13. Dance Card Waiting List

 

I had thought we were only heading to the apartment to drop off our things and turn around. I was sorely mistaken. It turned out that Sam and Beth had makeup and hair to do up. I just accepted it when Sam informed me, although I didn’t really understand — Why bother putting a lot of time and effort into it when we were going to a place that used its lack of lighting as a draw? Who would even see their endeavors? I didn’t ask them to explain or challenge them on it. It was what they wanted to do and I wanted them to feel comfortable with whatever was going to happen tonight.

 

So, I was left with some time alone. I didn’t really have anything I needed to do. In lieu of anything necessary or otherwise productive, I took a shower and fussed with the clothes still in my closet. There were lots of the original outfits that would no longer fit me. I only now realized that required someone from Aisling’s office to have gotten my sizes. Thinking about how they had acquired them was slightly concerning, but ultimately, it was for my benefit. I let those concerns fade away to allow the worries about meeting Zoey to take over.

 

After cleaning my room of the clothes I had never worn that nonetheless wouldn’t fit me anymore, I crashed onto the couch in the living room. I was out of obvious mindless tasks to occupy myself with. Delving into my concerns about how to develop my newfound existence into something sustainable wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but it was something I needed to do. 

 

I absolutely needed to pump the breaks on becoming intimately involved with multiple partners. Antonin could espouse his knowledge of the past and all the other magically inclined individuals could confirm it, but I wasn’t comfortable with the process, historical precedent be damned. At the very least, I wouldn’t survive starting all of these relationships simultaneously. Some part of me was permanently binding the girls I was with to me. I had to be more selective, or at least more cautious, moving forward, just to stay sane.

 

Several parts of me were actually happy Zoey was overly skeptical of what I told her. My dragon assured me that her strength of character — her ability to look exactly what she desperately wanted in the face and say, “I think this might be misleading me; Let me examine it closely before proceeding” — would be incredibly useful as a member of our household. I was more content that her indecision and caution gave me some breathing room. It allowed me time to get to know her as a person instead of just my friend’s academically challenged younger sister. It also provided an opportunity to get used to the idea of having two girlfriends and to come to terms with the insanity that having two parallel relationships would be, before adding a third into the mix.

 

Speaking of two girlfriends, my two lovelies joined me in the living room, having completed their makeup and hair. They looked absolutely stunning, decked out in their complimentary red and black outfits. While lost in my own thoughts on the couch, I had gotten the impression that most of the time they had spent was actually invested in their relationship, which was a very reassuring development. Sam had spent the last hour going through what she understood of the basics of makeup, which all went over my head, but was incredibly well received by Beth. Lacking a parental figure to instruct her or resources to experiment herself, Beth had avoided most makeup by necessity. Now, after working with Sam and the insane development from the magic, she looked like a different person. Still young and spunky, energetic and vivacious, but no longer carrying the wear of life if you looked for it. Just walking to me across the room, she looked like an actress at a gala, strutting confidently towards her target.

 

“Zoey just texted me. Said we should meet them in half an hour or so outside one of the girls' apartments and that we’d walk into the club together. One of them knows the doorman, I guess, so we should get in easily.”

 

I scoffed, “I dare say any group that has a single guy accompanying Sam, you, and Zoey wouldn’t ever have trouble getting into a bar, no matter how exclusive. Did you get an address?”

 

Beth nodded, “Yup, and we should get going. It is Friday night and it’s not like we really know the traffic here.”

 

A cursory glance at the address and a navigation app highlighted a subway exit one block from where we were told to meet Zoey and her friends. I was prepared for the transit interchanges to be full of both tired workers heading home to decompress after their week of work and overly enthusiastic night owls just waking up to take over the town for the weekend. What I wasn’t prepared for were the blatant looks of jealousy and envy every other male gave me, and the confused evaluation every woman put me through. Beth and Sam were starting the night off with their guards up, as far as I could tell through our connections, and spent the time on the subway being incredibly tactile with me. I don’t think there was a single moment when I wasn’t in contact with one of them. Having two stunning women practically draping themselves all over you, their eyes never wandering and their attentiveness ensuring yours never left them, garnered a reasonable amount of attention from our fellow passengers.

 

Carefully, we managed to cross the town and return to the streets without incident, and Sam guided us with her phone to an unremarkable apartment block. I was still uncomfortable walking down the sidewalks with a woman on each arm, but that was how they decided we would be doing things. With only a couple double takes later, we found ourselves on the fifth floor, Sam knocking firmly on an unadorned metal door while bass-thumping music reverberated on the other side. After a second, more earnest attempt to get the inhabitant's attention, the door opened.

 

In addition to the cacophony of a half-dozen people haphazardly competing for airspace on top of obnoxiously loud music for an apartment environment, we were greeted by Mallory and another girl, both wearing relatively casual jeans and t-shirts. Surprisingly, despite the outfit, Mallory didn’t seem quite as plain as she had before. I wondered if that was some enchantment or magical concealment she had used to force herself to fade into the background and out of my perceptions or if some aspect of her inner bat was being emphasized or suppressed.

 

“Hi, James! And you must be Beth and Sam! It’s nice to meet you. Come in, come in.”

 

Mallory ushered us inside and closed the door behind us while the other woman introduced herself.

 

“Hi, I’m Sophie — Mallory’s girlfriend. Welcome to my apartment. It’s, uh, kind of a warzone while everyone gets ready. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime?”

 

Mallory gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and an apologetic smile before darting off to one of the back rooms. Sophie awkwardly led us into her kitchen and out of the category five storm of pregaming that was happening in the living room while the three of us declined the socially obligatory offering of something to drink.

