Preview: Entwined, Part 2

And now you’re here, laying in bed next to her, watching her chewing her lip thoughtfully as she ponders your question. Not for the first time you notice how different her spots look in the dark, their iridescence gone, letting you see the many brown-black shapes making up the dense pattern. Their collective darkness cups the curves of her beautiful face, traces the line of her neck, outlines the white straps of her bra and the muted pink straps of her nightshirt, the garment hanging loose on her pale skin.

“I think,” she announces, startling you back to yourself, “I always knew. It’s hard to say - where I’m from ‘liking girls’ isn’t anything out of the ordinary, so it’s like trying to answer when you ‘knew’ you had two legs.”

You frown, not wanting to be insensitive despite how genuinely confused you are.

She looks over at you knowingly. “You’re thinking that I don’t have two legs, aren’t you?”

You eyes widen. “I… sorry.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t even say it! And,” she smiles cheekily, her lips warming to purple again, “it may interest you to know that I do, in fact, have two legs.”

Still watching you, she reaches down her body. You can’t help but watch her descending hands, and doubly can’t help finding it inappropriately sexy as she raises the hem of her nightshirt, fanning out the eight, darkly spotted tentacles making up her lower half.

She lifts two of them out from the rest. The brown-black spots visibly narrow, winking out down the gently curving lengths to leave those two tentacles pale and smooth, making it very easy to believe her as she says, “These two are my legs. They’re the ones I walk with and wear socks on.”

That had been something else you hadn’t expected today. You’d been so utterly focussed on facing the wall, getting changed into your night clothes as naturally as possible while you definitely didn’t think about the beautiful woman undressing behind you. Then you heard her warm voice again, asking for the second time that day, “Can you help me?”

“Uh, sure,” you wrestle your loose nightie over your head before asking the wall, “What do you need?”

“Help with this.”

Now you have no choice but to turn around, seeing her standing on the other side of the room, her long blue hair pulled over one iridescent shoulder, revealing the long zipper of her dress, stuck near the top.

“Ah, sure,” you try to sound confident as you cross the room, laughing nervously, “I’m still getting used to these myself.”

“Oh,” she asks with innocent curiosity, “you haven’t been wearing dresses long?”

Your eyes widen, “Uhm, I… let me help you with this.” You gingerly reach out, carefully feeling out how stuck the zipper is, surprised to find it unzip effortlessly down the length of her back. The garment opens as you unzip it, revealing the vivid white of a bra-strap and the gleaming rainbow grooves of her back.

She looks back over one iridescent shoulder, her voice warm. “Thank you very much, Cate.” And she stays looking back at you, her lips that warm shade of purple, becoming even warmer as she starts to lift the long skirt of her dress. You find yourself transfixed by her eyes again, even as a niggling doubt asks how she can reach the floor-length hem while standing straight.

Innocent curiosity, and no other reason, is why you look down, see her hands lifting from the top half of the skirt, the hem lifting apparently by itself… until it lifts high enough for you to see the curves of iridescent tentacles lifting it higher, all the way until her hands are holding the dress at her waist.

She’s not wearing any underwear, the realisation coming just before the realisation that you have no earthly idea what underwear she would wear around the bell of tentacles flaring out from her shapely hips, obscuring all underneath. Maybe she is wearing underwear.

She’s still holding her dress around her waist, still looking back at you over her shoulder, as she asks, “Do you mind?”

You remember yourself in a rush, blushing hotly as you look anywhere else, “Oh, yes, I’m so sorry I’m -” you start to turn away, find her holding your hand. She’s still smiling tenderly back at you.

“It’s okay, I want you to see me. I could just use a hand getting my dress over my head.” She pulls your hand to lay it squarely on her waist.

“Oh, right,” you breathe out all at once, “of course!” You turn back to her and obligingly slide your other hand under hers, then stop, finding yourself somehow with both hands held on her waist.

You breathe in.

You remember you’re meant to be doing something.

You breathe out.

You mentally kick yourself for forgetting what you’re meant to be doing, just standing there, holding her waist, looking into her eyes as she looking back over her shoulder at you, her glossy pink lips so very close to yours.

Your eyes widen, “The dress!”

You remember all at once, bracing yourself to lift the heavy garment, surprised to find it apparently weightless. At first you think it’s her hands on yours, helping take the weight, but the garment becomes no more heavy when she lets go and lifts her arms straight above her head, letting you and four of her tentacles pull the garment over her.

Her pale blue hair cascades back down around her, looking suddenly scruffy and uneven.

