It's Always Time Act 03

Act Three: There's Always Room

Chapter Two: We End as We Began

Author's note: This chapter contains more violence than previous chapters as well as implied but not depicted nonconsensual sexual activity.

Black Cherry pelted down the little hall. Her wings, cramped in the narrow corridor, trailed straight behind her, the train of a jilted bride fleeing her red wedding. Wing claws carved channels into the plaster walls as she ran.

Wasting novilunium,

she thought,

losing control, losing cohesion. Minutes left, maybe less.

She burst from mouth of the hall and into the living room. The couch sat unoccupied.

Where is the plaything Master gave me?

"'Mugger Fleeing the Scene,'" Yves muttered, moving in from his ambush point against the wall behind her to execute the maneuver.

* * * *

In the bathroom, Dee attempted to stand but the resistance from the ragged clothing around his knees took him by surprise and he collapsed, his chin dinging the linoleum floor.

Fire can't burn me, iron can't break me, but get me drunk and tie my shoelaces together and I'm fucked.

He rolled over and sat up, every movement uncertain.

No, I got myself drunk. I gave Bee the nanomek. I left Galatea alone.

He started clawing himself free of the khaki material one strip at a time.

I ripped yet another pair of fucking pants.

* * * *

Yves flanked Black Cherry on the left.

So,

Black Cherry thought as Yves closed the distance between them,

plaything wants to play.

Yves clamped his right hand down around her left wrist. His right foot slid out in front of Black Cherry's left leg as Yves gave her wrist a sharp twist.

Was that supposed to hurt? Best act like it,

Black Cherry decided, hunching over. Anticipating resistance of her bodyweight, Yves shifted his balance and poured energy into an inward turn, bringing her arm forward and around, trying to use her own momentum to throw her to the floor.

My turn, plaything.

Black Cherry let her arm stretch and Yves' expertly planned wrist-throw became a clumsy taffy-pull. Yves stiffened in surprise, spinning in an unbalanced arc to face the wall. Relishing the feel of Yves' hand locking rigid around her wrist, Black Cherry followed through, her arm snaking out until her palm pushed against the wall. "I'll play with you," she said aloud, her fingers curling backward and down to grip the hand stuck to her wrist, "but by my rules." Her hand pinwheeled around his and she reversed their roles just as quickly, pinning Yves' wrist against the wall and moving close behind him.

She let go just to see what he would do. His right arm twitched but did not budge from where she had pinned it. His left arm curled against his chest beneath his unbuttoned button-down.

He's scared,

she realized, watching Yves' fingernails scrape against plaster.

Just like Bee. Just like Galatea and all the others. All except Master

. She pressed her slinky, naked frame against Yves' frozen form. Even on tiptoe she could not reach his neck, so she settled her cheek in the small of his back, breathing deep.

Plaything's fear smells sweet and precious, like a rare prize. Imagine how divine Master's fear must be. Imagine!

"You do not scare easily." Black Cherry snuggled in. "I can tell. I like that. Not like Bee. His fear was sour. Killing him just made it worse, and after eating him the aftertaste lasted hours. Blech," she spat, shuddering at the memory.

* * * *

Dee heard something shatter and scatter in the living room, a jarring tuneful sound like the breaking of a pottery jug or a china plate.

Sober up and think straight, damn it

. He shook his head until the room stopped spinning.

Your friends are in trouble.

He rose and made for the door. A muddy, ruddy light gave Dee the strange, sickening impression that the short hallway was swollen and bloodshot. He steadied himself by grabbing the doorknob. He started to shout, "Yves—!" but was fuddled by sudden movement of something scarlet and leathery racing down the hallway. A red claw bit into the pressboard wood of the bathroom door and wrenched it shut. Dee jerked at the door, trying to keep it open, but pulled the doorknob and shaft out instead.

* * * *

Yves pushed back, trying to spin around.

He recovers quickly,

Black Cherry thought. She clipped his right hand to the wall with a wing claw, knocking a Deep Space Nine commemorative plate off its hanger. It fragmented when it hit the floor. She craned her neck to peer down the hallway to the bathroom.

As quick as Master.

"Yves—!"

Black Cherry sighed, sent her other wing hurtling down the hallway to drag the bathroom door shut as it sprang back. She turned to Yves and startled to see he held a short, wicked-edged knife in his left hand.

Maybe quicker than Master.

