Liza held the necklace up in front of her face so she could examine the glowing, green pendant more closely with her powder-blue eyes. Its glow seemed to come from some viscous fluid within the sealed glass (if it was glass - it felt more like quartz) vial that hung from the leather thong.

"Why should I believe it works like you promise?" she asked the man who was offering her the necklace - with a promise of power she wouldn't have believe existed a few hours ago, before meeting him.

"You don't seriously doubt me - we both know that. What's really on your mind, Liza?" the strange man asked. And, strange he was. Dressed in dark, earthy colors, and wearing a felt cowboy hat, he seemed both out-of-place and right at home in the café where he and Liza were talking.

She paused, but responded after some thought. "It's the topic of coin," she told him. He was right - she didn't doubt him at all. They'd met only about half an hour before, and it was only minutes before she confessed to him her darkest secret - that she was in love with a woman at work. A straight woman.

That was a secret she hadn't even told any of her friends outside of work - the friends who knew that she was a lesbian.

She stared at him, waiting for answers, gazing past his sunglasses to his eyes. She still didn't understand why, when the lenses of his glasses weren't that dark (and were almost transparent if the light struck them a certain way), his eyes looked colorless - 'black as coal, black as the abyss...' part of her mind warned her.

'That little voice is getting annoying,' she thought to herself, irritated with her conscious. Thankfully, as her meeting with Horatio had progressed, it seemed to just fade away, a little at a time.

"Isn't this like selling my..."

He held up a hand and she fell silent immediately. "Don't even say it. I'm not this 'Devil' guy you people seem to have such a hard-on for. I don't buy souls. You can't buy souls. The very idea of it is... (sigh)." He stopped himself short, not wanting to get angry. After calming himself, he continued.

"This offer is not one to be taken lightly. This is not crappy 80's movie where some dork sells his soul to become a hunk, fall in love with a beautiful girl, only to get his soul back and end up with the plane-Jane girl he knew at the beginning of the movie, but without the four sweaters and thick glasses that covered her beauty for the first 80 minutes."

He calmed down a little before going on. "The cost is what it is. The purchase is guaranteed. I want an answer."

"So I won't turn into some monster, or explode, or..."

Laughing at her asinine concerns, he assured her, "Alright, look. No tricks. No grotesque transformations. None of that. All you have to do is feed me a single meal, and you'll have what you want, you'll have who you want, and your beauty will last until you finally reach the end of your life."

Her mind, already in his capable hands (a fact of which she was blissfully unaware), was not capable of doubting anything at all he said - she trusted him. But, one thing did not make sense - skeptically, she asked, "and what do you get out of all of this?"

"Hey, I'm just a nice person. The only thing I expect is a meal."

'That makes sense. Men have to eat,' she thought as she put the necklace on and slid it under her blouse. "I hope you like steak," she said.

He grinned. "Yeah, something like that."

With the necklace under her blouse, the light wasn't noticeable - or was it an illusion, just one more trick from the Mystery Man? But she felt its warmth as it rested on her chest. It didn't burn - it was just slightly warm.

She felt its energy next. It was almost as if the flesh under the necklace turned into wax and gently melted a little, allowing the pendant to sink into her body and spread its heat throughout her full breasts, eventually diluting into her whole body...

Feeling the charm through the thin material of her top, and verifying that it was, in fact, not melting into her, she smiled - apparently giddy at the sensations she wasn't sure she had actually experienced. Looking up and locking eyes with a man she'd just met and only knew as Horatio, she smiled, aware of a little bit of the man's power.

Under normal circumstances, she might have been startled to find that his eyes were black. On each eye, there was white around a dark, black iris. She could barely make out the pupil. But, his eyes were somehow reassuring to her - looking into them seemed to help her understand that everything she wanted right now was within her grasp.

As he filled her mind with instructions on the proper use of his liquid jade amulet, he smiled inwardly. Her blue eyes had taken on a very slight tinge of green.

It had begun.

Emily wearily made the walk from her car, into the building, and finally to the front door of the office where she worked. 'Mondays... I have to keep reminding myself that I chose the Monday through Friday lifestyle, and you can't have that without... Mondays...'

Once in her cubicle, she started to drive away the morning fog of fatigue with her first cup of joe. After a few sips, she was logged in, ready to start on her project. And that's when she noticed Liza walking into her micro-office.

