“BBQ,” Sabina answers, turning to me with an expectant look. “We need more.”
“Yeah, seriously, we would have died if it weren’t for Nessa.” Pepper points out. “Can you make more BBQ?”
I think about the Dagda. About his seemingly endless ability to produce food and drink from nowhere. About the way he showed up with a tray of beers like it was nothing.
“Know what? I’ll put Dagda on it.”
“Who?” they chorus.
“You’ll see.” I smirk. “Let’s get to that party.”
“Oh, you remember, too.” Vanessa’s eyes go dreamy, unfocused. “I am pretty sure that one guy is why I love to be tied up now.”
“Weren’t you a virgin?” Sabina points out.
“So many ways to play,” Vanessa answers, then skips off down the dream-road.
“The sluttiest virgin I know.” Pepper winces. “Well, then. Now she gets railed by five.”
“So do you,” I laugh.
“Me, too,” Sabina says, not to be outdone. “Can you add two more mates? Five seems like the right number.”
“I am good with three.” I chuckle, shaking my head. “Way too many dicks.”
“Triple penetration.” Pepper holds up three fingers, ticking off the logistics like she’s explaining a recipe. “You get option one, three cocks rammed up in your hot pocket. Or you can do one in your pussy, one in your mouth, one in your ass.” She pauses. “Actually, four if someone’s got good hands, double P in the V. And one in the evacuation center.”
I need a diagram. Maybe one with those little stick figures.
“Ugh, the amount of lube.” Sabina groans. “I’ve had to have it on a monthly subscription since the babies were born.”
“Girl, tell me about it. Same.” Pepper nods sagely. “Fucking hormones. I just wanna be a whore that moans.”
“I’m still just a girl who loves to moan.” Vanessa sighs wistfully from up ahead.
This. This is what I missed. The filthy, unhinged, completely inappropriate conversations that only happen between women who’ve known each other since they were small. The kind of talk that would make anyone else clutch their pearls but feels like breathing to us.
Three years without this. Three years of thinking I didn’t deserve it.
“Whose fucking choice was it to walk Green Lane?” Pepper grumbles as the road shifts beneath us, tilting upward. The dream has decided to send us home. To the moment we left the party. “Even dream me can’t escape that fucking hill.”
“The Wall claims all victims,” Sabina intones solemnly. “Why is it nighttime?”
“The dream decided endless walking.” I huff.
“I hate cardio.” Pepper pants, even though we’re barely moving. “I hate it in the waking world and I hate it in dreams. What kind of bullshit magic makes you exercise in your sleep?”
“Your magic,” Vanessa points out. “Chaos breeds chaos.”
“I will unmake you.”
“You’d miss me.”
“Debatable.”
The dream wavers. Edges going soft. Colors bleeding together like watercolors left in the rain.
“Ash.” Pepper grabs my arm. Her grip is solid. Real. “We’re coming. You hear me? Whatever happens with your glamour, whatever bullshit your Faerie courts throw at you, we’re coming.”
