@JulienJaden

The bass reverberated through every floor of the house, Nadine’s head idly bouncing along with the beat. She eyed her friends Carrie and Sam anxiously, the two of them mingling over the noise that swallowed up Nadine’s attention. She was trying to suck down the pressure by drinking gin and juice, hoping the open bar at this birthday party would let her escape the social unease. The bitter taste of cranberry made her purpled painted lips pucker against her teeth. “Carrie, I think I need to—“ right when she reached out, a man stumbled head first into her, pinning Nadine back against the kitchen counter. The weight was thrown off long enough for the slim girl to evade a projectile wave of vomit. The smell alone filling the sink made Nadine pull her friends out into the foyer at the base of the stairs.

“Listen, I can’t take this, I need some fresh air.” They argued back and forth about how cold outside it was, Nadine deciding to head out alone for a few minutes while they meandered within the party. Deprived of hesitation, she threw herself out the front door. The burst of music behind Nadine was quickly sealed shut in an attempt to evade the commotion. On the porch it felt like she was taking her first real breath in the last hour of being there.

Under the full moon everything glimmered in a blue, opulent atmosphere. Every overwhelming detail to Nadine was left inside of the two-story house, and from the driveway she could only make out the faint ricochet of the beat and the folks inside howling and dancing. Out on the three acres of property, nobody could be disturbed by the antics going on, they were just past the outskirts of town. She trudged slowly up the slope in her laced-up boots, wearily gazing off into the distance at a line of tree that began a forest on the end of the backyard.

Finding a spot to hide wasn’t hard in between the cars. The lot was full of them, droves of student vehicles had lined up at the end of gravel driveway. Nadine’s hands fumbled in the pockets of her jeans and studded leather jacket, discovering the remains of a blunt and a shiny zippo. Its front held an engraved heretic whose forked tongue taunted the owner of the lighter. Flipping the top open the flame lit the end of her roll and inhaling the hit was an earnest action on Nadine’s part. The smoke came so heavy from her nostrils, coiling through the jewelry of her septum piercing. Having a moment alone made her greedily suck on the blunt, this being the first opportune time to smoke since finals. December had brought a dry amount of cold weather, but snow had yet to fall on their hometown. A chill crept up the nape of her neck, under the leather collar she felt her flesh pimpling with goose bumps. It churn dup no motivation to be inside, however, Nadine needed to take a moment to relinquish her anxiety. She pinned herself against a hatchback coupe, staring up into the abyss that no city light obscured from sight. The stars were an abundance of glittering webs, encircling the moon’s own brilliance. Devoid of clouds the sky opened up out to her peripheral vision from this angle, a perfect sight to cherish while her inner tension gradually let go.

When she quietly began to return down the slope, Nadine was no longer encroached by the sight of so many people, so many bodies, steaming up the windows and colliding against each other inside. Smokers lingered outside, whining over the midnight weather but the bite of December only excited her now. Trickling in with some more new comers, Nadine pushed a lock of long thin hair back behind her gauged ears. She absently clawed the tiger’s eye stone stretching the hole of her ear, filed claws clinking against the 20mm plug. Twisting her fingers through her naturally auburn hair, the music flooded her senses and the noise washed over her. But now Nadine felt immune, a tunnel of haze bringing a lighthearted demeanor as she searched the party for another drink...

Jesus Fucking Christ, what did I drink?

Whatever it was that had turned Gabriel's stomach over to the devil who saw fit to fill it with evil spirits - well, maybe just spirits - didn't account for the instant exorcism every college student was familiar with: Banishing Satan in a graceful projectile arc, straight into the sink, just barely missing the woman he bumped into on his hasty, wobbly way to salvation and almost pinned down right in the middle of it.

The power of vomit compells you!

The smell was otherworldly, or so Gabriel was told the next day. One of the benefits of being shitfaced drunk, although this recent incident that raised the volume in the kitchen tenfold by educing "Eww"s and "Wow"s from those present lowered his alcohol levels and heightened general awareness of his surrounding.
Despite this unappetizing episode, he felt great. December was a magical time when Christmas and New Year's seemed like an impenetrable bulwark against every worry, deadline and exam that awaited you in a few brief weeks; it was the time when roommates seemed to be less dickish, girls were willing to have "one last fling" before their New Year's resolution to "never sleep around again" and families came together.

