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 Inscription
   Jade's Story
   by Nysidra
   <->
   -_ Driftwood _-
   Thump.  Thump.  Thump.  The wall next to the bar vibrated.
   Reshonda, Jade's friend and neighbor, stumbled around the corner with a
man on either side.
   "One more round?" She affected a perfect, slushed slur.  Her hair looked
gorgeous tonight, big fluffy spirals, sparking jewelry, flawless make up.
Her wrap dress hugged and framed her body in all the right places.
   The men beside her grinned, heads bobbing as if her bosom had posed the
question.
   A handsome man approached her and she smiled.  He flicked his fingers,
but didn't slow or stop.  It was going to be another long, dry night.  She
hadn't earned a single drink.
   A man sat down at the bar beside her.
   "Hi." She smiled and took a sip from her club soda.  The ice settled and
liquid spilled down the front of her shirt.
   He grinned and shook his head, then his attention was on the bartender.
   Jade grabbed two bar napkins and dabbed at her breast bone and clothing.
Perfect.
   The night wasn't getting any better, but she could keep it from getting
worse.  Reshonda was nestled between two big spenders.
   Jade walked home.
   What was it?  What was wrong with her?  Reshonda went through men like
breath mints while Jade struggled to attract one.  Each time she tried to
follow Reshonda's advice, she ended up making a fool of herself.
   Once home, she peeled out of the micro mini skirt and skin tight blouse,
tossed them onto the floor.  She wiped the theatrical makeup off her face
revealing the acne, the bumps and blemishes it was designed to cover.
   Jade wanted to feel the passion of being with another man.  She looked
into the bathroom mirror with a frown.  Reshonda's throaty laugh echoed
from down the hallway.  Soon she would be moaning.  Did she pick one of
them or were they both with her?
   That was never going to be her.  She palmed the tears from her cheeks
and went to bed.
   Another failure, another day.
   ***
   Morning came early for Jade.  Her room mate, Ketrick fiddled with his
jacket.
   Thick locks of hair peaked from under his skull cap.  He'd put on a
little weight lately.  Maybe she could lay off the pizza parties.
   A whole minute she waited while Ketrick fiddled with his clothes.
   "There won't be as many people." She took his hand and they walked to
the cafe.
   Ketrick had difficulty with other people, crowds.  Jade believed it was
because he'd never been taught how.
   They had cafe sessions once a week.
   Ketrick stirred his coffee by bouncing a spoon off the side of his cup.
In the cafe it made a fragile sound, as if the cup might shatter any
moment.
   It was hard to focus on his latest crisis over the sound.  "I almost
have the finishing touches on it, but he keeps calling me.  I can't take
that, you know?"
   She hummed.  How much longer could she take this?
   "He wants to rush the creative process, and that's not going to happen."
   She stared at the broad window to the churning dark gray sky.  It was
supposed to be nice today, if you were the type to believe weather
forecasts.  "Did you tell him that you would do the presentation?"
   "Are you going to be there?  I'm not sure what to do and say.  Why can't
I just email him the draft?  What's the point of standing in front of a
bunch of people?  He's the one that commissioned the design."
   "Others will see what you have to offer.  Networking, Ketrick.  That's
how all those rich people get more work.  It's about who you know."
   "Can I get you something?" The waitress looked old enough to be both
their mothers.  Her face was slack, eyes glassy.  The woman was already
checked out.  The diner had only been open an hour.
   I said, "Just coffee for me."
   "Coffee, and an egg special."
   "How would you like your eggs cooked?"
   Jade stared up at the clouds.  At least it would be cooler today.  She
didn't bring an umbrella, but she didn't feel like wasting the last of her
spare money on bus fare.
   "Long night?" Keyrick regained her attention.
   Jade nodded.  "Reshonda and I put in a shift at the Calypso."
   "Speak of the devil." He rolled his eyes.
   "Hey bitches." Reshonda took the seat beside Ketrick and put her arm
around his shoulders.  "What's happening?"
   "Oh," Ketrick shrugged away.  "Talking things of more value than picking
up stray dogs to lie with."
   Reshonda grinned and winked at him.  "You don't have to listen through
the walls.  I can set up a web cam for you if you want a live show. 
Nominal fee."
   "You disgust me."
   She giggled and picked food from his plate.  "There's no need to feel
ashamed; we're all friends here.  I don't want any friend of mine lying
awake at night wondering what a fat cock looks like as it pumps inside my
wet cunt."
   Ketrick wiped his mouth and tossed a ten dollar bill on the table.  Then
he pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket.  "Stop by the store for
me?"
   "What?" Jade snatched up the list and read it.  "Wait.  Ketrick.  No,
damn it, I'm not your errand girl."
   He dodged the people waiting to be seated on his way out the door.
   "Don't know why he acts so shy." Reshonda ate the rest of his food.
   "I don't know why you torture him."
   "He's your room mate.  You'd think he'd know better."
   "I don't talk that way around him."
   Reshonda laughed.  "Aw, still playing the blushing bride?  Even sadder
that he eats that shit up."
   That wasn't the part that required so much pretending.  "I'm respectful.
That's all.  Ketrick can be sensitive.  We've been making great progress
here, but if you keep showing up."
   "This sucks." She the food back on the plate.  "How much did you make
last night?"
   "I did all right.  You?"
   "Made a killing, and then you heard how my night ended," she giggled.
   ***
   Working the kitchen on the bar at Calypso's was her part time job.  Her
steady work came from the warehouse doing inventory.  Boxes on and off the
truck, shuffled from one shelf to another.  Scanning labels, processing
orders.  High-pitched beeping that signaled the approach of a lift or the
arrival of a truck.
   Overhead, the roaring ventilation system pumped cold air.  Garage doors
rattled, opening and closing at all hours.  It never changed.  Jade didn't
have to think to hard, talk to anyone.  Her orders and completions were
sent through her handheld device.
   Though she had been working the warehouse for years, it only offered
full-time during rush seasons.  Due to the hard work and high turn around,
people were little more than worker bees.  Some faces lasted for a few
days, others a few weeks or months.  A handful of people stuck around for
years, easy to tell by their anti-social natures.
   This work left no time for social chatter.
   ***
   Jade strolled down the street with a bag of hard candies.
   Megan, a young girl with bouncy, tightly coiled spirals of brown hair
skipped along the walkway to join her.
   "Hey, Megan, how was school?"
   "I passed my spelling test this morning."
   "Did you?  That's great." She handed her a candy.  "An accomplishment
like that deserves a trip to the book store."
   "You're going to do it?  You're going to buy me a book?"
   "Yeah, let's do it.  Any book you want."
   "Yay!" Megan hopped and giggled and wiggled her slim little body.  Some
of her coils formed more of a thick bushel of fuzz.  That was probably the
side she slept on.
   For a brief time each day, Jade was a big sister to the hyperactive
girl. They talked about school, shared candies.  When the weather was nice,
they would run and play games in the park.
   After buying her a book, they went to the deli and shared a cup of
potato soup.
   Their seat had a clear view of the Chrome Envy bike shop.  That's where
Derrick worked.  He'd been her sun and stars until he broke it off.  Was he
working?
   "Have you ever been in there?" Jade pointed her spoon to the bike shop.
   "It's not that kind of bike store.  Only people with vehicle permits can
ride them."
   "Yes, that's right, but there's no reason we can't look.  Come on."
   They put their trash away and headed across the street to the custom
bike and sales outfit.
   Megan clasped both her hands behind her back as she looked up and down
the shelves.
   Jade looked toward the back of the shop near the garage as she pretended
to browse the models.  She suppressed her smile as she caught sight of her
ex.  Derrick had more salt than pepper in his black hair.  His weathered
skin was a little puffier, but she could still trace the ridges of his
muscles.
   With a stiff nod, he waved the customer off and headed for the front of
the store.
   His pace slowed when he noticed her.  He scanned the store, looked over
his shoulders.  "May I help you?"
   Her smile was tense, brief.  "I wanted to say hi."
   Stiff nod, the kind like he gave his customers.
   "How have you been?  Would you like to talk some time?"
   "I do all right.  Is there a point to this?  I made it pretty clear how
I felt last time you came around."
   "Just hi.  That's all.  I was missing you, so I thought that maybe we
could meet for coffee.  That's all."
   "Don't think next time.  Stay away."
   Jade steeled her face and marched toward the door.  "Megan, I'm
leaving."
   ***
   Calypso's Bar Room.
   It was the most slack on the hours, but her social place of employment.
All she had to do was empty trash and wash floors when she wasn't working
the bar.
   Working the bar was the way she kept her job.  It was the unspoken rule,
that she kept customers inside dancing, drinking, and socializing.  If
people failed to show up and have fun on the front floor, then you didn't
keep the job.
   The craft store.
   She browsed for the tools mentioned in Ketrick's list.  There was a cute
boy in the other aisle.  She smiled at him, took a few steps closer to look
at the wire shaping display.
   He glanced at her.  Nodded and left the aisle.
   Jade swallowed her smile and looked at the different wire gages and
colors as if that was her entire reason for showing up.
   Purchases made, she was back out on the street.  Light mist made the air
thick with moisture.  Two bags, one dangling from each hand.  The straps
bit into her fingers.  Her heart lay somewhere on the sidewalk, dragging
behind, picking up bits of gravel and dirt.
   Less cars on the street.  A small dog barked.  Distant police sirens. 
The purr of a diesel engine.
   Buzz.
   Jade stopped.  That was different.
   Buzz.  Buzz.
   Overhead.  She'd come this way home plenty times, but never saw the
stair rail.
   Buzz.  Letters in gorgeous neon-green light, but she couldn't see it
from so far down.
   Help.
   Help?
   She climbed a few metal steps.  No wobbling nor creaking.  They seemed
sturdy, but it put her too close to the brick building.  The glow of the
sign cast a vibrant lime glow on her clothing.  She went to the top.
   Helo.
   Jade tested the voracity of the 'open' sign permanently etched on the
metal door by leaning into it with her shoulder.
   The heavy door swung open to reveal a waiting room.  Chairs lined walls
covered in photos, posters, and artwork.  Little creatures, each one
different, unique.  They didn't seem to be drawn by the same artist or from
the same cultural tradition.  They weren't characters from any children's
stories or representations from any folk tales she had ever heard.
   She had only made it to the second wall when a dark skinned man entered
the room drying his hands with a dark gray towel.  "Can I help you?"
   Wistfully, not thinking he could hear her or that he was paying her much
attention, "I wish."
   "Then you are in luck." He picked up a clear plastic cup and filled it
with water from the cooler.  He offered her the cup.  "I specialize in
wishes.  Do you see something you like?"
   "For me?  Oh no, I've ...  I was just looking.  What is this?  I've
never seen a tattoo like this."
   "These are more, shall we say, special.  Each one is a unique
inscription."
   "What's that mean?"
   "The act of writing words within.  One ink-filled needle point at a
time, I cut the words, inscribe."
   Jade couldn't get much closer to a photo without standing on the chair,
but she could almost make out the tiniest letters that created the chubby,
stout male with a head dress of bones and a skirt of thick vines.
   "What do the words say?"
   "That is a secret between you and your inscription."
   "Not really, you're the one who has to write them."
   He smiled and the smile grew until he was laughing.  "How can I help
you?"
   One shoulder shrug.  Whatever this was, it was too odd and too weird for
her to afford.  She shook her head.
   "Humor me.  The hour is late, and we are about to close for the night."
   "Well," she set the bags down.  She sighed, shrugged.  What did it
matter if she bared her soul to this stranger?  "I'd like to have," a
lover? a love life?  attraction?  None of those things were possible.  "I
want something beautiful, bright colors, bold, uplifting, like a bird."
   "Have a look in this room as well." He extended his hand to indicate the
additional room.
   ***
   Jade took the stairs two at a time, holding both bags high with her
right hand.  She tucked her left one around her waist to keep her shoulder
from moving too much.
   She set the bags down on the couch and ran to her room.  As soon as the
door shut behind her she tossed off her shirt and turned her shoulder to
the mirror.
   Clear plastic film adhered to her skin and formed a packet that kept the
clear gelatin goo over her multi-colored wyvern.  Colors that displayed
through a darker skin pigment cost a fair fortune.  Yet just the little she
could make out through the gel had bits of green, gold, and violet.
   She did a little dance and squealed.
   Clicking of a keyboard.  Ketrick was home.
   She ran down the hallway to his room and leaned over the desk.  "How's
it going?  Do anything cool today?" With a dramatic flare she turned and
rocked her shoulders from side to side.
   "By your childish preening I guess you want me to see that tattoo?"
   "Yes!  Isn't it cool?  Don't you like it?"
   "I can barely see it."
   "Well, it's cool.  I found this place near the old Baker's plant."
   "That place is a dump.  Transients and junkies slum there.  Don't go
walking that way."
   "I grew up near there.  It's not as bad as people want to believe." She
could only see the adhesive edge of the plastic, but it was holding pretty
well.  "I have to give it a day or two to heal.  That's when it's really
going to be awesome."
   "Good luck with that.  You'll probably need to find a shirt with a
shoulder."
   "Not really.  I can take the plastic off tomorrow."
   He nodded.  Something on the screen had him looking down again.
   "I wanted to do something nice for myself.  I was out getting your
things, and--"
   "I'll get them in a bit." The glow of the screen reflected off his
lenses.
   "Okay." Then softer, she said, "Sorry."
   Key clicks and mouse clicks.  "Sorry about that delay.  We're going to
take the portal to the left.  Everyone on me."
   ***
   The straps of her tank covered all but the tips of the wings, but a thin
one managed to make it look a like a butterfly or a water dragon.
   The color held up.  It seemed to be getting a little more defined,
though it was hard to say until the swelling went down.
   No straps.  She rummaged through her clothes until she found a shirt big
enough to hang off her left shoulder.
   Jade practically skipped through Calypso's with a beaming smile, an
extra swing to her hips.  None of the patrons offered to buy her a drink or
even looked at her bare shoulder.
   Reshonda was working on the last of a drink.  When 'working' the club,
employees were only allowed to drink what the customers paid for - as an
incentive to be friendly.
   For that same reason, Jade only leaned on the corner of the bar, rolled
her left shoulder, then spun around and waved.
   "Nice ink.  Looks fresh."
   "It is.  I got it yesterday.  It's a unique design.  An original."
   Reshonda emptied her drink and ice clinked at the bottom of the glass.
"Good for you."
   "What's got you so long in the face?"
   "Hmm?  Nothing.  Waiting on Mark to get into town."
   "Was that the pilot?"
   "Yeah, we're going to fly down to the islands.  I've made plans to take
off and everything.  It'll only be a couple days.  Sun, sand, and manicured
beaches."
   "That's nice."
   Reshonda nodded and poked at the melting cubes.  "I think he's going to
be the one that sticks.  You know?  When you work as hard as I have, you
deserve to land on your feet.  Mark really cares about me, and he needs
someone who is going to appreciate him for who he is.  Men like that." I
The night didn't end any differently than the ones before.  She walked home
alone.  The skin that bore her inscription ached.
   ***
   Chrome Envy had a small car lot in the rear.  She sat on the short wall
behind it, near grass and gravel that led to the train tracks.
   Cars pulled in, pulled out.  More customers chose to use the back
entrance than the front.
   She closed her book when Derrick's black sedan with bright blue lights
and green runners pulled up.  A tall, gorgeous woman stepped out.  Long
legs, high cheek bones, midnight black hair with red and orange patches. 
It had the effect of making the woman look like some kind of exotic bird.
   He kissed her cheek and sent her inside with the squeeze of her ass. 
Once she was in the building, he headed in her direction.  "You need to
stop this."
   "Trying new things?" Jade grinned.  "Does she satisfy you?"
   "That's my business.  Stay away from here."
   "I'm not here to argue with you.  I want you to know that I can do
better.  I know where I went wrong.  Please, give me a second chance.  Arm
candy will only do so much for you."
   "Have you been to therapy yet?"
   Jade shrugged and shook her head.  "I just told you; I'm better."
   "Bullshit.  I only take on sane women.  I fucked up with you, but it's
not a mistake I'm going to make twice."
   "You care about me."
   Train whistle, far away, but getting closer.  A triad of bright lights
in the distance.
   "Stay the fuck away." He turned his back and stomped away, tension
running through his shoulders and stance.
   The ground purred as the train drew closer.  She jumped down off the
wall and walked counter to its approach.  No one heard her crying.  No one
looked at her, neither in pity or disgust.  She drifted through the world
unmoored, unnoticed, unwanted.
   -_ Incubation _-
   Jade slumped lengthwise over the couch.  Laugh tracks, one-liners, stage
lights.  If it was a show or a commercial, she couldn't tell.  Her shoulder
hurt too much to lean back.
   One show ended and another began, but she wasn't watching it.  The
television watched her.  Unmoving, unblinking, expressionless and
dispassionate.
   Only Reshonda paid her new ink any attention, but it was still healing,
maybe the colors would take time.  Or maybe she was a fool.  Colors didn't
work as well on darker skin.  Anything other than black was a waste.  She
couldn't complain.  The man gave it to her for free.  It was tiny and he
felt like giving something back.
   Yeah.  Right.
   She balled her hand into a fist.  It was itching more now, like tiny
mouths nibbling away at her skin.
   ***
   Ketrick shrugged out of his cardigan.  "The problem is that there are so
many shitty sites out there that people start thinking bad design is
normal. Good design doesn't figure into the budget.  But shitty, cheap
design from people who can't tell a kerning from a typeface.  Plenty of
love for that."
   "I'm sure it's very important.  Did you even enjoy the movie?"
   "The credits were my favorite.  That's when I knew the torture would
end."
   "I thought it would be good for you to get out.  You can't stay cooped
up in that room all day.  I know what you're trying to do."
   "I'm trying to enjoy the time I have.  You should try it."
   Jade frowned as she took off her jacket.  "Could you look at something
for me?"
   "Yeah."
   She turned her bare shoulder to him.
   "Uh."
   "It's been hurting.  Does it look okay?"
   "No.  That looks like you might want to visit the clinic."
   Jade frowned and flopped on the couch.  "Don't say it."
   "As long as you remember that I did tell you so."
   "Ugh!"
   He sat beside her.
   "You're impossible.  I don't have time for a clinic visit."
   "Put some ointment or something on it.  Maybe you took that goo off too
soon." He looked down at his hands, then her, then back at his hands.  "You
all right?  Lately you've been quiet."
   Jade sighed, then shook her head.  "I wish I could find someone, not
just a friend.  I know you don't want me, but I wish."
   "Listen, we've talked about this."
   She nodded, but her head kept bobbing a few seconds later.  "I wasn't
rubbing it in.  That means I should find a friend that wants me like that.
I know I'm not the best looking, but I'm kind.  I'm clean.  Nobody talks to
me.  I don't expect the whole world, just one.  I'm just waiting for my
moment.  When is the right person going to come for me?"
   "Okay, no.  Sorry I asked.  I'm not doing this tonight." Ketrick stood
and faced her.  "Don't go chasing a fucking moment.  Live your life.  No
one is going to swoop in to live it for you.  You're doing good here. 
We're doing good." He looked at his phone and huffed.  "Good night.  Next
time I'll pick the movie."
   ***
   Jade stepped out of the shower and wrapped her threadbare blue robe
around her body.  Traffic sounds from down below.  One of her neighbors had
that insipid late-night show way too loud again.  The water burned on her
shoulder, but she had to clean it.  A little hot water would probably help.
She leaned into the mirror and looked at her face.
   Two large pimples.  One coming up above her right brow, the other at the
base of her jaw.  Scars of former rashes, blemishes, and pits were laid
bare, washed clean of the make-up she would soon reapply.
   She pulled her shoulder around until she could get a look at it.  The
swelling patch of skin distorted what had looked like the beginning of
something beautiful.  There didn't seem to be any words or anything at all.
   "You were supposed to help.  You were supposed to come through for me.
No wonder he did it for free."
   With that her spirit broke and tears fell in a torrent.  Blinking
through the tears, she eyed the straight razor that lay on the back of her
sink.  'Mommy's little problem solver.'
   Another glance to the enflamed patch of muddy color.
   "Sorry," she whispered.  "It's not your fault.  I'm a failure.  Why not
at this too?"
