Crimson Reborn

Darcy sat in the dining room of her restaurant looking out at the empty road. In a few minutes, the sun would dip beneath the tree line and another long night would take over Small Creek.

But at least there are days and nights again

, she thought.

The old preacher and his statue kept coming to her mind. She thought of going back to the church a few times. She didn't know if she wanted to see the statue again or perhaps take a sledge hammer to it. The thing was

wrong,

and seeing it forced her to see all the other wrong things in town. People had vanished. Not a few, but dozens, maybe hundreds. Small Creek had a school, and schools had a purpose. Darcy remembered being a girl and going to that same school, but when she went to look at it, she could think of nothing but empty hallways.

A pair of kids had been there, staring through the chain link fence and holding hands. Darcy didn't notice them for a long while, and they didn't notice her until she was right in front of them. Up close, they looked faded and ghostly. "It keeps getting harder to come back," the boy, Blake, told Darcy. "One day, we'll simply forget."

"Not if we keep holding on," the girl said. "You were the mayor, right? What did you choose?" A moment later, the pair vanished. The air around them rippled like a curtain in the wind. When it smoothed again, Darcy was alone in front of an abandoned building. She was halfway back to her car before she remembered the teenagers at all.

Darcy steeped her tea. Her eyes refocused on the curls of steam rising from the cup. The air prickled, going tense with energy, like a moment before lightning. Darcy didn't look up, but she felt the draw to do so. She didn't want to give the creature the satisfaction of seeing awe or horror or fear in her face. Effort aside, when her eyes settle on the figure walking through the front door, her body betrayed her with a gasp of shock and a flush of heat in her cheeks.

Lucy had chosen a dress that seemed to be spun from moonlight and rubies. It glimmered and shifted across her form which, otherwise, was naked. The dress offered no modesty as it slid and shifted on the woman's body, and it allowed Lucy's beauty to reign unchecked in the dingy diner. Darcy didn't know how to react other than to force herself to breath again. A cold feeling sunk down into her gut as Lucy approached her table. The goddess placed a perfect hand on the chair opposite Darcy, pulled it out, and asked, "May I?"

The words broke whatever spell held her. Darcy smiled, "Of course. Tea?"

"Please," Lucy answered. As she sat, the aura of light and power diminished, resolving into a knot of energy that centered on her. Darcy could still feel its tug, even in the lifeless objects around her. The kettle, the cup, the saucer -- everything wanted to go to Lucy, like metal drawn in to a magnet. Yet, for a moment, when Darcy looked back at the table, she didn't see the deity. Instead, she saw a woman she'd known, small and struggling for attention in a dull world. Darcy carried the tea over carefully and placed it in front of Lucy with an expert hand. "Thank you," the goddess said.

"I've been hearing your name," Darcy said, taking her seat. Her fingers touched the side of her own cup, disappointed to see it going chill already. "I didn't realize it was a name or that it meant you. Now that you're here, it all clicks. Lucy. Lucy Cole was your name. I remember your parents, Richard and Maggie. Went to school with Richard. What happened to them? Have I forgotten or did I never know?"

Lucy swirled her finger in her tea. She shook her head, "I can't remember. It's a mad world out there, and I'm only a little less lost than everyone else."

"But you're running this show, aren't you? It's not the preacher, and I don't know of anyone else left." She leaned forward, resting her arm on the table. "Hell, I haven't seen anyone who wasn't a zombie or ghost all week. You sitting there with all your realness is a little off-putting."

"I could say the same, Darcy," Lucy answered. "You're right, though. You're all that's left. The one last pillar of pure reality in Small Creek. All those zombies and ghosts are regular ol' people, they're tethered to you like a bunch of water skiers who won't let go even though they beefed it in the boat's wake."

Darcy looked past the bizarre woman to the large windows as though dead hands might slam into the glass.

No,

she thought,

they're not dead. They're just lifeless. Meandering from one point to the other. Teaching empty classrooms, working empty shops, having one sided conversations at empty dinner tables.

"You did this, not me."

"I'm not assigning blame. Nothing to blame anyone for." She leaned back in her chair, red hair spilling over her shoulders. Lucy lifted her tea and drank, looking around the empty restaurant. "We used to come here, you know? My husband and I, even back when we dated. This was one of the 'fancy' places he would take me. It was nice. I mean that."

