Author's Notes: Hell everyone! I know I say this pretty much every chapter intro, but I'm SO SORRY it took this long to get this newest chapter to you guys! I won't list off excuses, but I will say that of all the stories I work on, this is one of my favorites, and one of the ones that I want to work on the most. Keep that in mind. Also, amusingly enough, this chapter being uploaded in October is actually fitting. The reasons why will become apparent in the chapter proper.
My writing partner, Kenju, wanted to share a few words before this chapter starts, "Hey there everyone! Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter to you, but as always real life has been a real pain for us both and kept us rather busy. We never once forgot about this story or our loyal fans however, and have worked hard to bring this to you as quickly as we could without detracting from the quality you have come to expect. Now, I know a lot of you (as well as ourselves) are growing rather…tired of this arc. The good news is, it's almost over, and once it is we'll be taking a nice little break from Gwen as the focus and moving on to MUCH happier times. Just bear with us for two more chapters, ladies and gentlemen."
With that out of the way, here is chapter the twenty-first chapter of Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: Chance: Grew Worse on Friday
October 31, 2014 (11:30 AM)
Once again, Gwen found herself trapped in a fitful night of bad dreams on her sofa bed. The blackness of sleep was terramorphed into a battlefield, with any form of rest she found diluted by her subconscious struggles. Unlike the past few nights where her nightmares consisted of being chased across an island filled with things trying to kill her, last night's was…different. Similar to most dreams, every moment that passed after waking made it harder to re-evoke. The details were fuzzy, almost impossible to recall, but the one thing she remembered was being completely alone.
Appearing and vanishing at a moment's notice like clouds of smoke were abstract images of an island, but there wasn't any impression of life, or even movement within its terrain. The air was as stale and unmoving as a corpse. No clouds silently trailed through the sky. Not a single animal could be seen or heard. No wolves howling, nothing stalking her, no birds, not even insects. The borders of the landscape then began to lose bold definition, getting closer to resembling blurry watercolor paintings than a concrete, tangible thing.
It was a world choked by existence, stagnating upon its own lack of diversity and energy.
But, happening so suddenly given the stark stillness, it started to rain, hard. As the torrential downpour flooded the island, the long night became much colder and damper. The world got even blurrier, as if the rain was erasing the dreary décor as though it were a chalk drawing on the sidewalk.
Gwen, with a memory like Swiss cheese, recalled trying to find shelter from the deluge, but other than that she couldn't put any more pieces of the puzzle together. She wasn't even sure if she'd managed to get out of the rain or not. She felt dreary, dower.
Then, right before she woke, there came a single image in horrifyingly clear detail. It had scared Gwen as much as the wolves when they appeared in her dreams. Like the wolves it was a creature, an animal, a predator. Only unlike the wolves, it was no pack animal, though it was just as deadly, if not more so. It was a bear, a grizzly if she guessed, and one or two sizes larger than most of its ursidae cousins. Like the wolves it seemed…unnatural in appearance, and not just in terms of its monstrous size. Its brown bristling fur was covered in something visceral and vile, and its eyes shone like blood red moons. Coupled with the overpowering stench of death and stagnate water that covered it like a miasma, seeing it filled her with dread. What made this encounter so surprising, and unsettling however, was that after glaring at her for a few moments the bear retreated. Why should she be unnerved even when it left her rather than chase her like the wolves?
Something in the back of her mind told her that it had not been an act of mercy that caused it to leave her. No, those eyes she looked into held no mercy, no pity.
No humanity.
It left her because to it, she wasn't worth the effort to kill, let alone eat.
That fact left her feeling confused; even conflicted for reasons she couldn't grasp. Only now that she was awake did she understand what the reason was. She was nothing to it. She was nothing.
Her mind soon began to fill with memories more concrete and tangible, but equally abysmal. She recalled what happened the previous night, all of the work she put into having a special night between her and Duncan that would never happen. Anger flashed up in her, the ire Duncan had earned for just leaving her behind came bubbling up like molten lava. She knew they wouldn't have been able to party all night into the morning like they used to, but she hadn't expected Duncan to just go off on his own like that. The only thing that had made the night even worse was the fact that after that failure, she had to endure the sounds of Cody and Heather going at it like rabbits. That certainly hadn't helped her mood one bit.
But then, there was another reason for her darker than usual mood. She looked at her Smartphone and saw the date.
October 31st 2014.
Halloween. Gwen's favorite day of the year. Ever since she was a little kid the Goth had gone out of her way to have fun on All Hollow's Eve. Whether it was through trick-or-treating, or going to more adult parties when she reached her teens, she always had a blast. She had gone out of her way to dress as every single one of the classic movie monsters at least once, adopting the gender-swapped visages of each and every one of them, from Dracula to the Invisible Man. She even made costumes of some of the more obscure horror icons from foreign films most people had never even heard of, such as Coffin Joe and Asami Yamazaki. Among her fondest memories from her relationship with Duncan, many happened then. She had always felt a kinship with the menagerie of monsters and other malcontent forces that were believed to have more sway over the affairs of the living during that day. She could have fun on that day, not be weighed down by her infinite discontent with all existence.
This Halloween would be different. Heather kept her from having any fun, and Duncan would probably be too hung over to do anything but the tamest in nature before her curfew.
Wanting to violently retch those negative thoughts and memories, Gwen got up and gathered her things for her morning shower, including a change of clothes.
The Goth left her room, and was surprised by what she found in the dorm's main area. It was Heather, working in the kitchen, with her back to her, humming a tune she didn't recognize. Gwen felt confused. Not only was Heather's presence odd enough, but the fact that, judging by her humming and swaying hips, she seemed to be in a good mood without any malice, which in of itself was just as surreal as any dream. Ignoring that, Gwen turned her head towards the clock on the wall, and saw that it was almost eleven-thirty. The confusion only grew. Why was Heather still here, when she had been long gone every other morning this week?
After puzzling on it for a few moments, Gwen realized what the deal was. Today was Friday. Most students outside of those taking extra courses didn't have classes today, and were probably recovering from whatever fun times they had the night before. One of Gwen's hands tightened into a fist as she was reminded once more that Duncan left her high and dry last night, all because of Heather's rule. She was seriously tempted to lash out, to force a small fraction of her current misery onto her long-hated enemy. Then sanity prevailed. She relaxed her hand. That wouldn't get her anywhere. Besides, she was pretty sure Heather wanted her to do something like that.
Exiting the dorm as swiftly as she could while making as little noise as possible, Gwen traveled to the floor's public girl bathroom to get ready for the day.
October 31, 2014 (11:35 AM)
For once out of this shitty week, Gwen felt genuinely thankful for something. The floor bathrooms were vacant. With no one else around, she surveyed her surroundings and drank in the details that were the same as always. They were nothing special, reminding her of her high school's locker room, just without the lockers. The floor even had the same pattern of dark blue and pure white tile squares, the coloration of the white ones suggested that this place could have benefited from a good scrubbing as well. There was a row of sinks with a large mirror on one side, a row of bathroom stalls on the other, and a few showers at the end with pale yellow curtains hanging from metal bars.
The rings connecting the curtain to the bar made a mild scraping sound as pale fingers pulled the faded butter like fabric to one side. With all the ceremony and flare of someone falling out of bed in the morning Gwen undressed and closed the curtain. The shower interior was tight, with just enough room for her to move around though not quite enough to fully stretch her arms out to either side. After a few seconds to turn the various dials, a spray of warm water rushed over her.
