Xoraxorel

  1.

  The nighttime sidewalk outside of Happy House Tavern was like a pan removed from an oven, the air almost visibly refracting from the heat beaten into it by the merciless summer day.

  The bar’s interior was no less of a kiln, but it’s different; a human generated fever, pressurized and intense. The pce is packed to the brim with bodies spilling out into the street, the doors hanging open to allow a trickle of air to circle the room every now and then, oxygen bonding to alcohol and hormones before the current could make it even halfway around the circuit.

  Of course, it’s a pce Madaline felt perfectly at home.

  There were two empty shot gsses in front of her and a half full pint of cold beer in her hand, the chill of the gss made all the more luxurious when experienced inside the broiling atmosphere.

  The Dayglos are grinding away on stage and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen the front man, John Paul Saint John this sober nor heard him py so well.

  “Feeling good?” Jacqueline Kirby asked; gnarled matron and best bartender from South Providence to Sweden, also one of two women Madaline Mellor referred to with maternal terminology.

  “Fuck yeah, Ma,” Madaline said, downing the rest of her beer, alternating between drumming the bar and twitching her fingers in time to the current song, Dancing Shoes For Dancing On Your Grave.

  “I assume you want to slow down now?”

  "Slow down, no way, go again."

  "Beer and a shot?"

  “Boilermaker.”

  “Dumb excuse for making a mess,” Kirby scoffed, but not without a little smile. She drew Madaline up a pint of ger, then distributed a shot of bourbon into a shooter, before letting Madaline watch as she dropped the gss into the beer, producing a tower of foam.

  Madaline swept up the pint and went at the drink like she was trying to put out a fire inside of her. One could assume it was an attempt at achieving a spiritual homeostasis, the goal of better matching her internal temperature to the one around her.

  Astonishingly, when the pint came down there was still a third left.

  Kirby threw a bundle of napkins at her with the order to, “Clean it up.”

  Madaline sopped up the mess from the hat trick of dropping the gss in the pint. “Customer is always right.”

  “Not when they're dumbass kids and you’re the worst.”

  “If I'm the worst, why do you love me the most?”

  Kirby gave her the finger and started her another pint before Madaline even had to ask. "Probably because you tip well."

  Madaline cackled, she is buzzed, but not just buzzed, she’s eted. She hadn’t been to Happy House since a couple of days before leaving the country and now she’s back sitting in her favorite spot for this time of night, at the middle of the bar with the wonderful padding at her knees. The drinks are flowing and so is the music and with just a cursory gnce about the vague shadows in the mirror behind the bar, yeah, there’s girls… just… girls.

  The three things Madaline Mellor loved more than anything else in this wicked world: intoxicants, music, and girls.

  The strong presence of all three, makes the fire in her burn bright like a magnesium torch, makes her whole body groan and ache deliciously with the urge to touch and to be touched.

  There’s only two questions Madaline wanted to ask.

  Question one: Where are her friends? She’d never come to Happy’s alone.

  Question two, reted to question one: How the fuck did she get here?

  But any interest in the answers to these questions are cut off at the knees as John Paul and the Dayglos slice into a cover of Count Five’s Psychotic Reaction.

  Madaline roared in liquored up glee, punching the air, her ass bouncing off her seat. She nded and leaned over the bar to inform Kirby at the top of her voice, “I introduced them to this song.” She leaned away, tipping her bar stool onto two legs, holding onto the edge while cracking her back, before falling forward to reassure Kirby, “I py it better.”

  “Sorry, what’s that? I couldn’t hear you at your top volume,” Kirby asked, swirling the contents of a cocktail gss until it turned the color of twilight. She dropped in a pair of cherries, before sliding it past Madaline to a patron just to the left of her peripheral.

  “I am better,” Madaline tapped her own sternum hard enough for it to hurt, “than fucking John Paul Saint John.”

  Kirby rolled her eyes, “Yes, we know, don’t worry kid.” Two more pints went out to Madaline’s right, money changed hands. “Everyone’s heard you have the biggest dick in the room. You’ve made it very clear.”

  “Yes,” Madaline agreed, nodding vigorously, “But I’m also a better musician, though I have to say for him he’s doing great tonight, He’s never pyed this well before.”

  “Real big of you to admit,” Kirby said, working quickly: Rum and Coke, Singapore Sling, beer, beer, more beer, all distributed around Madaline.

  “Exactly, I’ve been on estrogen since 10th grade,what’s these dude’s fucking excuse?” She rolled her hand in casual contempt at a group of frat boys down the bar to her right.

  They caught the comment, and sent several scowls her way.

  Madaline drank and turned in her seat to face them, “My boys, don’t be transphobic just because I'm better than you.”

  Kirby shook her head, moving down the bar, getting between Madaline and the group. “Don’t start a fight.”

  “Me?” Madaline asked, aghast, softly offended, “If they don’t start anything-"

  “Madaline Marie Mellor.”

