My shitty friends and their stupid psychic parties (SomethingEsoteric, YellowSmoke

[SomethingEsoteric]

“Oh-my-God!” Stacy cried in a shrill sort of yip across the kitchen as Brooklyn awkwardly stalked in. “-You’re actually here, holy crap babe I didn’t think you’d make it!”

Brooke cringed at the graining calls of all her friends she was feeling more and more alienated from each passing milestone and bridge crossed without her. Brooklyn was doing well in life, in fact, she was probably more successful in her own right than most of her friends who shared in success with their partners same sex or opposite, she had a very nice loft with nice things, her own business and a project of hers mentioned in a Designedge Canada, an article on the way when she punched in an agreeable time with a journalist that had been leaving messages on her machine the past few weeks. Her success was something Brooklyn took at least a little pride in but after a failed relationship with a woman who didn’t quite respect it enough and a chain of reoccurring one night stands with her it was difficult to be proud of something her investment managing ex referred to as fooling around on your computer. “Yeah well, you better mix me a drink if you want me to stick around.” She hummed back with a raised brow, arms crossing over her chest with a feigned attempt at a begrudging frown – one that broke into more rueful a grin than anything.

“Well; someone hasn’t changed a bit,” a voice pierced through the welcomes – far more a cringe than the first playing on Brooklyn’s posture. “Stacy didn’t think you’d show so, I figured I would instead. You don’t mind of course?” Icy eyes and perfect prose, cause for resent practically poured off the woman, the last woman in the world Brooklyn wanted to see.

They were such profoundly obvious opposites, Brooklyn was in a pair of nice but not designer jeans and maroon felt wedges with a matching jacket, ample chest hugged by a white T-shirt that had a pink pantone swatch with white relief letters inside “1787PC” like it were straight off the paint rack at a local hardware store. Her long chocolate tresses were straightened and vibrantly sheen, pulled tight at her forehead and tied into a simple pony tail. Casual, comfortable, a little flourish for her passion in the pantone swatch on her shirt and just enough tact in fashion she didn’t look like a bum. Her polar opposite across the room however, a powerful clubby top that cascaded down her modest chest in many cream silk layers, black leather pants that hugged her perfectly toned thighs and behind, tall gaudy gold heels just like her gaudy gold bangles, earrings and chains – all a testament to her held high wealth. “Mm, and I wish I could say the same for you Jack.” Brooklyn croaked back, trying to sound cool and condescending toward her ex-girlfriend, sounding much more like the thorn-pawed lion Jacquelyn had left her feeling like.

Brooklyn took the chance to grab Stacy by the shoulder and steal her ear hissing at a whisper behind the music and laughter of all their mutual friends having a good time “What’s she doing here Stacy?”

“Uhm… I thought you guys were fucking… what’s it matter? Jackie’s came every year since you started blowing us off.” Stacy responded as if she were above reproach for what Brooklyn seemed to feel was a horrible crime against her.

“Yeah, well, not that it’s any of your business but we’re not anymore. It’s all fire and brimstone between us right now.”

“… well fuck. Sorry?” She asked rhetorically, “Uhm… so what, this going to be your excuse to get out of here? You haven’t even seen the nursery Brooklyn – I don’t think you’ve even been over at all since New Year’s… Halloween was last week for fuck’s sakes.” Stacy expressing how disappointed she was in her flaky friend, she had every right to be – everybody was getting pretty disappointed in how flaky Brooklyn was becoming, how she was always so pessimistic and clearly envious of their relationships.

“You know I’ve been busy with work,”

“You’re always busy with something, Bee… Just… stick around, have a drink, you’re late anyway so it won’t be long before you’re supposed to get your reading. Then you can just fuck off anyway. Okay? –who knows, maybe she’ll say Jack’s supposed to fall down a flight of stairs in front of you and you can save her and win her back… or laugh at her or what the fuck ever – just stick around.” An attempt to appeal to any one of the emotions she may be feeling toward her ex, “Just stay, we all miss you Bee.” –and then an appeal to the states of their floundering friendships across the board, after all, everybody in Stacy and Jessica’s home this very moment had been close not eight years ago in College and some even before that.

Before Brooklyn could answer Jess approached with her vice, four fingers of rum and one of coke – just enough for colour between the ice cubes, no lemon, no lime. “Smoke?”

Brooklyn smiled and took the rock glass taking a sip of sweet relief, “Nah – only after a few of these or a good lay since last month.

“Oh, so what – you’re still at a pack a day I assume?” They both laughed and Brooklyn’s frustration was disarmed completely. Jackie was sent off for her reading and Brooklyn found herself amidst only friends and only mild annoyances. So began the gambit she always tried so hard to avoid. Her friends were like the pantone swatches she spent most her days consulting, she loved them all on their own – it was when it came to mixing them that the troubles started. Some customers would request colours that didn’t suit one and other, weren’t complimentary at all, trying to blend them and make it look great could be such a bother. Brooklyn liked to think of herself Process Black C – she could go with anything, Stacy was like Hexichrome Magenta C – vibrant and gaudy, perfect with Jessie Process Cyan, Jessie and her could be fun together, they would joke cynically and grunt over a smoke about this and that, Brooklyn with Stacy meant Brooklyn being cynical and Stacy trying to scold her out of it – all three together was just a strange picking order she could never sort out. Yeah, Brooklyn was fine on her own, could go with just about anything – but when it came to putting all the rainbow of her friends into one complimentary piece… it got messy at best, more than just hard on the eyes.

Jacquelyn had been her Pantone 129 C, a regal sort of gold to gild her darker edges… as it turned out she always had to be the radiant sunshine that blinded, she didn’t brighten her edges – she obscured everything else. Brooklyn was never good enough, wasn’t worth respecting, was always just fucking around, wouldn’t go anywhere with her art, even after she bought her own loft, furnished it (mostly) started her own business and did well with it, to Jack – it was still just the doodles she’d drawn for her on the napkin in a night club trying to win herself a date.

The not so vibrant rainbow had clashed long enough by the time Jacquelyn was all done with her reading, strutting out of the coffee room as Stacy called it, an earthen toned sunroom with a glass wall her and Jessie always shared their breakfast in looking out into the backyard. “Well ladies, wait till you hear what’s in store for me!” she yipped triumphantly, apparently loving the news.

Jessie leaned in to Brooklyn whispering, “I’ve never seen anyone so excited about Botox and a UTI,” causing Brooklyn to nearly spit out her drink she choked so hard on her laughter.

“That’s why I love yah Jess; always know how to cheer me up.” With a powerful grin Bee found her feet and then her drink, following Stacy’s lead into the coffee room for her turn – empowered by the jokes and cheers of her friends, how they felt about her finally getting a reading after all these years of turning them down. Her empowerment faded back down to the apathetic sort of dead pan expression she greeted the rest of life with when she settled on the love seat across from the dark skinned woman doing her reading. “Just so you know now, no need to waste your breath – don’t really buy into any of this shit.” Brooklyn made herself comfortable and leaned back in the chair, still not ready to stare her in the face, not till she’d had another good gulp of her rum and coke. “-no offense.” Then, and only then did her chestnut brown orbs rise to find the woman across from hers’.

“Mind if I smoke?” a request she didn’t wait on – just acted, a sigh of relief following a white cone of smoke pouring from her lips once the cigarette was placed between and lit. Just about everything Brooklyn had done gave off a clear air of I don’t give a shit, but behind those cold sceptical eyes lay vulnerability, lonesomeness… maybe even a slow creeping sort of fear, that crippling fear, a fear of life and all the good things in it – the fear that said You don’t deserve it, don’t bother trying.

 

[YellowSmoke]

RE: Shitty Friends & Stupid Psychic Parties (SomethingEsoteric, YellowSmoke

Through the haze of tobacco smoke, two calm, impassive spheres the colour of chocolate gazed upon Brooklyn's visage, their possessor completely unfazed by the designer's blasé attitude. They did not scrutinise her - at least not on the surface - but rather stared through her, stared into her, as though some great truth were written behind her eyes in a code legible only to the sable-skinned reader. There was no smoke without fire, they said, and Maitreya knew that nobody - a believer or not - came to her without good reason. For some the reason was comfort, for many it was a need for direction, and for the very few, it was desperation. She needs something... spoke the fluid thoughts behind the static mask, and it did not take much of her life experience to assume that that something was stability or love, which so often held aloft the promise of stability, or at the very least excitement in a world which had grown stale.

Maitreya - Treya, to friends - had amassed experience in life beyond her years, and though not yet 30 she knew well the inner workings of most people. As with cards, the reading of people was not an exact science, but it came part and parcel with her art, and over the past decade she had learned that people were not so complex as they first seemed. They all worked with the same machinery, and in the end, they often sought the same goals, if through different channels. Each and every consciousness was a separate world unto itself, complete with its own customs and idiosyncrasies, but the elements of which these variegated worlds were composed were universal.

After a what seemed like a short eternity, the card-reader's lips slowly stretched into a friendly, soothing smile. Her skin was a soft, warm brown - a few tones lighter than the thick brunette hair which haloed her rounded face - and dimpled at the corners of her mouth. Her earthy complexion was complimented by silken garments of deep, lustful reds, tranquil blues and lively, optimistic shades of yellow and orange, though beneath the varnished wooden table she wore simple navy jeans. Above the table-top, she was all mystique and allure; she was dressed to fit the part.

"Then why are you here?" she asked, her mellifluous voice flavoured with accents of the Orient. The seed planted, she waved a seductive hand and continued before Brooklyn could respond, her eyes never once leaving the other woman's face. "It does not matter: you are here, and that is all that matters. Tell me - honestly - what has brought you before Maitreya tonight?"

As she spoke, soft tanned fingers noiselessly shuffled a squat deck of cards, deep and vibrant inks painted upon slightly over-thick card, and slowly she spread three cards upon the table between them, in such a way that it seemed inconsequential, even unimportant. Brooklyn had come for the cards to be read, and so they must be read. Or - from another perspective - the cards were emblems of fate, and fate could not be stopped. It formed from ether intangible to human hands, and was executed regardless of human effort or concern.

"Is it desperation? Hope? Has life broken you or does it merely bore you?" For just a second, Treya's eyes twinkled with an enjoyment which almost made her grin, but as soon as her plush lips had ceased to move it disappeared, and her unflinching, inscrutable gaze returned, her eyes pressing softly but inexorably into Brooklyn's person, as though penetrating her very being. It was true: Maitreya took a deep satisfaction in reading people, but yet a greater one in flaunting her ability to do so. Ever the actress of personified mystique, she would never go so far as to explain to a person their own state of being as glimpsed through her own existential lens, but loved instead to offer them snippets, teasers, fragments of prospective truth which the other may do with as they wished. Very often, she had found, the allure proved itself strong, and the seed of her insights would blossom into a truth cultivated by the subject of her scrutiny.

Upon the table, the secrets of the three cards lay concealed, and behind them sat their manipulator and interpreter, shrouded in silk and mystery, her eyes resting expectantly upon Brooklyn. Delicately, she flipped the first card, and the reversed image of the High Priestess turned her eyes towards the ceiling.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Brooklyn didn’t quite know how to swallow what was before her, so she blew it all out with another gout of thick white curls instead. The woman was gorgeous in a humble sort of way, she seemed to have a certain relaxed peace that Brooklyn could never hope to attain herself, in a way, just as she was envious of her friends and their happy picture perfect relationships Brooklyn was envious of how innately calm the woman before her appeared. It had to be an act, just like her vocation, there was no way in her mind any of this could get even an ounce of credence, even if she told her the most esoteric and unknowable facts about past and present and by some off chance told her of future happenings that just so happened to become reality – it would all be lucky guess, chance and… and that get up, it seemed just a little too much. –no, a lot too much.

“Ha, you’re good.” She crooned, tone suggesting she was just humouring Maitreya. “Seriously though, you can drop it.” Brooklyn added, twirling her smoke before the tobacco sizzled with another long drag. The fortune teller didn’t drop it though, she continued speaking and what’s more she spoke in words she understood by themselves but sounded so alien and cryptic in the way she wove them. In a very real way they felt foreign and belittling, in ways it felt like speaking with Jacquelyn could when they first moved in together, Jacquelyn entering her job at the firm – Brooke floundering for contracts with her graphic design dreams, before she’d learned how to tune it all out; more specifically it felt like she was in high school, speaking with a guidance counsellor – similar implications, someone who didn’t know Jack about you telling you how your future might could look… she groaned internally at the thoughts before referring to her drink for a second opinion.