 

Given that this was the first time we had ever met her, and the usual icebreakers hadn’t been very effective on our end, I was concerned about what a mess of a first impression we were making. I couldn’t exactly answer, ‘What do you do for a living?’ or ‘So, what class of magic being are you?’ or ‘Why did Beth trip my MagiSense home defense silent alarm?’ I was already flummoxed about meeting Mallory’s girlfriend so abruptly. Mallory's blatant anticipation of more happy accidents alongside my shapeshifting training had not prepared me for being introduced to her girlfriend, and definitely not prepared for being introduced and then left alone with.

 

I was relieved when it turned out, in a case of small world syndrome, that Sophie had the same position as Sam did, working as a junior acclimatization case worker. She had actually spent an afternoon this week helping Cynthia with some of her paperwork, converting forms from the previous district for use in Philly. The two women fell into a rhythm of talking about their jobs and how it was to work with Sam’s mother, occasionally introducing us to someone who passed through the kitchen.

 

The first woman who came to check on Sophie and us genuinely scared me. Her beautiful features and youthful appearance obscured the intensity with which she carried herself. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, allowing her severe gaze to carefully measure all three of us in the kitchen. She was introduced as Chelsea, and I found myself feeling as though she was tossing over whether she wanted to fuck me or have a magical duel, or perhaps, the latter and then the former only if I measured up. I was sure she would kick my ass. Either way, I was evaluated like I was a challenge on a checklist — something for her to size up, complete, cross off and move on from. Chelsea carried herself with a level of presence that suggested she had been someone before, not precisely rubbing my nose in the fact but also not trying to hide it. A leader by necessity, not by choice, content now to live quietly and out of the spotlight until the next apocalypse came calling. She made no attempts to hide that she was determining whether or not I was that apocalypse.

 

The completely opposite second woman who came to talk with Sophie was some kind of elf. I wasn’t sure if it was polite to ask, so I erred on the side of caution and didn’t. She had deep azure skin and a full head of wavy, stark white hair. Her voice was like liquid honey, and she moved with a level of grace I bet many professional dancers would’ve envied. She cordially introduced herself as Isabella and cheerfully discussed assisting Zoey and Mallory with information security and technological integration. I was astonished when I noticed that, under her casual clothes and not particularly well hidden, she was wearing a thin collar choker. It was the complete antithesis of how she presented herself otherwise, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking any questions, holding my tongue as she glode back to the common room.

 

Two other girls came in as Isabella departed, introducing themselves as Eva and Becca. Becca presented like a hard-nosed, no-nonsense professional military background type, although I wasn’t entirely sure about what she said through her Scottish brogue. It was confusing to me why she was consorting with the skittish, sheepishly affectionate, hanging on her every word Eva until it was revealed that they were both werefelines. Becca shared that she was a wereleopardus and that, despite the false cognate nature of the name, she was related to ocelots, not leopards. Leopards were actually of the panthera family, while the colloquially used word panther referred to either leopards or jaguars with specific recessive genes that made their skin and fur black.

 

When Becca concluded her well-rehearsed verbal explanation of what she was, Eva happily shifted partially instead, releasing her soft, wiggling brown domesticated cat ears and fluffy tail, encouraging all three of us to give her scratches and pets. It was just surreal enough that I didn’t think about how weird it was to be petting a person I had just met until after I had done it for a few minutes, the woman happily purring away in blissful delirium from our attention.

 

Becca eventually pried Eva away from us to finish getting ready and a completely different pair came into the room. These two were even more obviously not run-of-the-mill humans than Isabella had been. The first was a deep-slate gray woman, only an inch or so taller than Beth. Her figure was nothing like Beth’s however, as she was stocky and broad rather than Beth’s bordering on malnourished petite. Her loosely hanging dress seemed to blend into her skin, and after staring for several moments, I realized they were the same material. Her picturesque face and perfectly smooth skin captivated me so much that I didn’t immediately understand what she was. When she very carefully stepped past me to get something from the fridge, she smiled and whispered “You don’t need to hide your gazes from me, sweetie. I’m a nymph, after all.”

 

That’s when it clicked. She was an oread, an animated granite statue in the form of a woman, an earthen elemental maiden — a nymph of the mountains, much as a dryad would be of the trees or a naiad of water. She introduced herself as Liane in a teasing, sensually light-hearted French-touched lilt, but with such hunger and curiosity in her voice that Sam clearly felt threatened. My gorgeous redhead came and wrapped her arm around me as we chatted with the newcomers. This did little to buffer Liane’s interest — if anything, the nymph didn’t even notice that I had come here with two companions and that one was clinging to me, as her eyes simply failed to perceive anything that wasn’t me.

 

The final woman I was introduced to inside Sophie’s apartment made me question parts of myself I wasn’t aware would be challenged tonight. Helen cooly introduced herself, shaking my hand as impersonally as she could without being offensive. She was obviously an orc, and it seemed that mundane human fantasy had gotten them exactly right because she would fit perfectly in a Warcraft cosplay convention.

 

I wasn’t prepared for just how imposing she was physically. Nearly matching my new height, her skimpy attire showcased her entire physique. That absolutely felt like the correct word to use in this instance because Helen looked like a Mister Olympia competitor standing backstage, waiting for her name to be called. She resembled the contestants from the 60s and 70s, where the participants still resembled highly muscular but athletic humans, in contrast to the exaggerated dysmorphic displays of recent times. Honestly, the fact that she had green skin and visible protruding tusks was less distracting than the masterpiece that was her body.

 

When she turned her head to answer one of Liane’s questions, her abs rippled, visible to everyone who dared look as the daring cut-out sides of her dress prominently displayed her impressive body. Helen might not be the alpha of this group, but she contrasted Chelsea’s overpowering intensity with calm, dispassionate rationality. Her sparse comments indicated an incredibly pragmatic disposition and made it easier to accept that her less-than-receptive introduction was just her standard behavior, not any indication of displeasure. When Liane and Helen departed, I found myself having enjoyed our interaction and how Liane used her optimistic charms to play off Helen’s dry wit.