“Aaah, okay,” she pulls annoyedly at her hair, “now I do need privacy. But thank you, though, Cate. I’ll see you in bed?”

“Of course,” you kick yourself both for the squeak in your voice and for repeating that phrase so many times already! You frantically try to find a place to put her dress, laying it hurriedly beside her before turning back and leaping onto bed with all the grace of a cannonball, realising too late you hadn’t got under the blankets. But now you’re too busy agonizing over everything else you did wrong, laying there awkwardly until you see her cross the room with the dress in one arm, and what looks like two black, elbow-length gloves in the other. She opens the small wardrobe, hanging the dress and then both of the ‘gloves’, the name seeming even less accurate given that the ‘gloves’ don’t have hands, just tubes of rubber tapering all the way to the rounded ends.

But you don’t have any more time to ponder that before she closes the wardrobe and turns off the light, flooding the room with dark everywhere but her eyes. Those beautiful rainbow eyes, reflecting what little light there is and redirecting it into your eyes as she holds your gaze, crosses the room and crawls onto the bed next to you, laying beside you. She closes her eyes then, stretching out her arms and, from the shift in weight of the mattress, her tentacles too with a contented groan of enjoyment, becoming a haerty, happy sigh.

“So,” she asks with easy confidence as she lays a hand on your waist, and looks into your eyes again, “have you ever played Truth or Dare?”

And now, so much later in the night and so many, many Truth’s later, your eyes have adjusted to the low light, enough to gaze down the length of her bare, smooth legs, lifted up from the rest of the tentacles specifically for you to see.

They look so smooth, almost glossy. You reach out, then immediately stop as your impulse control catches up to you.

“It’s okay,” you look up into her gleaming eyes, “you can touch me if you want.”

You nod, swallow, and reach out to touch one of her raised legs. You instantly breathe out, groaning under your breath as your fingers effortlessly splay out over the impossibly smooth surface.

“Christ,” you mutter, your hand not asking permission from your brain before it strokes your palm over the deliciously smooth skin. “And I thought your hands were soft!”

“You like my hands?” her soft fingertips stroke down your arm, making you shudder even before she reaches the inside of your forearm. She runs the tingling touch of her fingertips down the sensitive skin all the way from inner elbow to inner wrist, making your breath shake the whole time. You’re still stroking her leg, not even realising your reaching higher until your wrist bumps something smooth and taut.

She yelps, and you immediately flinch back, finding your wrist now caught in her pale hand.

She eases her grip, breathing out, “Sorry, just surprised me.” She breathes out again, making all her spots return at once. Then she looks down at you, and frowns, “And I surprised you too, it seems. I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, “It’s okay, sorry if I,” your mind struggles to process what happened, “bumped you?”

Bumped you where is a question your mind struggles even more to process.

She’s still holding your hand, her lips warmly purple again, her voice smaller and breathier as she adds, “I’d… like you to bump me a little more, if that’s okay?”

Her hand gently raises yours between your chests. She reaches her fingers up to hold the back of yours, all while looking directly into your eyes, watching you attentively, asking for permission. You nod, and she stays watching you as she guides your hand down between your bodies, reaching under her nightshirt to touch your palm to her smooth stomach.

You breathe in, trying not to groan at the smoothness of her skin even there, gliding like liquid silk under your hand as she guides you hand lower.

Continue

Preview: Entwined, Part 1

“Truth” you bite your lip, trying in vain to make your voice sound noncommital, “when did you… know you liked girls?”

“Hmmn,” the bed creaks as she rolls over to look up at the ceiling. She chews her lip thoughtfully, the

“Truth” you bite your lip, trying in vain to make your voice sound noncommital, “when did you… know you liked girls?”

“Hmmn,” the bed creaks as she rolls over to look up at the ceiling. She chews her lip thoughtfully, the warm blue shade a little more vivid in the low light than the pastel blue of her gloriously long hair.

How is this happening? How is she in your bed, or you in hers, whichever it is you have no idea how you're meant to keep your heart from exploding!

This certainly hadn’t been what you’d expected from your first “Faculty Orientation Camp.” You’d read the description on the website over nad over to try and prepared yourself for "A long weekend away from home with all the other new first-years that you’d be spending your degree with! A chance to break the ice, get to know everyone, make a lasting impression!” Or, as it turned out, a chance to stand shyly in-front of the d’oeuvres table, all the colourful trays of bite-sized foods unseen before your watering eyes.

