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Message-ID: <55390asstr$1172628604@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Shalon Wood <dstar@pele.cx>
Subject: {ASSM} Pandora's Box 31 (Mf Mff MMf rom ws exhib bdsm)
Lines: 447
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:10:04 -0500
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

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SPECIAL NOTE FOR READERS OF _Jason and Kylie, Naked In School_:

You may or may not be aware, but Shalon broke his arm in two places three weeks ago; Jason and Kylie is temporarily on hold (he had a nice cushion built up on Pandora's Box, which is why he switched to that. Please see http://playground.pele.cx for details, including news on when Jason and Kylie will return.

If you have any questions, please email us, or visit our forums at http://playground.pele.cx/forums and ask.
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SPECIAL NOTE FOR READERS WHO DON'T LIKE M/M SCENES:

You want to either make it through the upcoming M/M scene (next chapter, IIRC) or skip to the end, because the scene after that involves Pandora, a bottle of lube, and a latex catsuit that fits perfectly.

Meow.

And a blindfold.

(And I promise, not all of our stories are MM; we've only got three, in fact, which are. It's just that somehow those three (Pandora's Box, Prudence, and Jason and Kylie (to a very small degree -- two scenes) ended up being some of the first ones we posted.

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Standard disclaimers apply; this story may or may not contain, in any
given part, graphic depictions of lesbianism, homosexuality, group sex,
bdsm, underage (teen) sex, magic, occultism, violence, and biting 
sarcasm.  If you're underage, or if for any other reason it's illegal 
for you to read this, or you're disturbed by the content, please don't 
read it.

Archived at http://pandora.pele.cx, and we've got a web-forum at
http://playground.pele.cx/forums as well, for discussion of both
Pandora and our other stories. 

Comments *greatly* appreciated.

Enjoy,

Velvet
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Gabriel shook his head, watching Lucien walk away, and Pandora leaned
against him, quiet and thoughtful.

"That was... utterly and completely unexpected," Gabriel said.

Pandora nodded, her expression thoughtful and maybe containing a bit of
lingering shock. She finally just shook her head in bemusement, not finding
anything else to say, and pressed tight against him, leaning her head
against his shoulder and looking across the dance floor, towards the stage
where the band was starting a low, sensual number. He couldn't tell if she
was looking at the stage or at the dancers in between, but her wistful sigh
was full of longing.

"You want to be up there, don't you?" he said.

She ducked her head, hiding her face against him and shrugged. "Or _out_
there. Something. Anything but just... watching," she said sadly.

Gabriel looked thoughtful. "You want me to go see if I can find Lucien and
see if there's some way to make it possible, at least for tonight?"

He could feel her tense against him as she thought about it, but eventually
she shook her head. "No. I don't want to owe him anything. It's okay,
Gabriel. It's not like it's anything new."

Gabriel smiled. "Actually, it would be in his best interest to do it, love.
Think about it-- a free sample. Let me go find him."

She held tightly to his arm. "No! I... I mean it's okay. It really is. I
don't want any favors from him, even if I do decide it's worthwile to help
his bosses."

"Why not, love?" he asked.

She shifted uncomfortably. "I just don't _like_ him. He's... creepy. Maybe
it's the demon thing, though I really didn't _see_ anything inhuman about
him, but whatever it is, it just... sets me on edge."

Gabriel looked thoughtful. "I can understand that. Easily. But... if we can
trust him at all, we could trust him in this, I think."

"It's not trust, it's that I just don't want it bad enough to let him be
the one who gives it to me," she said. "I can wait, really. It's no big
deal."

Gabriel pursed his lips. "Okay. I think I have an idea. You wait here,
love."

Her hand trailed over his arm, reluctant to release him as he got up. "What
are you doing?"

"I'm going to talk to the bartender."

She frowned, but didn't try to stop him.

Gabriel walked over to ther bar, waiting for the bartender to have a free
moment before saying anything. "Hey, I need a favor, if you can help me."

The bartender looked up from where he was polishing the shiny black bar,
and nodded. "I'll see what I can do. Name's Jay, by the way."

"Pandora would really like to dance, but she can't. Not without causing...
problems, big ones," Gabriel said.

He cocked his head. "Oh? What sort of problems?"

"Problems like... well, imagine my... whatever it is that attracts people,
only stronger, and covering the entire room," Gabriel said.

"Ah. Gotcha. And she really thinks she's human, does she?" Jay asked,
shaking his head.

"Not... anymore. Anyway, the reason I was wondering... do you know of any
way to stop that? I know the effect is related to her aura..."