 

Zoey was conspicuously absent throughout my jarring introductions to her friends. I caught glimpses of her moving through the entranceway living room several times, but she intentionally avoided coming over to interact with us. I was hoping we would get a chance to talk, just the two of us, or perhaps with Beth, Sam, and maybe Mallory. It didn’t seem like she was interested in that. Not now, at least. 

 

The other oddity that I noticed was that Zoey was holding a solo cup most of the time. She had said that she didn’t do much actual drinking when they went out, and none of the other women here were pregaming with her, so it stood out as an oddity. I was ready to dismiss it when Mallory came back to us. The brunette approached us, wrapped her arms around Sophie’s waist, and then quietly began talking to our isolated group.

 

“You guys just about ready to go now? Sorry to just dump you like that, James, but Zoey needed help with her outfit. I keep telling her that she looks stunning just the way she is. Sam seems to have the right idea — when you look like that, less can be more.”

 

Still glued to my hip, Sam blushed immensely while Beth nodded in agreement. Mallory continued, “I think she’s pretty nervous about how tonight will go, though. She’s been drinking, here, which is very unlike her. Just, don’t hurt her, alright?”

 

“Not like we’ve been given any opportunities to, given the crash course assessment everyone else here ran while she avoided us,” Beth responded.

 

Mallory shrugged, “Just, when she comes around, please be gentle with her. This isn’t exactly easy for her.”

 

Apparently still feeling defensive even after the compliment, Sam spoke out, “J awakened a week ago, was thrown into our world without anyone to guide him, and relocated cities after my mother threatened him if he didn’t. He dropped his old life completely because he had to. On the first night, he met with Queen Aisling without any explanation of what was going on. He moved into a new apartment after signing his name to papers he couldn’t have understood with the agreement that he would meet with lawyers and an academic the next day. He’s been learning our history, magical theory, his own new body and its limits, how to deal with being a dragon, a girl he accidentally enchanted, a girl who spent her entire childhood lying to him, life in a new city, life in a new economic bracket, and how to interact with multiple people vying for his attention as a power player in a world he was unaware of.

 

“No one here is going to hurt Zoey. If that was the goal, J could’ve just walked out and requested a different set of trainers, never seeing her again and leaving her mateless. If that was the goal, J could be asking what she’s willing to do to earn her place with him, extorting her for whatever value she had if she ever wanted to feel whole. That’s not who he is. So fuck right off with ‘isn’t exactly easy.’ It actually is really fucking easy. She doesn’t have to decide to give up her life, or all of her friends, or her family, or her house, or the degree she’s spent three years working towards. All Zoey has to do is decide if she wants to accept J for what he says he is and get out of her own way, so she can have her cake and eat it, too. We’re here tonight to show you who we are and that J is exactly what he says he is, but I’m not going to just sit here and listen to you suggest that he is anything other than the most caring, genuine person in this room. He’s here to open his life to her if that’s what she wants or to move along if she doesn’t.”

 

I squeezed my hand where Sam held it, hoping she would get the message that she had gone far enough. A verbal altercation with one of Zoey’s friends in their home was not any way to endear ourselves to them. Beth licked her lips and played with the pocket of her dress while Sam responded, avoiding any potential inclusion.

 

Surprisingly, instead of appearing angry at being called out, or embarrassed and chastised as Sophie did, Mallory appeared pleased. She seemed to accept what Sam had said in my defense, almost appreciating that one of the girls had come to set the record straight without my prompting.

 

“I appreciate that your introduction has been even more tumultuous than most, and that this situation is a part of it, and I didn’t mean to diminish your struggles. I just meant to ask for consideration for my friend. You don’t know everything, and neither do we.”

 

Sam answered frostily, “Fine. We would have anyway.”

 

Sophie interjected, attempting to bring the atmosphere back to politely distant from the icy extreme it had fallen to, “So, honey, you said the gals were ready to go?”

 

Mallory nodded, “Yeah. Liane just got her final polishing coat done, so we’re all ready.”

 

With that, we departed Sophie’s apartment for the club we were going to, only a few blocks away. It was slightly uncomfortable for me because the two groups were clearly still somewhat segregated. Zoey was avoiding me and Mallory was guarded in support of her, so the people I was familiar with weren’t exactly opening up to include us.

 

Luckily, Liane went out of her way to interact with me, and by extension, Sam and Beth. I discovered that the ‘polishing coat’ Mallory had mentioned was a fairly important task for her if she went out. She explained that, as an oread, she was more than just a woman who happened to have a deep connection to stone. She wasn’t just connected to a mountain off in the Appalachians a few hours away — there was a specific peak that was her. She was the mountain.

 

As such, the body she used here didn’t just look like stone — it was actual stone, animated and given sentience through the pervasive natural magic on earth. Liane was a ton of solid mineral. To go anywhere in civilization, especially into less-prepared and potentially mundane lands, she had to take precautions. She regularly polished her body, because much like a human shed old skin and hair, she shed flakes of stone and pebbles. And where skin and hair had a maximum impact of being gross, loose stone in a building could end up scratching and damaging surfaces. So she polished her body regularly, sloughing off her extremities and trimming her form down to a sheen. It had the added benefit of making her look as though she was wearing intricate makeup, blurring the lines between the hidden reality and the lies told to mundane humans and adding to the mystique of the club's atmosphere.

