Heartthrob

Once Esper James had been given her fill, Purity only a bit more pale for her trouble, the little ghoulette was whisked by her two companions over to the sleeping bag she had previously spent the night in. She was practically convulsing as her body reacted, fresh blood flushing away the old to the caustic pit of her stomach, simultaneously invigorating tired and semi-dead flesh with new essence. Her eyes contracted and dilated seemingly at random, her vision shot and blurry to the point she could barely make out the vague shapes of her friends, and the lights of the room were nearly blinding.

By contrast, her epidermis felt as though she had been dipped in a vat of aphrodisiac. Every single touch, of flesh, of fabric, of hair, of a fingernail or a zipper or the synthetic material of the sleeping bag's exterior... Every single one, even those so imperceptible to mortals as to be ignored, sent jolts like lightning through EJ's system. It was ecstasy, just to be touched, to be caressed by those women, especially Purity, whom her intoxicated heart had quickly bloomed with love for. She was an affectionate drunk, and now, drunk on human blood instead of mere alcohol, she couldn't stop herself from leaning into what she assumed was Purity's body. She could only guess based from smell, and the scent of Purity was so ingrained into her frazzled little brain that it was a simple matter to find her human lover's warmth.

Moments slipped by like grains of sand, chronological awareness the least of EJ's concerns as she let a needful moan erupt from her chest while being undressed. Fear couldn't even find purchase to grip at the bulwark of her heart as she was laid bare, flesh burning hot and rolling in waves at the merest hint of sensation. Even the thought of having the duo's eyes upon her body was thrilling, a concept she normally would have found mortifying, especially since she wasn't even lucid enough to think to hide her bloodborne arousal.

A blink, and then she was resting on her back, once again laid down in the sleeping bag with the other two standing over her. They were chatting in friendly tones, and while Esper James could have picked out every little inflection, each syllable crisp as a winter morn, EJ's mind was a haze. She had sunken deep into a crimson mire, brain engulfed by thick scarlet mud, the sanguine infusion from her lover more than enough to condemn her to an inward isolation. She couldn't even bring her limbs to move, no matter how hard she tried - she was too far gone, and too far by a mile.

Purity began to strip off as well, just as Kell turned to leave. The blinding lights of the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling were flicked off moments before the door shut, and then, the pair were plunged into the ambient darkness of a lightless room. Some luminance spilled from below the doorframe, entering in from where Kell had ventured, but otherwise it was lightless. EJ could barely see it, but she became aware, vaguely, that Purity was looking down at her. She tried to smile. She was subsequently unaware of how it turned out.

Cloth was slipped free of Purity's body, the exact form of it indiscernible from the bleariness of EJ's vision; she hadn't the presence of mind to even consider what they may be, but the scent of blood from the forearm wound and the lingering scabs of her shoulder wound made the ghoul's mouth water in visual input's stead. She could feel herself twitch as her lover dropped low, getting down on all fours, beginning to climb into the shared, cramped sleeping bag.

Flesh graced flesh as Purity wiggled in beside her smaller lover, bare against clothed, living against dead. Purity was warm, her body soft, her form just as plush as ever - but EJ, blood-glutted as she was, was burning hotly, her taut skin barely holding back muscles which writhed and flexed like individual entities below the thin veneer of her pale flesh.

The feeling of Purity's hands flanking her neck, the warmth of Purity's body emanating down from where she had propped herself up over the petite pillow princess, both caused a knot to form in EJ's throat. She wanted to cry out, to vocalize her surprise and delight, the red-water moor her grey matter had been enveloped in now replaced by the heavy, perfumed muck of Purity's presence. She couldn't make her mouth move, couldn't force the wind from her lungs, could only shut her eyes and immerse herself in the moment.

A mental mire became a physical embrace. Purity lowered herself so their chests were touching - EJ having been without a bra since she had originally dressed - and leaned her head down, her face so teasingly close. EJ tried so hard, tried to focus every ounce of her willpower, hoping to bring her hands up to caress her lover; her inability was crushing, but that crushing failure was swept away almost immediately as Purity's lips pressed to the ghoul's.

