The Curtain, and Other Oddities

Hey, so: thanks for reading. This is my first time submitting to the site. If you're into it and would be interested in seeing more like it, voting for it or otherwise boosting it would be among many ways to let me know.

This is a pretty long story; I think it's all worth reading, but if you're in a rush, the sex peaks in Part Three. It's all nominally consensual, but may tic off some non-con boxes with magical charms and assortedly poor kink/consent practice. Don't try this at home.

Enjoy!

OVERTURE: MORNING ROUTINE

I was woken up by the guys upstairs blasting a dubstep remix of "Spooky Scary Skeletons." Which meant it was Halloween, I guess.

It was 9:30 AM. Too early to get up, too late to get back to sleep, and I wasn't allowed to jerk off while Lucy was asleep anymore. I settled for staring at her uncovered back in the bed next to me. Lucy, my girlfriend of, Jesus, eleven months now?, was Vietnamese-Chicagoan, on the swim team, and used some kind of special creamy-perfect-skin soap. Her back was all muscles and little curves and creamy perfect skin. Lucy slept like a log, always on her side facing the wall, so just looking at her had become part of my morning routine. I contentedly nudged my morningwood into the cleft of her asscrack and brushed her hair back from her neck.

"Mmmffff," groaned Lucy, pressing her ass against my cock.

"We're so sorry, skeletons," came the music from upstairs. "You're so misunderstoooood / You only want to socialize / but I don't think we shooooould!"

Lucy rolled onto her back and pulled me in for a kiss, eyes still closed. Her tits wobbled back and forth for a second before settling into their resting position. "Happy hall'ween," she mumbled.

"Happy Halloween, love. Go back to sleep," I whispered. It was worth being quiet, even with the music blaring, because we weren't the only ones in the room. Lucy's dorm room was a double, and we'd set up a white curtain to separate us from Lucy's roommate, Alma, and her girlfriend, Siobhan. It wasn't ideal--from a certain perspective--to house two extremely sexually active couples in one room with only a bedsheet protecting our modesty, but my roommate was a slob and Siobhan's roommate was a homophobe, so we'd all gotten used to it.

Siobhan, at least, was awake. I could tell from her shadow on the curtain--her preposterous Jessica Rabbit silhouette rising from the bed and stretching its arms out. We were only two months into the school year, but I'd given up on trying not to stare weeks ago. It was worse at night--Alma's side of the room was lit with one of those bendy, five-bulb lamps, arranged so that the girls' bed was between the lamp and the curtain. The lamp was like a film projector--when Alma and Siobhan were fucking, their silhouettes were burnt onto the curtain from several different angles, creating a sort of kaleidoscopic orgy effect. And they were both loud when they went at it.

There was no way everyone didn't understand how erotic this setup was for me, though we didn't really talk about it. It was probably the same for Siobhan, who was bi, if not for Alma and Lucy, who were exclusively gay and straight, respectively. But Lucy's friends were all sort of weirdly comfortable around each other--girls are just like that, maybe--and the longer I hung around them, the more comfortable they were with me, too.

All for the best, since the only door out of the room was on Alma's side. I kissed Lucy again, got up from the bed, cinched a towel around my erection as subtly as I could, and knocked on the wall. "I wanna shower and get to breakfast," I said. "You decent?"

"Ten seconds," said Siobhan. "We'll probably see you at breakfast. They're making the thing with the pumpkin stuff, right?"

"Hence wanting to show up early, yeah." The Siobhan-shadow interacted with something that looked like a robe, and then signalled an all-clear. I pulled the sheet back and tried to look at anything but my girlfriend's friend in that one robe she always wears. Under the covers of the other bed was a small, fetal lump--this was Alma. "Happy Halloween," I said, trying to reach the door while keeping my erection out of sight.

"Happy Halloween, Chris," said Siobhan. In that voice that she does that comes out of that body that she has under that robe that she wears. "We'll see you at The Thing later, if we skip breakfast."

"Yeah."

"Everyone's so loud," came a squeak from the bed.

"Hush," said Siobhan, sitting back down on the bed and putting a hand on a part of the lump that might have been a forehead or an ass. "You've done your share of loud."

"Lies."

I pulled the door shut, wide awake now. Sexual tension was better than coffee.

I didn't masturbate in the shower. I wasn't clear on what exactly The Thing was, but a part of me was hoping it would give me an outlet for my sexual energy. Some sort of annual tradition among Lucy's friends. God only knows what a coven of college-girl witches gets up to on Halloween.