Black Cherry wrestled Yves' left arm into a painful pin behind his back. "Now where on Earth did this come from?" she asked, the claw from her returning wing plucking the knife away. She leaned hard against him to maintain the pin and slipped one hand between the wall and his chest. She found a nylon scabbard sewed below the left armpit of the tee shirt beneath his overshirt. "You must have been fishing for your little knife—"

"Tanto."

"—this whole time. Readying a strike, even through all that fear. Your little knife—your

tanto

—would be buried between my breasts now, wouldn't it?" She caressed a wing claw over Yves' cheek. "But you didn't know this little girl had claws."

A few drops of blood ran down Yves' cheek and beaded in the dimple of his chin. "I do now. I don't make the same mistake twice. Ever."

"Master didn’t bring me a plaything." Black Cherry reached up Yves' tee shirt and strummed her fingers across his washboard abdomen, purring. "He's given me a play

mate

. We'll have hours and hours of fun, you and I, but there's something I need first. I tried to get it from Master, but he's not ready for me. He will be, soon, but not yet, and I'm out of time. So, darling Yves," she said, undoing his belt and unzipping his fly, "it looks like you're on the menu after all. On the taster menu, at least."

* * * *

Dee dropped the knob, hooked two fingers into the dark, round hole left in the door, and gave a tentative tug. The door stuck fast. Dee sighed. Two swings of his fist brought the door down in splinters and he stepped sideways into hall. A glob of red goop stained the ceiling lamp, casting everything in an unsettling florid light. A chest-high gouge in the plaster of both walls ran the length of the hallway. Whatever had cut them grooved the wood of his bedroom door and left it swinging loose on its hinges. He shuffled by, gave his bedroom a passing glance, and stopped dead. Blinking, he nudged the bedroom door open with outspread fingers.

When he last saw the room, it resembled a war zone, but now walking into his bedroom was like sticking his head inside a Jackson Pollock painting. Every surface was spattered with chaotic sprays and splashes of black ink and all imaginable shades of red.

They fought here, Galatea and the scarlet girl…

Dee lurched, taking it all in. The color dominating the frenzied mess was green.

…and Galatea lost and the scarlet girl wiped the walls with her…

Dee pivoted on his heels, his balance perfect, and stalked out, his fluid gate as steady and sure as a panther closing in on a kill.

…and I'm going to murder the bitch.

Dee found the scarlet girl standing close to the wall. Her head lolled backward, eyes shut and lips parted in a whimper of relief. Her wide batwings were drawn tight around her petite form in a parody of a cardinal's crimson cloak, locked in place by wing claws stabbing deep into the gelled flesh of her shoulders. "Much better," she sighed, eyes still closed. Her claws withdrew, burgundy nectar weeping from the ragged wounds they left behind. "I can feel the novilunium. I can feel its music, its blood music." Her wings relaxed and unwound, slowly exposing a second figure squeezed so tight and close to the scarlet girl Dee did not notice it before. "My compliments to the chef, Yves." The scarlet girl released her captive. "That was choice."

Yves staggered back from her, clothes haggard and wine-stained, his eyes incandescent with rage. "Fuck you," he replied, and punched her in the throat.

Her neck distended with the force of Yves' blow but her head remained perched above her shoulders. Her eyes opened, her wings swooped back in but hesitated, their long, needle sharp claws quivering inches from Yves' face. She met his unflinching glare for a second more before swiveling her gaze to Dee. "Master?" the scarlet girl said, her smile coy but sly. "I have time now."

"Dee?" Yves said, his eyes never leaving the two raptorial claws hovering close to his temples.

"Yes, Yves?"

Red nectar dripped down onto Yves face. "You're still standing?"

"Yes, Yves."

The scarlet girl chuckled, turning her head as each man spoke, like a spectator watching a tennis match.

"Well, then," Yves said, "Remember what I said about your stupid straight-guy hero routine?"

"Yes, Yves."

"I was an idiot." Yves fell back. The scarlet girl's claws clacked together in empty air as Yves flipped down and away in textbook, backward break-fall. "Kill the bitch," he panted, crawled a few feet closer to the front door before he collapsed, every muscle trembling and oiled in sweat.

"Way ahead of you, Yves," Dee muttered, moving between Yves and the scarlet girl.

The scarlet girl marveled at him, perfect breasts heaving. "You smell wonderful, Master; so

angry

." Batwings the color of blood and smoke luxuriated in the air of the living room. "I love it." Narrow rivulets of red nectar trickled from her sex to run down her inner thighs. "You won't regret coming back to me. I'm so much stronger for you now." She reached out to him, fingers flexing. "I'm ready."