 

Two more girls joined us as we neared the club, with starkly contrasting dispositions. A broody heterochromatic brunette was introduced to me as Jess, a security analyst who worked with Zoey sometimes. It was later explained to me that her job was to break into the places Zoey’s organization protected and then to explain how she did it and what could be reasonably improved. Her eyes kept looking around as we made small talk outside the club, not as though she was actually looking for something but like she was listening to someone I couldn’t hear. As we walked towards the entrance, I noticed that the arm she wasn’t holding her partner with was entirely prosthetic. The false arm seemed to be so developed that it went beyond returning her otherwise missing capabilities. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if she hadn’t incorporated enough RGB lighting for a gaming peripheral advertisement photoshoot because her actions were perfectly smooth and natural, hiding any suggestion that she had once been severely injured.

 

Jess’s companion was introduced as Rosa. She was a contradiction of sorts. The smile on her face could light up the entire city, and she was full of life and enthusiasm. She seemed to have some kind of disability as well, and Jess was practically smothering her with assistance. Rosa took Jess’s doting attention in stride, occasionally teasing the other woman about how attentive she was. The two seemed to make a good pairing, in my juvenile estimations. Rosa’s dusky, mocha skin perfectly contradicted Jess’s ghostly pale, and her unflinching positivity balanced Jess’s morose, dry outlook.

 

Outside the club, the music was already blaring louder than it had at Sophie’s place. I was mildly surprised because we were still pretty early into the night. There wasn’t even a line outside. The bouncer took one look at our gender imbalanced group, measured me in his mind to see if I was going to cause problems, and then let us all in without a question. He did do a double take when he saw Beth, but as had been predicted, he didn’t even say anything.

 

The club was different from what I had expected, not that I had any reason to have expectations. The ground level we had just entered turned out to be the level with the VIP booths and other more relaxed seating, running a ring of balconies over a recessed, lower level. The basement level had a handful of high-top tables and bar stools, but most of the space was dedicated to the dance area and DJ setup. Even though there was music playing, it appeared to be an automated set list before the DJ got properly started, and there were only a handful of people dancing currently.

 

Along one wall was a massive bar that appeared to my less-than-experienced eye like three or four typical bars attached end to end. I supposed that with the number of people potentially crammed into the floor, having greater throughput for serving drinks would be necessary.

 

Chelsea purportedly knew the owner, and she went down an unmarked hallway above the bar to let them know we were here and to request one of the VIP booths for our party. It seemed odd to me, but I didn’t know any better. Liane whispered to me that Chelsea actually was the owner and she was just going to talk to the night manager, but I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or just having me on through her flirty, coquettish behavior.

 

The rest of our group went down the stairs to the bar. When we got there, the bored, not ready to start his shift yet bartender recognized our group. Zoey and her friends quickly got their first drinks of the night ordered and received, and Chelsea rejoined our group. The imposing woman requested something special, and the bartender had to go hunting for a specific bottle to meet her request. Zoey, evidently looking to drink tonight, took a shot of what Chelsea had ordered in addition to her own brightly colored beverage. Chelsea, not to be outdone, collected a stein of the dark liquid.

 

I ordered a jack and coke. I wasn’t really looking to drink, but I was curious about how alcohol would affect me. Would my newfound internal healing reject the alcohol in the drink because I knew it functioned like poison? Would I metabolize it at all? If I did internalize it, how would alcohol affect me now that I was larger than I had been before? I wouldn’t mind having some of those answers, but I wouldn’t chase them tonight. A single drink would do just fine, and I would either have my knowledge or would seek it at a more opportune time.

 

Beth ordered a cherry limeade, and Sam asked for just a coke. When I asked about paying, I was politely informed that "the Lady Chelsea" would cover our expenses for the evening, reinforcing my contentment with ordering light. Dining out on someone else's tab didn’t feel right. I was surprised when the dragon agreed, although it was out of pride. He reminded me that we should be capable of taking care of our mates and our own desires. He then asked when I would be progressing on the debt I had accrued already. I ignored him. Progress would have to wait until after the leader's meeting tomorrow.

 

Chelsea led us back to one of the roped-off booths upstairs. The massive cushioned seat wrapped around a circular table as neon lighting strips in the floor danced to the beat of the music. Thankfully, back up here, the music was almost as muted as it had been outside, loud and omnipresent without being oppressive. I had no doubts that when the DJ actually started their set and more people showed up, it would be even louder, but for now, it was tolerable.

 

I sat down in the booth, looking to sip my drink for a moment and catch my bearings. Beth and Sam joined me, and most of the other girls did as well. Jess and Rosa went to dance together right away. It was explained to me that this was the norm for them — Rosa didn’t have the stamina to dance all night, and her cerebral complications led to her being slightly less precise in her movements than she wanted to be, so she and Jess would dance while the floor was still sparsely populated. Then they’d return to the booth, and people watch while "holding down the fort," keeping an eye on everyone's drinks and belongings.

 

Zoey had other ideas and interrupted my momentary relaxation by summarily asking if Sam would mind dancing with her. It wasn’t a very subtle attempt to talk to one of my girlfriends alone but to be fair, Zoey wasn’t ever the queen of subtlety. Sam accepted the request, and the pair of my childhood friends walked down the stairs back to the dance floor. Zoey’s drink was conspicuously left on the table, only melting ice remaining in the glass despite only having been poured perhaps a minute ago.

 

A few minutes of barely audible inane chatter later, Eva asked me if it would be alright if she danced with Beth. Beth shrugged, and the two petite brunettes departed, Eva’s tail wrapped around Beth’s waist. I had expected Mallory to ask to dance with Beth, with a slight consideration that Sophie would. It was surprising that Eva asked, especially given that I smelled no guilt or any other emotion besides unfiltered joy from her. As far as I could tell, she just wanted to dance with Beth, no distraction or guile intended.

