Better to Light a Candle: Jen's Friendship

Better to Light a Candle:  Jen's Friendship

I can't believe I'm talking about this again.  The evening went well, the night was comfy, the morning was pleasant, but now fifteen minutes before breakfast the dam breaks.

"You're not going to have a problem, Vee.  You'll visit the city for a little while and there'll be someone."
"You haven't seen the statistics.  Girls who leave the old demon realms don't do any better finding husbands than the ones who stay!"
"That's because the girls who leave are succubi who think that they'll go to a place that's never seen mamono before and will find a golden field of virgin dicks waving in the sun like wheat."
I finally get her to crack up and use the pause to press my point.  "Of course they're not going to get a guy - who only knows about mamono from listening to his racist parents - by acting up every possible stereotype.  You'll go over there, be reasonable, be nice, and leave them so completely disoriented that they'll end up liking you before they know it."
She looks away for a while and thinks.  "Grandma'll be disappointed, though.  We've always drawn in adventurers.  For as long as our family has existed."
"She'll understand.  She's not going to be mad about you not luring in adventurers when there aren't any to lure.  She's not unreasonable."

And that's mostly true, which is good enough for this.  On one hand I have to somewhat admire the old profession, and I certainly don't fault dad for having been one.  It takes skill and training that most people never achieve in their lives, and which is a daily risk to practice.  Still, the number of mamono killed in order to ransack their personal belongings numbered in the thousands.  Sure, there were some noble men and women, but I'm glad that it's no longer really practiced.  Of course there's still a few nutcases who can't stand modernity, and I sure as hells don't want my sister to marry any of them.

Breakfast has mostly returned to normal.  Occasional discussions spark about how days went, or what's going on in the news, or how dad's job is faring.  It's boring and humorless, but it's there.  My sisters aren't just staring at their food anymore, and mom doesn't look so concerned.  It's really all just the little things coming back together.  Safiya has her usual silver baubles hanging off of her ears, wrists, hair, shirt, and neck.  Evette now occasionally deigns to glance down at the rest of us when we're talking.  Everything's getting back to normal now.  Everything should be fine.

-----

"Where the fuck do you get off, huh?"  A large, pawed hand shoves me against a locker.  The owner of that paw is Tish, Sister's oldest friend.  I'm not sure what that means for what's about to happen, just that she's baring her teeth and scowling as hard as her face will let her.
In the bathroom while crying tears of shame.  No, no, that'd just turn her on.  "What?"  Okay, see, now that's nowhere near as witty.
"You heard me you little shit," she answers, while pressing her paw against my shoulder.  The black fur contrasts with the white mane of fluff around her neck, which contrasts even more with the gigantic, pink, pony-tailed thing she has going on with her head.  "Where do you get off fucking around with Ly like that?"
"I don't."  I make sure that I'm maintaining eye contact.  I don't know what I'd've done without that guide I found years back, but that advice has served me well over the years.  Unfortunately, Tish seems bent on getting more and more pissed off.

"You won't, is more like it.  I'm gonna make sure of that."  Oh dammit, there's that look in her eyes.  Damn.  "Not when I turn you into the stupid little meat dildo that you're supposed to be."  The bared teeth are slowly shifting back into her usual shit-eating grin.  The hallway is cleared out right now, so that's a plus.  The one Oomukade who also avoided class ran like hell when Tish showed up.  Her paw pulls back, leaving a single, clawed finger to pin my shoulder to the wall.  "You know, come doesn't just stay in our tails when we're fucking a guy.  We can move it wherever we want."  Her voice is taking on that purely taunting quality, like she's forgetting that she's supposed to be mad right now.
"You should stop while you're ahead."
"And you're going to beg me to stop," she retorts, "while helplessly fucking my tail with your own two hands."  Her tail raises over her shoulder, already dripping with slime.  "You can act like this isn't what you want, but we both know," she trails off while her face inches closer to mine.  She seems to think that the look of revulsion on my face is somehow forced.  "You're gonna fuck my tail like your life depends on it," she pants next to my ear, "and I'm gonna shove my finger down your throat, so everytime you make yourself come into my tail I'll feed it right back to you."
"What."  It's not really a question as much as a reflexive expulsion of air.
She takes one long, shuddering breath, "You'll be making yourself come into your own mouth."

Oh what the fuck.

A pair of claws close around the button on my jeans, "And when I'm done, you're gonna beg me to do it again."

I don't even feel my arm move.

Well done, arm.  Well done.