["…I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready…"]

Dee advanced into the radius of her wingspan. "You're finished."

"Oh, Master," she gasped, agape with delight, before her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted into a thin, crooked grin. Her batwings snapped ready, their tiny twins above her ears fanning up and back until she looked like a helmeted Valkyrie from Hell.

"Bring it."

Dee rushed her. The scarlet girl's wingtips meshed and merged behind him. Streams of gel pulsed out from her core to course through the membranes of her wings, ringing Dee in thick walls seeping with sanguine syrup, their bakery-oven smell overpowering. Dee crossed his forearms in front of his chest, palms forward, fingers hooked outward. The scarlet girl's crooked grin crept higher as Dee stormed closer and the gel walls surrounding them contracted inward like an iris. The drizzle of inner nectar dripping from her pussy surged, her legs lost in the torrent fueling the flood bearing down upon Dee. His crossed hands stabbed into her dissolving shoulders just as the collapsing gel crashed down on all sides, a torrid kiss over every inch of his skin and a siphon over his cock, its smothering pressure building without plateau and no hint it would ever stop. Dee spun his fingers deep into her flesh and uncrossed his arms, drawing them downward and out behind him.

Dee tore the scarlet girl apart, opening a v-necked gully in the crushing red sea, and bulldozed through. He emerged clean as a whistle, not a single drop of cherry jam sticking to him. He skidded to a halt before bonking against the living room window and twirled about-face.

The scarlet girl funneled to the floor in a confusion of tangled limbs and funhouse-mirror distorted shapes. "Master," she sobbed when the two halves of her face finally zippered together the right way around, "it hurts. You hurt me." She curled into a fetal ball, wracked with spasm. "You hurt me so much."

Dee charged. The scarlet girl rolled onto her knees. Her wings plunged forward, their claws digging into Dee's underarms and hoisting him into the air. She leapt to her feet, her wings accelerating until Dee's back smashed into the ceiling. "Do it

again!

" she crowed through the rain of plaster, honey bleeding from both pairs of lips.

The scarlet girl twittered and flexed her claws, testing their grip in Dee's armpits and tickling him without mercy. Dee bared his teeth in a gritty, mirthless leer, wrapping his arms in the rubbery folds of her wings. Her murmurs melted into a lush, eager purr as she pulled her wings taut, stretching Dee's arms out wide until she had him crucified on the ceiling. "I want to do every sick, perverted, and twisted thing with my master."

Dee shrugged hard, his left shoulder rolling forward. A clockwise curlicue corkscrewed down the scarlet girl's right wing. A heartbeat later Dee shrugged again, rolling his right shoulder backward. A counterclockwise torque galloped down the left wing. The scarlet girl's cry of shock caught in her throat when the two opposing torsions met in her core and blew her to bits. She burst with a hollow, plosive

pooch!

noise, pelting Dee with stinging spray of black-and-crimson gunk as he plummeted to the floor like an Acme anvil. He tucked his legs in at the last second and punched feet-first through the coffee table. The table caved in, its faux mahogany pressboard top fractured and folded up at crazy angles. Dee stood in the wreckage, knees bent and arms akimbo, an earthbound Peter Pan.

Yves flopped onto his back. "Who won?" he asked, swabbing glop of his face with his stained outer shirt. "If this red stuff is your innards, Dee, I'll probably puke."

Grainy gobs rained down off the ceiling, slid down the walls, and dripped off the furniture. "It's hers," Dee said.

Yves wretched. "Then I'm certain to puke." He peeled off the sloppy shirt and shoved it aside, sitting up. "Who was that bitch? Why did she smell like, like Betty God-damned Crocker? I used to love the smell of cake batter, you know." His strength gave out and he plopped back down, groaning but sparing no energy for dignity. "Now I'm going to have nightmares about it."

The gobs settled in larger lumps on the floor. "Are you all right?" Dee said. "Did she really do what I think—"

"Don't believe what they say on the Internet," Yves interrupted, his voice flat. "Getting your prostate milked sucks."

"But she raped—"

"Enough, Dee. I know what happened, thank you very much." He tried to zipper his fly but the slider got caught on the first few bottom teeth. "That wasn't Galatea, I presume, but something that our boy Bee made. She told me she killed him because she didn't like the way he smelled, by the way."

"But if she's Bee's honey nymph," Dee said, "that doesn't make any sense." A beat later, he added, "Actually, it makes perfect sense."

