Abigail opened her eyes.
"Well, this is fucking stupid," she grumbled, looking down at her naked form, dripping with red as she sat cross-legged on the faux-wood laminate floorboards.
She looked over at the ratty, twenty-year-old paperback she'd bought from Regina's Used Books for 99 cents. The pages were brown and dog-eared, the cover was ragged, and there were notes and doodles all throughout in pencil and pen and even pink highlighter. She had it laying flat under a coffee mug, open to what was supposedly a summoning spell.
She looked at the diagram in the book, and the one she'd drawn on the floor. Glancing between the two, she was pretty sure she'd copied it exactly. The candles were all in place: two black, two red, two white and one gold, each at the point of the seven-pointed star it had taken her hours to get right. The gibberish words all around the circle had been hard to get right, as the book was printed on cheap newsprint and the ink had blurred, but they looked right.
And finally, she looked at herself again. She'd bought a pint of pig's blood from the supermarket's meat counter, surprised and a little disappointed that they guy behind the counter didn't even blink at her request or ask what it was for. Not that she would have told him she was going to splash it on her boobs in a effort to summon a 'companion demon or familiar', of course, but still.
Sighing, she pushed herself to her feet and looked down at her handiwork.
"Did you really think something was gonna happen?" she asked herself out loud.
She bent over and blew the candles out one by one. The blood had dribbled down into her crotch and she felt disgustingly sticky. Cleaning the mess off the floor could wait until she'd had a shower.
She slouched into the bathroom, leaned on the sink, and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.
Hair dyed bright red fading to black at the tips, blue-grey eyes, kissable lips-- (she snorted at the thought), she wasn't exactly an internet model but she was cute enough.
She cupped her breasts in her palms, looking down at the now-drying blood coating her nipples and making them itch.
"Sorry, girls, I know you're lonely too. 'Course we'd probably be a lot less lonely if I could just go out and meet someone instead of doing dumb crap like this."
Sighing again, she yanked the shower curtain aside and cranked the tap on. The old plumbing grumbled and the shower head sputtered a bit before anything came out. She stepped into the tub, scooting away from the water. It would be a minute before it started to warm up.
The cold spray hit her legs, turning the water pink as it sluiced away the blood that had run down when she stood up.
She put her hands against the tile wall of the bath enclosure, easing herself into the stream. It wasn't hot yet but she really wanted to get the blood off. She watched it swirl around the drain, straight out of a horror movie. Cupping her palm, she splashed water between her legs, wondering if maybe she should have a bath to soak it all off her. But that would mean waiting for the tub to fill, and then sitting in bloody water.
She took the showerhead out of its bracket and started running the water over her body. She hadn't wanted to admit it, but the whole affair had gotten her a little stirred up. Really, she was usually in a state of low key background horniness all the time anyway. Sitting naked on the floor and smearing stuff on her boobs hadn't helped matters, even if it was blood, but she tried not to think about that too hard. And now here she was in the shower, with what was, to date, her longest-running relationship: Ariel, her showerhead, so named because that movie had been a veritable cornucopia of awakening fantasies for young Abby.
"Wouldn't you think I'm a girl, a girl who has...nobody," she murmured, holding the showerhead so it sprayed against her outer lips. She pressed her forehead to the tiles, using her other hand to tease her folds apart, the pressure of the warm water making pleasant vibrations against her hood. Biting her lip, she stroked a finger up her slit, shivering as she brushed her clit, that turning into a shuddering moan as the water followed her light touch with its throbbing pulse.
Keeping the water trained on her most sensitive spot, her thighs already trembling with the pulses of pleasure, she moved her hand down, middle finger seeking warm wetness as water cascaded over her wrist.
She moaned again as she dipped her finger just inside, the feel of her inner walls a pleasingly, satisfyingly soft texture that always sent shivers deep into her belly.
And then the water sputtered again, causing her to yelp, and that turned into a screech as the water immediately blasted into icy coldness.
She dropped the showerhead (that poor unfortunate soul), which sprayed the freezing water directly into her face.
Spitting and sputtering herself, she reached blindly for the tap, fumbling for it until she smacked her knuckles into metal, and slapped it into the off position.
Panting, dripping, she stood there hunched over like an angry crab as freezing water swirled around her feet because of COURSE the tub wasn't draining properly again.
Shaking her hands, she reached out of the shower for a towel. Her fingers found an empty bar.
"Fuck," she hissed. She'd left the load of towels downstairs in the laundry room. Frustrated, she yanked the shower curtain open, ripping the cheap plastic off of a few of the rings.
"Fuck fuck fuckity fuck," she said, stepping out of the tub with her arms around herself, to drip on the tiles that had probably been old and outdated before the old boarding house had even been built.
For one lunatic moment she thought about trying to dry herself off with the bath mat, but she hadn't shaken it out in months so it was probably full of hair.
Sighing, she decided the only thing to do would be to get into her sweats. Then at least she'd be warm.
She pushed the bathroom door open and stepped out into the living room.
"Hi," someone sitting on the beat-up leather couch said.
"Fuck!" Abigail said in a shrill voice, and threw herself back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and leaning against it, panting.
