In Which Baked Goods Are Enclosed
I started feeling light-headed again on my way back up the stairs. By the time I got up to the fifth floor, I was starting to feel really winded. I ditched my cunning plan to hold my laundry up in front of me to hide my bloodied, messed up clothes and replaced it with a cunning plan to stagger all the way to my room without falling down.
I passed Sara, Tara, and Finbar in the hall. The twins pointed and shrieked in what I think was supposed to be mock horror and clutched at… themself, saying, “Oh fuck, she did! She really did!”
I dropped the laundry basket just inside the door. The general idea had been to put my bed back together, change into my idea of pajamas, and crawl under the covers for a couple hours of real shut-eye. I got as far as getting out of my clothes and then the night of interrupted sleep, the expenditure of mystic energy, my demonic hunger, and the shocks of the morning came crashing down upon me. I threw my pillow on the bare mattress and collapsed.
My dreams were a wild jumble of images. I was some place dark, like the basement, only much bigger and more confusing. There were people all around me, talking… having fun… but every time I started near them they’d turn and attack me, or just laugh and dissolve. I think there was a lot of sexual things going on around the periphery, but if so, it was pretty abstract.
For some reason, the exotic Gloria kept showing up among those attacking me. Well, she was my sparring partner… I guess it was natural for my mind to associate her with combat.
I felt like I was growing younger and younger, or at least smaller, because the basement was getting larger and so were the figures of the people who kept chasing me away. I finally turned a corner, chased by a towering Gloria and a pack of immense girls from my high school only with fangs and claws, and was relieved to see somebody waiting there about my own size. Then she started to turn around so I could see who it was…
I woke up, drenched in nothing but sweat this time. I was covered in my blanket. I felt the need to gasp in great choking lungfuls of air but my body didn’t want to move yet. Gradually I threw off my sleep-addled state, and then I threw off the blanket.
I checked the time. It was a quarter till four in the afternoon. I’d only meant to sleep for a few hours… definitely no later than lunch. The thought brought about a sudden gnawing pang that I knew wasn’t for chicken or ice cream. Still, putting something in my belly would at least help me get my mind off it.
Two had brought her minifridge with her when she’d moved in, but I didn’t know what she might need for class and I hated the idea of raiding it without asking. I’d barely stopped to consider the matter when an out of place flash of color on top of my dresser caught the corner of my eye.
It was a cookie piled high with thick blue frosting, on which a little frosting scene had been painted: two heads (or at least, pink ovals), one with yellow hair and one with a sort of really dark blue colored hair. The faces had little dots for eyes, cartoon smiles for mouths, and no other details except for tiny letters across the foreheads: “TWO” and “TOY”.
I smiled at that. I guess black wasn’t that common a color for frosting.
Okay, so having Two for a roommate wasn’t really bad at all.
There was an envelope next to the cookie, inside of which was the following letter:
Dear Miss Mackenzie Blaise:
You are not supposed to sleep naked or in a bed without sheets, but I did not would like to wake you so I decided to tell you with a note. Do not forget about lunch or to tell Amaranth why my clothes were bloody and torn. Also, do you know where my headband and button are? Thank you very much for your prompt reply in this matter. I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience, or when I get done with working for the day.
Sincerely
Love,
TWOP.S.: It’s okay for me to sign this letter like that because I know you very well.
enc: one (1) ckie w/ frstng. mfh hlpd.
She must have picked up some bare bones version of business correspondence somewhere. Had that been one of her former duties? Also… “mfh.” What was that about?
Well, at least she hadn’t tried to literally enclose the cookie.
She’d obviously put so much work into the frosting. It was almost a shame to eat it.
Of course, if Two herself had been there, she would have told me that cookies are supposed to be eaten, that’s what they’re for. With that kind of logic, I couldn’t help eating it.
After taking a few moments to clean all the frosting off my hands (yum!), I dug some clean clothes out of my laundry basket. I dug out the tightest pair of jeans I owned and the thong Steff had picked out for me. Since Two wouldn’t let me re-wear anything I’d worn for even half a day, that would get me out of having to wear them again until the next time I did laundry.
Following on the heels of that thought, I realized I did have a couple clean garments I’d overlooked: the other things Steff had picked out for me for the dance. There was no way the skirt was going to make it into my casual rotation, but the black and red stretchy top was… not that bad. I took it down from its hanger and tried it on. I’ve never been that into fashion, but I didn’t think it looked too terribly terrible with the black jeans.
I mean, it really looked kind of okay. I looked kind of okay in it.
The cookie hadn’t done much to take the edge off my growing hunger. Well, Two’s letter had mentioned lunch. It was a little bit late for that, but it was early for dinner. I considered visiting Two over at White House. I had liked their chicken strips, after all. I didn’t know what her work schedule was, but I had a feeling she hadn’t come back yet, or else she would have amended her letter. It just seemed like something she would have done.
I did some mental calculations. I’d been spending more money than I’d wanted to… but if I really wasn’t going to buy blood from a slaver then that opened up some of the money I had saved. Of course, it would be reckless to spend that before I had another source lined up.
