*** I'm not sure about the degree of inspiration, but I wrote this not long after seeing 'Constantine', so at least you know how old it is.
This isn't anything like that.
Well, as far as I can tell, anyway. Actually, now that I think about it, it really isn't like that at all.
I just wanted to write something that felt a little nice to me.
0_o
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She walked along the shore of the lake in a dark mood, keeping an eye open for soda cans, beer cans, and the occasional soda bottle; preferably glass and unbroken, but it didn't matter much and the plastic ones would do.
Anything that she could turn in for the deposit money.
She was scavenging here while she waited for the school to let out so that she could collect her kids and go on home with them in about four hours.
Who knew what they'd eat for dinner that night?
She had about a buck and a half, so that would get them some mac and cheese if all else failed. Oh, and if she lucked out and found a few more cans, she might be able to get a loaf of bread to go with that -- half for their baloney sandwich lunches tomorrow and half with dinner.
You know, wholesome eating.
And it was her day off.
Delia rolled her eyes and wanted to spit, just to be rid of the dust and grit coating her tongue from spending her fucking day off scavenging.
And from needing to.
Just twenty-one, born poorer than dirt and a half-breed at that -- and here she was, doing her best to raise two kids who weren't even her own.
No sir, life to this point sure hadn't been good to Delia very much at all.
She half-assed swung at a horsefly, thinking that if it was going to be much more of a bitch about things, she'd put her whole ass into it and mash the annoying little fuck.
When she'd managed to bait the pest into landing on her arm, she nailed it with a slap far faster than most people could swing. It landed struggling in the water on its back and as she fought to keep her balance, she saw a smallmouth bass come up and take it.
She lost the struggle and fell in with a quiet curse.
That was how she ended up standing in cold, hip-deep water and feeling furious enough to make it boil.
As she wiped the water and her long black hair out of her eyes, she caught the gleam and waited for the ripples in the surface to settle out.
She was standing right next to a spot where she guessed that a bunch of high school kids must have spent an afternoon or evening guzzling beer.
Either that or they were just the usual camo-covered goons and assorted other layabout hicks.
It didn't matter. There were well over a dozen cans here. She bent down to get a few of them, re-wetting her hair in the process, but that couldn't be helped. One after another, she dragged the cans out of the mud and silt and tossed them onto the bank.
After draining the water out of them, she laid them aside and walked back for her knapsack with a small smile. She'd found two full and unopened cans among the others. The law must have shown up and whoever it had been had ditched the unopened ones.
By the 'best before' dates on them, they were still good.
It didn't matter. Delia would nurse her way through those cans as though they contained ambrosia. She didn't drink -- not being able to afford even a six pack most times. She didn't even know if she'd like the stuff, but it was free, so that was something pretty rare for her.
Well, Delia supposed, there had been a cost. Now she was squishing along in flooded sneakers, soaking wet with her clothes sticking to her.
Deciding to go on, she walked slowly for a time, but then stopped.
She could hear breathing; odd-sounding breathing, like ... like somebody who was struggling or working at something while gasping every so often. She turned her head slowly, trying to get a bead on the direction.
It was coming from a cabin set back a ways.
The way that the stupid township had laid out the dirt road around the lake meant that there was lakefront and behind that and the road's right of way, lay the road. Behind that were the cabins; vacation properties, mostly.
From what she could see, the place had been built on a lot which sloped, and so the whole thing was set on concrete pilings. There was a porch at the front of it and that porch was on the highest pilings so that overall, the floor and the porch were at the same level. From where Delia stood, the rear of the place was almost on the ground, but the front edge of the porch was a good ten feet up and was surrounded by a railing.
She was curious, so she headed that way.
After a minute, she was standing under the front of the porch, still listening to the strange breathing. Then she heard a very quiet grunt before who or whatever this was carried on, the breathing gradually getting a bit faster.
Really curious now, she laid her pack down carefully. As she did, she heard and felt a couple of the cans slide against each other and with a gentle wave of her hand, they were suspended along with the rest of her treasures inside of the pack and not able to rattle at all.
She listened and sensed for a moment more and decided that the sounds related to something very likely sexual in nature and that made up her mind.
She looked around and tried to sense for anyone else out here at ground level. With nothing coming to her, she let her skin change from it's regular, run of the mill for around here to what she was inside.
Her clothing faded from view and she stood naked for a second as her dark-skinned body vanished from sight as well right afterwards. Testing the solidness of the porch construction by feel for a moment, she began to climb up silently in the manner of her father's kind.
She'd never met him and only knew what her mother had said of it all before she'd died when Delia was sixteen.
Delia didn't have very much of anything at all to her name, but she'd been given a few questionable gifts in her DNA.
When she got to a point where she could see over the edge, Delia almost gasped herself. In fact, she almost fell clean off.
There was a young man about her own age or a little older, lying naked in the sunshine masturbating. Delia blinked as she stared.
Twice.
She didn't know him; didn't know a thing about him at all, but he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen in her life with a sweet, sweet masculine face and long golden curls which lay on his shoulders.
She could see that he was a little tall. He wasn't a body builder for damn sure, though she saw that he didn't carry much fat on him at all and it allowed her to see that he also carried a bit of muscle -- just not a whole lot and Delia liked it on him for that. She'd never had much of a love life worth writing home about, but over the past few years or so, she'd had enough in the way of personal relationships to have come to a decision.
She was so done with big, strong, and stupid.
Her eyes drifted to the toy that he was stroking busily and she liked that sight quite a bit too. She watched as he got a little nearer to his finish and Delia felt a bit of a thrill to watch it, because of the way that he must have felt it beginning and he moved his lovely legs apart a little so that as he wanked and began to groan a little, she watched spellbound as his bag moved with the motions.
Damn, she could even see the balls in there as they jiggled before her.
The only trouble was the wings.
Dark gray and feathered -- and fucking wide, she saw as he flexed them involuntarily from where he was propped against the door of the place. They must span at least a good twenty feet when he opened them fully.
She drew a slow breath and held it as she crawled a little higher, coming over the top of the railing like an invisible spider to stare as he moaned softly one time.
Delia suddenly noticed that she was getting wet. She wondered about it and decided that she couldn't really help it.
She just couldn't really get a handle on why.
She'd seen this kind around before now and then, just passing through or on some sort of errand work. They were visible to people when it suited them and not noticeable at all to them if it didn't.
Unless you were either one of them or one of the others -- or something else with the eyes for it, no one ever saw their wings at all.
But Delia saw them all because they couldn't hide from her eyes and most of them didn't really do a thing for her.
So why did this one seem to move her somehow?
And just what the fuck was one of them doing here of all places and stroking off to beat the band?
She went fully into what she was and crawled a little higher, feeling the way that her tail found the railing and wrapped itself around for a moment. She also felt the tip of it as it swayed in the air out of her tense arousal.
She crawled down on the side toward him and began to move forward, drawn to him in spite of herself and her usual need to be cautious -- especially around one of these.
Whenever they saw her, she'd noticed them start, often doing a double or even a triple take in her direction. It always ended with them figuring out what she was and moving on, sometimes with a sneer sent her way.
But she'd never seen one of them do something like this before.
She didn't even know that they even could.
He opened his eyes a little and she froze, forcing herself to be still inside as well. Most but not all of these could sense her, just as she could sense them; every one of them -- and the thought brought her a small shock.
