by Lyssa Dering
Char pulls up outside the Love house. The windows glow the tell-tale pink the drug emits. I get hard before I even get out of the car, which is fucking embarrassing. I use my power to make Char fail to notice.
“See you in a bit,” I tell her.
Outside the front door of the shabby one-story, I take a deep breath. At the last house, a replica of Seraphim answered the door. Not Seraphim himself because I kept calling him until Fiend answered, and then I had to convince Fiend to put Seraphim on even though they were in the middle of some rope play. Apparently, Seraphim didn’t have use of his hands.
I don’t want to see that replica again. I have nothing against Seraphim. We’d probably still be lovers if I didn’t see something in his eyes the one and only time I fucked him that made me want to grow spikes or a shell or something to protect us both from what might happen. Years ago, but I still remember.
The replica looked at me that way. And he pulled me into the swarm of Love-drugged bodies, and I fucked him into the floor while the bodies pawed at me and whined my name.
I open the door to the Love house. Inside is a great room with no furniture and about twenty bodies rutting and groaning on the carpet.
“Wish!”
Oh, fuck. Lake comes running at me, shirtless with a syringe still stuck in his arm, eyes wild. He grabs at me, kisses my neck. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
I shove him away and back out of the house then pull the door shut behind me. I have to keep hold on the knob because Lake is yanking it and scratching at the wood.
“Wish, I need you!” comes his muffled voice.
It’s a replica. It’s not Lake. But there’s enough of a chance he could really have stumbled into the Love house that I have to make sure.
Still holding the knob with one hand, I fish my phone out of my pocket and dial Lake’s number.
After four rings, he finally picks up. “Hello?”
“Where are you right now?” I try to listen for any background noise, but there’s nothing.
Lake hesitates. “Club Neon. Why?”
“Just checking on you.”
“Uh, thanks. I guess.”
The scratching and pulling behind the door stops. It’s like I’ve vanquished a poltergeist, but I know if I open the door again, there the replica will be. Or it’ll be something else to torment me. Something else to hurt but get me off, too.
“Wish? Is there anything else?”
“I don’t hear any music. You really at the club?” I’ve heard enough to know Lake isn’t behind the door—his voice would have come through the wood—but is he lying to me?
“I just left with someone,” he says.
So, I’m interrupting a hookup. Great. I hang up without saying anything then realize I probably came off as a passive-aggressive asshole, but fuck it. This is my dimension, and I can do whatever I want. Just like Lake is.
I undo my fly before heading back into the Love house. Sure enough, the replica of Lake is waiting. This time, while he’s kissing my neck, I pull the syringe from his arm. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he repeats.
“It’s okay. I’m here.”
“Need to be inside you.” It takes a moment for the words to compute. Lake slides his hand down the back of my pants and fingers my hole roughly.
Immediately, I get rock hard, humiliation at being invaded so crudely making me hot everywhere. If Lake is on Love, he won’t care if he hurts me—he’ll just want to reach oblivion.
He turns me around and manhandles me against the closed door. Then he shoves my pants down the rest of the way, baring my ass and thighs. I could stop this, but I don’t. Not even when Lake shoves his cock at my hole and doesn’t stop shoving despite resistance. I use my power to add lube to our joining, but it still hurts like a bitch.
Lake puts a hand around my neck. “Don’t leave me.”
“Won’t,” I manage.
He paws at my chin, mouth, face then claws from beneath my eye down to my jaw, probably leaving red marks on the way. “Cry for me,” he moans.
“I can’t.” I hardly ever cry, and this Lake doesn’t have the power to make me. I won’t give him the power, either, because it’s not my place, and if I can’t even keep my city clean, can I really be trusted to make specials anyway?
Lake forces his cock in deeper, sending me groaning in pain.
“I want to break you,” he says. “I want to watch you crumble.” Is this what the real Lake wants, too? To kick me off my high horse and see me damaged from the fall?
“Good luck,” I grit out.
“I don’t need luck.”
Lake paws at my arm, and the next thing I know a needle is sliding into my vein, attached to a glowing syringe of pink liquid: Love. Here is another thing I could stop—should stop—but don’t.
Lake disconnects the empty syringe and drops it onto the floor, where he crushes it with his oxford. My veins glow like the syringe was, and the butterflies that always accompany the high flutter weakly in my gut. They’ll get stronger. I wait for them to grow with the impending need. Love is supposed to take the user back to the last time they were in love with someone, but I’ve never been in love, so for me, it’s just needing and needing and never getting what I’m after.
People have been in love with me, though, so it’s probably what I deserve.
Lake claws tear lines down my other cheek, and my heart breaks down like a chewed-up piece of meat. The butterflies beat against the flesh of my abdomen, desperate to break free from my skin.
I hit my forehead against the door Lake still has me crushed against and groan in pain.
Lake grabs my achingly hard dick and pounds into me. “That’s right, baby. Need me.” His cock spearing me feels so much better now, but it still isn’t enough. Nothing is enough to fill this deep, dark well in me.