Well, the last part wasn't exactly true for Gabriel Salem but that made being drunk more enjoyable: Ignorance is, don't you know it, bliss, meaning that the more ignorant you are, the more blissful you become; if there was one equation he could relate to, it was this.
The only flaw in this otherwise perfect logic was that he found himself in strange places with no recollection of how he got there, in this case just outside the backdoor, with an unobstructed view of a landscape covered in white. He didn't feel the cold creep up his fingers and under his shirt, didn't sense the shivers that took hold of his body.
Inside, he was still and took in the sight before him, the trees and hills and city lights in the distance, all made ethereal by the snow and moonlight. Ending up in somebody's bed was one thing but this, the feeling of witnessing a subtle and yet majestic sight, was one of the reasons he always had another drunk night out, no matter how badly the one before had ended. He loved and hated the bottle; it was like an abusive girlfriend he kept going back to for that one kiss, that one night that would happen every now and then and seemed to make it all worthwhile. Or was it more like an abusive parent?

But now that the shaking was getting too bad and he heard his teeth clatter as he produced clouds of vapour, Gabriel turned away from the vista and returned inside, only to bump into the same woman again as before.
Only this time, he recognized her:
"Natalie?"

Their eyes met and, yes, there was recognition in those eyes but also confusion. Was she raising an eyebrow? The strobe light made it hard to tell. Wait... No, it's not Natalie, it was... Fuck, what was her name again?
She probably hadn't even heard him over the music, or so he hoped. This time, he leaned down to her ear and yelled:
"Nadine? It's good to see you!"

Yes, he remembered her. They had had a few courses together the year before and became fast friends. But that year, just before finals, his parents' divorce was finalized and his sister had a breakdown over it, so he dropped everything and left. That in itself wouldn't have been an issue if he hadn't lost his phone and had a crap memory for numbers. He was bound to run into her sooner or later but after months, he had pretty much given up on her.

"Fuck, I've been trying to get in touch forever! You want a drink?"

The slight frame of the woman teetered back from the second run-in, a wash of realization stirring the dazed expression. Her jawline lost its tension and a smile of prim even teeth were bared against the obscure lighting. When he leaned in to speak she caught a whiff of bile and immediately understood that Gabriel, her old friend, was past the point of no return. He had popped the cork on his happy hour, and Nadine crinkled her nose at the smell. “Yep! I need a drink!” she agreed, her meticulously penciled eyebrows arching with visible concern. "And I'm guessing you have a fast-track ticket to the bar here?" In jest she pulled on the hem of his shirt, tongue flicking out flirtatiously in the change of events.

It hadn't been her intentions to run into somebody like this but it made her feel bolder in the luck bestowed. As they made their way up to the island counter serving as a generous self-pour station, Nadine's consciousness was plucking up memories whose details wanted to ask more out of him. Gabriel seemed a jaded kind of novelty, seemed off his rocker, he had been off her radar. Despite being a self-admitting hermit, she kept a vice grip out on the pulse of some parts of town. She was avid on putting out her artwork on campus at the university and setting up inside of every coffee shop, restaurant, pub, hole-in-hell places, selling them to keep the bills down with her full-time lifestyle.

"I seriously thought you took a powder, Gabriel. Where the fuck have you been? Did you bring your sister?" She swiveled around him, hand out eagerly for that little cup of awesome sauce. For a moment she flinched, timidly eyeing over his shoulder, trying to remember if Gabriel's sister was even old enough to drink.

"Bring my sister? And have her see me drunk like this?", he laughed, some of his words coming out slurred. Nadine wasn't wrong - the best part of the night was already over for him; it was all downhill from here.
"And 16 is a little early for college parties if I have anything to say about it."

Mary... Sweet, innocent little Mary. A lot of big brothers and parents liked to imagine their sisters and daughters to be virtue personified but his sister really was something else. He had spent his fair share of time around girls of every kind, from those who would go down on somebody after a couple of drinks to those that were caring, smart and even romantic, but he had never met anyone as fragile and friendly as his sister; she seemed just a little too good for this world, always honest, always cheerful. Their parents' deteriorating marriage had been painful to watch for him but it must have been hell for her. For all the emotional damage it did to them, they ended up being very close for siblings which didn't make moving away for college easier. But this divorce had brought out the worst in his parents and even though they had seen it coming, it still was kind of a shock. He had spent his first few days back home - which really meant his mother's house now - in Mary's room, trying to get her to come outside with him. It took weeks but by the time he left, she seemed almost back to normal.

All of that came rushing back to his memory when he heard Nadine ask about his disappearance as he handed her a cup of booze. Gabriel knew that he probably should have stopped drinking for the night but these thoughts made him notice the taste of bile and a hint of the smell and there wasn't anything else to wash it down with, so he did and gave his female company a hint of a smile.