It was impossible to stop herself from snorting once when the woman referred to herself in a third person, strikes in the dark and not one of them was hitting true. “Fuck, all of the above but that’s not what I’m here for.” She responded to the three options sardonically, she was desperate for something but Maitreya wasn’t going to get to hear a breath of that, she did hope for something different but even Brooklyn didn’t admit such things to herself and yeah, she was bored of her day to day life alone – who wouldn’t be? It was all broad strokes just about anyone could be coated in, varying shades of grey that made up the entire red-blooded population of the world. Everybody could feel stagnant in their lives, everybody hoped for more than what they were dealt and everybody, moreover, was looking for something – most desperately Brooklyn would wager, the whole human condition was a desperate sort of mess from her perspective, breathing alone was a desperate sort of mess from her perspective between cigarettes, pollution and a body that slowly grew reluctant in that one function that kept it vertical.

… and life hadn’t broken her, Jacquelyn had. Jack had started out so sweet, or maybe that was just the rosé sort of lens she reminisced through. Most people didn’t believe it but they were nearly engaged to be wed four years ago, when told Jacquelyn bought the ring and practically forced it into Brooklyn’s hand to give her when the time was right – the story generally came off as a little more legit. How wouldn’t that break someone? There was more to it than that, the terms of their engagement however was a pure analogy of it all, the same old story, one lover thinking they could surely change another – going about it in all the wrong ways. A critical mass came and Brooklyn could do no more, she’d ground her teeth so many times it was a wonder there were any left in her head.

-still, through all that she still had the ring… maybe she was more hopeful than willing, maybe just complacent and spiteful… probably just desperate with a penchant for contrition.

No longer could Brooklyn stare her in the face, curiously her eyes found the cards – smirking at the one that turned over before looking out the window “I’ll tell you right now, me here aint got nothing to do with that,” she referred to the robed woman on the card, clearly believing herself far from virtuous enough to have anything to do with a high priestess, she was here because being here meant they couldn’t ask her to be again, keep up appearances, let them know she wasn’t entirely the bitter twat she was sure they were making her out to be behind her back.

For all her tough-guise, her get-back posture and brazen burrs it was a defense mechanism she’d inherited from her father long again I’ll show you by hurting me. –and hurt she was.

“I’m here to get some friends off my back, so if you have to do this – act and all, at least get it over with quick.” The honesty Maitreya had asked for, given blunt and completely void of social tact, a certain blood sucking leech in a pair of designer heels always had that effect on her.

 

[YellowSmoke]

It was clear that Brooklyn wasn't going to buy into anything Maitreya had to tell her, though that had been clear almost from the moment she'd entered the room, a muted haughtiness about her person, as though she herself were too wise to learn anything from a reading. No matter, even pride could fall foul of hope, if the right chord were struck. One could take a horse to water, but you could not teach it if it did not want to learn - if it rode its own saddle too highly - and the reader could only cast her arrows into the ether and allow fate to determine whether or not they found their mark.

"As you may," came the vague reply. "But do listen to your heart if you will not listen to me. The High Priestess is both a spiritual and a sexual figure. I can tell that you are not a very spiritual person - I know, I know, I'm good, right?" Treya smiled humourously at her client, and watched with intrigue to see how sternly the other woman would keep up her walls. "This card may imply that you have a great sexual energy which is not reaching its potential, or that something is focusing your energies elsewhere and preventing you from attracting the right kind of person. The High Priestess always urges us to listen to our intuition... though sadly, we are often too busy to give it the time of day to guide us to happiness. Tell me: how is work?"

The way in which Treya phrased her final question implied a knowledge - or at least a strong assumption - that work was indeed taking up much of Brooklyn's time, though the air of conceit which marked her earlier assertions had vanished. With much of her clientele it was up to Maitreya to play the role of the wise woman, to lead the listener along the path to esoterically-accessed knowledge, but not so tonight - not with Brooke. Her act would not be believed if she could predict the weather for every Wednesday in the coming year; some trick or ploy would be behind it, and the fair-skinned, freckled woman before her would spend her energies figuring it out or ignoring it, and not channeling them towards happiness. But you will not be happy either way, Treya decided, gazing intimately across the table. Only Brooke would lead Brooke, she knew, and she wondered if the other had not been led before, only to fall and be hurt at the end of the path. Who tripped you, my dear? Who failed to catch you when their arms and breast were the only surface you wished to land upon?

Despite the stoic and sardonic reproach with which her art was met, Maitreya liked this woman. She acted strong, though she suspected that much of it was an act, and as an actress herself she could not help but feel drawn to the person opposite her. For all her warmth and wisdom, Treya had proved throughout the years to be a difficult woman to get close to. She lived her life as an act, focusing her energies on the lives of others, wherein all of us are actors, and her own world - her role as observer and subject of experience - she shunned out of a distaste for passivity. In her subjective reality she too often had too little control, and she herself made for a harsh and unforgiving audience, but upon another's stage she was always in control, and always able to paint herself in whatever way she wished before the onlookers.

She was all ears for Brooklyn's reply, the school counsellor act dropped as she listened intently and openly, her visage broadcasting a tranquil warmth about their intimate setting. On their own, each card was but an emblem possessed of a vague pointing in the right direction. With a little feedback and developed intuition, however, they could be knit together in series to paint a more coherent message, and already Maitreya had an idea of what her final words would be. When at last the next card was turned over, two Lovers lay entwined upon its surface. Treya's expression remained inscrutable.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Brooklyn looked back from the window as her telling continued and within it she decided maybe it was time she at least try to play nice. Every day she spent plenty of time dealing with people she didn’t respect or cared for about as much as a hang nail but she managed to be civil with each and every one of them down to the best of her sometimes waning ability, this woman had been doing readings for her friends for eight years now – being an ass to her probably wasn’t on card. She chuckled internally at the pun she’d struck but kept up the poker face that didn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. Brooklyn had a beautiful smile when it was twisted into a scowl or hidden behind her rueful grins, one that Jacquelyn said made her fall in love with her, Brooke always found it ironic, in little pity parties she threw for herself in private – that it was her that seemed to do everything she could to kill that smile, kill it and make it stay dead.

Listen to your heart, words like that always did well to make her cringe. She crushed the smoke in an ash tray between them and leaned forward in her seat, chin propped up on an apathetic palm. “Heh…” to Brooke it was funny, a high priestess was a sexual figure in this twisted little deck of hers – even funnier when she began to pander to her scepticism “Gold star.” It was true, Brooklyn wasn’t spiritual – what had god done for her lately that she should be giving him much regard? Sometimes Brooklyn found herself praying to a god of convenience, a god that provided parking spots and there to be lemon cake at Starbucks by the time she got there, she prayed to a god that kept people from getting caught in lies, helped them avoid the things they didn’t want to do, kept them available for the things they didn’t – was apathetic to the scorn when it didn’t work out. –Brooklyn was about as spiritual as was convenient on any given day or about as spiritual as just saying Oh god, god please, holy fucking Christ, -in essence, she was too selfish and self-seeking to go believing in powers greater than herself. Brooklyn was as spiritual as society suggested someone be through common sayings, catch phrases and behaviors – nothing more, no real faith, some very real resent – because surely, if there was a god, how come she was so damn low?

“So, do you draw that card for everyone?” Brooklyn chuckled midway through the description, leveling with Maitreya, just as she’d suspected – those broad strokes that could sum up everyone and anyone – they certainly did her. The idea the deck might be stacked still hadn’t come to mind, Brooklyn didn’t know if it was – if she went through all that effort or if she had a broad stroke for every card that could possibly be flipped, the all-knowing way she spoke about work however seemed to drum up a reaction more than just the smirks, scoffs and other boorishness Brooklyn had met the reading with. She resented the implication, it sounded far too much like Maitreya was assuming stuff unfair – she told everyone work was fine, if she didn’t like them it was great or fabulous, the wait Maitreya toned it implied she lied – where the resent came from, that resent that said Maitreya was right no matter how hard pressed she’d be to get Brooke admitting it.

A long huff through her nose as she swished a mouth full of rum from one side of her cheek to the other, finally swallowed, feigning deep thought for something she could have answered easily at any time. “Well, work is fine. Great even,” she half-lied, “A little… hrmph, quiet. –and trust me, there’s no lacking in my sex life.” Eyes narrowing, two half lies and reluctance to share more. Brooklyn wasn’t about to brag about sex but she knew a one night stand was always just down the road and she did well enough for herself, as far as work went however, successful as it was panning out to be for her – it was more than just quiet, it was beginning to feel as lonesome as every other piece of her life. Being in business for yourself, working out of home, it was great in so many ways – but if home life wasn’t so great how could working out of home be any better?

As bothered as she was by everything she’d responded to – most of all she was bitter about the right person bit… true though. “Right about one thing though, I sure know how to pick’em.” Brooklyn agreed sardonically, tilting her head on her chin to look at Maitreya – really look. Her envy started to shift inside, work toward something that looked a lot more like commandment or maybe admiration? –respect at least… and she really was rather attractive. “What about you? –oh hrmph… sorry, I forgot. You ask the questions.” She rolled her eyes and looked to the next card, once again less than impressed by what it may bring… a little tug inside willing to listen though.

 

[YellowSmoke]

The self-appointed Queen of Mystique allowed her enigma to be broken for just a moment, raising an eyebrow in a manner so smooth when Brooke inquired about her sex-life that it seemed seduction lurked in every muscle she possessed. It did not arch violently, nor was its graceful movement the culmination of years of practice; fluidity of motion came naturally to Maitreya. That single gesture captured much about the woman, strengthened by the fact that she did not deign to reply, but left questions lingering in the air. Was it intended to be so seductive, so suggestive? Or was it just her innate manner? Reading the Eastern woman was like trying to read her cards: nothing was solid, and it took careful intuition and guesswork to formulate a meaning. Even then one was often wrong.

She sensed that she had been on the money in regards to Brooke's employment. Whether all was fine in work or not, there was an unhappiness connected to it directly or indirectly, though she doubted very much that it was at the root of the uneasiness. Whoever it was who had hurt her in the past had left behind some emotional scar tissue, baggage which itself clung to the woman's hands no matter how much she tried to let go, and weighed her down no matter which direction she turned. She felt a twang of pity for her, though only in so much as one has pity for a character in a play when Lady Luck turns her back upon them; life itself was one great tragedy, and Treya would not play her part so willingly if she did not take some form of enjoyment from observing the trials and tribulations of others. She had made a choice long ago that that was infinitely preferable to witnessing and - oh, the grief - experiencing one's own misfortune.

The puzzle was beginning to reveal itself, and the appearance of the Lovers on the table seemed fortuitous. The path of the weaver's needle was opened, and few knew how to knit quite as well as Maitreya. A good reader must know how to be impassive - something which Treya detested - and to act as nothing but a vessel for intuition and energy. The cards told a story written for the client and the client alone, and the good reader must not taint or bias that tale in any way. Ego was the enemy of the reader who sought to pursue their art virtuously, though ironically, Maitreya was egotistical almost to the point of narcissism, as well concealed behind silk and warmth as that fact may have been.

"Work is fine," she mused, for the first time seeming to fall into thought, and her eyes fell away from Brooklyn. The way she annunciated the word "fine" - mimicking that which Brooke had spoken - again suggested a hint of scepticism, or was it mere consideration? It was difficult to tell. "The twins often suggest ambivalence... but I think their appearance intimates a change which lies ahead of you. For you, we may call them lovers..." Her cool, bottomless brown eyes met with the designer's again and stared unflinchingly into them. "But all will be revealed upon the next card."

With another delicate turn of her slender wrist, the card-reader upturned the final tarrocho to reveal an ornate depiction of a conical tower, endless steps winding their way about its exterior from bottom to top, and silence fell across the room. Treya took some time to inspect the card, another show of mystique as she pieced together her final prediction. When at last she spoke, her words were soft, almost intimating concern or pity for her sceptical counterpart, though in the end they were matter-of-fact. Fate was, after all, unavoidable.