Lips painted like starless night released a sigh of relief as the water bombarded her skin. No matter how crappy things got, Gwen could always find some solace in a soothing hot shower. It wasn't long before the water created billows of steam that the Goth equally savored. Her hands pushed against the wall under the showerhead, which had the same high school resembling color scheme as the floor, and her head lowered, allowing the water to swim and slither down her curvy form, working its heat down her back and chest, relishing the warmth flowing over her large breasts and around her womanly hips. She closed her eyes, letting her head become drenched from the falling water, flattening her hair like coal to her porcelain-like skin as though she were becoming a Rorschach inkblot. The warmness helped shake the lingering sleep out of her brain and work the stiffness from her joints and muscles. But unlike her usual mornings in the shower, that didn't improve her dour mood. If anything, it only added to it. Now that she was more awake, more memories flashed within her mind.
She remembered the complete and total cluster-fuck that was last night.
She remembered the cheers and whistles she heard on the phone last night with Duncan. She remembered the tone of his voice, how happy he sounded. She remembered all the work she put into that little surprise party for two she tried to throw for him. While he partied with friends and strangers, she ate a cold dinner by herself in an empty dorm. As if to rub salt in the wound she then remembered what was waiting for her when she got back to the other dorm, hearing Heather and Cody going at it all night long, keeping her up till nearly midnight. She remembered hearing them carry on for nearly two hours, every laugh, every chuckle, every moan, every sigh, every cry and every word. All of that would be forever tattooed into the wrinkly grey matter within her skull that contained her very identity.
For some reason, it was the last few hours of yesterday, beholding the unwanted proof of Heather and Cody's sex life, which had the most sway over her mood. While at first it simply grated on her nerves because of how bad the day had been after an already rotten week, but then after an hour of listening to them it became something else, something…uncomfortable.
Heather and Cody's sex life, Cody and Heather being a couple. Either concept alone seemed so strange, so impossible to Gwen that she still couldn't believe it. She would have had an easier time believing in the Greek gods and goddess, or that Chris McLean had a soul, or other equally insane and impossible concepts. After hearing it from the she-bitch's mouth, Gwen thought she understood the situation perfectly. Heather was a gold digger, excavating the wealth from a naïve and sexually hopeless Geek. She imagined every time she took his load, the amount of cash in her pocket increased. It was a cold, detached exchange of desired resources, of cum and cock for coin and credit.
The Goth still knew this to be the ultimate nature of their relationship, its basic foundation. But last night something had changed. Now, she wasn't entirely sure that Cody was getting the short end of the stick, or at least not nearly as short of the short end as she first assumed. Even if it was a sham, and even if Heather was just using him, from what she could hear throughout the night, Cody actually seemed…happy.
No, not seemed, was happy…is happy.
She had thankfully not witnessed the events of a decidedly physical nature, but the oratory impression of them that had assaulted her ears made the basic nature of the erotic escapades enacted undeniable. The passion in their voices and the duration of their interaction revealed something that before would have simply been unfathomable. Heather was doing far more than just flashing or toying with the Tech Geek. She was giving him the full package.
Gwen recognized the particular cadences and pitches of Cody's gasps from her own experiences to know that Heather had given him a blowjob during the night. She had heard them from Duncan enough times to know the pattern of vocal reactions. Following that she heard the rutting and flesh on flesh slapping that suggested full-on sexual intercourse. Those were just educated guesses, though, but she felt confident in her assertions. In some ways, they were the most thorough things she had learned while attending college so far. The same applied to the fact that while she knew Heather was playing things up to some degree, not all of it could have been an act, not all of her moans were bereft of sincerity. That and the Goth didn't believe that anyone could be mathematically impaired enough to deny that bruising-the-beef-curtains for two hours wouldn't result in getting off at least once.
Of course that brought on the mental image of Cody himself, no longer the scrawny twerp she had come so close to filing a restraining order against, pounding away at the Asian Queen Bee, a mental image supplemented by the sounds she had heard throughout the night.
Pushing those mental images aside with an involuntary shudder, Gwen found herself frowning and feeling something very unwelcome growing in the back of her mind, feeling something faint and wafer-thin wriggling through increasingly fluttering veins.
Jealousy.
'No, no…get a fucking grip, Gwen! It's not real and you know it! This is fucking Heather!' the Goth chided while shaking her head as beads of water flung to all sides. 'She's just using Cody for his money. She isn't capable of anything deeper than shallow lust. She belongs to the church of smoke and mirrors. Her knee bends only to the gods of sleight-of-hand and money.'
Underneath that miniature waterfall that didn't seem as pure as it once did, Gwen sighed. As much as she knew it was wrong and stupid, she would be lying if she tried to admit that she wasn't jealous of them, at least to some degree. Even so, she steeled herself. What she had with Duncan was on a different level, it was more…more real. She knew that she loved Duncan with all of her heart, and that he matched those feelings in kind. But, that didn't mean she was always one hundred percent…satisfied in the bedroom. She loved Duncan, and would do anything and everything to make him happy, to please him and pleasure him to the best of her abilities…but it would have been nice if he would go down on her just once for a change after all the blowjobs she had given him, or for them to try something a little different outside the same four routines he always craved and enjoyed. It was for him, she did it for him and had no problems with it either. But still, it would have been…nice.
Gwen had always had a vivid imagination. It was part of the reason why Halloween had appealed to her so much, even as a little kid. She never had a problem building from the ground up twisted monsters that were as vibrantly creative as they were wholly perverse.
Now, as a young adult, that same level of imagination, though rarely outwardly expressed, remained. And every once in a while the proper stimuli would get it going in a more…carnal direction. Thus, as she remained under the rushing water, she started to visualize many sights.
She visualized Cody and Heather, with their unimpressive breasts and shockingly chiseled chests, lying together in bed, the sweaty sheets bundled up and coiling like velvet vines around their bodies. Then with a twitch of her mind, the forms lying in the bed changed, shifted into new shapes, one with larger breasts and the other with more muscles. They were in the afterglow of an all-night fuck-a-thon that fulfilled them both completely, filing down their desires to slated numbs and worked their bodies to exhaustion.
Gwen couldn't even remember the last time she and Duncan had done anything like that. But from the scraps of information she had absorbed that night she began to play it back, and the fantasy started.
Her breath immediately sharpened. Her lower half warmed up and her nipples started to harden. She visualized them kissing, their lips synchronizing with the others since the first touch; locking together between each breath. She imagined his strong arms wrapping around her like a pair of muscular pythons. She imagined his reverence for her in every gesture, unspoken desire infused within each motion.
One hand pressed against the wall of the shower to steady herself without her brain even registering it. The hand had simply moved on its own, compelled by other impulses not from her brain. Also moving on its own, without any higher thinking guiding it, Gwen's other hand started to roam across the river-craved terrain of her body.
She had listened to them all through the night; the communications during their coitus. Him praising her, adoring her, worshiping her. The lack of concealment between them and his feelings. The painfully honest confession of his love.
The explorative hand had reached her bust, massaging first one, then the other of the Goth's great globes, kneading the tender and sensitive flesh like giant marshmallows before twisting their nipples like pink Hersey's Kisses. Electricity crackled through her nerves, every new knead and twist fired off a new current to surge through her heated core.
She remembered his words plainly, as if they were being whispered in her ear against the loud roar of the showerhead. She had started to fuss over her breasts being too small, even after all their years together they still bothered her. The trances of vulnerability barely noticeable through efforts at deception and all too thin walls could still be detected. But then, without delay, without pause or forcedness, he had assured her, and honestly meant it. They were more than enough; all he would ever need, all he would ever want. She didn't have to change or improve. She was already perfect to him. She could remain constant, worshiped. It was he who bent over backwards to satisfy her, not the other way around.
