188: Drawn

on April 1, 2008 in 07: Pitched Battles

In Which Steff Exercises Her Talents On Mackenzie’s Pants

I ended up getting my chance to talk to Steff in private when I went to return her basket of bath stuff.

It was a little bit weird, going over to the guys’ side on my own. It was broad daylight, so I had every right to be there, but I kept expecting somebody to challenge me… or hit on me, or something. Considering that other girls apparently went over there at all hours of the day and night, it was probably silly of me… but hey, that’s about standard for me, isn’t it?

I felt a little bit of trepidation as I approached the fourth floor. I knew there was this whole big protocol Viktor and Steff had for knocking, but I didn’t really know how it worked. I figured I could rap quietly on the door and if I didn’t get a response, I’d just hang the little decorative basket on the handle and leave.

Luckily, Steff was actually sitting with her back to the door when I arrived. She was scribbling away at a large sketch pad, with her backpack beside her.

“Hey,” I said.

“Oh, hey, you,” she said, smiling with near-Amaranth intensity as she flipped the pad closed and laid it aside.

It was a striking image: her beautiful, elven face framed by her stunning platinum blonde hair, all illuminated by the radiance of her smile… but I was a little worried that it might have been the effects of a potion.

“You’re awfully happy about something,” I said.

“You,” she said. “I’m happy about you. I didn’t want to spazz out in front of everybody else, but I’m… well… I’m really glad that you’re okay.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I mean, they told Two they weren’t even sure you were still in this world,” Steff said. “I was about ready to… well… I’m glad you’re back.”

“I love you, Steff,” I said.

“Love you, too,” she said, looking away and covering her mouth with her hand. “Um, did you have a nice bath?”

“Started out that way,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I told her the story of what had happened, and watched her face change. The smile started to falter, and then it leveled off completely, and then the corners of her mouth began to droop. By the time I finished relaying Kiersta’s reaction, she looked murderous.

“Those fucking twats,” Steff said. “I would have rammed that toilet paper down their throats… or, down one of their throats and back out the other one. I don’t know.”

“They’re just so…”

“Cuntish?” Steff suggested.

“I don’t really care for that word,” I said.

“Outside of recreational use, anyway,” Steff said, smirking, and I blushed. “Yeah, I’ve been talking to Ian.”

“I was going to say ‘immature’,” I said. “So, um… what were you drawing?”

“Oh, just doodles and stuff,” Steff said.

“Can I see?”

“They’re really not very good.”

“I thought that picture you drew of me in class was…” I blushed, and swallowed.

The drawing of me trussed up on a table had been undeniably hot. That the expression on the image’s face had been one of fear rather than arousal had somehow… well, I don’t know what it had done. If I really got that scared in real life, I’d have used my safeword for sure… but it was just a picture, just a fantasy.

“Yeah, it was for shit, I know,” Steff said. “I must have been drunker than I realized.”

“No, it was good!” I said.

“You have to say that because you’re my friend,” Steff said.

“Steff, I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said, a little annoyed that she wouldn’t take me at my word. “It was really good. I… um… I’d like to see more, if you’ve got any.”

She clutched the notepad to her chest and looked up at me wide-eyed as if she thought I’d try to take it away from her.

“If you feel like sharing, I mean,” I said. “It’s up to you.”

“Maybe,” she said, relaxing a bit. “I’ll have to think about it. Maybe I could go through my notebooks and find some that aren’t too shitty or, you know, too extreme.”

Too extreme? I knew the sorts of things Steff was into. I didn’t see how a drawing of them would be that bad.

“Okay,” I said. “Um… do you mind if I sit with you for a bit?”

“No, go ahead.”

Steff scooted over a bit and I sat down beside her.

“So, what are you hanging out here in the hall for?” I asked.

“Oh, I like to come out here to draw,” Steff said. “The sound of the pencil scratching kind of irritates Viktor, a little.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Something on your mind, hon?”

“Kind of,” I said. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Okay,” she said. “I hope I know the answer.”

“It’s not that kind of question,” I said. “It’s more personal.”

“Well, don’t be shy,” she said. “My life’s an open book.”

“It’s not really… well, never mind,” I said. “I’ll just ask.”

“Okay,” Steff said.

Silence.

“This would be the part where you ask,” Steff said.

