After the dinner was ready, we ate together and for the first time, I thought about my father. Normally, I couldn't bear to think of him along with Dominika, but this time, I was genuinely free of that shuddering thought of them. It was as if the things I had been through were just, well, the things I had been through. I wasn't sure whether I was still mad at my father, but what is done, is done. Maybe he had found his other half in a woman like Dominika, even if she was like a witch that came straight out of Shakespeare's Macbeth to me. But what would my dad think if he found out that my other half was an alien hermaphrodite from outer space?
We chitchatted for a while over dessert. Then I excused myself to my room.
That night I dreamed about a place that looked so strange. There were colossal trees that shaped like the Baobab trees in Africa, except they were white and the leaves were crimson. In the sky was an aqua-blue moon. I walked through the strange forest and entered a meadow. Something greeted me there. In the atmosphere hung several levitating islands, floating about with a few coral-shaped trees of various colors on top.
The sky was unevenly blue and pink and a little violet mixing in like a painting of Van Gogh's. In the middle of a clearing was a gigantic flower. It shaped like an opium flower in the shade of dark purple.
I was burned by a curiosity that deprived me of all self-control. Then I heard a voice calling me. I looked around but found no one. The voice kept echoing from somewhere I didn't know. After a while, I realized it was from the inside of a flower.
My feet took me closer to the strange plant, and I began to notice how familiar the voice was.
"Who's that?" I asked, leaning closer. I lifted my hand to touch the soft surface of the outer petal. Suddenly the flower opened itself. I stepped back and watched it blossom slowly until it spread big and wide like a carpet. The exquisite scent emitted in the air. I inhaled and felt my senses heightened. Lying stark naked was a blonde girl in a fetus position. I was even more intrigued by her presence. I stepped into the flower and knelt down to observe the strange girl.
Then the petals of the flower started closing in. I got up in surprise and tried to push back, but to no avail. I screamed and rolled around in panic. Inside the flower was soft like cotton, but everywhere I pushed wouldn't budge. I was trapped. Then I heard a giggling and I turned around to find the girl. When she turned, I realized it was Allecra.
"I've been waiting for you, Nina," she said and then crawled up towards me.
"Why are you here?" I asked, still looking around.
"It's time," she said softly and brought her hand to my cheek. My clothes slowly dissolved from my body as if someone had poured acid on them. Soon I was left with nothing to cover my nakedness.
"We better hurry," Allecra said in a voice that seemed to echo from a cave.
"But we promised to wait until my birthday," I tried to remind her. Allecra didn't answer and came to mash her lips into mine. All senses abuzz. I heard my own first melting moans. Then her soft hand slipped down her tummy and disappeared between her thighs. She then parted her sweet pinkness, stroking herself for a second, before something stirred and sprouted out from her purring sex. The long fleshy length grew out of her sex, already weeping musky juice.
I gasped and squirmed. It was the first time I had seen her thing, primed and drooling, nearly making me swoon at the very sight of it. Then something held me down. I looked and realized there were vines tying around my limbs. The vines were thick and strong, growing out of nowhere and wrapped themselves around my legs, pulling them apart, spreading me wide and defenseless. In my state of disbelief, I screamed.
Allecra didn't seem like herself. She ignored my protest as she inched that rigid member of hers forward. It wasn't too big, yet it wasn’t small either. In fact, it was rather slender in a feminine way. The tip was slightly wider like a mushroom with a tiny slit in the middle.
I felt on the verge of throwing up.
"No, Allecra, no, please, no—" I cried again and again. She began rubbing her hot throbbing tip against me and poking lightly into my warmness, swirling about, intently whipping my scent into the crackling air. I choked in pure pleasure. The heavy slippery sensation burned my core like fire. My heart was galloping like a runaway horse. I trembled and shuddered under her blazing bright eyes. There was a look of unquenchable lust in them.