"Hi Emily! Uh, how are you today?" Liza chirped, seeming to Emily both cheerful and a bit nervous at the same time.

"Office Space," she replied, staring back into her cup. Around the office, just saying the name of the movie was enough to convey a specific mindset - one that pretty much let people know (in the nicest way possible but under no uncertain terms) that it was not yet time to talk about... anything.

Liza just stood there as Emily stared into her coffee, looking at the pool of black liquid, her eyes relaxed and losing focus as she gazed into the darkness of the brew. It was bleak, much like her life, she realized - a bleak wasteland like the surface of the drink, a darkness broken only by the occasional puff of steam as it rolled off the surface of the energy-giving elixir of all office woes.

Shaking away the depressing daydream, she looked back up, expecting for the perky blonde who sat in the cubicle across the aisle to be gone. She wasn't, though; so Emily forced a weak, polite smile, meant to encourage Liza to leave for now and come back later. But her eyes fell to the curves underneath her coworker's blouse, and lingered for a few moments.

'I bet they feel nice,' a tiny part of her mind suggested. Dismissing the thought as the random musings of a fatigued mind, she broadened her smile, hoping that would make Liza leave for now. Something about Liza was making her uncomfortable at the moment.

"Emily? Honey, you OK?" Liza asked, apparently concerned at her friend's suddenly spacey facial expression. Deep inside, though, she felt her panties dampen slightly - her friend was checking her out, and probably didn't even know it. If she had any doubts before, they were gone now. "Point of no return," she said, under her breath.

"Huh?"

"What? Oh, I just wanted you to come to my house for dinner tonight. My boyfriend thought it'd be neat to have someone from work over for dinner. I moved here not too long ago, and you're the closest thing to a friend I've got in this town, so..."

Holding her hand up to stop Liza's speech, she chimed, "Nonsense. You have friends here. Nelson and I would love to come. What time?"

Liza smiled. It was exactly the answer she wanted to hear. "We'll be eating at 6:30 or so, so come a little early. Bring some cabernet; we're having filet mignon. You don't have a problem with red meat, do you, hon?"

Even though she fancied herself as something of a vegetarian (certainly not vegan; just not hip on beef, pork, or poultry), the meal sounded like a nice treat to Emily. Besides, she wanted to make her friend happy - she'd obviously gone to some trouble.

"No, no problem at all. We'll be there around 6:00." She'd explain it to Nelson later... although it wouldn't be necessary; getting a man to eat a steak was about as challenging as getting him horny by making out with Liza while he watched.

'Where did that thought come from?' her mind asked.

"Great. I'm so happy you can come! See ya tonight." With that, she spun around and left, swaying her hips noticeably as she sauntered off.

Her swaying ass drew the Emily's attention, and she watched the shapely rump move until Liza was out of sight. From the back of her mind, she heard, 'I bet that ass is so firm you could bounce a quarter off of it...'

'Stop it, girl! Damn, you need some,' she rationalized as the "strange" thoughts about Liza continued to invade her psyche.

Before her first actual coffee break at 10:00 AM, she was already running scenarios through her mind in which she "accidentally" felt Liza's ass and/or tits. For some reason, she simply could not let her unusual obsession with her coworkers fun parts go.

Then, from one side of her mind, a voice rang out. 'What are you thinking, Emily? You can't touch her ass! What if she thinks you're gay? How would you explain what happened during your exit interview? Let it go!' As soon as that thought broke into her head, a small amount of fog seemed to clear - and she realized she had wasted two hours thinking about a woman's - a WOMAN'S - beautiful ass.

So, after her coffee break (and fourth cup of java), she dove into her work to avoid thinking about her lovely date with Liza that night. 'It's not a date! You're going to dinner with a friend, and you're bringing your boyfriend!' screamed a somewhat diminished voice from the back of her conscious.

Another part of her seemed to argue that point. 'But she is so hot... can't blame a girl for appreciating beauty...'

Shaking her head when she realized she was fighting with herself, she whispered, "You're not gay, Emily. Push it out of your mind. You're just... horny, and she's the nicest thing to look at here." Her barely audible affirmation made perfect sense, she decided; it had been a week or so since she and Nelson had fucked.

She knew he'd be there when she got home, and decided that she would not take no for an answer. She would present him with an offer he could not refuse - her naked self, hot, wet, and ready to go.

'Girl, now you're just being dirty. Save it for her... uh, home. For home. Save it for home.'