A hiss escaped her lips, her neither region twitched; becoming more than just slightly dampened as his sweet and tender words flowed into her ears.
Sliding as if along a river, Gwen's hand started to move down from her bountiful bust. Palm and fingernail gently brushed and scraped against her skin as they reached across her stomach.
She remembered him saying that her eyes shone like the full moon on a clear night.
With painful yet ecstatic slowness, the hand advanced towards her hips, traveling past love handles, remaining central over her navel. Those same hips once again bucked on reflex, eager to be satisfied.
She remembered him saying that her skin was as smooth as her lips, like the finest silk.
The hand moved from her hips down to her mound before cupping her lower lips, her eyes closed as her head rose to face the showerhead. Every drop of water burst on her skin, hyper-charging her nerves.
She remembered him saying that the most beautiful sound he had ever heard was her moaning his name.
Her supporting hand slapped the wall as a moan and sharp utterance of "Fuck" cut the air. The other hand traveled further, framing her lower lips as her palm began grinding against her still covered clit. Her fingers found her pussy lips, trembling fingertips teased out small surges of sensual sensations. A clear stickiness clung to them, refusing to leave even with the rushing water from above. They were rubbed back and forth over and over again, until the time for teasing had long since passed.
Lubricated from her own juices and the shower water, Gwen parted herself before first sliding in one finger, then another until the two were knuckles deep. Like a bolt of lightning, raw pleasure rippled throughout Gwen's body. She had to bite her lips to suppress her moan as she began fingering herself to a slow steady tempo, then worked her slender digits up to a faster pace.
Everything lost coherency at that point, reality becoming a shattered and jagged mirror. The only constant, the only remaining thing in existence were the fingers probing and pumping her depths. All other once tangible ideas and logical constructs became a collage of sights, sounds, and sensations. Everything was happening simultaneously and occupying the same point. Like a school of shimmering fish traveling upstream, particular ideas and vignettes leapt out. The cut-and-paste of her subconscious came pouring out, fueling each further fingering.
Duncan's lips offering huffing praise betwixt each passion-filled kiss and stolen breath.
No unspoken expectations, no mandatory actions outside of what she wanted to do.
Strong fingers treading over the taut topography of her flesh—running along the fault lines of her tensions and soothing them, brushing firmly against the hills of her curvier physique.
Entire nights that didn't involve swallowing his cum, her taste lingering on his tongue for a change.
Lying together with bodies slickened by sweat and seed as their exhausted forms heated the room.
Her setting the pace, deciding what did and did not occur.
Synchronizing of their bodies for more than mediocre, rough sex in three minute bursts.
His sweet-nothings murmured as if they were national secrets.
His tongue slithering through her quivering lower lips, every taste bud rubbing her inner walls.
Being adrift in their afterglow, sharing an intimate, eloquent silence that she was oddly grateful for.
Looking down at her lover, smiling to see his gaze looking up, focusing only on her. Her heaving tits level with his eyes, but his stare not being misdirected or the least bit distracted.
Together synthesizing a brief universe of peace.
The ever-escalating piston action between her legs, stabbing the heat of her loins. Multiple digits exploring deeper and deeper into herself, digging out new pleasures.
Then, it happened. She heard it…she heard him!
All of a sudden, with more abruptness than a record needle violently torn from the grooves of the spinning disk, Gwen retched her hand from her searing pussy, tiptoeing the picometre thin line between the searing neurons of viganal discharge and the most severe case of blue-balls as can be experienced by one lacking the essential genitalia.
Her rhapsodic ship of rapture foundered, and became grounded on reality's dull reef. All at once, the imaginings vanished, in a supernova of logically moored synapses. She left the tranquility of fantasy, and returned to dismal corporeality in her body's tawdry clay.
The shock of hearing his voice, though severe, was temporary, passing into silence. The sinking feeling that followed subconscious realization of the implications was far less so.
They were like a splash of cold water to her face, further enhanced by her sense of touch returning to the physical plain, her body shaking and shivering as she felt the now freezing cold water running down her body. Gwen cursed vividly under her breath.
With a jerking motion as twitchy as a dying spider's leg, she shut off the shower water. Then, for a moment that seemed stretched into oceanic eternities, she pondered. She could not believe the bridge she had almost crossed, the cliff she almost leapt from. As confusing as it was when examined by the cold light of logic, the mental images flashing before her mind's eye as she had pleasured herself had been perfectly fine. It had been her imagining that she was there that night, recreating those escapades her warden and fellow prisoner had enacted with herself and Duncan.
It had been fine…right up until the last moment. Then the journey had turned a hard left just as it reached its crescendo, just as she was about to reach her peak.
It happened. She heard it, exactly as she had last night, Cody's voice uttering those three little words, three little words that hit her square in the chest where it hurt most.
Wanting to leave all of that behind, Gwen dried herself off, though her body still shook even when the clinging water was wiped away. She tried to ignore that while getting dressed; ignoring the lingering touches she could feel from her imagination. The strong yet cautious hands running along her hips as she pulled up her panties, squeezing her ass as she pulled up her jeans, cupping her breasts and holding them as she hooked her bra into place, then running along her flanks as she pulled her shirt over head. Once the final piece of her attire had been adored, she left, feeling dirtier than she had before arriving.
It wasn't even dark yet, not even noon yet, and this year's Halloween was already shaping up to be a truly frightening ordeal…and not in a fun way.
October 31, 2014 (12:15 PM)
She hadn't been awake for more than an hour, and Gwen already hated this year's Halloween. The day so far had been frightening in the same way getting a tax audit was, slowly crushing your soul and hopes without so much as a single pulse-pounding thrill to be found. It sucked more than any aspiring actress who worked a director's button-fly more than reporters on the red carpet. In not even an hour she had endured the same level of bullshit she had for the entire godforsaken week.
Insult was poured like handfuls of coarse salt into the fresh, raw wound of injury by the knowledge that Duncan would be comatose with a hangover for most of the day. He wouldn't be able to do much of anything with her no matter how much either of them wanted. There would be no fun parties tonight, the one night more than any other that Gwen savored being able to cut loose. She didn't ask for much…but Halloween had always been her day. And now it was gone.
Once again, with it feeling like the running gag of some sick fuck-wit with omnipotence, she walked towards Heather and Cody's dorm wishing everything would just die already. Needless to say, by this point, her mood had taken a sharp swan drive from low to foul.
Trying to ignore the rumbling from her stomach so frequent it could be her ringtone, Gwen checked her Smartphone. It was quarter after noon, meaning she had been in the shower for forty-five minutes…well that would certainly explain why the water went cold on her.
Making her way back to Heather and Cody's dorm, booted feet all but stomped with each step. She approached the door, mostly closed and just barely opened ajar. Through the thin space between wood and wall, Gwen heard something that surprised her.
Laughter.
What made it even more surreal was that the laughter was in Heather's voice, without the nasty spite or haughty echo it always carried for as long as she had known the she-devil.
Heather's laughter was promptly followed by two more voices bellowing in merriment, two voices that Gwen didn't recognize. One was a deep snorting laugh while the other was almost an inaudible giggle. Heather's laugh, however, was the one that stood out the most. Gwen knew it was Heather's, she remembered hearing the Queen Bee laugh plenty, but the laugh itself was…off, it wasn't what she remembered during their three seasons of hell.
"So this year, he used rose petals to cover the bed…not the thorny long stems! Hahaha!" Heather managed with an obvious great deal of strain, barely holding back a new wave of mirth as she finished her little tale. Moments later, the wave flowed outward in a thunderous bombardment of chuckles.