"Well, I had to go take care of some things at home. Remember what I told you about my parents splitting?"
He shrugged and took another sip.
"Anyway, I lost my phone back there and I couldn't remember your cell number. Shit, I couldn't remember anybody's number. It took me a week to just run into somebody who could help me with that. I've been to just about any place we used to hang out at but I just didn't run into you."

Back then, he had been aching to talk to her. Sure, he had some older than friends than her but he had never talked to them about really personal, difficult stuff. The first time they met, they ended up walking around town until the early morning hours, talking about this and that as their highs mellowed out and the alcohol wore off. There was so much to catch up about but now that he saw her again, he wasn't sure where to begin.

God only knew what brought his mind to think of that particular shared experience but it made him grin and ask:
"Hey, remember Dr. Price's course? Are you still into that voodoo magic stuff?"

She kind of gathered why they hadn't ever crossed paths over the last year. A lot of their old hangouts were a bit dried up from Nadine's attention. "Yeah, while you were gone," she remarked carefully, "I broke it off with Diana and just, you know, if I'm not getting laid I gotta get out of the apartment for some reason. There's a lot of trails out there and I keep busy on my bike or on foot.."

Her voice trailed off after the sarcastic slip of her ex-girlfriend's name. She pictured Diana, a vision of acrid red hair, vixen over webcam as a living, and during the day scoring too much blow. The last Nadine had seen of her had been a psychological shit-storm, cracking wide the bedroom door to catch a rage of enticing music from the computer. Strung up from her own demise made the young redhead swing limply from the ceiling where they had anchored a fetish swing. Diana's throat got caught kinked up in a chain link noose as a new asphyxiation stunt for her viewers. High on dust and foaming from the mouth, Nadine's unannounced entrance had saved her life but brought a halt to their wicked crazy love life.

She choked on her drink when he brought up the word 'voodoo,' giggling into the booze which sent it down the wrong pipe. His change of subject, the joke in his tone brought her back into the soles of her heavy boots. Even with a good amount of heel, she had to avert her eyes higher in order to catch that familiar gaze. "Voodoo? You don't even..." her words spread out a childish grin suddenly. His mention of the witchcraft, religion, and healing class on behalf of Dr. Price brought up a confident little idea which would take advantage of Gabriel's stupor. "His class, you remember the content? Tip of the damn iceberg," Nadine's hand cut the air sharply.

"In fact, that class, and my friend Cassie," she nodded over to a head of braided blonde hair in the living room, "Got me going on a little bit of practical magic." That honey shimmer of mischief flickered over her dark eyes as the music changed into a techno song of peppy proportions.

Diana... Yes, he remembered Diana. She was a weird one: Enticing and so sexed up at times that Gabriel couldn't help but stare for a while when she 'claimed' Nadine in front of all the guys - which, according to Nadine, was nothing compared to how crazy it got when it came to their love life - but also tender and friendly when she wanted to... not to mention a gigantic bitch when she had a mood swing. Gabriel was no stranger to recreational drugs but he knew better than to mess with the kind that ruined your life; Diana had no such reservations, which explained a lot. He was never quite sure whether he disliked Diana because he had a crush on Nadine or because she seemed like the kind of person who would dig herself and the people around her an early grave if you let her.
Hearing that she was out of the picture was a relief, even if the break-up had led to many months of radio silence between her ex and him.

But just like her mention had woken dormant memories, his seemed to have done the same. Suddenly, there was this flicker in Nadine's eyes that he so loved. It could mean a great many things - some nights ended with him in some girl's bed, others in an abandoned house with a brilliant view or pulling a practical joke - but it always heralded a good time of some sort.
Cassie was an unknown variable, though. He had only vague memories of her as somebody who sat in their vicinity in Dr. Price's class and would occasionally talk to Nadine, a relationship that had apparently flourished in his absence.

His question had been more of a joke than anything else, an icebreaker after being gone for too long, an attempt to evoke shared memories and see if they were still friends or if something had changed. But hearing the words 'practical magic' clear as day over the techno beat and her claim that the class he recalled as boring and metaphysical bullshit held some merit made him wonder if she had gone off to the deep end.
Then again, wasn't that what he had thought the first time he had indulged her on one of her proposals of mischief? And Gabriel never regret that decision.

So he did what he had always done: He met her eyes with a broad smile and a look that said 'I'm game if you are'.
"Tip of the iceberg, huh? So, are you telling my I could summon an entire room full of beautiful, lusty, naked women for us to share if I knew the right magic spell? Or is that one up to science and cloning?"