Below the quickly-warming cloth of the sleeping bag, Purity's hands were deft. EJ's panties were pulled to her knees with only a momentary shift from the pinkette, and once they were dealt with, Purity's thighs took her beloved's pride in their loving embrace. The feeling of this alone was indescribable for the smaller girl, the sensation of having her body caressed, her womanhood held tight, nearly too much for her. The rush of blood, the shuddering in her chest as she made each timid breath... She was completely at Purity's mercy. Just how she wanted it.

Love came quickly, and after some time, EJ found the strength to cry out. The derelict breakroom they found themselves in was momentarily transformed into a love nest, each movement of the hips, every little kiss or touch of the tongue driving the submissive second-living to the edge of what she thought she could handle. And then, of course, Purity would find another, new way to elicit those needy sounds from her playmate - dragging every sweet whimper from the bloodbound secretary like it was a desperate hallelujah.

If her cries and gasps were hallelujahs, then soon enough, Esper James was brought to the altar to pray. To beg for a far-away God, without words, but not without sound. Purity's thighs had freed her but simultaneously lowered her body so that a new warmth could embrace the ghoulette once more, motion insistent but not oppressive, Purity's affection far from demanding. The hands on either side of EJ's head, propping her lover up, were soon placed about her - a closeness was then provided that truly allowed the blonde to drown in her partner's body, her scent, her sensation.

With her brain too addled to focus on anything else but the love she was being given, Esper James was drawn hard and deep into the pits of submission. Even as her eyes started to regain their ability to focus and regulate pupil diameter she had naught but eagerness to please at the forefront of her mind. The lessons Judas had taught her rippled in her subconscious mind like a phantom of lust, muscle memory responding perfectly to the proffered tips of fingers and the seeking grip of hands. She was better this way, or so she told herself in what broken thought she could muster. She was better beneath the care of another woman.

Purity's nails dragged across EJ's back, leaving deep red marks, lasting reminders of their union. Her teeth, too, made an appearance: laid upon Esper James's bared neck, peppering her with bite marks, leaving indents in the shape of canines and incisors, forceful but restrained. Their shared warmth brought with it a humidity of mingling forms, both parties breathing heavily, Purity drawing EJ to her peak before letting her drop back down once, twice, thrice. Her experience made that of the ghoulette pale in comparison, and the far more adept of the pair was more than happy to tease her plaything until she was reduced to a pliant puddle to soak into their sleeping bag.

EJ's ears rang as she was raised to her peak, heat in her chest and in her hips reminiscent of a crematorium, every inch of her finding Purity's passion burned every bit as hot and bright as her own. If anything, it burned brighter: Purity, in her lucidity, was able to focus fully on her lover, lavishing her with kisses, with bites, and with the tender damp of their intertwined bodies.

More than the physical, though, was the emotional. Esper James's dead heart was given new life with every kiss, the blood of her lover within, the taste of her lover without, and in these ways she was completely enamored. Words started to return to her once again, her whole body trembling from delight, her voice a warble to rival a baby bird's. But maybe that was good, she thought to herself - to be a baby bird, for Purity to do as she pleased with. She needed this.

This love, this... this undivided attention, the display both in flesh and feeling, that Purity hadn't lied. She truly did love her. The blood had been proof enough, but now, with the scent of Purity's wounds and perfume filling both nostrils, she couldn't resist. Her heart was full to bursting; her core, pulsing with such adoration as to nearly break free from her chest, hummed with unspoken ecstasy at their mingling.

Purity then left EJ's neck, turning away just enough to display her own. She bared the side that EJ hadn't come close to biting, her virgin, unbroken skin of a pallid tone, soft and smooth and succulent to a blood-drunk ghoul. When she spoke, her voice was atremble, and just as drowned in the sins of the flesh as EJ's own quivering tone. "EJ. Cutie. I... I want you t-to bite me. Not... Not hard, not hard enough to break the skin, but... I want you to do it. I wanna feel your teeth on me... Lemme prove that I trust you..."

