"They're both totally void of hate.
But killing me just the same."
Quite some time after drifting in and out of abstract dreams that don't hold your attention, you see her standing there and the setting begins to stabilize around the two of you. Her eyelids are dark and smoky, lips coated with a deep royal blue; the rest of her skin a porcelain shade that borders between lovely and frightening. Black patent-leather boots rise to her knees and stop, leaving long, bare, toned legs above them. Beneath her blazer you can see the trim of a black lace bra, but that seems to be the only undergarment she's opted to bother with today. A woman who knows what she wants, perhaps even who she wants, you observe as much from the subtle light that catches on the dewy wetness seeping from those lips. She knows you're staring, and doesn't try and hide the way she's staring back at you, one well-defined drop-spindle eyebrow arched inquisitively, head tilted back with confidence.
"Does the cat have your tongue, Satsuki-san?"
Not yet, unfortunately. She hears your unvoiced thought and lets out a chuckle.
"Ah, ask anyone else and I'm sure they'd think you wouldn't have had it in you to say such a thing!..." her steps towards you are long but slow, and for a moment you're transfixed by the way the muscle groups in her thighs move so beautifully together under smooth skin. "Obviously, I know better..."
"What have you come to tell me? A secret?" you ask, swallowing with a mouth that feels as though it's full of cotton, "Surely not something I want to hear."
Her eyes have it. Knowing, seductive. She nods, aware of exactly what she's doing... and so are you. She knows that you know.
"Something you want, but can't have."
Another swallow, your tongue presses hard agains the roof of your mouth. That could mean many things, but you have a pretty good idea what she's come for. You wait for her to go on, but you don't brace yourself. What's the use in resisting your own truths?
"Your rebel girl."
"Matoi."
"Ryuko. You've only had eyes for her since the very beginning. And it's only progressed since... you hide it so well. What you yearn for when you're all alone at night, when sleep won't come as easily as you do. As I do, mm..."
"Enlighten me..." you feign ignorance, but she is always one step ahead.
This devil is just you. Part of your psyche, a representation of your most carnal inner desires and everything you could be. There are no hiding places, no corners of your mind that she isn't intimately familiar with. If you don't say it yourself soon, she's going to tell it like it is. Secretly? You want nothing more than to hear it, in language as lewd as you know you're capable of yet never had the heart or courage to use... yet.
Needless to mention, she knows. She'll humor you.
"Gilding her lily, Satsuki. Oh, you know how easy it is to imagine her beneath you; needy, willing, stubborn as always but so close to begging in that precious rasp. Much like her speaking voice... only, imagine it in a whisper. Heavy with desire for what you're about to provide for her... She'll take that attitude down a notch for your eyes only. Not muting it altogether, of course not... simply nixing the bravado and showing you the true Ryuko's fire."
"Would she..." you trail off, voice the tiniest bit hoarse as you imagine. It doesn't take much to set the stage in your mind's-eye, to paint the picture, coat your senses and make you feel as if Ryuko is there, right beneath you.
The setting changes and she is, true-to-life in your dream. Quivering as you look up at her mid-lick from your sudden placement between her thighs, eyes dark with want. Tender. Needy. You've never tasted anything like her before and you're not entirely sure how your brain has generated this sensation from thin air, but it's too delightful to find a reason to complain right now. Shaky fingers rise, calloused from gripping motorbike handles and blades alike; combing through your hair, sweeping your bangs out of your eyes and your gaze crosses her body to lock with her own. Fierce, but with this new facet of sweetness that she's stopped concealing. You aren't on the battlefield, but the passion remains and takes another, kinder form.
Your devil-self still whispers in your ear, invisible.
"You want so terribly to drown yourself in her, don't you?"
You nod with excited surrender as your tongue glides and slips between her lips, swollen and wet for you. Ryuko moans your name as she nods her approval, your given name. The airs of formality and aggression alike have been cast aside and you're Satsuki and Ryuko now, no Matoi, no Kiryuin. The concept tugs at your heartstrings in a way that's jarring but not at all unwelcome.
"S-Satsuki, I... I wanna be all yours..." The vivid dream-Ryuko gasps, "Make me, m-make me feel h-how much you-"
"-how much you want her, hm?" The words of Devil-You crossfade from Ryuko's and your grip tightens, digging into her hipbones to lift and guide her as she grinds desperately into your face. Your lips and tongue move possessively, thoroughly answering her plea. Mine. The word echoes in your mind with every lap of your tongue as she draws closer, you can feel the tension building through her motions, her breath.
