting the ground hard, skidding and tumbling, her spitting angry flickering light dimming as she slows, coming to rest a jumble of still limbs against the base of the machine.
Everyone is stunned, frozen for a moment at the sight of the heroine fallen. The technicians are the first to recover when their weapon shudders and jolts; they rush back to it, ignoring the collapsed girl. Something siezes; the mechanical noises cease; acrid smoke rises from the thing.
Sapphire stirs. The shooters recover, scurrying toward her, shouldering their weapons. The girl is crouched down on one knee, looking up to see the attackers approach. She holds out a hand toward them as if ordering them to stop. Those in the path of her gesture seem to stutter-step a moment; Noel sees that they expect another blow from the superheroine's power, but it doesn't come. Their surprise becomes renewed conviction.
Sapphire is near enough now to Noel that he can see her face.
He sees fear.
The girl jumps to her feet, unsteadily, staggering a moment. She doesn't expect to be standing. She looks up, as if to ask the heavens why they have forsaken her.
And then the men are upon her. Rushing in so fast they nearly rush past, grabbing her arms, spinning her around, falling to the ground with her, two men and then three and then four and more.
From his vantage point, Noel points his weapon, but then withdraws it. He can do nothing at this distance against those odds. Eight, ten, fifteen men at least. And if Sapphire's power has faltered, an errant shot could hurt her.
He watches the activity below, his mind spinning frantically against helplessness. The weapon-thing has retreated out service doors at the end of the hall, its attendants gesticulating at one another, with about half the armed men in tow. The other half haul a defeated heroine to her feet, bound at hands and feet, her bullet-riddled costume doing little to cover her.
There is movement directly across from Noel, on the balcony. A man has stepped forward. A large man. Noel backs into the shadows. The man gestures for the others to come up; they hustle as if a single organism toward the glass elevator. Noel watches them rise toward the man, the elevator's overhead light illuminating the tiny girl like a glowing halo.
The cluster of men exit the elevator with military precision, breaking up and fanning out defensively. Noel gets a count: six, plus the large man and Sapphire.
These are still impossible odds. But less impossible.
The group disappears down the opposite hallway, back into the conference suites.
Noel hurries around the balcony. A moment later he is standing where he last saw them. He tucks himself against the wall around the corner.
One of the soldiers steps out of the darkness. Noel fires before the soldier turns; he crumples to the floor.
The noise of his shot has poked the hornet's nest. A cacophany of shouts and shots pours forth from the hallway. Noel steps into the breach, gun blazing, each shot finding the soldier behind the muzzle flash. One, two three, four fall. Noel shrugs off their bullets. The hits to his vest will hurt mightily later, but now they are but pinpricks.
Double doors at the end of the hall. Rushing through them is suicide, but he does it anyway, somersaulting low and to the left even before he is through. Ending in a crouch, he finds his target before the target finds him. The last soldier falls.
The large man has Sapphire in his grasp. She looks like a small child in front of his massive frame. His hand brings a pistol to bear on her temple.
Noel beseeches with one hand while the other hand lowers his weapon to the floor.
The man sneers. The pistol comes away from Sapphire's head, turning toward Noel...
Sapphire lifts her leg and brings it down fast. The large man yelps in pain; his gun and his grip on the girl are momentarily forgotten.
Noel needs but an instant. His hand finds his gun as his eye homes in on his target.
Sapphire collapses to the floor screaming as Noel's bullet finds its mark. The large man's expression goes slack. His body stiffens, teeters, and then slackens and crashes backwards.
Noel finds Sapphire suddenly in his arms.
Who are they?
What was that thing?
She doesn't know.
Her expression is more than fear.
It's sorrow. And regret.
She's disappointed him. Could he forgive her?
Noel's arms circle her, his hand putting her head to his chest. Thank you, Lord, for delivering her safely to me.
Her body is so small against his.
Her naked flesh so warm. Supple.
Her hands begin to move over his back. Drawing tighter against him even as her grip relaxes. Melting into him.
No, this is wrong. He pulls away.
She wraps around him, preventing his escape.
Her eyes trap his. In them he sees her subsiding fear, her thanks, her adoration... and her lust.
Noel, I need this. Please.
It is more than animal desire. Noel senses a cosmic significance to her need. She really does need him. She needs It. And when she pulls his head down closer, their lips meet, and somehow he knows. He must help her.
Her hands are at his belt; a moment later, his pants are off. Her hands slide up his chest beneath his shirt; he doesn't know when he lost his body armor, but he loses his shirt now.
She lays back, against and atop a bed. Pulling him down on top of her.