Unfortunately, that little series of daydreams took her well into her lunch hour. Giving up any hope of productivity for the day, she played out the rest of the hours by staying in her cubicle, organizing her "important" emails, and trying to figure out exactly what it was that was making her so attracted to the prettiest woman in her office.

'It's not like this makes me bi or anything. I love Nelson, and I'm going to make him fuck me until it's time to leave for dinner at Liza's house. I just want to see how her tits feel in my hands. Does she respond to touch like I do there? I wonder how her nipples taste...'

She realized that she'd strayed off track again. 'Shit, woman, it sounds like you've got a crush on her!' She smiled at the implication - it's been awhile since she'd had a crush - and it was several minutes before her mind reminded her, again, that she was straight.

Forcing herself to think of something besides Liza's tits, she realized that she could, if she were on her knees in front of Liza, gently lift the skirt up... and, after licking the panties that covered her pubic mound for just a moment or two, she could raise her head up and grip the tip of the underwear with her upper front teeth, and...

'Oh my God, what am I thinking? Damn, girl, you've got to get some! You're fantasizing about fucking your... uh, your fucking girlfriend at work!' her mind screamed. But images of her on herself knees in front of Liza, especially if they were both naked, were too hot to completely drive out of her mind. In fact, there was only one way to she knew to exercise the Sapphic images from her daydreams.

But, that would have to wait till she got home. Looking at the time on her computer, she realized it was, in fact, time to go. 'Lucky break, that,' her relieved conscious told her. It was getting harder and harder to fight away images of her coworker.

Needing at least a quick, tactile fix before going home, and looking around to make sure nobody was watching, she quickly reached up and squeezed her perky breasts, pinching each already-rock-hard nipple through her shirt and bra with as much force as she could take. Her body trembled a bit - it was not an orgasm, but it was definitely on the right track to one - and she knew she was wetter than she'd been in awhile.

"Nelson is going to eat out before dinner tonight," she giggled to her self, giddy with the thrill of feeling herself up at work. As she logged out for the day, picked up her keys, and headed for the door - relieved that the lesbian fantasies, which seemed both foreign and delightful to her mind, had subsided.

The relief was short-lived. She saw Liza from behind, standing near the door, and all of the desire she had fought so hard to suppress flooded back as Emily caught a great view of her backside. Because the sunset shone through the glass door this time of year, the hourglass silhouette Liza possessed was accentuated.

Liza dropped her car keys, and she bent at the waste to pick them up. Emily could not take her eyes off that perfect ass... it just seemed so... inviting? Shaking her head, Emily chastised herself. 'Get a grip, you're only 20 minutes from home. You're just a little horny. Nelson can take care of that - remember, you don't like girls.' Gathering her composure, she walked up to Liza just as she stood up and turned around.

They collided softly... and Emily brushed her breasts against Liza's, accidentally. At least, that was the story she'd stick to if questioned. Emily stifled a moan as an electric current of sexual energy shot through her nipples and straight into her groin. Smiling politely, she told her friend she'd see her later that evening, and hurried out the door, towards her car.

Mulling over her "accidental" contact with Liza, Emily verbally reassured herself that all would be fine in a few minutes. "Yeah, 'accidentally rubbed my tits on you' - you're lucky she didn't ask you about it. Damn, girl, get home now or you're not going to make it without pulling over!' she thought as she hurried down the road that led to her house.

All Liza could think was, 'I felt her nipples. They're harder than steel... she's mine.'

When Emily got home, she was relieved to see her boyfriend's car in the driveway. "So he did remember to come by to clean out the pool," she said out loud.

'He has no idea how good his decision to be her right now was. But he will... I have to find him.'

She dropped her jacket, purse, keys, and everything else she carried by the front door. "Nelson? Get cleaned up - we have a date tonight with Liza from work." She hoped he would object, or something - she needed to follow his voice.

She would take him, wherever he was.

"A date with a cutie from work? Gee, Emily, I thought you said you didn't..."

He was on the back patio, hollering through the sliding door that led to the pool. 'I guess it's going to be an outdoor afternooner,' she realized. She stripped as she walked through the house, noting how wet her panties had become as she stepped out of them... and onto the patio. His back was to her - he was cleaning the pool, after all - and she knew the surprise he was about to get would be nice.

"Oh honey, can you help me with something real quick?" she pined in a mildly whiney voice.