Suddenly it's as if someone has taken an eyedropper and let out a tiny, tiny dose of reality into the vast pool of your fantasy. It's not enough to bring you to full lucidity or, heavens forbid, wake you up; but the element of desperation is now causing your heart to throb and you find yourself hugging her thighs a little tighter, every "mine" is now prefixed with a "please be." On a level that's becoming more and more within reach, you now know it's all in your head, and the intensity with which you wish it wasn't is causing a new, different ache to bloom in your chest.
You're a flurry of emotion as she comes for you; her spasming and gushing feel so real and the way she pulls at your hair makes you nearly mistake this for true life. Your name is a ghost upon her lips as you let out a heavy, sobbing moan into her flesh; kissing and nuzzling and reaching up for her, needing to touch, needing to ground yourself in this dream you wish would never end...
"...I love ya, Satsuki" she looks down at you and it's too fast, she's fading away, you try and grab her to pull her back but she slips through your fingers like fine sand scattered and pulled away by the tide.
You collapse, too defeated to even cry, that is if your dream-self even could. You did not expect those four words and they couldn't have come from anywhere but your own desires. Devil-Satsuki cannot spin anything into your fantasy that isn't already there in your heart, in your mind. You can't do anything but face the truth: you wanted to hear those words. You want her to lov-
Devil-Satsuki suddenly takes another form before she comes to comfort you, the aggressive clack of her heels replaced with the soft padding of bare feet. You look up and out from the curtain of your hair that shields your face and a face of concern greets you. Her numerous ear piercings and dark makeup are entirely gone, and her hair has grown out to a length that slowly billows and ripples behind her as if suspended underwater. The all-black getup she donned before has been replaced with a thin silk nightgown under a sheer robe, all a creamy off-white. The rosy-cheeked, complementary angelic counterpart to your lusty devil. The representation of the love in your heart that cannot yet be expressed, the other side of the coin called desire.
"That ache you felt, it was a desire for tenderness." she explains to you softly but matter-of-factly, brushing your hair over your shoulder and cupping your cheek. Her fingers are warm and buttery-soft against your face. You can only let out a sigh in agreement.
"I know," she continues, "We yearn for it so badly but can never admit it, can we? Lest we compromise the image of who we must appear to be."
You can find nothing untrue about her statement, and you nod slowly in response. Your throat constricts again with emotion, even tighter than before. Angel-Satsuki picks you up, cradling you as if you were light as a cloud despite your heart bearing so much weight right now. She rises, carrying you to the nest of pillows in your bed, settling next to you, caressing you in ways that are impossibly precise and intimate for how light and featherlike her touches are. She showers you in her kisses, loaded down with the same tenderness she spoke of. The tenderness you crave, but with all the security and familiarity of touching yourself. You're too comfortable to arch into her, too relaxed even let your hips jump against her touch, but she knows just what your body wants at every moment. No one knows you like you know you, and she's intent on making sure you're well-satisfied.
You've looked after yourself, taken care of your emotions all these years in one way or another. This is nothing new. For all the self-loathing, deep down underneath it all, you still love you. During your waking hours, however, doing so comes with a great deal of difficulty.
She never gets to see you to completion. You awaken to the chiming of your alarm clock, reality washing over you slowly like the tide slowly creeping in, the same tide that pulled your dream-Ryuko away from beneath your lips so quickly in comparison. You take a deep breath to clear your head, to will the dull throbbing between your thighs to quiet, carefully filing away each detail of this dream before it can slip away into oblivion; but also so it won't distract you as you go about your daily duties, especially while parrying the swings of Ryu- Matoi's blade. Dense and burdened as your heart is with love and yearning for her and her alone, you must keep it closed off and hidden deep away until the right time (which could very well be never, and you need to accept it). You are indebted to a greater cause right now; the desires that eat away at you are petty in comparison and selfish to give any more conscious thought to than necessary. Your revenge, justice for your culled sister and father; that is what takes the top priority in your hierarchy of needs. All else is irrelevant, must stay irrelevant. Putting something on the back-burner would still squander a stove's gas supply; letting desire into your conscious mind will likewise only compromise your focus and energy away from the one task that allows absolutely no room for error.
Your devil and angel may someday be allowed to guide you from their rightful thrones atop your shoulders, but for now you can only allow them to reign over your dreams.
(original date of posting: 05/26/2016)