You can feel your plans of this being a new start and a new you all crumbling around you, your crippling nervousness rolling into your guilt and shyness and bundling up your self-consciousness into a ball of lead filling your chest and leaving you struggling to stop your hands from shaking around you empty plate. You’ve been standing here for minutes, or hours, you don’t know, meekly pretending you just can’t decide what to eat as you blink back the tears.

“Can you help me,” a warm voice asks beside you.

You turn, trying to smile politely, hiding what you’re really feeling so you can, so you can…

The girl standing next to you is so beautiful it takes your breath away, leaving you basking in the all-encompassing warmth of her smile - ironic given the blue shade of her lips. Her floor-length dress is blue too, a deeper shade than the pastel blue of her floor length hair. Somehow the colour looks natural on her, probably because of the palest blue tone of her near-white skin.

She’s not all pale though: a dense pattern of spots cup the edges of her face, her neck, and splay out over her shoulders, all shining reflective blue, green, orange and red, the iridescent surface catching the light to silhouette her in vivid rainbows. And her eyes - the same iridescence shining in her large irises, rimming her pupils in gleaming colour.

She’s still smiling at you, the expression a little fixed now, her rainbow shine seeming to lessen somewhat. You’re staring at her!

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out, “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to stare.”

She sighs, “It’s okay.” Her rainbow eyes look down, leaving your world a little less bright. “I’m used to it,” she turns towards the buffet table, trying to hide her disappointment by taking a plate, “most people aren’t used to seeing an ikawere.”

“It’s not that,” you earnestly insist, and lose all your words as she looks up at you again, all but the four words you’re feeling so ardently it hurts. “You’re just so beautiful!”

Now it’s her turn to stare at you, looking deeply into your eyes, so deep it feels like she can see into your thoughts, or where your thoughts would be if you could form any.

Your eyes widen. “Did I really just say that?!”

She smiles, making your heart leap. “You did.” She turns back to you, “I admit, when I came over here, I wasn’t expecting you to be so forward.”

“I’m not,” you insist, apparently as surprised as she is, “not usually.” You remember yourself all at once, “I’m sorry, I’m in the way, you wanted the buffet and I’m… sorry.” You manage to stop talking only by looking down, seeing your own tacky pink top and mismatching brown skirt, your hands ungainly large around your empty plate.

You see another hand reach out, fingers rimmed in rainbow as they warmly cup your palm. You look up, and don’t know if she’s stepped closer, or if her eyes are just drawing you into her tender gaze. Her voice is gentle but sincere as she insists, “I came over here to talk to the pretty girl standing all by herself.”

Pretty? Well that makes no sense! You know people have called you that over the last year, and no matter how wonderful it makes you feel every single time, there's always that niggling doubt that they're just being nice. They're your friends and family, they have to tell you you're pretty.

But she doesn’t have to. So why on Earth is this beautiful woman lying to you, and how is she telling such an obvious lie so convincingly, looking at you with those earnest eyes and that wonderful smile. You feel that niggling doubt again, but this time it’s doubting your doubts, asking: what if she isn’t lying?

What if you are pretty?

She squeezes your hand, feeling like she’s squeezing your heart, “I’m Lunu. May I know your name?”

“Cate,” you hear yourself say.

“Cate,” you hear her say, your chosen name in her mouth filling you with a rush of joy that makes you breathe in sharply, hoping she didn’t notice. She smiles warmly, and you swear her spots become more radiant, her blue-white skin looking a little warmer, almost purple-white. “Can you help me, Cate?”

“What… oh, uh, yes sorry what did you, how can I… Yes?”

She gestures to the expansive selection of d’oeuvres, “I was hoping you could fill me in on what all these tiny foods were. I’m afraid I’m a little out of my depth.”

“Oh, oh yes, of course,” you point at the various dishes, naming and giving their ingredients, overjoyed to have something you can talk about with any kind of confidence. And you keep talking, over your food, throughout the rest of the meet-and-greet, whispering in the back of the welcoming presentation and in the back of the open-air movie, all the while swearing she’s becoming more radiant, the blue of her lips warmer. Not that you’ve been staring at her lips, her beautiful lips, having only the vaguest sense of the world beyond her, barely even feeling the weight of your heavy bag on your shoulder as you try in vain not to gaze adoringly at her, as she raises her iridescent hand to answer: “We’ll take it.”

You look around sharply, the world coming back into focus. You see the camp volunteer standing before you all, the long veranda having more than enough room for them, you, and all the other girls now staring at you. The volunteer nods, “Thanks girls,” and checks something on their pad.