"Well…as bad as it 'ad turned out, it was still pretty romantic. 'N the gesture itself was still a right good one, eh 'Eather?" One of the other voices said, with a heavy accent. Hearing it again, Gwen was pretty sure she had heard that voice somewhere before. But where?
"Oh definitely," Heather agreed, "but every time I see a long stem rose now, I have flashbacks of him throwing me naked onto a pile of them." The other two voices started laughing again. "Hey! You wouldn't be laughing if either of you had been tossed buck-ass naked on a bed covered in roses!" Heather scolded playfully, which made the others laugh even harder.
Gwen couldn't take any more of this, she had to make this banter stop before she ripped out her hair in frustration. Fighting through conflicted jitters, she moved from her frozen spot in the doorway. The Goth entered and closed the door behind her, not quite a slam but close enough, causing the trio of voices to stop cold.
The pale young woman always hated being the center of attention, feeling like the kind of circus freak people had treated her as in her youth, but now just as then she endured the stares. Gwen's own onyx eyes surveyed the kitchen-dining area of the dorm. Sure enough, Heather was there at the table, with two other people, two young woman of near equal age she guessed. Sitting across from Heather was the dark skinned giant that had helped her 'move' into her current prison. But sitting next to the giant was someone Gwen had never seen before, a mousy little blonde with wide eyes looking back and forth between her and the others.
No one said anything, everyone seemed unsure about where things could or should go next, even Heather. The air was tense but not explosive, pregnant with uncertainty.
Gwen's attention was drawn away from the blonde to what was in front of the lithe form, as well as the others sitting at the small table.
Plates, piled with the remains of what was once food. Again she felt her stomach quiver in need, seemingly gnawing on her spine in search of sustenance.
It took only a moment, the memories of Heather cooking when she left to take her shower, and a quick glance over at the kitchen confirmed there was indeed nothing left waiting to be served. That set Gwen off instantly! After everything else she had endured this shitty ass week, Gwen had reached her true boiling point.
Before the Goth had believed that Heather was cooking just for Cody and herself to get to her, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt due to the sizable gap between them leaving and her waking. She now scolded herself for thinking she should give a she-demon like Heather something as merciful as doubt. Now, seeing that Heather had guests and that she cooked for them, Gwen dropped back to her original theory, reinforced when she saw the pans she had been using in the sink soaking.
Heather had been doing this on purpose from the very start!
Acting before her mind could release the anger embracing it like a straightjacket, Gwen stormed forward. Marching towards her tormentor with a voice simple and blunt, she said, "Really?"
The trio at the table returned the harsh glare from Gwen with various questioning looks. The blonde shrunk back. Jasmine looked quite confused. And Heather raised an eyebrow.
It was the Queen Bee who responded to the question, with an equally simple and blunt, "Excuse me?"
"I've been trapped here for almost a week now, and not once, not fucking once, has there been a single scrap of food here to eat! Not once have you offered me anything, Heather! But it would seem you have no problem giving handouts to other people," Gwen paused to glare at the two guests, both of whom were surprised. "Now I know the fucking truth. It's funny, but I actually gave you the benefit of a doubt and thought it wasn't intentional. Why I did I'll never know! But now I know that you've been doing it all on purpose, Heather!" she continued, hissing the Queen Bee's name as if it were the foulest of profanities.
While the Goth shot the Queen Bee a look that could curdle milk and frighten the dead, Heather simply reminded seated, her expression unchanged, still guarded confusion.
"The fridge is always full of food. I make sure of that. And it's not my fault if you're too lazy to actually cook something for yourself," Heather responded with practiced ease. "Besides, I didn't offer you anything because I never had the chance. You sleep in until noon and are out almost to midnight every night. I don't know what pathetic and paranoid delusions you've been holding onto Gwen, but it's kinda hard to offer anything to someone who is around as little as Chris MacLean's humanity." She resumed, clinically and slowly, acting as if she were explaining simple mathematics to a four-year-old child.
"You could have just left something out then," Gwen countered, still seething, bristling at the disrespect displayed oh so subtly.
"Even if Chikktika and Boo were trained well enough that they wouldn't be a problem, I would never do that without talking to you first," Heather fired back, "because I don't know if you are allergic to anything. And unless you weren't paying attention to what I said before, I haven't exactly had a chance to talk to you because of your own antics."
"You're kidding, right?" Gwen snorted. "Is that seriously the best you can do, Heather? I expected some kinda bullshit excuse but I thought you'd go for something a bit more convincing," she said with almost a dark chuckle rumbling under her raspy voice. She then crossed her arms under her chest, pushing her sizable endowments upward as she added more coldly, "Even for a proven liar like you, that's a weak ass excuse."
A tiny flash of emotion rippled across the previously glacial grey lens of Heather's eyes. "That 'weak ass excuse', as you ignorantly put it, happens to be for a good reason. The first time I made something for Cody, it almost killed him, and ended up putting him in the hospital for three days," she said, with the tiniest echo of humanity entering her voice.
The Goth was deaf to that echo, and scoffed harshly as she quipped, "Oh really? What did you do, exactly? Serve him breakfast in bed naked?"
The Queen Bee, whose good mood was quickly evaporating, remained composed as she retorted, "No, actually. I made him baklava. Cody had never had it, and didn't know what was in it. I didn't know he was allergic to honey and almonds." Heather snorted, "Made one hell of a first impression on his parents though. Meeting them in the ICU, and being introduced while Cody was being hooked up to a respirator," she added, with a tone somewhere between dry and pained.
Gwen looked around in silence, noting the faces of the other two girls hadn't changed any. The Goth wondered if they were as good at hiding their shock as she was since she couldn't think of any other reason for them not reacting at all to what many would consider a personal reveal. Had they heard that story before? Or were they just numb to Heather's insane stories?
Choosing not to dwell on that, choosing not to lessen any of the hate that felt so comfortably warm, Gwen snorted, before muttering, "Of course, Heather. Of course you would have an argument for everything to cover your ass."
Heather paused at that. She had tolerated this lunacy for long enough. That last sleight turned her mood noticeably. When she spoke, her previously passive voice had some bite. "Gwen, even if we ignore the fact that Cody had you carry his EpiPen for him during World Tour, and the fact that I have a list of foods not allowed in the fridge, on the fridge, are your purple panties in this much in a bunch over food of all things?" she asked, mockingly, her tone asking a second question, if Gwen was really petty enough for that? Some of the growing venom she felt slipped in, but only so much, to make Gwen subtly aware that she was starting to tread on thin ice. As always, her emotions were controlled.
The taller girl didn't pick up on such subtleties, instead only noticing the blunt and obvious. "That's not the point!" Gwen snapped, her mood dripping lower than before. "That's part of the fucking problem and you fucking know it, you heartless bitch!" She took a few stomping steps closer to the table, fueled by her roaring volcanic conviction. "I've been stuck here for a week now! Treated like a fucking prisoner that you go out of your way to avoid like a plague-ridden corpse! All while you're giving me the silent treatment and managing to make my life fucking hell all week long because of your stupid rules!"
Heather bristled at that. "And just how, exactly, am I treating you like a prisoner, Gwen?" she asked, like a parent rhetorically scolding a petulant child. "You come and go as you please. You can do pretty much anything you want as long as you don't break the three rules, rules which by the way are unbelievably accommodating. It's not my fault that you choose to go down to the other end of the hall to use the floor bathroom and showers instead of ours. It's not my fault that you choose to avoid staying here. Cody and I aren't avoiding you, or giving you the silent treatment. You are the one who sleeps in every morning and stays out all night long. Do you see any patterns here, Gwen?" she paused, allowing her previous words to hopefully enter the other young woman's legendarily thick skull. "I'm not the one who's made your life hell all week. If you are truly looking for the guilty party responsible for that, all you need to do is look in a mirror. Because trust me, Gwen, if I was responsible, you would know it."