Jay leaned on the bar, looking thoughtful. "Hmm."  He turned a corkscrew
over and over in his hands for a bit, then said, "Maybe. Is there any
warning that it's going to happen, or is it just sudden and unstoppable?"

"It's more of a slow build-up, not a sudden impact sort of thing..."
Gabriel said.

"Okay. That's better. There might be someone here who could throw a hard
shield on her, give her a chance," Jay said. "But she'd have to stop if it
wasn't going to work."

Gabriel nodded. "She could do that. Just the chance..." He shook his head.
"The last time she tried to dance in public, it got pretty ugly. And music
is her life. I don't think it would be likely anyone could make it safe for
her to perform, though."

"Well... we might can at least let her dance. Hold on a minute." Jay
stepped back and spoke with the other bartender, a small red-headed woman.
She nodded and pointed towards the back. Jay slipped out the gate and
disappeared into the dark recesses of the club, returning after a while
with the dark-haired, non-human woman he'd seen as they came in, the one
with the extremely bright aura that glowed black and the bright green
reptilian eyes. Up close, she was actually very pretty, with perfect white
skin, a curvy little body, and a headful of wild, gleaming black curls. She
still didn't look particularly friendly, though, and when she looked at
him, it was with a clenched jaw. "Okay," she said brusquely. "Where's the
girl you want shielded?"

"Pandora's over here." He frowned. "Look, have I done something to offend
you?"

"Not yet," she said.

Gabriel blinked. "O...kay. You just seem to dislike me."

Her jaw flexed, then she sighed. "Other elves have never been anything but
bad news for us. And you look a lot like one of the worst examples. You
can't help it," she admitted, grudgingly, "and, logically, I know that not
every sidhe who walks in is either a High Court assassin or a perverted
piece of dog shit, but instinct tells me I should rip your fucking head
off, just to be safe, and some instincts are harder to deal with than
others."

"I'm not. Believe it or not, two days ago I thought I was human, okay?" he
said.

She smiled, just a tiny bit. "Oh, I believe it. It happens fairly often,
apparently. Human orphanages must be running over with pretty little
elf-babies. But you can't tell by looking if you're one of ours, or if you
were raised by those fucking psychopaths at Court. And instinct doesn't
care. It just wants me to protect what's _mine_," she ended with a little
involuntary snarl, long, sleek, razor-sharp fangs flashing. They definitely
had little resemblance to the dainty, almost catlike fangs that Gabriel
had.

Gabriel blinked. "Well. I promise, I'm no threat to what's yours." He
nodded over at Pandora. "I just want to take care of what's _mine_."

She nodded. "Pretty thing. Best keep her away from other elves, if no one's
already warned you of that."

"I've been warned," Gabriel said. "We're not leaving Dallas unless we're
going someplace equally protected."

She nodded. "Good. You have no idea how evil those fucking bastards can
be," she said, her voice low, fervent, and sincere. "They'd break her just
for the fun of it, and if they knew you cared about her, that'd just make
it better. Here, this is close enough, hold on..." They were about ten feet
away from the table. She closed her eyes, concentrating.

A bit of the woman's aura swirled up, green and gold and black, and flicked
out, wrapping around Pandora and actually seperating from the rest. It
flowed, surrounding Pandora like a soap bubble, then seemed to thicken and
take on a vibrant glow. What looked like Norse runes flickered across the
almost opaque surface, etched in gold light, and then it went totally
opaque, reflective, as if Pandora were momentarily surrounded by a mirrored
sphere. Gabriel had a very uncomfortable instant where he couldn't see her
and more importantly couldn't _feel_ her. He could hear her, though, when
she cried out and the chair she was sitting in was shoved back from the
table. It was only an instant though... a horrible, empty, achingly lonely
instant... then the opacity faded, leaving just a glimmering,
semi-reflective shell around her, containing her aura.

Pandora darted over to him.

Gabriel wrapped his arms around her, looking at the woman. "What was
_that_?"

"Sorry. Shoulda thought to warn you, but Jay said your bond was new, so it
shouldn't have been strong enough for you to notice the split second of
seperation." She shook her head. "But you did, and I know that's painful as
hell, so I apologize. Anyway, go on and dance. I'll be here until close
tonight. But remember... I'm not sure how strong the shield is compared to
her, and a shield someone else puts on you is always weaker than one you do
yourself, so watch for any signs that things are leaking out."

