It was dawn by the time Ruby had finished unpacking into her new studio. She celebrated with a shower and a cup of instant coffee, throwing open the huge warehouse doors and watching the sunrise light the cluster of fine old brick buildings around the courtyard. She could not believe her luck finding this place.
Her head buzzed with tiredness and her body ached. All she wanted now was some sleep. Maybe a good, deep shag from New Boyfriend Bill too. She could sneak into his flat - now he had given her a key - and ravish him while he was still in bed. He was so gorgeous asleep, and his huge member seemed permanently hard. She could sit on it and surprise him. Or even better, sit on his face, then...
She sighed and stopped herself. What was it with exhaustion and horn?
Opposite, on one of the upper floors, a doll-faced young woman watered the plants on a lush balcony. She looked like the star of an arty fashion shoot, so whimsical and beautiful with her flowery dress and great long legs and sleek gold hair. The woman noticed Ruby and waved. God her eyes were huge, and jet black. Ruby flushed, as if her earlier imaginings were still muckily visible all over her face. She didn't wave back.
Her phone, shoved in her front jeans pocket, vibrated and Ruby squealed in surprise. She fiddled it out and smirked at the screen. A message from Bill.
>Gotta talk.
Ruby thumbed back:
>Yes! I need a good tongue-lashing.
There was enough delay for Ruby to re-read her text and feel foolish. In fact she was washing up her cup before his reply came.
>Sorry Babe. Som 1 else. Old gf. Gonna need key back.
Ruby slumped. Bastard. "Fucker. Asshole. Dickhead!" She palmed a tear from her cheek.
"Um. You ok?" The young woman peered down from her balcony.
The last thing Ruby needed was the perfect sympathy of little miss perfect knickers. "Yep. Sorry. Shitty boyfriend," she said, waving it away.
The young woman crossed her arms. "Hmm I know," she said, frowning, "I can help with that."
Ruby blinked. What a loon. "How, exactly?"
"How do I know, or how can I help?"
"Either?"
The woman grinned. "I'm Fay," she said, "Come on up. Top floor."
And she meant it. Fay's apartment occupied the entire top floor of the old warehouse, double height and divided by a single, huge, white curtain. An achingly stylish jumble of brick, driftwood and polished concrete. She greeted Ruby like an old friend, hugging her and pressing a kiss to Ruby's cheek with a "mwah!" Her body looked willowy but was shockingly firm. When Fay stepped out of their embrace her shape remained impressed on Ruby's front, the kiss chilling on her cheek.
Fay beamed, bare feet crossed and rocking her hips to some inner music, her cheeks - for some reason - flushed pink. She toyed with a large black remote. "You're eyes are so blue," she all but whispered, "and I love your red hair."
"I don't mean to be rude." Ruby crossed her arms, "But-"
Fay held up her hand, and pressed a button on the remote. A projector fired up and filled the curtain with an Imax-scale picture. The elevated view of a kitchen. A woman reclined on the kitchen table with her skirt round her waist and knees drawn up and apart. A shirtless, muscular man leaned into the frame, yanked the gusset of the woman's underwear to the side and shoved his face between her spread thighs. The woman whimpered.
"Ok." Ruby started to turn, poised to run from this evident nutcase.
Fay gripped her hand. "Don't you recognise anything?"
Ruby frowned. Cursed her stupidity for getting into this. Then she heard him, muffled, but undeniable, "Oh baby. Baby. Mmm."
Bill?
She looked again, trying to avoid the writhing woman as she clawed at the nuzzling head. It was Bill's kitchen. That was his table. So that was... Ruby's jaw dropped.
Fay laughed, and fiddled with the remote. The picture moved, floated down over the couple, rested on the woman's heaving stomach. The man's face filled the wall, forehead sheened in sweat, tongue lapping and wriggling between the woman's legs. Definitely Bill.
"How did... What?"
"It's live," Fay said, "call him."
Ruby pulled out her phone, but her brain jammed. "No. This is a windup."