Gwen rolled her eyes, silently amazed at just how long the threads of bullshit weaved by the Queen Bee could get. "Cut the bullshit, Heather. I know what your fucking game is! I know what you're up to! I know that you're fucking with me to get your jollies off," Gwen said menacingly, before a slight pause, a millisecond ceasefire of her verbal bombardment. It was time. She decided to end this now by playing her trump card. She would savor the look of raw devastation on the Queen Bee's frustratingly impervious face. Summoning forth the near infinite reservoir of accumulated hatred for Heather always churning within her very core like scolding lava, Gwen spat with atomic savagery, "just like you're doing the same with Cody to get his money!"
The room was as silent as the grave after that. No one so much as breathed. Gwen stood there, glaring with demonic relish, savoring the moment when Heather's face would shift, when the Queen Bee would finally lose her cool. How exactly would Heather react, Gwen wondered? Would she deny it? Threaten her? Attack her? She waited for the moment—
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
Then, out of nowhere, Heather finally broke her silence, with laughter bordering on frantic. It wasn't a single chuckle, or a muffled giggle. It was deep, loud, long laughter. The normally reserved Asian girl didn't hold back, unleashing all of the amusing absurdity of this entire exchange into an unhidden pageant of maniacal enjoyment. Rising from her seat, she stood hunched over the table, wheezing, gasping for breath between loud guffaws and hysterical hollers. It was a cackling bellow of a bray carried on a melodious voice fitting for naughty angels that filled everyone in the room with deep dread, even Jasmine and Sammy.
Gwen stood there looking like she had just been slapped in the face with a rubber chicken. Words could not encapsulate the sensation that seeing Heather act like the Joker caused.
"Oh…oh man! That's rich! That's the funniest fucking thing I've ever heard, Gwen!" Heather said with a huge grin and shortness in her breath. She wiped away tears from her eyes as the last few chuckles launched themselves out of her lungs, towards Gwen. When the laughter had finally ceased, the shorter girl turned to face her accuser with the biggest shit-eating grin Gwen had ever seen. Suddenly nothing made any sense; the world seemed to be spinning off its axis. The Goth honestly didn't know what was happening, but she was starting to understand one thing from her experience back on Total Drama.
Heather was about to own her.
With her face schooled into a knowing and superior smirk, eyes half hooded almost playfully, she moved from where she stood, walking slowly with a shift to her hips as her hand trailed along Jasmine's arm, up to her shoulder and across the back of her neck while she walked around the table to stand before her accuser. Shaking her head slowly she crossed her arms to mirror the Goth's stance. "Oh Gwenny, you couldn't be more off the mark if you tried," she commented with a low sensual voice that washed over those listening like milk and honey.
The Goth fought through her confusion, and only partial exorcised them from her voice as she refuted, "B—but I know that Cody has money! He—he tired using it as a pickup line back on World Tour!"
If anything, Heather's expression became even more devious and suggestive, her confidence blending perfectly with something else, something that Gwen couldn't quite pin down. Whatever it was however seemed perfectly natural, comfortable even for the Queen Bee, almost serpentine but lacking the coldblooded aspect.
"Oh, Gwenny, Gwenny, Gweeny," Heather uttered belittlingly as her head shook side to side, her mocking grin still stretched across her unblemished face. "I knew you were paranoid and irrational, but this is some legit tinfoil hat conspiracy shit right here. Haha!" Her cackle was short, but sent a shiver down Gwen's back. "It's honestly kind of adorable how pathetically ill-informed you are, like a puppy doing a trick it doesn't understand," she savored Gwen's rapidly blooming blush. Heather was pretty good at reading people, and knew how to work out their weaknesses and flaws to get whatever reaction she wanted or needed. Gwen had been difficult to figure out, at least at first, but now she knew just how to throw her off her game. All it took was a dominant presence, a strong personality, and a hefty helping of sexual charge. Given who her boyfriend was, and how he treated her, it shouldn't have been that difficult to piece together in hindsight.
Long ago she had figured out Gwen was far from submissive, but at the same time she had no interest and no respect for those who were. It's why Cody never had a chance with her back when he followed her around like a lost puppy. On principle, the former Queen Bee refused to imitate or personify Duncan in any form, but there was a very similar role she was quite comfortable playing.
Settling her hooded glare on the taller girl before her, she continued. "If you really think that, if you honestly believe that, then that's your business. You have the basic human right to be a dumbass. Despite all the evidence to the contrary." The Goth's face now was displaying mainly confusion, which Heather sought to rectify. Gwen was off balance, confused, and easy to direct now, just what she wanted. "Need I remind you that at no point did I ever tell you stay away from Cody?" she reminded, stepping into the role of know-it-all professor. "Hell, you're the one who's been dodging him like the plague. I don't think he's seen you since that first morning when you were too busy ogling him to realize you were flashing him."
Gwen's pale face terraformed into a terrain as red as the Earth's molten core at that, both from embarrassment and anger. She didn't have any rebuttal for that, none at all. She felt like an idiot, she felt like Lindsay. All of her confidence and drive nearly died right then.
Heather sensed this shift as easily as a shark smelt blood in the water and flashed a toothy smile every bit as intimidating as a Great White's. Her grin subtly changed to become more menacing, all by simply splitting her lips to reveal her pearly whites. She smelled blood all right, and now it was time to attack. The lithe beauty sauntered over to Gwen as if she were a beloved lover, swaying her hips alluringly. With her sides thrusting back and forth like a metronome of appealing curves, Heather asked, "Did you like what you saw that morning, Gwen? I can only imagine how big of a shock that must have been. It had been a few years since you saw him without a shirt on. Quite the impressive sight isn't he?" she paused, fluttering her eyes seductively, marveling at the taller girl's thicker form as it subtly jiggled and twitched uncomfortably. "Have you ridden the four-knuckle express thinking about him yet?" she added, with practiced bedroom lilt.
Gwen's eyes widened against her will as for more than a few seconds she forgot how to breathe. How did she know!? She felt paralyzed, like she was staring down a predator that had her backed into a corner while its companions watched on. Heather's grey eyes twinkled with the amusement of a cat playing with a mauled mouse. The Goth felt so pathetic and powerless trapped underneath that vulturine stare that it was almost physically painful. Even so, she pushed that aside. She had already shown too much weakness in front of Heather.
"Y—yeah… you-you're right. It was a surprise…" Gwen said, honestly, passively. Then, her tone gained a bit more resolve as she added, "But he's still got nothing on Duncan."
Heather raised an eyebrow, staring at Gwen as if she were a specimen under a microscope. After a few seconds of such a stare, Heather responded. "Well, if that's the case, then you shouldn't have any trouble going to tattle on me and," she paused, with a hushed gasp and a hand over her lips in an overdramatic gesture added quite mockingly, "spoiling my wicked plans to get all of Cody's money through his pants and stomach!"
After savoring the towering mount of bullshit and paranoia's utterly gob smacked silence, Heather told her point blank, "I know you probably won't believe me, but I was telling you the truth when I said I wasn't giving you the silent treatment or avoiding you, Gwen. If you sincerely think that I'm just some heartless gold-digger who's using Cody for this money, then by all means go and tell him. I won't try to stop you. In fact, if you want, we can wait until he gets back and you tell him. He'll be back soon."
