This chapter is dedicated to IAmNotTheWalrus' homework. :D

…

Thomas is amazed. For a long moment he cannot speak, as Nina's black swan holds her pose and glares at him with eyes that sear. The other girls are holding their breath, and Lily is keeping her fingers crossed. Thomas has to acknowledge that performance; it's the best any of them have ever seen. "Nina, you will dance the Swan Queen in Friday night's show." The other girls erupt into applause, but Nina acknowledges it with only a demure smile and nod. She's too busy trying not to float away, the drug coursing in her veins and making her light-headed.

She retreats to her dressing room, pressing her hands against the walls to hold herself in place. It's as though with a casual gesture she could soar, as though she'll fly away if she isn't careful. And the excitement of being chosen all over again is nothing compared to her own awareness of how excellent her dancing was. It wouldn't have mattered, really, if Thomas had passed her by; Nina knew it was perfect, and that everyone watching knew it too. All she's ever wanted is perfection.

Lily bursts into the room full of congratulations, hugging Nina impulsively, but the drug is pulsing deep inside. Nina's rolling, and the congratulations flow into something else. As Lily begins to step back from the hug, Nina catches her face and kisses her deeply, kisses her with the passion that is as much a symptom of the drug as the new fluidity in her dancing.

"Nina," Lily gasps against her insistent mouth, and tries to pull away, but Nina pins her against the wall, hips tight against Lily's. Lust sings through her body as she buries her hands in Lily's hair. Rolling? No, this is flying, soaring, wild exhilaration at finally giving in to the demands of the drug. No hallucination this time, she can taste Lily's lipstick, feel the heat of her skin.

Catching her wrists, Lily tries to push her off, but Nina captures Lily's bottom lip between her teeth. The half-painful, half-sensual nip halts Lily's attempts to escape for a moment, and Nina crushes their mouths together again with a longing moan. "Shouldn't have let me roll… You know what it does to me … what it makes me do…" she whispers wickedly, and a part of her knows this has to stop eventually. For now, though, oh, it's sweet.

"I didn't give you ecstasy," Lily says, as Nina grinds her hips against her. "Nina. Nina. You're not rolling, Nina. I didn't give you anything."

Stark horror cuts across the fog of desire, and Nina stares at her. It can't be true. She remembers Lily standing in the bathroom doorway, a white pill just like the other one. "This morning…" Nina begins, faltering. She'd thought the delusions had stopped since the show, and if she's wrong about that then there's so much more wrong with her than she'd realized before.

"I never did say it was ecstasy," Lily tells her, and Nina lets go, utter mortification coiling in her gut. Not a hallucination, a trick, a nasty trick Lily played on her, and why did she expect anything different from someone who'd drug her drink? "It was vitamin B-12, Nina, it just looked like ecstasy."

Now she realizes that the lights haven't been throbbing, that the colors haven't started to smear, that the music hasn't left a taste on her tongue. All those things happened the last time she rolled, senses blending into each other, but not now. This time she had only the dance … and the desire.

Nina backs away as Lily comes toward her trying to explain. "…see, you can do this, you did it without drugs. Nina, you only thought you were rolling, you just have to relax, you can do it on your own…"

But all Nina can see is the way Lily's lower lip is swelling from that bite. Bad enough that she confessed the fantasy; now she's practically molested Lily here in the dressing room. No one can know of this, shame and fear and panic twist together to blot out Lily's words, and Nina whispers, "You tricked me."

"I was trying to help you…"

"No! You lied to me!" Nina's voice is rising toward to hysteria, her eyes huge in her panicked face. "I trusted you! You know … you know I have to know what's true, what's real, and you tricked me, you're trying to hurt me, you knew and you did it anyway!"

"I didn't mean…"

"Liar! How am I supposed to know what's illusion and what's real if you lie to me?" Nina almost screams, not caring if the rest hear. It's all ruined anyway.

Lily grabs her Nina by the nape of her neck and kisses her hard. A single instant of frozen shock, like the moment when the spotlight first finds her onstage, completely exposed and alone and for a second unable to move or respond. Then Nina kisses her back greedily, slides her arms around Lily's waist to pull her closer. They're the same height so kissing is almost too easy, as if it was fated to be from the moment Nina first saw Lily's reflected image on the subway. None of it makes any sense, but Nina can't resist this, her brows drawing together in an expression of almost painful yearning as Lily deepens the kiss and their tongues entwine. God, oh God, if she could die right now and never have to stop…

Lily pulls away first, both of them panting and disheveled. She brushes a fingertip over Nina's jaw, the way she did at the club when the drug kicked in. "This is real, Nina. This is you. Ecstasy doesn't make you into a different person; there are no swans, black or white. There's just you, Nina. It was you dancing out there; you were perfect all by yourself."