Then she stopped suddenly. I thought she had listened to my objection, but then Allecra rammed herself into me. A burst of piercing cry erupted from my throat. Every muscle in my body lost control for a moment. All the while, Allecra watched me in agony mixed with indiscernible pleasure. Her smile was mean and her eyes were full of sadist thoughts. I shivered and trembled, trying to close my legs, but it was hopeless, Allecra had already been deep into my startled walls.
She began to move inside me.
No, this isn't real. I found myself thinking. Allecra would never hurt me like that. This isn't reality.
As I kept repeating it like a mantra, the vines around my body loosened and fell away. And when I looked up again, there was no Allecra anymore, but a dark-haired girl that was Xenon. That was when I recovered my strength and pushed her away with all my might. The petals of the flower slowly began to open. The light from the outside came piercing in until everything was white and blinding.
When I opened my eyes again, it was in the morning. I woke up and was finally freed from the imprisonment of Xenon's manipulation of my mind. I felt free like there was no fog veiling in the window of my consciousness. She couldn't mess with my mind anymore.
I smiled to myself. I am free.
That morning, Piper and Jay had wedged themselves onto the stools of the island. Aunt Vikki and her husband wouldn't be up until sometime later.
It just dawned on me that the twins had turned me into a mother figure without me realizing it, and I found myself reminding them about schoolwork or schedules just so no one would run into troubles.
I was making light breakfast on the go with oatmeal and some fresh strawberry and bananas, which I had cut into bite-size and added blueberries into the mix with yogurt. The good thing about the twins was they would eat whatever I conjured up onto the plates for them without a single complaint.
Piper was flipping through a magazine while Jay's eyes were glued to his phone.
I opened the windows and let the air in along with the smell of honeysuckle. As I stood there all dreamy and dazed at the pleasant sights in the world, I got to taste what it was like to be truly happy.
It was a time like this when I let my guard down for like half a nanosecond and Piper suddenly stopped eating and looked at me in her usual snoopy way.
"Nina, why are you smiling like a loon all by yourself? Are you in love or something?"
By now, I should have gotten used to the fact that privacy in this house was almost nonexistent. And I thought for a minute about the best way to answer her, but then out of impulse, I just turned back with the silliest smile on my face and said, "Yes I am."
Jay was staring at me with his fork midway to his mouth. I was also taken aback to hear my own honest announcement of romance for the first time. If I ever remembered being asked about being in love with anyone in the past, I was certain that I would always come up with a vague 'I guess so' or a 'maybe', but not this loud and proud 'yes' that was as clean cut as the answer to my math equation. It was impossible to deny it, much like it was impossible to hide the sun with a thin cloud of uncertainty. Piper was looking at me and after a moment, she gave a little happy squeak like a mouse cheer.
"Aw...Nina! That is so sweet, I'm happy for you!" she said. Jay was still in shock as if he had just been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.
"Wait...what?" he asked, blinking between me and his sister.
"I heard someone is in love?" Aunt Vikki's voice echoed from the living room. We all turned to my aunt, who was still in her pink nightgown as she walked into the kitchen.
"Mom, Nina has a girlfriend," Piper told her exci
tedly. It snatched the yawn from my aunt’s mouth. Aunt Vikki turned to me with a funny look as she was still not fully recovered from her sleep.
For a moment, no one spoke and the awkwardness deepened.
"A girlfriend," my aunt repeated as if it was a foreign word. My aunt took a seat at the table and kept staring at me with steady eyes. I felt like I was naked under her gaze. "Now I'm so looking forward to seeing her. You must bring the girl to your birthday celebration."
"Birthday?" all the three of us echoed.
"I have your birth certification, Nina." My aunt simply smiled. "Besides Robert and I figured we could not miss a more perfect day for a garden-party with our old friends this year. It just so happened that the date we picked coincides with your birthday, so one stone kills two birds."
"That's great!" Piper said. "I will invite all my friends, too."
"Can I bring mine?" Jay asked, sounding equally excited as his twin sister. All the while I wasn't sure how I was going to tell Allecra about all this.