By this point, the shock had worn off for Gwen, only to be replaced with suspicion. She knew this had to be some kind of trap; otherwise Heather wouldn't be so cocky.
Remembering everything from back on Total Drama however, another thought came to mind, another possibility. Out of many options, Gwen voiced the only one that would make sense if Heather was, despite all the evidence against her, telling the truth. "Cody already knows, doesn't he?" she asked, speaking more to herself than anyone else. "He knows you want his money but he doesn't care."
Heather's mouth bent downward into a partial frown. She was noticing another pattern.
"No," Heather said, "That's not the case either. Thank god you don't like archery, Gwen. Because you haven't gotten anywhere within the five miles of the target you're aiming for. As difficult as it might be for you accept or understand, Cody and me actually do love each other." She glared up at the taller girl, her hands settling on her hips in more than mild annoyance. "Why do you have such a hard time believing that, Gwen?"
"Because I fucking know you!" The taller and larger of the two snapped, "You are a user! A manipulator who only cares about yourself and doesn't give a damn about anyone or anything else! You're a sociopathic bitch whose capacity for empathy would fit on one proton! If you help someone it's only because you're getting something out of it."
Heather closed her eyes, going silent once again. She took in a deep breath through her nose; the air exiting her nostrils blew with the intensity of wind tunnel fans. "That was true," she admitted, "and for the most part it still is. For the most part, but not completely."
Gwen scoffed yet again, with more force behind it this time. Some of her hair was blown by her breath, swayed like a curtain of cloth the color of starlight midnight. "Do you really expect me to believe that you've changed, Heather? That something, anything, could possibly make you give two shits about someone other than yourself?"
Now losing her patience, Heather threw out the harshest of the soul-crushing gazes she had at her disposal, brought from the deepest blackest depths of her high school days. The entire room ran cold as its oppressive weight bore down on the room's occupants. Sammy was almost shivering, and even Jasmine found herself unintentionally recoiling away. Heather's grey gaze narrowed into something far more animalistic than human, like a beast whose lips were pulled back with fangs bared, it was almost unearthly.
Down the hall, Dawn turned on her heel when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. For a moment, just a moment she could have sworn she had heard something…growling, like a wolf staring down a threat to her cubs or her pack.
With a voice sharp enough to scrap away at marble but in a tone low enough to rumble in the bones, Heather said, "You really don't want to go there, Gwen. You're on thin ice."
Gwen smirked, crossing her arms under her behemoth bust once again, this time in victory. She finally managed to get Heather to drop that annoyingly impervious façade. "What's the problem, Heather? You were so high and mighty just a minute ago. Did I strike a nerve? Does the truth hurt?" The Goth curtly asked, her raspy, blunt voice downright haughty. She looked down at the shorter girl less than two inches in front of her. The look on her pale face was that of a parent marveling at the naïve stupidity of a difficult child. "I know everything, Heather. You've always been so smug, so sure that you knew everything. You think you can make anyone dance to whatever little tune you want to hear. But here's a new flash, bitch, it doesn't work on anyone with so much as half a brain. It doesn't work on people that have actually had to deal with problems in their lives." She paused for a few seconds to soak in the sight of Heather subtly seething at her words. "Right now, you've got Cody under your thumb, worshiping the ground you walk on. But, sooner or later, he'll get tired of you. He's got his own flaws, but he can do a hell of a lot better than you. Once he realizes that and moves on, then you will finally know what it's like to be on the bottom in life for a change!"
For a moment, a solitary moment, that made Heather change course, slip up. As usual when interacting with most, she had been operating partially with a mask on, a semi-true visage. For one sentence, the mask came off, not that Gwen noticed. The Queen Bee glared as the acidic venom discharged from the bottom of her soul, "You don't know a god damn thing about being on the bottom in life, Gwen!"
"My entire life has been on the bottom!" Gwen roared back, her raspy voice nearly breaking as she recalled everything she had endured, up to her own mother kicking her out rather than accept her relationship with the man she loved. "But now I have something for it! I have someone who actually cares about me!"
Nothing was said after that, no witty comment, no scathing insult, no attempt to dismantle the opinion presented. In fact, if anything, Heather seemed to regain a measure of control, losing some of the gut-reaction discontent that she had so passionately displayed. Rather than words, the Queen Bee gave the Goth a single wordless look.
That look hit Gwen harder than a cannonball made of concrete. It wasn't a look of anger, rage, hatred, or even disgust. It was a look conveying something much more devastating.
Pity.
The Queen Bee shook her head and turned away, going back to the table without another word. Jasmine and Sammy were both wide-eyed and silent, a captive audience to this drama, to this culmination of five-days worth of endless sleights and hostilities.
The Goth didn't know how to process this development, and it just made her angrier still.
Holding onto the last of her repressed rage, Gwen rigidly snapped her head towards the sitting duo, moving her head so fast one might assume that she had broken her own neck. Both of them, even Jasmine, flinched slightly at the intensity of the Goth's grim glare. "If either of you know what's good for you," Gwen snapped, her raspy voice flaring in demonic tempo, "you'll stay the fuck away from me and avoid Heather like the fucking plague she is, because once she gets her fingers into you, it's like trying to pry out fish hooks!"
With that, with hatred oozing off of her like volcanic heat Gwen headed to the dorm's entrance, each step a stomp with enough force behind it to lightly shake the furniture. The Goth's things were forgotten, left on the floor that reverberated with their owner's fury. Leaving the three figures behind her, without looking back, Gwen slammed the door so loudly that the plates on the table jerked in place, with a few almost falling off.
October 31, 2014 (5:30PM)
Time crept on as it moved past the fiery clash between Heather and Gwen. Life continued on without any regard for the standard rules of fiction, demanding that a story or moment end at its dramatic highpoint. Millions of things happen at any given moment each day, glorious high points and soul-crushing low points, all commingling into a heady swirl of morally indifferent activity. The tone of each day, without the limitations and borders of personal bias, is cool and detached. Any fury or fiery drive is only the result of people changing the tone directly. Assuming or wishing for anything else would be vanity.
There was much vanity on display in that multi-roomed dorm, too much for Gwen to endure. After exploding on Heather and reading her the riot act, she had left to get started on her and Duncan's laundry. Duncan himself wasn't much in the mood for conversation due to a massive hangover from the party the previous night so she left him alone, knowing from experience how bad they could get. That left Gwen as she often felt, alone. In her isolation she gathered up his clothes into trash bags and went about her way.
It was only after having finished the second load of clothes, remembering to separate the whites from the colored, that she calmed down from her argument with Heather and realized the gravity of the situation; or rather the full weight of just what could happen as a result. That anger, building for days, had needed to be unleashed, vented. At the time all she wanted to do was rip into Heather for all the misery she had caused her over the week. Even now, she savored how good it felt to finally speak her honest mind, to knock Heather down a peg. She relished the idea of having ruined Heather's little lunch-in. The catharsis of lashing out had been an ideal ecstasy equitable to the best sex she'd ever enjoyed. She hadn't felt the pleasant warmth she did then in a very long time. And it felt great.
The molten resolve and hot, churning need for vengeance had all since passed; leaving Gwen feeling as if she were draped in a straightjacket of ice, trapped in draining regret and fear.
Gwen was worried. Once again, she had tried to not play Heather's game, not play into Heather's hands, but in the end she had. And it was worse than that, she had incurred Heather's wrath. She did something that she would have believed impossible before today, angered the wrathful Queen Bee into literal silence.
