A Mysterious Guest

"I can tell you're still upset about that history teacher who used you," she murmured, almost chanting. "Perhaps, if I do this thing for you and Natalie, you can come back and I can do another thing. A thing for you and him."

Holy Jesus. No way could she know about that. No goddamn way: only me, Natalie, and that fucking teacher knew. And he sure as shit wasn't going to say anything: he had a wife. I'd been silent about the entire evening for any number of reasons, and Natalie?

No. Natalie never told secrets. Secrets, once told, had no power, and she loved power. I felt myself sitting weakly back down in the woman's rickety chair before I even knew what I was doing, counting greasy bills out of my wallet as fast as I could. There was, in the woman's strange and unnerving eyes, the shine of greed quickly suppressed, but I couldn't satisfy her; I had just $61.

"That's fine," she said briskly, and the crumpled money disappeared as quickly as I'd laid it down. "That is thirty-nine you owe me, which you can bring me tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"You'll need to come tomorrow," went on, ignoring me, "for there are things I will need you to bring me. Things special and unique to this young woman, this Natalie."

Which was why I was wondering now about Natalie's underwear, the pair I'd snuck into the weird woman and then laid right on top of her drawer. "You're fucking crazy to walk around this house tonight without a thong."

"Fuck you. It would show." She was right, but it frustrated me anyway. I looked away, still hopeful; there had been other items. The bracelets, for one. The necklace she liked. I sighed; too bad I hadn't known about the catsuit. I was going to ask her if she planned on wearing any jewelry, but that would sound weird.

So I was looking away as she grabbed the ballet flats on the top of the shoe pile in the closet. In fact, I didn't notice them until she already had them on. And if she even saw my wide grin at that, she surely wouldn't care why I was smiling: I'd last seen those shoes lying across the top of the fortuneteller's table, off in the corner like a forgotten messenger. "It is not necessary," she'd said, "that this Natalie wear the item; it could just be something she has worn, if unwashed. But it is stronger if she wears it."

I stretched then, catlike, and got up to head over to my sports bag. Time to get moving.

* * *

"Hey, cutie," the guy was saying, staring deeply and longingly into my cleavage. "Wanna dance?"

No. "Sure!" I bubbled, already well sauced with Bart's excellent jungle juice. The party felt just right: hot, sweaty, stinky, and charged with the kind of atmosphere that hinted at a night spent messing around on couches. I was no kind of dancer, even drunk, but this boy was cute. Alas, he was dressed as a mime. "If you agree to change your costume." That was his chance, right there. If he'd been in the true spirit of the party, or at least drunk enough not to care, he'd have continued to flirt by stripping all his clothes off. A high standard, to be sure, but the prize would have been me, all night, no questions, any way he wanted.

"Ha ha! Hey, Rick! Get a look at this wench!" He snagged a passing friend, gesturing grandly toward me. "Isn't she a fucking hottie?"

Rick. Also a mime. He was more into it, though, keeping his mouth shut, a trait I always found alluring in a man. I let him do some of those mime things, the rope trick and that one where they pretend they're in an elevator. He groped my tits without shame, neatly incorporating them into his elevator moves, and I decided I liked him. "You're funny," I laughed, letting him fondle to his silent heart's content as I swigged back more booze.

Mime #2 was the fourth or fifth hopeful suitor of the night; it had started with a boy in a Cupid outfit, playfully prodding me with his dinky little arrow. Second had been a stoner named Kurt. "Dude," he'd breathed, his hand firmly on my asscheek, "Bart says it's fifty for a BJ. Any chance of a holiday rate?" Then there had been that damn pirate, already completely wasted, who'd been wandering around showing his penis to everyone. Like the other girls I'd given him a good-natured grope, but eventually I'd drifted back into a corner by the kitchen door, my clingy black robe melting into the shadows. "Important," the fortuneteller had said insistently, "that you wear black, all the way to the floor. And a hood; no hat."

The effect was more Raven from Teen Titans than proper Halloween witch, but who cared? I wasn't one of the main attractions, anyway. There was a surplus of pussy on offer here tonight, most of it grade-A prime and still turning dick away. Bart always strove for a decent ratio, but since almost everyone was hot and quite a few would be up for threesomes it didn't really matter. "It's got a way of working itself out," he'd explained one year, the day after, as the Cross siblings had patrolled the house looking for deadbeats and comatose couples.