ONE: A THESIS IN OPTICS

It was senior year. I'd completed all of the basic requirements for the physics major and I was starting to piece together my thesis. Long story short, it's on optics. Light and color. Not a fashionable topic, but I liked it because it was the same sort of question Isaac Newton was banging his head against three hundred-some years ago. What happens when we look at something? That's only a broad, quasi-philosophical abstraction of what I'm actually doing, but it was the question on my mind all day. It was October. The trees were all red and orange and the girls were all wearing sweaters now (except, God help me, the ones who were already wearing costumes). Quintillions of photons were bouncing around off everything at odd angles and making everything visible to each other, which is how we know where we are and what's in here with us. On the subatomic level, looking at something is pretty much the same thing as touching it.

Classes, lunch, lab, and an early (light) dinner at 4:30. Whatever The Thing was, I knew that it didn't involve food, and that I was supposed to come in costume. The costume was easy enough. I had one halloween costume that had lasted me all through college, and all the components were in my room: red sunglasses, polo shirt with the little X, black pants, nice shoes, parted hair, stiff upper lip. And so to the corner room.

"The corner room" belonged to Kate and Gabby, the other two members of the coven. It was the girls' usual platonic hangout spot because it was the biggest double in the building. Also, due to some quirk of architecture, it had five walls; it wasn't quite a perfect pentagram, but that had to appeal to the witches' aesthetic sense.

I was the last one to show up. Lucy slapped the spot between her and Gabby on Gabby's bed. It wasn't a very wide spot. I squeezed in and leaned cautiously towards my girlfriend; no complaint, because this was the first I was seeing in Lucy in her full Black Widow costume. The skintight jumpsuit with the zipper down to a few inches above the navel; the prop gun strapped suggestively to the inside of her thigh; the elbow-length red wig. I love Lucy's natural hair, which is a sort of shiny black, but there's something about that red wig, you know? Of course, everything was red through my glasses. But still.

Lucy kissed my earlobe. "Hello, lover," she said in a middling (but still hot) Russian accent. Then, in her normal voice: "How was your day?"

"Spooktacular," I said.

"I'm glad."

Gabby wrapped a hand around my forearm, drawing my attention from my girlfriend. "So who are you supposed to be?"

I had to catch my breath for a few seconds before answering. Gabby's costume, as far as I could tell, was just fetish gear. Corset, thigh-high boots, fingerless gloves, short-shorts, and a collar around her neck--all of it leather. And Gabby was a woman you had to take a second look at even if you caught her in a hoodie and sweatpants. She was Italian, with the Mediterranean tan and the poofy dark-brown hair with the blond highlights, and the big eyes and those lips and the Jersey Shore sort of curves, if that makes sense.

I lowered a hand to Lucy's thigh for support and tried to keep it cool. "I'm Cyclops," I answered. "The leader of the X-Men?"

Gabby rolled her eyes. "Decided you didn't have the hair for a Wolverine costume?" she asked.

"Well, Cyclops is sexier."

I stopped myself from talking there, but, to digress: Cyclops is a highly misunderstood character. The best superheroes are metaphors, right? The Hulk is about PTSD, the Flash represents the postmodern condition, whatever. Cyclops is a straight white male for whom looking at someone is an act of violence. His power is always turned on. He has to hold it back with filtered glasses just so he doesn't literally stare holes through women. I can relate.

Another thing about Cyclops: there are a ton of beautiful women who are attracted to him, and all of them are mind readers. So he's trying to hold his energy in, but every woman who hears the fucked-up thoughts in his head decides that she wants him.

Isn't that interesting?

Failing to conceal a gasp, Lucy stopped my hand from sliding too far up and inwards on her thigh. "Hey, nerd," she said, recovering. "You got a ruling on whether there are supposed to be two Black Widows?"

She glared at Kate, who, awkwardly, was also wearing a Black Widow costume. About the only advantage Kate's costume had over Lucy's was that it didn't need a wig--her hair was dyed red from its natural blond. Beyond that, Kate, for all that she's supposed to be the most powerful witch in the group, just couldn't pull off the superhero look. I really like all of Lucy's friends, but Kate is the only one who I wouldn't fuck given the slightest opportunity. So I would have loved to take Lucy's side on this, but: "Yeah, there are two Black Widows. Kate should have been the evil blonde one. Coordinate better next time."