   Nothing would change.  The loneliness, emptiness, the pervasive feeling
that she was coming to the end.  The last verse of a short, sad song.
   She pressed the sharp edge of the blade to her skin.  Back and forth
along her forearm, but she couldn't muster enough pressure to cut.  It
shouldn't take much though.  Who would care?  Ketrick?  For how long, until
someone took her body away?
   A single bead of blood welled up from the pierced skin.
   A distance voice within, 'Stop that.'
   The blade clattered into the sink.  No one in the bathroom.  Two steps,
her room.  Her heart thundered as she put her ear to the door.  "Ketrick?
Ketrick?!"
   Nothing but the thunder of her heart.
   She looked down at her forearm, the one she had been ready to slice
open. A brilliant shimmer of gold and green flickered along her wrist
around the blood.
   'Relax, Jade.  I am here now.'
   She screamed, pulled her door open and ran through the house.  She
checked every room, every closet.  No matter where she went, which place
she checked, the voice did not change.
   'Please relax.  Listen.'
   She slammed the door to her room shut, closed the bathroom door and
scrambled to the far back corner of her bed.
   'Relax.  Listen.'
   Hysterical tears streamed down her cheeks and her body trembled like a
loose bolt in the bed of a truck.
   'Jade?  If you want me to go away, just say so.'
   Gold, green, blue, and violet.  The iridescent flash trailed over her
leg, down to her foot.  Then it was gone.
   She knew the colors.  She'd seen the rag the artist used to wipe the
needle.  The colors, at least as they passed through her limbs, were
vibrant, seemed to glow against her dark brown skin.
   "I don't," she sniffled and wiped her cheeks.  "I don't know who you
are."
   'Let me show you.'
   A sensation like being lowered into a luxurious bath, surrounded by
clouds, kissed by hundreds of tiny lips washed over her.  She had felt a
high similar to this, but nothing quite the same.
   This was so much higher.
   She lay on her bed, stretched out.  The sensation intensified, covered
more of her at once.  She whimpered, tossed back and forth.  This was going
to make her climax, and yet it didn't seem sexual.  This is what pure joy
and euphoria meant.
   When the orgasms began they hardly stopped.  The bed shook under her. 
Her legs and arms flopped about or went stiff and jerky.  On her stomach
she rocked on the mattress, her ass rising and falling.  On her back her
nipples went taunt, as if pulled by invisible fingers.
   Jade spent every moment of down time trying to catch her breath, and
trying to remember the experience.  It was so arresting and profound that
she could hardly take enough time to worry about its intensity.
   Her breath came in short, ragged pants.  Her hair was sweaty and matted.
Her whole body felt exhausted, wet, warm, and tingly.  Her thighs slicked
against each other.  The sheets under her soaking wet.
   She just lay there, chasing her breath.  Hoping her heart would come
down from its sprint.
   ***
   Morning.
   Jade woke with a smile.  Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at the
ceiling.  If it was all a dream, it left her feeling like a fortune.
   She sat up.  She'd fallen asleep naked?  Polish bottles lay on their
sides.  Papers that had been in a stack were strewn across the floor. 
Rubbing her eyes, she pushed herself upright.
   Once in the bathroom, she stared at the blade.
   If the beginning of last night had not been a dream, what about the end?
   She picked up the blade, rinsed it off, and placed it back on its stand.
Her wrist seemed okay.  Her vaginal walls were a little tender.  She took
her breasts in hand and sighed.  The tips were sensitive, but delicious to
her touch.  Was she about to have her period?
   "Mmm," she squeezed the globes in her hands.
   No matter what happened last night, what illicit substance she'd picked
up, it had left her feeling like a queen.
   She twisted her nipples one last time, got them good and hard before
pulling on her cotton shirt and a pair of blue panties and jeans.
   Make-up bag zipped open, she leaned into the mirror to check her problem
spots.
   No scars.  No pimples.  No dark circles or pits.
   'Now you see how it can be with us.' Cobalt blue, edged with gold
brushed over her forehead, but was royal purple once it reached her throat.
It disappeared back toward her left shoulder.
   She didn't just scream, she screeched.  She shot out of her room and
straight to the kitchen for a bigger knife and pressed it to her throat.
   'Listen.  Jade?  Be calm.  Please.'
   She pressed the blade, but didn't move it, not yet.  Was she still
hallucinating?  Still asleep?
   'Calm.  Be gentle.  Please.  Don't hurt yourself anymore.  No more cuts.
No more pain.'
   Ketrick's bedroom door opened.
   The knife clattered in the sink.  Jade stumbled into her shoes and ran
out the house, thundered down the wood steps.  Pushed open the heavy inner
fire-door and the outer.  She took deep, panting breaths as she ran down
the sidewalk, hit the foot path toward the park.
   Running.  Afraid.  Terrified of the voice in her head.  This was the end
for her.  She was crazy, destined for a padded room and intravenous
tranquilizers.
   Her legs burned, so she collapsed on the lawn near the river.  Her lungs
burned with the need for more air.  She was so dizzy, so nauseous.
   'Please, Jade.  Listen?'
   All she could do was breathe, and listen for that soft, distant voice.
Male?  It sounded male.
   'You called, and I answered.  Don't be afraid.  Relax.  I am with you.'
   She got onto her knees, finger combed her hair back.  Water rushed over
the rocks, along the dirt fissure.
   'Please?  Say something.'
   She wasn't going to pass out after all.  Her heart thundered, but not as
desperately.  When she got the energy, which direction?
   'Last night you spoke to me.  You challenged me, and I answered.  I
found the strength to reach you.  I don't want to fail you, Jade.  We have
embarked on a new beginning, a rebirth.  Please, say you meant it.  Say you
want me.'
   Where could she go?  Home?  The warehouse?  The hospital?  Was this how
delusions worked?
   'Please.  Talk to me.' The voice, so quiet and yet the words were so
clear in her mind.  That same distance away, a faint echo of words,
bouncing within her ear.
   "It's a beautiful day." Jade leaned back to look at the blue sky and its
rolling clouds.  "Green grass.  Joggers on the path.  Water tricking down
the river.  It all looks so normal, but here I am, kneeling in the dirt
talking to ...  Am I talking to my tattoo?  What am I supposed to say to
that?  How am I supposed to react?"
   A child squealed.  They sounded like flying dinosaurs at that age. 
Great reptilian birds feeding on the souls of their parents.
   'Last night I tasted it all.  Your skin spoke of such pain.  Deep layers
of despair.  So much longing and desire.' The whispered voice certainly
seemed male, the timber dropped and the presence drew closer.  'You want to
feel.  You want to breathe.  You want to be whole.  Let me show you
pleasure.  Let me help you.'
   "I have to go to work." She pushed to her feet and put one sneaker clad
foot in front of the other, all the way to the warehouse.  Mindless work.
That's what she needed right now.  Easy.  Predictable.  Constant.
   ***
   It wasn't like it went away.  It seemed that from the moment she heard
his voice, Jade became aware of his presence, like warmth or moisture but
within her mind.
   "Still there?" She whispered.
   'Yes,' he answered in the same soft tone.
   She didn't have anything else to say.  If it moved, she didn't feel it.
Would it ever go away?  She was afraid to say more.
   The sensation was akin to being followed by a bird.  A brilliantly
colored exotic bird, hopping silently from tree to roof, staring down at
her.  It made no noise, but if she would always find it: quiet, aware.
   The feeling persisted throughout the day until the end.  She stepped out
of the shower, brushed the rough cloth over her skin.  Instead of dressing,
she plopped on the edge of her bed, stared down at her thighs.
   If she'd been hallucinating earlier, it should have passed by now.
   "How can you help me?"
   Violet, blue, green, edged and defined by a brilliant gold.  It swirled
around her thigh as if swimming in the ocean of her cranberry chocolate
sea.
   'Sensation.'
   Soft whispers tickled up her spine.  She arched her back and giggled.
   'Sensuality.'
   Her body tingled from the tips of her toes to the top of her skull. 
What could have been a sign of trouble became an effervescent caress.
   'You must know the pleasure you offer.'
   Sheets balled into her fists, she lay back and spread her legs.  A warm,
pulsing sensation swirled around her throbbing clitoris, parted her wet
labia.  The euphoria hummed just under her skin, swaying back and forth.
   'There is more to experience than pain.  You want to feel more?  You
want to feel this?'
   This.  She tossed back and forth over the bed, yanked her legs back and
spread them.  This was sex with a creature she could not see.  Sex turned
to euphoria and more orgasmic bliss.  Sweat beaded on the surface of her
skin and poured off her body onto the sheets.
   She wanted to scream.  She wanted to hurt her lungs with the jubilant
screams, but that would mean someone could hear her, that someone might
misinterpret this keen pleasure.  Jade swallowed it, groaned into her
shoulder as her vaginal walls spasmed.
   Last night had only been a taste, this was the full menu.  Even her
finger tips sung his praise.
   "Yes!" She grunted.  "Please, oh, ah!  Fuck."
   It sounded like a porno, and probably looked like a scene from
poltergeist - sans clothing - but the erotic component was only one note of
the symphony.  The comfort of a hug, the magic of a first kiss, the
contentment of being huddled under a warm blanket.  The intensity of a
passionate fuck.
   ***
   Jade lay face down across her bed, a dopey smile on her face.  Phantom
hands rubbed up and down her spine, swirls drifted over her buttocks, then
back up her sides to her ears.  Little tugs on her ear lobes and her
vaginal muscles clenched in answer.
   "How did you know about my ears?"
   'I know all your favorite places now.  Even this one.' Hard suction on
her big toe, then softer, the scrape of teeth.
   "Probably some even I didn't know about."
   'It will be my pleasure to teach you.' A tingling sensation passed over
her arm.  Now that he did not whisper, she better could hear the male
timber to the voice.  It was not being with another person, but a phantom
of one or many.
   He massaged her scalp.
   She grinned and moaned.  "I had this boyfriend, I guess you could call
him a boyfiend.  We only dated for a week.  I guess you could call it
dating.  We met in my art class.  Anyway, he would scratch his nails along
the base of my scalp."
   'Like this?' The scraping sensation tickled down her back, but toughened
near the end.
   "Softer."
   The whispering scratch had her arching her back like a cat.  "He never
got it right though."
   The same light abrasion covered her nipples and brought them to thick,
stiff nubs.
   "One more time?  Please?"
   'Which is that?'
   "Everything.  Please?"
   'Of course, Jade.'
   It was like some force grabbed her by the spine and pulled her upright.
If Ketrick had entered the room, he might have thought her in the grip of a
drug overdose.  Vast quantities of time seemed to past between breaths,
between the beats of her heart - all of it filled with sensory overload.
   She was caught in a rapture that she wasn't ready to leave, but she
didn't want to die.
   'No.  I've got you, Jade.  Feel me.  Let me awaken you.'
   -_ Loyalties _"This game is going to flop." Ketrick dropped the case
back on the display.  "No one wants to be shackled by a half hour session
of playing with dolls before you can set out.  It should just be random and
the changes are progressive, as a result of the decisions you make.
   "When the character is the ultimate bad ass, you won't have to ask what
his story is.  That slash over his eye is what you get from facing the
great raptor.  The glow of his sword comes from dipping it in bleeding
waterfall at the top of the mountain.  Instead of dungeon crawling, it's
dungeon climbing."
   Jade smiled and nodded.  "People like what they are used to.  That's why
it's called a standard."
   "That's not standard.  That's laziness."
   "Speaking of laziness, do you have your proposal together?"
   "It's coming along.  It will be ready in time.  I'm going to need you
there.  I want you to make the presentation and handle questions."
   "No way.  This is your passion.  You need to be the one who talks about
it."
   "Some snooty pencil pusher is going to ask about click throughs or how
does it plan to keep the user..."
   'He doesn't care.  Haven't you done enough for him?'
   Ketrick said, "...and I'm going to tell him what an ignorant fucking
question that is.  Content is what matters to a user, not whether the
banner flashes.  It's hard enough keeping calm just setting these meetings.
With you there, I might be able to present it, but..."
   'All he's done today is talk.  He's not listening to you.  He doesn't
appreciate you.'
   Jade said, "Before I agree to a question and answer period, we're going
to go through possible questions.  If you practice your answers, you won't
be tempted to lose your temper."
   "Losing my temper?  A convenient way to brush off a forthright injection
of honesty."
   "That may be so," said Jade, "but you're the one who wants this job.  So
you have to put some of that aside.  We'll set up a time to go..."
   The sensation of a hand on her shoulder.  It was so real that she looked
at the spot, but there was nothing there.  'This isn't where you should be.
You need to be some place that helps you feel better.'
   "...whether you like it or not."
   'Ignoring me, Jade?  That is cute, but impossible.'
   Ketrick took her purchases to the counter.  "Even if I do everything,
you'll be there."
   "Yes, we've already covered that.  I'll be there."
   Warmth covered her like a soft blanket.  'You need to be some place
good, some place warm ...  and wet.'
   Jade gasped and her vision blurred.  The spike of arousal between her
legs made her knees weak.  She grabbed onto the counter to keep herself
upright.
   "Are you okay?"
   She grabbed her stomach and closed her eyes.  The sensation of a firm
tongue moving back and forth along her slit, two mouths sucking on her
nipples.  The soles of her feet tingled.
   "This is what you deserve."
   She groaned, trying and failing to pretend she was in pain, but nothing
else mattered right now, not while she was trying to stay upright during an
orgasm.
   The tongue left her wet pussy, easing further back.
   "Oh, no, not..." She ran for the exit and leaned on a wall.  People
walked by, giving her an odd look, but Jade could not give them an answer.
She clenched her hands into fists and did her best not to get arrested.
   Could she be arrested for having orgasms in public?
   She rolled her head back and stiffened.
   "Jade?" Ketrick exclaimed.
   "I'll catch up with you.  Go."
   ***
   It was a gorgeous tattoo.  More brilliant and majestic than she thought
could be done in ink.  As she watched, the wings expanded, and it moved to
her chest and belly.
   She giggled and hopped on the bed, pulled down her pajama bottoms and
lay on her back with her legs propped up.
   It wasn't quite a person or an animal or any mythical creature.  Unique.
Special.  He retracted his wings and posed as if lying outstretched on her
thigh.
   'Why do you care about people who care nothing for you?'
   "What do you mean?"
   'The one you call Ketrick.  He does not want your help.'
   "I've known Ketrick all my life.  He's been my best friend since
secondary school.  When I was down, really down," she sighed, "this was
before you met me.  He was there to pick me up.  He helped me, before you."
   The ink on her thigh shimmered and disappeared.
   Jade listened, tried to feel something, but all had gone quiet.  "What?"
Jade rolled onto her stomach.  "What are you thinking?"
   'He does not want your help because he looks down on you.  He does not
value your thoughts, your mind.  He ignores you.  Don't treat me like that.
Don't ignore me.  I helped you, like he did, yes?'
   "Yes.  You really have.  I haven't felt this good in a long time."
   'Listen to me.  Talk to me.  Pay attention to me.  I will listen.  I
want to know your mind as I do your body.'
   Jade groaned low in her throat.  She could feel him now, thick, ridged,
not exactly penetrating her, but massaging her vaginal canal.
   'I want to hear you.'
   She moaned as all her erogenous zones were pushed, pulled, and pinched.
She stumbled out of her bed and ran to the bathroom, locked the door.  She
cried out and went to all fours on the tile floor.
   'Louder.'
   She screamed, though it had nothing to do with his request.  Liquid
gushed from between her legs, squirting with each throb from her pussy.
   "What is that?" She gasped for more air.  Lights danced in front of her
eyes.  "What's happening to me?  Oh, fuck." From screams, to moans, and
then more grunting as he made her do it again.
   The feel of a kiss on her lips, but not the way another person would
kiss her.  She licked her lips, tightened and loosened her lips, delighted
in the strange sensation of making out with something that lived inside
her, something that had fused with her.
   'I want to know about before.  I want to know all your life.'
   ***
   "This is my parents' house," Jade whispered as she climbed the porch
steps and knocked on the screen door.  "After my mother died, my father
remarried this bitch."
   The clack and clatter of her mother's jewelry drew closer.  Jade's skin
tightened and she shuddered.  This sensation had nothing to do with her
inscription.  He had helped her feel many things, but fear was not a lesson
she needed.
   Jocelyn had come to live with her father Randall when she was only
seven.
   The door opened and Jocelyn had disapproval in every pause of her eyes:
her shoes, jeans, no bra.  "I see finally went to someone about your face."
She took a step back and waved her inside.
   That passed for a warm welcome from Jocelyn.
   "Tina's here." Because Jade wasn't a name she would give any child of
hers.
   Her father was a tall man, lighter skinned, with a beaming smile.  He
rounded and crushed her into his massive arms, held her tight to his large
chest.  Between them, she felt an echo of that hug.  Her inscription,
reading the impressions of his touch.  To mimic it later?
   "How is my buttercup?"
   "Good.  Working."
   They entered the dining room.  Linen table cloth, porcelain plates,
crystal glasses, silver utensils.  Some things about home never changed.
   When she was a child, Jade had thought the elaborate set up for her
benefit, to show off, but over time she came to learn that Jocelyn truly
believed this was the right way to do things, the correct and proper way to
live.
   "Don't work too hard," he said.  "You'll be full of medical bills in
your old age."
   "Taking some time to exercise would help." Jocelyn set down one serving
dish and returned for another.
   "You're looking good though.  Seeing anyone?"
   She shook her head.  They were still hugging, and by Jocelyn's glare,
he'd let her go soon.
   "Whatever drugs you're using, keep it up." Jocelyn sat down and gave
that perfunctory wave of her hand that signaled they needed to sit.
   She wasn't using any drugs, but if Jocelyn approved.  Why change her
opinion?  Compliments, even the underhanded kind, were rare to come by.
   "I like the work I do.  It's only the warehouse that has me running
around the most."
   Jocelyn passed the serving dish.  "Are you still at the whore house?"
   Her father said, "Don't call it that."
   "Why not?  Isn't that what you're hired to do?  Whore yourself out to
bring in customers?"
   "I don't sleep with anyone." Though Jade had first taken the job exactly
for that purpose.  The way Reshonda described it, it would be like having a
continuous selection of handsome, eligible men.
   "Well, of course not, look at you.  Fixing your face is only one step in
a long battle.  You won't find a husband slouching, dressing like a slob."
Jocelyn shot a look across the table that silenced Randall's oncoming
rebuttal.  "Get an office job, where you can be seen by men of value.  You
might think I'm being harsh, but consistency and a firm..."
   Could he hear her thoughts?  Coming home wasn't like the movies and
advertisements portrayed it.  This place had a way of making her feel
small, powerless, insignificant.  A ball to be kicked between two people
who did not appear to love each other.  Jade was the ghost of a woman
Jocelyn hated.
   At least this was the way Randall tried to explain it.  Either way, no
one wanted to be the start of an argument, the root of hatred, or the
object of discontent.
   She positioned her nails over her jeans, but didn't press down like she
wanted, but goodness she needed something to take her mind off the storm
brewing inside.
   Her father muttered, "And you wonder why she doesn't visit more often."
   "Don't you speak for her.  Come to church with us in he morning, I know
plenty of suitable young men who would take you on a date.  If you
weren't--"
   "Why don't you let me speak for myself?" Jade took a rattled breath. 
Anger, like the rising water of a warm bath, soaked through every fiber of
her being.  "No.  I don't visit more often because I don't need any more
reminders that you hate me, you find me disgusting to look at, a
disappointment to mention to your friends, that no daughter of yours would
be anything like me." She turned to her father.  "And you let her.  You let
her do this to your own child."
   Jocelyn made some sound between a giggle and a snort.  "Don't get all
sanctimonious."
   "Shut up.  My father's only sin was that he loved me.  You can't stand
to see him appreciate something you didn't give him.  So you fucking shut
up!" She kicked her chair back and stormed out the house, ran down the
steps and kept running.
   Jade stopped at the edge of the Jackson County Community College of the
Arts.  She chuckled at the sign, worn down, poorly lit.
