19: R&N: Snow White & Rose Red

7 am, New York City Luxury Apartment

We need to talk -R2. Coupled with a white rose that was speckled in what appeared to be fake blood. Abigael had wanted to go out for a brisk morning jog around Central Park, and nearly stepped on the items that lay before her feet. She looked past the dining room with its Ashford dining table, toward the direction of the bedroom she and Mel shared. Mel, by all accounts, was still asleep. Poking her head outside once more, Abigael glanced to her left and right, snatched the items, and locked the door behind her.

7:10 am, New York City Luxury Apartment

How could she forget Rani, with her unflappable personality, dark glasses, and thick, cropped platinum hair? Even if it had been upwards of a decade, Abigael could still recall distinct aspects of the way Rani would survey her walls, her marble interiors, and her bedsheets, claiming she could detect ten shades of what Abigael considered to be the color white.

Unusually for them both, they had parted amicably. Rani and she had led a quiet, secretive lifestyle back then, that had lasted the better part of six months. But oh, those six months…Neither had been serious at all with the other—they had both come out of unpleasant personal situations before meeting one night, long ago at a holiday party of a mutual friend in London.

11:11 pm, Ten Years Ago, London England, Holiday Party

Abigael wasn't sure why her flatmate Pippa had dragged her out to a friend's to-do. She wasn't the celebratory sort when it came to holidays, and she'd sooner be dead than caught in a horrid Christmas jumper. Unfortunately, Abigael had lost a bet with Pippa earlier that week over a round of drinks that meant attending said shindig, which she had dressed for, scowling all the while.

Red? Absolutely not, Abigael decided, tossing a sweater aside in her bedroom. She'd decided that all of the other color choices were just as hideous. She didn't have many gowns at the time either, so she'd been forced to trek to the nearest thrift store, where she found a surprisingly chic white sweater dress that she could pair with tight black leggings. Not bad, she thought, surveying herself in her bedroom mirror, after having returned from the shop.

And here she was, at said friend's house, in a haze of postprandial hookah smoke and the permeating stench of ale. Abigael ducked out of the living room into what appeared to be a small, dimly lit library, closing the door behind her. Gravitating toward a darkened shelf, she noticed it contained every first edition of the feminist hero classics—Jane Eyre, Persuasion, Little Women she read off, impressed, as she ran her fingers down the binding. So entranced was she that she didn't notice the presence of another in the room, until their fingers touched the same first edition binding of the book entitled "Mrs. Dalloway."

Abigael had come face-to-face with a lovely almond-eyed woman with high, well-defined cheekbones and closely-cropped platinum hair, who was wearing a rather festive cherry-red merino wool sweater. "Oh, hullo," the platinum-haired woman said in surprise. "I'm Rani, here on exchange. Y'are?"

"Abigael. Just—Abigael." Abigael swallowed hard and surveyed the sylph before her. American, she guessed. A rather lovely specimen, that. If only she were…

"Single?" Rani asked boldly—interrupting Abigael's silent thoughts abruptly.

"Quite," answered Abigael in a low, purring voice, reaching out to stroke Rani's bright tendrils as Rani closed her eyes and savored the curious poppy-and-cinnamon perfume Abigael had chosen to wear that very evening; they meandered their way into the darkest, unlit portion of the library, as they began to explore one another's body.

Abigael planted a kiss on Rani's neck, guiding Rani into the deepest part of the library's corner, where the left and right walls intersected together. Their fingers intertwined on one side, they deliberately mulled over what to do next with the heady alcohol-infused tension permeating their surroundings. Soon, Rani's tongue found itself within Abigael's own, performing a sensual dance within, for the next several minutes. Rani gasped as Abigael's right hand snaked under her sweater, under her camisole, under her brassiere, until she could feel the petite and deft fingers stroking her breast, flicking her nipple in a way that made her involuntary thrust forward. Making silent eye contact, they slid to the floor and straddled each other, each placing in index finger into the other's silky, tight fabric leggings, winding their way to the other's feathery, flowery-scented folds. They gasped, and began rocking back and forth, stroking furiously and panting all the while.

The raucous party continued outside those very walls, and nobody took any notice of the two absconders. Abigael could feel Rani's light dampness and looked down at her own semi-pantless self. Seeing a part of Rani within her own core further fueled the flames that flickered within her seductive nature. "Fuck" she heard Rani whisper. Abigael bit Rani's shoulder as they moved faster, and faster still, culminating in a perspiring, throbbing, undulating heap on the oaken library floor.

7:15 am, New York City Luxury Apartment

Damn, she could remember that holiday party as if it were yesterday. Abigael scrutinized the red-splattered rose and the card once more. What prompted this communication? Typically, Rani would send flowers in secret to those she had a private vendetta against…

"What's that?" Mel had crept up behind her, unnoticed.

"Nothing—just—,"Abigael tossed the items into the kitchen bin, deliberately avoiding Mel's questioning look. "—Junk mail. Magical realm junk mail."