“I know,” I said. “Would you… um…”

“Would I what?”

“Do you want to go out with me?” I asked.

She stared at me like she couldn’t believe what I was saying. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of happy stunned disbelief I had been expecting.

“What?” I asked.

“Come on, Mack, you know I’d already be fucking you if I could, if I wasn’t restricted and you’d let me,” she said.

“I’m not talking about fucking, I’m talking about dating,” I said. “Me and you on a date.”

“Be serious.”

“Steff!” I said. “I am serious.”

“Oh, come on, Mack… please don’t jerk me around,” she said, turning her head away.

“I’m not! We’ll… we’ll go to a restaurant in Enwich or something,” I said. “Or to the theater, or something. Or the next dance, though I’d rather get off campus and do something we wouldn’t normally do.”

She stared at me.

“You’re serious?” she asked.

“I just said I am!” I said. “You don’t believe me when I say I like your drawing, you don’t believe me when I tell you I seriously want to take you out on a date… you should know by now that I hate lying.”

“Yeah, but, we’re friends,” Steff said.

“That would make it worse,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I want to go on a date with you,” she said. She smiled a little crookedly. “If you’re really serious… and if Viktor says it’s okay.”

“He does,” I said. “Amaranth asked him.”

“You’ve been planning this, haven’t you?” Steff said. “You wily little minx!”

“Yeah,” I said. “Ever since… well, when Ian took me to the dance and you said you’d never had a proper first date?”

Then I got the reaction I’d been looking for. Steff let out a little gasp and her eyes misted up. I reached my arms out kind of awkwardly, and she threw hers around me in a bone-crunching hug.

“Damn,” she said when we pulled away. She shook her head. “Now I’m all conflicted.”

“What about?”

“I could have had your ass a hundred times already if you hadn’t insisted on waiting,” she said. “And now, I don’t know when Viktor will let me…”

“But this way, our first date will be more special,” I said.

“First sex is special, too,” she said.

“It still will be,” I said.

“Yeah, if you manage to live long enough for us to have it,” she said sourly. She winced when she registered what she’d just said. “Sorry… it’s just… you keep almost dying, and it’s not like sex is all I care about, but it’s, you know, a benchmark. When they said you were gone, that was my first thought. ‘I never got to fuck her.'”

“I don’t plan on actually dying,” I said. “At least not before I graduate.”

“Nobody ever does, hon,” she said. “After you turned up, I thought about asking you… well, Amy said you wouldn’t go for it.”

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just an idea I had.”

“What idea?”

“If I tell you, try to keep an open mind,” Steff said.

“Yeah, that phrase never leads to anything good,” I said. “What was your idea?”

“See, the necromancy department has these release forms…”

“No,” I said. It didn’t matter what the end of the sentence was, when the beginning involved “necro.”

“But if you don’t die anyway, it wouldn’t matter,” Steff said. “Except that I won’t have to worry as much.”

“It’s just creepy, Steff,” I said.

“But if you think about all the things that could happen to your body after you’re gone, isn’t going to somebody you love…”

“Amaranth was right,” I said. “Forget I asked, and I’ll forget you answered.”

“Okay,” Steff said, heaving a sigh. “Sorry. But if you ever change your…”

“No,” I said. “Please, just drop it. Anything having to do with my body when I’m not in it is on the list, okay?”

“Okay.” Steff said.

Awkward silence followed that, and I felt bad for having brought the conversation to this point. I’d done the same thing Feejee had: asked a question I really didn’t want to hear the answer to. I considered excusing myself, but I didn’t want to leave with things like this.

“Oh, hey, you’re actually wearing blue jeans today,” Steff said into the void. She grinned at this, for some reason.

“Yeah, well, my favorite black ones are all inexplicably vanished or soaked,” I said. “Why?”

“Come here, you,” she said, pulling me close and guiding me so that I was laying down across her lap. “I want to try something.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just because I don’t get to fuck your butt doesn’t mean I don’t get to have a little fun with it. Two’s pretty good at things like getting stains out, right?” Steff said, rummaging through the knapsack at her side.

“Um, what kind of stains?” I asked.

Steff giggled.

“Just markers,” she said. “I don’t have the magic kind, like Amaranth.”