"An entire room of naked women? Come on, if you want that, you should come to some of the summer parties I get invited to!" Leaving no time to waste, Nadine's hand had already enveloped around his warm palm. They were squeezing out into the crowded hallway, the woman skirting her way around folks like a frisking cat on the prowl. Climbing the stairs was a feat in itself. Nadine politely as possible persuaded a party-animal, half-naked, to let go of the banister he clung to for dear life. The hungry smooches of a couple who made out at the top of the second floor almost flayed their bodies on top Nadine and Gabriel as well. Blessed in her stature, she made a minimal duck to dodge their manic moves to consume each other in drunk passion.

"I can show you, but we need some privacy. It only works inside for now, and I think I can keep myself in focus despite the music," the tart shine of lipstick contorted the young woman's elation to confide these unspoken details. They came to the sheltering privacy of a bathroom, pushing the lock in place. "And maybe you can help me!" The sink's countertop, remarkably pristine, was where she emptied out the contents of her pockets.. "Do you have anything we could use? Anything of yours?"

She had...

She just pulled him along on her way, with a naturalness that spoke of intimacy. Gabriel barely even noticed the couples and drunks and one-night-stand partners he was tearing through, lacking Nadine's more "agile" build, despite some curses and the occasional threatening look (by whoever thought they were getting the better end of the deal and now feared for their prey), once or twice followed by a hoot once they realized some girl was urgently leading him somewhere private - if they were still coherent enough to be capable of such reasoning.

But, again, that barely occurred to him. He was preoccupied with how easy it felt to reconnect with Nadine. They had barely spent ten minutes together after almost an entire year of radio silence - a length of time that, at their age, could mean missing out on the experiences and thought processes that formed a person for the rest of their lives - and yet, here she was, so eager to show him something that it couldn't wait until they were sober, couldn't wait another day, couldn't even wait another five minutes. Before he really knew what was going on, she had slammed the bathroom door shut behind them and locked it to ward off any frisky contenders or people with more base needs. For a second or so, he forgot why they were here and half-expected her to start making out with him, but her words quickly pried his mind away from that crush-infused fantasy and back to the present.

"Anything we could use?"
The question blindsided him. He looked at himself in the mirror, his reflection staring back at him with an eery, ethereal look to it, pale and sweaty in the fluorescent light, and despite Nadine's conviction, this entire situation suddenly seemed ridiculous. Dr. Price was a nutjob and an idiot, the laughing stock of the campus, even among his colleagues; not that Gabriel gave any two shits about what the professors published or thought - beyond what was relevant to his studies or exams - but when the stuffy, self-righteous ivory tower inhabitants ridiculed one of their own, that didn't go unnoticed.

So, he probably didn't seem entirely serious or convinced when he joked:
"Well, gee, if I had known we were going to practice magic today, I would have brought a virgin. We'll never find one in time, at the rate things are going out there."

Still, he knew better than to question Nadine when she had that look to her, and even if this was just a joke, the least he could do after all this time was humoring her.
Gabriel reached into his pockets and emptied their contents on the counter, which amounted to...

“Virgins are a tad over-rated, Gabriel,” saying his name mapped a path of goosebumps over her skin, the close quarters of the quaint bathroom making her feel a tad warm under the leather jacket. She felt herself slipping it off for now, rolling the tension from her shoulders when she draped the article of clothing on a towel rod. The dark navy color of her corset dimly reflected the light off its silk exterior. There was a black ribbon, thick and tightly bound, synching the sides together as it snaked through the silver eye-loops.

The charge inside of herself wanted to reach out to him in a way she new all too well, cravenly tempting her senses as she organized their trinkets along the open counter. Fixating her eyes on what they had did little to sync her to the task at hand. Taking a deep breath saturated her mind with the natural scent of the two of them, the alcohol on their persons, the pastel white of shoulders harshly lit under the flourescent light. With her back to him, the exhale dropped her stiff demeanor and brought a new amount of focus to rely on, the art of practice and concentration coming in handy at a time of temptation.

“I know, you’re drunk, I’m tipsy, you probably won’t even remember tonight—,”

She pushed him over with a bump of the hip, and though his stature wasn’t frail by any means, Nadine found no problem convincing him to sit back down on the toilet. Clumsy slams and knocks on the locked door, the frantic shifting of the knob, went unanswered. Nadine kept her eyes empty of reservation, wholeheartedly staring upon Gabriel in a manner that couldn’t define if she was a friend of something more predator. She had an assertive grasp on one of his hands, the palm facing up, index finger coaxed to extend out for her.