Fay grabbed it off her and dialled. On screen, huge Bill frowned. Without stopping his licking he pulled his phone out. Fay swung the viewpoint round, looking over his shoulder as he pulled his face off the woman and slid a finger into her. She gasped and he surreptitiously checked his screen. Ruby's number.
Ruby's eyes welled as Bill shook his head, tossed the phone and launched his mouth back to work. Tears popped and rolled down her cheeks. "I don't understand," she said, unable to tear her eyes from the tormenting view.
"Do you want me to turn it off?" Fay said.
"Yes. No. What are you? Some kind of spy or detective or..."
Bill sucked the woman's bits, his fingers moving inside her. "I watch," Fay said but Ruby didn't quite hear as the woman cried out.
"A Witch?"
"No. I watch." Fay slid the view over the couple, over the woman's blissed-out face. "It's what I do, watch. Everything."
"Everything?"
"Well, the interesting bits. "
"Sex."
"Sex." Fay chuckled. "Well, orgasms. It's difficult to describe. They sustain me. I think. Women's climaxes are best. Men's are ok but like... little snacks. This woman is not as pretty as you." Fay flung herself into a huge leather cloud of a sofa.
Ruby was not vain but had to agree, the woman was quite plain. "That doesn't help." Ruby perched beside Fay. "I don't want to see her face."
"Me neither. Have you seen this?" The viewpoint moved down to the woman's fingers, explicitly spreading herself as Bill teased and pulled away for a moment, wiping his hand across his mouth.
"Seen what? How wet she is?" Ruby swallowed at a lump in her throat, adding quietly, "Is that why he's with her do you think?"
"No, and she's not wetter than you. Check out their ring-fingers."
"Married! Son of a bitch." Ruby crossed her arms, and her legs. A resurgence of her horn was complicating the pain. "Hang on. What do you mean; she's not wetter than me?"
"Um. Did I not tell just you? I watch."
"Even me?"
"Especially you. Is that wrong?"
Ruby glared at the odd waif, spread on the sofa carelessly. As if she'd been tossed there. "When?"
Fay shrugged. "All the time." She pointed the remote at the curtains. The picture dissolved into an overpowering blur, flying and rewinding, then settling over a sleeping figure, lying on her side with a stripe of sunlight across her white sheet. Red hair, cream skin. Ruby. Last summer maybe and no, she wasn't sleeping. Her hips rocked at something invisible beneath the sheet.
Fay sighed. "You are so beautiful when you orgasm." Projected Ruby turned onto her back, the sheet tented over spread knees, a vigorous movement between.
The watching Ruby hid her face. "Why me?"
Fay slid a foot along the seat until it wedged under Ruby's leg. Ruby jumped, but didn't move. The contact was re-assuring. "Once, I was watching these student girls do each other on a plane, under a blanket. You were in the background, in the third seat, pretending to be asleep."
"I watched them," Ruby said, covering her eyes now. "You saw."
Fay wriggled her toes under Ruby's thigh. "One of the most delightful things I've ever seen. All that secret... pleasure. I was hooked after that. On you." Projected Ruby had pulled her legs up and back, one foot sticking out from under the sheet, the rest of her body jiggling underneath it. "Is that what you were imagining here? Those girls with their slippery fingers and squeaking climaxes?" Fay leant forward, resting her cheek on her knee. Her skirt slid down her thigh, leaving her leg bare. A scent of warm sea breezes rolled off her.
Ruby nodded. "Probably. It is a favourite of mine." Her image arched and cried out, shivering, eyes screwed shut. Then she writhed, sighed and - with a rush of shame - Ruby watched herself lick her glossy fingers.
Fay swore and squirmed in her seat. Ruby swore and felt feint. "What the fuck? How is this possible? You're some kind of alien or visitor from the future, you must be."
Fay made a question-mark of her eyebrows. "You think so?"
"You don't know?"
"How is one supposed to know?" She leant back and swung her raised knee, letting slip, in the briefest of cheeky glimpses, her lack of underwear. She smirked as Ruby's eyes snagged there.