Something about catching sight of myself in the mirror made me realize I had another option. Even if I was only wearing the uncomfortable clothes to get them out of the way, there was no reason they had to go to waste, right? And using the magic mirrors for intra-campus communication was free.
I went out into the hall and headed for the public mirror by the lounge. Trina the triclops was hanging out in the little alcove left from where the hallway had used to go around the lounge, before they partitioned off the two halves of the floor, talking on her hand mirror.
“…not even real gold,” she was saying in an excited not-quite whisper. “And that’s why her nipples are green!”
There was a triumphant note in her voice as she announced this. It wasn’t hard to guess she was talking shit about Feejee. Finding out that Trina even spread rumors about her supposed friends should have made me feel better about the things she’d said about me, but it really only made me feel worse about her.
What an absolute waste of space.
I remembered how she’d talked about me to Feejee… calling me “it”, like I was just some thing. That was what Two had said her master’s wife had called her: a creepy thing. Just thinking about that made me want to poke her right in her stupid oversized extra eye, but I held my temper. I was good, after all. I had Maliko’s word on that, after all… and she was the expert.
I wondered… what would Trina do if she knew about Maliko’s “secret laundry technique”? It would almost be worth telling her, for whatever damage that would do to the yokai girls’ image and Sooni’s election bid.
Trina turned and noticed me. She tilted her head away from the mirror.
“Oh… hi, Mack!” she said. She gave me a way-fake smile. “Going to the match later?”
“No,” I said. I almost asked “what match?” before remembering there was a skirmish match coming up.
“Listen, Gladys, I’ll have to catch you later,” she said into the mirror, then stowed it in her shoulder bag. “Can I… um… help you with something, Mack?”
“I just need to use the hall mirror,” I said, jerking my head at it.
“Oh, okay,” she said, and started to head past me. She stopped suddenly, with an unconvincing attempt to look like a stray thought had just passed through her mind. “Oh, hey, by the way… you know, nobody’s really seen that golem girl all day, and I thought I heard somebody say they saw you coming back early this morning… with her clothes?”
She had a sort of half-cringing, half-expectant look on her face, as if she was equally eager and terrified to hear me confirm her worst suspicions. Really… it sounded like somehow Sara and Tara seeing me wearing Two’s clothes had turned into me doing away with her, and then keeping the bloodied rags I’d torn from her body as some kind of grisly trophy?
The whole idea was ridiculous. Even if a golem’s blood was a close enough approximation of a human’s–and I was fairly certain human magic couldn’t pull that off–there was no way Two was a virgin. Not the way she was built. It was a shame, too, because I just knew she would have jumped at the chance to help her “sister.”
Hell, she’d probably serve herself to me on a silver platter, with an apple in her mouth for garnish.
“Yeah,” I said, returning Trina’s fake smile and willing myself not to set myself, her, or the room on fire. It was a surprisingly close thing. “Yes, I was borrowing some of her things this morning. She’s working today, over in the student union.”
“Oh, really?” Trina said, in the tone of doubt pretending to be fascination. “Well, I didn’t know she had a job. That’s interesting.”
“Yeah,” I said, wondering how that could possibly have escaped her, given how much time she spent talking to Two and all! “Isn’t that something?”
“Where’s she working?” Trina asked. “I think I might just go over and… you know, say hi. Check on her.”
“White House,” I said. I smiled wider, making sure to show my teeth a bit. She thought I was a “creepy thing”? She wanted to check and make sure I hadn’t killed and eaten my roommate? If she wanted to fuck with me, I was going to fuck back. “I’m going over myself in a bit to get something to snack on. You want to come with me?”
“Um, I don’t think so,” she said. “You know, I should really run. My friend Gladys is expecting me. I’m supposed to meet her… I mean, she’s supposed to be meeting me any minute. So, um, I’m just going to…”
I didn’t say or do anything else, but all of a sudden she turned a pale green and ran past me, all the way to her own room. I’d never noticed that she had kind of a fat ass. I had a good laugh, both at that and at her turning all chicken like that.
Then, it was time to get down to business. I wasn’t getting any less hungry standing there, after all. I gave the mirror Ian’s name and room listing and waited for him to come into view. He took his time responding. I’d almost decided to just say fuck the whole thing and go out by myself when his image started to form.
He had his shirt on this time, but he still looked pretty yummy. I licked my lips, thinking about the taste and feel of his dick in my mouth… and it hit me that he was the only one getting off in our relationship. It seemed like it was about time for a little quid pro quo.
“Mackenzie?” he asked a little uncertainly. I wondered who else he’d been expecting?
“Hey… uh… Ian,” I said. His name seemed a bit harder to call to mind than it should have been, considering I’d just said it to the mirror. “I was just wondering if you wanted to take a lady out to get a bite to eat?”
“Mackenzie… why are your eyes on fire?”
Ian that girl your dating, the one giving you the blowjobs? You know, the demon girl. Ring any bells fellow? Sounds like she expecting a hot time in the old town tonight.
Oh god this is awesome now we get to see her go from sub to Dom from not drinking virgin blood
I think this is less her turning into a dom and more just her becoming a huge bitch.