Certainly seemed to. I'd already walked in on a couple locked in a fierce bit of doggie-play across the bathroom sink; the guy had eyed me greedily as he'd watched me pee. Then there had been the puddle of semen I'd very nearly sat in on that dining-room chair, but wordless Nicole had been there to nudge me aside before I could ruin my cloak. I was grateful; the last thing I needed was a cumstain on my ass. I thought I should set her up with that second mime; they'd have a lot to talk about, figuratively speaking.

But then, around eight at night, there was a Moment, the kind that happens in cowboy movies when the villain enters a saloon: you know how everything stops and sort of takes a deep breath before it picks up again? It was like that. I swear I felt a cool wind stir through the house, ruffling hair and hardening nipples as it passed; when it did, there was a new guest at the front door.

He was tall and broad, built sleek and muscular and broad-shouldered like a rugby player: he was basically cone-shaped, his arms and legs bumped with subtle muscle in wonderful proportions. His muscular chest was smooth and inviting, the six-pack below verging on an eight, and all of that was plain to see: his costume made it easy to sort out his body. He was dressed as a Faun.

Not one of those cute little Narnia fauns, either, like that one who lived up in the snow: no, this was what a faun would look like if it grew up homeless in Moscow, all beef and scars and meanness. There was a tawny tint to his exposed skin, but really nicely done, like by a professional makeup artist. The goat legs, looking totally real, must have been glued somehow to his bare, narrow hips: their coarse hair tapered neatly up his groin, merging gently into skin and, as a final remnant, a mouth-watering trail of bristly black hair reaching up his belly like a girl holding her arm up at a concert.

Despite the goat legs, I'd never seen a more manly-looking man. He had hair in all the right places and none where I didn't like it, the black fur beneath armpits and belly button more tempting than repulsive: even his smell, rich and gamy like a pelt, was enough to drop panties throughout the room.

That's if his face hadn't already done so. Square and gorgeous, it topped a muscular neck with a rugged manly beauty like nothing I'd quite seen before. His mouth was full and his lips generous, set now in a sardonic smirk; the nose, broken once upon a time, was large but not too large, just right for burrowing against a clit while the tongue lapped beneath. He had just the right amount of facial hair, treading that fine line between hipster and douchebag, the tapered goatee and mustache combo emphasizing a strong chin and echoing the black, glittering eyes above. His head was a shaven bullet, the stubby horns sprouting from his forehead definitely professionally done.

"That's my dick," I heard Natalie breathe right beside me. She'd sailed up to me in the corner unseen, looking like absolute sex on a plate with the sheer bodysuit and the gossamer wings sprouting from between her shoulder blades. "That boy's all mine."

Shit. She could get in line; already the new arrival was being swarmed by all manner of nurses, pirate lasses, witches, Valkyries, and nymphettes, all with their tits and asses on display, immediately competing for this stranger's sperm. I'd never seen anything like it, but I well understood: his appearance had soaked my own panties, too. I looked pointedly down Natalie's body. "Told you you should wear some underwear," I snickered. "You're going to stain your catsuit."

"Who gives a shit?" She was wide-eyed. "Once I get close to that chunk of meat, I'm not going to be wearing it long, anyway."

"I think you'll have a little competition." I glanced sideways at her; she was actually salivating.

"Yeah," she mused, watching the knot of people tie itself around the new arrival. Then her cruel lips curled into a fiendish grin. "But it says 'Cross' on the mailbox outside, and it says the same thing on my license. My house, my rules. I've got home ice advantage, honey." She slugged back some jungle juice, tweaked her boobs into shape, and steamed right in, leaving me holding her red plastic cup.

There was a sudden stillness in the room as she approached him. I'd have chalked it up to the alcohol coursing through my system, except that others seemed to feel it too; the horny partygoers surrounding the Faun turned to look at Natalie as she marched up in those enchanted ballet flats, her back straight and her shoulders thrown back, giving it everything she had.

The Faun watched her come. Already someone had pressed a beer into his hand, and he'd somehow drained half of it. He'd said nothing yet as far as I could tell; he just watched, judging everyone in the room, and Natalie not least.

God, but she had such confidence! It made no sense at all that such a plain, curveless, annoying bitch would ever be desired by anyone, but the past had proven that Natalie could have just about any dick she wanted. I'd seen her in action many times, both in the act of seduction and in the act of sex, and it never ceased to amaze me what she made her men do. She was a good lesson in how to make lemons into lemonade: if Natalie Cross, charter member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee and all-around pain in the ass, could turn herself by her own willpower into a sexual tornado, well, anyone could.