The room seemed to sag around them as Lucy spoke. The tables glimmered under the artificial light, a thin sheen of grease permanently attached to their surface. Decades old paint showed at the edging all around the room. The kitchen door hung loose on its hinges. Darcy knocked her knuckles on the table nervously. The decay, the stagnation of the place always bothered her. When the town was normal, the road at least had people on it, and the restaurant had people in it. They made noise, if nothing else, to distract each other. She cleared her throat, "I want to make a deal."

***

"A deal?" Lucy asked, the energy prickling through the air once again.

"Sure. That's what this is, right? Faustian bargains, deals with the devil, whatever you want to call it. You offer people eternal youth or power or whatever and then turn them to stone."

Lucy frowned, "I didn't turn Pastor Tanner to stone. He did that himself. Believe it or not, he's free to loosen up whenever he gets around to it. The religious ones are complicated, but you're not religious."

"No," Darcy agreed. She liked the conversation. It was the first real one she'd had since Lucy's changes began. But also, it was a negotiation. Darcy always liked negotiations. "Never cared much for church. I went, but more for show than for personal conversations with God. Turns out, if you hang around long enough, god comes to you." She picked up her tea and raised the cup slightly toward Lucy. "Doesn't mean I'm less complicated, though, does it?"

Lucy shrugged, an unusually casual gesture for a creature so divine. "I wouldn't say that your case is complicated. Rigid, perhaps. What do you know about souls? Anything profound?"

She shook her head, "What's to know? We have them, I reckon, based on your existence. I never thought too much about it. Figured I'd live, die, and go back to the void where I came from."

"Mmm, that's boring and unhelpful. Your expected lack of imagination aside, souls are amazing and complex. The Egyptians, some of them, thought that your soul was weighed against a feather when you die. Lighter, you go to some kind of heaven. Heavier and some kind of hell, I assume. The interesting part is the scale, I think. Because a feather has weight, not much, but not zero. So, they thought some sin was inevitable. In my experience, that seems true. Human souls are these splintering, knotted bundles of good and bad, want and give, hate and love. All that messy stuff that contradicts and coexists. Some people, the bad clearly outweighs the good. Like a sack of potatoes on the scale. Others are a tangle of things which aren't good or evil. They're human, I guess. Squirts of biology trying not to get stepped on in a physical world."

"And me?" Darcy asked, wondering if she really wanted the answer.

Lucy stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated frown. "Yours is...neat. Orderly, I mean. Each piece layered on the other as though by intent. So I'd ask you, Darcy, what's it like having an organized soul."

The answer came to her lips before she realized she knew it, "Boring. God, it's been so boring. My whole fucking life feels like one long day of sitting in a meeting about proper pay stub formatting. The most exciting thing to ever happen to me was a lunatic preacher believing in demons demanding to show me a statue. And after that, I could

feel

that old boring life pulling me back down, like it was a swamp desperate to have me stuck in it. And the fucking swamp had answers for everything, bubbling up like gas from the bottom of rotten muck. I listened to them, too. Not since Colin's show, but my whole life --" she stopped, a rush of embarrassment arresting the words in her throat. She took a deep breath and calmed.

Lucy peered at her over clasped hands, arms pushing together her massive boobs into nothing but cleavage on the other side of the table. "I've got it this time. Yours is like a fire, specifically a grill fire. All those little charcoal briquettes flickering to life."

"Sorry, what?"

"Your soul, it's a barbecue. Except, the briquettes aren't lit. I would say they're burned out, but you still have potential, so the whole burned out thing isn't accurate. It's all neat little briquettes waiting for a match."

Darcy nodded, slow and thoughtful. "And if I'm lit? What happens? The preacher said that I mattered. You did, too. All those people are linked to me. If I go, so do they? The whole town is yours?"

"Ooo, that one's more complicated. Remember mitosis from biology class? That's my working idea at the moment. My reality and the old reality are two cells slowly pulling apart. The new reality needs pillars to stand on, I recently got one of those. It's an egg. Well the egg is a sort of symbol of the deal. Long story. But it also has to sever the connections to the old reality. In

my

world, things don't play by the same rules as in yours. Sex is extremely common in mine. So are magical creatures and demons and giant cocks, meaning big ones not cocks of giants, and breasts the size of boulders pouring out milk that makes you into a cow person. Its a world fueled by lust and carnality and all the little red fibers in a soul. It's less complex, like a reality refined for a singular purpose- joy, ecstasy, whatever you want to call it. So if you take my offer, the last strand between my reality and the old reality breaks."