As pleasant as Gwen would have thought that would feel, she felt nothing of the sort. Her imagination, always active and vivid, conjured forth images aside from fun horror ideas. Rather than towering creatures of furious claw and decaying flesh upon leathery wings, she imagined worse nightmares, far more mundane and far more horrifying. The worst-case scenarios flashed as brightly and rapidly as objects in darkness illuminated by lightning.
Heather uploading that video onto the Internet. Turning it over to the police. Or even doing both just for the extra kick to her ass.
She was frantic. Her fears were warranted, after all. Just to get under her skin during Total Drama Island, Heather read her diary on international TV. Even Chris fucking MacLean thought that was messed up! The one saving grace had been that the truly bad stuff in her diary hadn't been on that page, but it had still been bloody embarrassing!
Heather had done that, just to get under her skin, when the Goth hadn't provoked her at all. What would that same vindictive bitch do to someone who had seriously pissed them off?
After sometime in solitary silence, Gwen was finally finished with Duncan's laundry. With her task done, something else came to mind, and it made her blood run cold.
All her stuff was still back in Heather and Cody's dorm. In her anger, she had forgotten to get her own laundry before leaving as well as everything else!
Leaving Duncan's clothes behind (since no one was going to bother them while they were washing), Gwen made a mad dash for the elevator, knowing, fearing, that Heather would do something to not only her clothes, but the rest of her stuff as well, her books and notes, all her work she had left behind at the mercy of someone without any!
The elevator was painfully slow; seeming like it was trapped in frozen time. Her imagination filled every second with worse and worse scenes she would find in the dreaded dorm. She pictured her books and sketchpad shredded into confetti, her clothing slashed to ribbons, everything drenched in a potent combo of gasoline and piss. The second the elevator doors had parted enough; Gwen rushed through and charged down the hall. Her drive to reach the hated dorm was matched only by her desire to avoid it. Running down the hallway and nearly running over several of the other students, she all but kicked down the door to get in, forcing the door aside with a kick like the ones that had saved her from a real-life-serial-killer-with-a-chainsaw-and-a-hook! What she found was, in a word, surprising.
Nothing. Or rather, no one.
Heather wasn't there, neither was Jasmine or the blonde from earlier. Everything looked fine otherwise, there was nothing thrown or tossed around, nothing upturned or broken as she had expected and feared like when Duncan was angry with her. She wouldn't have been surprised to find a trash can in the middle of the floor with all her clothes piled in and set on fire. But no, everything was in its place exactly as it had been when she left it oh so long ago.
Making her way back to her room, she was again surprised to see no signs of the previous argument as having happened. Everything was right where she left it exactly as she had left it. Chikktika and Boo were sleeping on her bed, Boo looking up at her when she entered and yawning before putting his head back down to return to his afternoon nap. But otherwise, nothing. Even after checking and re-checking her clothes, books and things, everything she remembered and knew to have been brought with her was exactly where it was suppose to be. To be honest, that scared her, because it meant one of two things.
One, Heather was still planning what to do. Or two, she was waiting for the best time to act.
Not wanting to stick around and wait to find out which she quickly gathered her laundry. As Gwen left, she noticed a piece of paper on the table she had overlooked before.
Yet again it was the flowing script that Gwen knew to be Heather's handwriting.
'Cody, if you get back before me I wanted you to know that I decided to take Jazz and Sammy shopping for the day.'
Gwen was puzzled. It was strange, why she would leave him a note like that instead of just calling him or leaving a text message? Who wrote letters or notes on paper anymore?
That curiosity aside, the rest of the day had been uneventful for the most part. After finishing up her and Duncan's laundry, Gwen borrowed his car and picked up some groceries. Not much, she didn't want to risk maxing out another credit card so soon after the last one, but thankfully neither she nor Duncan had expensive tastes.
She spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up and tidying their dorm to keep the mess to a manageable level. Nothing major or huge, she wasn't going to vacuum or mop, but taking out the trash and at least organizing everything made it look better. She couldn't even remember the last time she had done that since they moved in, if they ever had in the first place.
Shortly after most of the work was done, Duncan had finally arisen from his hangover-induced slumber. The Delinquent finally got up and cleaned up, though slowly and silently. Afterwards, they went down to the cafeteria together for a late lunch.
While far from what she would have wanted, it was nice to just spend time with him. Having donned his 'hangover shades' she knew he wasn't going to be talking much and she didn't want to bother him while he was still under. It was just the two of them sitting together side-by-side eating. While a small thing, it did brighten up her mood. It had been the first time that she found even the smallest ounce of enjoyment this Halloween.
The rest of the day consisted of Duncan nursing his hangover and watching TV while she simply enjoyed his company. She didn't really care for sports herself, but she knew how much Duncan did, so they watched the recording of the previous night's game, he having wanted to catch up on what happened. It was curious at times how he could have so much difficulty with a cell phone but none when it came to working their tvo or DVR.
Gwen didn't give it much thought, trying to cancel out her disappointment at not watching any of the horror movies that many of the networks were running all day long.
When evening came, she went and picked up their dinner, and afterwards the two simply lay together for a few hours. Duncan sleeping with one arm around her while she enjoyed his warmth. As much she wanted to remain with Duncan, his lack of energy meant that by about eleven o'clock she had enough of his sluggish behavior. What clinched it for her was seeing him falling asleep on the couch. It was kinda cute. Looking around, the Goth saw a piece of paper. Acting on impulse, she left him a note before leaving, nothing fancy but it had been some time she wrote him any love letters.
The Goth started to return to Heather and Cody's dorm, to spend the rest of her night in her dorm, her prison cell. Maybe she would try drawing again? Maybe she would watch some of those horror movies? Maybe see would try to exterminate those perverted ferrets? Each possibility sounded better than the last. But they all had one roadblock.
Entering the dorm. Given what happened earlier, the trek from their door to her room felt like it would be a marathon over hot coals. Her cynical mind was already assuming the worst, a part of her dreaded seeing police officers the moment she saw the door. But the entire trip back to the dorm had been met with no consequences, much to her surprise.
Entering had been another story, however. While there was no pile of burning ash that had once been her clothes, nor were they in ruined tatters, as there had been before, what she saw could only have been the Queen Bee's way of 'subtle'.
There on the table was a dark red tablecloth, an unusual sight considering there had never been a tablecloth on it before. In addition, there were two half melted candles, two plates of what might have at one time been a meal, and two very fat, very full ferrets fast asleep on the floor by one of the table's chairs. Leading from the table down the hallway was a trail of rose petals accompanied by an overlapping trail of discarded clothes.
A sneaker, a sandal, two socks, a tee shirt, a stocking, another sandal, a polo shirt, another stocking, a pair of jeans…
It had taken a few moments for the picture to come together and everything hit, but once it did, it hit hard.
Gwen actually took a staggered step or two back as she realized what this was evidence of. Though she had only been living with them for a few days, she did know some of their habits, and Heather was a clean freak to near OCD levels. Dishes were always washed and put away and clothes were never left lying on the floor. This scene was the opposite of that. Frankly, it was very un-Heather-like.
Had Heather been anyone else, Gwen would have thought her argument might have shaken them and that this 'romantic dinner for two' was due to her threat about Cody being able to do better.
But this wasn't anyone else. It was Heather. That could only mean one thing. This was her way of taunting Gwen and for all intents and purposes giving her the finger, her way of showing off what she could do and how easy it was for her to play Cody like a fiddle.
Feeling her anger at the Queen Bee washing all over her yet again, Gwen marched towards her room, in order to get her nightclothes. She only got a few steps before she saw something else she never would have expected.