Yves's glance was alarmed. "You keep referring to her in the present tense. It's not over?"

"Not if she can still move," Dee said. The slush-covered overshirt started to inch forward. "She's heard everything we've said. Yves, get the fuck out of here."

Yves watched his shirt wriggle past him. "She's not interested in me now that she's got you to play with."

"We're not playing."

"Then what—"

"Quiet," Dee snapped. A cherry chocolate mound gathered at his feet.

"Yes, Ooze-Sensei," Yves whispered.

Fed by dribbles and spurts of red and black goo, the mound ripened into a bloated beach ball. "Well?" Dee said, shifting his weight, "had enough?"

The scarlet girl's wings whipped back and she rocketed forward, snagging Dee by the throat with one hand as she ran past him in an almost casual gesture. His feet dangled a few inches off the floor for a moment of hurtling, horizontal flight before she rammed him into the far wall. Struts buckled and plaster powdered behind him, but the load-bearing structure of the apartment building's outer wall absorbed most of the blow. "I want," the scarlet girl panted, "to do every…sick, perverted, and…twisted thing with my master! And that," she wailed, "that was just

one!

"

Dee kicked out, his foot kinked at a curious angle, his movements slow but strong. The kick connected with gel flesh and amputated the scarlet girl's right leg at the thigh. Her wings smacked down onto the floor behind her, keeping her upright as she reeled. She recovered quickly, gobs of severed leg still pattering around the room as the grip around Dee's neck cinched shut and she threw a left hook at his jaw. Dee let his knees buckle and the scarlet girl punched a fist-size hole in the wall an inch above his head. He barreled forward, shoulder slamming into the scarlet girl's midriff, his hands pushing a strange pattern through her jellied substance. The force of the blow threw her backward in a disintegrating arc through the air until she fell among the ruins of the coffee table.

Her hand held fast to his neck, her arm stretching noodle thin until it snapped. The hand dissolved, its warm sanguine fluid running down Dee's chest.

Lost cohesion when separated from the whole,

Dee decided.

She can't divide like Galatea could, or maybe just not as well.

The melted gel rolled away in glistening beads of blood. The scarlet girl flailed in a mad tantrum, screeching, "You pushed me away! Never push me away!"

"Always," Dee said in a dead monotone and marched forward. "And you'll never get to have me."

The scarlet girl flew at him, a banshee blur of wings, claws, and rings of teeth. Dee cried out in wordless pain in the center of a red cyclone that tore away every last shred of his clothing. The scarlet girl coalesced and clung to him, wings wrapped around his ass and between his legs, hands raking over his back. "I have a master," she hissed, hips humping furiously against his dick. "I'll always have a master."

Dee bobbed and weaved, broke free, and threw her melting form to the floor. "You have nothing," he spat, stumbling through trails of black and burgundy slime.

"I'm nothing," she whispered, a shaky wing claw reaching down to shiver against her clitoris. "I'm nothing." Her other wing claw dove into her sex.

"Jesus," Dee said. He stumped over to Yves. "Let's get you out of here, Yves."

Yves lay still on the floor, his neck crooked up and glassy eyes narrowed. "I've never seen anyone move like that."

Dee grimaced at the scarlet girl writhing in the living room. "That's because she's made of Jell—"

"Not her," Yves said, "you. And just what the Hell are you doing?"

"What you told me to do," Dee said. "I'm killing the bitch."

Yves craned his neck higher. The scarlet girl's face had grown gooey, her features unfocused and dripping with dew. Red rills coursed between her breasts before her hands, fingers fused into flippers, would scoop and smear the runoff across every softening curve. One wing pulsed deep in her pussy. She arched up, sheets of candy-apple red icing flowing down her back like a mane, and the other wing curled under her rump and penetrated her from behind. All the while she twittered and muttered, "I'm nothing, I'm nothing, I'm nothing."

Yves head bumped down hard against the floor. "Sure doesn't look like it."

"Every move costs nanomek," Dee said. "Every reassembly burns even more."

The apartment filled with slurping, syrupy sounds as the scarlet girl drove herself to messy orgasm. "Nothing! Master! Nothing! Always!

Master!

"

"And that costs her the most," Dee added wretchedly.

"Christ, Dee, why?"

"Don't you get it? I'm going to burn all her nanomek away." Dee helped Yves to his feet. "Or die trying. Probably both. That's why I have to get you out of here, Yves. She can't have another source of sperm. I've got to burn all the bitch's nanomek away. Every last one. That's the only way to truly kill a meliae."