A flick of the wrist opened up his jackknife, Nadine deciding to use his own blade to prick the tip of his index finger. It beaded bright red, and her own finger followed under the blade. She would laugh softly at his surprise of the action, “Don’t worry, I promise,” Nadine quickly caught the beads on the side of the blade as she dropped his hand to pick up her lighter. “Dr. Price opened the door, but you know, teachers don’t fraternize with students, so Cassie,” the zippo’s top flipped back and the flame ignited, “Brought me into this.

Watch…”

She waited, held her words to speak internally a quiet rhyme of ethereal nature. The music, the commotion outside of their atmosphere drifted away from her attention. The drops of blood, mixing together as crimson beads, glistened when they dripped to the flame. The fire turned darker and flourished on the small wick, a long, forking tongue. She quickly abandoned the blade and greedily grabbed the flame up in her palm where it danced the webbing of her fingers and swirled the stones of her rings. Her mouth began to move in pace with her thought, lip-synching to will her steadiness. The flame embarked now from one hand, to both, and Nadine reach out to Gabriel to hold his hands in her own.

The bump of her hip, the corset, the way she looked at him... The entire situation was decidedly un-friendly. Had he been a little more drunk than he was, maybe he would have done something stupid like reach out for her, let his hand roam and see if he got away with it. Had he been a little more sober, perhaps he would have talked more, flirted more, and things might have developed further in that direction. But as it was, Gabriel was a little horny, a little curious, and uncharacteristically submissive.

The prick at his finger wasn't painful but confusing. Why were they here again? It seemed like every time his mind settled for her explanation and reasoning, he picked up a signal that spoke of carnal pleasures. Nadine had always been flirty and a bit of a tease, even, or maybe especially, towards him, but something was different now and he couldn't tell what it was. Was she seeing him differently? Did he see her in a different light? Maybe one, maybe the other, maybe both, but that didn't cover all of it. What he didn't realize, not at that moment in the bathroom, was that she had changed, that her aura, for a lack of better word, was darker, more confident, more powerful, and it drew him to her, not only her person or body but also to what it was that had brought about that change.

"Watch..."

It was like witnessing a transformation. The Nadine he knew left the room and somebody else took her place, somebody who didn't struggle with finding appreciation for her art, somebody who didn't share some of his issues at home, somebody who was so completely sure of herself that it spilled over to Gabriel. Only the faintest recoil, the natural, unavoidable reflex, went through his body when the flames started acting strange, as if they had a will of their own. But he wouldn't have met her hands halfway if the words he heard, and the glance she gave weren't familiar, almost loving, free of all malice and reservation. He was wrong after all - it was the same woman, only different, and yet the both of them had no idea that any change she'd been through was nothing compared to what they would experience together.

So he reached out and did as she told him, accepted her offer, put his hands in her's. The flames seemed almost cool to the touch, compared to the warmth of her palms, even as the snake-like flicker found its way through the gaps between his fingers. Gabriel felt his mind slipping back towards the tempting woman in front of him and immediately, the flames reacted and the heat rose slightly, but he didn't pull back. He focused on the entity of blood and fire and trusted the person in front of him, intertwined as they were, and the hint of pain receded.

His eyes searched for hers and when they met, a smile spread on his face and there was only one thing he could say, only one thing that was appropriate in a situation like this:
"Ho. Ly. Fuck."

"Easy does it now," Nadine coaxed as the flames evolved and flourished under their combined excitement. Gabriel's control seemed easy enough, perhaps under his state of mind or the supernatural connection that allowed trust to connect their efforts together. She was gradually giving him the reign over the enchanted flame now, knowing that her whispered spell and their mixed blood moved the fire by the will of their confidence.

Nadine's complete knowledge was novice at best, many of the remedies to craft this madness were jotted down in a small notebook and typed out in length on her laptop at home. A lot of what Cassie had given her to start with lead very little beyond these small victories. Still, this moment fulfilled her unimaginably, and it was an unguarded instinct that convinced her to slip into his lap, straddling her friend down on the toilet seat. "Don't take your eyes off the flame!" She reminded, swiftly grabbing his wrists and cradling them up between their chests. The soft glow embellished orange flickers over their faces and when she met his eyes it was in the manner of a wicked master. She measured him briefly, settling her boots around the white ceramic base, digging the balls of her feet down till the thick soles squeaked on the linoleum floor.

"Just give me a moment to light this up, Gabe." Nadine leaned over the counter to reach out for her blunt. While he sat still, stunned or in awe she wasn't going to assume, her weight balanced back into the slope of his lope. When Nadine took the roll between her lips she took a deep, long inhale that called each flame to the ignited end. And in that single strong drag she had sucked the magic from his fingertips, sighing the release out through her nose. The thick smoke tendrils played over the ring of her septum piercing as she offered him the blunt, about to speak--when a sickly crack broke the locked door, popping this magic cherry.