CHAPTER 26
The weeks that followed were unnaturally calm, but the calmness wouldn't last long. My thoughts were like beasts that never get tired and kept on tracking me down wherever I go.
For the first time, I was afraid of my own imagination. I tried to pay attention during classes, did my homework as best as I could and made sure it was neat. I answered the questions the teachers had asked me, but the feeling I got whenever I was close to Allecra was almost aphrodisiac.
It was a Monday morning— a week before my birthday. Birds woke me up a little after six. I went downstairs, brew some jasmine tea for my aunt then set a timer on the coffee machine before I began to make breakfast. It became a custom that I also prepared lunch for Allecra, too.
The sandwich I packed into my lunch box looked delicious with smoked salmon, watercress, and lettuce on soft whole wheat bread. I made sure that the crust was nicely cut. The texture was crunchy with horseradish and butter.
While I waited for the family to get up, I sat on the porch and listened to lively bird songs outside the windows. The sky was splotchy with white puffy clouds—like pieces of floating cottons—the cumulus clouds.
I stared at the veil of light blueness that blended in with a haze of golden ray and I breathed in deeply. The air was floral-scented as it was in an early spring. The weather was ideal. You could not have had a more perfect season for a garden-party. I ran a replay of the last conversation I had with Allecra about the invitation from my aunt.
"She wants to see you," I said a bit repentantly. Allecra was silent for a moment. I wouldn't mind if she refused, but then she looked at me.
"Do you want me to go?" she asked.
"If you're okay with it."
"You sound like you're embarrassed," she said.
"No! Why would I be embarrassed to have you there?" I tried to reassure her. "It's just—it's just that this is the first time I bring someone to see my 'family'."
Until then, it had never hit me how our relationship had developed thus far. I guessed I was still in awe that she was mine, and the feeling hadn't sunk in yet. Allecra stared at me for a long moment.
"I see," she said and smiled mischievously, "I'm your first."
I felt my cheeks radiated heat.
"Like it wasn't obvious," I murmured.
"Don't worry about it, Nina," she said. "I won't tell anyone that your girlfriend is an alien."
I gave her a withering look. Allecra chuckled before stealing a peck on my cheek softly.
Even just the memory of it still didn't fail to make me blush. To make things less complicated, Allecra and I agreed that we should only see each other at school until things got settled down.
When everyone was up, we had breakfast in a tranquil mood together.
"Everything okay?" my aunt asked me in Russian. That would only mean she wanted a private conversation with me.
"Yes, everything's fine," I replied.
"Is your friend coming to your birthday party?" she asked. I thought it was nice of her to refer to the garden party as my birthday party even I had begged her not do anything special for me.
"She said she would love to," I answered. My aunt nodded.
"You know, I just want to make sure that you hang out with the right people," she said. Suddenly I felt nervous. "I assume she does well in school, too?"
"Yes, she's a good student," I said but refrained myself from telling Aunt Vikki that aside from hardly ever attending classes, Allecra was an inborn genius.
"Good then." She nodded.
I knew what my aunt wanted from me, although she never said anything about it. I could feel that she trusted me and treated me like an adult. All I wanted was to get school over with as soon as possible. I didn't expect top grades or to be popular or to join social activities like my cousins.
Over the past several months, I tried not to cause any trouble here. My report card surprised me by having all A's. The lowest grade was an A-, but that was in math. The school was not easier than my old school in Russia so I wondered why my grades were so good. Perhaps, I had a special tutor.
As I entered the hall, my eyes roamed over the school bulletin board. There was a big colorful poster in the midst of others: YOUNG WRITERS CONTEST, 5,000 WORDS MAX TO SHOW YOUR TALENT! JOIN NOW!
I was staring at it for a while.
"You're interested?" a musical voice said behind me. I turned around to find Allecra smiling. And have you ever met someone whose smile looks like it could make flowers grow? I believed I had. My stomach did a flip in excitement when I saw her face.