There is no sweetness to their coupling, no tender exploration. It is as if they have been together before. As if pretense of loving union had long ago been discarded, laying bare the hot throbbing need. She takes him between her legs, drawing him inside her.
He feels her lock her ankles around his legs, feeling one stilletto heel press sideways into him. Noel holds himself up on hands and knees, feeling her lightweight little body clinging to him, wrapped around him, enveloping him...
Her eyes speak of her need.
Hurry.
He needs no further encouragement.
The feel of her tight little cunny squeezing up and down on his dick only gets better as the pace increases. It isn't long before she begins to wail in time with his hammer blows. "Woh-woh-woh-woh-woh ohn-ohn-ohn-ohn oh-oh-oh-oh gha-gha-GHA-GHA Ohhhnggh Ggghhaaahhhdddd!"
She suddenly seizes up, her back arching. He becomes aware of a bright light all around them; her gems are glowing, too brightly to look at them. Her eyes seem to glow the same shimmering irridescent blue, no longer eyes at all, just solid blue beacons, as if an energy inside possesses her.
And then without warning he feels it. An electric charge racing up from his toes, and his fingers, down from his head, energy from all directions coursing toward the point of his union with the almost-phantasmic girl. He can see it pouring into her, filling her, empowering her with every pulsing spasm...
"Unnnggghhh!" Noel's hand slowed from a blur, squeezing rhythmically as his whole body stiffened and shuddered and tingled. Something wet and warm drizzled his chest with each contortion, until finally his toes uncurled, his eyes unrolled, and his breathing returned.
He lay there for a long time, release becoming revulsion.
He should have grabbed a towel.
Noel staggered out of the bedroom, his legs still wobbly from the force of long-pent orgasm. His hand stretched out, steadying him against the doorframe, the burn of muscular exhaustion felt all the way up his forearm, reinforcing his humiliation and shame.
Silent footsteps took him down the hall, pausing at the first bedroom. Upper body swung from left to right, looking for the right viewing angle through the slightly-open door. The sheets were strewn but the bed was empty.
So she'd come home from the movies and gone to bed. But she wasn't in bed now.
Not in *her* bed.
Shame fell to ire.
To the end of the hall, quickly. The door was closed.
And beyond it, rhythmic whispering.
No, breathing.
And bedsprings.
But as his ears became attuned to the sounds of hushed passion, Noel's hand gradually loosened from the doorknob...
...and to his horror found its way under the waistband of his pyjamas.
The morning sun made the small bedroom much brighter than the hallway. Noel blinked rapidly as his eyes struggled to adjust.
Eventually he saw two teenagers squeezed into a bed made for one.
Noel affected a balance between parental suspicion and parental concern. "What's going on here?"
Angela's head was on Ricky's chest. She raised it briefly to address Noel. Her voice was soft, fragile. "I had a bad dream."
That voice always melted Noel's heart.
The girl lay her head back down, her arm across Ricky's body squeezing him tight, drawing comfort from him. His arm, wrapped around her, reciprocated, pulling her to snuggle closer to him. Noel could see Angela's knee through the covers raise up to cross Ricky's. The young man bent his head down to kiss the top of her head ever so softly. "The nightmare is over now," he said.
Noel knew there'd been more than a bad dream exchanged, but the two looked so completely contented, so... at peace. It seemed so incongruous with the way he'd imagined it last night. Perhaps he'd judged them too harshly of late. Maybe his original instincts weren't off. Maybe he hadn't been naive. Maybe Angela wasn't a temptress out to wreck men's lives. Maybe she really was just an innocent, confused girl who'd been through hell and was finding that her path led her to a young man's heart.
Maybe this was the beginning of a life-long love.
Angela let out a sigh. "Hhmmmm." It conveyed contentment. Happiness. Thankfulness. Simple bliss.
But Noel detected a... huskiness in her tenor, a subtle indication that her state was not just spiritual, but physical.
As if she'd just said, "and the sex was great, too."
Noel regarded his bed with disgust. It was here that he'd sinned. Here that he'd consummated his twisted obsession. He desperately hoped this was as far as it could go. But every step only seemed to lead to another. And the next step horrified him.
A tormented man began clawing at the bed, frantic to remove the signs of his transgression from his sight.
"Need help?" Angela.
Noel spun around, wild-eyed. "No!" When he saw the startled look on her face, he quickly softened. "I mean, I can manage. Thank you."
Angela raised an eyebrow. Did she just think him strange, or was she suspicious? He watched her eyes, intent on divining some indication. After a moment, they did break from his. But they didn't dip to the sheets on the bed. Instead, they went to the window...
Angela's eyes widened. She retreated without another word.
She knew.
How did she know?
That didn't matter.
She knew.