When her head swiveled toward the sound it gave another groan and slammed open against the bathhroom wall. Bent on its hinges, splintered at the handle, a behemoth of a muscle bound joker lay on his hands and knees. He caught himself after catapulting through the bathroom door, drunk and blood from his fists, the music flooding the new situation in chaos. "Hot damn--get your shit," Nadine was scooping up her belongings, grabbing Gabriel's trinkets toss them idly. The guy didn't appear too quick or angry anymore on the floor. But once the birthday brat saw this there may be a house call to handle. "What do you say?" She waited for him at the banister to the stairs.

It was incredible how right this felt. The fire danced over his fingers as Nadine withdrew hers and while she kept whispering her formulae, she didn't do it without pause anymore. When she went quiet or spoke to him directly, he felt like this entity was his, a subject to his will. He thought about having the tendrils curl up in his hand and they did. He moved one of his fingers out and into the air and the flame followed. Gabriel wondered if it could fly up into the air and-

She pushed him back. His legs bumped against the toilet and before he knew it, he was sitting, Nadine straddled on his lap. For a long, a very long moment, all he felt where her legs against his, all he saw were the curves of her breasts inches from his face. He felt the heat in his hand before her reminder but it still took him some effort to pull away his eyes. Had he believed in god, then this would have been the ultimate proof that he was a dick. How else could you explain discovering magic, actual fucking magic, that required full concentration and focus AND, at the same time, being this physically close to a woman you had a crush on? Was it the alcohol, the time apart or raging hormones that made him so easily distractable?

Focus on the damn flame, he told himself and despite a tightness in his trousers, he willed his mind away from sex and Nadine. Only the fire in his hand mattered. He barely registered what she said, although ignoring her moving back and forth in his lap did not escape his attention. And then, she sucked it up - the snakes lifted their head and followed her call. The fluorescent light transformed the thick smoke into a veil that almost hid Nadine's face. Only her eyes were clearly visible, reflecting the glow of the smoldering roll. She looked more mysterious, more removed, more overpowering than ever, and yet here she was, right there with him, not only sharing this experience but also the blunt with him.

Gabriel accepted the offered gift and let a long drag fill his lungs and his head with smoke. The door crashed open and broke the magic reverie, filling him with a sense of anger and regret, but between the alcohol, the pot, the girl and the incredible events of the past few minutes, he couldn't be bothered to actually express any of it. He joined his friend in collecting their items and followed her away from the crime scene.
Mike would be royally pissed when he saw this. Well, not Mike himself - from what he remembered, he and Cassie were really getting to know each other when Nadine pulled him into that bathroom and were probably occupying an empty room themselves by now - but his parents would be going apeshit when they came back from Vermont and found the bathroom door torn down on top of the million other blemishes to the house their son would have to explain.

But none of that was their concern. Nadine's proposal sounded about right, so he nodded and played snowplow for her on their way to the kitchen. They were lucky, too: The kitchen looked like a warzone, every single surface was sticky, broken glass and puddles of spilled liquids covered the floor and, most terrifyingly, virtually every bottle, pitcher, can and glass in the room were empty. The only ray of light was a bottle of Tequila with about two big shot's worth of content left in it.

He gave her a cocky grin as he presented his bounty.
"Share the bottle?"

"As if there's much left to share! Let's get this down the hatch!" She took her turn from the bottle, chasing after it with a hit from the blunt. Passing it over to Gabriel again, the smoke thick as fog in the humid atmosphere of the party. It was getting around that time that folks had left or were crawling over the furniture, curling up like animals for a snug place to pass out. She shrugged her jacket back on over her shoulders, the music muffled in the effects of Nadine's decision to start cross fading. Continuing to embrace the encouraging influence she had over her friend, her hips swayed in her path out of the kitchen, slinking like a cat amongst the troupes of folks wading in and out of the house. She caught a glimpse of Cassie, shirtless, bra soaked in alcohol that the birthday boy was clumsily tugging to unfasten. Nadine giggled and looked back at Gabriel, sticking her tongue out with a wink, an audible slap across Mike's face sounding as he sat on the dining table. Cassie was about to take care business since he was too drunk to handle himself.

"I guess Cassie wants to check-in here for tonight. Ready for the long road out of this hell, Gabriel?" The front door was already open, swinging lightly as people wavered out on the patio, some smoking others sagging over on the sides of the house.