"We coordinated," said Lucy. "I've been planning this outfit since summer. Everyone knew that."

Hoping to de-escalate the conflict, I turned back toward Gabby. "So what's your costume?" I asked, staring it up and down. "Ana from Fifty Shades?"

Gabby retched. "I'm insulted," she said. "For one thing, Ana isn't--oh." She ripped my glasses off. "There."

"Oh." For a moment everything was green--except Gabby's skin, where it shone through the fetish outfit. She was bright blood-red, head to toe. Whether it was just paint or a glamour, it was an impressive job. And now that I finally found the willpower to lift my eyes above her corset region, I noticed the two little horns sticking out from under her hair. "You're a, uh, a... kinky demon... thing."

"Beelzebub, Devil, Satan, Mephistopheles," said Siobhan.

Alma giggled. "'Better to serve in hell, than reign in heaven,'" she intoned.

I turned my attention to the happy couple. Alma was sitting on Siobhan's lap, which was pretty normal for them. They were very affectionate with each other--in private or otherwise--and they fit well together. Siobhan, of the coven, had the best claim to the title of "superhero body." She was five foot eleven, a natural redhead, and each of her tits (also natural) was about the size of her head. She was on the basketball team, the fire-spinning group, and was lead singer in a band called Can U Not Talk Sense. There was no way she wasn't the most jerked-off-over person on campus, if not in the state.

What made Siobhan and Alma so cute together was that Alma was five foot nothing, and barely came up to Siobhan's chin while sitting on her lap. Alma had a gorgeous body--especially her ass, which could usually be seen in tights, its perfect roundness compressed a little by Siobhan's thigh--but it was all so compact. As far as I was aware, Alma had never been with a man, but I imagined that she would make a man feel tall. Plus, she did gymnastics.

I was staring at the two of them partly for the same reason I was always staring at them, and partly because I was trying to figure out if their costumes were supposed to be thematically linked. Siobhan was a mummy. She was wrapped from the neck down in what appeared to be a continuous length of something that looked like Ace bandage. There had to have been something under that, supporting her tits--how else could they possibly be holding that shape?--but I couldn't see anything. In fact, I was pretty sure I could see the prominent bump of an erect nipple on the side Alma was leaning against, suggesting that the outfit was very thin.

If Siobhan was a dead pharaoh, it stood to reason that Alma was some sort of temple girl. Her outfit was 80% jewelry, including a gold sequinned bikini top that concealed about half the volume of her breasts. The gold looked damn good against her skin, and she made jingling noises when she laughed. A soft-looking purple loincloth, front and back, concealed a minimal arc of her hips and ass. And Lucy was talking, wasn't she?

"Focus, hon," my girlfriend said, patting me condescendingly on the back. "You're about to learn some witch secrets."

"Right," I said. "So what's this Thing?"

"Mm-hmm," said Kate, pulling a box out from under her bed. "So, there's this spell we did the last two Halloweens and we're gonna do it again tonight." She opened up the box. Inside were six necklaces. with what looked like large silver coins hanging from the front. "It's a sort of... bonding exercise... trust-building kind of, um--"

"Orgiastic fuckfest," offered Lucy.

"Yeah," said Kate, blushing. "That's... that's what I was getting at."

"Oh," I said. And not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth: "Well, I mean, I'm in. How's it work?"

TWO: ORGIASTIC FUCKFEST AS SHE IS PLAYED

"Six amulets," explained Lucy. "They're charged with a desire spell that lasts from sundown to sunup on Halloween every year. They all look the same, but when the spell activates, five of them will glow black, and the other one will glow white."

The phrase "glow black" didn't make sense to me, but here's what was really getting me about all this. Did this mean Lucy had had sex with women? She'd never mentioned that to me, and she'd never shown any interest in women. I supposed if I'd turned magically gay for a night a couple of times, I would have had a hard time explaining that to her, too.

"The white amulet is a broadcaster and the black ones are receivers. Everyone who's wearing a black amulet is completely, uncontrollably attracted to the person with the white."

"Uh-huh. So one of us at random--" (that's a 16.67% chance of being me) "--is going to have a really good night."

"The last two years," said Siobhan, "everyone had a really good night."

"Renee was the sixth," added Lucy. "But she doesn't hang out with us anymore, so we talked about it and decided we should give it to you." She kissed me on the neck and nuzzled my shoulder.

