Daniel arrived the following morning at about 10 am carrying a giant pumpkin pie.
"Oh good! You brought it." Pepper said with relief.
"I told you I would mom." He kissed her on the cheek. Loki and Emily left to watch the parade, wanting to avoid another family squabble over their mysterious behavior.
"Mom, you don't look so good."
"I'm just tired honey. I didn't sleep well last night. How are things with you? Your father says you are doing well at the company." Pepper said. Daniel pressed his lips into a thin line and he wondered just how much she knew about how his dad achieved financial success over the years.
"I'm trying to make you proud." He said.
"You are baby." She gave him a kiss on the cheek and returned her attention to the potatoes she was peeling. She didn't cook often. In fact she only cooks during the holidays, the rest of the year Consuela does it.
"Can I help with anything?"
"Yeah, you can get started on mincing the celery and onion."
"Okay." They worked in silence, focused on their respective tasks, but Daniel's mind wandered. The things he did at work with his father…he's ashamed. Daniel looked down at the knife he held. It was expensive. He looked at the television in the living room of their penthouse apartment. The kitchen counter was made of some of the nicest rarest marble available.
"Mom?"
"Yeah honey?"
"Nothing. Um celery is done."
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Loki and Emily returned to the apartment around 2pm, just in time for dinner. The game played and Daniel and Tony kicked back on the sofa with beers in hand. Loki felt torn between joining them or joining Emily and Pepper who were washing dishes.
"Hey Loki! Get your ass in here!" Daniel yelled. Loki decided he'd have to pay his respects to feminism another time. The atmosphere improved with Daniel present. Mr. Stark avoided looking in Loki's direction and focused on the game. Loki did the same. He got about half a bottle of beer in him when he heard the loud clanking of dishes and pots in the kitchen followed by fevered mumbling.
"What is wrong with you?! How can you ask me to do that?!" Emily stormed out of the kitchen back to her bedroom and slammed the door. Loki arose from his seat.
"I'll go check on her." He said.
"No! No, no! It's fine. It's a private problem Loki. I'll go talk to her." Pepper said and hightailed it to her daughter's room. Loki frowned but he didn't want to stir the pot any more than it already was. Sooner or later the truth would come out. He continued watching the game and then two movies, grazing on leftovers the entire evening. Emily was still hiding in her room. He got up to go to the bathroom and made a detour by her bedroom door.
"Emily?" He knocked.
"Go away Loki."
"I'm coming in." Loki opened the door and closed it quickly behind him.
"What do you want?"
"To comfort my friend. Emily what is going on? I have a feeling your parents let you in on some sort of secret and now you're keeping it from me."
"I'm thinking about dropping out of school. I'm not getting good grades anyway."
"Emily you can't do that. You can't mooch off your parents for the rest of your life and without a degree you'll be stuck making minimum wage and waiting for mommy and daddy to die. That's no way to live."
"Mom and Dad are cutting me off at the end of the semester. Dad's diverting my college fund to more worthy endeavors."
"What? How bad are your grades?"
"D's and F's."
"Oh Emily."
"I need a job. Mom and Dad aren't going to pay my credit card bills anymore." Emily said. Loki felt torn. His first instinct was to let her come live and work with him, but it would just be Jenny all over again, only Emily would not clean as well.
"I'm sorry Emily, but don't be sad. This could be good for you. You didn't really want to major in business anyway. Maybe now you can figure out what you really want to do with your life."
"I want to be a rich trophy wife." She said without a hint of humor.
"Emily, you are capable of so much more than that."
"No I'm not! I like living this lifestyle and I hate working. I exercise two hours a day and eat like a starving Ethiopian kid to keep looking this good. I like having $500 purses and wearing the latest fashions and living in large expensive homes. I don't want to spend 16 hours a day in a gray cubicle crunching numbers at my daddy's firm."
"Emily, that's no way to live either. You can't spend your life dependent on others."
"What do you know about it?! You're a trust fund baby too you hypocrite! Get out! Just get out!" Emily plopped back down into her pillow and sobbed. Loki left her room and decided it was definitely time for him to leave.
"Loki? Are you okay?" Pepper asked looking nervous.
"I'm fine. Look, I need to go. I'm going to take the train back to Maywood tonight."
"No, Loki. Not on Thanksgiving! Just stay the night tonight and then go in the morning." Pepper said.
"I can't. I thank you for the lovely meal Mrs. Stark. It was wonderful."
XxXxXxXxXx
Loki busied himself with decorating the entire house with Christmas decorations inside and out. He didn't care if he would be the only one to see the inside and appreciate his handiwork. He was doing it for him. He needed the cheer. He hadn't talked to the Starks since leaving New York. That was a week ago. He hadn't had any dreams of Thor either and his frustration mounted. He busied himself with shoveling snow and hanging fairy lights. His home became a popular stop for people in town admiring the display.