Walking home from a party out on the rim of town was a frigid, silent trek she was content making alone. But having him there, under the light of the stars. as the party's chaos faded away, kept Nadine chuckling softly in between their staggering. Like the moment they had earlier, she indulged to enjoy this sphere of privacy between them, hardly perceiving how it could be created with someone she had ceased to know for months. They passed through a line of trees, the dirt path devoid of sight. She curled her hand around the crook of his arm and they meandered together closely, the woods a short passage back into civilization, but none the less eerie. "How far is your place from here? Do you think you would mind, walking me back to my complex?" Her voice remained calm despite the sliver of sexual frustration. Cold air quelled the primal instinct from being too obvious in her behavior. She wondered how observant Gabriel was this late into the game.

"Not at all", he smiled. The cold air had done wonders to clearing his head. He was at this precious point where he was fully aware that he was drunk but didn't feel any of the effects, as long as he didn't try to hard to walk in a perfectly straight line, where his thoughts were relatively coherent but there would still be hell to pay when he woke up.

This quiet trek with Nadine was anything but uncomfortable. He could have thought of dozens of things to talk about now but he was content with listening to the occasional girlish giggle, or at least that's what he believed they were but when he turned to look at her, she just grinned and looked right back, as if she was waiting for him to repeat something funny he was doing unconsciously.
Things had not all been great in the past year and usually when all went silent, his mind wandered from one issue to the next, reminding him of everything that was falling apart, but none of these thoughts had any power over him tonight. The only thing that even remotely bothered him was walking all the way to the other side of campus, which might as well have been the opposite end of town at this hour.

They walked through the deserted streets, only the occasional car, crunching footstep or drunk yell in the distance disturbing the perfect silence of the night. It was a fairly long walk and by the time they reached the entrance to her place, Gabriel's fingers and toes were numb.

"Looks inviting", he commented, looking at a decently made graffiti on the wall right next to them. This definitely wasn't your retirement home in disguise but more of a progressive neighborhood, with quite a few college students inhabiting the apartments around. She fit right now. Both of them did, for that matter, since he didn't live too far away.

"So, tonight was..."
Gabriel had been raking his brain for how to conclude this interesting evening but when he met her eyes again, he immediately knew what was going to happen. Not once in the time they knew each other had she looked at him like that, not just affectionate but... 'glowing'. Of course, he could have just been seeing what he wanted to see, his judgement clouded by pot and booze, but if that was so, he was also a little too far gone to care. Everything about the last hours had been magical, literally, so maybe that old bastard God was making it all up to him.

Thy will be done.

He stepped forward, closing the gap between them. She didn't flinch, didn't back away, didn't break eye contact.
"Nevermind", he murmured and leaned in for a hungry, passionate kiss.

"Nevermind," she whispered in time with him, and closed her eyes to the kiss he gave her. She smiled under the pressure and snagged her claws into the collar of his jacket, yanking him past the threshold. Nadine's boot heel kicked the door shut as she idly dropped her keys, her senses dimmed by the darkness of her apartment. The taste of his tongue created a sweet diversion from sensibility, eager to suck the tip of it before she playfully ended that act in a tart nibble. When she opened her eyes, they grew accustomed to the soft glow of distant street lights outside the the windows. His portrait seemed as insightful as hers to continue.

In the hallway was a waist high hallway table she pinned him up against with her hips, assertive despite her small size to thwart him under the command of her movements. When she wanted his jacket off, she stripped him of it as she kissed his neck. Toying with the idea of limits, she cupped his groin as an act of bestowing a gentle massage, while the second hand artistically released his waist from the confines of a black belt. Before he had a chance to really unravel her own clothing, she stepped back, the pendulum movement in her hips leading him into the small living room. In the glow of orange by the lamps outside, he could see her sit down on a large, plush ottoman by a couch, snapping the looped belt against the ottoman's burgundy side.

"I'm going to be honest," her fingers danced the length of the belt before snapping it again. "I need this to happen, Gabe. I need this, maybe more than you do. So things are going to get rough before they taste any sweeter." Nadine parted her legs, rubbing the inline of her jeans with the belt. She undid her boots briefly, kicking each one of to the side as Gabriel approached her.

It wasn't unexpected. They had had their share of talks about her sexlife, about the stuff she would do with her partner; hell, half the time Diana would be sitting right there and fake a shocked look, but it wasn't like Nadine was too indescrete or Diana didn't like a bit of humiliation, if that even counted. BDSM was their thing and Gabriel was okay with that. It didn't prevent him from being friends with either of them and it didn't dampen his crush on Nadine. But he always knew that, if things ever worked themselves out, however unlikely that seemed, it would be an issue. He had enough knowledge about BDSM to know that about 95% of that was not negiotable. He was dominant and had always enjoyed it more to be in control than to give it over to somebody else.