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah. I doubt you could shield her if she was performing,
but just dancing... well, I hope it works." He smiled down at Pandora. "You
can dance now, love. At least with any luck."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide with shocked disbelief. "R...really?"

Gabriel nodded. "At least, you can dance as long as the shield holds."

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up with a delighted smile, and she leaped up, wrapping
her arms around his neck and kissing him hard. "Oh thank you thank you
thank you!"

Gabriel caught her, holding her up. "You're welcome, love." He grinned.
"And I'm going to enjoy seeing you dance in that."

She pulled back to look up at him. "You're not dancing with me?"

"Do you want me to?" he asked.

Her brow wrinkled. "Well, yeah... of course. Why wouldn't I?"

Gabriel chuckled. "You haven't seen me dance. I've never been very good at
it."

She still looked puzzled. "So?"

"So you might not want me to dance." He shrugged. "That's okay. It would
just make it easier for me to watch you dance."

She shook her head. "Sometimes I don't get you _at all_," she said,
bemused. "Who _else_ do you think I'd want to dance with, huh?" she asked
with a smile.

Gabriel grinned. "Maybe you'd want to dance by yourself. But I can live
with dancing with you."

She kissed him again. "Then come dance with me. Oh! Thank--" she turned her
head, to find the woman who'd cast the spell gone, melted back into the
shadows. "--you. Huh. Okay. Odd."

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah."

Smiling, she led him onto the dance floor, completely oblivious to any
awkwardness on his part, her expression happy and proud. The music was
fairly easy to dance to, actually, having a heavy, throbbing beat that was
not too fast and not too slow, making moving to it very natural feeling.
His changed body, now that he was getting used to it, was also noticeably
more flexible than before, and smooth, graceful movement came to him
easily. The pair of them drew attention, of course, some of it open, some
of it more subtle. The looks ranged from open admiration, hot lust, and
appreciation to darker, jealous glances at one or the other of them.
However, it didn't seem to be any more attention than he'd expect, under
the circumstances, and he was even finding it fairly easy to rein in his
aura's exploratory tendencies.

The only real problem with dancing with Pandora was that he kept getting
distracted by her dancing. And the leather pants were _tight_. Tight enough
to rapidly become uncomfortable in certain areas. 

The song ended, and the next one was slow and sensuous, causing her to
smile seductively and drape her arms around his neck, her body slowly
writhing against his. The latex was skin-tight on her curvy little body,
and when she turned to face away and press back against him, arching her
back, her hard nipples were clearly visible.  Between the seductive beat of
the music and the way she was moving against him... well, it wasn't _quite_
the same thing as having sex in public, but in some ways it was even more
erotic. She tilted her head back and smiled up at him, drawing his arm
around so that his hand was flat against her stomach. Her eyes were
half-closed, dark with arousal and sparkling with happiness, and her cheeks
were flushed.

It was very, very easy to get distracted by her. Gabriel found his hand
creeping up towards her breast without any conscious thought as her
latex-clad ass rubbed up and down his thighs, but managed to stop himself
with his hand pressed just underneath the tight, tempting mounds.  He
should have been watching the other dancers... he knew that... but taking
his eyes off of her was progressively harder to do, and it was easy to
rationalize that, since he was closest to her, symptoms would appear in him
first, right? Right.

The song ended, and the next was fast and wild. She spun away from him with
a trill of musical laughter, leaving his arms feeling achingly empty. She
grinned at him, then began to move in ways that he was absolutely,
positively, one hundred percent certain that he could never in a million
years duplicate. Perhaps _no one_ could duplicate them. It took him a few
seconds of staring in bemusement before he realized that other people were
doing the same, and she was dancing in a circle of clear space that had
opened for her.

The looks on the faces surrounding her were hungry, full of desire, and
acquisitive. For a moment, his instinctive possessiveness flared, making
him clench his hands into fists and snarl involuntarily, but then she
laughed again, joyfully, and shot him an adoring look, and the urge to
commit violence eased up, then disappeared, replaced by possessive pride.
They could look. They weren't touching; they were staying well back, not
showing any signs that her power was overwhelming their common sense.  He
could deal with that. That was okay.

In fact, they weren't particularly important at all. She was dancing for
_him_, after all. The lightly oiled latex flashed in the dim light,
flickering and highlighting the most luscious areas of her curvy, delicious
body. It was almost hypnotic, really. His eyes were still locked on her as
the song ended, and his blood pounded in his ears, his hands ached to roam
over that body. He was so focused on her that he didn't notice the guy
stepping up to her until his hand had already closed on her shoulder and
she froze, her eyes going wide with sudden panic.