"You will fall in love," she said after her gaze had returned to Brooke's, and again her eyes seemed to look into her and not at her, "or at the very least will meet someone who will fuel a fire in you which you thought had been extinguished for good. It will be a time of great ecstasy, though it will not come for free... No, it will be involve a struggle - perhaps against yourself - and in the end I fear that your heart will be broken once more. For that, I am sorry, but... who knows? Perhaps in meeting this fate, you will learn to overcome yourself."

And there it was: the final jab which would ensure that her words stuck; the closing prick which - through whatever means of emotion - would leave Brooke unable to simply cast her prediction aside without at least a curse or a reluctant wondering. She had written tragedy amongst the stars for this woman, and like fate, the tragic was inevitable. Now it would be left to the other women in the house to cultivate the seedling with their queries and togetherness, and the brevity with which she had wanted Maitreya to conduct her business would serve only to humiliate her before her friends.

"If that is all, you may send in whoever is next."

Treya smiled and in that moment the illusion of the Queen was broken: she was just another human wishing her well, but wasn't there a smug assuredness beneath it all?

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Brooklyn’s nose wrinkled slightly when the fortune teller repeated her words, it was patronizing, patronizing just like Jacquelyn could be and that was enough to take her defensiveness up to the next level – and it was plenty high in her natural state, a state of constant flux even without someone preying on her inner most insecurities – all like raw nerves, just as likely to be pleasured as they were pained by even the lightest of strokes. With each passing moment her patience was running thin and her walls building themselves more and more treacherous. She didn’t want to hear about love, the lovers, or how in this case – special exception for her just, they would be renamed as such. She couldn’t sit through it for another second – she had to though, a little glimmer inside begging for her to stay, to hear it out – the possibility she may not be so lonesome any longer was enough to keep her glued to her seat.

It wasn’t necessarily that Brooklyn wanted to be loved and love in return, but everybody did on some level did they not? She didn’t need to be loved, she wanted it, she needed to feel wanted – like any woman… she hadn’t felt wanted in a long time, not that way, for all her one night stands and weekend flings beneath her sheets Brooklyn only ever felt wanted in the moment, wanted in that period of attraction at the bar that preamble the stumble home, the exchange of flesh, that sweltering moment where passion was crystalized in an almost egregious flame both parties would give anything to stop from smouldering down to the short of breath cinders that inevitably followed. It really wasn’t a very nice feeling when she admitted to herself she only felt wanted with a woman beneath her. –the only remedy for that was love, a relationship, the honey moon period her and Jack had before the lies and patronizing started, before Jacquelyn only looked at her from down her nose, when Brooklyn started sleeping with other women hoping with all her heart Jack would catch her so she didn’t have to build up the guts to tell her it was over.

In the time between the card being flipped and the delayed response Brooklyn had downed the last of her drink and splayed her fingers thoroughly only to ball them just as tight – white knuckles showing her shot nerves. There it was; the final blow that had her entire body clench like a tazer shot to her kidneys. Love, you will fall in love, her teeth clenched and the guise was impossible to keep entirely intact, veneer chipping, a little slab of her poker face sliding off and shattering at her heels – revealing that broken, desperate hope that Maitreya had touched on previously all but free of the boredom in life.

She stared in shock, she looked to be in shock – eyes spreading wider than they’d been previously, lips parting slightly, words at the tip of her tongue she couldn’t quite command. She’d be given love… a warm liquid soothing sensation drizzled over her heart… it soon turned to constricting icy grip however. She’d be given love, a hard love, most were – and then be hurt, broken hearted once again. Brooklyn’s face twisted to one of utmost derision for Maitreya, a look of deadly blame and judgement, disgust in what the judgement found. How dare she? –How could she say such things to her? How cruel it felt, insult and injury to brow beat her hope down to hopelessness, desperation encroaching further in replacement. Desperation in Brooklyn often came out as frustration and bitterness.

“Wh-wha?” She croaked, it was like dangling a sirloin in front of a beaten hound – just out of reach, give them a taste and pry it away… only to shoo them off before a whine for more could be conveyed. “… I thought you people were supposed to put a bright spin on this shit…” Brooklyn added in the same hoarse grumble of contrition before her head began to shake. “Whatever, what the f-… Yeah. –Yeah, okay.” The freckled woman, clearly upset by words that struck her so profoundly stood with such excited force the couch she’d been on leg’s screeched against the painted hard wood beneath, storming off, drink held loosely in her hand, ic ecubes and missed drips cascading out and along the floor as she ripped open the door and slammed it behind her.

Fuck her, what the fuck did she know? It was all bullshit anyway – Brooklyn was resigned to that before she walked in – it shouldn’t affect her so much, she didn’t want to allow it to. Just the same, being told you’d be given something so desperately pined for, then lose it for the second time in your life but a complete stranger, a smug bitch with a plastic placidity to her, condescending tone under a guise of wisdom… no fuck her! “Heeeeeey! How’d it go Bee?” Came the obligatory chime of all her adoring friends, then a pin-drop incriminating sort of silence as they saw the clear anger and hurt on her face.

“Wh-woah, Bee, let’s go for a smoke.” Jess whispered, reaching out for the crook of her friend’s elbow, leaning in to whisper “You look pretty rattled hun.”

“Don’t!” She hissed, taking her arm back “I’m gunna go now,” she said through a vicious enforced smile. “Thank you so much for that Stacy.” Her tone dripping with venom as she marched with purpose through the kitchen and out into the room leading to the driveway, avoiding Jacquelyn’s presence the whole way.

“Well, I see she’s not learned any mano-“

“Jack, c’mon.” Jess defended her friend before her wife chimed in.

“Yeah, well – she’s right Jess. That’s rude.” Stacy sulked, taken from her Hexachrome Magenta by Brooke’s Process Black, if only for a moment. “It’s your turn Meggy,”

“I better uh… I think she had one of my glasses.” Jessie rushed to the back door to find the empty glassware on the ledge where keys and gloves were kept, sighing, defeated – Brooklyn gone.

In a huff, Brooklyn fuming more than ever, so upset she felt her face burning with emotion, eyes stinging, blaming it all on the crisp November air, using the cold for her concealment just as she’d use more stiff drinks, cigarettes, maybe a line if one presented itself, use anything to hide just how upset she was by the bullshit telling. With any luck she’d find someone to make her feel wanted for that brief moment and with a promise based upon something she detested, something she swore up and down the wall she didn’t believe in, something she screamed inside her head was a bunch of clever, cruel bullshit, if she found someone tonight – it would be nothing more than a one night stand – even if it meant leaving her own damn house upon waking up beside a warm body – JJ’s could provide all these and more. The pub she and the other girls had gone to since college, an LGBTQ hang out in the village just three subway stops from their school and a three cigarette walk from Jess and Stacy’s. She’d met Jacquelyn there but she didn’t attach that to the homey atmosphere.

… plenty shitty things happened back home but she still loved it there, just like one of the worst things to ever happen to her she thought happened here – but she still loved it and loved that almost all her friends had grown out of the scene for more suitable venues for their age and wage.

“Hey Bee, same as always?”

“Make it two.”

“You got it doll,”

And there at the bar she would sit, as she always did when wounds were in need of tending, no secret to any one of the girls.

“Ha, so what was it you said to Brooklyn?” Jacquelyn yipped, apparently taking ripe joy in the woman’s reaction when the last of them had gone through Maitreya’s gift, “Probably told her she’d fall in love right? –she’s terrified of the stuff y’know? –Pfft, probably licking her wounds down at JJ’s right now… or drowning them more like. Am I right?” A pleased as peach cackle and a roll of her eyes that spoke to her own insecurity on the subject where her glass spilling over didn’t, while she’d just burnt Bee it seemed she was burnt long before that, all the women in the room but Stacy looking to the gaudy woman with cut eye, the room suddenly just as tense as the coffee room had been before Brooke stormed out.

“Come on Jack,” Jess sneered, “I’ll call you a cab – you’re being a bit of a bitch.”

"She's fine, I'll call her a cab. -Thank you so much for coming Maitreya - you're a miracle worker." Stacy gushed, trying to brush the unpleasantness of this all under the rug with her maternal instincts, "We'll have to keep in touch for next year hmm?" And a bright agreeable smile to seal it all, not far away Brooklyn ordering yet another drink to seal herself away with any luck.

 

[YellowSmoke]

A strange sensation tingled through Maitreya's body as she left the house, agreements over next year's meet having been sworn to, and pleasantries exchanged. Her ploy had worked perfectly - better than even she could have hoped - though so much so that she almost felt bad for the woman she'd caused to storm out of the house and away from her friends. The tingling had begun when she'd learned of Brooke's departure, right at the confirmation of the fire she'd gleaned burning within the woman's bruised heart, and which had immediately attracted her to her. Now, with the crisp late autumnal air upon her cheeks and her silks stuffed into a slightly over-sized brown leather purse, that tingling rose again in the form of excited anticipation. She knew Brooke's likely whereabouts, and she knew JJ's.

In her black, knitted turtleneck sweater and blue jeans - the former clinging tightly to the sultry curves of her upper body - she looked entirely a different woman from she who had sat behind table and cards, mystique and foreign allure, and given the reaction she'd drawn from Brooklyn that could only be a good thing. She'd need a new act if she were to find her at the bar, something more compassionate and sympathetic. As much as Treya loved to play the actress, she also delighted in scripting and directing the plays of others, and tragedy was her forte.

Of her many talents, dealing with the North American chill was not one of the more outstanding; she tugged her black leather jacket more tightly to her figure and strode on towards the bar, hips swaying delectably as she walked. Had she pushed her too far? Her own gifts sometimes surprised her, and she wondered how much of a task she had set for herself this time. No matter: Maitreya was as confident in her own abilities as she was disposed to meet a challenge, and boy was she looking forward to seeing Brooklyn again. She had evidently whipped up quite the tempest in the young woman, and eagerly anticipated seeing how big a storm she had created. Would it be violent and centrifugal, or centripetal and cannibalistic? Oh, such excitement!

A brisk breeze caught her dark, voluminous waves and they fluttered behind her before settling down again, and a feverish grin spread across her lips. Oh, Brooklyn... how beautiful you are when you are angry. How divine you must look when you are sad. The thought of those freckled cheeks streaked with a single tear was almost painful in its beauty, as was all good tragedy. There were times when Maitreya's heart twisted in the face of such elegant calamity, but she could not change the fate which awaited us all, and in the end one had to learn to love it.

At the crossroad of Kennedy and Mount she turned, glanced left and right and crossed the street, her handbag rocking gently against her hip with every step. Up ahead, fluffy rivulets of smoke drew a line between the two neon J's above the entrance to the bar and a trio of patrons beneath the sign, before dispersing into the night air. Treya paid the smokers no heed when she reached the doorway, passing them as though they were little more than bland ornaments and stepping inside. Within, the warm air caressed her chilly cheeks and immediately her eyes scanned the set for her co-star. It didn't take long for her to spot the gloomy figure hunched over the bar, one hand clasping a rock glass.

"Brooklyn? Oh, I'm so glad I found you," she spoke when she approached, appearing at Brooke's left shoulder from out of the dim light of the bar's interior. Her voice was all honey and worry, a look of genuine concern upon her graceful features. "I felt so bad when I heard you'd left; I didn't mean to upset you. I just... I thought you wanted it quick and to the point. I..." She sighed heavily, desperately. Her eyes moved and caught her own reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and for a brief moment she imagined herself elegantly posed with the back of her hand pressed to her forehead in a dramatic gesture of hopelessness at the distress she'd caused this beautiful woman, though through her eyes she saw that it was she who was distressed. She hadn't meant to stir such anguish in the other's emotions, she told herself.

"I'm sorry. Can I... buy you a drink?" She shrugged, as if to emphasise the guilt she felt, and her deep, brown eyes gazed intently into Brooklyn's, pleading for her forgiveness.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Brooklyn’s eyes raised from her glass, the third of three she’d been nursing for the passed twenty minutes – the first two downed practically one gulp… now, this, her third four finger rum and coke was practically turning to murky water with the ice melting faster than she cared to sip. She’d drawn several hearts on the polished counter top – the struck through them with her cruel index, no bubbles or glistening of the condensation persisted on the bar top or her sweating glass’s side, however the oil from her fingertips left behind unsightly smears of film in the relief of her weak little heart’s omissions of guilt. The pathetic doodles, melting cubes, atmosphere, none of it was responsible for her piqued attention however. Bleary eyes, dulled by alcohol consumption swayed to find Maitreya and her name being said with a certain hasty concern.