"And then?"

Lucy shrugged, "Don't know."

Darcy bit her lip. "What happens to me? Do I become a monster?"

"Whatever you like. You are as blank a slate as they come, Darcy. I can promise you one thing, though, you will

feel

."

She stood, smoothed out her clothes, and stuck her hand over the table. "Then I accept."

"Oh," Lucy said, nonplussed. "Thought that was going to take more convincing. Uh, handshake doesn't really do it." She grinned, "Do you mind milk with your tea?"

***

It was a surreal to watch the dress melt off of Lucy's body. She brought the cup, previous contents magicked away, to her nipple. With the slightest squeeze, the milk oozed forth. Lucy sighed and pressed again, a dribble followed by a gush. Within only a few seconds, the cup was half full of rich, pink milk. She put the cup back on the table and slid it across to Darcy. The woman thought her lip should curl or that her nose should wrinkle. Another woman's breast milk, magic or not, had just been expressed into a cup for Darcy to drink. And yet, it was not discomfort of revulsion that filled her. Instead, her mouth watered, and the faint scent of warm sugar pervaded the air. Her hand closed gently around the cup. She paused, "What

will

I be?"

Lucy shrugged, a cascading ripple through her sensuous body. "I'm as curious as you are."

Darcy didn't recall the last time she'd been truly nervous. She brought the cup to her lips, pausing to enjoy the delightful scent. Then, with trained resolved, she drank. The milk lingered on her tongue after she swallowed, her mouth welling with saliva as she wanted more. The cup returned to the tabletop with a small clink. A low flush spread down from her cheeks. She shifted in her chair as the heat prickled up to the surface of her skin. Slowly, she felt conscious of different sensations across her body. Her breasts tingled with a subtle ache, nipples hardened and rubbed unpleasantly against her bra, and her pants clung too tightly to her hips. She cleared her throat, "Now what?"

Lucy looked distracted before her eyes refocused on Darcy. The red woman stood, faced the row of tables nearest the window and clapped her hands together. Darcy could feel the energy moving through the room as her vision swam. Where tables had been for decades, a long slender bed formed out of the melding matter. The dingy tinge on the windows cleared as red light glowed in the street lamps outside. Lucy's hand took Darcy's and drew the other woman up. Darcy watched the rolling shift of Lucy's ass as they crossed the room. Lucy dropped her hand, leaving Darcy with an emptiness that alarmed her. It didn't last, as Lucy laid down on her back, reclining beautifully on the bed like a delectable treat on window display. Her hand took Darcy's again and drew her newest conquest to her.

A flutter rose up through Darcy as a rush of hot breath hit her neck. Lucy's lips left small kisses across Darcy's collarbone before she was guided down. The sugary scent drew Darcy. With eyes locked on Lucy's, she wrapped her lips around the wet nipple and sucked. As the stream of milk flowed into Darcy's mouth, a new ripple of reality tore down her body. Like an invisible hand running a seam ripper straight down her back, her clothes ripped away and evaporated into some kind of ash or dust. With the barrier gone, Darcy's skin met Lucy's like a socket meeting a plug. The energy flowed into her with a jolt, making her body go rigid. She'd never laid as such with another woman, let alone a demigod.

The feeling of Lucy beneath her stirred lust within Darcy. She didn't recognize it at first. Unlike all the others who indulged in Lucy's spell, Darcy did not have a raging fire waiting to be unleashed, but dry tinder that caught quickly. Her hands moved over the soft curves of Lucy's body, fingertips tracing the rise of perfect hips until riding down the slightly protruding pelvic bone to the tantalizing wonder of inner thigh. Her other hand was caught by Lucy and brought up to the free breast. Darcy didn't realize touching another woman's chest could be exciting, but as her fingers sank into the soft flesh, a fresh twinge of desire pulsed through her. All the while, she sucked and drank, milk filling up her belly and becoming one with her being.

Her legs straddled Lucy's left thigh. On her knees, Darcy kept herself clear of Lucy's leg until the need for touch overwhelmed her. She lowered her hips down and felt her own slick lips slide against the smooth, muscled thigh. Lucy met the moment, raising her leg as Darcy pushed down, grinding hard. A moan escaped her lips, causing a gush of milk to roll down the outside of Lucy's breast. Lucy's fingers moved across Darcy's cheek, guiding her chin back to the leaking tit. In return, Darcy's fingers braved the dip between Lucy's legs. As her touch met wet pussy of her mistress, Darcy shivered. With little confidence, her fingers slid up and down the slit until covered in Lucy's arousal. Darcy stopped drinking long enough to switch to the other breast before shoving her fingers inside Lucy's pussy.