-----

"Hey there, what's with the dead stare.  You look like you got taken behind a shack by an Oni."
I look up to stare at Jen, who actually does seem kind of concerned for once.  I take a deep breath before answering, "I've gotta talk to the principal again."
She grimaces as she sits down in front of me.  "Oof, that hurts.  What'd you do?"
"I might've given Tish a concussion."
There isn't even a hint of a pause before Jen's bent over in laughter.
"This isn't funny."
She manages a handful of broken, breathy syllables through the bout of rib-bruising laughter.  "(No no, this shit's fucking hilarious.)"
"Yeah, because you aren't the one who's gonna have to deal with the fallout."
It takes her a while to get it all out of her system.  It's annoying, but at the same time I feel less stressed out about this with her around.  I've known her for so long that it's relaxing just to have her around, even when she's being a pain.
"Why'd you do it, anyway?  She decide to go for her best friend's brother?"
I tell her what she did.

It's always weird watching her when something really catches her off guard.  She doesn't necessarily need to breathe, so when she finds something amusing enough she just clutches her stomach and rocks back and forth, her face held in a huge open grin while she spasms with breathless laughter.  I remember I used to find it really creepy to watch.  Now, though, I usually laugh with her.  I would now if I could stop running through scenarios of what's going to happen to me.

She finally skewers the sloppy salisbury steak on the plate in front of her.  She shakes her head and chuckles a few more times before looking up at me and my dour expression.  "Oh come on," she says exasperatedly, "what's the worst that could happen?"
I stare angrily at her.
She nods, "Okay, yeah, there's that, but what's the second worst thing that could happen?"
I groan down at my plate.
"Besides, even if she tries something you've already resisted one case of mystical mind bullshit."
I rest my forehead into my hand, "That was when Lythalia was eleven.  I'm guessing they get better with time."

Jen doesn't let up, though.  She starts talking about all of the other dumb things that people have been doing, in school and out.  In spite of my best efforts I start to feel better.  After we're done with our food she perks up, "Oh yeah, I remember my sister got a concussion a few years ago."
I laugh into my straw, making my drink bubble.  "How did that happen?"
She shows almost all of her shark-like teeth as she grins.  "Tried sucking a guy off while he was sleeping.  Didn't see that he still had his baseball bat from practice."  She laughs as she shrugs, "Apparently he woke up, saw all those teeth closing around his dick, and panicked."
The mental picture is too much.  Even as nervous as I am I still find myself laughing.

Over the course of the rest of the break I gradually relax.  I think to myself that everything will be fine.  Then the rest of classes come and it all comes back to me.  Rather, with the wait I find more and more things to worry about.  I'm tempted to just skip classes, call Jen, and find something else to stress over.  When classes finally end and I'm marching up to the office I'm both surprised and somewhat relieved to see her standing in front of the doors.

"Yo.  Why're you here?"
"Savin' your ass.  Why else would I be here?"
I raise an eyebrow.
She nods.  "Yeah, figured it all out.  Turn around."
If you were anyone else, Jen.  I smile a little at the idea that she's miraculously solved all of my problems and that it just requires that I be turned ar-
My train of thought comes to a screeching halt as I feel the collar of my shirt get pulled off of my shoulder, only to be replaced by two lines of sharp, stabbing pain.  I let out a long, pained sigh as I hear a pleased Jen say "There, you'll be fine now."

I look down at my shoulder to see two crescent lines of puncture wounds in my shoulder.  I turn around, eyebrows raised far enough that it's actually moderately uncomfortable.
"What in all of the hells did you just-"
"No time, man, get in there."
With that she opens the doors and shoves me into the office.

"Hello, Misses Pounds."
No one ever fails to recognize the sad fact that her name is rather fitting.  The middle-aged woman is, despite all of her efforts, sadly growing rounder as the years pass.  What's worse, is that that could probably be overlooked if she wasn't also balding.  The general consensus with just about all of the students is that she was hired so that she wouldn't be at all threatening to the principal.  Not that anyone could really be much of a threat to the looks of a succubus, but it seems reasonable.
She looks up from her computer.  "Ah, Mister Trevor, is it?  You can go right in."
Well, at least I won't have to wait.

I've only stepped into the office when she begins.  "Mister Trevor, I've been hearing a great deal about you."
Dammit.  There is nothing good that can possibly come of that.  She looks up at me with eyes not terribly dissimilar from Safi's.  She raises her eyebrows, "Well, sit down."
I sit.  She immediately stands.  The way she moves her hips as she moves around to the front of the desk can only be referred to as sauntering, and the way she wags her tail only serves to emphasize it.  I'm already looking away before she sits down on her desk and crosses her legs in front of me.
"I've heard all about how you're an Alp-to-be; how you've turned down any number of offers, even just to suck you off."  She slips a dark blue finger into her mouth, as though to clarify what she's talking about.  She lets her words hang in the air for a moment before bracing her hands back on the desk and stretching both her shoulders and wings outward, causing the buttons of her blouse the strain to the breaking point.  She finally lets out a breathy moan of satisfaction and looks back down at me, "Doesn't that just seem strange to you?"