… and she hadn’t even told her it. Brooklyn looked less than impressed to see her, just like when she’d flipped each of those cards, if not a little more bewildered, it was sort of surreal in a way – she’d spent the better half of an hour steeping in scorn for the tarot reader – and here she was, the only of all those present at the party to actually check up on her and make sure she was okay, that had to say something about the state of her friendships that a complete stranger who’d practically stepped on her throat was more concerned for her state than eight of her best, and only, friends in the world – and one ex.

A small hiccup jerked her chest, “Hrmph, couldn’t of been that hard.” She croaked, rubbing her eyes before turning on the stool to face her a little better, still in shock, not entirely sure if this was actually happening let alone how to approach it all without making an ass of herself yet again, “I’m fine.” She repeated, same tone, just like work – fine. Brooklyn had a serious case of fine, her shrink used to say, fucked inside, nice exterior, she was pretty much on the money when she’d labeled Brooklyn with it, but Brooklyn thought that was bullshit too and was just fine saying fine even though to the rest of the world it meant anything but just that, fine. “Hrmph, fine.”

Her brows lowered and her lip with it, mouth agape, head shaking twice like she was trying to will sense into the woman, just noticing for the first time she wasn’t in the ridiculous get up from before… hell, she actually looked normal – pretty normal, normal and also pretty. If Brooklyn wasn’t so hung up on just how offended she’d made her she might even consider buying her a drink, or taking the one offered. “Fuck tha-at,” she’d tried to bark but all she could manage was a whine. “You like… lied and stuff. –that’s what you people do, you tell pretty little lies to make vulnerable people feel good about stuff that’s not for us to know and… and I pissed you off because I don’t believe in the shit so you decided to start with one of your pretty little lies then turn it into something…” she’d almost admitted, something that was sure to hurt her – it had, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “You told the wrong lie, and now you’re here to tell me stuff that’s supposed to make me feel better, but not for my sake – oh no – it’s so you can sleep a little easier thinking you consoled someone you hurt in the first place. So no, thanks but no thanks, I don’t accept your apology and I think I’ve already drank enough for one night.”

Despite her words, she turned to her glass and took a big filthy gulp, one that subsequently made her hiss and shudder, realizing just how much her ice had melted – making the rest of the drink taste terribly. “On second thought, a drink would be nice. If it’s just about sleeping a little easier, you can take that as your professional duty not to fuck with any customer’s heads and call it a night. –close enough.” Her words were slightly slurred, most said with a bitter sort of pensiveness, they sounded rehearsed too – each carefully picked in her head before she over annunciated to hide her intoxication and moreover her still salted wounds, sometimes Brooke couldn’t help but be difficult – I’ll show you by hurting me, when what she really needed was to take the apology and that consoling she practically spat in the face of.

 

[YellowSmoke]

A hint of pity crept into Maitreya's visage as she gazed upon the hurt and bitter woman before her, though it had none of the conceit which Brooklyn no doubt associated with her after their encounter earlier in the night. In its place shone a genuine concern; she really had upset her more than she had intended, and apparently the remedy for her distress lay in a squat glass, mixed with coke and ice. How much has she had to drink? It certainly seemed as though she'd had enough, though no sooner had Treya silently agreed than Brooke was twisting, changing her mind and accepting the offer of another. She caught the bartender's gaze without much delay - the bar was quiet enough, it seemed - and ordered two of whatever it was that the freckled beauty had been drinking.

"I'm very sorry you are so upset," she spoke after pulling up a stool and slinking into it, leaning closer to Brooklyn and delicately raising a hand as though to caress the side of her face, but thought better of it and let it fall with a rueful grimace. "When you came in you seemed so strong - so defiant - I didn't think you'd listen to anything I said, so I didn't think it necessary to sugar-coat my words. That was wrong of me: I knew that the cards had been cruel to you but... oh, Treya. You've no excuse," she scolded herself, and for a moment turned away in shame.

"I should have been more tactful. Honestly, I felt threatened by you. Fate is a tricky thing... Have you ever thought that sceptics never see ghosts? That somehow by denying their existence they become unable to perceive certain phenomena? It sounds silly - I know - but if it were true, then how am I to know that you may not be imperceptible to fate? I can't change what the cards intimated to me, but if my words have caused you such distress, then I hope that with fresh words I can give you fresh hope. After all, you don't really believe what I told you, do you?"

Apparently, on some level Brooklyn did believe it, or at least feared that it might be true. Maitreya knew that as long as she was around, it would take time for the poor woman to forget what she had said, but that only gave her the leeway to appeal to Brooke's sensible - or sceptical - side, without feeling like she'd undermined herself in her own eyes. Throughout it all, her voice exuded concern and regret, and the intentness with which she held - or tried to hold - Brooke's gaze garnished that concern with genuineness. She'd offered her a glimpse beyond the mystique to a real, compassionate person beneath, and Maitreya hoped that she would recognise how little the eastern woman would have cared about hurting her if she did not hold genuine compassion for her. She was not here to cleanse her own conscience; she was here to convince Brooke that whatever the cards had said, love was worth chasing.

The drinks arrived and Treya smiled as she paid, maintaining the expression as she tipped her glass into contact with that of the drunken woman upon whom her eyes rested with such care and tenderness. "To forging one's fate, eh?" she toasted, a gentle smile upon her exotic features. At least, so I hope...

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Upset, Brooklyn hated that word – and hate was a strong emotion to feel, she didn’t much love feeling, hate too was an emotion for the weak she didn’t much like signing herself into - tolerance in place of hate meant strength, Brooklyn was always hard pressed to tolerate things for long. She raised her hand to her face and motioned like she might pinch the bridge of her nose, instead, she groaned and reached into the breast pocket of her jacket and retrieved a small pleather case, clicking it open with a little fumble and picking a pair of thick plastic glasses from within, opening the arms and pushing them up her nose to look upon Maitreya with new eyes. Just like upset, she didn’t like what glasses implied. The word upset implied sadness, vulnerability, weakness – she preferred angry, mad, pissed – all of the above and so many more, just not upset. It took a lot of overcompensation for her to be comfortable with her insecurities and her insecurities were many in number. Glasses made her feel kinda smart, they kinda helped her headaches and eye sores when she wore them regularly, usually it was more a delayed measure far after the time they were needed, she didn’t like the idea they may make her seem old, tired, falling apart – which was exactly why she kept them pocketed at Stacy’s they were still relatively new.

With a return of the rueful grin Brooklyn shifted in her seat, tapping the back of her felt wrapped wedge against the wood leg. “No, no, no – you got it all wrong.” She huffed, “First off, fuck you,” she said with a certain levity behind her voice that seemed endearing, like she wasn’t angry so much as… well, it was like a long-time friend may casually call another a bitch then chuckle, she wasn’t trying to be rude parse, “if you’re trying to cheer me up, don’t preamble by telling me I’m weak." she'd said she thought Brooklyn was stronger, it seemed to Brooklyn that was perceived as saying she was weak, "–second off, fuck you twice, you have plenty of tact you just have shitty timing as to when you want to use it. Evidently you’re very tactful when it comes to apologies, even if you suck at them.” She chuckled and turned to the bar taking a sip, almost like she was having fun, one of her hands waved with a finger out like she was coming to her next golden point of the debate she’d apparently prepared for, glasses and all.

She leaned back into a backing of the stool that didn’t exist before coming to her next point after a little woble “If a sceptic sees a ghost they're still sceptic or they cease to be, there’s a difference between not believing in shit and being sceptical about it.” A sniff as she turned back to her from the drink, tabulating what else she had to shoot down, correct or further debate on – like conversation was a contest, something Jacquelyn had left in her, claw marks, just like the claw marks she left on every emotion she tried to let go of, most claw marks belonging to emotions Jacquelyn brought up in her.

“And no I don’t believe what you told me, and I don’t believe my mother’s and past lover’s lips have some sort of miraculous curative nature still not discovered by science how ever many years after the institution of modern medicine and yet when I’m hurt a good kiss better sure does feel swell.” She adjusted her glasses and ran her tongue along the roof of her mouth tasting tobacco and rum, rather unpleasantly, “So like… it’s like you went to kiss me better not to say I need that, and ended up fucking spitting on me or something like I’m the red-headed step child. So… yeah, that sucked.” a little snort, amused by her own simile on the subject - that was it wasn't it? Her beginning and end? The readings were pleas for protection blankets, asking someone to tell them it was all going to be okay - and Brooklyn was apparently so strong she didn't need that reasurrance from anybody let alone a stranger. Her own deception, more aimed toward herself than anyone.

This whole time she’d left Matreya hanging on her toast to forging fates, “I don’t do fate, more wishful drinking,” a Freudian slip on wishful thinking, “but, a toasts a toast.” So she raised her glass and clinked Matreya’s.

“I do re-branding for a living… like I go and… I don’t know, like, change logo’s and appearances – typefaces… pretty much I make shit look better so people want to buy it more. To be honest, I've done a lot of nice shit, they're not all trash but... I do the same thing you do, I make people believe things are better than they feel on they are on their own, –you should drop the costume stuff, you look better…” she swallowed and shook her head, looking now where in particular before leveling eyes with Matreya “… real.” And there it was, all out on the table, Brooklyn as real as Brooklyn got – blunt and brutally honest, confronting without being entirely confrontational beyond a few vulgarities… this was Brooklyn, real.

… real drunk, at least.

-and it all felt great, like she'd really gotten to just... release, all the steam and anger, resentment and sickly sort of fear - it was gone. Problem, that just left a void, a rather remorseful kind of void. She'd just chewed out a complete stranger for being nice to her, even if it was in a playful sort of manor. "Ugh, sorry - I probably owe you a drink now," Eyes going wide she nodded twice and resigned to it, "fuck, eh?"

 

[YellowSmoke]

A soft smile curled one corner of Maitreya's mouth, her external look of relief mirrored internally by the promise of success. Brooklyn was opening up, and to the easterner's delight, it quelled none of the fire which had kindled her attraction to the fair-skinned woman. As each of her arguments were picked apart before her - some more clinically than others - she resolved to fight for them only far enough to let Brooke defeat them; a win given was nothing compared to a win gained, though by the time the other had finished speaking, Treya felt no need to argue. Most of the tension between them had been dissipated and it seemed that Brooklyn had vented plenty to put them on a level playing field.

Even better, she had let her in on a more personal level. The walls erected during the reading had been torn down - temporarily at least - and Treya wondered if it was just the alcohol and if, come morning, a resurgence of resentment would dawn upon the now-bespectacled woman whom she eyed with tranquil intrigue. She sat still while she listened, as though she were so interested in what was being said and in the speaker of those words, that her own body and appearance became forgotten to her. Maitreya had few tics, unless of course they were called for, but in general she liked to exude a calm confidence and self-assuredness. Only when the kiss-come-spitting gesture was explained to her did she nod sympathetically, and when Brooke surprised her with a compliment - one which seemed to voice itself spontaneously and even to the other's surprise - she blinked and her smile spread a little wider.

"I'll take the drink," she replied, though her lips shrugged jocularly and she shook her head in disagreement: she was owed nothing, but out of good will and a desire to enjoy herself and the company she shared, she would accept. "I'll think about the fuck," she joked, glancing away in mock thought, and then a wide grin broke across her face. "I'm kidding," she laughed, leaning forward and clasping one hand over Brooke's for but a moment; her skin was still cool from her night's walk, but as soft as velvet, and her laugh was free and easy, so sweet it was almost infectious.

"So tell me: is this where you always come to collect your thoughts after you've been spat on? It seems like a nice spot, though I'm not sure about the decor... don't you think it would look better with silks?" She grinned humourously and dimples kissed her round cheeks where they met the corners of her mouth, revealing yet another side to the mysterious personage she'd built up around herself. In a self-deprecating light, perhaps she wasn't so mysterious after all; perhaps she was just another woman - as real as Brooklyn herself - or perhaps it only deepened the mystery. Either way, it made no difference to Treya.