However, this situation was special, Nadine was special and while he couldn't and wouldn't give her what she usually wanted or needed, he was more than willing to offer a compromise. Maybe, he hoped, she needed him more.

"I don't mind rough", he answered, standing tall and firm before here. He had been uncertain before, unsure whether she was just flirting and teasing as always, but this was where they laid the cards on the table. "But unless you want me to tie you up, that belt is not going to see any use."

Gabriel smiled and pulled the shirt over his head, revealing a defined torso and strong arms. It wasn't enough to make a bodybuilder feel inadequate but he was in good shape and the street lamp revealed it in a most pleasing way. He knelt down to get rid of his own shoes.

"Scratches at my back, a slap in the face..." - Gabriel remembered one girl who had a weird rape fantasy and wanted to genuinely struggle against him while he overpowered her; it was one of the reasons why he knew exactly what line he was not going to cross or allow Nadine to cross. "Being commanding or on top for a while... That is as far as you can go."

He rose, barefoot. She was still sitting on the ottoman, unmoved, and he wanted her, badly, but not at any price. His tone was assertive and his demeanor free of doubt as he stepped closer to her and leaned down to her, his lips inches away from her.

"But you will have to submit to me as well", he moved closer, "do as I tell you", their mouths were only a breath apart, "and endure what teasing I can come up with." When he thought she was going to close the microscopic gap between them, he withdrew, out of her reach. Had anybody ever resisted her like this?

"Now", he took another step back or two, "it's your turn to undress."

His tone had changed to a playful one, wrapping the order in the most considerate way he could come up with. He couldn't quite meet her halfway but he was willing to compromise. The only question was: Would she?

Nadine could feel her nails cutting creases into the ottoman's fabric as he whisked his lips out of reach. While this was no physical torment, the art of an aloof nature also enticed her desires for Gabriel, and Gabriel specifically. Men and women were a dime a dozen, including the shallow predicaments of a one night stand. What occupied the senses inside of her as a human being, privately in the night she imagined him accepting her. He could encounter a metamorphosis Nadine underwent within her own sexuality, even if Gabriel needed her to keep the extra accessories locked up in the closet.

"You believe your honesty will keep you safe from my tricks? If you wanted to play by your own rules," she raised to the heels of her pale feet, "You should have been clever enough to take me to your home instead." Never the less, her soft steps swindled her around, her back within his sight. The belt looped around her neck as a means of freeing her hands. Going to work nimbly on the ribbon lacing the corset's sides together, Nadine unraveled her top first. It sighed gently open and she freed her torso, revealing a pattern of scar tissue from years of practiced maso-sadism. It was centralized over her shoulders, shallow and merely discolored in their markings, some thin, some long and whipped over her body. She quickly let her hair down from the rubberband that held it, and it draped over the history in long thin tendrils.

The corset was thrown over her shoulder, hoping to hit her mark of him. Nadine was starting to unbuckle and unzip her pants, the buckle of his belt balanced in her grip while she did. She looked at him in a small turn of her body, the flesh of chest peeking out from around her arm. "Please come help me with this," she softly chided, and as an act of compromise, tossed the belt aside to the couch.

Nadine was profoundly stubborn about feeling insecure over her nature. Some days were easier than others to realize what kind of extremes she needed to satisfy her sexualities. She had long surpassed the period where she wallowed in pity or the need to blame others for her own behavior. She understood and remained very flexible in balancing her impulses and liked to believe that despite the extremes, she was functioning in the real world. The art, which decorated every facade of the apartment whether it be framed and finished, or a work in progress, helped stimulate and focus her triggers. The removal of most drugs, many failing partnerships, and the reserved nature of many of her mentors collected Nadine together.

The pieces in the living room were large and crawling with humans morphed with metal alloys, creatures that exaggerated their own mythical properties as they jumped out from their environments, and skulls rotten from the cranium, over grown with fungal fantasies of luminous colors. They were intricate and even in the dark of the apartment they fend realistic sophistication. The dichotomy of black-and-white to psychedelic color tones brought a sense of hot-and-cold that decorated an otherwise modest home. "I have to tell you," she dropped her voice to a whisper when he drew closer, "To keep two secrets to yourself." She licked her lips and suddenly revealed the playful bead of a tongue ring. "One, is the magic I showed you." Her laughter gently bounced the weight of her chest.

"And the second..."

Her fingers creeped the line of his pants, beginning to dance over the hem before plucking the button from its clasp.