The man, not able to see her face, took the fact that she didn't move away
as encouragement, and stepped closer, letting his hand slide down her back
to her waist and bending close to her ear to be heard. The panic left her
eyes, replaced by relief, and she turned her head up and answered him with
a bright smile.

Gabriel frowned, striding forward and pulling Pandora to him. "You okay,
love?"

The guy looked like he wanted to protest, but something... perhaps the fact
that Gabriel was about a foot taller than him, or perhaps the way Pandora
snuggled into Gabriel's chest like a happy kitten... made him think better
of it, and he just turned away with a deep sigh.  Pandora rubbed her cheek
against Gabriel's chest then looked up at him, smiling. "I'm fine. For a
minute I thought... but it was okay, after all. I think that's enough,
though. It was fun, but I don't think I can not be nervous until I know I
can handle things _myself_, you know?"

Gabriel nodded. "Okay, love. You want to go sit back down?"

"Do you need anything else here?" she asked.

Gabriel shook his head, then stopped. "Maybe."

She looked up at him curiously as they walked off of the dancefloor.
"What?"

"Well, maybe we should talk to the girl who put the shield on you and see
if she can teach you to do it yourself," he said.

Pandora looked around, then said hesitantly, "Um... I still don't see her.
I don't, uh, think she likes to talk."

"Still... it'd be worth asking, don't you think?"

"Um, how?" she asked. "I mean, you can't ask if you can't _find_ her. And I
kinda got the impression you won't find her if she doesn't want you to. I
mean, didja see those _eyes_? I don't think those were contact lenses," she
said nervously.

Gabriel smiled. "The same way I found her the first time." He led her
towards the bar.

The bartender glanced up at the approach. "Mm?"

"The, ah, lady who helped me out before... is she still here?" Gabriel
asked.

He shrugged. "No way to tell, really. She's not on the floor anywhere, but
she could be in the rafters. Or one of the backrooms."

Gabriel glanced up at the exposed rafters. "In the... rafters. I see. Um.
I'd really like to speak to her again, see if she could teach Pandora to
shield herself."

The bartender laughed. "Kiari as a teacher... now there's an amusing image.
Her students would either end up really, really good, or completely dead.
Anyway, I doubt it would work. She's got the power to keep in _anything_.
Most people... even non-human people... don't. Better she learns to control
her abilities, so they don't need shielding, than burn herself out trying
to keep back the tide with a bucket."

Gabriel gave him a wry look. "Well, if I had any idea how she could do
that..."

"Ayup, that's the trick. But at least most people _do_ have whatever
strength they need to handle their own abilities, those that can be
controlled at all. Most people _don't_ have enough to just contain them by
brute force, sorry."

Gabriel nodded, slowly. "Well... do you think you could give me any
suggestions on what to study to help her out? Books, or something?"

He cocked his head, frowning. "You already talked to Lucien. If that one
couldn't help, there isn't honestly a whole lot I can recommend."

"He... probably can help. But I like to have independent confirmation,"
Gabriel said.

"Well... there are books. All kinds of books. But it's hard to tell the
good from the bad, and to make it harder, sometimes things'll work for one
person that won't for another. Best is to get a teacher, someone to look
out for you while you learn, but they're pretty hard to find, too,
especially if the person looking is unusual." He shook his head. "Really
don't know what to tell you."

Gabriel sighed. "Well, I guess we just talk to Lucien's bosses, then, and
see how things go."

The man looked at him, startled. "He gave you the pitch? The _heavy_ one?
Woah. That's pretty serious shit. I gotta say... be careful. That's the
sort of cause that can get you killed. Big back-up, though, if you get in
trouble. Good benefit plan. Not so hot retirement, know what I mean?"

Gabriel laughed. "Yeah, I know." He shrugged. "On the other hand, I worked
for a startup in 2000, and then I did it again in 2001, so maybe I'm just a
sucker..."

"Yeah, so are some of them. _Literally_."

Pandora's lips twitched, just slightly, but she didn't say anything.

Gabriel laughed. "Yeah."

Pandora looked up at him. "So no reason to stay?"

"I guess not. What do you want to do until Angel gets off work?" he asked.

"It's already pretty late," she said thoughtfully. "Not time to go home and
come back. Maybe we could just find someplace to have coffee, or
something." She looked down. "The crowd's kinda getting to me," she
admitted.

Gabriel nodded. "That works. Coffee sounds good."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you like this, you might want to take a look at Strange Love, an
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Take a look!

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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