After a few deep breaths, her panic eased a bit, replaced with confusion. She'd only had a second's glimpse at the intruder, and her brain was struggling to make sense of what she'd seen.
'There's a cute girl sitting on your couch,' it tried to tell her.
"That's impossible," she hissed. "Stupid brain. Why would there be...well, anyone, on my couch?"
'She was cute, though, I'm pretty sure,' her brain went on, oblivious. 'Short black hair, adorable freckles, brown eyes, a leather skirt and stockings. You love stockings.'
"That's not the point," she said. "I don't know who that is or why she's here. Maybe she's a serial killer."
'Oh, hey, she definitely got an eyeful of your wet pussy,' her brain supplied helpfully.
"Fuck off, brain, you suck."
"Are you all right?" the stranger called.
"Just a minute!" Abigail called back. "Also, um, who are you, exactly?"
"You called me," the stranger said.
Abigail frowned. What kind of an answer was that? 'Hi, I'm your cute new neighbour,' was an answer. 'I'm your long lost sister, Abigail II,' was an answer, though kind of a dumb one. 'You called me' was not an answer, and it was maddeningly unhelpful besides.
"I'm pretty sure I didn't? Maybe you have the wrong apartment?"
Had she locked the door? Had she? Had she subconsciously left it unlocked in case a kidnapper decided to come in, and was she really that desperate for interaction? Was now the time to be asking herself that question?
"Are you a kidnapper?" she called through the door, then immediately winced and smacked herself in the forehead.
"I probably wouldn't tell you if I was," the stranger called back.
That was a distressingly good point, she had to admit.
"Abigail, are we going to have this conversation through the bathroom door?"
She knows my name. Definitely a kidnapper.
"Hey," the voice said, and it sounded like it was right outside the door, "I have a towel for you."
"No thank you, it's probably a murder towel."
She smacked her forehead again.
The stranger laughed, and Abigail froze.
The laugh was like...like the ringing of a silver bell, like an aural kiss, the sound of pure joy distilled and concentrated into a series of simple, unselfconscious vocalizations. It was a bell, a Pavlovian bell, but it wasn't her mouth that was watering at its musical tones. She pressed her knees together. She very, very, very much wanted to hear that laugh again.
She cracked the door open. A wall of fluffy white cotton met her eye. She was almost a hundred percent certain she did not own any towels nearly so large, fluffy, or clean, but beggars couldn't be choosers. She snatched at it, pulling it through the crack, and slammed the door shut again.
As she toweled herself dry, she ran through the possibilities for the identity of her kidnapper slash towel angel. One: she was a friend of Sarah's. Sarah was the cute neighbour Abigail had a hopeless crush on: she was tall, leggy, blonde, and seemed to have a wardrobe that consisted solely of workout wear. She was also several astronomical units of measure out of Abigail's league. And solely responsible for Abigail's newfound fetish for yoga pants.
Two: a friend of Eve, her older sister. This one was moderately less likely, as Abigail could not fathom her sister knowing or even interacting with someone who was cool enough to wear a leather skirt. In fact Eve was a lot more likely to know someone like Sarah, which Abigail found unaccountably annoying.
Three: a kidnapper. This theory held the least water, as there was no possible motive for kidnapping someone like Abigail, who was scraping by on her paychecks, did not have wealthy parents, and was probably a year or two too far out of her teens and/or not quite attractive enough for the sex trafficking trade.
"What's your name?" she called.
"All in good time," the stranger said, with just a hint of that musical laugh floating around her words. Abigail's traitorous nipples perked up at the sound.
She cracked the door, hunching over to provide as small a target as possible.
"Well, I don't know how long you're planning to stay out there," she called, "but I don't have any clo--,"
A folded stack of garments was thrust at her. She grabbed them instinctively, clutching them to her chest, and tried to peek through the door. All she could see was the curve of a hip nestled in black leather, and a tantalizing strip of stockinged thigh.
She closed the door again and perused what the intruder had brought her.
Comfortable jeans, her favourite Crypt of the Tyrants t-shirt, and a bra and pair of panties. This meant her (now seeming more likely) kidnapper had pawed through her underwear. She reflected ruefully that this strange cute girl with the sexy laugh was the first person to paw at her underwear in nearly five years.
She got dressed, trying not to think about the juxtaposition of strange girl's hands on underwear that was then going up next to her most intimate bits.
She opened the door a crack.
"Do you know Sarah?" she tried.
"The one in 6B? The exercise nut? The one who thinks a sports bra is clothes? Nope. Never met her."
Abigail was beginning to think that the intruder was a very peculiar girl.
"You're a very peculiar girl," she said.
"Says the one with a demonic septagram on her living room floor. You spelled Choronzon wrong, by the way."
"That, uh, that's for an art project."
"Mm hm," the girl said, that hint of amusement still there.
"Will you knock it off," Abigail muttered at her nipples.
"Are you coming out?" the girl asked.
"Not until you tell me who you are."
"I'm not going to tell you until you come out."
"Then it seems we're at an impasse," Abigail said smugly.
"All your food is out here," the girl countered.
"Shit."