 

Separating me from Beth and Sam and getting me to interact with a bunch of her friends while Mallory and Zoey took turns interrogating my two companions seemed like a reasonable course, given Zoey’s concerns. Despite my dragon’s pestering, I wasn’t really offended by the rigamarole. I wanted Zoey to feel comfortable with me. Having me go through a trial by fire and interrogation from her friends wasn’t the worst thing I had ever been subjected to. Especially when her friends included a salacious oread and an elf that must have had professional dancing experience at some point.

 

Only a few minutes after Eva and Beth departed, Liane took me by the hand and led me to the dance floor. I immediately understood why she needed special consideration with her body when she started grinding on me to the bass pounding throughout the building, her body feeling like warm glass against my skin. Despite looking like Beth in a costume, she had enough strength and mass that the first time she pressed her ass into me, I nearly tumbled over. Once I got my bearings and used to the firm touch Liane wanted from me, I wondered how much preparation Sophie had to do to allow Liane into her apartment.

 

That was how the majority of my evening went. I had expected a more verbal interrogation, but I suppose, in retrospect, thinking we would have a friendly chat at a club was naive. Instead, one of Zoey’s friends would take my hand, drag me to their desired location on the now overfull dance floor, and grind with me unabashedly for several tracks. I would be given a moment’s reprieve, have a sip of my drink, listen to a teasing comment from the ever-observing quick-witted Rosa, and then be collected by the following name on my dance card. The girls had built up a queue of their own at the table, seemingly content to dance exclusively with the massive man who would only go as far as they wanted to and had no expectations for later in the night.

 

It wasn’t unpleasant, and I found myself intrigued at how I wasn’t really fazed by the constant physical exertions. Not that I was out of shape, but even the charmingly unrefined club dancing I was doing typically took some energy out of you. Antonin was definitely right when he suggested that I could gather energy from something other than material collections because I was gathering plenty here. The only unpleasant factor of the evening was that I wasn’t allowed to spend time with Beth, Sam, or even Zoey for the first few hours.

 

It was late when I was able to have my first time alone with Beth. She was energetic and spunky in her bumping and shaking, but because of our height difference, it didn’t end up being all that engaging for me. She seemed to enjoy the size discrepancy, practically standing between my legs and guiding my hands wherever she wanted to be touched.

 

It was only two tracks later that Sam was returned to me. Rather than the still energized younger girl, she looked absolutely beaten and tired. She took to straddling the other side of my body, sharing with Beth, but moved at half the beat of the music, lazily rubbing against me. She whispered in my ear that her feet were sore and that she would be very happy to go home as soon as possible. Beth added that she didn’t mind dancing more but was content to go whenever I wanted to.

 

Before the three of us had even retreated from the dance floor to announce our departure, an intoxicated Zoey intercepted us and asked if she could have me for a few songs. A clearly annoyed Sam found an excuse to use the bathrooms, telling a somewhat oblivious Zoey that she could have her few songs and then we would be going for the night. Beth was pulled by the redhead to the bathrooms, giving me a confused look as she departed.

 

Much to my surprise, the leggy blonde wrapped her arms around my neck and started sensually, slowly grinding on me. She didn’t say anything, just pressing her body against mine, and she allowed her face to lay against my shoulder. Her breath was hot on my skin as she panted into my collar. My arms naturally found their place around her, although they must’ve been too conservative for her tastes, as she dragged it from the small of her back to be blatantly on her ass. She sighed hard when I left it where it was, neither retreating nor using it as an excuse to grope her. I had absolutely no idea what she was looking for here, giving me the cold shoulder all night before practically climbing me like I was a schoolyard jungle gym.

 

Over the raucous din of the club, she slurred into my ear, “I talked a lot with your girls. I’m sorry about tonight. About separating you from them. They weren’t happy about it.”

 

Pressing my chin down and my jaw to the side of her face, I spoke back, hoping she would hear me, “It’s — I don’t want to say it’s okay, because I didn’t like it, and I don’t ever want to do it again, but I understand why you needed to do it.”

 

As the current track faded out and the noise became bearable, Zoey lifted her face to mine and kissed me. She started off sloppy, imprecise, and unsure of herself, as the best she was capable of in her intoxicated state was simply mashing her face into mine. Like everything that had occurred this evening, it wasn’t inherently unpleasant, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about the attached baggage.

 

As the next track was buffered in, and the DJ seamlessly shifted from one rhythm to the next, Zoey continued our lip lock, grinding herself against my torso and pulling one of my hands to her chest. Almost against my will, I was given the opportunity to feel, in explicit detail due to the sheerness of her top, Zoey’s left breast as she pressed my hand firmly into her body. Despite having actually seen her naked in the pool, I was surprised at how much of my hand it filled. Zoey was incredibly lean and athletic, and the majority of the time I had seen her, her top had been compressed by a restrictive sports bra, in which she had looked comparable to Beth. Zoey was obviously less well-endowed than Sam, but there was some heft to her that caught me off guard. I was also surprised by the diamond tip cutting into my palm, Zoey’s fleshy nub clearly unencumbered with a bra tonight.

 

She murmured contentedly as I accepted my fate and explored her body where she forced me to. The music melted into the background, and the jostling of the people around us was lost to me as my hands surveyed the Amazon who was to be my next mate, my dragon yearning for me to reach out and claim her now, to carry her home with us and bind her forever in our own way.

 

Instead, I was caught off guard when she sharply inhaled and withdrew from my touch.

 

Her eyes no longer had the vacant haze of someone under the influence, nor was she leaning quite so heavily against me. Her pale, colorless irises searched my face desperately for something, bouncing to the beat of the song. Zoey fumbled a question out of her mouth, barely audible over the climax of the current song.