  “Is their little boy’s club called the jams, cause I’ll kick them the fuck out,” She put her drink aside and leaned around Kirby to provide them a two fisted flipping off.

  Kirby grabbed Madaline by the front of her shirt, “Knock it off or get cut off.”

  Madaline held up her hands, all innocent, suddenly the perfect portrait of an advocate for world peace, even adding her index fingers to the one on each hand she already had raised.

  Kirby went and served up the frat boys, getting them out of Madaline's circle of attention.

  But in her brief absence, someone else slid into the space in Madaline’s vision the college male NPCs had formerly occupied, somebody possibly worse: Too well dressed, sharp grey suit, thick but short red hair and immacutely manicured nails.

  Madaline's joviality deserted her, suddenly very conscious of her own chipped paint job, but she avoided looking at the patron, silently hoping she’ll fuck off and leave Madaline to her good cheer.

  When Kirby turned back and saw who was next to Madaline her eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head in all consuming aggravation, she rushed to return to the center of the bar, hoping to avoid the loss of business that would come with either having to help bury a body or the police shutting her down because of all the blood.

  “Evening Kirby. Gin Martini, if you would, High Goal if you have it.” The voice was low, with a cultivated, waspy accent.

  Kirby pulled out the good stuff, working fast, but still too slow to stop the girls from interacting.

  “No salutations? Come now, if you’re not going to greet me, I’ll greet you. Hello there, if it isn’t Hurricane Madaline, already trying to produce a scene, a crime scene that is. Oh and tied to a music reference, of course, MC5, 1969, surely not your most tired quirk, but certainly in the top three, I think. ”

  Val’s Martini appeared, she brought it to her lips, going ahead and savoring Kirby’s work, looking in no hurry to go anywhere.

  Madaline popped a knuckle. “Hiya Val, it’s a two minute impromptu masterpiece, punk before punk, metal before metal, I just couldn’t help myself, but really, I’m just so shocked you know it and I’d show you some respect for that, but I see you’re as overdressed as usual, so all I can do is wonder, do you wear that suit to remind yourself what a over the top pretentious cunt you are or do you do it to make sure no one else ever forgets?”

  Valentine Ramero chuckled and slid a six inch bde between Madaline’s ribs with two sentences, “You know, I took Jasmine,” Val took a drink, “out the other night and it seems she enjoys my refined sense of taste,” another little swallow, “in clothing. Among other things.”

  Call her sexist, but had Val identified as male Madaline would have bounced her skull off the bar, instead she put that idea in her back pocket and wheeled on her with a snarl in her throat. Her boots smmed to the floor with a boom, the muscles in her legs began to uncoil, pushing her towards her full and considerable height.

  But Kirby had been ready and waiting for this moment, moving with a reaction time honed by decades of dealing with drunken assholes. Her hands, quick and sober, snapped forward, one shoving Madaline back in her seat, the other seizing Val’s expensive silk tie, wrapping it around her fist and hauling Val forward.

  Val allowed herself to be pulled, composed and elegant, pcing her drink back onto the bar without spilling a single drop, right before her nose stopped an inch from Kirby's

  “I just got her settled down, stop riling her up.”

  “I was only-”

  “Shut the fuck up Val, that was real shitty, beneath you, as you might say. You get me?”

  Kirby let her go and Val backed off.

  “Fair point, my earnest apology for the bother,” said Val, fixing her tie and paying for her drink.

  "What about her?" Kirby pointed to Madaline.

  Val inched her nose up just a little, but conceded. "Madaline, I beg your pardon, I was only pying. Witty banter between worthy opponents and all. Didn’t realize that was still such an open wound.”

  Madaline clenched her teeth and the bar.

  "Good enough, go find your fun elsewhere," said Kirby.

  Val shrugged and began to wander away.

  “Don’t forget your wine and cheese you boujie bitch.”

  Val turned back to Madaline with a grin. “Better to be, as you say, boujie, than to be childish like you. Try to have a good night, try to stay out of jail, oh and tell Megan she should call me, I have some free time coming up.”

  Madaline opened her mouth.

  Kirby sat her elbow on Madaline's fingers and made her shut up.

  Madaline continued to fume, even after Val vanished into the crowd.

  Kirby shook her head at Madaline, frowning in exasperated disappointment, “You do realize the winning strategy when she fucks with you is to not py, right? Why do you let her get under your skin?”

  “Cause she’s a bitch,” Madaline grumbled into her drink.

  “You know it’s probably bullshit, about Jaz, I mean?”

  “You think so?” Madaline looked up.

  Kirby shrugged, “Probably, st I knew she was still dating-”

  “I don’t want to know his name.” Madaline warded the information away, but a spark of hope was now flickering over her face, “And just cause she’s dating Nick or Rick or Phil or whatever, doesn’t mean she isn’t also seeing Val, right. You know how it can be with girls in positions like Jaz..”

  Kirby looked her over, perplexed and then she got it and gently oh so gently reminded Madaline of the hard truth, “Kid, that’s true, but…”

  “But?”