They met in the foyer, just inside the door, with a hovering Bart quizzically asking people who the fuck the Faun was. There was music playing in the back bedroom, a bass beat thumping vaguely through the walls and floor, and I watched rapt as Natalie cruised right up to the man. Christ, but he was fine: she was tall, but he rose at least a head taller, his perfect body forming an unbelievable backdrop to the sleek ass in the grey bodysuit; the scene looked like the cover of a sci-fi novel, circa 1983.

I saw Natalie dip her head, scanning him once, bottom to top; by the time she reached his face, his beer was empty. He flung the bottle carelessly over his shoulder, out onto the front lawn. She leaned in closer and said something to the Faun, then the whole room held its breath as he burst into wild, ringing laughter. She didn't wait; she spun around and began to dance lightly to the teeth-rattling bass beat, backing slowly up to him with her eyes closed and those ridiculous angel wings brushing at his bare nipples.

It was easy to see the lust in his eyes, and why not? Natalie was a good dancer, or at least a sexy one, and she was absolutely on her game tonight. If it was weird to her to be seducing a total stranger with her own brother standing a few feet away, she didn't show it. She ground back into his body, her ass planted in his crotch and her hands rustling through his furry legs, bending forward so that he could look down at her back.

The watching women were whispering now, giggling behind their hands, some of them with narrowed eyes as they calculated Natalie's odds of scoring right in front of them. I saw many of them crane their necks, most trying to be subtle but many not bothering, aiming their eyes at the junction of his body with hers: they were looking for an erection from among the coarse hair of his costume.

I settled back, and from out of nowhere Nicole was leaning against the wall beside me. She startled me, but in the shape I was in it would hardly have taken a ninja to get the drop on me. Her voice was low, almost guttural. "She's a good dancer," she observed, the red plastic cup in her hand nearly untouched. "Can I get you another drink, Meredith?"

"No thanks," I stammered, unaccustomed to hearing anything from her at all. She just nodded gravely and watched her sister work.

And work she did, sweating freely through her catsuit, her nipples plain for all to see. Her face had that same twisted snarl I'd seen on her when she'd brought that teacher to fuck me. It took my breath away to watch her there, putting on her show, and the Faun let it go on for several minutes with a tight, evil grin on his face.

Then he touched her.

I saw her eyes flap wide at the electricity of that touch, his big hand landing on her shoulder like a malevolent helicopter. She grinned suddenly, crazily, victorious; I saw her sweep it from her face before she turned around, straightening, her hands already going to the Faun's neck. She twisted her body, dripping sex both literally and figuratively, and his grin broadened as her hand reached the back of his head; she was setting up for a harsh, possessive kiss, marking her territory right there in front of a knot of hotter girls.

It would be her greatest triumph.

The Faun moved his head back slightly, taunting her, the cruelty of his grin clear to everyone but Natalie. I saw him move a lazy, powerful hand to her ass, gripping hard like a man feeling out a horse; his other hand shot up to her scanty breast, measuring, squeezing; and then he threw back his head and laughed.

It took a few seconds for Natalie to realize she was being mocked. It was a dangerous game, mocking Natalie, especially publicly, in her own house, under those circumstances, but the Faun couldn't have cared less. He held her tight, his thumbs working over ass and tit, laughing harshly as she squirmed. He bent low, whispered something in her ear, then released her so suddenly she stumbled backward onto her ass in the Cross' nice hardwood living room. General laughter followed the Faun as he swept from the room, already with another beer in hand, trailed by an entourage made up of half the eligible pussy in the house and quite a bit of the ineligible, too.

He was headed, it seemed, for the kitchen, seeking snacks. That meant he'd pass within three feet of me, and I nervously smoothed my cloak across my shoulders and breasts. Before I'd had time to take another breath, he was there, his scent filling the space around me as his dark eyes found mine. He arched a sardonic eyebrow and twitched a corner of those full lips upward in a quick smirk, sharing the joke, and then he was off, Nicole drifting along with him, somehow infiltrating into the circle of his muscled arm like a moll at a mob function.

I drew a shuddering breath, waited for the crowd to pass, and then went to check on the furious Natalie.