"Oh, don't mind me: I'm less serious than I let on at my readings. I'm not so different from you, in some ways... I try to take things as they come and laugh at myself along the way. Life is... well, it's tricky."

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Beautiful, it was hard for Brooklyn to think of her as any less. Maitreya wasn’t her type by a long shot, or at least, wasn’t the sort of woman she generally went for – specifically when she was looking in JJ’s. A very big chunk of JJ’s guests were young college and university girls, not to say Maitreya was too old for her just far from that sort of mindset. When Brooklyn wasn’t sleeping with younger women generally she was sleeping with a woman who looked for them like her. Younger girls for the most part were easier to wrangle in, it seemed when women started to get around her age (28) they also started to get it in their heads they had to test others they were looking at for even just a quick fuck – maybe based on the idea it could become more, hypothetical questions with heavy implication answers, curiosities that were supposed to tell them everything about a person over the course of an hour long chat, no real impulse remaining just the fear of being alone and the need for desires released fighting it… Of course, Brooklyn was getting older herself, she didn’t want to celebrate her 30th birthday in a college pub with somebody she didn’t know, she had fears of dying alone and desires in need of release – she just knew when you went around testing people they were always bound to let you down through interpretation… if you had to test someone you might end up navigating a relationship with chances are that said enough on its own.

Her dimples, laugh lines maybe, Brooklyn’s eyes fixated on them for a moment, the lips between, and then drifted back up to her eyes – still calm and soothing even though it had been a while since Brooklyn forfeited that soothing effect they had down to a science. She was what her aunt Livy would affectionately refer to as an Old Soul, that’s what Brooklyn saw at least. She was someone Brooklyn could see being good for her, good in her life – ignoring all the card bullshit and the job she couldn’t possibly respect. Brooklyn knew in her heart of hearts left to her own devices she shit the bed when it came to taking care of herself, of her emotional state, she knew she was too hard on herself, she knew she was too manic in her fears and anger, she knew it wasn’t healthy – her day to day dealings and behaviours… she didn’t want another Jacquelyn to scold and mother her through it – somehow it seemed like those calm soothing eyes and endearing dimples would be better suited.

There was relief in Maitreya’s face and relief was what Brooklyn needed in her life – it was easy to forget it was Maitreya wound her up so tight in the first place when she agreed to the drink and joked about thinking on the huffed curse twisting to a play on words oh so tempting. Brooklyn joined in on that sweet carefree laughter with dose of her own, “Your loss, as I recall – I have a great sexual ener-, hrmph,” she paused for a moment as her hand was grasped, looking down on Maitreya’s around it. “Oh, doll – you’re cold.” Brooklyn said with kneejerk concern, a remnant of days passed – Brooklyn ran on hot as they said, her skin always warm to hot even if she was freezing, she couldn’t remember how many cool days Jack would come into her dorm expecting to be warmed by her flesh alone… she’d always been happy to oblige of course. Here she was, nearly making jokes on all that bullshit that had-had her so worked barely an hour ago, life was tricky.

She chuckled dully at the question that followed, recovering from her instinctual need to warm up cold pretty girls with a chaste drink from her glass, “Ha, not exactly,” Brooklyn started to explain, “usually I don’t get spat on till the morning after.” Eye brow rising over the thick brim of her glasses as her eyes narrowed slightly, that was a flirtation, gave a good laugh after though – “And silk is for bedspreads and beautiful things – this is just a place for college girls to get drunk at doll. –This is where Jess, Stacy, Jack, Meg, -all of us met here or… y’know ended up meeting here. –just kinda feels homey.” That was a very light synopsis of it all, leaving out the assets liabilities and real feelings – the descriptions to them – but it was about as honest as she was willing to get on that subject. “We’ll leave the silk to beautiful things like you and that smile of yours, pleather, wood grain and felt are more my speed when it comes to getting a little tipsy.” A little tipsy a little bit of a deflation from the reality of her condition, her own wry grin responding to that smile she’d unwittingly, but not without wit - called beautiful.

Beautiful, mysterious, either very nice or very interested which could mean the same things – drunken thoughts easily carried away from the upset calibre they were only capable of not long ago and began swimming in a whimsical stream of fantasy, all revolving around that charm of hers. “I don’t mind you, peoples jobs and who they are don’t have to be the same thing, -just keep your cards away from me and we’ll be fine.” She winked and turned to the bar for a thick gulp of her drink, still facing the mirror behind a stock of spirits she looked at Treya from the corner of her eye “-and believe me, we’re plenty different. Ha, you don’t need to humble yourself to comfort me – I suck at laughing at myself and I do everything I can to deal with everything at once. Besides, I didn’t put you up on some intimidating pedestal that needs lowered. Eh-heh.”

“You’re just people,” She slipped off the barstool after the final gulp of her drink – one swallowed with a thick hiss and a shake of her head, they weren’t going down so easy anymore, making her mouth water and her head feel light. “C’mon, I need a smoke.”

 

[YellowSmoke]

My shitty friends and their stupid psychic parties (SomethingEsoteric, YellowSmoke)

Buoyed by the pleasant upturn in conversation and the lively mood now imparted upon her companion, Treya consented and - after a long, slow gulp wherein her lips embraced her glass with a subtle sensuality, her throat undulating elegantly to swallow the chilled liquid - she slid off her chair and walked with Brooke towards the door. The freckled woman's honesty was refreshing, even rewarding on some level, and the light played on her lenses in a way that caught Maitreya's eye. She certainly was a beauty: her oval face was sleek and sensual, her plush lips looked so soft that they begged to be kissed, and her well-defined eyebrows drew one into her gaze. Looking up at her - for at 5'7", Maitreya was a few inches shorter than Brooklyn - the card-reader wondered how someone could bring themselves to break the heart of such a belle... but then again, had she not been the one who had given premonition of a repeat in that matter?

"I'm glad that you're warming up to me," she intimated as they made their way across the bare wood floor, her eyes lingering upon the woman's face for a moment longer. "Not everyone is able - or willing, I guess - to look past the silks and cards. I have to make a living somehow and I'm good at what I do, though if anyone has reason to doubt that, it's you." There was a hint of ruefulness in her admission, or at the very least an acknowledgement that she had over-stepped a line tonight. "Usually, people find my work helpful, and it can be very rewarding to know that you've brought some pleasure to another's life..."

Queen of Mystique, and Queen of Pleasure: yes, that had a nice ring to it, and she had brought pleasure to many in her short lifetime, using her intuition and her nimble tongue in one way or another. From her inner reflections, her mind drew a line between idle thoughts and scintillating images, and again she glanced at Brooklyn, this time picturing her face contorted in the throes of sexual gratification. She longed to feel the caress of her inner thighs upon her cheeks, to become intoxicated upon the scent of her loins, and most of all to feel the damaged, defensive walls about her heart crumble in the warmth of her embrace. Ever the chameleon, Maitreya could and gladly would play whatever role she deemed necessary, between the sheets or outside of them, but from her own perspective it was all a display of her control over the world and others. Even in submission she was directing the course of action upon the myriad stages which she blessed, and the passing of dominance to another was only ever an insidious rouse designed for distraction and subtle manipulation.

Outside, the air had grown a mite colder still, but Treya was all roses and warmth in the way she smiled at Brooklyn, ignorant to the covetous gaze cast over the pair by a young woman in black with dyed green hair who clung to the frame of the door, leaning out into the night to exhale before cowering in the vestiges of warmth about the open doorway, clutching a half-smoked cigarette between two stubby fingers. In her ignorance, she presumed that the pair were an item, and though they made for an adorable couple, the stranger felt no warmth at their appearance. The colour of hair was reflected in envious emotions cast equally upon the pair, and partly in despair and partly in disgust, she tossed the remainder of her smoke upon the path and left it burning, returning to the bar's interior to trade one vice for another.

The light of the bar's neon sign overhead lent a purplish glow to Maitreya's sable tresses, a colour equally befitting both her mysterious nature and regal elegance. Her easy gaze betrayed an almost schoolgirlish fascination with the woman she faced, reminiscent of the way ambitious college girls would often look upon Brooklyn - or any "older" woman who patronised JJs - whenever they came in hope of an edifying sexual experience with one more experienced than they. Of course, Treya was no schoolgirl: she possessed the shrewd and assured confidence of a woman who had seen it all and had wisdom and comfort to impart in equal measure. She knew what she wanted, and unlike those artless youths, she knew how to get it.

"You should smile more often," she told Brooke suddenly, with a glimmer in her eyes that suggested the comment was not so much spontaneous as it was the conclusion of thorough reflection. "Don't get me wrong: anger is always sexier than it should be, but you have a beautiful smile. I'm glad I was able to bring it out in you."

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Brooklyn just smirked and tilted her head to the side when told Treya was glad she was warming up, a few drinks could have that effect on her but she supposed it was true – Treya was growing on her, this version of her at least, Brooke was plenty okay with that. Brooke wasn’t hateful or withdrawn by nature; it just seemed so many people planted those seeds in the verdant soil that was her mind. She didn’t like being in a constant state of bitters and busted heart confessionals in staring in the mirror, she didn’t like storming away from people or brushing them off, she didn’t like being so unapproachable and with it not approached – but what could she do exactly? Having a few drinks to warm up to people seemed her easiest out, after all – she didn’t know how to change, if Jack – the most oppressive, passive-aggressive, debilitating force of nature she knew shy of disastrous tornado and quakes couldn’t change her how in the hell did she have any hope of changing herself? –it was a bit of a disgusting thing to admit to herself, when she fancied herself on the upper-end of social drinkers, that alcohol had more power to make her socially acceptable than anyone she knew herself included. –This wasn’t about her drinking though, this was about a beautiful woman giving her attention and enjoying attentions given.

She just smiled and nodded in response, relinquishing an agreement, yeah, it was nice she was warming up and nice to be warmed up to herself – she didn’t feel like she was getting spat on now… in fact, the whole reading was a million miles away, regardless of her drinking, regardless of her libido, regardless of the urges inside to show Jacquelyn by hurting herself – none of it matter – she just legitimately wanted to be near this woman, be in her presence, it felt a gift… one hard to give up, hard to admit to, but yeah, she really was enjoying this all. Wry she tilted her head forward and looked her in the eye “Oh, is that so?” of course Treya hadn’t meant pleasure in the conventional, societal presumptions that were easily attached to the word but she was still plenty pleased as peach to jump on the opportunity to single it out – single in on the innuendo it proposed. “You’ll have to show me what that’s like sometime. –since all I got is spit, right?”

Out in the chilly air, she was oblivious entirely to the young woman staring them down or her dejected flick of her cigarette butt – she was oblivious to just about everything but the woman before her – even when little wisps of wind carrying little flecks of precipitation the purple lights caught, made glimmer like so many particals of diamond dust floating about them… just as they caught Maitreya’s radiance and amplified it with such injustice to every other creature that feigned beauty on the crestfallen village district street, there they were, crystalized in time – staring one and other in the face through a plume of smoke, looking like lovers, foresight only available to one party and outsiders on looking.

Brooklyn scrunched her nose then let out the most self-depreciating of one note chuckles, the sort that could breaks hearts if they could ever understand the happenstance of sardonicism behind, the second note directed at Maitreya with only the most endearing of intentions in mind – she could never be hardly so cruel to others as she was so easily to herself. “You should be a know-it-all less often,” She responded with a little more levity in her tone than Maitreya had, though it was clear she was very much touched, very much affected by the affections in her words – how they weren’t just pulled from her ass or pulled from every sappy romantic comedy and fresh off the lips of one thousand and one puppy love stabs at saying the right thing at the right time… Treya had meant what she said and taken the time to decide if she’d say it. “Don’t get me wrong, the air of confidence and experience around you is sexy – just like anger can be… but there’s really something about mindless college chicks that gets me hot.” She grinned dangerously, clearly joking as she took drag from her smoke and twirled it between her fingers – giving a few second’s pause before releasing the gout of smoke from her lungs. She leaned in close and placed her hand on Maitreya’s hip one last draw before she flicked her smoke prematurely and blew it away from the tarot card reader she’d hated not so long ago. “C’mon doll, say something stupid.” Puckering her lips and kissing the air, putting on some sort of joking persona like a high school football hero or equally cocky ass, clearly she was having fun – and that’s what this was all about. She couldn’t take compliments like most people, had to walk away from them with bullshit of this variety but at least she didn’t sneer and shove them away, at least she kept the dance going staggered step by staggered step.