  “Just cause she’s, um, stepping out with Val, doesn’t means she’s going to- Shit. It’s not impossible, but-.”

  Madaline drained her drink and slid the gss to Kirby. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “Alright, now you’re all low, so I think it's time you top off your tab.”

  “Seriously? There was no fight. You just said- And she's the one who- I was minding my own business, she just came up and-”

  “Top off, kid, not cut off.”

  “Oh.” Madaline settled down before cracking a smirk. “ That’s real funny, Ma, but free drinks for life, remember?”

  “No,” Kirby pointed sharply in correction. “Absolutely not, free cheapest pint on tap for life, half off shots and mixed drinks that are made from basics for life. Free drinks at your funeral, limit three per person. Now top it off before you decide to do something stupid and I don’t get paid, or I am cutting you off.”

  Madaline sighed, and reached into her pants, pulling out her wad of bills and setting a twenty down on the bar.

  Kirby grabbed up the money and raised an eyebrow, “You owe me at least another twenty bucks, make it thirty, bullshit tax for letting Val get to you.”

  “You're fucking with me, there’s no way. I’m not that drunk.”

  “Oh wow, no wonder you're acting the way you are, but really? Are you actually forgetting your girl?”

  “My girl?” Madaline mouthed silently.

  Kirby gave her an emphatic, irritated nod.

  Rolling with this new development, Madaline beamed, yanking bills off her fold, now far happier than the average person to hear they owed another thirty dolrs. “Absolutely not, you know I can never forget a pretty face, just make sure she keeps getting whatever she wants. My tab is her tab. No questions.” Madaline used the bar mirror to check around, trying to jog her own memory without being obvious. It didn’t help, the figures were all foggy silhouettes, ill defined, good for jogging jack shit.

  Kirby reached for the bills, but Madaline drew them back, holding them in the air away from her as something snagged in her brain, “Hey, hold up, what was that crack about me doing something stupid? I haven’t even gotten close to doing anything that would even register on my stupidmeter.”

  Kirby snatched the bills and jammed a finger at the seat next to Madaline. “Better get the stupidmeter calibrated, dumbass.”

  Madaline turned in the direction indicated as John Paul swung into another Dayglo’s original, Fshfire Queen:

  “Hey, buddy, got a light?

  It’s one more hell of a night

  I’ve got one more chance

  to get out and get clean.

  But you gotta know how it goes

  You gotta know she knows

  everyone in this sideshow

  cause her voice is like a match…”

  The swelter of the room jumped another 10 degrees, the pressure thickened, bearing down on Madaline’s brain until all she could think was, I’m so doomed.

  “I can’t believe you forgot about me,” Amber said.

  “…to ga-ga-gas-o-line.”

  Huge half lidded eyes looked up at Madaline pyfully, sucking down all the light in the room; apparently she'd just been sitting here quietly, observing Madaline as she made a fool of herself.

  The song was a homegrown favorite and around them the regurs jumped and chanted Fshfire’s chorus:

  “We’re Burning Up! We’re Burning Up! We’re Burning Up!”

  Madaline couldn’t help but feel like not a single one of them had the remotest idea of what they’re talking about.

  “Don’t be silly princess, I could never forget you,” Fuck, nevermind forgetting her, nevermind forgetting how we got here, how did I take my eyes off her?

  Amber was done up like a slice of nighttime heaven poured into a backless, strapless, seamed mini dress. It was bck, as were her nails and eyeliner. Her skin was shiny with the slightest yer of sweat, her cheeks just a little flushed, perhaps from the drinks or the heat or both or because of something else entirely.

  “It’s just, the night’s heady, right?” Madaline is distantly aware of Kirby setting another beer in front of her, “It’s hot and the drinks are-”

  "Quick?" Amber almost sighed.

  "Yeah, that's right, that's good."

  "Ought to be, it's Shakespeare."

  "Right, well, he- he got it... and then there's also-" Madaline waved her hand around vaguely.

  “The music?” Amber asked, more than a little amused.

  “My tongues twisted in her mouth

  My hands are sliding over her hips

  But she’s got the key to this colr

  And my blood’s on her lips.”

  Madaline nodded, “Yeah, the music, I got carried away. You understand.” She gave a helpless, self effacing shrug, “You know how I can be sometimes.”

  “We’re Burning Up! We’re Burning Up! We’re Burning Up!”

  “Yeah,” said Amber, biting slightly at the knuckle of her thumb with a smile. “I do.”

  She found herself smiling back at Amber like an utter fool, only her posture made it come off as a cocky smirk.

  Madaline's first unanswered question, so easily discarded minutes before, had now become of paramount importance.

  No wonder my stupidmeter isn’t working, I’ve totally fucking blown it out, goddammit, how did we get here? What did we do? What did I do? How bad is this? Madaline wiped at her brow.

  Amber cocked her head at her. “You okay, bestie? Getting carried away again?”