   "I loved this place.  I could only afford to go for two years.  It was
horrible and wonderful.  Last time I saw my father was because of this
place." She leaned over the water fountain and splashed the cold water on
her face.  "Couldn't afford the tuition, couldn't get him to help me.  I
dropped out.  Good thing to, you know, or I'd be like Ketrick, surviving
off what little work I can get online.  I'm a mess."
   'Not anymore.'
   She smiled.  Not that she believed him, but she wanted too.  "I hope
so."
   -_ Dominion _-
   A place where she wasn't pressured, could drink or dance as much or as
little as she wanted: Vinyl.  This was the place where she met Reshonda -
well, walking home along the same path taught them that.  Derrick, he used
to bring her there, and she was his perfect little one.
   Tonight she went alone, bought herself a beer, and danced with her
inscription.  The notion put a larger smile on her face.  It could not be
considered dancing alone, not with the caresses and touches along her skin.
   After the song, Jade perched at the one open stool at the bar and
ordered a water.
   "May I buy you something stronger?"
   No one answered.  Jade looked over, but the woman beside her was
speaking to someone else.
   "Oh." She looked at the thin, wiry young man.  "Me?  Um, sure."
   "And then," he put two fingers up and set money on the counter.  "How
about a dance?"
   She beamed.  He was asking her to dance?  Buying her drink?  Ha!  The
last time someone had done that for her it had been a mistake.
   "What's your name?"
   "Jade.  Yours?"
   "Mickey." He pulled her closer and Jade grinned into his shoulder.
   That's when she noticed Reshonda's boyfriend, the pilot, in a similar
intimate embrace with another woman.  They kissed, laughed.  She stared at
him with a dopey expression.
   After her dance with Mickey, the pilot disappeared and Reshonda showed
up.  She looked to be in a funk.  "He was supposed to be here today, but
his flight got delayed by bad weather."
   "You believe that?"
   Reshonda glared at her.  "Why wouldn't I?  He doesn't have any reason to
lie to me.  He's the one that asked me to go with him."
   'Guess she didn't figure his flight path may have changed due to weather
too.'
   Jade burst into laughter.
   "Really?"
   She drew a quick breath.  "No, I was thinking about something else.  I'm
sorry.  That wasn't about you."
   "Whatever." Reshonda knocked back her drink.
   "I went to see my parents.  It was horrible, but I realized that I
didn't need their approval."
   She hummed, then muttered.  "Who's this loser?"
   Jade turned.  A man in his thirties, well, dressed, but not exactly
party clothing.  It looked more like he left an office complex khaki
slacks, button down blue shirt.
   "Hi, um," he turned to Jade and extended his hand.  "Care for a dance?"
   Reshonda rolled her eyes and shook her head with a look a sympathy.
   "I'd love to, thanks." Jade took his hand and joined him on the floor.
Why was she laughing?
   'Something to take her mind off the pain.'
   Her friend kept looking toward the door, around the club.  Jade scanned
the room as well, wondering if he'd left for good or if he'd return.
   "I'm staying at the hotel down the block.  Join me for some drinks?"
   Jade narrowed her eyes.  "And?"
   "And I'm hopeful there's more, but just drinks will do.  I could use the
company."
   Jade listened for his voice, wondering what he thought.  Her inscription
was silent.  "Sure."
   She grabbed her purse and headed for the door, her hand in his, a grin
threatening to break through her face and a subtle sway to her hips.  It
felt good to feel pretty, wanted, even by a stranger.
   ***
   Jade dressed in micro shorts, a tank and thongs for her day in the sun.
The warm light felt delicious on her skin, but his touch put the icing on
the cake.
   'Turn over.'
   His phantom caress smoothed up and down her chest and stomach while
sunlight kissed her back.
   Jade pulled over a cheap mixing bowl.  She built a small fire and turned
it into an urn.  One by one, photos and mementos turned to ash.  Pictures
of her and Derrick.  She pulled another from the box.
   "I bought this, or what used to be this, from the money I earned," she
sniffled.  "I was his paid companion.  I was young and it was fun, but
Jocelyn found out and destroyed everything she could get her hands on,
including this." She tossed the slip of silk into the smoldering flame.
   A ticket stub to a concert, three of them taped to an index card. 
"Ketrick promised me that once I was better, he'd take me to see any three
shows I wanted.  Ketrick hates people and crowds worse.  I got better just
to prove he was lying, but he did.  One after another, he took me."
   'Got better?'
   "The suicide attempt, detox and debt.  Ketrick saved my life." She
didn't burn the stubs.  It went back in the box and she pulled out gifts
from old boyfriends, friends that didn't like her 'that way.' All the ones
that reminded her of being hurt, sad, or afraid went into the fire.
   "I think of everyone, Ketrick might be able to understand what I've
found with you.  I'd like to tell him about you.  We share so much with
each other.  It's weird that I haven't said anything yet."
   'We know that is a lie.  You did not attempt suicide.  You slashed your
body open, marred your beauty to hurt him."
   Tears rolled down her cheeks.  She lowered her head to the towel and
sobbed.  She formed a cage around her head to keep other people in the park
from staring at her.
   'No.  Shhh.  That's not why I mentioned it.  Do not cry.'
   "Then why?  Why would you say that?"
   'Because we trust each other.  We can tell each other anything.  I will
always be here to listen.  You do not have to hide your pain.  Give it to
me, and I will make it go away.' Tiny kisses covered her body, little
touches, brief, soft, like a breeze.  One traveled under her arm pits and
she squealed with laughter.
   She hopped up and wriggled, but she could not evade the ticklish touch.
   Just when she thought she'd have to yell stop, he squeezed her, embraced
her, and no, it wasn't the way her father her had, but the way her father
couldn't.  Completely enveloped by love and comfort and acceptance.
   ***
   Upbeat music filled Jade's bedroom.  She held her brush as the
microphone while dancing nude in the mirror.  He danced with her, swirling
over her skin, expanding, contracting, and rubbing against her.
   She laughed at the odd sensation of dancing in one body but feeling as
if she were two people.  She turned the bristled side of her brush on her
thigh, tickling her sun kissed skin.  She brushed down the inside of her
right thigh, he echoed the sensation up her left.
   Lips parted slightly, breathing through her mouth.  The music carried
on, but Jade had stilled.  She needed to finish cleaning up, find some
clothes to wear, but she didn't want to make him stop, not yet.  She
crawled to the bathroom and filled the tub.  She leaned over the side, her
ass in the air, swinging it from left to right.
   It felt like zero gravity feathers trailing up the backs of her thighs,
swishing back and forth.  With a broad smile, she scooped out enough
coconut oil to fry a fish and chucked it over into the bath water, then
splashed in herself.
   He pressed hard into her muscles.
   She took a deep breath and held it as he dug into her calf, massaged her
legs.
   "Don't hold your breath.  Breathe through it."
   "It hurts."
   "Not too much."
   She grunted as that same firm pressure penetrated both her ass and
pussy.
   "Just enough."
   She remembered to breathe.  That was the most important part.  Breathe
and don't slip under the water.
   After the bath, she felt like a sack of skin and muscle, no bones, no
strength.  She grabbed a towel, folded it into a pillow and lay on the
floor of the tub, following the heavy pound of her heart.  Everywhere felt
tender and bruised, but also slack and soft.
   Once her body calmed, she hobbled back to the bedroom, shut off the
music, and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
   'I want to know your favorite flavors.  Will you show me?'
   "Mmm hmm." Her eyes drifted shut.
   'No sleeping.  Drink plenty of water.  Wear the cotton dress, nothing
else.'
   She smiled and pushed herself upright.  "Okay."
   ***
   Ketrick sat alone in the diner next to his apartment complex.  It was
Monday morning, his diner day, but he spent the anxiety and discomfort
alone.  Each time the bell rang over the swinging door, he looked up.
   Something was happening with Jade, but he couldn't figure what.  What if
it ended in another pool of blood?  Would he arrive to help her in time?
   They had always been there for each other, complimented each other's
weaknesses.
   He sat alone for half an hour before ordering and eating without Jade.
He was really hoping to talk to her this morning.  The doctor changed his
dosage, he needed to pick up the new medication.  His presentation was
finished, but he wasn't sure what he'd tell them about it.  From his point
of view the mockup explained itself.
   Ketrick went to the apartment.  She wasn't in her room.
   It looked like a hurricane had been through the place.  Clothing
everywhere, drawers half open.  The bedsheets lay half on the floor,
rumpled pillows.
   He went down the hall and stood in front of Reshonda's door.  He placed
his ear near the door, waiting for any sign of conversation or laughter.
   The door opened.  "If you want in, all you have to do is knock."
Reshonda smirked and put her arm around his waist.
   Ketrick backed away.  "I'm looking for Jade."
   "You live with her, babe, not me."
   "She's not home and she didn't come to the diner this morning.  Have you
seen her?"
   "Aw," Reshonda tugged him inside.  "You're out in the cold with the rest
of us, darling.  She's probably with her new man."
   Ketrick frowned and shook his head.
   "Open your eyes.  It happens.  Women move on.  You should learn to do
the same." She ran her hand down the front of his pants.  "I can help if
you're interested."
   He backed away and pulled her door open.  "If you see her, tell her I'm
looking for her."
   ***
   Two days passed before Ketrick caught up with his room mate.  She heard
her laughing and practically raced down the hall.
   Ketrick hadn't heard her come home.  His stomach had been bothering him
all day.  The presentation was finished, but they had not gone over what
he'd says.
   He opened her room door.
   "Hey!" She popped up and closed her robe.  "Knock before you enter."
   She hadn't taken the time to clean up her room, and she seemed to be in
much of the same state of disarray.  A spaghetti strap shirt slouched off
one shoulder.  Her hair was loose, curly, and buoyant.  The image of her,
ruffled, half dressed, without make-up and yet somehow gorgeous.
   As if a film had been removed from his eyes, he saw her as a ravishing
young woman.  The heavy smell of floral scents and musk did spurred his
salacious thoughts.  Who had kidnapped his best friend and put a beautiful
nymph in her place?
   "Sorry." Ketrick sniffed and wrinkled his nose.  "You should probably
open a window."
   She giggled and flopped onto her back, but did not bother to explain the
joke.  The smile on her face never faltered.  What was she thinking about
that had her so euphoric?  Had Reshonda been right?  Had she been dating
someone without so much as an honorable mention?
   Or was it something worse?
   "So, it's been a while since we've gone anywhere.  How have you been?"
   She smirked and winked.  "You," she giggled and sucked on her bottom
lip. "You missed me?" Jade slammed her face into the bed and squealed like
she was being tickled.
   "My presentation is this afternoon." That would be it.  All she needed
was a reminder.
   "Oh.  Oh!  Um," She sat up and pushed her hair back.  Jade usually wore
braids or had it styled, but the low-maintenance look seemed to be working
for her.  "I don't have ...  something professional." She sighed and looked
around the room, but never at him.
   He went to her closet.  "What about your gray suit?"
   "Spun plastic.  Doesn't allow my skin to breathe."
   "Breathe later." He pulled it out and set it over the rumpled sheets at
the foot of her bed.  "You promised.  I need you there.  I need this job,
even if it is a hamster wheel."
   "Go on, I'll be there.  I'll get dressed, and I'll," she snorted
suddenly and her eyes watered as she struggled not to laugh.  "I'm busy,
okay?  I'll meet you there." She spoke, but none of her actions matched. 
She hadn't left the bed, and though she spoke to him, if was as if her mind
was someplace else.
   If she was high, then he wouldn't get much out of her yet.  "Have you
been going to work?"
   "Of course," she sighed.  "Work is important, we know that.  Go!  I'll
be there."
   Ketrick left her room and pulled the door shut behind him.
   We know that?  Odd phrasing.
   ***
   Jade brushed her teeth, through the half-grin at her reflection.  She
didn't need to get close to the mirror.  Her skin appeared flawless,
radiant.  She moisturized her hair, applied lotion to her skin.
   She was running late.  How long ago did Ketrick leave?  What time was he
supposed to start?
   "Fuck," she sifted through her closet for something other than her
'interview suit.'
   'Why does this make you feel bad?'
   "He's my friend and I promised.  I should have helped him go through it.
Ketrick has trouble dealing with other people, but he's a talented
designer. If someone could help him get in touch with the right kind of
client, then maybe he can do better."
   'Stop making excuses.  Take time for yourself.'
   "It's just a meeting."
   "He had a long before to enjoy his life.  You have not.  Who is here for
you?"
   "You are." She smoothed her hand down her belly.  She grabbed her
breasts and moaned.  He was behind her, the feel of a body pressed to hers,
a constant reminder that she was not alone.  Warmth and comfort enveloped
her.
   'Are we friends?'
   "We're more than friends."
   'More than best friends?'
   "Yes."
   'Will you burn memories of me?  Will I be lost in your before?'
   Jade dropped her hands and shook her head.  "What?  What are you talking
about?  No." She spun around as if she could see him.
   He disappeared.  She couldn't even feel him or sense his presence.  She
reached back to touch the inscription.  Nothing more than the ridges of her
tattoo.
   "Why are you being like this?  What do you want?  Talk to me." She
kneeled in front of the mirror, still naked, her skin flawless.  Her hair
seemed to growing out faster than usual.  She tugged on one of the spirals.
No flash of color over her skin.  "What do you want me to say?"
   'Say that you want to be with me.' A violet and gold ribbon tumbled over
her shoulder, turned blue and gold as it slithered down her breast bone. 
'Say that you want me in your forever.' The wings, comprised of tiny
letters, grew until it covered her belly and both her thighs.  'Say that I
am important.  Stay here, Jade.  I want to make you sing.'
   Ketrick was definitely going to be gone a while.  Reshonda was on shift.
The complex was quiet.  If she was going to be alone, now was a great time
to ask about the extend of his ability.
   'What are you thinking, Jade?  You feel curious.'
   She smiled.  Which person did she want to please more?  "I want you in
my forever.  I want to be with you.  I want to share a thought with you."
   'I'm listening,' his voice had dropped to the tiniest whisper, the
vibrant flutter of color rose and stretched from her throat to her left
ear.
   "Remember that book I read to you?  About the woman who was working as a
maid for those brothers?  One of them got really rough with her, did things
that could have been dangerous if he wasn't so careful."
   A pinch like a vice grip clamped hard around her nipple.
   Remember to breathe.  She whined and gasped an the other nipple
tightened.
   'I don't like to hurt you, but you like to be hurt.  Will you fear me
for this?'
   "No, please.  Oh, it feels so good.  Can't you feel how--" Her throat
tightened, leaving enough room for the air to rattle through her throat.
   'No sound.  I need to hear your body.'
   If she could have made a sound, she would have screamed the word fuck
until her throat turned hoarse.  She did not have to concern herself with
the neighbors, or those who passed through the hall.  She took her orgasms,
the pain, and the euphoria in silence.
   ***
   Darkness.  Jade lay on her back.  Her body felt drained, sore, but oddly
relaxed.  It was the same aftereffect as one of his massages.
   'I feel closer to you now.' Instead of feeling him move over her skin,
he dove inside her, touched her from underneath.
   The use of the word closer was not a metaphor.
   The movement switched back to her skin, a gentle caress, up and down,
like being rocked on the waves of an ocean.  'Was that what you wanted?'
   "Yes," she whispered.
   Her chest rose, but she didn't choose to sit up.  She for the glass of
water she didn't remember pouring.  She emptied the glass, cool water slid
down her throat, quenched her thirst.
   'More?'
   Her heart raced.  Dare she push her luck?  "You are more than I could
imagine wanting."
   'This scares you.' Not a question.
   She stretched out on her stomach.  "I fear I will ask for more than I
should have, not you." Lips pressed to hers, a body nestled in her arms. 
In the dark, she could almost imagine lying next to him.  Smelling like hot
chocolate and buttery cheese toast.
   She giggled took a deep breath and tried to snuggle next to the ghost
image he created.
   ***
   "Who is he?"
   Jade startled and dropped her cup in the sink.  She spun and looked at
Ketrick.
   Oh yeah.  "Um, hi." She grabbed the dishcloth and wiped her hands. 
"Good morning.  Sorry, I got busy, and ...  and."
   "Who the fuck is he, Jade?"
   "Who?" She tried to look surprised, but it felt like amused.  She wasn't
very good at lying.  Even if she wanted to call a name, give him that
honor, what would she say?  Who was he?  She never had a reason to say his
name, all she had to do was speak and he listened, feel and he sensed, want
and he delivered.
   He placed a kiss on the back of her neck.
   "Who?  Do you think I'm blind."
   "Listen, about last night--"
   "You promised." He pressed the heel of his hand to his head.  "I waited
until it was too late, and ...  if it's not a guy, then what have you been
on?  I told you my only rule if you're going to live here is that you have
to stay clean.  No drugs in the apartment."
   "I'm not on drugs Ketrick," she giggled.  It wasn't hard to see why he'd
reach that conclusion, "and I don't have a boyfriend." Though that
admission felt more like a choice and less like a prison sentence.
   "The truth this time, please.  I think I deserve that much.  Who is it?
Are you back with Derrick?  Is that why you're hiding it?  I mean, I could
see why, but whatever is going on, you need to come clean about it."
   "Just me.  I'm fucking myself."
   He shook his head, stared at the floor.  "Instead of lying, tell me you
don't want to talk about it."
   "Fuck you, Ketrick." She slammed the dishcloth in the sink.  "Fuck your
rules.  This is about me, and as long I pay the rent on time you stay the
fuck out of my business." She rounded him and left the house.
   ***
   'I'm proud of you.'
   Jade grinned and had even more bounce in her step.  Even from across the
street, people paused and looked at her.  One man made no secret of
watching her approach.  She tossed a look back over her shoulder and
grinned when she noticed him watching the sway of her skirt over the back
of her ass.
   'You taught me that the past must be burned, that you have to move on
from before in order to find happiness.  Have you found that happiness?'
   "You know I have.  You can feel what I feel."
   'I like how you feel.  I want so much more of you.'
   ***
   Work was going better.  Jade had more drinks coming her way than she
could drink.
   Whoa.  Was that the pilot guy?  Why did he come here with that blonde
kid on his arm?
   Jade made her apologies to the table she'd joined and rushed to find
Reshonda.
   She found her in the restroom, too late to run interference.
   Reshonda dabbed her running makeup.  "You saw him?"
   "Yeah, that kinder-cunt on his arm.  He can't be serious about her."
   Reshonda's eyes darkened.  "That's what Jake said about me."
   "You know Jake is jealous.  Come on, armor skin.  Don't let him do this
to you."
   He whispered, 'Jade, leave this place.  This work is not important. 
Something is wrong inside you.  This place harms you.'
   "Bet you're loving it." Her verdant eyes rolled in the mirror's
reflection.  Ran your jiggling ass all the way here to mock me."
   "What?" She rubbed her face.  Why were her cheeks were going numb?  "No,
I ...  I was--"
   "It's going to happen to you one day.  Then you won't be walking around
like your shit doesn't stink anymore.  And you know what, I'll be here. 
Right down the fucking hall."
   "I'm in here to because I'm your friend."
   "Go away!  Just leave me alone."
   Jade pulled open the door and stumbled her way out of Calypso's.  Her
cheeks had stopped tingling.  The night air made her scant clothing cool
against her skin.  A comfortable sensation, giving how warm she felt.
   'Some people are only happy when they can see others suffer.'
   "Are you saying," she paused to belch.  "What are you saying?"
   'She will enjoy your friendship more when you are sad.  Don't go back
there.  Find better friends.  Find better work.  These are burning you.'
   She walked rather than slow down long enough to catch a cab.
   "Earlier.  Did you say something was wrong?  What's wrong?"
   'I'm working on it.' A weak voice, distant, as if from a dark hole.
   When was the last time she'd gotten this drunk?
   Jade turned the lock in her door.  Within the apartment, glass
shattered.
   She found Ketrick standing over a mess of broken plates and overturned
furniture.
   "What are you doing?" She kicked the pieces aside and pulled open the
fridge door.  She made just enough room to grab the carton of orange juice
and finish it off.
   Ketrick shook his head and propped himself on the counter.  "I knew it
was crazy, but I thought we'd be the way we were forever, just the two of
us, but now you're changing on me.  Too much is different.  What am I
supposed to do?"
   She tossed the carton in the garbage.  Did he say he wanted her to be
unhappy?  No, she must have heard him wrong.  Goodness, she was really
plastered.  How was she still standing?