 

“Do you love them?”

 

I sighed. 

 

I’d been trying to figure out how to answer that question myself. 

 

Beth had told me she loved me. However, she had then revealed that her practically begging for my attention had been more pragmatic than emotionally driven — she acted like she was madly head over heels in order to not be discarded. She had read my nature like a book and intentionally exploited it for her own well-being. She wasn’t going out of her way to hurt me, just to ensure her own life. Still, the lie stung, even with how quickly she came clean about it and how it had been a necessary part of her life.

 

Of course, since then, some of the trauma that had caused her to feel those actions were necessary had been addressed. She seemed to genuinely enjoy being around me and actively wanted to pursue our relationship. The strange circumstances of our connection combined with her somewhat exploitative inclination for physical contact to work both ways, conditioning her to enjoy my presence as much as manipulating me. I enjoyed being around her and how upfront she had been after dropping the plotting, and she had someone she felt safe enough to let her cynical scheming fall to the wayside for. She was still somewhat needy, at least beyond my nonexistent standards, but given the permanence of our bond and the shared emotional resonance, I would be a fool not to give the pairing a chance. It was like our connection had been designed to smooth out her bumps, and she could undoubtedly inspire me to greater heights than the dead-end 9-to-5 I was otherwise heading for. Hell, without her altercation catching my attention, I might never have ended up in this position.

 

Sam was challenging for me to think about. She was definitely someone I had developed a crush on when she was a tough, skinny fourteen-year-old and I was a dumb kid who didn’t understand his own thoughts. Since then, she had left my life, matured into a beautiful woman, and chased the beginnings of a career in lieu of anything else. I was still very fond of the idea of the girl I had known in school, and seeing her adult form in front of me tugged on those well-rooted threads.

 

With that said, it turned out that she wasn’t actually that person. It was a mask worn to try and make her social life bearable and reduce the magnitude of her standing as a pariah. I could also come to terms with my juvenile attraction being, at least somewhat, borne out of familiarity. She was around and sought me out because no one in her community would give her the time of day. Looking at her now, thinking about my emotions, felt like chasing a ghost. How much of my enamorment was a lie, predicated on the mounds of deceptions she had been forced to feed me? It was difficult to reconcile.

 

With both women, I could recognize the beginnings of love. I liked them. I trusted them more than strangers but less than I should trust people to whom I was functionally married. Unfortunately, when my world had been utterly upended and I learned everything was a partial truth at best, trust was in short supply. Despite those reservations, I had been intimate with them. The three of us were compatible, and even though it hadn’t been a full day since Sam’s romantic induction, it seemed the three of us were compatible as a whole rather than a triangle of pairings. But there were asterisks attached to both of them. Neither came without a confusing level of complications that made me resist immediately responding affirmatively. And that was only from the things that I knew — given the brevity of our relationship so far, there were bound to be things I didn’t know and didn’t know I was unaware of.

 

In the end, I gave the only answer I was capable of providing.

 

“I don’t know. I think I could, but I’ve only known them, the real them, for a week. My mess of a life makes it likely that I will grow to love and care for them with all of my heart, but I wouldn’t be comfortable saying that I do already today. It’s been a week, and my entire life has been turned upside down.”

 

I hadn’t expected to be able to recognize any emotion from Zoey. In the surging crowd, any individual was likely to be overwhelmed, muted and masked by the sheer volume of generally pleasant, amorous individuals surrounding them. As I answered her question, guilt and shame came through the cacophony of people around us, standing out even in the masses in sharp contrast to the diluted background with its piercing intensity. Zoey was ashamed and embarrassed about something, and she only seemed to feel it as I answered her.

 

She could no longer meet my gaze. She wasn’t the intensely focused, dangerously purposeful woman who had been coaching me in the gym. Neither had she shut down and turned into the cold, dispassionately robotic woman who rejected any attempt at connection like she had before. She seemed young, vulnerable, and tired, as if she had made a mess of things and was waiting for the balls she had in the air to come crashing down around her. It was a drastic shift.

 

“You three are going to head out, then?”

 

“Yeah. I think that’s for the best. Especially if we’re still on for the gym in the morning.”

 

She nodded halfheartedly but didn’t say anything more, tenderly letting her arms slip from mine. Her demeanor had utterly deflated, as though the drinking and dancing had caught up to her all at once. I walked away, very confused about the entire experience. What had even been the point of coming out tonight? I hadn’t gotten an opportunity to interact with Zoey, besides the baffling final minutes — and felt incredibly foolish for thinking I would have gotten that at a nightclub dance hall — and I hadn’t been able to enjoy any time with Beth or Sam.

 

There was one positive. With the lingering emotion of Zoey’s final question still echoing in my mind, I felt that I might need to prioritize getting to know my two girlfriends better. The things we had done since being introduced were eat, learn an overwhelming number of clandestine magical information, including things I wasn’t aware of in my own body, and fuck. Knowing that we were bound for the rest of our lives didn’t excuse how little I knew about them today. I felt ashamed at how shallow I had been, how little I had tried to connect, and how hollow the excuses would sound if I tried to use them.

 

Before I could continue my self-deprecating thoughts of the lack of depth of my relationship with Sam and Beth, they found me fleeing the dance floor. Beth gave me a sharp look, and when I shrunk from her, she stamped her foot in front of me and stood assertively, imposing her will on me until I met her gaze. I almost giggled at how quickly I had mirrored Zoey’s reticent behavior, even though I felt as though I had a good reason for mine.

 

“You absolutely do not have a good reason,” Beth insisted. Which surprised both Sam and me, because I hadn’t said anything. “You have done your best with what you know.”

