I was awoken by a loud thud.
I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances, of course, which was to bolt upright in bed and scan frantically around the room for unfolding disasters. There was a full moon out and pale blue light was streaming in through the balcony door of my studio apartment -- light enough to see by if I wasn't also blind as a bat. I fumbled around the bedstand for my glasses.
None of the major silhouettes of the room seemed to be out of place -- my computer, my floor lamp, my designated laundry chair. Near-sighted as I was, I could tell
that
much. Nothing appeared to be either sparking or on fire; this was also good. Maybe my upstairs neighbours had just dropped something heavy on the floor? It wouldn't be the first time. But then I heard a groan to my left and my blood ran cold.
A
human
groan, just a foot or two away from my bedside.
I froze, completely and utterly still -- too nervous even to breathe. A burglar? A
serial killer
?? My brain frantically scanned about for something in arm's reach to defend myself with. Pillows? A mechanical pencil? A spool of sisal twine? (What was that even still doing on my headboard, anyway?) Moving right, there were handful of plushies on the shelf beside my bed. Maybe if I threw them at the intruder's head, they'd be momentarily startled by the one that made noises whenever you squeezed it. And then shoot me or something, probably.
There was an old shinai I still had from my days in the college kendo club -- and which I'd jokingly referred to a few times as my intruder deterrent -- but it was currently propped up inside my closet and at least five times as far away from me as the burglar was. How helpful.
Why was everything near my bed so
soft
?
Seconds stretched until they felt like minutes. Had I even remembered to breathe in all this time? Would I ever breathe again? But then my fingers -- which I hadn't even consciously realized were moving -- brushed up against something smooth and cold and I realized I'd found my weapon.
A soup bowl! From last night's curry ramen, which shamefully hadn't made it all the way to the kitchen sink before bedtime. It was large and made of heavy blue ceramic; it would probably hurt a lot to get hit upside the head with it. Hopefully I wouldn't spill leftover broth all over my bedsheets in the process.
But before I could shout a warning or hurl crockery or even tell Alexa to turn on the lights, the vaguely human-shaped lump on my floor pulled itself upright and shouted with absolute indignation:
"
Why is your floor such a mess!?
"
"...p- pardon??"
"This!" she cried, holding up an electrical cord of some description. "Right here! Buried under t-shirts and last year's tax returns and god knows what --
This is a tripping hazard!
"
"...I mean,
I
know it's there," I offered meekly. Though in fairness to her, there
were
cords snaked in a tangle all over that corner of the room. But what was I supposed to do? The power outlets in this apartment were all
incredibly
inconveniently located; did the landlord really expect me to set up my office in the closet?
...wait, why was I feeling sheepish about my household organizational skills to the
woman who broke into my apartment
?
And it
was
a woman -- no doubt about that now. And one with a... a really cute voice, if I'm honest.
God, was
that
why I was acting all flustered? Because my home invader sounded
cute
? Was I really as useless as that?
"Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my apartment?" I managed, reaching for my glasses again.
"What, never gotten a booty call before?"
"No. Also, I don't know you."
"But would you like to?" she teased, pulling herself upright again.
Oh, sure!
I grumbled to myself.
Y'know, provided you're not an axe murderer or something, which maybe you are if you're showing up at strangers' houses in the middle of the night.
I glanced at my clock. 3:47.
Goddddd
.... What sort of sane explanation could there possibly be for any of this?
"I'd like you explain yourself," I said with as much calm authority as I could muster, finally slipping my glasses back onto my face. Goddamnit, she
looked
cute, too.
It was still too dark to make out everything, but my possibly-would-be-assailant seemed just barely over five feet tall, a bit heavy-set but in ways that I would find extremely attractive under normal circumstances. She seemed neither armed nor especially malicious-looking. Oddly at ease, really. In fact, between the tank top and short shorts, she really
did
seem more dressed for a booty call than a murder.
She had gorgeous freckles.
"Whoa, whoa, hold it!" I snapped as she began walking towards me. "Stay right where you are and answer my question!" I mean, you
could
still murder someone in a tank top and short shorts, after all.
"Okay, okay; simmer down, girl," she sighed, stopping in place and raising her hands above her head.
"I'm not a girl," I pointed out. Maybe she'd broken into the wrong apartment? Was this a nightmare intended for someone else altogether?
Or a wet dream?
a part of me wondered. I blamed the adrenaline for that one.
She shrugged expressively. "Eh, we'll see about that. I'm Kalysta! And I'm here to make your life a
whole
lot crazier in the best sorts of ways."