 

[YellowSmoke]

Her brows raising ever so slightly - not enough to wrinkle the smooth, pristine skin upon her forehead - Treya's eyes rolled in a semi-circle about their perimeters, as though the challenge to say something stupid was a real test of her abilities. Her chest rose and she exhaled audibly; one would have sworn that she'd never said something stupid in all her life, though nothing about the gesture was serious. One corner of her mouth curled up in a humourous half-smile, and her chocolaty gaze locked onto Brooklyn's, smouldering desirously.

"Well... I don't do stupid well, as you seem to have figured out," she joked, and when she laughed her smile grew, kissing both corners of her lips. "I'll try though - for you."

For a moment, the eastern beauty fell into thought, but again her chest rose and fell, and she grimaced mirthfully as a truth swelled inside of her and implored with her to be released. As spontaneously as the grimace had been birthed, it faded back to a smile, rich and engaging. This was going to be stupid - bold, even - but was there not a fine line between the brave and the stupid? She hoped she would at least straddle that line, even if it entailed one foot alone in the stirrup and her hands clinging desperately to the reigns of aptness.

"You have to promise not to laugh, though," she teased, and her gaze remained unflinching. "This is definitely stupid, but..."

Whatever thought had presented itself to Maitreya's mind - whatever it was that tickled her tongue and stood poised in the gate, eager to spring forth when her lips permitted it - seemed impossible for her to voice. As down-to-earth as she behaved when relieved of her silks, she was still a proud woman, and apparently she was set to bare herself to ridicule before the bespectacled smoker. Her eyes closed and she sighed - half a groan - through closed lips, whose corners were still curled if only a little ruefully. And then her eyelids parted, she leaned close to Brooke and her exotic, hushed tones spoke truthfully, just like that.

"I would sleep with you in an instant - ohhhhhh, no - Treya!" She reeled back, laughing freely, laughing only at herself. Her eyes closed and she covered her grin with her hands, daring to peek over her fingers to see Brooklyn's response, for the first time showing a bashfulness which could scarce have been foreseen at the table in Jess and Stacy's apartment.

"What have you done to me?" she asked jokingly, her head tilting adoringly to one side in a precautionary show of submission: an apology, in case it was needed. "I'm sorry," she added, collecting herself and exhaling heavily, "I... you asked for stupid." Shaking her head, she shrugged and gazed into Brooke's eyes, the flash of bashfulness which had for a moment destroyed the visage of a proud, unbending woman quickly fading away, leaving only Maitreya. The humourous, carefree and unassuming Maitreya, that is, more sweetness than mystique, more radiant than reticent. She'd done her best, and she could scarce keep from smiling.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Maitreya, the woman who till now had remained so peaceful and placid in her delicate prose was suddenly quick becoming so beautifully animated – still eloquent of course but… well, just because she’d been having fun did not mean she would have described Treya as fun, this side of her certainly was. Didn’t do stupid well, Brooke hadn’t necessarily given her that – just told her she was a know it all, stupid know it alls were very much a possible thing… still, she’d try for her “Aww, you’re making me feel special already.” She teased with a little roll of her eyes and a tug at her lips before she returned to a certain calm seduction. Brooklyn was sure she had Maitreya just where she wanted her, where she wanted any woman nearing midnight on the front step of JJ’s and while she didn’t discriminate there was a certain draw to her that despite her words had her far more infatuated than any mindless college girl could possibly command.

“I make no promises,” She teased yet again, dying with anticipation. To be honest, she’d really only expected something to the tune of You’re an ass, maybe Maitreya would succumb to the draw of her idiocy and pull in close with the hand on her hip – then again, maybe she’d scold and be upset by the words that were less than honey and her shallowness they implied – but no, she played along, she wasn’t just humouring her by doing it either… Maitreya, while she’d joked she made her feel special – she truly did and she truly was something special herself. It wasn’t often that Brooklyn found herself in loops of fancy free amusement, not often she felt the joy that came with the nature of joke she just made. When Brooklyn tried to be fun with Jacquelyn toward the end it just fed the monster Jacquelyn had at her beck and call that ate Brooklyn alive for being what Jacquelyn appraised as immature and without prospect, the monster that fed on her shattered and on the attack pride, the monster that eventually would alienate her to a point she was almost unrecognizable from her old self… her old self being the one that won over Stacy, Jessie, Meg and all the others, her old self who’d one over Jack before she grew so… before she grew thirty years in three.

Any thoughts of Jacquelyn, the gang, how much fun she was having, how special she might feel – it was all easily wiped away in the wake of that little something stupid with big purpose and the hysterics that followed. She seemed to have changed in a second and now it was all affirmed, so carefree and jovial, Brooke knew the truth when she heard it too – she knew while it was all said jokingly she’d meant what she said and even if she’d meant what she said it wasn’t exactly an invitation but that didn’t mean Brooke wouldn’t take it was one, she meant to. Her eyes fell on the hand that covered Maitreya’s mouth and would have to whisked away – those lips were now for tasting, stupid words had thrust Brooklyn into the next act, the next dance number, this one with a sweltering two step that would have had them crashing in to one and other if not for Maitreya’s little retreat into laughter.

She was out of clever things to say, out of whit and seduction, her eyes had darkened with lust and her plush lips quivered with the want to meet likewise flesh. The expression dominating her freckled face said it all with ease and what it said was she’d do more than just sleep with Maitreya – she might even stay in bed the morning after. The quick step had her face glistening with that sparkling precipitation that had cascaded between them – while no smoke occupied her lungs her hot breath could be seen loftily curling through the air, while her hands were beginning to seize up with the cold the sprung to purpose – taking Maitreya’s hips with strong demand. “Don’t apologize, you’ll make me think twice.” She huffed on a ragged breath, if Maitreya feigned anymore recourse or said again the idea of them sleeping together was stupid surely Brooklyn would have second guessed what she began to do.

Her chin dipped down then turned with her face, easing forward, eyes closing, her lips paused just a breath from Maitreya’s, just till they could feel her breath rippling over the sensitive flesh – she couldn’t think the last time a kiss had been intimate as it was sultry, had been anything more than a preamble to the next step of a sexual encounter – the way her heart fluttered in her chest she’d be so pained to admit this did not quite feel so innocent. In her mind, a fancy free fuck was about as innocent as it got, anything with feelings attached was guilty and black – the fears that came with broken hearts and thick hoarse sobs. “Mmmngh…” A coo of delight at the scent of perfume, the menagerie of their scents, desire and her two unmistakeable vices, the roles they played – rum and tobacco entwining before a kiss.

She’d come this far, the final push was not hard to close – she inched forward, first their hips met – then torsos, like she’d done everything in her power to eliminate all other space before so too did the space between their lips a chemical cocktail booze alone could never unlock swirling about in the back of her head, two other sensitive spots feeling the radiant heat like osmosis – behind her breasts and between her thighs swelling and in turn sweltering as her lips began to caress Maitreya’s with practiced form.

Maybe it was stupid, she truly didn’t have a single fuck to give on the subject of consiquences – anything but reckless abandon was hard to find once close to, once kissing, once feeling the grace of another soul close to hers’.

 

[YellowSmoke]

With the November chill seeping into her hands and cheeks, the warmth of Brooke's embrace was made all the more pleasurable. Treya's sultry figure moved to meet the other woman's advances, arms brushing the outside of hers as they curled about her frame and slid upwards to encircle her neck, resting on the tops of her shoulders with hands clasped behind her head. Her hips pressed forth and she felt Brooklyn's breasts upon her own, firm and sensual as the coming together of their bodies.

Her eyes smouldered with desire, intensifying her gaze until - at the last minute - they fell closed and her head had turned, her mouth welcoming the sweet embrace of Brooklyn's lips. The kiss only fuelled her growing lust, which came hot and fast, carrying upon its back a sense of victory, attainment, and power. The Queen of Mystique and Pleasure she was, and the Queen of Seduction. She'd played her part well but the act was not finished, and would not be until she had her desire between the sheets, steamed and broken, opened to the futile and inevitable pursuit of love.

Maitreya purred and her lips parted; the taste of rum and tobacco greeted her tongue as it slid deftly into Brooklyn's mouth but she didn't care, for those flavours only reaffirmed the identity of the woman she was kissing. She had driven her to the bar - to the comfort and catharsis of nicotine and booze - and now it was the vestiges of those twin vices which came to her as the trophies of success. She had righted her wrongs, seduced her desire, and until she could feel bare flesh beneath her hands, the taste of rum and tobacco would suffice.

Her tongue rolled against Brooke's, and the air around them became alive to the soft, wet sounds of mutual passion. They made for quite the spectacle, though for the time being there was no-one around to see them. Beneath purple neons they turned the colour from regal to ardour, and Treya's hands unclasped to let one slide to the back of the other woman's head, pulling her deep into the kiss as the other moved to cup her cheek with a tender passion, a cool flame licking at the side of her face. Eventually a car hummed past in the background, and the dark-skinned queen broke the kiss to gaze into Brooke's eyes with renewed intensity.

"I should be stupid more often," she purred, every ounce of her lust and eagerness evident in the sexual tone of her accented voice, and she pulled her freckled counterpart into another feverish embrace. The night was young and her ambitions high. The coronation of her beguiling capture of Brooke's heart was what she aspired to, and a brooding confidence fuelled the passion with which she kissed her consort. The ceremony may be tonight, but I shall not be crowned until morning.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

It felt like the first kiss in a long time, for some strange reason she couldn’t quite understand – really, it had been less than a week since the last time she was batting tongues with a young woman on the local varsity lacrosse team, she was strong and stalwart but like many before her, by the end of the night Brooklyn had her squirming and reeling with a finger in her ass and teeth nipping at the bundle not far from it. Brooklyn was a predator when it came to these things, she never took advantage of course, far from it, everything was exclusively left to consenting adults and entirely friendly by nature. –but, but Brooklyn also, above most things, couldn’t help but be entirely thrilled and satiated by the inexplicably unmatched catharsis that could be provided by submission at her fingertips. Brooklyn had spent so many years oppressed and living under the whims of Jacquelyn that she felt entirely powerless by her side – by the end the only thing that kept enjoyable was the sex, so of course it was easy to use that as a bench mark for comparison, a bench mark to begin her great escape from the bondage of self imposed from without, imposed from Jacquelyn. Jacquelyn took all power, so when she was exchanging flesh she did what she could to assert all power she had at her command.

… still, Maitreya felt like an equal and opposite force and in that a force of nature, a force to be fucked with – to fuck, not to be fucked with rather, she could be poetry in motion but Brooklyn liked to think more like spoken word, she was too calm, cool, eloquent but capable of the blunt reprise and joyous highs, poetry was and could only be one side of her beauty, the supple honeyed wind that carried her in – what followed was what had set Brooke aflame, kept her stoking the fire. The fire mentioned, hot as it was, felt all the more so in contrast to the chill in the air, the saliva on their lips instantly cooled with each gust, only to return tepid with the next caress or brush of lips. She refused to whine when it came to a close but the way her lips moved once, just once, when they were separated showed she wasn’t ready for it – like her body spoke for her without mind’s consent, mind already in the moment after, body not allowing itself to catch up.

“Only if I’m around to enjoy it,” She said possessively, another omission without consent but no apologies made for the suggestion – eyes narrowed, lips straightening out, she might have looked angry if it wasn’t so painfully clear she was dying for more, if it wasn’t so painfully clear the pensive sort of expression was just her sorting out exactly how far and how fast they could go together. “Mine’s five minutes up the street on the edge of the village, I’ll catch my tab tomorrow – Jill doesn’t send Jane over to rough me up till I’m a couple hundred deep.” She wasn’t thinking about the money, it was a rehearsed joke like she’d said it so many times she forgot to inflect for effect, forgot to add any levity, it was all serious business – she seriously wanted Maitreya and there was no stopping it, no holding it back.