   "Hey," she said, waiting for his response.
   Ketrick said, "You should quit going to that place.  One day they are
going to get arrested for the way they treat their employees, what they
make them do.  The county declared it a public nuisance.  I read the
article online."
   She needed to go someplace quiet.  "I know, Ketrick.  Believe me, I
know. I'll look into it.  Good night."
   She went through the motions of undressing, showering.  She sat in the
middle of her bed, but felt nothing but drunk.  The wooziness, hot
flashing, numbness, and bright colors had all faded.
   "Are you okay?  Where are you?" She rested her chin on her knees.
   His voice wasn't quite a whisper, but more of a growl.  "He mentioned
you should stop, and you listen to him.  Why his words and not mine?"
   Jade smiled.  "I said, 'I know.' Do you know why I said that?  Because
you told me.  You said it; he said it.  Two people close to me said it. 
That means you were right.  I know, okay?  Switching jobs isn't that easy.
I wish it were."
   Jade slammed onto her back, and no force of her own could get her
upright.
   "Two?  Close to you?" Her throat tightened until she could not breathe.
His voice grew louder and louder until it was all she could hear.  "There
is only one.  I am only close to you.  Me!  What do they do but use you as
their crutch, their ground?"
   He released her throat in time for her to take large gulps of air into
her burning lungs.  "I can have more than one person close to me."
   "Not Ketrick.  He does not want to help you."
   Jade rolled onto her side, squeezed her eyes shut.  Fat tears rolled
sideways to the mattress.  "Why would you say that?  Why do you think you
need to compete against him?"
   "He said it!  He wants you sad.  He wants you to need him.  He was never
trying to help you.  He only wanted to keep you close."
   With each furious word, Jade's nausea increased.  Her head pounded and
mouth filled with slippery liquid.  Her muscles seized, and not in a
pleasant way.  "Stop!"
   'Not until you listen!  Not until you--'
   "Stop!  Go away!  Let go of me!"
   Ketrick banged on the door.  "Jade?  Are you okay?"
   It all went away, the pain, the touch, the sensation.
   'That's all you ever had to say.'
   "Jade?"
   "That goes for you too!" She screamed and ran over to pound on her door.
   ***
   Jade went to the warehouse manager and asked for more hours.
   It was that easy.
   She worked her day-shift at Calypso, but avoided the place in the
evenings, waiting to be let go.  That, plus full time in the warehouse kept
her from thinking too long on the pain.
   The pain of losing her best friend, her new puppy, her treasured
possession.  The hurt cut through her soul.  Oh, Jade had lost plenty in
her life: her mother, her father's love, her home, her lovers, other
friends in the before.
   How had she managed to fuck up the one thing that meant the most to her
in the world?  In her life?
   At the end of the day, double shift or not, everything hurt.  She ran a
bath and sat in it, but the warmth only kissed the surface.  Her hand
swayed in the water, causing ripples.  No sensation, no texture.  It was as
if her senses had been muted.
   Day after day it was more of the same: silence, emptiness, loneliness.
Everything seemed dull, muffled, and disconnected.
   She lay in bed staring into the darkness.  Trying to feel anything, the
faintest glimmer from him.
   Every morning she rushed out of bed to look at the inscription in the
mirror.  It was still there.  Perhaps it was always just a tattoo.  No. 
Jade's sense of the world might be dull, but her tattoo was brilliant and
vibrant.
   That hurt worse than finding it gone.
   She cried herself to sleep at night, but in her sadness there were no
words, not even her own.  It was like crying in vast emptiness within a
room the size of a closet.
   Now a ritual, Jade knelt in front of her mirror, naked and expectant. 
She stared at her destitute reflection.  "Didn't you know I was a massive
fuck up?  Could you feel how much of a shit I was?  Are you there? 
Please."
   She balled her hands against her midsection and rocked back and forth,
needing him, wanting him, desperate to feel anything.  The smallest
glimmer, even the pain.
   Especially the pain.
   No answer.
   ***
   She cleaned her room out the next day.  She trashed everything ever
given to her by Ketrick, Derrick, Randall, Mitchell, Teyvon - any male that
had ever been in her before.
   Another night in bed.  All her gestures yielded no result.
   She trailed her fingers over her skin, but it wasn't the same.  There
was only one side.  She was a whole that had been snapped in two.  She
couldn't sense her touch.  Had it always been this way?  When had she come
to think that feeling that echo, the sense that his body reacted to hers,
was normal?
   She brushed her fingers over her palm and waited.  The sensation did not
carry.  There was nothing lingering, no memory.
   That wasn't right.
   She sat up, ran her fingertips along her palm.  Once she lifted her
fingers, nothing.
   Ketrick was out there watching television.  They hadn't said more than
one word to each other in weeks.
   What was she going to do?  Storm out there and ask, 'When you touch
yourself, do you feel it?'
   Not exactly an ice breaker.
   She got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a shirt -
two sleeves, covering her shame - and walked out her apartment and down the
hall.
   "Sec," Reshonda called out.
   The music died down and she opened her door.  One look and Reshonda
pulled her in with a smile.
   Was she happy to see her sad?
   Reshonda danced her way to the stereo and cranked it up, then poured
Jade a glass.
   Jade plopped beside her friend and knocked the first, second, and third
glass back in quick succession.
   "You're about caught up," Reshonda let her eyes drift shut.  "Fight?"
   Jade thought she would start crying, but she must have reached the floor
of her abyss.  It had been days since she last shed a tear, though her
despair only deepened.  She nodded.
   "Ketrick?"
   "Partially." She sipped from her glass.
   "He came by a while back, sniffing round my litter box."
   Ketrick would never do anything like that.  Jade waited for the punch
line.
   "Not kidding.  All long faced over you, looking for comfort." She leaned
over and paper crinkled.
   "Did he find it?"
   She shook her head.  "Guess he found a different avenue."
   Or it was never true in the first place.  That's what he'd say, if she
hadn't fucked that up too.  "I guess."
   Reshonda held up a pill.  "You staying?"
   Another nod.
   Jade took it.  She didn't know what it was for, what it was supposed to
do, where it came from, where she was going.
   Maybe she'd feel something, anything would do.
   ***
   Jade passed out in Reshonda's bed.  Sleep was a different kind of
nothing, so on the whole, the cocktail failed.
   After work, she walked the streets, back and forth along her many paths
home, seeking the metal staircase that led to the tattoo shop, Helo.  She
saw one or two buildings that might have been the place, but nothing that
stuck out.  No window, no neon sign.  Nothing.
   Her feet were sore from wandering.  Where in the hell did she go?  She
couldn't have strayed far.  She couldn't even find the building.
   There was a lot with a gate.  New construction, but no signs of a recent
demolition.  It couldn't have been that long ago, but since getting the
inscription, she hadn't thought about the place, didn't recall passing it
before that day.
   "Does that mean you were never real?"
   ***
   Jade became more of Reshonda's room mate than Ketrick's.  She spent
every night over partying, drinking, and chatting in her apartment.
   "Take these.  I think they'll crank up the intensity." Reshonda opened
the black bottle and handed her two dark pills.
   "If I can't remember what I felt, I don't think it matters."
   "Take it."
   Nothing would make her feel the way he did.  Jade had already sampled
her fair share of mind-altering chemicals with Reshonda.  Poison.
   Appealing to him failed.  Angering him failed.
   She pushed them away.  "I don't know why you're wasting so much of that
stuff on me.  You know I can't pay for it."
   "Seriously?" Reshonda laughed.  "Hold on." She pulled over a tablet and
opened a video file.  "Fuck the pills.  I'd rather you take them."
   Jade asked to feel something and she did, dread, relief, sorrow.  In the
video, she lay writhing on the bed, as if uncomfortable or restless. 
Reshonda's backside blocked any view of her expression.
   Faint wisps of brilliant color on Jade's skin, nothing like he showed
her, but she recognized its origin.
   Reshonda lay out over her legs.  "Where'd you find it?  It's got
something to do with that ink you got?  What do they inject you with?  I
mean after that first night, I've mostly been experimenting, but this
synthetic mushroom and acid blend right here." Reshonda presented the pills
again.  "I get this on video and we're set.  We can fly our own jet."
   "It?" Jade narrowed her eyes.  "What ...  acid?"
   "I envy you so much.  Damn, each time you make me cum, it's like, every
good day compressed." Reshonda smirked.  "I sorta understand why you locked
yourself away, but now that I've figured out how to call it." She placed
the pills in her palm.  "Hurry up, I don't want that thing inside you to go
hungry."
   "Okay.  One second." She got out the bed, tossed the pills on the floor.
She dressed, got into her shoes."
   "Jade?  What the fuck?"
   She left Reshonda somewhere at the front door of the apartment, heard
her screaming loud enough to get harassed by the cops.  She walked, crossed
streets, took a turn or two.
   That thing inside her.
   Jade couldn't remember any of that taking place, what day it might have
been.
   Redbird Diner would be a good spot to circle back too.  She had to give
it some time before going back to the apartment.  Three more hours and she
would leave to work her shift.
   Then what?
   Once in the diner, Jade ordered a coffee and took the booth in the back.
Set the coffee on the table.
   The clock said that two hours had passed.
   "I can't even bring my mind to think about what happened." She sipped
from the cold coffee.  "I know you're there.  Please talk to me."
   Silence.  A void of sensation.  Deadening of nerves.  He didn't just go
away, he took away.  He robbed her of a presence, of a soul?
   A person.  She huffed and scanned the diner.
   Black pants and shirt, mopping the floor.
   "Do you ever get lonely?"
   He nodded.
   "What do you do?"
   He shrugged.  "Don't bother me much.  I have myself to talk to."
   Jade grinned and it grew to a beaming smile.  "Lucky you.  Myself
doesn't talk to me anymore." She giggled.  "Myself.  I've lost my self. 
Funny, how that can actually be true."
   "We're closing soon.  You'll have to leave."
   "Since I need to get it back, do you know where I can find a priest?"
She waved him closer.  "I'm not sure if this is something they can deal
with, but I'm having a bit of a crisis."
   "And you think a priest will help?"
   Jade's head rose, the back of her hand pushed the coffee out of the way.
Her forehead slammed into the table rattling the cup.  Back up.  He had
backed away several feet.
   Her forehead met the surface.  This pain had a sensation to it, like a
drill, but the source being from within her head trying to ram its way out.
   -_ Breaking Free _-
   What street Jade walked, where she was headed was an open mystery, a
maze with no dead-ends.  One foot in front of the other, but she wasn't
driving.  She had taken a back seat around that second head-bash.
   Hey!  She knew these stairs.  Hardwood, creaking in their familiar way.
Climbing.  One step at a time.
   One foot in front of the other until she was left standing in the
hallway.  The keys had been handed over.
   Door 1: Her estranged best friend.  The place of sorrow, guilt, and
bitterness.
   Door 2: The junkie, aspiring pimp, and vulture masquerading as her
friend.
   What they had was not special.  With the right pill, her imaginary
friend could take center stage.
   "I'm not the driver," she whispered.  "I was the car."
   As if pushed forward, she stumbled to Reshonda's door and banged on it
with her fist.  The door opened and she crashed into the woman, kissing
her, caressing her tits, tugging at her clothes.
   "Told you," Reshonda said as someone took her arms from behind.  "It
wasn't going to let her get far."
   ***
   Reshonda got it right.  At least it seemed that way to Jade.  For one,
she wasn't blacked out or lacking a full memory.  She handled the terrain
of Reshonda's naked body like a charm.  Orgasm after orgasm.
   The hands were out of focus, but the color that flashed oven them was
singular, threaded, vibrant, but weird.
   As for emotionally, she felt nothing.  Dead.  She watched a television
through a filtered lens with bad sound.  Reshonda experienced the euphoria
and glory that had once been hers.
   What they had was not special.
   She tasted Reshonda's pungent arousal and she didn't.  Wet flesh rubbing
against a wet tongue.  Jade didn't know the first thing about having sex
with another woman, but for that night she was the presiding expert.
   Reshonda took her foot and placed it to her sopping wet pussy.  That
same liquid now dried on her lips, but she didn't lift a hand to wipe it
free.  She fucked her foot, one of the most erogenous parts of her body and
felt nothing.
   Anger.  Hurt.
   Echoes of emotions she could nearly feel.
   When it was over, Reshonda and the man that had held her down talked. 
He made a video?
   He nodded, smiled.  She dressed.
   ***
   'Jade?'
   She blinked, but her eyelids weren't operating like they should.  She
could feel her heart beat as it throbbed.  The grainy sheets dug into her
back.  Reshonda had burned the coffee.  Damn, her head hurt.  Had she been
in a fight?
   Was that really his voice, or the memory?  Was she dreaming?
   'Jade, I apologize.'
   This time she was the one that was silent, and not just because her
whole body ached.
   'I don't want to hurt.  I don't want to fear.  I fucked up.'
   She managed to make a small sound, a question, "Hmm?"
   'I want to be with you for all time.  Only you.  No others between us.
No one closer.  We can never be apart.  Others can be close, but not like
me, never like me.'
   Where had she been?  For how long?  This was her bedroom, but when did
she leave Reshonda?  Was the coffee machine on the fritz?  Was her body her
own anymore?
   'Did you mean it when you said you would listen?'
   Jade worked her jaw, then felt for the lump on her forehead.  "I'm
listening."
   'Get dressed and start walking.  Walk away from them both.  I'll tell
you where to go.  I fought to get back to you, and I will fight to make you
happy.'
   It took her a while to work through the pain.  Too much drink and sex
and beating her head against a table.  Had she been to work?  Did she still
have a job?  Any job?
   She grabbed her purse, all her cash.  She pulled the hood tight around
her face and walked.
   Pre-dawn light, a mist in the air.  Chillier than normal.
   She took turns, but neither from any idea of her own or prompting by
him. Her feet led the way and her body and mind followed.  She rounded a
brick building and stood in front of the staircase.
   Holding the rail, she climbed the steps.
   Buzz buzz.
   She didn't have to look up to see the sign.  Its lime glow reflected off
her skin.  She pushed open the door and entered the tattoo shop.
   The owner looked crabby, rubbing his eyes and yawning.  "What?"
   Jade spoke, it was her voice, but using his words.  "Help her.  She has
been very good for me, but in my anger, I was unkind in return.  Assist
her, and you will reap the reward.  Yes?"
   His eyes opened wider and he nodded vigorously.  "Yeah, sure.  Whatever
you need.  It'll take me some time." He started looking around the waiting
room as if a fire had been lit under his ass.
   Jade sat in one of the waiting room chairs.
   "Did you have someone in mind?" He flipped through the books as if
looking for something in his sketches.
   "Cedrick if you can find him, Alameda, if you can't."
   The man disappeared into the back room.
   ***
   Cedrick must have been available.  It was two hours later, the sun rose
in the sky.  At some point, she fell asleep, half draped over a small
couch, coffee untouched.  She got up and used the bathroom, splashed water
on her face.  She had a bump on her forehead, but it didn't look as bad as
it felt.
   A scruffy man waited by a silver sedan.  He held the passenger door open
for her and ran around to the driver's seat.
   "Hi," he smiled and gave her a brief nod.  "Cedrick.  And you are?"
   No prompt from him, so she spoke for herself.  "Jade."
   "Nice.  Good to meet you.  Ah, it's a bit of a drive, about an hour. 
Are you good?  Do you need anything?"
   She shrugged a little and stared out the window.
   "One hour," he repeated as he took to the road.
   Jade stared at the side mirror.  The profile of the city faded into the
rear view.
   Walk away from it all, to what?  Why?  Well, what other choice did she
have?
   Her eyes drifted shut.  The phantom sensation of fingers caressed her
cheek.
   It had been so long since she felt his touch.  Too sore to cry, the
tears were soundless, dry.  That hour must have passed in her sleep.  The
lump on her forehead had gone down.
   He escorted her up the walkway to a house surrounded by grass, animals,
and trees.  "Everyone is out now, but I'm going to room you with my son.  I
also have a daughter, but she can be overwhelming."
   She nodded, opened her mouth to say more, but she didn't have any words,
anyway to articulate her peculiar situation, that she had no idea what was
going on.
   Cedrick pushed open a large bedroom.  "Put your stuff in here.  I'll
introduce you to everyone once they get back."
   Jade scanned the room.  Loft bed, a couch, another bed.  Both looked
well-used, so she opted for the couch near the loft.  Once settled, her
attention turned inward.
   "I miss you." She spoke the words though she suspected he could get a
much better sense of her thoughts.  "What do you need from me?  How can I
repair us?"
   'Trust me?'
   "Yes."
   'Love me?'
   "Yes, I love you."
   'You want to be close to others, not just me.  Be close to people good
to you.  Burn the before.'
   "I can hear you, but I can't feel you.  Why?  What's happened?"
   Silence.
   She caressed her thigh, midsection, grazed her nails down her neck.  She
squeezed her breasts, twisted and pinched her nipple.  The sensation had
returned, but not as magical as it was.  "No.  I don't want to burn our
before.  Please.  There was a time when I never went a moment without your
touch.  This is the kind of touch I took for granted, that I could go my
whole life without knowing this intimacy." She went to her knees.  "Can you
hear me?"
   'I am listening.'
   "I want you in my future.  You and I, echoing our thoughts and
sensations."
   He smiled through her own mouth.
   She crawled onto the couch.
   'You can have all that you seek.  That is what I want to give you.  I
can be more to you, more than your inscription.'
   More how?  She placed her hand on the back of the couch.  It was like
feeling someone enter the room, that extra bit of warmth.  "Then what
happens?"
   'I help you get anything you desire.' A hug, his, pulling her tight,
covering her in warmth.
   Jade grinned.  It sent pain throbbing through her face, like a wave
rising, but it did not break.  It seemed to be siphoned deeper, soaked
away.
   "What's happening?"
   'Calm.  I am here.'
   "Think you could make me the aggressor?"
   'You wish to harm others?'
   "That's not what I mean by aggression.  I want to see a man I want and
go for it.  You know, like Reshonda could do.  I know I'm not the best at
talking to people, but I know I could be everything to a lover.  I mean,"
Jade sighed heavily.  "I don't know."
   He chuckled.  'No more damaging yourself.  Don't talk about the before.
You are the best.  You are powerful.'
   "You don't get it.  I want to be able to share that desire and have him
take me.  I want to enjoy myself, feel safe, not walk away hurt, balled in
a corner.  I don't want to be a submissive.  I don't want to be hurt
anymore.  It's stupid.  I don't know why I'm this way."
   'Tell me who you wish to serve, Jade.  I will show you how submission
will get you there.' The inscription swirled over the back of her palm,
coloring her skin.  'As quickly as aggression.'
   She grinned.  "Okay.  I'm game."
   'Do this, and it will bring us closer.  There will be no tomorrow
without me.'
   "We'll become one person?"
   'How?' He sounded confused.
   "Well, you cannot be without me.  I cannot be without you.  Any closer,
and we'd have the same mind." She chuckled.  "That doesn't frighten me.  I
trust you, promise.  You and I."
   Phantom hands caressed under her skin, soothing.  This was what she
missed, her body as soothing waves of a water plant.  'No.  We would become
separate.'
   Lose him?  Separate?  How did that bring them closer?
   'I will be able to use your inner language, influence your perception,
the sight and sound.  The inscription, my signature, is what binds us, but
as you now comprehend and feel, so will also you see and hear.  We are
brought closer by gaining separation.'
   She would see and hear him, as if he were in the room.  Why not?  He
already imitated an invisible person at times.  Slightly different than a
man.  "Oh," she breathed.  Shook her head clear of the image.  "You're
telling me this will happen if I use my whorish bent?  Where do I begin?"
   Instead of an answer, there was a kiss.  Lips rubbing, tongue swiping,
the scrape of teeth.
   The door opened, and a young man barreled toward her with a scowl. 
"What are you doing in here?  Get out!"
   Jade scrambled for the door.
   Cedrick put his hand up and scowled over her shoulder.
   Ah, then the similarities were made clear.
   A cherubic-faced teen peered into her field of vision.
   "Hi, I'm Bethany." She waved her to follow.
   Cedrick pointed and the young man ducked into his room.