  Madaline drank more beer, “Maybe a little. You look really good, I have to have told you that.”

  “Mmmhmm.” Amber giggled, she sipped her drink, dusky and rose colored with a spot of red floating with the ice. She stirred her drink, making the ice rattle. “Are you sure you didn’t forget about me?” she nearly whispered.

  Madaline plummeted into her eyes and just couldn't help herself.

  You see, being as girlcrazy as Madaline Mellor tends to be is not an easy lifestyle, it’s hard on the heart and it requires the development of certain survival skills. Fortunately at this point it’s a somewhat well cultivated skill tree.

  She took Amber’s hand in her own, gently tracing her thumb from her wrist up the underside of Amber's arm. Instead of simply being drawn in, Madaline poured her own eyes into Amber’s, all her attention, every sense fixated on her and she speaks smoothly, flirtatiously, without any hint of concern but also with the weight of absolute conviction. “I didn’t, like I said, I just got carried away.” She leaned closer, “But I promise, if I did, I’ve learned from my mistake and I’ll never ever let it happen again.”

  Amber ughed and flipped her hair out of her eyes, before mouthing, not speaking, but mouthing a single word: Good.

  Madaline leaned back, letting Amber’s hand slip away. Something primitive in Madaline’s chest that she carried with her everywhere she went growled at the loss until she leashed it. “Are you having fun?”

  “Mmmhmm, I like it here. This pce is great,” Amber said, nursing her gss, swaying in her seat to the music, her legs kicking, she turned a little and then her legs were brushing along Madaline’s own. It could have been unintentional.

  Amber's timing is off and Madaline does not care, she wants to pull her towards the stage to dance, she wants to test how well their bodies would fit together. She needed a couple fast songs, followed by a slow song to perform a proper study and she’s willing to give the Dayglos cash to get them to provide what she needs and fuck the shit taste of everyone else in the bar.

  But if she was going to go that far, why not just throw the baby out the window and admit what that primitive thing, her entire body really, actually wanted to do.

  It's the heat, it’s the drink, it's the music, it’s her. She isn’t getting carried away, she’s nearly gone and that’s only assuming that she isn’t just drifting back from somepce she should not have gone to.

  “Are you having a good time?” Amber asked, a crooked little smile on her face as she crossed her legs.

  A heat wave rolled through Madaline at the movement. She coasted the pads of her fingers along the smoothed down grain of the bar, enjoying its familiar texture, wishing she could touch something smoother.

  “I’m hanging with you, Princess, I'm at one of the best pces in the world, so yeah, I’d say so.”

  Amber nodded, gncing around, “I see why you like it, um, it's very you.”

  Madaline ughed, she drained the st of her beer. Kirby was going to the tap for her, “Ma, thanks for supporting my bad habits, but ah, can I get a water? You could cook an egg on this.” She knocked at the bar.

  “Knowing you I’d be surprised if you haven’t,” Amber mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Like cooking an egg? An egg sees you sitting at the bar and is cooked? Get it? Trans joke.”

  Kirby made Madaline’s water materialize.

  Amber shrugged, “I’m not very funny.”

  Madaline was about to respond, but Kirby beat her to it, “Don’t worry, you’re not the problem, she’s just struggling to keep up with you cause she's at least four drinks deeper and can’t stop looking at your legs.”

  Madaline choked on her water. “Ma!”

  Amber ughed, her head going back, her mouth stretched wide, her bird like chest shivering, and it was the best music any bar on this street had ever heard.

  Madaline wiped at her mouth.

  Amber watched her, “You didn’t deny it.”

  Utilizing one of her preferred methods of avoiding embarrassment, Madaline leaned into the accusation, pointedly shifting her head downward so she could enjoy Amber's legs more directly. “They’re nice. Occasional admiration is the price of being best friends with a transbian.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “The rest of you looks… also really great, just in case the rest of you gets jealous.”

  Somebody stop me, please, I need to stop.

  Amber wiggled back and forth in her seat, “Well my legs and the rest of me is fttered,’ she whispered.

  “At the risk of embarrassing myself some more without mom’s help, did I buy you that dress?”

  Another wiggle, this time more in her hips than her shoulders, “Um, yeah, you did, boots too.”

  Madaline’s breath caught in her throat as Amber pced a ptform ankle boot, also bck, in Madaline's p, causing blood to rapidly drain out of her brain to a very specific part of her anatomy.

  Amber smiled at her, her expression innocent, as if saying: just girls being besties.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “To level with you princess, I don’t remember how we got here. Which probably means, I should not drive us home.”

  Amber pointed to Kirby with a zy smile, “Don’t worry, she already took your keys, but why’s that matter? Why would I want to go home when we’ve been having such a good time, you know, you and me, together?”

  Madaline's stomach performed several gravity defying backflips. “Right."