Another week went by. No Thor. Loki became desperate. Loki contemplated doing something risky. Everyone that has slept in the upstairs rooms, Victoria, Mr. Mullens, Mr. Williams, The Starks, they all displayed strange behavior after a night of sleeping in one of the upstairs rooms. Jenny didn't sleep in the bathroom, but then again she'd been exposed to the mirrors day after day. So why hadn't he gone mad like the others?
He needed to see Thor again. Needed to find him, save him from whatever hell he was trapped in. He decided, he would sleep in the Antoinette room and face what the others had faced, for good or ill. He dressed in his green boxers and nothing else, removing his mother's locket and placing it on the side table by the bed. He turned out the light and closed his eyes and he waited.
He opened his eyes when he sensed a soft glow of light in his room. The mirror was alight with soft candlelight. Loki got up out of bed and walked to the mirror as though approaching a predator, careful and slow. In the reflection he saw his heart's desire, Thor sitting on the bed waiting for him. His back was to Loki in the mirror and Loki yelled his name.
"Thor!" The blonde man did not budge.
"Thor turn around. I'm right here! Look at me!" But still the blonde man had his back to Loki. "You can't hear me can you?" Loki decided to take the risk and walked into the looking glass. Loki looked around and noticed small details that told him this was the lover's room he had frequented so many times before. He walked closer to the bed admiring the muscled bronzed backside of his love.
"Thor." Loki's voice rang with hope and joy. The man turned and that was when Loki realized he was not Thor. He looked like Thor. He was the same height, same build, same hair, and even had blue eyes but he was not Thor.
"Who are you?" Loki's voice squeaked with fear and trepidation.
"Who do you want me to be? I can be anyone you want handsome." He stood and pulled off the towel hiding his waist and his great beautiful cock sprang forth erect and leaking.
"Oh…um…I'm sorry if my coming here gave you the wrong idea but I'm looking for someone else." Loki tried to back up.
"Maybe it's not my cock you want then. Perhaps you'd like to feel the pleasure of being the one doing the fucking for a change? You still haven't put your cock in anyone have you?"
"How do you know that? I haven't told anyone that."
"You reek of purity." The man got on the bed on all fours and arched his ass at Loki. It was a beautiful sight. His hole was shiny from some sort of lubricant, gaping, and ready to be fucked. He looked over his shoulder at Loki. "Come on. You know you want to."
Loki felt his cock respond though his head was screaming "No!" He walked towards the bed and the stranger, admiring the view. He got within arm's length but stopped.
"I can't. I'm in love with someone else and you're not him. I'm sorry." The man flipped around and grabbed Loki's wrist in an iron grip so fast Loki barely registered that it happened.
"What are you doing? Let me go." Loki commanded. But the Not-Thor just smiled at him and Loki watched as he transformed into a she, looking very much like Jenny, but not quite.
"Perhaps this is what you prefer then?" She smiled coyly and then leaned back and spread her legs, giving Loki a full view of her glistening pussy. She still had his wrist in a vice grip and guided it towards her womanhood.
"Let go!"
"Fuck me!" She hissed.
"No! I said let go you stupid bitch! I don't want to fuck you!" Loki snarled. His hand was at her entrance and that was when Loki saw the teeth and fangs there, hidden by her labia. Her pussy snapped at his hand and tried to bite his fingers off. Loki used his free hand then to punch the sex demon in the face.
She let go and he turned to flee. She roared at him and Loki could hear the roar coming from both mouths, her upper one and her lower one which was still snapping like crocodile. Loki ran to the mirror to get back to the other side but was trapped. He punched the glass again and again in frustration as the creature closed the distance between them.
Loki turned, his back against the glass wall. Horns like a bull were growing out of her head and her face transformed into a disgusting cow she beast. Her fingers were elongated into razor sharp claws, and her genitalia was even more split. The clear fluid leaking out from between her legs was saliva, secreted by her monster snatch.
"Go fuck yourself." Loki said. It roared at him and made to charge. Loki closed his eyes and looked away expecting to die.
"Leave him alone!" Thor yelled. Loki opened his eyes to see his love fighting the she beast, grabbing her by the horns and punching her in the face over and over again. Thor dragged the demon to a door on the other side of the room.
"Go Loki! Run now!" Thor yelled. Loki fell backwards through the mirror and was back in the Antoinette room. He ran to his bed and grabbed his mother's locket and then out of the room, down the stairs into the basement. He locked the door behind him and pulled he covers up over himself, clutching the locket while hyperventilating.