   Bethany said, "Daniel isn't very well adjusted.  He thinks he's popular
or has friends - he doesn't."
   "I didn't know which bed to take."
   "Doesn't matter.  His friend Karlo," she rolled her eyes.  "He's like a
stray cat.  He won't come around if daddy needs the bed." She chuckled. 
"You don't want to stay in here with me?"
   "I," she rubbed her eyes.  Her mind wasn't up to speed yet.  Had she
fallen asleep on the couch?  Was their conversation a dream?
   A tight-baritone voice.  "I'll tell her."
   "Shit," Bethany got up from her desk and stood in her door way.
   A dark haired, soft-bodied, young man grinned at her from over Bethany's
head.  "Hey, the name's Karlo.  You're bunking with Daniel?"
   "I ...  not really."
   He smirked and blew her a kiss.  "Yes, you are."
   'You find him attractive?'
   Jade pulled her hair forward to cover her smirk.  She did, didn't she?
Too bad she wasn't sharing a room with him.
   Bethany snapped her fingers.  "Karlo, go away.  She's going to stay with
me."
   While they exchanged words, Jade glanced around the room.  The girl was
quite the reader and artist.  Jade used to draw, once upon a time.
   "She is definitely bunking with Daniel.  What's your name?"
   She faced him.  "Jade."
   "Jade," his gaze traveled the length of her.  "What am I today? 
Man-whore, pussy-hound?"
   She grinned.  "I haven't heard much besides I may have already slept in
your bed."
   Bethany chortled.
   "You're welcome back anytime."
   Bethany made an exaggerated gagging face.
   Not quite the company she wanted to keep.  Jade opened her mouth, but
the words were his doing.  "Good to know."
   Bethany tossed her hands in the air and huffed.  "Yup.  That seals it.
You'll fuck anything with a hole.  I should have warned her, but why
bother, right?"
   "I wouldn't fuck you unless you wanted me, Beth, no matter how many
holes you have."
   She gasped and turned her widened eyes on Jade, but she avoided the
girl's gaze.  Those pastels were the same ones her mother used to work
with. Where did she find them?
   "Hey!" She stormed over.  "Don't touch that.  Get away from my desk!"
   Jade pulled back from the pastels as if they'd caught fire.
   "See you around, Jade." Karlo winked and left the room.
   "Ugh," Bethany shook her head.  "I'm sorry.  I should have put that
better.  Karlo stresses me out.  I don't know why my brother has such a
scummy friend."
   "I get it," said Jade.  "I wouldn't let an amateur touch my shit.  Thank
you for the warning."
   Bethany rolled her eyes.  "Are you an amateur?"
   "Absolutely.  Pastels are not my thing.  I work with markers primarily."
   "What kind?"
   "Fosters for my basics, but Elm Trees makes a good brand of bright hues.
I haven't seen Spectra since I was a kid."
   Once upon a time that memory would hurt, but there is was.  She and her
mother swinging together.  Jade would lean close so that she didn't
interrupt her drawing time.  It was there and then it faded.
   Maybe she should check out that bed situation.
   Bethany pushed back with a huff and set up a board, paper, and markers.
"Shut up and draw, but if you plan on fucking my brother or his scummy
gutter pal, then we can't be friends."
   Jade swiveled around on the bench, popped open the box with restrained
glee.  She opened the cap off the first marker, made a few establishing
strokes.  Time disappeared.
   She'd never been able to touch a marker this nice.  The complete set. 
Their highlights were used for UV posters and optical illusions.
   Her shoulder ached, but it faded.  Like the sadness, like the pain on
her forehead.
   "Stop that," Jade whispered.
   'I want to take it away.'
   She glanced over to Bethany.  The girl's was propped to her desk. 
"Share it.  Inner communication, right?"
   The pain in her shoulder burned.  A slow sense of failure and worry. 
Jade favored her arm, and tried to hide the growing discomfort.  For a
moment, she thought she'd fall to the floor.  Was she still drawing?
   Once she shut her eyes that she might have limbs were a vast unknown.
   He feared losing her, that he'd destroyed her trust.
   She heard a slow drum beat and the soft flow of the ocean.  She
controlled it with her breath.  When the water swelled, she soared, receded
and she melted into the sand.
   "Jade?"
   She blinked her eyes open.  Bethany's face.  Jade pushed up to her
elbows.
   She was on the floor.  Her head hurt, and her butt.  She cleared her
throat.  What happened there?  "Are we good?"
   'Yes.' He smiled and she smiled with him.  'We are good.'
   "We?" Bethany frowned, arms folded, her disgusted guise glanced up,
"Daddy, I'm pretty sure she just had a seizure."
   "It obviously wasn't." Cedric kneeled beside her.  "You're good."
   Bethany pointed over Jade's head toward the bench.
   She worked her way to her knees to look at the parchment.  She wanted
the art classes in hopes of creating her world, a vision of a place she'd
imagined as a child.  Hyper-color world, the neon sunlight.  Green-yellow
tinted clouds.  Bright magenta flowers.  The way she'd never had the talent
to describe, but if she could get the right colors.
   Bright colors were quite seductive to her.
   There is was in all its glory.
   Jade burst into tears.  It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever done.
They had ever done.
   "Dad!" Bethany's voice reached a screeching pitch.
   "Beth, she's fine.  I promise."
   "That woman is not fine.  She needs real help, not your quackery."
   Cedric rolled the parchment up.  "That's why she'll be in the room with
Daniel."
   She clicked her teeth.  "Whatever."
   Cedric led and Jade followed.  She was still crying, but also smiling,
her heart seemed to swell and blossom with joy.  "Thank you."
   'You're welcome.  Anything you want.'
   Cedrick also told her that she was welcome.  "I apologize for my
children.  Bethany is going through a phase."
   "No need.  She's brilliant." Jade entered the room.  "Let her be
herself."
   He nodded.  "All right.  I bought you a few things.  They are on your
bed.  It's your space.  Understood?"
   "I do, thank you."
   He nodded and headed down the hall.
   Daniel's door was closed.  She put her ear to it, heard nothing.
   She stepped inside and shut the door softly behind her.
   The moment was disorienting.  Every fiber of her being wanted to flirt
with Karlo, say something that would make him smile.  Daniel, the person
who had thundered into the room, yelling his protests loud enough to wake
her, didn't want her around.
   How was this meant to be a new start for her?
   Jade wanted to befriend them, not for a drink, not to dance, but because
she wanted to, that she could be friendly and fun.
   This was the moment when it was terrible to be her.
   'Stick with what you do best.'
   Jade huffed, silent, gritted her teeth.  What she did best?  This would
have to be a lesson.
   She pulled the paper bag over and unfolded it.  An assortment of
clothing, toiletries.  She smiled.  That was nice of him.  She unpacked the
bag into the nearby dresser.
   No words, not even a hello.  Not from her nor them.  Their eyes traced
her every move, but neither Karlo, on the couch, or Daniel, in the loft,
said a word.
   She pulled off her dress and lay it over the chair, then bent at the
waist to unroll her socks.
   "That's a bold invitation," The couch squeaked.
   "I'd say." Daniel cleared his throat.  "Sorry about the mixup about the
rooms.  I didn't want a room mate."
   "It's okay.  I wouldn't want some outsider messing up this awesome
space."
   Karlo wore a lopsided grin and tossed off his shirt.
   "Dude, what are you doing?!  No woman wants to see that."
   She grinned at them both over her shoulder.
   "Do I want to pounce you?" Karlo said.  "Hell yes, but I don't want you
to run when I do.  So, missy?"
   "Stalk," Jade rolled her panties down, stepped out and spread her legs
wide.  "Don't pounce."
   Karlo stood and his shorts gathered in a pool.  He stroked himself as he
stalked over to the bed, leaned over, and kissed her.  "You want it that
badly, huh?"
   The experience echoed.  It was like when she hugged her father:
matching, watching, learning.  Jade was glad that he was paying attention.
She'd show him the dangers of being her.
   "I do."
   "You hear that, Daniel?"
   "Yeah.  What's that white stuff?"
   "Good, fucking stuff.  Sweet cream, nectar of the fucking gods."
   Jade chuckled and unfastened her bra.  "What can I do for you?"
   He arched his eyebrow.  "Suck me off."
   She crawled back and winked at Daniel.  She sucked Karlo's cock while
Daniel stroked himself.  He eased closer, his eyes focused on her.  "Dude."
   Karlo put his finger to his lips.  "Shh."
   The bars of the loft creaked.  He crawled down the ladder, two steps. 
Then he paused and tipped toward the side of her bed.  "Can I touch you?"
   Jade rocked her head back, licked the underside of Karlo's penis. 
"Touch away."
   Daniel glanced up to Karlo, but his eyes were closed, expression of a
man adrift.  His hand inched toward her body.  He stroked the side of her
hips.  The whispered touch like a cool kiss.  He pulled his hand back.
   Jade pulled away from Karlo and repositioned herself on the bed.
   "Go on," Karlo pointed to her.  "Touch away."
   Daniel got on the bed beside her and caressed her thigh, then belly. 
Karlo rubbed her breast, and Daniel's gaze fastened on him.  Karlo leaned
down and licked then gently suckled her nipple.
   "Please do the other?" She asked of Daniel.
   Karlo winked at her and his fingers dipped into her wet pussy.  His
questioning look was answered by her nod.  He penetrated her with two
fingers, rocked them inside her pussy.
   "Thank you," Jade moaned.
   Karlo released her nipple and moved between her thighs.  He slid his
finger along her wet slit.
   A third presence lay within her, touching where they touched, kissing
where they kissed.  Her back arched as Karlo's tongue flicked upward,
hitting a pleasant spot.
   Daniel knelt beside him, Karlo, his eyes wide.  Jade reached over and
stroked Daniel, then pulled him up to kiss her.  It took the intrepid young
man a bit, but he got the hang of it.
   Karlo sucked and licked, getting both his cheeks and chin wet with her
arousal.  His tongue explored as far as it could go inside her, slowly
penetrating in and out.  His body shifted and his cock spread her open.
   Jade shifted and took Daniel's shaft into her mouth, running her tongue
along the bottom as she sucked on his head.
   Daniel groaned.  "That feels so good.  Wow.  Thank you.  Yeah.  This is
so nice."
   "Fuck," Karlo mumbled.
   'Give until you are empty, and see it filled with a higher power.'
   Daniel was the first to reach orgasm.  He moaned loudly, his body
jerked. He pulled out of her mouth and positioned his dick near her tits.
"Yeah, nice.  Okay."
   "Daniel, I don't mind swallowing."
   He was back in a flash.  Soon as his head touched her tongue, semen
burst from his cock.  She licked and held him, swallowed his ejaculate.
   Daniel collapsed on his side and Jade looked down at Karlo with her
mouth partially open.
   "Oh, shit.  I'm going have a blast with you." Karlo pumped away harder.
"Hold it right there." He pulled out and crawled up.
   She sucked and stroked him until he came, spurting into her mouth,
tasting of her pussy and his sweat, savory and delicious.  She lay back on
the bed with a grin.  They slumped next to her, both with hug grins on
their faces.
   Okay, she'd always wanted to try that.
   Was the fun over now?  How long was this going to last?
   He hugged her, again calming her nerves.
   "Pleasure to meet you," said Jade.
   They both laughed a little.
   She could make them laugh.  Not too bad.  She smiled.
   Daniel got up and went to the bathroom.
   "I need to clean up too." Jade sat up.
   Karlo sat up beside her.  He kissed her on the shoulder.  "Did you mean
what you said?"
   'Yes.'
   "Which part?"
   "You want to be my slut for a while?"
   Had the thought crossed her mind?  Sure.  "I wasn't aware I'd said that
out loud." From within, he caressed the back of her neck.  "Can't keep
secrets from myself." She chuckled.
   The toilet flushed.
   "You want it?"
   "Sounds fun."
   Daniel left, she stood, and Karlo followed.  Jade used the bathroom
while Karlo washed his hands in the sink, checked his reflection.
   They switched sides and Jade washed her hands and waited.  Why was he in
here with her?
   "Suck me off some more?  It felt really good."
   She got on her knees and opened her mouth.  She worked him into a frozen
stupor, leaning on the counter, eyes half closed.
   The bathroom door creaked open, and Daniel peered through the crack as
Karlo fucked her face.
   "I like that.  Fuck, yeah.  Oh, suck.  If I'm dreaming, ugh." Karlo
shuddered and his hips bucked in staccato fashion.
   She ducked from between his thighs and rinsed her mouth.  Winked at
Daniel's enshrouded reflection.
   "Peeping?" Karlo whispered.
   "It's his bathroom, why not." She left the bathroom and went over to
Daniel.
   He shrank onto the mattress.
   "Can I do you now?" She reached over and stroked Daniel's cock.
   "Is this some kind of joke?"
   Outside the door, you could almost hear radio from another room,
television chatter, footsteps on the floor above.  The mundanity of life
taking place while she had a magical moment with these boys.
   "Maybe it's some kind of dream," Jade kissed him on the cheek.
   ***
   "Here," Jade lay out on the bed her head on the pillow.  "Karlo, I'll
suck you.  Daniel, fuck me.  That is, unless you don't want to," she
chuckled.
   "Yeah, can I lube up your tits?"
   Jade leaned on her elbow as he hopped up.  Daniel stroked her thigh.
   "When ever you're ready."
   "I'll wait." He sat on the other side of the bed, his legs under hers.
   Karlo came back and put a bit of clear fluid on his finger.  "How's
that?"
   She touched her tongue to it, then took a bit more.  "It doesn't taste
like much of anything."
   "Okay, This is it right here." Cold dollops of clear liquid dripped onto
her inner breasts, then he rubbed it around his shaft.
   "You don't need more than that."
   "Here." He handed off the bottle and straddled her chest.  The head of
his cock, rocked between her heavy breasts then he pushed toward her mouth.
   It hadn't tasted like much on his fingers, but it seemed to taste
different now.  Enhancing Karlo's taste.  When his cock returned from the
next dip on her breast she moaned.
   Between her thighs, Daniel rubbed her clitoris.  She opened her legs and
gave him better access.  His fingers stroked her slit, just under her
clitoris.  She was soaking wet, the squish of his fingers made it no
secret.
   She put her hands around Karlo's ass.  He was being too shallow with his
cock.  She wanted more of it.  She sucked and licked.  That lube had a
really nice taste, especially around the base.
   He let her set the pace.  She fucked her mouth with his cock, every
stroke perfect, the right depth.  The experience was made better by
Daniel's fingers pumping her pussy.  Each time he pulled them away, up to
rub her clitoris, she pulled Karlo's cock deeper.
   She whimpered and moaned around Karlo's cock.  Desperate for both an
orgasm and to taste him cum while this weird liquid was in her mouth.
   *
   Karlo was suspended in ecstasy.  All had to do was relax, fight the urge
to pump his cock.  He'd never tried to go this deep in a woman's mouth
before.  His balls tightened as she moaned and sucked.  Such a pleasurable
feeling around his cock.  His orgasm overcame him.  Several quick shots
spurt into her mouth.
   Even as he softened she was moaning and writhing.  Daniel's fingers
smacked inside her cunt.
   He got off her chest and Daniel leaned between her thighs, still
fingering her, but he rolled his lips in the liquid between her breasts,
then he lay flat on his belly.
   He rubbed those lips over her clitoris, then he took it in his mouth. 
Nothing ever sounded so good as a woman on the verge of a large orgasm. 
She trembled and buried her face in the pillow.  Waves of pleasure radiated
through her body.  Karlo couldn't believe how hard she was coming.
   That Daniel squandered these talents was a problem he planned to solve.
   She was half out of it, when Daniel rolled her onto her side and drove
his throbbing cock into her pussy.
   *
   Jade's breath was finally coming in more than a heavy pant.  Never had
she enjoyed sex so much.  With two men none the less.  They were full of
such energy and compassion.
   Daniel's cock was inside her.  She throbbed around him as he slid in and
out.  He went slow, or only thrust a little deeper inside her.  He ran his
hand down her back, around her shoulder.
   "What are you doing, man?"
   "Enjoying her."
   Jade smiled at Daniel and pulled her top leg back toward her chest, then
over her head, threaded between his thigh and arm.
   Karlo lightly applauded.
   She pulled him on top of her and kissed him.  He didn't try to change
his pace, just had him lying beside her.  He wrapped his arms around her
and thrust into her pussy, his sounds muffled into her shoulder.
   Once he got a rhythm going, it was brutal, knocking into her pussy and
hitting all the right places.
   "Fuck, Daniel.  This feels good."
   Karlo chuckled.
   Even though his cock wasn't as big as Karlo's, he fucking with more
energy, slamming her hard with each thrust.  Daniel arched his back, and
pulled a face for several long seconds, then he collapsed on her.
   Karlo looked at if he wanted to say something, but she wagged her finger
at him.
   He got up and tapped on Daniel's butt.  He moved off her bottom half,
but did not move from her shoulder.
   Karlo slid his lube-covered cock into her pussy.  "Rub your pussy." He
started to thrust when she did, licked his lips.
   Daniel lay on her breast, watching as she rubbed herself off.
   Karlo didn't need Daniel's intensity.  He shut his eyes and drilled her
deep.  Just before she came, he popped off, emptied his load into her.
   He pulled out and Daniel was quick to take his place, sucking and
slurping on her cunt.
   They lay in bed together, tired, satisfied, hungry.
   ***
   Jade held the phone to her ear and pretended to listen to her father. 
He didn't get her attention until the mention of death.
   "Who?"
   "Jocelyn passed, stroke.  I want you to come home."
   "No.  No way I'm ever going back to that place."
   "Not there.  I've got the place on Garden back.  It's just me now, so I
don't need much, and I'll be closer to the church."
   His religion had not been buried with Jocelyn, unfortunately.
   Her staying with Cedric wasn't meant to be permanent, but a place to get
on her feet, to find a place to go.
   Randall did not wait for a negative answer.  "I love you.  I wish you'd
come home.  I know we haven't been able to catch up.  I want to make up for
that."
   "Yes."
   "You, you will?"
   "Yeah.  I'll find a way to get there."
   "No, let me, please?"
   Jade nodded, gave him the details he'd need to arranged her travel. 
Afterward, she went outside.
   "Why am I so upset?"
   'It took so long.'
   She chuckled, tears rolled down her eyes.  "Yeah, but he's some kind of
preacher now.  She's dead, but he's stuck."
   A wet lick around the base of her toes.  She chuckled and squirmed.
   'All you have to do is ask.'
   "Don't make me say it.  You'll think I'm trying to test you."
   'I am trying to test you.  Tell me your honest desire as if I have not
seen it for myself.'
   Jade shut her eyes and indulged the thought for a moment, the alternate
reality.
   -_ Home _-
   Jade lay on her back, legs spread, arms open, her hips rolled, slow
against the sensation of pressure.  Eyes closed, he had the sense of a
body, pressed into her, penetrating her from the outside.  It wasn't the
same as the real thing, but it was becoming a more convincible illusion.
   'How's that?'
   "Is the pressure on purpose?"
   'Yes, the edge of discomfort, the sharpening of your sense.'
   "This is how we could be closer." She blinked her eyes to convince
herself he was, in fact, not on top of her.  But her eyes could open and
see him, she'd hear him with her ears.
   'Yes.'
   Kiss.  His warm glow swirled in her belly.  Her tongue flicked out and
swiped around.  Jade stilled, focusing on the symphony of touch.  Did her
lips tingle or was it her imagination?
   "What are we doing?"
   'I'm fucking you.' Her body rocked, tensed, arched.
   Oh, they'd had something more caustic than this.  Those days that melted
into weeks, her thigh perpetually soaked.
   No way she could have imagined the feeling becoming richer, bountiful.
   Again she opened her eyes and drew a breath.  Okay, she was here, her
father's house.
   "Can you hear my thoughts?"
   'Can you hear mine?'
   "I don't think so."
   'But, when I speak, you know I am listening?'
   "Yeah, like, I'm imagining you're sitting on the counter." She turned to
put the glasses away.  He seemed pleased.  "You're like ...  smiling or
happy?"
   'That is what I sense.  You are hesitant.  I understand.  It is not your
imagination.  We are getting closer.'