  She drank more water and steeled herself. She had to know, she had to know how bad this was and if it was really really bad, maybe just maybe she'd at least get to do it again before the consequences came down like a hammer. “Amber, not to ruin the good vibes,” she gnced at Amber’s boot in her p, “or anything, but um, mom made me a little paranoid, we, you and me, we haven’t… done anything stupid have we?”

  Amber bit the end of her straw, her eyes turning up to the ceiling in thought. Ummmm, no,” she said, releasing the straw to fall back into her gss and shaking her head.

  “Okay great, I was worried for a second.” Relief and regret mingled together in a brew more potent than anything behind the bar. Madaline steeled herself again, for the obvious response Amber would have; what exactly did Madaline mean by doing something stupid?

  But Amber didn’t ask that, instead as she stirred her drink, she decided to reach out and stop Madaline’s heart.“Not yet anyway, but you know with the way things are going, it kind of seems like it’s in the cards, doesn’t it?”

  Thankfully, horribly, Amber slowly removed her boot off of Madaline’s p.

  Something below Madaline’s waist throbbed in hungered agony, her mouth grew slightly dry. Madaline finished her water. Her thirst went unsked.

  Kirby took the empty pstic cup and dropped two more waters in its pce, as though sensing her spiritual daughter's desperate need.

  Madaline watched, heart hammering, as Amber slipped two fingers slightly below the pink surface of her drink and fished out the twisted duo of cherries. She brought them, dripping, up to Madaline’s lips, so smooth and red they seemed artificial, like candy. “Um, you want my cherries?” Amber tilted her head at Madaline, half lidded eyes glittering.

  “Do you not?” Madaline asked softly, feeling the merest dab of wetness brush her lips as she spoke.

  “I don’t like them.”

  Madaline’s body was buzzing like there was a swarm of bees inside her, so loud she couldn’t form proper thoughts.

  They looked good, wonderful, full of juice and fvor. She couldn’t help it, she carefully took one of the cherries in her mouth and pulled them from Amber’s fingers, the lightest touch of Amber’s skin to hers made every cell in her body contort in divine suffering.

  Need to do something stupid or I’m going to die.

  Madaline bit down, sweet tartness racing across her tongue, doing nothing to quell the craving that frenzied through her, but then she caught the fvor of the drink the fruit had been submerged in. She rolled it around her mouth to be sure, a few of her higher faculties kicking back on with the confirmation.

  She gnced down at Amber’s gss, the color and fvor were both right and the knowledge quieted the buzzing, stabilized her, brought her back to some sembnce of reality.

  Madaline politely spat the pits and stems into a napkin and tossed it into a trash can behind the bar. “Fj?rilskniv?” Madaline said pensively, tapping Amber’s gss.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did I tell Kirby how to make that?”

  Amber shrugged, sipping at her drink.

  “I’m not supposed to tell people the recipe. I promised.”

  Amber shrugged. “What are secrets good for except occasionally sharing?”

  “Right.” The buzzing was down but not gone, Madaline's head was still swimming.

  “What did you call it?”

  “Ah, Fj?rilskniv.”

  Amber repeated the word or tried to, butchering it.

  “Fj?rilskniv,” Madaline repeated, unable to stop the grin spreading over her face.

  Amber tried again, ughing as she failed. Her big smile brought the aching and buzzing roaring back to full strength and one after another, Madaline’s higher faculties began to flicker off again.

  “Is that what it's called?”

  Madaline drank her water. “Mmhhmmm.” She should have stuck with beer, the water was fvorless and empty and it wasn’t helping. Suddenly it's there in her head, brought about by her dissatisfaction with the water, rabbit from hat, coherent, coalesced, something that might be obsessed over, no longer a vague burning desire, but a hyper specific need: Madaline needed to know how she tasted, needed it. It was like wanting nicotine when you’re trying to quit smoking, an all consuming thought, desperation overwhelming all other considerations, all rationality. Only the thing that made her really crazy is that it wasn’t like trying to quit, because the question had been answered, she’d never gotten started in the first pce.

  Madaline watched Amber’s lips move, the flicker of her tongue as she tried once more to pronounce the word and failed.

  Lightning struck, and Madaline was inspired.

  Madaline could call up a million reasons for what she did next, she could bme the heat, the music, the drink, the ache. She could bme the night.

  But when the sun came up, hell when it was over, she’d have to admit the truth and the truth was, it was the primitive thing inside her, the truth was the devil made her do it and the devil was her, because why would she bring Amber here if a momentary loss of self control wasn’t exactly what she wanted to happen. She knew better.

  She pced her fingers on the smoothness of Amber’s cheek, which was deceptively cool, she looked down into those dark pools and leaned into her. “Here, I know a thing.”

  “A thing?” Amber mumbled.

  “It’s a trick me and my Swedish friends used to trade pronunciation lessons.”

  She gently pressed her lips to Amber’s, not a real kiss, not really, just enough to identify a fvor, just enough to try to soothe the primitive thing, the devil in her heart or at least that’s what it promised her, that this will be enough. That after this the craving will stop, that she won’t need more.