 

She glanced at Sam and then pushed the redhead into my arms, before sidling between us, close enough that she didn't need to shout to be heard. “Look, you may not have the deepest relationship with us, but that takes time, yeah? Time you haven’t had because everything is insane. It’s been a week, James. You’ve been overwhelmed by everything and you’re trying to do right by us. I don’t even have responsibilities anymore because I’m with you, and Sam’s job is literally to see that your needs are met. It sounds like next week we’re going to be focusing on us, because you need it.”

 

Beth made sure she had my eyes on hers before she gave me her final line. She reached up and tapped my temple, saying, “Remember, I can feel what’s going on in there. Sam can, too, now. You can feel us. If there were problems, real problems, all three of us would know. Trust us to talk about it?”

 

On the one hand, trust was in somewhat short supply. For the same reasons I had considered when trying to articulate if I loved them, my relationship with both Sam and Beth had been built on questionable foundations. Which wasn’t to say that they had done anything since then to make me uncomfortable or distrusting. In fact, much to the contrary, we had worked through everything reasonably well so far. Was that just limited information from a small sample size or enough to attempt to predict future outcomes? I did trust that they both wanted this to succeed, which, while not quite the same as trusting them implicitly, worked similarly here.

 

“Alright. But I want to talk to you when we get home. About earlier.”

 

Beth gave me a conflicted look, and in her emotions, I could feel that she was uncertain. She was nervous about what I wanted to talk about, overjoyed to think of someplace as home, but, like my dragon, not convinced the apartment we were staying in was truly home. She wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t getting resolved today. Or tomorrow. As we trudged up the stairs, finally unblocking the space we had occupied for a minute and looking to leave the noise and chaos of the club behind us, Sam asked an impromptu question.

 

“Hey, can we stop at this takeout place on the way back?”

 

Her request caught me off guard, primarily based on how exhausted she had seemed on the dance floor just a few minutes ago. When both Beth and I gave her tired, blank stares, she elaborated, “They’re a chain, but there wasn’t one near me before. They make calzones, but like, crazy calzones. They have like ten different dessert ones that I wouldn’t mind trying. Especially since apparently your magic means food will have much less of an impact on my body, I can get one and not feel as guilty about it, you know? I could spin this as ‘testing your powers’ or whatever, but I really just want to have one. And, frankly, it seems like maybe we should all take a few minutes to decompress before going home. I don’t know what Zoey said to you, but I could feel you go from hot to trot but annoyed to deeply uncertain, uncomfortable, and stressed.”

 

Beth shrugged and gave an indifferent smirk, signaling her tolerance. The idea of having some kind of emotional disconnect from whatever carnival game I had played tonight seemed reasonable to me.

 

Which is how we ended up in a little hole-in-the-wall takeout place tucked in between a laundromat and a corner store. The public area was only wide enough for the register at the counter, but three cheap plastic booths took up half the room, leaving just enough space for a queue. On the walk over, Sam pulled up the menu for Beth and me to look at. She hadn’t been kidding when she said they made crazy ones — there were over 40 options on top of an extensive build-your-own section. Beth and I eventually agreed to split a reasonably tame breakfast platter calzone that included egg, cheese, peppers, onions, and hashbrowns. Sam was getting a ‘Cake Batter Batter Home Run Platter.’

 

She graciously went to place our order despite a surprisingly lengthy line for such a small establishment. I realized after we sat down that it was almost entirely composed of delivery service workers or actual takeout orders. There was one other occupied booth, but it was by a guy holding one of the cloth, insulated pizza-carrying boxes, playing on his phone. We were the only ones actually trying to eat here.

 

 Beth slumped against me in the booth, pressing her back into my torso and tilting her head back to look up at my face.

 

“Are we going to talk about tonight, too?”

 

“I don’t know if I’m ready to, yet. Zoey acted really odd the entire night, and I don’t know what to make of it.”

 

“She wanted to know everything about us. How long I’ve known you. How we met. How you treat me. What you make me do. What our home life was like. Felt like a CPS interview, but even less subtle.”

 

“Yikes.”

 

“Yeah, it was really uncomfortable. Think she went harder on Sam since they knew each other and you before.”

 

“No wonder Sam wanted something to unwind with.”

 

“It made sense to me, although I thought she’d want to just go back to the apartment and collapse. Sleep in your arms for real for the first time. Maybe she needs the physical act of washing the taste of Zoey’s fears out of her mouth with some dessert.”

 

While Beth and I made meaningless chatter, simply killing time until Sam returned with our questionable snack choices, the bell on the door rang again. The person who walked in squealed and bolted to our table, which didn't take much, considering we were next to the entrance.

 

“Lizzy?! Lizzy, is that you? It is, isn’t it? Girl, how the hell are you?”

 

Beth flinched as the new arrival called out to her, and she pressed herself against my torso with intent. She was now both confused and distressed at being recognized, no longer looking for mere comfort in our contact.

 

The woman, who apparently knew Beth as Lizzy, came and leaned over the plastic table and hugged her. Beth remained frozen, making her best deer-in-headlights impression. If I wasn’t sitting here, I wouldn’t have been surprised if this new woman had simply knocked Beth over, flattening her against the plastic bench. As it was, she was squished against me even harder. I got an intense waft of lingering cigarette and felt sympathetic for Beth, who was surely getting more than I was.

 

“Oh my god, Lizzy, I haven’t seen you in like five years. It’s so wild to run into you like this. What are you doing in town? And who is this that managed to get you into a dress?”

 

Without giving Beth a chance to react, she carried right on. Which was good, because the way she drew out the previous question while running her eyes over me made me feel like a cut of meat at an auction.