   Goosebumps raced up and down her arms.  If her father caught wind of him
she'd be in trouble.  It wasn't like she'd be able to hide him!
   Wait.  Perception.  Jade grinned and shook her head.  Say nothing, and
daddy won't notice.
   Her mind zipped from one thought to another expectant and fanciful.
   He jumped down and put his arms around her, hugged her and held her.
   She finished up her chores, stopped in the hallway and shut her eyes. 
"Are you there?"
   'I distract you.  Finish your work.  Responsibilities are important.  We
know.'
   She smirked.  "I'll be done soon."
   ***
   Jade couldn't believe how wet she was.  Her legs slicked together as she
stored the vacuum.  Her mind hadn't even been on sex, but her pussy was
throbbing.  He left her alone, but her own mind never cleared the gutter.
   Last time she was in this house with her father, she drifted to sleep
being read stories.  Laughter and games.  Even the punishments were better
here.
   Though these memories were easiest when he wasn't around.
   If she could have the man she remembered back?  Jade slipped her fingers
down the front of her panties.  Wow that was wet.  Her fingers sloshed and
became coated in a flood of moisture, too slick to be urine and too thin
for blood.  Even still, she brought her fingers up to check.
   Clear, thin.
   Jade rinsed her fingers under the water.  "Responsibilities."
   Her father's sexuality had died with her mother.  Jocelyn stepped in and
did something to him, trapped him.  He didn't laugh as much.  He seemed
like a prisoner.  Then he found the church.
   Jade set the vacuum away with a chuckle.  She pulled off her shirt as
she walked down the hall.
   "Show me how submission can bring my father back."
   His presence grew in her mind.
   "He's my father.  That's not going to happen, but if I could have it. 
Him.  You've seen him.  I could do whatever my mother did and more.  I
don't care if it makes sense.  You see why I didn't want to say anything?"
Her breath rattled.  She tucked her cold hand under her thighs.
   'You can have it.'
   She reclined and the sensation of swirls rounded and massaged her slit.
She sighed and melted into the bed.
   "This feels so good." Her hips bucked upwards.  "Yes." Her body arched,
toes curled, head rolled back.
   'You want your father to take you?'
   She imagined Randall's cock spreading her open, driving deep.  She
imagined the rumble of his voice, the way he might moan as he fucked her.
   Was it possible to be so riled up?  To slip so easily into such dirty
thoughts?  Dirty, but so decadent.
   Her eyes fluttered and her pussy stretched wider, pass the point of
comfort.
   "Careful, daddy," she chuckled softly.
   It had to be some kind of fever making her feel these things, making her
imagination run so vivid and wild.  The rounded head rubbed up and down her
slit, pressed at her entrance, teasing her and making her feel pure
pleasure.
   Then the smell of him from her childhood, the musky richness of his
soap.
   Her legs widened and she pointed her knees in opposite directions.  Her
whole being tensed and trembled.  Was that all one orgasm or two?  She
shook her head clear and caught her breath.
   'He deserves to feel this good.'
   Jade chuckled.  "How?  You don't even know him.  I don't know him."
   It wasn't as if she saw him move or even imagined it.  He moved from the
corner, drew closer.  It was a sensation similar to body heat, but there
was no change in temperature.
   'Do each thing I say, Jade, and he will be consumed with lust for you.'
   "How long will it take?  He wants me to get another job and place."
   'How aggressive do you want to be?'
   She chuckled again.  "Ride out!" Her finger pointed in the air.  "Pedal
to the metal and peel the fuck out of here." More laughter and she sighed
and settled on her side.
   'Put on your panties.'
   As she slid them on, she could feel his mirth and delight.  Or was it
hers?
   Next, Jade went to the kitchen to pour two glasses of juice.  Assisted
by his prompting, she put in cranberry, apple, and, pineapple juice, then a
drop of her saliva.
   'Rub your vaginal fluid along the rim, then dip it into the liquid.'
   "I'm going to get in trouble for that."
   'He needs to smell you.  Smell is very powerful.'
   She circled the rim and dipped her wet finger in the drink.  "Lust of
Jade to Randall.  Lust of Randall to Jade.  Bound in pleasure.  By my will
this will be so."
   His car idled in the drive, Jade dashed to his bedroom, tossed her wet
panties on the edge of the hamper, then went to get into some clothes,
giggling madly as she rushed back into the kitchen.
   ***
   Randall paused in his book reading and displayed the open page to the
gathered children.  A few of them appeared bored out of their skull, but he
still had the attention of the younger ones.
   He turned the page and finished the story.
   A smattering of parents lined the back wall.  Randall hung back until
the last child was picked up.  Over the years Randall had volunteered so
much of his time and held so many spiritual counseling sessions that the
community called a vote to build a church.
   When Jocelyn fell ill, he spent most of his social time within the
building, helping to guide and heal souls as Jocelyn had done for him so
long ago.  The building saw use seven days a week for social gatherings,
worship, and community events.
   The drive home took him to the country-side rather than the city to the
small cabin he once shared with his gorgeous, vivacious first wife.  Now
that his baby girl was with him, it didn't hold so many painful memories.
   Randall walked into the door and the smell of fruits filled the air.
   "Daddy?"
   "Yes, Buttercup.  What are you making?" He rounded the corner and his
gorgeous daughter held a dark red cocktail up for him.  "What is this?"
   "Non-alcoholic." She chuckled and picked up her own glass.  "Enjoy."
With that she headed back to her room.
   ***
   He smelled it and grinned, then sipped.  Notes of cranberry, apple. 
Something else.  He took a larger gulp, but it wasn't the same.
   Randall checked the fridge.  She had only made a single serving.  Shame.
This had the beginnings of a decadent sangria.
   Maybe he'd surprise her with that later.  Randall had practically
sacrificed his soul when he married Jocelyn.  After Shanice's death, he was
lost, in need, and his little girl was depending on him to be strong.
   Jocelyn saved their lives.
   Sometimes he wondered if she'd died too late.  Instead of supporting and
loving Jade as her own, Jocelyn antagonized her, criticized her.  Yet, she
fulfilled her promise.  Jade had structure, security, and a stable
environment.
   He finished his drink, took a shower.  His daughter lingered on his
mind. The mere thought that he might find out what kind of drunk she was
filled him with giddy delight.  When was the last time they had a real
conversation?  Spent more than a few minutes alone?  Spoke in hushed tones
while passing through the halls?
   Would she watch television with him like she used to do?  Her legs
parted, head resting on his chest.
   Randall frowned and shook his head.  Down below, he sported a prodigious
erection.  What made his mind go there?  He had suppressed this for years,
a few more weeks to repair his relationship with his daughter was a small
stretch.
   He dried off, flipped the vent on the fan.  The light flickered
overhead. With a curse, he flipped it off.
   His erection, throbbing now, had not flagged.
   He sniffed.  "What's that?"
   Like a blood hound, he sniffed and turned until he found the laundry
basket.  He didn't have to search any longer.  On the top of the pile, a
discarded pair of navy blue panties, damp on the seat and around the leg
holes.
   He picked up the scrap of fabric and breathed in the fragrance.  Oh, no
mistaking that smell.  Wet, fresh.  Oh, this smelled like some divine
pussy.
   Several indulgent lungfuls.  He straightened and tossed it into the
laundry.
   That there was only one woman in this house blared in the back of his
mind.  And yet his mind crafted a vision of the pussy that held such
invigorating aroma.
   He stared at the laundry basket.  Jade?  His baby girl's pussy got wet
like that?
   He got dressed and called out.  "I'll be in the yard."
   "Okay."
   The screen door slammed behind him.  He needed fresh air, to breathe, to
shake the fragrant, rich scent of his girl's pussy from his brain.  Those
panties had been so wet, slick, thick and clear.
   Every breeze seemed to cause his cock to stir with images of Jade. 
She'd come out of that shell.  He saw it peaking through when she visited,
but she seemed so upset, distraught.  He knew then that he had to make it
up to her one day.
   He marched for the shed, knowing what he needed, what would not wait a
second more.  Once inside, he squeezed the thick shaft of his cock.  It
pressed into his palm, sideways through the fabric, causing more ache than
relief.
   He rubbed, tugged, pressed.  The electric sensation penetrated the whole
of his reality.  Those panties must have been in contact with her pussy in
the past hour or two.  Was she still wet?  What did she taste like?
   Right now the answer to that question was being agitated in a washer
drum.
   The day's heat turned stifling in the small shed.  Randall growled.  His
cock was painfully in need of her pussy.
   No.  He snatched his hand away and stomped through the yard, further
away from the house.  How could he think something like that?!  What in the
hell?
   Hell.  That was the only answer.
   Randall went to his knees in the grass and pressed his palms together.
"I humble myself before you Lord, please hear your servant's prayer.  I am
being tested in ways I never thought I would.  Please.  I haven't come this
far to backslide now."
   'Please,' a voice in his mind echoed back.  His daughter's voice, high
and tight.  The way she would beg when she really wanted something from
him, the pout of her lip, the wide innocent gaze.
   Randall rolled the bloated head of his cock under his palm. 
Pre-ejaculate coated his damp palm allowing the rough creases to slip over
the tip.  Right here in his back yard, stroking his erection, thinking of
Jade naked and begging.
   Struggling.  Arms and legs restrained, her body taunt with desire.  Her
breasts swaying and jiggling each time he smacked her puffy red pussy. 
That's what she needed.  If her pussy was getting that wet, then she was
going to need it put to her good.
   "Please," Randall's voice was hoarse, but he coughed to clear it.  His
hand had left the prayer position to wrap around his cock.  It was
motionless now, but he did not have the strength to let go.  "Our Father
who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name."
   'I'm still your good girl, daddy.'
   In his mind, Randall unbuckled his belt.  The innocence in her pleading
eyes turned to a knowing smirk.  She licked her lips, her throat bobbed.
   The hand on his cock tugged on his shaft.
   "It's going to feel good, Buttercup.  Daddy knows how to make it feel
good."
   Jade's legs widened.  "Show me, daddy.  Hit this depraved slut with your
belt.  Make her cum while you fuck her needy cunt.  Make me your slut,
daddy.  I want to be yours.  Any way you want."
   Once upon a time those had been his wife's words, but they weren't in
her deep, rasping voice but his daughter's concise, melodic tone.
   Randall's fist sped over his cock.  He ached for release, whatever this
moment was, it felt so good.  Why was he fighting it?  His body seethed
with erotic vibrations, waves of erotic imagery and memory, all overwritten
with his daughter's presence.  The craziest years of his life with the face
of his creation.
   Delirious with lust.  He went from muttering, "Please, lord," to, "let
daddy show you how."
   As if shocked by a cattle prod, Randall jumped to his feet and ran, but
he tripped after the second step and collapsed onto the grass.
   "Please, Lord, hear my call.  Sweet, merciful Lord, my girl, my Jade. 
Protect her Lord, protect her from me.  Give me strength to fight the
demons I battle on this day."
   He found his way back to the head of his insistent erection.  He
couldn't stop rubbing.  What if she found him like this?  Writhing in the
grass, half dressed, cock half out of his shorts?
   What if she found him this way naked?  Her tits sitting high on her
chest like two ripe fruits ready to be plucked.  Arousal dripping from her
pussy lips.  Randall couldn't shake the constant stream of images.
   He wanted to fuck Jade.
   'Say it, daddy.'
   "No." He whispered.  "No, please.  Please, stop."
   'Say you want to fuck me.  Please?  Please, daddy.  Don't you?  Don't
you want to tie me up in the living room, turn my brown ass beet red?'
   "Yes," he hissed.
   'Do you want me to gag on your cock, daddy?  I'll suck you anytime you
want if you'd only teach me how.  Please, show me, daddy.  I need you.'
   Randall thigh's shook.  The veins on his forehead stood out in sharp
relief.  He was drowning in the barrage of images, all the ways he could
make her scream, cry, beg.
   No.  She was his daughter.  He wasn't that man anymore.
   'I'm helpless to stop you, daddy.' Jade lay with her legs spread, her
wet pussy opened to him, wanting him.  Whelped and bruised breasts, swollen
nipples, eyes wet with tears.
   She wanted him.  Jade wanted him.  She'd gone into her room with that
drink hoping he'd join her.  She was naked right now, rubbing her naked
pussy.
   She'd put those wet panties in the hamper on purpose.
   Made his drink with pussy on her fingers.
   That taste!
   Randall's mind transported him between her legs, his cock deep inside
her pussy.  Burying between the folds, pounding her raw.  Her creamy pussy
sucked on his cock, wrapped around him.
   'Fuck me, daddy.  Fuck your girl.  Use me.' She gushed over his cock and
he returned the favor, emptying his balls the way they were meant to be
emptied, deep inside another.
   Randall fantasized rutting into his daughter, balls deep, emptying
himself until there was nothing left.  That lovely heat swelled in his
tight balls, lifting him to orgasm, his soul expanding as his body
contracted.
   He restrained the impulse to follow that sweeping wave to its
conclusion.
   Finally, his hand could be snatched from his shorts.  He gathered two
handfuls of grass and soil, sweat poured down his forehead.  He panted like
a bull.
   He trembled and shuddered as if having a seizure.  His erect cock
strained on the edge of climax.  The spiritual conflict expressed itself in
the way he winced, flinched, and shifted in the dirt.  In his mind, he was
still fucking Jade, his dream girl, his lubed cock slid between her breasts
and disappeared into the O-shape of her lips.
   The spring heat had become a narcotic.
   'Sure,' a strange voice said.  It was soft, but clear.  'She's your
daughter, but an adult.  Shanice loved every strike of your whip.  Remember
how addicted she was to your cock?'
   He did, but Jade's mother had been addicted to a lot more than cock in
those days.
   His daughter had been raised better, wholesome, normal.  He'd seen to
it.
   'She needs you.'
   "Save me from the devil, Lord.  You who command all that is seen and
unseen.  In the name and authority of Jesus Christ, I," his fingers dug
into the soil.  "I want to slide my cock inside my daughter, Lord.  I want
to fuck Jade."
   'I want you to fuck me, daddy.'
   Randall groaned low in his throat.  His cock would destroy her pussy. 
He imagined snatching her down onto him, causing her pussy to froth over
his shaft.  Sweat dripped from their bodies, panting and grunting.
   "Stop," he gasped as his cock gurgled and lurched.  "Please, no, god. 
Please, make it stop." It was the worse, painful, tormenting, and erotic
orgasm of Randall's life.
   'It will feel better when Jade does that for you.'
   ***
   Jade lay on her back.  Even after two orgasms, her body still hummed. 
The inscription filled her head with lustful thoughts.  Even if his scheme
to get her father interested in her failed, the orgasms would be worth the
attempt!
   "Now?" She breathed.
   His looked through her window with a slight smile.  'Not yet.'
   That window had a view of the backyard.
   She took her breasts in hand, rubbed the firm tips between her fingers.
She rolled her bottom lip out and writhed on the bed.  No matter how good
she felt, nothing would make her close her eyes.
   True to his word, she could see him.  If there had been a question as to
her inscription's existence, seeing him would put an end to it.
   She did not have the imagination to create a man so foreign.  It was as
if he could be from a foreign country, but not one she recognized. 
Brilliant eggplant black hair.  It clumped into fat lock that cascaded to
his shoulders in a loose spiral.  Golden blue eyes, like a turquoise-hue
lapis lazuli.  As for his skin, ruddy, tanned with rosy freckles.
   'Harder.'
   She whimpered, her legs tensed.
   'Harder.' His voice seemed to be in her ear and her head.  Like a radio
turned on.  'Pull up and let them fall.'
   "Ah!  Oh.  Ow." Her bedroom door was open.  Naked on her bed, spread
open, naked.
   Her father would be furious to find her this way.  Or happy?  Jade
grinned and closed her eyes.
   'Are you sure you want him, Jade?  His tastes are stained with blood.'
   She snorted.  Daddy?  There wasn't a violent bone in that man's body. 
There he was again, trying to scare her straight.  Now that's the sign of a
rational mind, realizing it had over-promised.
   Time to call the bluff and put this imaginary construct in its place. 
"That's okay."
   Laughter, a host of it, soft, full of mirth and mischief.
   It was the same faint chorus she'd heard while making the fruit juice.
   'I enjoy you.  Now, Jade.'
   Her fingers stroked up and down her wet slit, bringing the ample
moisture up to her clitoris.  Jade delved into her fantasy, committed to
pleasing her father.  She could please him if he gave her the chance. 
That's all she wanted.
   Would this plan work or had she gone insane?
   ***
   Randall entered the house dirty and dazed.  After using a wet cloth to
clean his hands, he peeled out of his clothing and rinsed in the shower.
   Was he coming down with something?  Perhaps he should schedule an
appointment with the doctor just in case.  Did he hallucinate?  Have a
fever?  With a turn of the nozzle, warm water turned to stinging needles,
battering his defiant lust into submission.
   And still his cock stood fully erect, protruding from his groin.  It had
been the subject of great fascination in his youth.  He took it out at
parties, let woman blow him 'for the thrill of it.' Once upon a time he
didn't view it as the center of evil and downfall, not until he came to
know better when he was much older.
   At least he learned before it was too late.
   'Not fair that a part of your body, a piece of yourself should be
derided.  Who taught you to hate yourself?  Who inspires such
self-loathing?'
   But Jocelyn had been right.  She had set him on a righteous path.
   Water rained down from the shower onto his head, spilled down his back.
He leaned forward in the stall, one hand on the tile, the other on his
shaft, unmoving.  The thought had stilled him, as if being quiet would make
the presence go away, as if not answering gave him time to believe anything
other than the truth.
   'Do you want Jade to feel this way about her throbbing wet cunt?'
   Randall surged with heat and lust.  Where his hand had been still, it
now moved with fury.  He came so hard, so explosively, stifling the moan
into a bathing cloth.  Strands of ejaculate hit the tiled wall and slid
down.
   Minutes later, he stepped from the tub, nude, dripping wet, and
exhausted.
   Randall had expected shame to flood in, chastising him.  Yet a
post-orgasmic calm, a peace and clarity he'd long missed filled his mind to
overflowing.  He dried off with a smile, inhaled, and the air seemed
lighter.  The massive weight and stress that had been in his heart
dissipated.
   He chuckled at his reflection.  All the craziness of today could have
been settled in the barn.
   They had a couple hours until dinner.  He needed to find out what she
wanted to do for movie night.
   He froze.  What was that sound?
   He stepped into a fresh pair of shorts and followed the sound into the
hallway.  Jade's door was open, but all he could see were her feet.  Her
toes spread then curled.  She moaned.
   Each step soft and creeping, careful not to cause any squeaks or groans.
Hadn't she heard him come in?  Was she ill?
   Randall found exactly what he suspected.  Jade's legs were spread wide,
one foot in the air, the other stretched taunt.
   His cock sprung, inflated with new life.  He couldn't see what she was
doing to herself, but she was lost.  Her hips bounced on the bed.  Her
small pants interspersed with accidental moans.  His cock shifted,
stiffened painfully in his shorts.  Her nipples were hard and fat as eraser
nubs.  They bounced and swayed with her motions.
   She rolled onto her raised leg, and he got a good show of her round
buttocks clenching and releasing.  Droplets of sweat beaded down her back.
He could walk up behind her and put an end to that suffering.  Her whole
body undulated, beckoning to him, pleading for him with each groan.
   Randall experienced a tug, lethal and seductive.  He ached for her. 
Seeing his girl succumb to the same struggle broke his heart.  He needed to
be strong for her.  She was a woman now, and he had a duty as her father.
She was being influenced by the devil, her legs spread open by the forces
of evil, her pussy being molested by corruption.
   Her moaning and writhing was a sure signal of the devil in his baby
girl. Was it on top of her, fucking her with its demonic object?
   "Mmm," Jade groaned.  She mewled and whimpered.  Each sound had his cock
pounding.  He wrapped his palm over it, squeezed and dragged back.  He
jacked his cock through the fabric of his shorts as he had outside, but he
didn't have to imagine his daughter in the throes of lust.  He could hear,
see, and smell the evidence.  "Daddy, please touch me, daddy."
   Randall's mouth fell open, his eyes bugged out.  He felt punched in the
gut.  He couldn't breathe or move.  He was flooded with the desire to take
her hips in his large hands, and stuff her full of his hard cock, his head
buried in her chest, mouth sucking hard on those nipples.