  That's what it always said.

  Madaline whispered the three sylbles into Amber’s mouth, showing her the jutting of the bottom lip, then slipping her tongue forward with a little hiss to touch Amber's, then the slight tug back and sharp flick of the tongue at the end.

  Lesson over, she dragged her thumb over Amber’s cheek as she pulled away and oh god its infuriating because the panic over how bad she’s just fucked up is settling in behind the euphoria, cwing away at the limited satisfaction, but its worse than that cause she’d wanted to taste Amber and she’d blown it.

  There’s no way she’s getting away with that a second time. There’s a difference between light flirting and sticking her tongue in her mouth.

  She'd done it and yet she still had no idea what it was actually like. She hadn't been able to taste Amber over the goddamn drink who’s name she was ostensibly teaching her how to pronounce.

  Madaline watched for her reaction.

  Amber looked up at her, doe eyed and apologetic, “I’m sorry bestie, I don’t think I quite got that,” she said softly. “Would you mind showing me again?”

  Permission is all it takes.

  "Yeah, sure. No big deal."

  Madaline dove back in just as John Paul screeched into a perfect reproduction of the frantic crescendo to Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.

  Amber pressed into Madaline, ever the enthusiastic student, the problem wasn’t her, the problem was Madaline could still only taste-

  Madaline pulled away with an awful groan, cause suddenly she's got it, she understood and getting it is what ruins everything when it was getting so good, getting it is what causes everything to colpse because, “There is no way Junkie John Paul can py this well, God-”

  2.

  “Fucking dammit,” Madaline mumbled, her eyes slowly peeling open, the ghost of the summer night still hanging in the distance of her perception, the smell of booze, the hellish heat, but now there is only the sterile smell of Simon’s house and the cold. Of course she’s cold, outside the window is a frigid winter morning and her bed is empty except for her.

  All that remains from her nocturnal meandering is the need, the lust; her mind had caught up, all just a dream, she should have known better, but her body is dumb and insisting that little dark eyed Amber is inches away, wanting another lesson.

  She checked under her sheets for visual confirmation of what she already knew. Yep, she is exquisitely hard, like her gock has a rod of steel at its core, straining against her shorts, as though all it’s suffering was her fault, instead of all her suffering being its fault.

  Though, actually at the end of the day, she supposes it's on her, isn’t it.

  Madaline pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Fuck.”

  She can practically hear Kirby ughing at her, hear the bitchy old bat hooting and hollering, about how far she’d gotten, but-

  Not even in your dreams, kid, you must have some sort of complex.

  She should be relieved that she hadn’t lost it like that, relieved that she hadn’t taken Amber to Happy House, hadn’t put her lips to Amber’s, but she’s not. Her body won’t allow her to embrace anything so sensible, she’s just pissed and horny and this is all her fault for- Pick a reason:

  Coming back to the US.

  Moving in with Simon.

  Not jerking off before going to sleep.

  All the reasons in the world don’t make a damn bit of difference to the body. She’d gone from thrumming with heat and the sensory joy of pleasure and anticipation, not to mention the comfort of companionship, to now thrumming against the cold with unyielding lust knotting itself up with a low grade kind of loneliness; making for an awful tangled mess that seemed to stretch from her balls to her heart, leaving her half awake and so miserable she could cry.

  She huffed, sat up and found her vape pen, smoked, trying to calm herself down, trying to get reasonable.

  Okay, lets face facts, no reason to deny it, she’s cute and she’s sweet and those facts alone mean I would like to spend at least an hour pinning her down and fucking her brains out. Nothing wrong with that, no reason to deny it, no harm with a little sexual frustration, I already knew she was attractive, but let’s be realistic about the situation. I’m staying here, I said I’d behave, I promised, so, gotta be a responsible adult for once in my life.

  She blew a stream of vapor, watching it crash and unfold against the ceiling.

  In a few more months I can act like an absolute heathen in any way I please and in the meantime, there’s plenty of others who would love that specific form of attention, so I just keep on with that.

  Her gock seemed to pulse in protest at her. Insisting that it did not want to act like a responsible adult, no, it wanted to do something adult… with Amber specifically.

  This isn’t a big deal, I’ve gone through this before, I have friends I'm attracted to that I don’t sleep with. This is just a wanting what you can’t have scenario. She’s cute and because I’ve told myself to not even think about it, it’s exponentially increasing that little bit of attraction into the well documented transfem top medical condition scientifically known as stupidcrazydickpussymania.

  One of Madaline’s closest friends had taught Madaline a word, sublimation. The channeling of desires that can’t or shouldn’t be fulfilled into other areas of her life. Taking that energy and putting it somewhere else.

  Madaline due to the Amber situation now created a mantra that she would come to think of as the song of sublimation:

  Bestie, bestie, you’re her totally ptonic nonsexual bestie, a bestie doing her best to be on her best behavior, bestie, bestie, behave like her bestie, she sees you like a big sister, bestie, bestie.