 

“You actually look cute in that getup. As good as you can do with what you’ve got, at least.” Oof. I felt that blow over here. I’m not even sure that this woman intended to undermine Beth or if calling out her lack of womanly charms was just something that slipped out. Still, I wasn’t going to take that sitting down. Even if we were sitting down.

 

“I think she looks adorable in it.”

 

“Yeah, she does make a great dorky teenager. Not sure schoolgirl is what I would’ve gone for. Raises some questions about you, sir. Speaking of which, Lizzy, are you going to introduce us?”

 

When my eyes stopped watering from the offensive aroma this woman exuded and I finally got to look at her, I guessed she was related to Beth somehow. She had a similar build, waiflike and petite, but was more developed. Her tiny black crop top clung to her breasts, practically forcing them to your face. While not as prominent as Sam’s, they were ample enough to provide Beth with insecurities over her own. The painted-on daisy dukes left nothing to the imagination either.

 

She looked to me like she had been in Beth’s position five or ten years ago and had doubled down on it. Her hair was bleached platinum blonde, but an inch of the auburn roots showed through. Her lipstick was bright red, and her eyeshadow was an aggressive glitter-imbued violet. Even in the questionable flickering fluorescent light of the mediocre takeout joint, you could see how heavy the rest of the makeup was on her face. It appeared that she hadn’t met a brush or powder she didn’t like. If someone told me she was getting started on playing one of the orange tabbies in an off-Broadway production of Cats, I would’ve believed them. Her face was almost orange, which was obviously unnatural when compared to the gentle rosiness of her arms.

 

Beth ultimately recovered the usage of her voice, and she said, “Uhh, yeah. This is Amber, my cousin on my mother’s side. She’s three years older than me, and we grew up together. I wasn’t aware she was living around here. Amber, this is James, my fiancé. We just moved here this week. He got a big promotion at work, and we went out to celebrate it with some friends.”

 

That told me a lot. A good amount of nonverbal information was included in her answer. On the first night I met her, Beth said to me that she would rather sleep in the alley than go back to her mother’s. While she may have been exaggerating her vulnerabilities, I believed her opinion of her mother was genuine. With how she reacted when Amber came in, this was just a polite way of saying that she wasn’t fond of Amber in a way that I would understand.

 

Calling me her fiancé was totally fine with me. We hadn’t discussed it, and in a normal relationship, that would be an insane step to take, but I understood it. We weren’t exactly in a normal relationship, and I held a piece of her soul. Fiancé was a reasonable translation of our situation. It was also a very unsubtle hint to Amber that I was very taken and accounted for. Which Amber hadn’t heard, and she continued squeezing her elbows together as she leaned onto the table, prominently displaying her bust directly at me.

 

The information about work wasn’t even false, even if it was a clear indicator to not mention anything about magic. Obviously, someone from Beth’s life wouldn’t be involved with that. I just hoped I could remember whatever bullshit we spun tonight in case it ever came up again. I also hoped this wouldn’t cause an absolute clusterfuck for Cynthia next week, cleaning up another accidental point of contact between the worlds. At the very least, we hadn’t caused this one in any way besides existing.

 

Beth being drawn into the conversation corresponded with another development — she was growing incredibly irritated at this interaction. She was clamping down on her emotions as hard as she could, but I could feel that she absolutely detested this girl and what she represented. You could guess that Beth wasn’t her best friend based on her body language, but inside, Beth was genuinely struggling not to burn the entire city down just because Amber was a resident.

 

“Oh, wow, congratulations!” Amber said without taking her eyes off me. “Have you picked a date yet, and when should I expect an invitation?”

 

Beth stumbled over her words again, “I, ah, that is, no, we haven’t quite decided yet. He stepped in and just swept me off my feet, and it’s very recent, so we haven’t made any firm decisions.”

 

“I bet he did,” Amber said with a tone that suggested something. I’m not quite sure exactly what, but she seemed to be hinting that she knew more than she was saying, but she wasn’t saying much. “So anyway, I need to grab my order and get back out there, but let me give you my phone number. We need to catch up for old times' sake. Did you know your mom and my mom were in town, too? I know you haven’t always gotten along great over the past few years, but you should come see her. Get her to meet James here. She’s not doing great.”

 

Beth gave Amber her phone, presumably just to get out of this experience as fast as possible, and otherwise didn’t react to a single thing Amber said. It was a massive revelation that Beth had family living here, given that she had thought her mom was around where I went to school. Or at least, that’s what I thought she thought. I hadn’t gone digging very much.

 

Beth tried to amiably see Amber off, but the bombshells dropped by Amber had reduced Beth to mostly nodding and utterances. Having gotten her fill of torturing Beth, Amber eventually got the hint that she wasn’t wanted and left, but not before dragging Beth and then me into the most uncomfortable hugs ever.

 

As Beth’s cousin departed, Sam rejoined us, carrying two small pizza boxes that smelled wonderful compared to the lingering tobacco.

 

She wasted no time in asking, “Did you know her? Because that looked awful.”

 

“My cousin.” If Beth’s terse reply wasn’t enough of an indication, the fact that she was holding my hand like it was a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman let me know that she was just so done with tonight. Whatever bullshit Zoey had played had exhausted her tolerance, and then her cousin had crashed our snack run. I wasn’t sure I would be able to talk to her about her emotions earlier in the day unless I wanted an overtired reactionary outburst.

 

“Did you know she was here?”

 

“If I knew she was here, I might have rejected J’s offer and stayed alone in New York.” Beth offered some genuine venom for the first time since I had met her. I could feel it boiling, just below the surface, a spark away from a massive explosion. Now that she wasn’t suppressing it with all of her will to prevent detonating publically, she had lost some of her control. If we pressed her, she was liable to lash out at either of us.

 

Sam winced, “Okay. Because, eww.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah. I hate her. Can we go home now?”