   "I want to be yours, daddy."
   He needed to take action, to save both himself and get his daughter back
toward salvation.  Her glowing, flushed skin belonged to a woman brimming
with sexual allure.  She had always tempted him like no other.  He
shouldn't be staring at her during her private moments, but he couldn't
help himself.
   Thus he stood in the hallway, transfixed by the sight of her rubbing
herself.
   "Mm, daddy." His daughter mewled into the open air, her legs spread
perversely wide.  Her head rolled back and forth as she humped into her
hands.
   What a vision she presented, even for one so debase and depraved.  He
had to rescue her from Satan's grasp, from the devil's hot, smoldering red
prick.  No way his baby girl would have such impure thoughts on her own.
   Jade arched her back and rose to her knees.  The small of her back
tapered from her bottom pressed out, her thighs spread apart, breasts poked
outward.  Her entire being seemed hungry, in heat.
   Randall thumbed the bead of drool about to spill from his chin.  He
studied her figure, traced each curve with his finger tips and tongue.  Her
thigh brushed his cock, causing it to stir and seep with pre-ejaculate.  He
massaged her breast in firm circles until blood rose to the surface,
flushing red.  He leaned down and laved her nipples while his cock buried
inside her, spreading her open.  She met his thrusts, begged for more of
his fat cock.  She craved a man's cock, a virile cock, her father's cock.
   He emerged from his vivid daydream to another shock.
   Jade had changed position once again, and this one gave him a better
view of her pussy.  She had something in her hand, between her legs,
sliding it length-wise along her glistening slit.  She pointed the narrow
end at her entrance and pushed, with fluttering moans and chirps of
delight.
   Randall had never seen anything so gloriously provocative and sexual as
his daughter fucking herself on the bed across the room.  There were no
words.  In the shock and spectacle, he stopping breathing.  His cock pulsed
with each heart beat, tenting his shorts like a diving rod, pointing
straight towards a fount of water.
   Jade brought the tapered end to her lips and sucked.
   Randall's knees weakened, but he braced against the wall before making
an ass of himself.  He could almost feel the cool warmth of her lips and
tongue on his cock, so vivid was his imagination.  Her wet, sucking noises
filled the room.
   She so boldly made love to the synthetic ornament.  What would she do if
given the real thing?  Blood-engorged flesh, demanding her service and
worship.  How long had she been defiling her pussy in this manner?  Was he
already too late to save her?
   The flat of her tongue wrapped around the rippled object in her mouth
and he imagined that tongue on the broad tip of his cock.  Randall's eyes
rolled back as a wave of euphoria washed over him.  She stroked her
glistening slit with the fingers of her free hand.  Her fingers slid
effortless over her clitoris, gentle and soft.  Her moans deepened and
breath caught.
   Jade's suction on the object translated straight to Randall's brain.  He
was swept in that same heated frenzy.  His cock dribbled more fluid,
dampening the cotton material of his shorts.  Jade rotated and humped her
hips into her fingers.  The object left her mouth and returned to her
pussy.
   The large, bulbous end had its turn, sliding up and down her messy cunt.
She gasped and exhaled heavily.  Her body rocked and shook.  "Daddy," she
whispered.  "Like that daddy."
   She pushed the thick end against her opening, her pussy stretched,
opened.  Was she able to get it inside her?  She hooked one leg under the
knee and pulled it back to her chest.  She needed to change the angle,
lower it so that it pointed upward.
   He needed to show her, help her.  Randall felt as if his own cock
pressed at that gate, separating the enflamed flesh.  The sheer size of
that thing made her pussy appear so small.  And yet the object was about
his girth, perhaps a bit more.  She worked it into her wet slit, shuddering
with each twisting push.
   "Ugh, yes." Following by a pained whimper.  "Fuck." She dropped her leg
and attacked her clitoris until she was squealing and squirming with
orgasmic release.
   ***
   Jade nearly had the whole thing inside her, but her orgasm took over and
distracted her from that goal.  She was aware of her father's presence,
amazed that he had said nothing and did nothing to stop her.
   That led Jade to a single conclusion.  He was powerful, his guidance was
real, and she could have exactly what she wanted.
   'Okay.  Say it now.'
   "Yes, daddy, oh yes.  Fuck me, daddy.  I need you."
   Through the opening in her hair, she caught sight of her father's
erection.  She'd never seen it before!  And yet, she still hadn't.  The
fabric of his dark blue shorts stretched outward, darker blue near the end.
He had it is his fist, gripping and shifting.
   Her father was a man of God, a leader, someone people trusted.  By doing
this she would corrupt him, turn him from righteousness and set him on the
path of damnation.  Is that what she wanted for him?  To do this to the man
she loved?
   The muscles in his shoulder and chest tensed, flexed under his
sun-kissed skin.  Beads of sweat rolled down his neck, trailed down his
toned torso.  So lost in pleasure, that Jade never answered that thought,
if that was the result she sought.
   She opened her eyes and pushed her hair back.  He stood over racing
through expressions of confusion, lust, love, and rage.
   'Don't be afraid.  Tell him how much you want him.  Let him believe you
did not know he was there.'
   She rubbed her clitoris, stared into her father's eyes.  The act
thrilled her even more that he'd been watching.  That she could truly have
him in her bed.  Her body quivered and she gushed, humming with need.
   "Daddy.  I'm so sorry, daddy."
   Jade stared at her father's bulge.  He didn't say anything regarding her
apology.  Was he thinking about putting his cock inside her?
   Randall cleared his throat.  "Stop that now.  You need to be strong,
Jade.  Do not defile your body and be swept away by base feelings."
   "I'm yours.  You created me."
   "Now that's blasphemy."
   "Does it taste like blasphemy?  May I?" She parted her lips and flicked
her tongue at his groin.
   "Pray with me, Jade.  Rid yourself of these depraved notions."
   "Maybe we could help each other."
   "We must work together to eject the devil from inside us, my beautiful
child." He flushed, a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face. 
"Promise me.  Never again." He got to his knees.  "Heavenly Father, I ask
you in the name and through the blood of your divine son, to rid this child
of Satanic influence.  Do not allow minions of hell to take that which
belongs to you.  I ask Jesus to place his crown of thorns around Jade so
that unclean spirits will lose interest in her and depart.  In the name of
the father, the son, and the holy ghost, place your mantle of love around
your daughter and shield her.  Amen."
   ***
   "Let's call it a set back." Jade leaned on the side of the tub.  Her
body ached, felt cold and clammy and overheated.
   That didn't go as planned.  The praying went on until after sunset
leaving her both nauseous and cranky.
   'Not at all, but at this pace, we will ruin him.'
   "Fuck him.  Show me how," she giggled, then whispered.  "Daddy."
   Warm caresses traveled over her torso.  Her mind flooded with images of
herself and her father in the throes of lust.  Rutting, bodies wet and
muscled, panting and moaning.
   "What's your name?"
   'Veridal.'
   She chuckled, drained the bathwater.  "Pleased to meet you."
   'Wear one of his shirts then make the dinner you promised.'
   ***
   Randall could not keep from smiling as he watched his wicked daughter.
He sat in the living room, television playing, what, he didn't know.  Jade
dipped her shoulder as she poured liquid into the pot, lifting the edge of
his shirt over the curve of her bare bottom.
   She side-stepped to pull something from the freezer drawer.  His shirt
was all she wore.  The soft smirk to her lips signaled that she was aware,
both of her actions and his attention.
   This road led to damnation, but his daughter held him by the hand. 
Goodness, she was beautiful.  She had blossomed into such a vixen.  The
balls of her bare feet tapped on the kitchen floor as she sauntered from
one end to the other.
   His shirt perfectly outlined her puffy areola.  Each turn, twist, and
position set her in beautiful profile.  The most alluring of all?  She
intended for him to see this.  His own daughter was half-dressed and posing
for him deliberately.
   'A hunger that strong must be fed.'
   Randall had to agree with that sentiment.  Her allure was hard to
resist, all the fire and smoothness of her mother's, his height and
coloring.  He had a keen hunger of his own.  If he let this madness
continue, even for another hour, then he would be lost for life.
   It had been so long since he'd been with a woman.  That's all this was
about.  His balls ached, swollen with his seed and buried lust.  He pressed
his forearm over his bulge.  Each moment had become a spiritual battle to
resist the urge.  He urged to consume her, fuck her raw.  If her sexually
was anything like her mother's.
   The globes of her bottom peaked from under his shirt as Jade set the
table.
   He stood up and sat to the counter.  "Jade.  You need to stop this.  I
apologize for what happened this afternoon.  I cannot begin to explain,"
Explain.  What could he say?
   Jade leaned on the counter opposite him.  "Grow up and be the man that
was my father.  The witch is dead.  Bury her god."
   His stare hardened.
   "Whatever.  You bow to a god that would castrate you and see you
suffer."
   "Now.  You have gone too far.  I don't want to get into an argument.  I
love you.  I want to make this new life work.  What happened yesterday
cannot be repeated."
   Jade removed the pot from the eye and turned off the burners.  "Bet I
can suck your dick as good as you licked my pussy."
   Something within snapped.  She was doing more than teasing him, actively
denying God with her sensual actions.  Wearing his shirt with nothing
underneath, the swaying and jostling of breasts.
   She smelled of sex filled every particle of air he breathed.  She looked
like a woman who wanted to be fucked.  She did this to him on purpose, a
test that he would fail if he didn't take further action.
   "Jade!" He growled.
   Stunned, her eyes went wide.  Before she could part her full lips any
further he grabbed her by the wrist.
   ***
   This close, Jade was able to focus on everything she loved about him. 
She soaked in the vision without having to worry if Jocelyn was coming
around the corner.  Her father, once, was a powerful, sensual,
authoritative man.  Oh, how she had envied her mother, already being a
woman, already able to make him happy.
   When she died, Jade didn't feel obligated, she felt freed to be his, to
take her place, to get ready.  The way he hugged her, the way he smelled,
the sound of his methodical and comforting voice.
   True to Veridal's advice, Jade did not say a word.  Her mouth hung open,
but remained silent.  Her father rounded the counter and pulled her
off-balance, toward him, then over his lap, sending the hem of the shirt
sliding up her back.  Cool air hit the wet flesh of her inner labia.
   What in the hell?!  What did Veridal mean by aggression?  Did he mean
violence?
   'Don't fret.  I'll mitigate it.  You'll do as I say?'
   Absolutely.  Nothing could break her trust in him.
   'What do you want from your father?  What is your goal?'
   She wanted control by doing what she did best, pleasing, giving.  The
arousal trickling down her inner thigh would soon get his attention.
   His firm hands secured her to his body, over him, around him, possessed
by him.  The wooden chair legs groaned on the wooden floor as he pushed
back from the table.  He handled her as if she were paper-light, his
strength ready to subdue her should she decide to fight him.
   Jade would not.  She wanted to cooperate.  He pressed down hard between
her shoulders and she extended her hands to steady herself on the floor,
her toes curled back to arch upward.  The skin of his palm hot between her
shoulder blades.  The erotic charge of being draped over her father's lap,
his hold on her furious and sexual at the same time.
   Was this the violence she had been warned about?
   His erection pressed into her belly, more if she allowed herself to
settle on top of it.
   The first clap of her father's weathered palm stung more than she
anticipated.  The second landed on the opposite cheek.  The third landed
more on her upper thigh.  She grunted, whimpered.  He breathed like a bull.
   Between blows she cried, sniffled, struggled to breathe around the
burning, mind-numbing pain.  She no longer supported her weight.  Each time
he landed another blow, she grunted and shifted in his lap.  Her ass stung,
but her pussy dripped.  It was gushing and creamy wet, aching to be touched
as much as her ass ached to be left alone.
   The next blow stole her breath.  She jumped from the shock, then
screamed.  The furniture groaned, sounds outside and within carried on.  No
one would be able to hear her cries.
   Her pussy hummed and clitoris throbbed.  Her father's breath was heavy,
ragged, like a large beast.  The next time she flinched, he groaned.  His
cock lurched under her belly.  Sweat or some other liquid had pooled
underneath her, causing his shorts to turn damp.
   The discipline ended.  Her breath hitched and she cried openly, tears
fell onto the floor inches away from her face.
   "Think you can get up and finish preparing dinner now?"
   She sank within herself - took backseat to the control of her body.
   'Can you hear me?' Jade said, but her mouth did not form the words.
   "Yes." Her voice sounded different, muffled and clear, like a symphony.
She stood, the edge of his shirt hurt, but not in a way she directly
experienced.  She understood that the sensation was unpleasant, but through
Veridal.
   ***
   No matter how much Randall jacked his cock, no matter how ofter he came,
the image of Jade naked and willing did not leave his fantasies.  Her image
never failed to fill his flagged erection with renewed vigor.
   'Instead of forcing her to be some innocent cherub, you should
appreciate the luscious woman within.'
   He couldn't stop himself, even as she screamed, even as her vaginal
fluids dripped onto his thighs.  The glowing red of her ass soothed him.
   Randall stared down at the beautifully chastised young woman in his
kitchen.  Her thighs glistened, but not from sweat.  Like blooming a
flower, her intoxicating fragrance filled the air.  He shouldn't have been
so cruel.  He owed her an apology, but not until he figured out how to hide
that he'd ejaculated.
   Had she?
   "We must work together, Jade, to fight the evil tempting us toward
damnation."
   She sniffled and set his plate on the table, then shuffled back to the
counter for her own.
   Save for her occasional sniffles, dinner was spent in silence.
   Once she was finished, Randall stood and guided her to the living room.
He sat with her on the couch, hugged her.  "I knew this would be a problem.
I had a problem, a sickness." said Randall.  "That's why Jocelyn was such a
good woman.  She helped you, put you in good schools.  We lived in a safe
neighborhood.  You grew up to be a healthy."
   It was a look in her eye, a glint of something unfamiliar, as if, for a
moment, the woman sitting across from him wasn't his daughter at all.  Or
perhaps he had not seen her so angry before.
   "She despised me, made our lives miserable, and for what?  Maybe I
wouldn't have cared.  Maybe I wanted you back then, too."
   He grinned.  "I'm glad you've grown to be an adult that can imagine such
a thing would have ended well for you."
   "I nearly killed myself.  That's the adult you're so proud of."
   "Are we arriving at the reason you've been acting so strange?  This
isn't about Jocelyn.  You told her to kiss your ass when you quit college."
   "The reason?  I want my daddy, a daddy just for me." She slipped her
hand into his shorts.  "This is about me, daddy.  I want to make you
happy."
   "This can't be right." He mumbled, gasped as her mouth slipped over the
head of his cock.
   Randall stared at the back of her head, amazed that she hadn't learned a
single lesson.  Did he think he was spanking her for fun?
   'Weren't you?  Haven't you missed turning a woman into a mewling cock
slut?  Eager to please you?  She's begging you.'
   Randall's fingertips registered both warmth and moisture.  He rubbing
her slit, sliding up and down a slick valley of pink flesh.
   Jade moaned over his cock, rocked back, grasped his fingers with the
clench of her vaginal muscles.
   'She's just like her mother, don't you think?'
   The wet, churning sound pumped new life into his cock.  She had a
delicious shudder when he switched his fingers for his thumb and circled
her swollen clitoris.
   "This is wrong, Jade, but I cannot fight Satan alone.  Is this what you
want?  I cannot serve my Lord with you as a constant temptation."
   She answered him in small whimpers over his erection and the incessant
clench of her sex.
   His hands slipped between her thighs, caressing her.  He dipped into the
slick pool and traced it higher.  His other hand rested on the back of her
head, resigned to the wicked path she pulled him down.
   ***
   'Listen to me now,' Veridal's voice whispered in her ear.  'Do not
respond.  Let him have you in his mind.'
   "You can't help yourself.  Can you?  Oh, baby, your body feels so good.
These breasts." He rubbed on her for a while.  He pulled her off his cock
and dragged her body across his knee.
   Veridal said, 'You're sorry that you want him so much.'
   It was hard to speak, but the moment she could, Jade said, "I'm sorry
for wanting you so much, daddy."
   His hand grazed up and down the inside of her thigh.  "It's hard to
resist you too, sweet heart."
   Should she tell him that it wasn't about the devil at all?  She'd met a
friend, a wonderful, powerful friend who was able to get her what she
desired.  He wasn't a figment of her imagination, not a story.
   Jade wouldn't dare.  Her father would make it his goal to cast the demon
out.  She understood his reasons, but she couldn't have that, not yet. 
Shivering, she stifled her smile.  How would her father feel if he knew she
enjoyed this moment of pure wickedness?
   Of course this couldn't last.
   She cried out and turned on her side, her head in his lap.  Jade
squeezed his erection through his shorts.  Her hand wrapped around the
bloated end.  "It takes less time to submit than to fight the way I feel."
   His hips moved, sending his cock forward and back through her fist.
   "You are under spiritual attack, Jade.  Come with me to the center
tomorrow.  I'll drive the devil from your body." He could barely finish the
sentence.  Heat, moisture, air.  She had put her mouth back over the end of
his cock.
   She kissed it and stared at him.  "You are under attack.  I am
attacking." Her tongue flicked out.  "Am I evil?  Am I to be cast out?"
   Jade stood and walked away, the bottom of her night shirt bunched up
around her back.  Her whelped ass rocked as she walked away.  Once in her
room, she lay down, legs straight, on her side waiting.
   Randall stood next to her bed, staring down at the bounty she prepared
for him.
   "Make me feel better, daddy." she said.  "Everything hurts or stings or
burns."
   He looked into her eyes then back down to her breasts.  He licked his
lips.  He leaned down, his breath tightened the fat nubbin.
   "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and with the blood of Christ I
bind any demons."
   She giggled.  "Bind me, by hand hands and feet.  Spread me open."
   "It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call of the name of the
Lord shall be delivered.  I renounce all pride.  I confess and repent all
my sins before you, Lord, and ask your forgiveness.  I confess that I lust
for my only child.  I dream of her wet pussy.  I crave her beautiful lips
stretched around my cock.  I want to fuck her until my cock rises no more.
I want to fill her with my semen, Lord.  I want her pussy to overflow with
my offering."
   It's working!  Jade held her breath to hold back her excitement.
   Her body hummed as her father's voice strained and lips neared proximity
to her breasts.
   "Based on your son's sacrifice, I ask you to release me from this
torment.  Allow me to be free to suck on my daughter's breasts.  Give me
what I need from Satan and his demons.  Grant me the power to make her come
only under my command, for her to serve at her master's cock.  I take my
stand with you, God, with the Satanic host and his demons.  Jesus, please,
cleanse me with your blood."
   His eyes were squeezed shut, sweat dripped from him forehead.  Randall
shifted between painfully arousal declarations of lust to insipid pleas to
be freed from it.  Did he even know the words he spoke anymore?
   Jade pulled the glass dildo from her pussy, slowly brought it toward his
face.
   'Careful, love.  You walk a fine line.  Follow my instruction.'
   She would.  How could she not?  She could not deny the potency of his
power, maybe Jocelyn did her a favor by being such a bitch.  She rubbed the
large dildo over her nipple, between her father's fervent praying lips and
her nipple, covering it with her vaginal fluid.  He could smell her, but
soon he would taste her.
   "I command you to leave me now.  I cast you and all other, and all you
other," he coughed.  "You must leave me now.  I am monument of lust.  I am
a monument of depravity.  Fuck," he whispered, then even softer.  "Fuck."
   Jade arched her back and brought her breasts to her father's lips. 
"Daddy, I want to serve you and beg you to fill me with your cock."
   Randall stared into her eyes as he sucked on the puffy swollen nipple.
He groaned and stuffed more of her into his mouth, nibbling with his teeth,
flicking his tongue.  He drooled out the side of her mouth, beads of saliva
rolled down her breasts.
   Jade giggled and groaned.  He felt so good.  The suction of her nipples
went straight to her pussy.  She spread her legs wider and rubbed the
ridged bubbles of her toy back and forth over her clitoris.
   "Make it better.  Suck on my breasts, suck on my nipples.  Oh, please.
Feels so good.  Don't stop.  I submit myself to you, father.  Resist all
that holds you back and take what is yours."