The other girls around you start sniggering and whispering to each other, looking back at you as they walk in groups towards the various doors of the cabin building, hauling their bags inside to hushed conversations. Lunu hefts her large green rucksack on her shoulders and starts walking too, turning back to wait for you. “Coming?”

You’re suddenly hit by the realisation that you have no idea where you’re going. But you follow Lunu anyway, wondering again why every open door you pass has at least one girl looking at you and smirking. It makes you more than a little uncomfortable, and you hold the strap of your bag in both hands as you walk closer to Lunu, leaning over to whisper, “Sorry, what did we, um, ‘take’ again?”

“The teacher’s room,” she points down the long row of doors to the one at the end. She gestures dismissively to the other doors and the groups of whispering girls within. “All the other rooms are full of bunk beds, and for a highschool trip the last room would usually be for the supervising teacher. But given university students are adults,” she looks into the second to last room, the girls that were whispering in the doorway suddenly going silent, waiting until you past to start giggling madly, “in theory, then there’s an extra bed.” Her voice becomes a little smaller, “And I hoped you’d, maybe, like to keep talking?”

“Oh definitely,” you insist, trying not to balk at the fact that half a day has passed in what felt like one long conversation. One long converation with an enchanting woman who smiled so warmly at you it made your heart hurt. But a niggling thought tugs at your mind. ‘Bed’ singular?

Lunu reaches the last room and opens the door wide, barely turning on the light before she’s thrown her rucksack into the small room beside the large, grey-green double bed. One double bed.

She turns to you, standing frozen in the doorway. Her face melts. “I’m sorry!”

It’s the first time you’ve heard her say those words, your surprise doubling as the formerly confident woman rushes forwards, taking both your hands in hers. Her spots shine in the room’s overhead light, but they’re not shining as brightly as you’d come to expect them too. Her spots now look far less dense, like they’re all thinner somehow, her blue-white skin a much colder shade of blue-white now.

Her rainbow eyes still shine brightly, all but glowing with concern, “That was really presumptuous of me, wasn’t it. I should have asked if you were okay sharing a bed.” She gestures to the other rooms, “I’m sure we can still trade with one of the other girls if you’d -”

“No no,” you blurt out, startled at the thought of needing to crawl back to one of those doorways of smirking girls. But more so, you’re suddenly worried about losing something you didn’t know you had, something precious. “I’m, I’m okay, just surprised. And,” you think about the room next to yours full of giggling girls, “and I don’t really know anyone, other than you.”

Lunu’s eyes swell, shimmering almost watery, her spots seeming to lose all their luster as her skin seems to lose its blue edge of colour. Her lips too, formerly vivid, now look visibly greyer. “I’m sorry, that’s my fault too. I completely monopolised you when you should have been out making friends.”

You laugh weakly, “And I was doing so well at that, staring at the d’oeuvres table and waiting for it to swallow me whole.” You squeeze her hand back, overjoyed for the point of physical contact, and for the person before you. “I’m very happy with how things turned out. And I would,” you avoid looking at the one bed, “like to spend more time with you. I’d really like that, if that’s okay with you?”

She smiles warmly, the warmth expanding outwards as her spots shine radiantly, her skin becoming a shade of blue-white so warm it’s almost purple. “Of course.” She bites her purple lip, “I’d really like that too.”

Continue

Preview: Entwined, Part 4

“They’re amazing!” you hear yourself exclaim before you even realise it, “I mean, I, um, they’re very pretty. And very soft!”

She smiles warmly at you as her spots swell, her hue becoming pink again, warmly so. She closes her eyes, takes a steadying breath, her hue cooling back to a paler pink. “I like your legs too.” She raises one of her two leg tentacles from amidst the rest, the spots on the appendage winking out until it’s perfectly smooth. It looks remarkably similar to your bare leg, now right beneath hers.

She licks her lips, gesturing with her leg down towards yours, “May I?”

You nod, watching as she lays her leg over yours, your eyes closing as you groan at the feeling of the impossibly smooth appendage resting on your own. It’s lighter than you expected, and somehow smoother than you remembered, her skin tingling yours everywhere you’re touching, making the outer-side of your leg feel far better than it has any right to!

You open your eyes, notice the spots of her arms becoming narrower, look up into her eyes to see her watching your attentively, carefully. “Is this okay?”

You nod eagerly.

“Would you like more?”

You nod even more eagerly.