I don't have any plans or witty retorts.  My brain's still occupied with the question of whether or not I'm about to be suspended or taken to a private rape dungeon.  In other words, whether I'm fucked or if I'm just fucked.  "Not particularly."  I move my tongue around my mouth, trying to return some measure of moisture to it.

"Mister Trevor - Val, is it?  Val.  My, that's a cute name."  She seems momentarily distracted, looking somewhere over my shoulder with a pleasant smile before immediately returning a flat, slightly displeased expression my way.  "A beautiful young woman offers you mind-blowing pleasure, and you send her to the nurse's office.  And now you're telling me that that seems perfectly normal to you?"

Admittedly, it doesn't.  I think that's more of a flaw with everyone else, though, and not one with me.  I'd explain to her what, exactly, Tish had suggested, but I'm afraid that it would seem like an excellent idea to the succubus in front of me.

She raises an eyebrow at my silence.  Her heels click on the floor as she slides off of her desk and significantly closer to me than I'd prefer.  "I'm forced to assume that you have a rather distinct issue with the mamono student body, Mister Trevor, and as I am responsible for you I feel that I must take it upon myself to-"

To?

She's still staring at me, expression unchanged.  "Mister Trevor, you're bleeding in my office."  Before I can do anything other than stare at her in confusion she's already reached forward and pulled the fabric of my shirt off of my shoulder.  She opens her mouth, stares a moment longer, and then lets out a sigh of resignation.  I look over to my shoulder and see the marks left by Jen have left a few brownish stains on my shirt.  "Ah yes, you were always close with that young ghoul - Miss Green, was it?"

She grips the hem of her blouse and readjusts it as she stands back up to full height.  "Well, I'm glad to see that my fears were ungrounded.  You are free to go, Mister Trevor."  She pulls her chair back, sets herself in it, and waves vaguely toward the door.

I stare for a moment longer.  For a moment my brain resigns itself to simply not being able to think fast enough right now to work this out.  "Wait, but what about Tish?"
I am, unfortunately, an idiot.

Principal Douglas looks back up to me with those same eyes, now slightly annoyed with me.  "You mean Miss Williams?  She should have already been sent back home.  And while I personally think that you should be left unattended at her house for a week as punishment, I'd never hear the end of it.  Sexism, they'll cry," and here she waves a hand in the air and rolls her eyes, "like I don't think the same should be done for girls."  She laughs quietly for barely a second, before making a brushing gesture toward the door again, "now be on your way.  I think I can smell your young lady friend waiting for you."

Okay, I don't need to be told a third time.  I try not to move any faster than normal, but I think the tension in my legs prevents me from doing that.  First door, second door, Jen, and I'm out into the hallway and home free.

"Let off with a slap on the wrist, right?"
I turn and furrow my brow at the smiling ghoul at my side.  "Let off with nothing; the hells did you do?"
"I'm a wizard."
"The hells did you do, Jen?"
She shrugs off her backpack and hastily moves it onto my shoulder, weighing down painfully on the bite wound.  "Just carry this, it's important.  Hides the blood."
In spite of my questioning I don't get anything else out of Jen.  She's practically bouncing down the hallways, which would normally be a pain, but the giddy thrill of walking away from that without a hint of punishment has completely replaced my stress.  I catch myself smiling, and am too pleased to wipe it off my face.

---

"Hey, why not head over for a bit.  Julia's gonna be out for a while longer, so we've basically got the place to ourselves."
I turn and look at the trees while we walk.  I could just mess with her and drag this out for a bit, but I'd rather know what it was that she did.  "Maybe.  First, though, I want to know what you did."
When I turn back she's smiling again.  She takes a deep breath and holds her head up, "I made the principal think that we were lovers."
"What."
She just smiles further.
Right, no, that makes sense.  Ghouls mark their mates with toothmarks, she wouldn't try to rape me if she thought I was already taken, and it would explain why I avoided other girls.

"Then the backpack?"
"Hides the marks.  Didn't want the whole school passin' rumors, did ya?"
Smart.