"Baby, I'm busy with the..." he began. But, when he turned around, he stopped.

There, in front of him, naked on the patio, was his beautiful wife - using one hand to rub her clit, and the other to beckon him to her. He was taken by surprise, alright - as his dick began to swell, he examined his wife closely. Her breasts weren't too big, but did have enough roundness to them to make them giggle as the hand she'd been using on her pussy became more animated.

She brought both hands up to her tits and squeezed them playfully, shaking them a bit - she was holding them so that the nipples were just barely visible, being squeezed in the "V" between the outstretched index and middle fingers of both hands.

She then seductively brought her hands down her sides, and onto her thighs - which meant she had to bend over. As she did, she turned so that her ass was in his direction. She looked like a professional stripper. Every move she made dripped with raw sensuality, and Nelson was helpless to resist.

Not that he would try.

He looked, and could see her need glistening in the sun. As he approached, she stood up, and took a few steps toward him. When she was within arm's reach, he grabbed her and pulled her in for a hard, passionate kiss.

They went over to the nearest piece of furniture in front of the pool, and over the course of an hour, he took her twice. It'd been some time since he was able to do that, but there was a strange aura about her today - she just oozed sex, and he fed off of it.

Once they're recovered somewhat, they both got cleaned up for the dinner they were going to. He took his in the smaller bathroom downstairs, and basked in the smell of his wife as the steam amplified the aroma that radiated from his still-erect cock. After a few minutes, though, he figured he'd better hurry up. So, grabbing the soap and a washrag, he began to clean himself.

Emily, in the bathroom upstairs, was trying desperately to get off. The sex had been good - great, even - but, for the first time ever, she had to fake orgasms with Nelson. In fact, she hadn't cum at all, which was really bizarre.

'Hopefully, the wine I bought for tonight will lube me up for another go,' she wistfully thought. Suddenly, her pace seemed to quicken, and erotic images began to flash before her eyes - pictures of all kinds of men and women in various positions whizzed by. When she finally came, she had to bite her lower lip from yelping out loud - the release was so tremendous, though, that she actually screamed with her mouth closed.

The last image she saw was a well-endowed blonde wearing a black, leather... something, that... 'no, don't go away...' her conscious pined as the image faded. But it was too late.

Wearily and shaking, she got out of the tub and dried off. There was just enough time to get ready for dinner.

Once they arrived, the men went to the deck, where Liza's boyfriend - apparently named Horatio - had already fired up the charcoal. She handed the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to Liza, who was wearing a green dress that accentuated every sexy curve of her body - and to Emily, almost every curve on that body was sexy.

"Ah, let 'em play with the fire in the back yard. Boys will be boys," Liza musically opined before taking the bottle to the kitchen to chill.

As she turned, Emily could have sworn she saw a tiny bit of bra strap peaking out through the neckline of the dress. It was emerald, like the dress. 'Matching underwear... I wonder if the panties are the same color... it's certainly her color. I wouldn't mind taking a peak under that dress,' she mused, licking her lips.

Blushing with that last thought, she regained her composure and followed Liza into the kitchen. 'Get it under control, girl. You'll get another chance to... uh, release your tension... tonight. Stop thinking about sliding your fingers into her slick cunt.'

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when that last thought hit her. 'Stop it! What's wrong with you, Emily?' she wondered.

The dinner was about as fun as Nelson and Emily had figured it might be - hanging around people from work after work was nice, but about an hour or so after dinner, the conversation had slowly died.

At about 8:30 or so, Horatio looked at Nelson and announced, "Hey, it's Blues against Flyers tonight. Wanna go to the den and let the ladies... do whatever it is they do when they go pee together in restaurants?"

Nelson thought it was a good idea - he liked hockey, and this guy was pretty funny throughout dinner. After grabbing a flask of whiskey, they headed for the den behind the main living room. Nelson never thought it was odd that they shut the door; he was just happy to be watching the game. A few minutes later, Liza brought in an ice pail containing several Coronas and a small dish of sliced lime. She shut the door on the way out, too.

After a few tense minutes of small talk - well, tense for Liza, anyway - she swallowed her courage and started implementing the intricate plan she'd developed between tasks at work. As Emily complained about how slow some IT guy was at work, she concentrated on the green vial hanging at her chest. She felt the familiar warmth and melting sensations grip her again, and her vision of the room took on a slightly dark-greenish hue.