5
Lake
I brush off the rush of anger Wish brought on by hanging up on me and slip my phone into my pocket. I wouldn’t have answered the call at all if the second Wish walking beside me in the alley hadn’t insisted. “He might get suspicious,” the second Wish said.
“So. Where are we going?” I ask.
“Plan A’s a bust because Wish is there right now, but I have a plan B.”
“Don’t you mean ‘the other Wish’?” I’m not sure I’ve wrapped my head around the fact that there are two Wishes in Wish City. I should probably let the real one know eventually. At least, I’m pretty sure he’s the real one. Or the first one. The one from my past life.
“You can call me something else if it makes it easier for you.” Wish points at my wrist and the little star-shaped mark there. “Star, maybe? Like wish upon a star.”
“You should get rid of this tattoo, actually,” I say. “It’s rude to ink a person without their consent.”
Wish frowns. “There. Now it’s gone.”
I inspect my arm, and sure enough, the tattoo has vanished. Good. “I could call you Wish #2.”
Wish glares. “That’s really rude.”
“How about Twinkle? Because you’re so much twinkier than the other Wish.”
Wish gasps this time.
I can’t help but push it further. “You’re a sub, too, aren’t you? Want to be under someone’s shoe?”
Wish crosses his arms and glowers at the skyscrapers shining in the afternoon sun. “I told you. I’m whatever you want me to be.”
“Some inexperienced subs tend to say that.”
“Well. We are inexperienced that way. Wish is embarrassed about even being interested, because we do like to be in control, too.”
“That’s obvious.” No way Wish doesn’t get off on being so powerful. He loves that type of attention, or he wouldn’t have taken the leadership role he had in life. He could have hidden his power like I did. Only my parents knew about it. My mother slapped me in the face when she first saw my tears tattoo.
“Wish didn’t do much kink
y stuff in the Earth dimension,” says the other Wish. “He had to move around a lot, so he couldn’t really have equipment. But when people he hooked up with wanted to get kinky, he was usually into it. Some of them had toys.” Wish takes a turn into a nice neighborhood. All the houses have manicured lawns and brick-and-siding faces. One has stone lions out front, another angels.
“You don’t need equipment to be kinky,” I say.
“Wish didn’t want to get attached to anyone. Intense sex can lead to feelings, and he doesn’t want those.”
“Ah.” I can’t fault him for that. I couldn’t get attached to any partners, either, or they would have found me out. Maybe they would have reported me to the government or told someone and they’d report me. But aren’t we free here? Can’t we get attached? “I’m into some heavy things. You can’t handle it.”
“I’m not him.”
“Then why do you say ‘we’?”
“Because we started the same, but now we’re different.” Wish beams at me. “May I hold your hand?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. First a candlelit dinner, now this? “No. Tell me about plan B.”
The hurt is obvious in Wish’s face, but he doesn’t push. “We’re going to a BDSM dungeon.”
“Really?” I imagine Wish must need a point of reference in order to create a dungeon, but this Wish talks as if they’ve never been to one. “What did you base it on?”
“We’ve been to one. One time.”
“Experts, then.”
Wish pouts, an expression I never expected to see on that face. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
We stop outside a house with shuttered windows and no sign of life aside from the several cars parked outside. Wish walks in like he owns the place, which I guess he does. A guy in a harness is manning the door, and he gives us both a stamp on the hand: a red bull. How many marks will litter me by the time this night is over?
Behind the guy in the harness is a little sitting area buzzing with chatter as a group of kinksters socialize. Wish may have only been to one dungeon, but this is about what I would expect at any kink event.
“Come on.” Wish leads me to a door that opens to a set of stairs. Yells and slaps filter up and get louder as we descend into the basement/dungeon. My blood heats. This is run-of-the-mill kink stuff, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to a place like this. My attendance at fetish parties has always been sporadic. The last time I went, I found a novice and showed him the pleasure of a flogger, but he balked when I mentioned tears.
I clench my fists. I’m an outlier, even here.
Wish gets uncomfortably close and whispers into my ear, “It’s okay. May I touch your arm?”
I nod. It’s not really polite to talk in play rooms when people are scening, and there’s leather and wood and red skin wherever I look.
Wish holds my arm loosely and strokes the underside. I shiver, but it’s not unpleasant.
Wish tugs me over to a leather sofa, and we sit. He presses the outside of his thigh to mine. Across from us, a woman lies on a spanking bench while a man takes a wooden paddle to her ass, the implement thudding harshly into her flesh.
I put my mouth to Wish’s ear. “Did you bring me here to play with you?”
He nods, shifting his ear against my lips.
“What do you want?” I whisper. “And don’t ask what I want.”
“Please. I don’t know.” Wish says it at full volume, but this is a pre-scene negotiation now. This couch is probably for spectators, yet there isn’t anyone in here aside from those playing. And Wish owns the place, so it doesn’t matter.
“Straddle me,” I say.
Wish positions himself on top of me, but he’s tense, trembling. He won’t look at me. It’s cute.
I hold his burning cheek and try not to get too excited. Will he allow me to administer discomfort? Will he let me ruin him and put him back together again? “What’s wrong?”
“If I’m not good enough, we lose our chance with you.”