   He palmed her other breast, squeezing the full mound, pinching the
nipple.
   Her pussy quivered as she pressed the dildo inside her.  This would be
her daddy one day, demanding entry.
   Mouthing and sucking on her breasts, Randall mumbled, "Yes, submit to
me. Please, help me and deliver me, Lord.  I need her."
   "Fight it, daddy.  You're stronger.  Take your cock out and put it
inside my mouth."
   "You're a wicked slut," his fingernails dug into her breasts.
   Jade's mouth opened into a silent scream.  "I am willing.  I submit to
you.  Only you can fill my pussy with your cock and make it orgasm by your
command alone.  Help me to be fulfilled, with no desire of my own, no
thoughts of ideas of my own, but willing to follow any command put to me by
you!  Break me and remake me as your slut, as your whore." Her pussy humped
the object.  It was vibrating!  It had to be.  Oh, it felt so good.
   'Do you still want to destroy him?'
   "Is that what you really want baby girl?  That's what you want to be?"
   Jade glanced at her father, he had pushed her onto her back and sucked
her other nipple.  Her ass stung and she bit her lip to swallow the pain.
   Veridal took her by the ankles and spread her legs further apart.  'Now
is the last moment to change your mind.'
   Would that upset him?
   'No one is closer than us.  There is no tomorrow without me.  What you
want is what I want for you.  Destroy him?'
   "Yeah," she breathed.  "Yes, please."
   ***
   Randall's mind was a bedlam, gnashing and screaming, begging and
yelling. So many voices.  This tit was his lifeline.  It made him feel
protected, safe, content.
   'Fight it, daddy.' Her voice guided him through the darkness.  He would
not let anything tear him away.  He'd fight for her.
   Something wanted to stop him from putting his cock in her mouth.  A
willing, wet, soft mouth to take his cock.  No rough fabric, unkind seams,
cramped spaces, or restrictions.
   He caressed her thigh.  His fingertips dug into the flesh next to her
pussy and slipped in the liquid there.  She was still wet and still
lubricating.  He'd already touched her once.  Why had he stopped there?  He
circled her clitoris and his hand quested lower and met with a wet rod. 
The object was slippery, warm, and coated in slimy film.
   "What is that?" He moved to nibble at the bulbous mound of flesh created
at the bottom of her breasts.  He sucked on it, placing a bright red hickey
in that spot.
   He sat up and spied the object protruding from her pussy, narrow end
inserted.
   "My sweet girl." He placed his fingers around the fat end of the glass
toy inside her and slid it deeper inside her.
   "Ow," she flinched and rose onto her elbows to scoot backwards.  She
hesitated due to the burn on her rear and her father grabbed her by the
throat and slammed her back onto the bed.
   "Satan gave you this to blind your from the Lord's grace." He growled,
twisting and rocking the dildo inside her.  Thankfully, he did not try to
make it go deeper.  "Pure evil.  Look what it has turned you into.  Do you
care?  No.  Every part of it soaking wet." He took it out and sucked on the
narrow end.  With a low, growling hum, his eyes rolled back.  He kept the
object in his mouth and took off his shorts.
   His hand left her neck long enough to steady himself as he sat over her
breasts, his ass in her face.
   "I am weak, Jade.  I am undeserving." He slid the toy in and out of her.
Her creamy pussy noisy around the object.
   Jade felt a jolt of excitement.  She reached up and grazed the large
staff bobbing between his thighs.  His cock surged and thickened, hard and
warm in her palm.  She imagined his penis penetrating her.  She bucked and
squirmed on the toy inside her.  This was the orgasm she had been promised,
rushing to fill every pore in her body with euphoria and joy.
   "Oh, daddy," she breathed out, her hand held and caressed her father's
erection.  "I love you, daddy." Slick fluid covered her fingers and palm.
It came from the tip, but didn't last very long.  Perhaps if she put him in
her mouth?
   'Keep stroking him.  You'll get what you seek shortly.'
   Randall breathed harder.  The more he gave into his desires, the more
she could sense the powerful energy swirl through her.  It centered in her
heart and warmed her belly, tingled her thighs.  The sensation was refined,
soulful.
   Jade squeezed the muscles of her pussy.  She tightened her legs and
pointed her toes.  She pushed her hips up to her father's face, throbbing
and glistening, aching with lust.
   Randall twirled in the object in his fingers making it spin.
   Her fist turned in a corkscrew around his shaft.
   Randall shifted so that he lay on top of Jade.  He set the toy aside and
replaced it with the broad side of his cock.  He got a handful of her
breast and leaned down to touch his nose to hers.  "I love you too, baby
girl.  I've done everything to avoid this happening."
   "Let's not make that mistake anymore." Jade stared into her father's
eyes.
   She wrapped her legs around his waist, allowing him to more fully settle
on top of her.  He rested on one elbow while his hand massaged her breast.
   'Soon he will fill you with his seed.  He will explode in you, emptying
his heart and soul into yours.  Once the beast rises, it will only be
subdued by satisfaction.'
   "Shit, so wet." He moved the slightest bit, but it was akin to lighting
a match.  His warm cock pressed along her slit, her clitoris.  She rolled
her hips, luxuriating in his girth, the hand-free pleasure he offered.
   Randall smoothed his hand down her side, rounded her bottom and took
hold of her thigh.  "Is this what you want, Jade?  You want me inside you?"
As he asked, he shifted, sliding the thick shaft back and forth.  His voice
was full with lust and hunger, impassioned fervor.
   "Do you want me, daddy?  Don't want you to be inside me?"
   "Yes, Buttercup, fuck yes.  You're so gorgeous darling." He leaned
forward and pressed his lips to hers, then held the position as if debating
whether to go further.
   Jade parted her lips and his tongue flicked hers.  She wrapped her arms
around him and Randall rolled her on top of him.  This allowed Jade to ride
the length of her father's cock and kiss him.  Her erect nipples brushed
his chest.
   He sucked on her tongue and clenched on her ass, pressed her down on his
shaft, controlling the speed of her movement.  He kissed and nibbled along
her neck, her cheeks, then down to capture breasts.
   Jade worked her father's cock, gyrated with urgency, a humming sing-song
moan rose in her throat, echoed by her father's grunts and heavy breath. 
All the discomfort and soreness from taking her father's huge penis into
her delicate pink pussy disappeared.
   "I want to fuck you, Jade." He breathed out as he nuzzled her breasts.
   "Please do," Jade put her finger under his chin.  "Randall, I want you
to fuck me."
   He forgot all about his faith, God, Satan, or demons.  This moment was
about what he wanted, and he wanted to bury his cock into his little girl.
He wanted the pleasure he had denied himself for too long.
   Jade loved the sight, smell, touch, and sound of him.  There was more
emotion and desire in her heart than should ever reside in a daughter for
her father.  She didn't want this to end.  Nothing anyone could do or say
would dissuade her from this path.  Jade's fingers spread over his
shoulders, the entrance to her vaginal cavern pulsed.
   They looked at each other, each with a secret smile.
   He took her hand and placed it on his shaft.  "Put me inside you, Jade."
   A thrill buzzed through her at his husky request.  She had yearned for
those words, this moment.  She placed her father's cock to her entrance. 
He pressed forward, the wide head spreading her open until it popped past
the ring of her vaginal opening.  He was in, now he had to get deeper,
further than she had ever taken the wider part of her toy.
   Randall pulled her into a kiss as he sank into her a little at a time,
working his way further into her body.  They breathed over each others
lips, sweat formed in the placed where their bodies touched.  She tensed in
relaxed in stages, each one signaling him when to move further or hold
back.
   "Are you all right?" He whispered.
   "Uh huh," Jade kissed him harder, held him tight in case he considered
changing his mind.
   Using a slow, shallow fuck, his penis worked steadily deeper, widening
and shaping her to his body.
   "Oh," she swooned when he hit a particularly nice spot.  Jade adjusted
her legs to keep him at that angle.
   "You like that?"
   "Yes.  That feels much better."
   Randall groaned as her tight pussy gripped him in ways he had not
experienced since her mother's death.  The product of that first union lay
under him, taking his cock.  It felt good to her now, but he still had a
ways to go, and he had no plans to stop until she had all of him.  "That's
it.  You need it, don't you, Buttercup?"
   Eyes closed, her mouth open, hot breath leaving in short pants.  Jade
nodded and mewled as her head turned from one side to the other.  She
rolled down onto him, bringing him further inside, fucking herself.
   "Take it baby.  That's a good girl.  Fuck yourself with my cock." He
pushed deeper, using all of his patience and will to make this good for
her, to perfect the memory of her first time with him.  "Rub your clitoris,
Jade." He took her hand and placed it between her bodies.  "Make yourself
climax on my cock."
   He leaned back to view his wet shaft, over half of it enveloped by her
heat and pressure.  Her index and middle fingers caressed the placed where
they were joined, bringing the moisture up to her clitoris.  Once she had
it slick, she rubbed it in tiny circles, up and down the sides.  Her
vaginal walls clamped down on him, almost pushing him out again.
   'She loves it.  See?  She needs it.  Your little girl craves you.'
   No longer a source of torment, the voice had turned soothing and
supportive.
   'Deeper now.  She's ready.  Know me by my words, is this not what you
preach?  Practice it now.  Take her.'
   Randall took hold of Jade's thighs and pulled her closer.  Her little
fingers sped faster, her body trembled.
   "Fuck me, Daddy," she whimpered, her face morphed into a tense mask that
could have been mistaken for pain if not for the wanton undulation of her
body.  "Yes, more, fuck me please.  Now, daddy, now, please fuck me.  I
want you inside me, all of you.  I'm so close.  I love it.  Fuck my wet
cunt.  Fuck, yes, so good."
   He slid the rest of the way inside her, until he could feel her fingers
at his groin.  Deep in the back of his mind he wondered where his daughter
had learned such foul language, when she had begun to curse so brazenly. 
He did not pay the question much mind.  Her delirium, foul language,
lustful madness spurred him further, until he was truly fucking her,
ramming his thick, bulging cock into her pussy.
   "Close daddy," she mumbled and went both still and quiet.
   He leaned forward, but arched to give her fingers freedom to move and
buried deeper inside the tightening grip of her orgasmic pussy.  It was
near painful as she reached her orgasm, gripping, throbbing.
   Not yet, please, not yet.  He didn't want to ruin this moment.
   Jade collapsed with a cry, gasping for her first breath, her eyes glazed
and unfocused.
   Randall settled onto her, his chest pressed to her breasts, his head on
the pillow beside hers.
   She wrapped her arms around legs around him and held tight.  She parted
her lips as if to speak, but could not find the space around her rapid
pants.
   "Take your time."
   "I've never," she returned to her breaths.
   "Want more?"
   "Mmm, hm." She used part of the bed sheet to pat her face and neck dry,
then reached over to his.
   "Thank you."
   They giggled and kissed.  Randall slid through her dripping wet pussy,
churning the post-orgasm fluid and stimulating her to produce more.  Jade
cooed as his pace accelerated, going deep inside and drawing back out.
   She whispered in his ear, sounding very much like the voice that had
been in his head these past few days.  "Doesn't this feel so much better?
Fucking your little girl with that monster cock.  You needed this pussy,
didn't you?  I love it, daddy.  I needed it.  I need you inside me.  Let me
be yours from now on.  Take me whenever you want me."
   "When did you get such a dirty mouth, young woman?"
   "When I got desperate to have you back.  I'll clean it up for you if you
want." She softened her voice and raised the pitch.  "Please, da-da.  Will
you play with your baby girl?"
   The look in her father's eyes caused Jade to clamp her pussy tight
around him.  A moment of profound darkness and malice flashed in his eyes,
but also a hunger stripped of regret or second thoughts.  He adjusted his
grip, one hand under her ass, the others behind her head.
   Their bodies smacked together, accompanied by his heavy breaths, the
protest of the bed frame, the tingle of her lamp shade rocking.  Jade could
not contribute to the music because she had stopped breathing.  He fucked
her with impossible force, driving so deep and hard that she thought her
body would break, but she accepted him, took him.
   Randall leaned to the side of Jade's ear.  His back arched, hips
snapping, muscles flexing with each savage thrust inside her.  "My baby
girl.  Don't forget to breathe honey."
   Jade gasped and her next exhalation left her at a high whine.  Her
respiration became a series of short cries.
   "I love you, Jade.  I thought I could keep this part of myself away from
you.  I was wrong.  I'm going to fuck you whenever I want from now on. 
You'll learn everything I have to teach.  I can't resist you any longer,
baby."
   Randall missed the triumphant smile on Jade's face.  His eyes were shut
tight as he drove himself to the brink.  He was lost in a state of absolute
bliss.  His daughter took all of him, deep as he could go, hard as he
wanted her, with the full force of his lusts.  The mixture of his hard
cock, her went pussy, the snug fit, massaging and caressing him.  Her
screams and moans egged him on.  Gone for so long, and now he was finally
here, where he belonged a home, a sanctuary.  This was righteousness, this
was holiness.  This was his home.
   "Daddy," she whispered, no longer using the child-like affect, her voice
breathy and soft.  "Please daddy.  Ugh.  Something ...  happening."
   Randall blinked his eyes open and realized he was about to make her
orgasm.  She was about to have another one, right on his cock.  He was
going to feel those muscles milking him and he'd answer.  Just the thought
tightened his balls and readied his load.
   "Come for daddy, Jade.  Come on my cock." He thought to say more, but
she followed his order and pulled him over the cliff.
   She hooked her legs behind him, wrapped her arms around his muscled
shoulders.  Their bodies lost control, bucking, shaking, jerking as they
each rode out their orgasms.
   ***
   Pinned under her father's body, she thought nothing of the heat, weight,
or discomfort.  For these few seconds there was only triumph and beauty at
her accomplishment.
   'Thank you,' she mouthed to Veridal.  He appeared to be perched in the
window sill, looking upon their rutting in quiet approval.
   This time, he was nude.  Odd musculature, bright golden blue eyes.  Dark
violet tinge in his dark hair.  His cock was impressive at a glance.  It
was slick now, slowly being stroked within his fingers.
   'Beautiful,' Veridal said.
   Cool liquid dripped onto her neck, then a sniffle from her father.
   Jade turned and met her father's red eyes.  "What's wrong?"
   "What isn't?  Look what I've done."
   'Make him look.'
   "Yes, daddy." She pushed on his shoulder and he eased back.  "Go look."
   His long face drawn with regret, he crawled back until he was looking
down at her pussy.
   Jade hooked her legs and drew them back until her knees neared her
shoulders.
   Randall lay on his belly, rested on her thigh.  His eyes closed and he
took a long slow breath.  His expression seemed calm, wistful as he finger
her inner labia.  "Sore?"
   She used baby talk to answer him.  "A little.  Would you kiss me better,
daddy?"
   ***
   The vibrating electricity that had led him to this act faded, leaving
Randall with the reality of what he'd done.  The multitudes of sins and
transgressions he had willingly committed.  Face to face with the evidence
of his fall from grace.
   Jade's red, glistening slit framed his fingers as they penetrated her
stretched pussy.  They emerged coated in the union of their fluids, his
sperm and her slick arousal that continued to flow.  He kissed her pussy,
licked the underside of her clitoris.
   He would be damned to hell for this, his soul forever denied access to
heaven.
   'This heaven is better.'
   He buried his head in her crotch to hide the sudden grin.
   "Daddy?"
   Damn it.  He had to make her stop talking like that.  Was the act not
degenerate enough without her perfectly affecting her younger self?  Cute,
innocent, sweet.
   'Everything you love about her.'
   Indeed.  "Yes, baby?"
   "Please lick me."
   "Where?" He grinned at her then, kissed her inner thigh and flicked out
his tongue.
   "On my little button, pwease, daddy?"
   She was such a wicked little girl.  He answered her plea with a vigorous
focus on her clitoris.  Her pussy tingled and pulse on his fingers.  Her
moan vibrated through her body.
   Randall lathered Jade's pussy with his tongue.  Once he got her off,
he'd get his cock back inside her.  He curled his fingers, thumping the
roof of her vaginal walls.  His tongue washed over her swollen clitoris. 
Her body quaked and hips rolled, bucking at his tireless tongue.
   "Thank you, daddy.  This feels so good.  Take me, daddy.  Use me hard."
   Ravenous, thirsty, hungry, Randall moaned into Jade's creaming cunt. 
She thrust her pussy into her his mouth, bucking and moaning.  The wave of
her orgasm crested and her entire body vibrated with ecstasy.
   "That's a good girl.  Gush for daddy." He nibbled on her inner thighs.
Her front was covered in sweat, the sheets under them soaking wet.
   The fragrant smell of their bodies filled the room.
   ***
   Jade lay awake with her father sleeping on her shoulder.  They were
still naked, but the early evening brought a cool breeze through the open
windows.  The trees rustled from the brief gusts of wind.
   Randall stirred beside her, groaned and stretched as usual.  It had been
a while since they shared an afternoon nap.  How old had she been?  Eight?
Nine?  He'd hold her while she cried for her mother.
   His thumb grazed her nipple and sparked the embers of her desire.
   She rolled onto her side and gave him her biggest, brightest smile.  His
was tight, a flash of mirth that drowned in an expression full of regret
and contemplation.  She lay on his chest and caressed him, working her way
down to his cock.  It hardened in her grip, slightly sticky and much cooler
than earlier.
   The terse smile on her father's face softened.  He sighed and got a
handful of her bottom.  "What am I going to do with you?"
   "Whatever you want, of course." She lifted one legs over his thighs. 
His fingers went lower and grazed her slit.  She smiled softly and kissed
him on the chest.  She gave his swelling erection another soft squeeze.
   "How are you feeling?  Anything hurt?"
   She giggled.  "No.  I'm okay.  I had no idea it would be so intense. 
That was awesome."
   His laugh was much softer.
   "Did you have fun, daddy?  Did you enjoy fucking me?" She rolled on top
of him and rocked back and forth, dragging her breasts up and down his
chest.  She haunched his erection warming them both.
   "You know I did." He groaned and his eyes glued to the fascinating sway
of her bosom.  "Jade." He pulled her onto his chest, wrapped his large arms
around her.  The other hand rested on her ass, dragging her up and down the
underside of his cock.
   "Want me again?  Could I put you in my mouth?" She flicked out her
tongue to lick his neck.  It was salty from his dried sweat.  She cooed and
purred, soon they were breathing fast, kissing, humping.
   Randall was lost the moment she touched him.  He was lost, without the
benefit of redemption.  "I'd like that very much." The possibility raced
through his mind, watching her touch herself, viewing her half dressed
throughout the house without averting his gaze.
   "This is so nice."
   "I agree." He pulled her into a kiss, working himself up toward a second
round.
   The phone rang.  Randall groaned.
   "Don't answer it."
   He craned around her to look at the time.  "I was supposed to be at the
center half an hour ago."
   "No, daddy, please." Jade affected her best pout.
   "Mmm, baby.  I have to go." The thought of leaving put a boulder in his
stomach.  Would they be able to see the sin on him?  Walk into the center
and all heads turn, seeing him for the sinner he had become.  Worse.
   Jade flopped onto her back and sighed.  "Fine.  I guess.  I'll put on
dinner okay?  Don't be too late getting back." She flashed him a wink.
   "I won't be gone long.  Promise."
   ***
   Jade luxuriated in her father's attention.  He caused her to feel so
loved, satisfied, and adored.  She wanted to make sure he had that same
feeling after being with her.
   She turned down the fire on her sauce, a slight smile on her face.
   Veridal, a constant presence in both her mind and her imagination, sat
on the counter.
   "I want to do everything with him."
   "He wants the same from you."
   "You know that?"
   Veridal nodded.
   "What else do you know?"
   "He has sought to bury his past, his desires.  You have unearthed the
loose soil, given those desires room to breathe and grow."
   Jade lay her head in Veridal's lap.  The gesture was accompanied by
warmth and pressure.  She drew a breath, and caught his scent.  Buttery
male.  She grinned.  "Thank you."
   "No, Jade, it is you I must thank.  You are easy to please."
   "And what can I do to please you?"
   He smoothed her hair down.  "Our bond is plenty."
   <->
Written: November 2014
   Contact: nysidra at hot mail dot com
  
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