  Her gock throbbed in fury, her balls felt impossibly, nauseatingly full, apparently her genitals didn’t like her little song. To be fair it wasn’t her best work.

  Come on girl, can’t you just like I don’t know, were not going to fuck her, so can’t you just like settle down and let everything go back to sleep, I’ll take care of you ter today on break, we’ll watch that video with the girl getting bent over while pying xbox. What the fuck time is it anyway?

  She checked her phone. There was an hour before she had to be up, meaning she had not only been robbed of the happy ending to a good dream, but also a full sleep as well.

  She reached into her shorts, shivering as her arm brushed against the side of her gns, a fsh of dark eyes and thin wrists in her head, she reached lower and carefully grabbed at her sack, squeezing just right, trying to get her body to rex, to just let it go.

  It didn’t work, she was too emotionally worked up.

  She sighed and drank from a gss of water by her bedside, and pulled her phone back up.

  Fine, I’ll take care of you real quick, maintenance wank and then I can go back to sleep, how the fuck does anyone let you dom them, needy little bitch.

  Madaline pulled up the secure file of lewd images on her phone and began to indulge. She drew her hand up and gripped herself with a low, lengthy moan. She was so sensitive from what amounted to a nighttime of psychic edging, soaked, no lube necessary as she gave herself a nice slow toe curling stroke, sending her sleepy eyes fluttering. She scrolled through a menu of faces and bodies, pulling down her drenched shorts, kicking them off. Image after image passed by, but she couldn't seem to settle on anything, instead stray thoughts ran through her:

  She does yoga, remember what’s fun about girls who do yoga.

  God, I wonder how she tastes?

  Speaking of tastes, what would she like, vanil would be fine, but I wonder if we have any tastes that compliment each other.

  She’s inexperienced, right? Has she ever been with anyone other than Simon? With a girl? Probably not. Simon can’t have shown her much, nothing exciting, nothing extravagant, she maybe wouldn’t know what she’s into, I’ve been pnning to try to introduce her to some fun things, but if she wanted there's other kinds of fun things I could show her.

  She’s so small. Even if I manage to feed her up to a healthy weight, which please let that work, the way she treats food sometimes makes me so fucking nervous, but even if I did, please let her go along with it, I’ve been getting her to eat snacks at night, but I'm pretty sure I need to do meals, but even if it works, please let it work, I’d still be able to throw her around so easy.

  What would her eyes look like? Needy, craving, you can see how she adores you as her friend, but what about really wanting, how dark would they get?

  The image rises up unbidden, Amber down in her sheets, gripping onto her, a nervous smile on her face, but a look in her eyes Madaline wasn’t sure Amber was capable of producing, it’s sly, almost devious.

  I mean it wasn’t even really her in the dream. She was too- something, what, comfortable with me, isn’t that what I want? Alright whatever. One time to get it out of my system.

  The phone tumbled from her grip, she spat in her hand and let her mind go where it wanted to.

  Just don’t you dare take this out of the room.

  She beat herself, her fist gently cpping against her pelvis, mouth and eyes half open in pleasure, as her other hand traced circles over her abs and breasts, scenarios firing through her brain, finally settling on one she would never ever engage in even if Amber was free:

  Hey, princess, since you grew up so repressed do you know for sure that you aren’t actually super fucking gay, maybe we should test it, I can help. You might not know this, but it's actually what best friends are for, trust me.

  What she imagines from there is enjoyable and rough. It's not that Madaline is incapable of softness and the logical part of her knows that any actual first time with Amber would have to go that way, soft and slow, not that she would mind that. In fact she would be happy to-

  Not a good line of thought.

  But given that a masturbation fantasy has zero consequences and that she is broiling over with frustration, she is needless to say not in the mood for something so tender.

  Instead, breeding season: Amber, bent over, taken from behind, Madaline's bare gock deep inside her, green nails sifting through bck hair, Madaline’s breasts against her back, pressing the smaller girl towards the earth under a limitless grey sky.

  It’s hunter and prey; skin and spit, tongue and teeth. Wicked. Wild.

  When she cums she sms a pillow over her face, giving her something to bite, her head is full of music; her approximation of what Amber would sound like wailing in animal bliss, nothing appropriate whatsoever about it.

  Then she’s done.

  Taking heavy breaths, her brain flooded by dopamine and endorphins, Madaline cleans herself up with a dirty shirt from the floor, before ying back, her eyes growing heavy once more.

  Yeah, there’s relief and thankfully no real guilt, but as she stares at the wall between the rooms she becomes aware of it, just barely there, an overtone of resentment of some kind, almost like je-

  Stop, it’s just proximity and denial and lust and now I'm just miffed that it's cold and I don’t have anyone to cuddle. If I let myself get worked up about her, it really will be a thing and then I really will do something stupid.