"Oh, hey you," I said, tugging my hair behind my ear. "Well, I don't think this is for me."
"Why not?" she asked. "You want to be a writer, don't you?"
"I don't want to be a writer!" I protested. I didn't know why I felt embarrassed about this. Perhaps, writing was so intimate and it was supposed to be my secret.
"But you are always scribbling away about bunnies and squirrels and monkeys," Allecra pointed out.
"I don't write about monkeys!" I corrected her.
"Aw, why are you so cranky about it?" she said. "I think you're really good."
"You do?" I said, because coming from Allecra Knight, that counted for something.
"Arzurian's honor," she said and came over to wrap her arms around my waist. The compliment made me smile. That was what I loved about her. Even while she was teasing me, she was also disarmingly sweet when I least expected it.
"Allecra, we're in school," I warned her, squirming in her arms.
"So?" she said and was about to claim my lips when the bell rang. I jumped back and stepped away. Allecra groaned.
"Later, I promise," I said with an amused grin.
In Language Arts, Mrs. Smith was handing back papers. I got 93 on a short story about a baby elephant that lost its mother in the forest. But Allecra got a 98 on her work on some dystopian stuff. Of course, I was the first to read her story, and I admitted that I could never come up with anything better than hers. Yet it bugged me that she didn't seem to even try. It was just something she did to kill time. At the end of the class, Mrs. Smith asked me to stay over. Allecra told me she would wait outside.
"Antonina," she called my full name with a smile and handed me some kind of an entry form. I then realized it was the same writing contest I had seen. "Take a look at it and see if you're interested."
"Oh, thank you, ma'am, I've seen it earlier in the hall," I told her.
"I really think you should go for it. With your writing skill, it's supposed to be a good experience for you."
"But I don't think I would win this."
"Winning or not, it doesn't matter," she said. “You will learn a lot from it.”
"Why don't you ask Allecra instead?" I asked curiously. "She can write really well— way better than me."
Mrs. Smith smiled.
"I recognized her talent, but I see your passion," she said. "If you win it, it will open up a lot of opportunities
for you. It'll also look good on your college application. Just think about it, Nina."
Mrs. Smith had a solid point with that last part. I nodded and thanked her wholeheartedly.
After school, Allecra asked me what it was about. We were eating our sandwiches under the big pepper tree, enjoying the breeze on a nice spring day. The tall tree provided a melancholy and pleasant shade. I began to tell her everything. Allecra pursed her lips and stopped chewing for a moment.
"I think she's right," she said.
"I'm still not sure about that," I said with a weak shrug. "It's just that there are a lot of people who can write. I'm just a salmon swimming among the dolphins and sharks and whales in this big ocean of literature. I don't think I would even be short-listed. I think I still have a lot to learn."
"You're not confident about your writing," Allecra concluded, nailing it right on the head.
"Yeah, you can say that," I murmured. "Few writers are."
Allecra came and brushed a strand of hair from my face, tracing her fingers over my cheek gently.
"Forget about all the reasons why it won't work and believe in the one reason why it will," she said. "You know, salmons don't give in to the current that easily."
"Oh, Allecra, you're going to make me cry," I said and playfully pushed her shoulder. She giggled.
"Maybe I can make you cry out my name instead," she said.
"Stop being such a perv," I said.
"I can't help it," she said with a mischievous smile. "You're the cutest thing I've ever had — cuter than puppies and prettier than flowers."
I blushed so hard that I had to cover my face. Allecra drew me into her arms and gave me kisses on my temple. After we finished our lunch, she thanked me for the delicious sandwiches. I handed her a bottle of grape juice.
"So what now?" she said, sipping the drink.
"Well, it's worth a try," I said at last. "But first, I will have to read a lot to learn how to write better. That's what every writer says."
"Yes! That's my little Salmon!" Allecra cried, smiling cheekily at me. "Let's go to my house then."
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