"But…" Nina can't find the words, gesturing to the two of them, still in each other's embrace with Lily's dark-lined eyes just inches away. Surely this is the work of the drug, this burning lust for another girl has to have chemical origins.

Lily chuckles and brushes another kiss across her lips, soft as a floating feather, and Nina moans helplessly at the heat that tender caress calls forth in her. "Just you," Lily whispers, and she still doesn't back off. Nina can't imagine why she isn't repulsed.

"I don't know…"

"I do. Nina, you had a guy sitting right next to you trying to get into your pants, and when you started to roll it was me you turned to. You almost kissed me right there. You did kiss me, on the dance floor, had your hands on my hips, dancing together and driving those boys wild. And then when you went home…"

"Stop," Nina pleads, but Lily won't.

She does, however, lean forward so the words are whispered against Nina's mouth. "You went home and fantasized about me, imagined your hands were mine, brought yourself off thinking of me. You want me, Nina. It's okay to admit it. Ask your therapist; there's nothing wrong with liking girls."

Nina flinches a little from how casually Lily mentions the therapist. It may be the smartest thing she's ever done, it may be helping her tremendously, but there's still a sense of shame that she ever needed a shrink. Then again, lots of things seem to be causing her shame lately.

She wants to say something else, or maybe just kiss Lily again, but right then the dressing room door opens. Veronica leans in to say something; her mouth drops into a shocked O and her light blue eyes look even more startled than usual as she takes in the scene. Nina has no idea what to do, her panicked mind trying to explain this somehow, but Lily just turns toward Veronica with insolent casualness. She doesn't pull away, doesn't relinquish the hand wound in Nina's hair. "Ever hear of knocking?" she says lazily, and Veronica retreats like she's been yanked out, slamming the door behind her.

Nina cannot believe that just happened, and Lily sighs heavily as she finally takes a step away. "Well, there goes my reputation," the younger girl says with a fatalistic shrug. "You can tell them I pushed you up against the wall, that you didn't want to. You can say you're glad Veronica stopped me. That might spare you."

"But it didn't happen that way," Nina protests faintly, trying to force her mind to work around both the shock and the heat blossoming in her belly. Her lips feel bruised, her chest aches, her pulse throbs between her thighs, and the majority of her just wants to pull Lily back for another kiss, and another, and another.

"Yeah, I know," Lily chuckles. "You can tell them that, though, and they'll believe it. I'm the newcomer, and I'm from California. They halfway expect me to be some kind of deviant."

"I don't want to lie," Nina says, and when Lily looks at her appraisingly she blushes again. Those eyes are so knowing, like she sees into Nina's soul.

"Then tell the truth, but don't shrink from it. Yeah, we kissed. What's it to them? None of their damn business."

That bald statement speaks to a courage Nina wishes she possessed. But she's had enough confusion over what's real and what's false that she can no longer afford to lie, even over something like this. How long would it be before she began to believe the fiction? "It really isn't their business," she says, and is surprised by the glow of satisfaction within her.

"All right then," Lily says decisively, with an approving grin.

She turns to go, but Nina still has a question, if she can work out how to phrase it. "Lily…"

"Yes?"

"What about…?" Again that gesture that encompasses everything that just happened, but it seems like not enough. Even without the slightest hint of condemnation from Lily, Nina still can't bring herself to speak plainly about what's going on between them, and she has to settle for saying, "What about … us?"

For a long moment Lily simply regards her with a serious expression. "Nina, don't take this the wrong way, but you're not up to having a relationship with anyone right now. Especially not with me. Trust me on that, okay? You have to get your own shit straightened out before you can start dealing with someone else's."

"Oh." It's a polite rejection, but still rejection, and Nina casts her eyes downward. Honestly, what was she thinking? That a kiss to calm her hysteria meant they were dating or something? This is Lily, she's made no secret of her promiscuity, and the kiss probably meant nothing to her. Not like it was for Nina, for whom Lily is only the fourth person she's ever kissed, and that's counting a dare in the third grade.

"Hey now." Lily comes closer again, slips two fingers under Nina's chin and tilts her face up. Those fierce eyes can be gentle, when Lily wants. "We're friends, Nina. That's enough for now. Anything else … we'll see." And on that hopeful note – what exactly she's hoping for, Nina still isn't quite sure – Lily makes her exit.