“What are you doing?” I asked as I felt the point of a marker pressing against the fabric stretched tight over my rear. The hot bath water and Steff’s additives had soothed the pain of my rather brutal spanking, but enough remained for this sudden point of pressure to bring a reminder of the experience. “Steff?”

“Relax,” she said. “I’m just drawing a heart.”

“Steff…”

“Say the word and I’ll stop,” Steff said, still drawing. “Otherwise, you’re a toy to be played with.”

“That’s an awful lot of lines for a heart,” I said, trying to figure out what she was doing with her big, loopy hand movements.

“I’m just giving it curlies and swirls and smaller hearts things,” Steff said. “Making it all fancified.”

“It’s seriously just a heart?” I asked.

“Seriously,” Steff said. “Now quit wiggling so much. Hold still and take it like the slut that you are.”

Hearing Steff’s voice glide along my spine and slip into my ear the way no other voice could wasn’t exactly conducive to me sitting still, and she kept it up as she worked, not-quite-whispering about how much she loved my butt… and how much I loved attention there… and all the things she wanted to do to it. It was a delicious waterfall of words cascading over me, playing over my body like the hot spray from a shower. This was all interspersed with more perfectly useless admonitions to hold still.

She was hard again beneath me, of course, and I wanted so badly to grind myself against her, to tell her to forget everything else and just take me… but I didn’t, and she couldn’t have, anyway. It wouldn’t have been fair to offer.

The drawing seemed quite elaborate, with some bits filled in or hatch-marked. It all sort of fit with Steff’s idea of a “doodle”, I supposed.

“Finished!” she announced finally.

“What is it, seriously?” I asked, crawling off her lap and getting to my feet.

“It’s seriously a heart,” she said, standing up as well. “You can’t believe me when I say that? I’m hurt.”

She didn’t look hurt, as much as she tried to hide her smile.

“People are going to stare,” I said, reaching around to feel.

“Don’t smudge it!” Steff said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Anyways, people stare at your butt anyway,” Steff said. “I know I do. This just gives them an excuse.”

“Hey, I’ve got to get going to class,” I said.

“Okay,” Steff said. “Hey… when?”

“3:15,” I said. “Logic. I’ll see you in history, afterwards?”

“No, silly,” she said. “When do you want to go out?”

“Oh!” I said. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Um… if we’re going to town, a week night’s probably no good… and I’d rather not do this weekend. I don’t want it to be all rushed. Maybe next weekend?”

“Okay, but Saturday’s no good,” Steff said. “That’s, you know, me and Viktor time.”

“Friday, then?”

“Okay,” she said, smiling.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“You asked me out,” she said. “Surprise me.”

“Okay,” I said. I hoped Amaranth could help me there. Even if her direct experience in the world of romantic love was limited, at the very least she’d probably read enough books on the subject.

I started to walk away down the hall, still facing her. She was grinning shyly as she watched me back away, and I returned the grin. We must have looked like such dorks… yeah, even her.

Lesbian puppy love. At least, insofar as the love was lesbian, even if we weren’t.

When I ended up backing into somebody else’s door and getting a doorknob in the small of my back, I decided to turn around and walk normally. Steff giggled at the collision and then laughed when I turned around.

What exactly had she “doodled” on me?


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6 Responses to “188: Drawn”

  1. pedestrian says:

    uh-oh! scheduling conflict?

    Current score: 0
  2. Maesenko says:

    …And Mackenzie has already forgotten her forced-into date with Sooni. Wonderful.

    Current score: 0
    • Anthony says:

      The question is, which of the two would react worse to being asked to rechedule?

      Current score: 0
      • Leila says:

        Actually, the question is, who’s reaction would she care about more?

        Current score: 2
  3. Anon says:

    You know, in retrospect, this was inevitable.

    After all, what manga heroine’s love interest hasn’t fucked something up by forgetting an important promise?

    Now if only Mack was clever enough to put it in those terms when she told Sooni about this, she could make it all fit the narrative instead of just causing blood and tears.

    Current score: 0
  4. Jechtael says:

    Please be a photorealistic heart.

    Please let next UPCOMING Friday be the Friday Mack promised to Sooni and not next WEEK’S Friday.

    I don’t have a third thing to make it feel balanced, but all of the shared text with the previous chapter (“Mackenzie Blaise and the Gazebo of Darkness”) made me paranoid that there were TWO April Fool’s chapters in a row XD

    Current score: 2