Her pink lips smile as, very gently, she curves the tapered end of her tentacle around your ankle. You shiver hard, but keep eagerly holding her gaze, your breath coming in short bursts as you feel her slowly curve the rest of her leg around yours. You gasp, and keep gasping as you feel that tingling contact spreading around your bare skin, the feeling building until the uppermost coil slides over your inner thigh, making you bite your lip with the delicious feeling.

Your whole leg is flinching rhythmically, moving her against you in short spurts. You try to control yourself, finding it difficult while looking into her hungry eyes, her lips warmly pink and her voice husky in a way that reaches deep into you and grabs hold of something base and eager, as she asks, “Is this okay?”

“Very!” you insist, momentarily worried you’re sounding too enthusiastic. Desperately you try to make conversation. “So, um, you don’t have suckers then?”

Before you can groan at your own thoughtless stupidity, she leans closer, her breath tickling your nose as she answers, “I do actually. Would you like to see?”

You nod, and she leans back, giving you room to try to hopelessly catch your breath as she turns half away and sweeps her pale blue hair back over one shoulder. She reaches behind her head, returning holding a handful of thinner tentacle.

You stare transfixed and confused as she runs her hand down the length of tentacle, like she’s stretching out a limb, accompanied by a contented sigh. Except this limb ends in a flat, rounded kite shape, coloured pale pink-white like the rest of her, except for the much pinker sucker dominating the centre, the shade making it look like a private part of her.

The tentacle end waves at you.

“Hello,” you manage.

She bursts out laughing.

It’s beautiful to hear, and you laugh too, “Sorry, I think now I’m the one out of my depth.”

“That’s okay,” she smiles warmly, “this is all new to you, right? And you have questions, right? Questions you don’t want to ask because you worry they’re insensitive?”

You swallow, “How, could you tell?”

Her smile becomes gently serious, “Tell me - would you rather that people you liked ask you potentially insensitive questions, or be too afraid to engage with who you really are?”

“Hmmm, depends entirely on the person and how wilfully ignorant they are.” A niggling thought repeating the words: people you liked.

“Well,” she smiles, “I would rather than you,” she taps your chest again, and you can’t help but gasp, “ask me the questions you really want to ask, okay?”

“Okay,” you swallow. “Then…. truth: you say you have two legs,” one of which is still warmly wrapped around yours, making you aware of every tiny movement you’re forcing yourself not to make. “What are the, uh, the rest of them then?”

“These?” she raises the flurry of other tentacles, making your heart momentarily leap with possibilities that you are definitely not thinking about! “These outer six are my arms. You see,” she lowers your hand in hers, lays it on the crest of the leg wrapped around yours. She guides your shivering hand up the impossibly smooth skin, you groaning all the way until your wrist touches that taut frill that makes her gasp again. “See,” she breathes through pink lips, “my legs are the ones that come from the middle, while the arms are the ones around the outside. Kind of like a dress, or a skirt of arms… except less creepy than that sounds.”

“It doesn’t sound, um… but if, then, uh,” you try to order your thoughts and not think about how it feels distinctly like she’s guided your hand under her ‘skirt’ to hold the top of her bare thigh, “if these other six are your arms, then what are your, um…”

“My arms,” she raises her hand, leaving yours still holding her leg, paralyzed with the indecision of whether to stay there, to let go, to move higher. She waves her fingers, “these are my honéarms. Uh my,” she chews her lip, “my bony-arms I guess - it loses something in the translation, as does the name for these,” she waves with her suckered tentacle, “my two ‘ponytails’ let’s say? Speaking of which, truth: how on earth do you manage at meet-and-greets with only two arms?!”

You blink, remembering trying to balancing your plate in one hand while eating with the other, already so worried about making a mess you didn’t dare try to add a drink to the awkward mix. “Badly,” you conclude, but then raise an eyebrow as you look up at her, “But then, why were you only using two arms.”

She raises her shoulders in an extended shrug, her voice coming out through the side of her mouth, “Weeeell, I was trying to fit in. People stare a little less openly if I just look like a shiny girl with long hair and a long dress.”

You swallow, “I’m really sorry for staring at you.”

She smiles warmly, “Thank you for explaining why, in perhaps the cutest way possible!”

You blush, feeling the impulse to draw inwards to hide, but finding that difficult with one hand up her skirt and one leg snugly held in place. “Still,” you insist, “I know what it’s like to be stared at, and I’m truly sorry if I made you feel like I was doing that to you.” You shrug weekly, “I guess that’s my ‘Truth’ then: I’m sorry I screwed up meeting you.”