Brooklyn didn’t ask, she told, there was the option for Maitreya to say no of course, Brooklyn was sure she wouldn’t. Her arm hooked around the woman, starting to walk her, she’d steal any opportunity for a kiss on the way, to feel her form under the thick sweater that accented her curves in all the right places, a moment’s refuge from the autumn air in a doorframe or bus stop, a quick dip at the corner of an alley to taste her lips again or nip her neck, she didn’t care, the public be damned she was lost to it all, lost to the moment, lost to Maitreya, lost to her own most base desires for escape and one of three ways she knew how to get it.

As Maitreya had said, Hopefull, Desperate, - whatever the fuck else it was all true.

 

[YellowSmoke]

My shitty friends and their stupid psychic parties (SomethingEsoteric, YellowSmoke)

By the time they time they reached Brooklyn's front door and crossed the verge into her abode - Treya swept along on the winds of the other's need and desire - the fortune-teller's spirits were high upon the cocktail of lust and success. Her victory would be all but forgotten about beneath the covers of Brooke's bed (if they made it that far); she knew when forget about the act, knew when to let her libido take centre-stage, and wouldn't be a shame to focus on anything but the heat of the other woman's passions? Her invitation had been an extension of Treya's admission: I would sleep with you in an instant - let's do it now. Why beat around the bush? They wanted each other, and Brooke's place really had been only five minutes away, as their flesh was now only a few layers away from hungry fingers, their privacy sealed by the closing of the varnished wooden door at their backs.

"I've wanted you since the moment I first laid eyes on you," Treya'd admitted on the walk, leaning into her soon-to-be-lover and slipping her arm about her, keeping her close for her warmth, though that had been little to do with the cold. Beneath all of her cool mystique and confident allure, she - like Brooklyn - had needs: the warmth of another's embrace, the reaffirming desire in one's eyes in her presence. These were easily attained, but whenever they were denied her act took on a new dynamic, one of whirlwind __ and turbulent tension. She would not allow herself to feel the desperation which had burrowed so deeply into Brooke's psyche - would not, could not admit herself to it - but on occasion it came to her and ruptured her unwavering calm. Few had ever seen her volatile eruptions; the tempest was confined to back-stage, beyond the gaze of her own audience.

In contrast to Brooklyn's maxim of hurting herself to show others, Maitreya's wrath was always outward-facing. Moving as she did from character to character - a veritable social chameleon at work - there was little for her to to focus it on in an inward direction. It had been years since she had pruned the seedling within herself, and it had been left to bloom in darkness. Even amidst pain and sadness, she was like to heap her emotions upon a façade, and as a mechanism of self-defence it worked rather well, with the sole implication that it shunned any development of a single, underlying personality. It should go without saying that the woman was an onion of overlaid personalities, but unlike most of us, her personalities had little in common save that they were channelled through the same body, given life by the same face. The Queen of Mystique, Pleasure, and Seduction was little more than a remarkably well-controlled mess.

Turning to Brooklyn, one corner of her mouth curled upwards, and she gazed with tempered passion into the other's eyes, inviting her to kiss her once more, to vent her passion upon her plush lips and deeply tanned flesh, which tingled in anticipation of of soft, ravenous fingers. Her chin turned up and she stepped forward, a tenderness still evident in her movements as she reached out to grip the sides of Brooke's top between her fingers and guide her into her, lips searching for lips, her tongue eager to dance. As the waltz began, her fingers left the surface of the fabrics for their interior, tugging at her clothes to slide her hands beneath them and tease the supple flesh above Brooke's hips. It was so wonderfully warm in contrast to the coolness of Maitreya's velvet fingers, which like an ice tongue slid upwards along her sides and the woman sighed into the kiss, her ego prepared for sacrifice upon the pyre of heated desire.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

She would be turning twenty-nine in two and a half months and what did she have to show for it? She had a loft apartment that had been in renovation for over three years now, she had a career regardless of what some people may have thought, she had two parents and a hoary pile of dust that still managed to shamble about called her grandma all three of them trying to set her up with a laundry list of men wrong for her for many reasons beyond the cock dangling between their legs, she had an ex life partner she’d been with for near five years who at the best of times she doubted really respected her and at the worst of times she was sure had just stuck around out of ornery spite, just so she could laugh when her walls collapsed and she was shown it was all for not and… well, there was something to be said about all that, nonsense but it still didn’t quite solve the dilemma, figuring out what she had to show. She’d been mentioned in a few industry publications, she’d had a handful of very prestigious accomplishments in rebranding, she had stock supplements and royalties – sure, none were worth much just this minute but they would be and the pennies piled up, in time they would be bullion she liked to imagine, she was more or less banking her misplaced pride they would be. Well, one thing, she could certainly see that she had a beautiful woman trying to undress her in the main hall to the refurbished lofts of her neighbors. The building they all existed in was once a non-perishable food service plant – the walls were lined with heritage window boxes that did not capture glimpses of the street outside but rather the many labels and products the factory once made and little plaques commemorating them, the floors were polished cement and iron girders still supported the pads above giving the hall a very industrial feel, the lingering scent of over-steamed greenery and tin cans still hanging listlessly in the air… it wasn’t traditional but it was home.

“My wants are a little more recent,” She chuckled between nips at the woman’s neck and lips her hands busy with exploring every stitch and stretch of her lover-for-one-night’s top. “I think you knew that though.” When first setting eyes on Maitreya all she’d wanted was to be anywhere else but there in the coffee room with her, that changed of course over the last couple hours and it was impossible to admit she’d not been drawn to her on many levels even as the initial resentments brewed and bubbled up to spill over her pot.

A small shiver rattled her core when Maitreya’s icy grip splayed along her flat stomach, a shaky breath vibrating up from her tummy to her shoulder. “C’mon, you keep this up my neighbors are going to think less of me than they already do – not that I really give a fuck.” A lie. Her hand yanked Maitreya’s pulling her from the crook they’d found for making out and toward an industrial elevator up to her loft only separated from the floors by a lattice wall of steel slats that spread and collapsed with the sweep of a handle. She pressed a white plastic button with a dull glow – buzzing till her finger pulled off and returned to Maitreya’s top. Tugging at her collar she pulled her in for one more lasting kiss, capturing her lip between her own and dragging her teeth along it as her head pulled back, returning Treya’s lip to her with a little pop and a wink.

“This is me.” The lattice slats pulled back as they reached yet another long cement and steel hall – three heavy steel sliding doors like the sort one may find in an alley-way or work place were spaced a handful of meters apart, her own happening to be the one just before the elevator. A quick jumble of her keys and a grunt as she pressed her shoulder into the door to press it in, a brace of her legs and another swing had the door sliding open to allow them entry.

The loft was nice by now, it had some room to go, but it was nice and it was Broke decidedly. The space around the bed on the far side of the industrial loft was closed in by a high flowing maroon curtain in an L to allow privacy but also allow enough light she didn’t feel like she was waking up in a cave or a teen’s room with blankets and towels on the windows. As if it were an island in the middle of the large open space, a thick shaggy white area rug spoke of refuge with a sectional couch atop it and a coffee table – a TV not far ahead just off the carpet on a stand, movies, music DVD’s and CD’s galore, surrounding the entertainment center along with a collection of modular couches set up in a wide U, beside the TV was a small mountain of still packed boxes of all varieties, fixtures, electronics, art supplies she’d never used remaining from college along with promotional gifts from companies she’d contracted under. On opposite sides of the space was a kitchen of sorts with splotches of paint in the back drop over cupboards, tile samples strewn about, assorted home décor magazines – clearly a work in progress, much like her storage solutions to the side of her bed’s divide, one large wardrobe with clothes pouring out of it every which way, laundry sacks hanging open no different. It had a ways to go but Brooke loved the space, it was the first thing in this world she could truly call hers beyond her work – a rather impressive homage to that in the final corner beside a dry-wall enclosure that could only be assumed to be a washroom. A desk fit for two, with two ergonomic computer chairs, one with a large screened iMac before it, the other with two side by side HD screens hooked into an impressive PC tower, there was a wall of pantone swatches like the one on her shirt and many assorted jars of brushes, pencils, markers and other artistic utensils, and of course, a green gridded drafting table, several industry standard printing machines and a sprawling shelf that over the desks was lined with industry books and manuals – as it spread further along the wall toward the entertainment center it became more like a portfolio or resume – examples of her work, products she’d branded, framed pictures and works of art from her years in school, the magazines she’d been mentioned in, one final picture of her and Jacquelyn young and in love.

“Work in progress,” She huffed out of an obligatory need to explain herself – ironic for someone who claimed so profusely by attitude and sometime even words she didn’t care. It wasn’t the easiest space for passion, there were no walls to crash into, no stairs to stumble on and give up the trek to make love atop, just seemingly infinite space to list through till the salvation of bed or couch – both just about as far from the door as the last. The apartment was dimly lit by tens of dying lightbulbs hanging from thick wires from the ceiling, what they didn’t poorly illuminate glowed an off orange from street lamps outside – the north and west wall both made up entirely of many hinged plate glass windows calcified from years of the elements without the old window-washers of yesteryear to tend to their face.

“Now… can I get you a drink or,” she started, sounding rather adult and formal – only to shake her head and chuckle “Ah fuck it.” tossing off her jacket and kicking her wedges wherever they’d go, springing forward to tug at Maitreya’s top as her door slide shut with a graining screech of rusting steel on cement.

 

[YellowSmoke]

My shitty friends and their stupid psychic parties (SomethingEsoteric, YellowSmoke)

As far as it was from her own intimate abode, Maitreya couldn't say that her surroundings did not fit the woman who'd brought her home amidst bubbling sexual fervour. The loosely ordered pandemonium of paints, swatches and half-packed clothes somehow perfectly reflected the state of mind which she had associated with the woman: a misplaced mess of emotions stuffed into place, more concerned with giving the illusion of order and control than actually attaining it. The scene reminded her of her childhood, when upon being asked or told by her mother to clean her room, she'd stuff clothes, magazines, and scraps of paper upon which she'd drawn on written into any available concealed space, feigning tidiness as efficiently as possible so that she could flee the house to play with her friends. Like her childhood companions, she was sure that Brooklyn would be fun to play with, though she would have to be directed in far more subtle ways than that in which Treya directed her friends in the short plays she so loved to write in her pre-adolescent years.

Really, it was too perfect, she reflected as she gazed about the loft, and - as if she needed it - felt encouraged in her pursuit of the designer. She was ideal for the part; there would be nothing false or insubstantial about her tragedy. It would be felt fully and lent beauty by that which shone in her eyes and in her freckles. Treya had time to wonder how the loft would look in the cold light of morning, how the warmth of the bed and Brooklyn would massage her naked flesh and if her lover for the night would have the time to steal an extra ten or thirty minutes to cuddle beneath the sheets before rising. She saw through her tough, couldn't give a fuck exterior to the vulnerable girl beneath, and she adored her for it. Strength was something she associated too strongly with herself, and while it also served for a a delightful turn-on in sex - almost to Treya a taboo whenever she gave herself up to it - it was weakness which attracted her to most, something so profoundly innate in the human spirit that it could not be anything other than resplendently beautiful. Here was a woman over whom she could dote - over whom she must dote - because the universe had a great sadness in store for her.

A wide, lusty grin broke across her face as Brooklyn closed the space between them, the grating lament of the sliding door punctuated with a low, deep purr from Treya's throat as she let herself fall back against it, her arms slipping around Brooke's waist and pulling her close for another passionate kiss. She felt her arousal swell in her breast and fuel the heat growing between her supple-skinned thighs, and felt too the eager endeavours of hands upon her torso, waging victorious war upon the garments which concealed the true depth of her natural beauty. Her sleek woollen sweater rose, and with it the hem of the stringed and skin-tight tank top which adorned her upper body. Her own fingers found the flesh beneath Brooklyn's close and dug in, leaving small marks either side of the small of her back. She arched her hips forward and sighed into the very same mouth into which her tongue delved, and Brooke's taste was intoxicating.

