She’s captivating. A tiny thing, barely five feet, I’d guess, and with an hourglass waist tucked neatly in by her corset, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t noticed the pooling of ample breasts threatening to swell over the top. Following behind her, I also got a glimpse of a nicely rounded ass, highlighted by her white superhero panties. She shouldn’t have been targeted by these creeps. No one should. But I see why she’d catch anyone’s attention.
“Mokushiroku?” she says, her voice a single hair of a dandelion’s mane, my ear the lucky one for it to land on.
I smile, glad she recognized my costume. It makes sense, since she’s dressed in the same fandom, but glittering gold guy in a thong checks a few boxes.
“Sotchoku-chan,” I say with a friendly, personal smile, looking at her the way I’d look at someone I’ve knownintimately for years, hoping the guys get the hint and don’t try to start anything. They’re all lightweights — well, Ghostface is probably heavier than me, but it’s all gut that he’s tried to cover with black robes — so I’m not worried that if this turns into a fist fight, I’ll lose. I just know there’s zero chance I won’t get identified if I break one of these assholes’ noses.
It’ll get back to Jugs management.
There will undoubtedly be footage of it. There are cameras everywhere.
They’re going to see me dressed in basically nothing, and they’re going to fire my ass.
Dom Morales still has a great fucking arm, even if his knees aren’t getting him yards anymore.
So I hope everyone, including Harley Quinn, hears me loudly and clearly when I say, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“So then, after Burning Man, I met back up with my friends, but we were stuck there for another month waiting on that tie rod. It worked out because—oh hey, the carpet stopped moving.”
I glance down to where Sotchoku is looking, an entire floor down. It’s got to be at least ten o’clock now. The party is going strong and will be all night, but we’re on the second-floor balcony overlooking the check-in desk, and the lobby is mostly cleared out.
The would-be assailants dispersed once I asked Sotchoku to introduce me to her new friends while I hugged her and glared at the men over the top of her high pony. I went ahead and flexed for effect. I may not be a linebacker — Gabe is the biggest softie on the planet but would have them pissing theirpants with a single step in their direction — but it was enough to have them backing off.
Harley Quinn was huffy but got the hint when Sotchoku melted in my embrace. I considered apologizing to Harley Quinn or, like, inviting her to a three-way so it didn’t look like I was trying to cheat on my girl, but I didn’t want her taking the bait.
It was only after she rolled her eyes and stomped off that I realized I could have said Sotchoku was just a friend. Even explained that we don’t know each other at all, I was just worried about those creeps, but oh well.
Sotchoku clung to me longer than needed, but I didn’t mind. She felt . . . relieved, not something I’m used to from people. I’m not exactly reliable or even trustworthy. But she curled against me, and I rubbed her back, and the world just passed us by for a moment.
“You saved me,” she said when she finally peeled herself off me. And if it wasn’t already clear from everything else that she’s on something, she asked, “Are you nice?” like a child who doesn’t realize dangerous people will simply lie.
But I didn’t lie. “Not really.”
She grinned at that, showing me white but crowded teeth, tilted just enough to show that she grew up in a family that didn’t have the money to ensure perfect smiles. There’s a sweetness to it, though. She’s perfectly imperfect. “That means you’re nice. I’m thirsty.”
I don’t think she meant it as a test, but it felt like I passed when I said, “Let’s go up to the Con Suite and get you some water and a snack, okay?” and her smile lit up even more.
I snagged us six bottles of water, two grilled cheese sandwiches, and some carrot sticks while keeping a watchful eye on Sotchoku, who immediately wandered back out andfound us this spot. The wall has an extra railing constructed atop it with a gap just wide enough I could lift Sotchoku, feed her legs through it, and lean her into the bar like one of those high chairs they’ve got for little kids at sports bars. With a hand on her spine to keep her from falling back, we’ve been comfortable here for a couple hours now.
I’m pretty sure she’s on a psychedelic for the random things she’s sprinkled in — like that carpet comment — and also the way her words have meandered, but I’ve enjoyed it. She’s happy and sad and disconnected and observant and wanting more but unable to grasp it, and I get that.
People don’t talk to me this way, not even my friends. The truth is I’m kind of an idiot, always have been. Not saying I can’t learn things and don’t know stuff, but I couldn’t read a textbook to save my life the whole twelve years I was in school. They put me in the classes with the other kids who couldn’t follow along, and once they figured out I had a cannon for a left arm, my teachers didn’t care what was on the papers I turned in, as long as I turned them in. My last two years of college, a stunt double went to class for me, and I got yelled at for asking if I could still go sometimes.
So I know my Big Thoughts are probably dumb as fuck, but I still have them and wish I could talk about them without everyone laughing them off. If Sotchoku is using this as a chance to purge her Big Thoughts, I feel honored that she’s trusting me with them, even if it’s just because she’s tripping.
And then she makes that carpet comment, and I look down to see if the carpet has a pattern that creates an optical illusion or if we’re high enough that the people might look like part of the pattern with a scrambled enough brain. I have my doubts, but before I can decide to ask her or just let her finishher story about getting stranded in West Virginia while working in a food truck, she adds, “I microdosed.”
“You microdosed while waiting for the tie-rod?”
She giggles, a sound I like probably more than I should. She’s done it a few times, but I haven’t known what about. Just things she’s imagining, I guess. “No, today. I microdosed today.”
I throw a side eye at her. She has her elbows on the railing, propping her lace-gloved hands up so she can rest her chin on them, but now she’s tilted her head to look up at me. The way her cheek is smashed against her palm makes me think of evenings before Wilmington, when I wasn’t wearing masks to go to parties for anonymous hook-ups. This is the look of a girl I’ve just rolled off of, laid next to for a couple seconds, gotten up to grab some towels to clean her up, and returned to find her face smashed against a pillow as she watches me dreamily, not yet planning the next steps.
I give my dick a stern lecture about not reading too much into this.
“Babe, I think you just dosed.”
She cringes, but it looks very much for show, like she’s not actually embarrassed but knows I’ve mildly jabbed her. “It wassupposedto be a microdose, okay? I just wanted to have a good time, that’s all.”
