Lauren plowed her car through the darkness. Her high beams cut through the still night like a pair of sharp, angry knives. She prayed the crisp Colorado air would work its magic by the time she arrived home as the wind lashed her face through the open windows. There was no guarantee she'd be alone and would have to explain her condition...and her smell.
She drove, instinctively measuring distance by the streetlights, each one a glowing milestone in the night sky. The interval between each grew longer and longer so by the time her headlights fell on the wooden sign welcoming her to Palmer Lake, she found herself moving significantly slower than the posted limit.
Almost Heaven, the sign read.
"And possibly Hell," Lauren grunted.
She pulled into the wooded seclusion of her driveway much slower than usual, the familiar trees offering little comfort tonight. Her parents were still in Pagosa for the weekend, but Jennifer would be a problem. Although they were mostly agreeable with one another, Lauren had been fiercely competitive with her younger sister her whole life. Since Lauren's graduation and Jennifer's return home for the summer, they hadn't seen enough of each other to know how their early throes of adulthood would impact their rivalry. Though there was still a good chance Jennifer was out with her friends, she couldn't bet on it.
As she pulled into her usual spot by the garage, her racing heartbeat throttled her head like a jackhammer.
"Stupid! Why didn't I clean up when she told me?" Lauren muttered.
She knew why: lust, passion, sexual energy and maybe a little of something that felt like love thrown in for good measure. If she made a list of things her afterglow would not allow, taking a shower and brushing her teeth would be up there with purging the decadent contents of her stomach. No fucking way! But here, in the sobering darkness of her driveway, it no longer seemed like the smartest choice.
As the security lights flickered on, Lauren let out a breath of relief, only then realizing she had been holding it. She was alone.
She shut her car off, pausing a moment behind the wheel. She listened to the quiet of the night, punctuated by the intermittent clicking of her engine as it cooled. She lost herself in the black. She closed her eyes and could imagine her family, all rushing at her all at once, encircling her car, bombarding her with questions, crawling in through her open windows...
"You're fine, everybody's fine." Lauren reassured herself, allowing her deep blue eyes to open to the cool night. She felt around for the switch and listened to the friendly hum of her automatic windows as she drew a deep breath, leaned back on the headrest and tried to slow her rapid pulse.
She twisted a single golden strand of hair around her finger, allowing the rest to flow around her face towards her breasts like two lazy rivers in the soft moonlight. As she reestablished a normal rhythm, her thoughts returned to earlier, and to Elisha. For as nervous as she had been on her drive home, the idea that she could now just clean up and act as though it had never happened amused her. She rubbed her hand over her flattening stomach and smiled, chuckling softly and shaking her head.
Walking through her own front door at last, she kicked her shoes off in the entryway and let her toes sink into the familiar carpet. As she relaxed, her guts rumbled. Her guts. Elisha's shit. Despite her unease, Lauren felt a tingle spreading through her body.
"Turned on just by hearing my stomach gurgle! I'll have to get used to that," she murmured. She couldn't deny the truth of it. The thought of Elisha's smelly shit roiling in her belly, working its way through her small intestine and plunging further down into her colon filled her with a joy that shot through her guts and up her spine in an explosive chain reaction. The memory of how she accepted mouthful after mouthful of Elisha's shit like a hungry pig played in a continuous loop in her mind.
She left the house in darkness out of habit, making her way to the bathroom by the dim glow of the hallway nightlight. Excitement burbled with every step as she felt Elisha's shit work itself further down into her bowels.
She flicked on the vanity lights and jumped at the sight of the few bits of waste still clinging to her teeth. She smiled naturally.
She pressed her abdomen against the vanity and leaned into the mirror, arching her back. She beamed as she tried to catch the last bits of filth with her tongue. One last taste before she had to rid herself of the flavor, she figured. Every morsel she found had the effect of a mild electric shock on her tongue and she felt her body quake in sympathetic resonance.
She almost considered peeling away her jeans and indulging herself but with a twinge of remorse she grabbed her toothbrush and began to scrub the flavor away.
"You're home late!" A voice came from the doorway.
"Jesus, Jennifer! How about making a little noise next time? You gave me a literal heart attack!" Lauren exclaimed, spitting a mouthful of toothpaste into the basin, bending low.
Jennifer stood in the bathroom door, dressed in her high waisted skinny jeans with an ivory crop top. The delicate material skimmed the edge of her ribcage with a thin strip of white lace, leaving just a hint of bare skin. Her hair, golden blonde like her sister's, lay in gentle waves along her shoulders.
"Sorry! I DO live here too, you know. And I'm not the one running around with all the lights off," Jennifer said, placing a defiant hand on her hip. "Anyway, I came home and you weren't here so I went out and got us a pizza. Have you eaten?" Her voice faded down the hallway towards the kitchen.
Lauren's face flashed scarlet as she spat out a mouthful of semi-brown toothpaste. "I had a little something, but I might be hungry later," she said as she watched the tawny liquid swirl down the drain with a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment. She quickly checked her reflection before breathing a sigh of relief and hurrying to join her sister.
The kitchen, with its humble appliances and plain white cabinets was a far cry from the elegance of Elisha's home, but it filled Lauren with the sense of comfort she'd need for a normal conversation.
"So how did it go?" Jennifer mumbled through a mouthful of pepperoni stuffed crust.
Lauren tried to hide the shake in her voice as she pulled out a chair from the kitchen island and sat down opposite her sister. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Your interview! The one you've been blabbing about all week! The one that's supposed to launch your career as a, uh, whatever you're supposed to be these days." Jennifer continued, biting and ripping at her pizza like a lion stripping meat off of a fresh kill.