With a spared hand, she guided the blonde's head up to her own neck. The secretary's lips were dangerously close to that bared skin, the teeth behind them revealed in a monstrous clash between a smile and a display of hunger. EJ found the strength to split her maw, open it wide, and then, so gingerly as to be nearly taunting, bite down.

Purity gasped as if struck, eyes momentarily going wider than headlights, before they shut in a forced display of calm. EJ, for her part, was docile: she continued to bite, relieving Purity of fang-touch before gracing her once more with the pinpricks of her ivory. Purity's core tightened, her arms and legs tensed, a shudder of taboo excitement rippling through her. For all the second-living she had lain with, none had ever bitten her. She had never indulged such a forbidden desire.

With the introduction of Esper James's rows of oral daggers, and the way that Purity gripped her with every scrape of tooth-to-flesh, the love they made neared, and then reached, fruition. Purity had no intention of taking her hips from her lover's, pressing down upon her till the end, a coital kiss goodnight. EJ's desperate, needful cries as the heat and pressure of the peak of her personal mountain crushed in on her, truly drowned in the mire of Purity's body and purpose, were loud enough to draw a spate of laughter from the other room.

And then, catharsis. Purity pressed down on her partner, the intent changed, the sensation not dissimilar. Love had wettened the cloth of their bedding, but it was a minor discomfort at best - easily put from the mind, discarded like so much mental refuse. EJ's jaw released, and Purity was freed; in that darkness and still they lay, countless moments whiled away, chests heaving from exertion the only real movement in their den.

There they lay, entangled within one another's embrace, their sweat (mostly Purity's - ghouls rarely gave off sweat in the first place) and damp wicking away as the seconds ticked past. After a time, a knock came from the other room. Kell opened the door barely a breath later, leaning her head in and flicking on the lights.

"Hey, you two lovebirds, but, uhh... Err, I don't really know how to say this, but there's someone here for you. Both of you, that is. Apparently she knows the both of you? Said she found the place from an app on EJ's phone or something... Whatever. I'm just gonna let her in. Pull the covers over yourselves." And then Kell's head retreated into the other room, brunette wave of hair trailing behind like a chocolate stream.

EJ had dropped enough from her bloodborne delirium to be lucid, though her body still moved on its own beneath the blanket of Purity's frame. Her breath caught in her throat when Kell's words fell upon her still-ringing ears, and a new wave of adrenaline coursed through her veins as she considered who it could even be. Judas? That was most likely, but if it was Judas, then going here alone... without an escort, without even a chaperone, without a strike force to lock the building down and ensure minimal conflict? It was unlike her.

Then maybe someone from the club? Maybe one of Purity's friends? She supposed that tAsT had a geolocator built-in, because it could double as a life-tracker app, and maybe one of the girls from 'Purity's Princesses' was worried about her pink-haired provider? That would be strange, but not too unbelievable. Purity's implication that she had a connection to the flesh market, and the unspoken allusion to her offering similar services to second-living girls who needed their fix... EJ felt like this was the most likely explanation, a little proud of herself for having figured it out so quickly.

And then, the door swung wide. In stepped a beautiful and familiar woman. A puffy black coat draped itself over a lithe but muscled frame, her underlying torso concealed by a ragged tanktop that just said 'DEUS IN ABSENTIA' in large, ERFC-style text; her legs were concealed with black denim jeans, and heavy alt-fashion combat boots clomped on the cold concrete floor with every step. A shock of alabaster hair, spiky and barely reaching the lobes of her ears, sat above an elfin face adorned with crimson LED eyes and tanned, caramel-color skin. EJ nearly threw up upon seeing her.

"Heyyy, bitches. Bet you thought I was dead, eh, little lamb? And imagine my surprise when you two are bedfellows... No room for a third, I'd guess?" Esthrielle laughed, her organic lips reeling back to display a mouth full of those characteristic steel fangs, thicker than anything the morgues could produce. Purity, even through her utter shock at seeing her contact again, especially here of all places, couldn't help herself.