* * *

When I'd brought Natalie's things back to the weird fortuneteller the next night, all of them stuffed precariously into one of the Cross' old pillowcases, I also brought two twenties freshly stolen from my mom's wallet. The dark eyes got wide and bright as she saw me walk in; it was clear she hadn't expected to see me again. "Here's the shit," I said sullenly, spilling the pillowcase onto her table.

She scanned the pile, then hesitated. Finally, she looked slowly up at me. "Leave this place. Go get a coffee, or find a friend; I won't know. Come back in thirty minutes."

I glared down at her, as sketched out as I'd ever been. "And then?"

She just stared. "Then?"

"What happens then?" An odd twinge made my stomach drop. "Do I need to do anything else?"

She paused, then grinned. It was a smile in dire need of orthodonture. "You will need to take away these smelly shoes and this disgusting thong." Then the smile went away and she waited, impatient, for me to disappear. "I will have cursed them, and you will be on your way."

* * *

"I don't get it," Natalie was muttering, shaking her head as she and I shared a cigarette on the back porch. "I just don't."

She'd made a fool of herself three times by then. Once in the foyer, groped on her ass in front of the assembled women of the party. Twice, later, when the Faun had been dancing with slick, curvy Caroline Silva. The little Portuguese minx had been in full Mediterranean effect, her fleshy ass glued to those hairy pants like she belonged there, grinning widely as her crack undoubtedly felt the power of whatever the Faun was hiding under there. Natalie had stepped boldly up behind the gyrating couple and, on tiptoe, nibbled at the bald man's gauged earlobe while she ran a delicate hand across that muscled ass of his. He'd cocked his head, as if listening to the sound of her teeth, then he'd barked that same laugh and shooed her away, exactly as one would to a fly; Caroline got the benefit, too, as he thrust his pelvis at her, his strong hands coming around to grapple with her formidable tits. I'd watched her eyes roll back into her head.

Then, thrice, as he'd been stretched out on a couch, some college bimbo blowing bong smoke into his mouth. Natalie had stood before him, her catsuit now stained somewhat, and in desperation she'd shoved the bimbo out of the way, her eyes smoldering. I'd seen those eyes like that once before, just before she tagged a rival with a fierce uppercut, and I held my breath now in case the bimbo chose to make a big deal of it. But no: the girl was older, and hotter, and she'd already seen the Faun kick Natalie to the curb two times. So she'd settled back for a front-row seat as Natalie Cross, pulling out all the stops, gave the Faun an honest-to-God lapdance.

A crowd had gathered even before she began, and it swelled right away; so, surely, did every penis present as she went absolutely freak-nasty on that man. I'd never seen her like that, clothed or naked: Natalie was a fastidious person, a powerful person, a person never, ever to be fucked with; it was jarring, in a really serious way, to see her reduced to a panting wreck in a soiled costume, angel wings askew, using every inch of her body to beg that man for his cock.

It almost made me feel sorry for her.

Natalie was usually on the receiving end of begging. That was the weirdest part. I'd seen it both live and on camera, a few of her men and boys even getting on their knees to do dirty things to her. She loved that part of it; I'm sure she got off to the physical motions of tongue, hand, and penis, but I knew the truth: that what she got off on, most of all, was making men do those things.

Now she was bouncing athletically around between the spread goat-legs of his costume as he sprawled on the couch, her hips a blur as she massaged his groin with her asscrack. I saw her cheeks sucked in, her lower lip captured between her teeth, one hand bracing her body against his knee while the other one pulled frantically at her nipple.

For his part, though, the Faun just sat there, bored, his latest beer in one hand and his latest boob in the other. His dark, brutal eyes, the corners crinkled in mirth, looked down at Natalie's lean, jackhammering ass as it pistoned against his body. I felt my mouth fall as I watched, knowing that even if Natalie for whatever bizarre reason couldn't get this man naked, she'd have first choice on any other man in the room after the show she was putting on.

I can't be certain, but I'm about fifty percent sure she came right there, just from giving that dude his money's worth. The entire catsuit was soaked, to be sure, the evening's sweat and beer showing everything Natalie had been born with, but still I thought I could catch an extra, sopping quality to her crotch. Somehow he remained, sprawled and languid, throughout the entire display. And then, finally, once she was winding down, her hair coming free of its braids and slapping wetly against his bare chest as she swirled her lithe body, he leaned over to the college bimbo. He whispered something into her ear, and then Natalie Cross' world collapsed like an imploded Vegas hotel.