It was Cody, who had left his and Heather's room, bent over in the hallway picking up the rose petals and clothes on the floor. The Tech Geek was too wrapped up in his duty to notice her and Gwen darkly wondered if that was a first, Cody not instantly noticing her.
Remaining as silent as the grave, the Goth draped in the darkness of night pondered something. As much as Heather's words from before had obviously been carefully crafted bullshit of the highest order, like all collections of lies, there was a small kernel of truth. Gwen had been avoiding Cody, for many reasons. But now a new idea was forming. Maybe she should fix that, even if only a little bit every now and then? It was a long shot, probably not worth even attempting, but maybe Gwen could make Cody see the truth, and save him from Heather's foul clutches? The Goth couldn't imagine a sweeter revenge, one that if she played it right wouldn't be obvious, wouldn't endanger Duncan.
Taking a gamble, the Goth cleared her throat, and swiftly asked, "Cody, what are you doing?"
The Tech Geek started to scream in a slightly high-pitched voice, being quite startled. Before Gwen could laugh at how silly and un-manly it was Cody stopped himself. Quickly glancing back over his shoulder, looking at Heather's door, he saw no movement. He allowed himself to relax after that, then he turned back to face Gwen.
She was unable to tell for sure, in a place with only the soft light of dying candles for sight, but she thought she saw a conflicted countenance etched onto Cody's boyish face but she didn't dwell on that as he gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen area. Despite her protests at fanning the flames of his obsession for her, Gwen followed. As she did so, she noticed a few details about him she hadn't from the earlier lack of light. First, he was only wearing a pair of blue boxers that she suspected were real or imitation silk. Second, there were several long scratch marks running down his back like fault lines. And third, there was a rather unmistakable hickey present on the right side of his neck, almost like a vampire bite.
When they reached the kitchen area, Cody turned around, and leaned in as he whispered, "Sorry about that, but I didn't want to wake up Heather. Anyways, I'm just cleaning up. She always gets in a bit of a foul mood when she sees a mess like this first thing after waking up."
Gwen was an inch or two taller than Cody thanks to the boots she was wearing, so she shot him a mildly sarcastic stare from above and had to choke down several quips. Cody was still under Heather's spell, so being too obvious at the start wouldn't help any. Instead, she settled for a neutral observation. "You should be asleep too," she said, not trying to lower the volume of her voice, her raspy twang filling the silence-dense air.
The Tech Geek flinched for a moment on reflex at the Goth's louder voice. "Oh, don't worry about that. I was already wide awake," Cody responded, somewhat awkwardly, "Heather did most if not all of the work and…" he noticed Gwen's more sour expression at that. Suddenly his face turned red. "S—sorry…I—I didn't mean it like that."
Gwen shook it off. Though she wasn't pleased with that. But more displeasing was Cody's compliancy with Heather. He really would do just about anything she demanded, the polar opposite of Duncan, as far as Gwen was concerned; no spine. The Goth felt the tiniest bit unclean being around such beta-male-ness. Nevertheless, she pushed through. "Are you really up at midnight, picking up dirty clothes and rose petals by hand?" she asked.
"First of all, it's only around eleven or so," Cody snarked, "and second, I'm trying to let Heather sleep. Can't exactly use the vacuum cleaning without making a ruckus, right?"
"Why not do it tomorrow morning? It's not going anywhere, you know."
"Well, as I already said, seeing the dorm all cluttered in the morning would put Heather in a bad mood," Cody said softly, his voice still in the hushed, whispered tone that Gwen was starting to find mildly annoying. Then he chuckled and flashed a gap-toothed smile, "Besides, since I made the mess, it's only fair that I clean it up."
Stricken surprised, Gwen simply asked, "What?"
"Well, I got a call from Sammy this afternoon, she said Heather was pretty upset about something. She didn't say what, just that something really bothered her," Cody said with a shrug. "Then she told me that her, Heather, and Jazz were all going shopping, and that it might be nice if Heather had a surprise waiting for her when she got back. Since I don't have a problem with that kind of thing, and do it plenty anyways, I agreed. So I cooked her a romantic dinner for two. A bit cliché given how long we've been together, I know, but I like that sorta thing. I'm not the best cook in the world, but I think she choked it down well enough." He chuckled again, this time more sincerely and lightheartedly, but not fully. "I meant to clean up after Heather fell asleep…but then I kinda fell asleep myself."
The Tech Geek stopped at that, after a few more chuckles escaped his smiling lips. He had expected any number of remarks from Gwen, ranging from playfully glib to venomous.
But the Goth did nothing. There were many things she wanted to say, but she said none. She simply stared at Cody, his face patched in places by thick shadows, morbidly perplexed. With a level of detail invisible to the naked eye, the sheen of her eyes morphed several times. It started with shock, then shifted to irritation, then settled on increasing contempt.
Similar to this morning, Gwen felt something writhing within her gut, spurring her rage. That unwanted feeling of something faint and wafer-thin wriggling through her veins had returned, undulating and twisting underneath her pale, ghost-like skin more vigorously.
Jealousy.
When she wasn't shouting at the top of her lungs against the person she hated most, Gwen had spent the entire day doing things for Duncan, who was too hung-over to do much more than stumble around like an admittedly hot zombie. It had been Halloween, her favorite day of the year, and all she had done was laundry and tidy up a rat-hole. There had been no costume parties, no horror movie marathons, not even any candy.
And while that was happening, Heather, who likely didn't give a damn about this day, who had been doing her damnedst to ruin Gwen's first week in this hell of a dorm, got a lovely romantic dinner for two by candlelight and a path made of rose petals.
Gwen suddenly lost all interest in trying to build a bond with Cody, or do anything. For the latest in a long series of moments, the Goth felt like Karma itself was shitting on her. She was too worked up and drained to even hold onto her anger for very long. In its place was cold, passive indifference. Duncan might have been moving like a zombie, but it was Gwen who truly expressed the lack of sensation that constituted being a walking corpse.
Unable to tolerate any more of this pussy-whipped nonsense, Gwen half-heartedly said goodnight as she left Cody there, in his boxers, surrounded by rose petals and panties. She didn't notice the confused, and pained, look on his face in the faded orange light.
Gwen entered her room, and prepared herself for another bad night's sleep. Truthfully, she was too tired to care. More than that, she wouldn't have been opposed to some nightmares.
At least then this Halloween would feel like Halloween.
At least then Halloween would be scary in a fun way.
At least then Gwen wouldn't have felt like she was being choked by existence.
And that was the latest chapter! As always, we both hope you enjoyed it!
Before I share my two cents here, Kenju would like to share a few more of his thoughts. Here they are, "We hope you all enjoyed this chapter; it was a real doozy working some of the scenes out and figuring out how they would play out. HOWEVER, it should be quite obvious by now that things are starting to change in terms of direction and tone. Gwen is…well, you could say she is starting to wake up in a sense, though she still has a ways to go. We've actually been building up to this chapter since Gwen's introduction, the explosive return of Gwen's old self has finally arrived, and it seems even Heather isn't entirely able to handle her. lol
"Last chapter we were quite happy to see a number of readers starting to catch onto the true nature of Duncan and Gwen's relationship, with more than one person being right on the mark about some of the Punk's more…subtle traits. Those will be explored in the future, but not for some time.
As always, please let us know what you thought, and if you have any comments, questions or concerns don't hesitate to let us know! This is especially the case with our handling of Gwen's old/true self and interactions (read argument) with Heather."
Rufus here again. I actually don't have anything else to really add. Lol. Anyway, again, sorry about the wait, and I hope you stick around for the next chapter!
Until next time, please read, review, favor, follow, and spread the word!