She put on a flirty smile and narrowed her own LED-lined eyes to bedroom stance. "Oh~? A third? I mean, I don't really mind... I'd be a bad girlfriend if I denied my little ghoul-pal the chance to try out an Easterner, heheheh...~" A suggestive wink capped the sentence like the tip of a bullet, and Est roared with laughter as she approached, seemingly unbothered by Purity and EJ's state of undress.

"Well, if you insist, Purity... But, no, really, hey. I, uh... I wanted to get in contact with EJ, actually, and then I saw that her apartment is up in flames like it got firebombed. Not me, this time, not any of my people, either. So... I checked the tracker I had the techies install in that collar she lent me. Guess I'm here now." She knelt down before the two women, one prone and one supine, and reached out a leather-gloved hand to ruffle EJ's hair.

EJ, who had up until now been dead silent, couldn't hold back a piercing exclamation of realization and frustration with herself for being so dumb. "FUCK!" The other two women just looked down at her, Purity taken slightly aback, but Est far too steeled to be startled. Esper James tore herself apart within her mind palace, having thought herself so smart, but never really sparing the time to consider why Est had returned the choker. It had a fucking tracker in it. She'd always know if EJ moved somewhere new; she'd always have safe harbor with a familiar face, because she knew EJ was too timid to tell her no.

The ghoul's face reddened with internalized embarrassment at her own foolishness; despite her, the other two continued, Est speaking first. "So... Just met Kell. She seems nice. Our goals align pretty well. Taking Tsang to task for their atrocities against human life, you know how it is... I guess our reasons differ a little, but looks like we're all in the same boat, huh? She told me you two killed a Tsang dude. Pretty sweet, imo." Yes, she did in fact say 'imo' aloud. A little reminder of how Est was, but one that made Purity snigger almost instantly.

The pinkette returned the serve. "Yeah... Fuck Tsang, honestly. They've done everyone here dirty, to say it lightly... but I dunno if it's safe to have you around us, yeah? You still gonna try and kill EJ and Kell and all of them just because Tsang decided they shouldn't stay dead?" A bubblegum colored eyebrow was raised high, emphasizing the quizzical gaze now offered to the Italian.

"Nawh... I, uh... I did what I could to try and convince my guys that, y'know, maybe the undead are just unfortunates. Having one of the people we're supposed to hate to the point of killing-on-sight spare me and shelter and feed me, it gave me a new view, in a sense. Can't say I'm fond of vampires, still, but hey. I'm willing to give 'the enemy of my enemy' a try. We take down Tsang together, or do what we can to, anyways, and who knows?" She shrugged, lips spreading thin in a mask of indifference before returning to the shark's grin she normally bore.

"Maybe if we give the crusade a few more years, the church will secularize - again - and we won't need to kill all undead, just, uhh... Prevent new ones from getting made. And if Tsang is out of the picture, all the better." She winked down at the pair. EJ finally found the strength to speak, finished kicking herself in the metaphorical ribs over her failure to even consider that she was being tracked.

"Est... It's g-good to see you again. I'm... I'm really glad you're not dead. Like, fucking super glad. I'm so sorry about everything that happened. I..." The stream of words trickled down to a drip, then the tap was fully stopped. Est ruffled her hair once more, nodding solemnly, her grin's intensity dimming from Cheshire down to mere amusement. "I'm glad to hear that. I was worried you'd be pissed at me still. Here... I snagged you something from your apartment before the flames could get it. I just hope it'll repay my debt, at least a little."

Est reached deep into the folds of her coat, hands rummaging within internal pockets, before producing a small stuffie of a rabbit, white with cotton-candy eyes, blue and pink. EJ felt tears well in her eyes and that knot return in her throat as she reached up and took it. A reminder of home... A home long gone, now. Bittersweet. She gulped against the knot as she nuzzled into the bunny's tummy, its humanoid anatomy letting its arms 'hug' her as she began to weep.

Home. That was a novel thought. At least she had this, because she knew that she could never return home again. No matter what.