I find myself smiling. There’s a very slim chance Wish knew of me before I died, so what is this? Love at first sight? Was my lukewarm response to the sex really that devastating for him?
I bring Wish’s face close and look into his terrified eyes. “You like me, huh?”
Wish skims my face with both hands. “Yes. So pretty, small, hard, closed-up.” His words come fast, breathy. “You tell us not to touch you. You don’t care. You don’t roll over. You’re not impressed. But you think we’re sexy, or you wouldn’t have let us take you into the bedroom. You’re not a follower.”
I toy with one of Wish’s soft earlobes. “But I am.”
“No! You’re different.”
“I’m not different. I watched you online. Read about you. Kept tabs.” I get a good grip on Wish’s hair and press a kiss to his cheek.
He melts like I’ve tongued him, and my whole groin throbs.
“You like your hair pulled?” I ask.
“Like to be kissed,” he murmurs. “Y-You kept tabs?”
I use my hold on Wish’s silky locks to align our mouths and barely touch our lips together. Wish whimpers, and I chuckle.
“How could I not?” I ask. “You wanted to be the leader of all specials. Then I heard about your Heaven, and I wanted to go.” I whisper the next part into his ear. “I killed myself for you.”
Wish squirms and slides his hands under the flaps of my jacket.
I grip his wrists and force them behind his back.
“Please!” he shouts.
In the back of my mind, I remember we’re in a room with other people, but they don’t matter. Wish and I are in an invisible cage. We’re like insects in a jar with brains too small to focus on more than one thing at once.
Wish’s wrists pulse in my grip.
I pant into his hot neck. “What do you want?”
“I want you to use your power on me.”
It takes a moment for the words to compute, but then somewhere beneath my arousal, anger swells. Wish is only saying this because he thinks he knows what I want. And I do want that, but I’m not a puppet. I graze his neck with my teeth. “No.”
“Do it!” Wish struggles in my grip, so I let him go. But he doesn’t pull away. He nuzzles into my neck, the soft flesh of his face tickling me and making me shiver. “Do it, Lake. I want you to. Please.”
“But you don’t.” My voice cracks. I touch him beneath the jacket, finding smooth, burning skin. “You feel rejected because I didn’t lose my mind for you. That’s it.” But I’m losing my mind now, I think.
Wish pulls back enough to cover his eyes. His shoulders shudder as he makes melodramatic sobbing noises, but it’s fake. It’s so fucking fake.
I grip him by the lapels and give him a shake. “Are you sure? You won’t try to rough-fuck me in retaliation?”
Wish gives my cheek a delicate stroke. “If anyone’s fucking anyone, it’ll be you inside me. Just use me, Lake. Use me like a drug—that’s what I want.”
It’s as if Wish is speaking directly to the most hidden part of me, and it feels good. I surrender to him but also to my power. Sorrow. Sorrow, sorrow. Tears, pain, a twist in the chest, the urge to fall to one’s knees. Sorrow for Wish. Tears spilling from those beautiful eyes and snaking down red cheeks.
He freezes, and I wait for him to hit me or growl or otherwise fight back despite all his assurances. Instead, he drops a hand onto my thigh and gasps, sliding his pained gaze up to mine. Tears well and spill, and his brows droop together.
I hold my breath. He seems to hold his, too.
I hit him with another wave of power.
He screams and grips the lapels of my jacket, under which I’m sweating now, and presses his nose to mine. “Hurts, Lake.”
I’m hurting, too—almost. I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on, and affection explodes in my chest for this creature on top of me. He doesn’t feel like the other Wish felt, but he feels perfect. I’m going to come s
o hard with him.
I kiss his tear-soaked cheeks. “You’re alright. Time for pleasure now.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Wish murmurs.
I hold his face and meet his eyes. They’re blue and still dripping like little oceans, glistening puddles. But they flicker away from me.
“Did I do okay?” Wish whispers.
I swallow against an unbearable punch of arousal. I love when they get like this: all weak and needy and desperate for care.
I kiss Wish’s temple as I reach to undo his trousers. “You’re doing perfect.”
“Perfect,” Wish echoes.
He isn’t wearing underwear, and his cock is hot and hard in my hand. I kiss his neck and breathe in his scent, but behind him, strangers play with cuffs and a whip.
I want him in a bed where no one will disturb us. “Can you take us somewhere private?”
In a second, the people are gone, and Wish and I are in the middle of a huge mattress in a candlelit bedroom.
He meets my gaze shyly. “Better?”
The intimacy is like a heavy cloak draped around us, and I nod and push him back onto the bed. Finally, I get out of my coat and peel the silk shirt from my sweaty skin. The sudden coolness gives me goosebumps.
Wish shoves his pants down and opens his legs. His damp face glistens in the candlelight, flushed and gorgeous.
I run my hands up his naked torso and push off his suit jacket. This Wish’s body seems more delicate than the other’s; does he think I want him small?
“Was this for me?” I ask. I get off him to remove my shoes and jeans.
Wish’s gaze slides dreamily over my body. “Hmm?”
“You. Are you for me or were you here before I came?”