As she drank, a rolling shimmer enveloped Darcy. The years turned back in subtle ways. Her face tightened, the slight sag in her breasts drew taut, and the wrinkle here or there smoothed. Her dark hair lengthened as the brown curls lightened to cherry red. She slimmed, but only slightly, and not through a trimming of fat. It was reduction, not loss. Darcy's body became taut and smooth, like a well honed instrument. By the time Lucy rolled Darcy to her back, she looked exactly as she had at eighteen. Her legs parted as she dreamily rolled her head to the side. Lucy's expert tongue delved into Darcy's pussy as the changing woman looked out at the town through the window. As waves of pleasure drew forth from Lucy's near prehensile tongue, dormant dreams surfaced in Darcy's mind, fizzling into nothingness as she concentrated on pleasure. She cried out softly as her body spasmed with orgasm. Lucy's powerful arms wrapped around Darcy's thighs and held her in position as she shook and quivered, milk beginning to seep from her pert nipples.

Lucy raised up and surveyed her work. Before her, she saw Darcy's physical form with all the trappings of her years vanished away. Freckles adorned red cheeks beneath bright, wide eyes. Darcy smiled, biting her lip as her arms came up to self consciously cover her small, but full breasts. She exuded nervous energy, not shame, but inadequacy as she wriggled beneath Lucy's plush body. But, Lucy could see beyond the physical. She peered down at the small knot of grey that was Darcy's soul, watching a single strand of red twine its way through.

For Darcy, the experience was akin to standing on the cliff of a mountainside with icy, bracing wind cutting through her being. The whole of the world laid out before her and, with it, the potential to be anything. Her old dreams weren't dormant any longer, or even groggy. They spooled up in her mind in vibrant reality, playing out like flickering silent films. Her life as a professional cheerleader was followed by one as a high priced lawyer. That one dissolved into being a congresswoman followed by a stay at home mother with a fat ass. Each flared and fizzled in seconds, leaving Darcy with only one thought,

more.

She lurched up, wrapping her arms around Lucy's powerful frame. Her mouth found the other woman's breast and sucked, no longer curious and tentative, but needful and determined. The milk flowed into her and with it, the red in her soul caught like a brushfire.

"No," Lucy whispered, eyes unfocused as she saw the ethereal more than physical. Darcy's unmolested simplicity was precious and beautiful. Reaching out her will, she held the strands of corruption being drawn toward Darcy's soul.

No...she can be...something else. Something pure.

From deep within the song of Lucy's being came a sour note,

She cannot be better than US.

It happened in less than a moment, driven by a burst of emotions Lucy had not felt in a long while. Jealousy might have reigned in the storm, but pride and curiosity and cruelty echoed on the winds of Lucy's power. "You want more?" she taunted, poised over Darcy. "Then have it."

Energy flooded into Darcy's being. She squealed as her body bucked and shivered. "Yes," she hissed. "Make me fucking amazing." Her words clipped together in a lisp as her tongue slithered out of her mouth a little too far. Her hands came up to cup her breasts -- tits, as they spilled forth into being. She grunted as her tongue split, bifurcating into two wriggling muscles that lashed back and forth as she twisted and writhed. She grunted as her hips jerked upwards, raised by the sudden swelling of her ass. Her hand snaked down between her own legs, sliding her fingers against her juicy pussy. Yet, the physical changes came in fits and jerks compared to the rapid degradation of Darcy's mind. She grinned wide as the roiling energy turned her thoughts toward sex.

"Mmm, mistress, my cunny is so fucking wet. It needs fucking with big, sloppy cock," Darcy squeezed her tits, squirting milk out onto her own cheek where her tongue licked it away. She rolled beneath Lucy, shoving her ass up at the other woman, grinding the bubble butt into Lucy's crotch. "Or my tight ass? Mmm, will mistress fuck my tight ass? Uunnngghh." Another wave hit her eradicating her name. Darcy's thoughts bubbled and came up with the best thing it could think off. "Mmm, fuck Cumbunny's ass, pwease?"