"Normally, we'd never give that power to a guy," said Kate. "But we all trust you. You've always seemed... you know... in control of yourself, I guess?"

"Not creepy," added Alma.

This was the most confusing thing I'd heard all day. Had these girls not known me for the past year? Was I actually that good at hiding my constant, painful desire to group-fuck them? Was I responsible for telling them what I was really like before I let this go any further? I looked to Lucy for reassurance. She smiled teasingly. "You're going to have a lot of fun tonight," she said. She leaned onto the bed, her back arching so that her breasts pushed against the material of her catsuit. Black Widow. Dear God.

Lucy and I had always been exclusive; I've never felt like a particularly monoamorous kind of guy, but I'd taken it for granted that these were the parameters of our relationship. Now she was inviting me into this situation where (66.67% chance) I was going to be "uncontrollably attracted" to one of her friends.

"There are a few rules," said Gabby, running a red-painted finger along my shoulder to get my attention. "Rules are important.

"One: no jealousy. When the amulets are on, we aren't going to be holding to our normal relationships or attachments or even our normal sexualities. Everyone has to respect that for everyone else. We're all doing this consensually, and part of that is that we're okay with different or unexpected outcomes. Part of the fun is that this can't be predicted.

"Two: no alcohol, no drugs tonight. Everyone with a black amulet is going to be out of her mind enough, and the person with the white amulet is going to have a lot of power. She'll have to stay in control.

"Three: no trading amulets. You can take your amulet off at any point if you're all fucked out for the night, but you can't put on an amulet other than the one you drew.

"Oh, and three and a half: if things get kinky again" --here Gabby bit her knuckle and took a deep breath before continuing-- "we're all good with color safewords, right? Green for 'all good,' yellow for 'stop what you're doing,' red for 'stop altogether.'"

"Yeah," I said. Lucy and I had never needed anything beyond "stop," but I got the feeling we weren't quite on Gabby's level with that stuff. "Yeah to everything. It all sounds good. How long until sunset?"

"Half an hour-ish," said Siobhan. "Everyone's going to pick an amulet, and then we'll go back to our beds and wait for it to start. We tried being all in the same room when it started, and that got sort of overwhelming."

"I almost drowned," remembered Alma fondly. She squeezed Siobhan's waist and kissed her passionately.

Everyone drew an amulet out of the box in counterclockwise order starting with Gabby, so I got second pick. I grabbed one that looked a little paler and shinier than the others; I felt pretty good about my choice. Alma and Siobhan put their amulets on each other and then Siobhan carried Alma, bridal-style, out of the room.

I must have watched them a little too long, because Gabby said, "Get off my bed, you perverts." She wrapped her amulet twice around her neck, so it fit like a choker just under the leather collar. "I have to gather some materials, and you're in the way."

"Right," I said. "Sorry." I stood, took Lucy by the hand, and pulled her off the bed. To Lucy I asked: "When she said I had to go to 'our beds,' that doesn't mean my bed my bed, right? Cause--"

"You're coming with me, Cyclops." Lucy smiled and gave my cock a quick rub through my pants. Gabby was still right there. Before I found my words, she pulled me out of the corner room and back toward our place.

Lucy knocked on the door. "Knock knock," she said. "You decent?"
"Yeah," came Siobhan's voice. "It's gonna take us a while to get all this bandage off, so you're good for a few minutes."

Lucy opened the door. Sure enough, Alma was slowly unwrapping the bandage off of Siobhan's right arm. I felt like I'd stumbled onto something really really sensual here, but I was so wound up that I probably would have felt the same way if I'd walked in on them picking each other's noses. I pulled Lucy past them and closed the curtain behind us.

Lucy spun me around and pushed me onto the bed, kneeling on top of my crotch. "I am super horny right now," she announced, making no attempt to be quiet.

"I gathered," I replied, grabbing her hair and drawing her in for a long kiss. When we detached, I said, "You never told me you'd had sex with any of your girlfriends."

"Uh-huh." Lucy lifted my shirt over my head. "I mean, with you there was a pretty quick flip from 'Chris doesn't get to know about this' to 'this is something I really want to share with Chris and want to be a surprise.'"

"Well, I'm surprised." I caught hold of the zipper on Lucy's jumpsuit and pulled it as far down as she could go. Then I yanked one half of the suit aside. One of her nipples emerged, already erect. "Who got the white amulet the last two years?"