  Madaline is not one for self denial, she doesn’t tend to hide from her feelings, but she has evolved to the point where she is aware that not allowing a minor feeling to spiral into a major problem was a valuable asset; she no longer allowed molehills to transmute into mountains, not when she could see the clear signs of the process winding up.

  Madaline grabbed one of the pillows and curled her arms around it, nuzzling her face into it, spooning it and in the lingering haze of her orgasm, she drifted back to sleep, feeling better, settled with the thought that she’d satisfied the need and would not need to either take it out of the room nor allow it to grow into something that might slip the leash and go out of control.

  One time thing, out of her system. She’s sure and the evidence is there, she does not fall back into dreams of an incredibly well dressed and flirtatious Amber Orlet. Though, by the time she was done jerking off she only had 15 minutes left to sleep before her arm started.

  Madaline rose, throwing the sheet off, she could smell coffee from downstairs. She used her phone to kill the arm and listened carefully, catching the sound of Amber cooking, joy, but it’s Simon’s day off… so Amber cooking for Simon...joy of joys.

  She stumbled about until she found her headphones. Strapping them on, she pressed py, awaiting whatever cursed song would emerge from the phone’s algorithm, but was pleased by the rapid rubber band twang of Cowgirl by Underworld, seemingly dodging the overarching conspiracy by her collection of digital tunes.

  Madaline lurched into the hall and down the stairs, heading towards the smell of coffee. She’ll just grab a cup, give them a hey, nothing else and retreat.

  But below the music, as she grows closer to the sight of Amber making Simon breakfast the contemptuous temptation rolls in.

  She won’t say it, of course she won’t actually say it, but the devil is always with her, cause the devil is her and it’s got its own idea of how to handle Simon and her mixed emotions. Something like:

  Hey Sim, hey buddy, hey pal, hey bro, I just got off while thinking about fucking your girlfriend in the middle of a field and by the way, when i say fucking I do mean fucking, I mean like breeding her, doing my damnedest to knock her up and there’s no reason she needs to know, but I was wondering, does this count as my best behavior?

  Xoraxorel

  foreshadowing about Amber in this chapter.

  [colpse] There are going to be a few more dreams, not one after another, but this will be the only "normal" one and it is the only one I will not announce as such outright.

  -MUSIC REFERENCES: Psychotic Reaction by Count Five, Kick Out the Jams by MC5, Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin, Cowgirl by Underworld

  -OFF BRAND MUSIC: Dancing Shoes For Dancing On Your Grave by The Dayglos, Fshfire Queen by The Dayglos (Attentive readers may notice this is the song Madaline was singing to herself when she came in during Chapter Four)

  -Amber’s Dress is something like this: https:///us/20013590030103.html?srsltid=AfmBOooWjkVjOG-7m2enlMxQ_6GQRob4WZBjTs1n43IVKCmH3chm_zg2b9k

  -Amber’s boots: (Ptforms cause she needs ptforms): https://.uk/deals/moda-new-mission-chunky-ptform-ankle-boots-debenhams/Y5q-qo8BLiIe9iYk59Pc

  - Amber and Madaline's exchange about the drinks being quick is a reference to Romeo and Juliet, "The drugs are quick." Importantly, given how it's used this is more than likely a reference to film Romeo + Juliet which moves and changes the context of the line. What's funny is Madaline's brain gives the line to Amber, showing Madaline is well aware of Amber's interest in/enjoyment of literature, but the line itself is most likely remembered from the movie, cause there's no way she actually did/paid attention to the reading in high school. While she probably despised Shakespeare, I feel like Madaline probably liked the movie, she'd find plenty to rete to in its presentation of both Romeo and Mercutio.

  -Production Note- VALENTINE RAMERO: Valentine is such an interesting character to me, but she has a pretty minimal presence in the story. She got created because Amber’s arc (and her inherent nature) changed so drastically starting in the second draft,

  Spoiler that I needed to go and write a bunch of scenes from about two years after the story of ASSAWG was over, which was further fleshed out by writing an alternate timeline (but I got into that a totally different way) all so I could properly project and set stages of psychological development for her arc. I had to have a clear understanding of who she ends up as to clearly understand that process, because she changes so much from how she is initially presented.

  [colpse] Anyway Val came about in one of those scenes.

  Val is to be overly simplistic Madaline’s archenemy, she is the anti-Madaline and if I had any intention of doing a transbian love triangle with Amber and Madaline, Val would be the third point in that triangle. Fortunately/unfortunately, I found a pce for Val in this story, it’s important, but it’s only one scene much ter on where she’s used as a device

  Spoiler to make a point about Amber/Madaline vs Amber/Simon,

  [colpse] but it was fun getting to bring her out early here as a psychological projection of Madaline’s.

  Importantly, this is a projection, the real Valentine would absolutely consider HOW she said what she said to Madaline (though not what she said in itself) to be beneath her. Her and Madaline’s retionship is kind of a one note joke, but I find it endlessly entertaining.

  -Next time we’re probably getting back into Amber’s head to see how she’s doing. Thank you again for reading.