"Ah, damn," I throw my hands up, "now we're married by the ancient customs of your people."
"Nothing to be done about it," she throws her red hands up with mine, "guess we'll have to invest in a white picket fence now."
"We'll need a house with room for four-and-a-half kids and a dog," I add.
"Not to mention the minivan.  Gotta have the minivan."
"Ah well, at least you saved my ass."
She lowers her voice an octave, "There's a shortage of perfect asses in this world, it would be a pity to damage yours."
We both laugh at the random bout of sarcastic bullshit and the old Prince Groom reference.
"Seriously though, is this gonna get infected?"

---

We crack open drinks almost as soon as we reach the living room, making our way toward the old, yellowing sofa in the center.  It's not that it's old or anything, and the springs work just fine, but it's seen a lot of use.  She grabs the remote, hits a button, and waits for the old television to start up.  I take the time to collapse into the sofa with enough force to sink myself a few inches deeper than it usually sits.  Jen smirks at this and jumps onto the other side of it in something resembling a cannonball, which forces enough pressure onto my side to completely dislodge me from my comfortable slump.
I narrow my eyes.
She narrows hers.
I take a grudging sip of my soda and tell her to "find us something already."

It's ten minutes before we finally settle on watching the old T 'n A-Team movie that came out of a few years ago.  It was a pretty bog-standard action flick, but I suppose that's all you need when you just want to zone out in front of the television.  In spite of all the random gun fights and explosions I can't seem to stop thinking.  That might just be me and my weird overthinking of everything, or it might just be stress from what happened today.  I rub my sore shoulder while I marvel at how that one stupid thing turned everything around.  I bring that up during a commercial break.

"I still can't believe all of that just went away because of that."
She turns to look at me, realizes what I'm talking about, and raises her eyebrows.  "You can't?"
"Well, I mean, I can understand why it would, but it's just," I stop to think.  "It's just hard to believe that it was so easy."
"Eh."  That's about as eloquent a response as I was expecting.  She turns back to the television, then to the remote, and stares intently at it as she suggests "It'd probably be a help at home, too."
She's right.  I thought before that having a girlfriend would mean that I wouldn't need to be worried at all at home, either from this disturbing trend toward incest or from whatever lunar phase it might happen to be.  I could just live together with my family, like normal people do.

I mean, damn, what's that even like?  I don't even remember the last time I felt that way.  I know I was young once, back before the various incidents with Safi and that slug and everything else.  It could be like it was back before then.  Revisit the good old days.  Be the good older brother that I-

"Nah, that'd hardly be fair."
She picks up the remote again and starts to carefully study it.  "Really," she asks absently.
"Yeah.  If everyone thought that we were dating, that'd hardly be fair for you."
The movie starts up again, cutting the conversation short.  It turns out that the guy who seemed ridiculously evil was actually the bad guy all along, and that he was doing evil things for evil reasons.
"Hey, pass the popcorn."
I reach my hand over to her.
She's salivating more than usual.

I do need to figure out what to do at home, though.  It used to be that these things would happen, but they'd be followed with a year of quiet.  Things would settle back down almost immediately and I wouldn't need to think about it again.  It's almost like-

"Hey, wait a minute."
She stops, holding my middle finger flat on her tongue.
"You're undead."
She nods.
"So why's your mouth warm when the rest of you isn't?"
Hgo hlo-hjo's 'r hay urz hdam horm-uhhz (cold blowjobs are way worse than warm ones)."
"Gotcha."

But yeah, it's almost like things are accelerating.  Could Sister be behind that?  It might just be a fluke.  Sometimes problems all wait until the exact same moment to drop.  I wait until the commercials start up again.

"It seems like things are getting worse now."
"How ho?"  Wait, how come her breath is warm, too?  Wait, no.  It's probably just gonna be "demonic energy" again, so I'm just gonna let that question wait.
"Usually all this would happen, but it'd happen once a year, or once a month, tops."
"Mm."
"Now it's like everything's just started to get way worse."
She pulls out my hand, "So would now be a bad time to admit that I've just been doing this so that you'd drop your guard and I could gnaw on your dick?"
I limply punch her shoulder with my other hand.

I figured she probably wouldn't be much of a help with that.  She doesn't think about things like I do.  Well, no one probably thinks about things like I do, but she doesn't worry about the future.  I can understand why her mom's so frustrated.  I pull down my shirt along the shoulder and scratch at the wound.  It's stopped hurting now, but it's started to itch.

The door opens, and a pair of ghouls walk into the room.  They look at me.  Or rather, they look at my-
Dammit.
They both break into a pair of identical shit-eating grins.

"Damn, I wanted that di-"
"Where the hells are my grandchildren?"

"I told you, we aren't-"
"I told you, he's shooting blanks."

Dammit, Jen.