Eyes closed, her world became taste, scent, and above all the feeling of Brooke's hands upon her lithe body and hers beneath her own; the soft, passionate sounds of their kisses and desperate sighs which rang in her ears like music. Her hands roamed the other's body, pressing her palms across her gentle curves and kneading warm flesh between her fingers. With every inch they rose, so to did the clothing which would keep her from her desire, and with a sudden surge of passion she pushed Brooke's top higher, gripping it by the hem and forcing it upwards, breaking the kiss only to see it rise over her head and bare more of the body which it cruelly concealed.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

Brooklyn shivered slightly, goose bumps stippling their way up her forearms and the small of her back – her shirt wasn’t even off yet either. Her eyes closed briefly, twitching as if her pupils danced behind them at the delight that came from fingernails digging into her skin – she wasn’t exactly a masochist and by most standards she remained in control entirely when it came to sexual exchanges but something about nails gracing her skin, tugs in her hair, nips at her lobes and nape could drive her wild in the most encompassing of varieties. She groaned slightly, eyes sliding back open to train on Maitreya – engorged upon the sight of her somber skin and the glow cast upon it on low light within her home. Maybe it wasn’t so easy to say she wasn’t dangerously attracted to her from the very moment she set eyes upon the exotic beauty she possessed with staid command but with each one in passing it became impossible not to say she was any less than addicted now – like a fine aged bourbon her boon both soothed and stung. Maybe that was why women, booze and cigarettes all coincided so conductively in her world.

-she always did enjoy a slap much more if led and followed by a stroke.

The universe, fate, things so infinite in profound implication far and wide meant near nothing to her and held little to no bearing over this moment – all that existed in her mind was her, Maitreya and the undeniable desire splicing them together.

Once again their lips were crashing into one and other, tongues entwining only to unravel and dart once again, Brooklyn’s head would incline slightly, hand raising to capture the side of her velveteen partner’s face for a possessive caress only to retreat and help her remove the shirt that separated their blistering hot skin. She once again shivered – this time due to the cold unlike last – before capturing Maitreya’s lips once again groaning passionately as her hand found the fly of her jeans… then she paused, swallowing hard – the gap between the frigid step and her warm bed seemed entirely too far to cross entirely nude, besides, she was sure the minute Maitreya and her were both stark she’d be unable to stop herself from worshipping every last inch of the eastern goddess’s composure. Regretfully she pulled away, hesitating, almost like now that they were finally beginning the idea of stopping if only for a second was egregiously distressing, she had no seductive grin she reserved for young women to cover her reluctance up.

The hand left her crotch and rose to her chest, tracing along her stomach to perch just below her swollen womanly chest the two pale, almost sallow orbs resting atop her arm in a practiced sort of pose as her other arm reached behind her back and found the clasp of her bra – the straps jumping forward from over her shoulders and between her ribs and arms to release her DD, not at all perky natural breasts. It was a measure she always took when taking off her bra, in her mind there was nothing sexy about how they escaped without a little graceful aid in the transition. She bent at the knee slightly and curled herself around after one final peck on Maitreya’s cheek and a nip of her neck letting the bra fall to the floor in a blind moment.

As she turned to face the bedroom as it were, back to Treya, she swayed her hips – reaching down once again to the fly of her jeans to set them free, behind, just like her breasts vuluptious and developed, she was a lot of things internally and many may argue arrested in emotional development but she certainly had the body of a woman from toe to brow, the thick sort of curves who’s allure was almost lost entirely to society over the years – something she was guilty of falling in the trappings of it seemed the way she turned at all the right moments and did not face when shedding the next articles of her clothing… not till her head turned slightly with the agonizingly long tug of the elastic holding her hair up. Long brunette locks poured down her back as eyes pouring with lust and the purpose to see it realized once again found Treya “Well…?” an expectant invitation to join her as she found her kingsized bed and the sea of goose down duvets and jersey knit sheets, jeans, a simple black department store bra, t-shirt, jacket, wedges and any shred of restraint she commanded laying in ribbons on the polished cement floor around Maitreya.

 

[YellowSmoke]

My shitty friends and their stupid psychic parties (SomethingEsoteric, YellowSmoke)

As much as Brooklyn's world and its inevitable fate belonged to Maitreya - in her own mind at least - the expectancy with which the fair-skinned woman beckoned her forth was nothing short of exhilarating, as though the very thought of submitting to her was a sensual taboo in and of itself. She felt her insides groan and bend to her consort's will, melting like chocolate before a flame, and oh how the sweet resultant fluids were now at Brooke's behest, to be tasted, licked, and smeared about her sultry lips. The actress was fading fast, melting away to leave only the heat of her libido, alive in the shimmering brown pools which trained themselves upon every curve of Brooklyn's milky body, and for a brief eternity there became lost.

At the head of her voluptuous frame their eyes met again, and Maitreya's lips birthed a lustful grin. With a stride both aimed and measured, she closed the space between them, shedding layers of clothing as she went. Like breadcrumbs marking the way back to the door - an exit which could not have been further from her mind - lay first the woollen sweater, and then trim black tank top which once removed revealed a sleek upper body, pinched delicately between her gently curving hips and narrow chest. She paused only to bend gracefully forward and slip her dainty feet from her leather ankle boots, tossing her socks away into the ether, and on she went, an unrestrained excitement dancing in her eyes and in the upturned corners of her lips.

Slim fingers slid down the flat of her stomach and deftly popped open the button of her jeans; the zipper came down and then she was playfully swaying her hips, pushing the jeans down in a joyous, impromptu striptease. She did love the attention such a lascivious dance wrought for her; after all, an actress needs an audience, and though the act had been for the moment forgotten about, the joy it brought her was habitual and deeply engrained. They hit the floor and the Queen of Seduction stepped away from them, cocking her hips to the side as she reached up and behind her, her back arching slightly and emphasising every alluring curve of her smoky, deep-deep-bourbon skinned body. When her hands fell once more to her sides, her bra fell with them, her shoulders rolling forward, straps slipping down her upper arms and dropping away from her round, perky C-cups, and with a final forward step she fell upon Brooke.

The kiss of smooth, warm flesh upon flesh was coupled with the embrace of eager lips, tongues falling to a now-familiar dance as Treya channelled her passions through a kiss, deep and sensual. With both hands she cupped the other's face and ground herself upon her thigh, the heat of her loins felt through the thin, black lace panties which were all that she had failed to remove. Thick and voluminous, the waves of her dark hair fell down around Brooklyn's face and tickled the tops of her shoulders, Maitreya's left hand skirting down her body to grip the back of one thigh and pull it towards her, pressing her own thigh firmly into Brooke's groin as her hips rolled forwards and back, forwards and back.

"Mmmph... you are so sexy, Brooklyn..." Treya's voice was steeped in lust, her hand trailing back up along the other woman's body, delighting in the sensation of her warm flesh beneath her palm, her thumb teasing its way across the nipple of Brooke's right breast. Her lips found the curve of her neck, coursed it with the tip of her tongue and her breath fell hot and heavy upon her ear. "Fuck me like one of your college girls," she teased, her voice low and sensual, before she drew her head back to smile and caress Brooke's face with her hand. Perhaps the bedroom was the only place one could have hoped to reach an equal footing with Maitreya, for here all her games were forgotten; here, the only rule was held by unbridled lust, and in that respect, there was not a hair between the two women. Treya pressed forward again, felt the intertwining of their legs, felt their bodies press together from their hips to their breasts, and a deep moan of pleasure welled in her chest and sounded in her throat.

Outside, dark storm clouds were building and rain began to patter softly upon the windows. Soon it would grow heavier and in the distance thunder would sound across the heavens, but that was another world; for tonight, Treya's world was Brooke, and Brooke's was Treya.

 

[SomethingEsoteric]

While she, for the most part, remained calm and in control by the time she reached the side of her sprawling bed her hands were trembling – and not from the cold, her stomach flipped and flopped inside of her, hardening with anticipation only to melt to a sickly sort of anxiety upon exhale. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous, so vulnerable – maybe it was because this wasn’t some college girl she didn’t give two shits about. The fact of the matter was, sleeping with college girls was a very easily routed out survival tactic of her insecurity, college girls didn’t know shit about shit in her life-educated mind, she could brush off anything they did or said with the easiest of disregard because by design the situation allowed it She’s just some stupid kid, could be used just as easily as she was pretty good for a kid. in most cases of course Brooklyn found herself in the ladder half, it was good harmless fun, in the others where her body wasn’t quite as impressive as imagined or cold feet chilled before hot breath graced the former was her security net so high off the floor she barely even felt a tilt let alone a fall. Here Maitreya was however, a full grown woman and an amazingly sexy one at that.

Just like Brooklyn had envied her attitude she quick began to envy her body too – while she had wise eyes and that calm almost altruistic expression from before she also had this sultry seduction… Maitreya made Brooklyn’s insides likened to early spring flowers poking out from sidewalks as snow began to retreat and usher in sun-showers, in her radiance she was just as likely to blossom as she was to wilt – but almost without question it was only a matter of time before someone meandered by and plucked a pedal or snuffed her beneath the sole of their shoe.

She’d only have so much time to be envious, only so much time to quiver and brew in her insecurities and fear of short coming, only so much time to gawk at the lithe dark-skinned beauty before yet again they were kissing, the mixed aroma of their shampoos as well as lust curling into her nostrils – making her sigh wistfully before their lips once again could be heard and felt joining each other, small moans and shifts of skin and sheets. She moaned noticeably into the kiss as she felt the heat of Maitreya’s crotch and the moistness of her panties on her thigh, yet another still and stronger than the last as her own was afforded the same grace – the thumb brushing across her nipple affording a full gasp. She wasn’t a particularly sensitive woman, certainly not were her breasts but sexually charged as the moment was and was it ever she was granted a whole new level of sentience to touch.

Maitreya’s compliment was no met with grace, in fact, it was met with nothing but a groan meant to sound off apathy, sounding more like the groan of a woman who didn’t believe it before her tongue strangled Maitreya’s to silence and her hands found her firm behind – gripping it tight, fingers splaying and tensing only to soften and caress, the process repeating in an undulant rhythm as their lips continued to dance about one and other, god it felt good, a sickly shaking sort of amazing she wouldn’t give up for the world – but she needed more. It was a god-send and nothing short of that when Maitreya’s brushfire of seduction reached it’s maximum combustion ”fuck me like one of your college girls” Brooklyn growled in agreement, a deep guttural sort of agreement that rumbled in her chest as she simultaneously realized just how much power she’d relinquished to Maitreya – the sable-skinned woman’s flames doused to their stage of decay was the next step.

Brooklyn gripped her ass tighter and pulled her in with such force her legs would need to straighten, twirling her once then giving a light shove to send her listing down onto the memory-foam mattress that had supported only their legs till now – looking down on her with a quickly acquired dangerous grin. She’d fallen too far back for the easiest of access so Brooklyn was just as quick to pull her back by the knees, gripping her with strong hands and dragging her so her legs from the knee down would fall limp over the sides of the bed. She looked down upon her like a predator not about to pick off the weakest of a herd but rather challenge their apex, Maitreya was worthy of that respect but not so much to scare her off or demand submission again the moment it was given up.

It seemed the freckle-faced woman had a certain aversion to speaking once the act truly reached its fevered pitch, were someone to assume as such they may almost exclusively be right – she never knew what to say once she entered the stage passed making out and exploration of flesh, she had the odd gem but everything else that crossed her mind, even moans and groans could make her internally cringe with shame – just as it could seem insecure however it could easily be mistaken for unbridled confidence that she need never say or ask a damn thing, only take what she wanted and moreover take it just how she wanted to.

A brief moment of panic struck her when she thought she should have fallen with her, it felt awkward standing there now and she felt awkward second guessing herself, oh god, there was no way down to the bed with any form of grace, no way to appear remotely seductive if she simply squatted down and peeled away Maitreya’s panties now in reach of her fingers gnarled with hesitation… still, this was no time to do anything beyond simply go with it “You got it doll,” She mewled, throaty and breathless as she did her bed to find herself onto the mattress, straddling Maitreya with her face just over hers, looking her in the eyes as her fingers blindly searched her side, then hip, once again finding her panties and slipping inside their warm confines – two fingers tracing her hot slick petals for a lubcricating coat before they located her hood and pressed lightly, giving her a small circular rub as hot spread lips sunk down on Maitreya’s once again her swollen breasts brushing against the smaller pair beneath, panic slipping away, the rest would be natural of course.