I don't even remember waking up this time.
One moment, there is an absence, so vast and painful that I can only return to my shell of a body, for fear of what I'll realize I've lost. The next, I'm standing, legs aching, head lolling, brain fried, and every single part of me shivering like a naked rat in the cold.
Whatever was keeping me upright failed, and I collapsed to my knees. Not even the hard, slicing pain of the gravely ground could make me regret my return to form. I lick my lips dryly, and widen half-lidded eyes to see around me.
Goddess is resting, lounging, sensuously seated on an outcropping of rock, as if she was born there, and will happily live there forever. She's daintily tracing marks of something on her dress, on her pearlescent skin. It shimmers red in a moment of glistening water reflection.
Blood.
My blood.
My face smiles for me.
It's her blood now.
She looks at me, pierces me effortlessly, returns to her post feeding ministrations, and I know every sensation I've ever felt can't come close to the intensity, the slickness, of what she is inflicting on herself.
Regality has never looked so playful.
In one corner, the Twins continue, unabated, unending. How long can two people continue to push their very existence to the absolute limit of human endurance? But then I remember, they aren't just humans. They're gifted. Super. Higher. And when life is one inevitable, silent, slurping orgasm, does food and water and sleep really enter into the equation?
One of them--I can't tell which--looks up at me just long enough to snarl, fluid dripping from her face. I see no humanity there.
I see an animal.
It returns to its feasting.
I try not to long to join them.
In the other corner of the room, as far removed from everyone else as possible, Listener sits, and rocks back and forth on her bony butt, arms wrapped around knees like a lost, frightened little girl desperate for someone to save her. But her bloodshot eyes don't expect my approach, and don't welcome it either, even as I crawl towards her, staring at her urgently.
I can't remember everything; I can't remember what happened after I was bitten, nor can I say exactly what Goddess placed in my head as I dreamed during her ravishing of me. But I do know that I came, and that I am sore, and that the clarity it's affording me is a temporary, dangerous gift, one that I need to put to use if there is to be any hope.
Listener shuffles away from me. She's disgusted by me, but whether that's because of hurt or sheer loathing, I can't say. I can't read her like she can read me, but I'm almost hurt when I realize she's making no effort to listen to my thoughts. She's closed off. Shattered.
Tonya.
She reads the freely offered word, rejects it, shuffles further away, mumbling something gently, fragile. I push forward. The pebbles and rocks stick to my hands and knees, but I welcome the pain. Anything to keep me focused. Anything to get us the hell out of here before she gains the upper hand over us yet again.
Tonya, listen to me. We have to work together.
A soft and derisive scoff is all she can muster before she returns to her keening and her jealous visage. Her eyes roam to Goddess, who ignores her with perfect ambivalence. Her jaw works as she swallows one more betrayal, one more loss of self. I press my advantage.
Tonya, listen to me. A few days ago, you'd never met this woman. She is influencing your thoughts. She is making you want things you don't actually want.