"You're really not helping your case, you know."
I glanced towards the entrance of my apartment. Enough moonlight was glinting off the chain attached to my front door it to confirm it was still locked and there was no trail of destruction wrought through my possessions or any other signs of forced entry. But my balcony window was wide open and I distinctly remembered closing it before I went to bed -- the grass might be greening, but the chill of early spring still hung in the air.
But if
that
was the only means of entrance I could see, then....
"How...?" I paused and considered my words again, as though I couldn't quite swallow the implication of them. "How exactly did you climb in through a seventh story window? There isn't even a fire escape on this side of the building."
Kalysta grinned from ear to ear. "Wings, motherfucker!"
She flicked on the light switch.
....
....
Wings.
Framing her curvaceous figure on either side were a pair of brilliant red and purple butterfly wings, rimmed in black. Their silhouette was gently tapered in places and artfully ragged in others, like some giant diaphanous spider lily. They fluttered gently back and forth as she stood there, seemingly under their own power.
"Why so gobsmacked?" she quipped. "Never seen a real live fairy before?"
"I-"
"No, of course you haven't," she muttered, apparently to herself this time. "Fuckin' NIS control freaks, I swear to Hera. You'd think they'd be over this by now, but
nooooo
."
"That's uh... that's some very elaborate cosplay you have there," I managed eventually.
"It's not cosplay, you jerk." She rounded on me with a peevish smirk and stuck out her tongue. And then hopped lightly into the air and just... remained there. "See?"
Her feet were clearly several inches away from touching the floor again, but even gravity appeared to think it wise to give this madwoman a wide berth. She began drifting closer to me, wings beating a rapid pace behind her back as she did so.
Okay, that's it
, I decided, flopping back into bed.
I'm still dreaming. Goodnight!
"Oh, you're very much awake, sweetcheeks."
I stiffened slightly.
But of course she would say that
, I reminded myself.
She's a figment of my imagination.
She
doesn't know she's a dream.
"Could a dream do
this
?" she asked, grabbing my blankets and throwing them off the bed in one motion. I began to yelp in protest, but had the breath abruptly knocked out of me as she flopped her prodigious butt down squarely onto my lower torso -- not as heavily as it looked like she should have weighed, but heavy enough. She leaned her face towards mine and grinned. "Feels pretty real, doesn't it?"
She had
gorgeous
freckles.
"I mean..." The weight of her body was tangible enough to feel slightly uncomfortable, even -- more palpable than any dream I'd ever experienced, at the very least....was the way she was wiggling her ass against me deliberate?
"Nice PJs," she quipped, tugging lightly on the bunny print flannel pants I was wearing.
"They're comfy..." I offered lamely, only to realize that I was staring directly down her cleavage. I tried to find somewhere else to stare instead.
"Oh, don't look away; I
like
it when cuties get distracted by my tits. I mean, they rock, don't they?"
She squeezed her breasts together between her arms, making her cleavage swell in fascinating ways and nearly threatening to make her spill out from her top altogether. It was as though she had the breasts of a woman twice her size -- all buxom and weighty and bountiful beyond her stature. I gulped audibly.
"God, you're adorable," she said, brushing a lock of hair away from her eyes. It was hot pink, tapering to a subdued rainbow of hues as it reached her scalp. The other half of her hair was a natural-looking auburn -- a tastefully asymmetric cut, very modern, very gay. She looked like someone you'd see leading a Pride parade.
I meant that in the most admiring sense possible, by the way. Lesbians were great! Like three-quarters of the people I followed on social media at this point were lesbians -- united as we were in our belief that girls were amazing and men had all the charm of a sack of stale potatoes which had discovered Opinions and deeply wanted to share them.
...although I suppose with the way this girl was blatantly coming onto me, she must have been at least least bi -- and had worryingly low standards, at that. Alternately, this was all an elaborate confidence game by a cat burglar con-artist stage magician with Hollywood-calibre animatronic costuming; still couldn't rule that one out.
I allowed my eyes to drift back down to her breasts again.
Even if I was awake, she still looked like a dream -- vibrant and vivacious and very barely contained by her own clothing. I wanted to touch her, to reach out and feel her softness and the weight of her in my palms, and for a brief, bitter moment, I wished it wouldn't feel skeevy to respond to her advances in kind. And it did, somehow -- it always had, like I couldn't express attraction without seeing myself as some bearded douchebag from a bad porno. I didn't want that. I wanted.... I wanted...
I wanted something incredibly selfish.
"Sweetie, it's okay to want things," she said gently. "It's okay to want
this
."