You hear the bed creek as she sits a little up, resting on one elbow as she leans in closer. You look up to see her eyes right above yours, her breath felt on your lips. “Apology accepted. But if you really screwed up that badly, why am I in your bed?”

You swallow.

“But now let’s talk about something more fun.” She licks her pink lips, and you swear you almost feel the movement on yours. “Truth: I’m guessing you’ve never been with an ikawere before?”

You breathe out, “Never!” Your eyes widen, “Not like that!” You’re waving your free hand insistently between you, it feeling like an ineffective t-rex hand between the two of you flailing with your impotent need to explain, “Not because, not like, I’ve never…. been… with anyone… before.”

Those words hang in the air between you, unable to be taken back.

Her hue becomes the warmest purple again, vividly so between her densely packed spots. Her hands reach in to tightly clasp yours, so tightly her hands are shaking. Her leg is coiled possessively around you and her bright eyes are full of the most heartfelt concern, as she asks: “Why ever not? Wait,” her eyes widen, her hue flushing blue again. “Sorry, that was really insensitive of me. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, it’s your turn anyway so -”

“I was afraid.”

She stops.

Slowly, she leans closer. Her purple hue is as warm as before, but her spots narrowed, making her paler, softer. Her tender eyes stay earnestly focussed on you as she squeezes your hand in one of hers, using the other to reach up and gently cup your cheek, her soft, warm palm making you feel so very safe. Her voice is so very gentle, like a familiar blanket wrapped gently around your shoulders, holding you close. “May I ask, why you were afraid?”

You breathe in. How can you explain it? You know why, but that’s only because you’ve spent a year reflecting and re-contextualising a lifetime of thinking you were broken and wrong and not good enough and, and, and how can you compress that all into a single coherent sentence?

You can’t, and so you just let the words flow:

“I found girls, intimidating. I wanted them, I wanted them to see me, to notice me, to like me and Christ I wanted them to want me! But no-one was ever going to notice the shy, wimpy nothing of a boy, too nervous to even talk to them. So I was just left wanting, so much it hurt, and it was only after I… changed, that I realized it was more than complicated than I thought. I didn’t just want them, I wanted to be them, to be one of them, to be happy and pretty and have girl friends and girlfriends and be happy and to be… me! But back then I didn’t know that, so it all just came out as a yearning so strong I couldn’t keep it down, and afraid that if I tried to do anything about it they’d see how desperate and sad and alone I was, so I just… stayed alone.” Your voice is so small you can barely hear it yourself. “It was easy, no-one ever noticed me. No-one ever liked me. No-one ever wanted me. How could they, when I didn’t even want to be me?”

There’s silence for the longest time.

You hear the bed creak, see out of the corner of your eye another one of her arms curl up towards you. You feel the arm curving around your waist, her arm and her leg around yours both pulling you close into her body. She’s soft, and so very warm, the feeling of her enveloping you so completely, so safe.

Your hand and hers are still clasped together between your chests, hers squeezing yours so tightly it almost hurts, her other hand cupping your cheek so very tenderly. She uses that hand to turn your face, making you look up to see her over you, right before you, the spots around her face so vividly, hotly pink. When she speaks it’s with that huskiness from before that reaches deep within you, as she says. “It’s your turn. Ask me if I noticed you?”

You swallow, unable to look away, and never wanting to. “Truth: did you notice me?”

She leans somehow closer, her breath tickling your open lips. “I noticed you. I like you. I want you. So truth: do you want me?”

“More than anything!”

She smiles, and licks her lips. “Then ask me to kiss you.”

“Truth… please kiss me!”

“I think you mean ‘Dare’.”

“Please!”

She leans in the last inch to press her lips to yours.

Continue

Preview: Entwined, Part 3

Is this sexy?

Your brain has one answer for that, an answer so forcefully affirmative it lacks any coherent words to express it. But what you really want to know is: is this sexy to her? Are you reading into this, are you just interpreting this how you desperately want to interpret it, that someone wants you? That she wants you? After all, you’re just touching her stomach, sliding your hand down lower, guided down between her hips, her eyes locked with yours, lips parting just as the skin beneath your fingers becomes soft and taut at the same time.

She breathes out heavily, her lips vividly pink. Her skin too is far from its former blue-white hue, now a much warmer pink-white, the space between her spots vivid with the colour.

Her eyes are still focused on you as she breathily states, “This, is where you bumped me.” You look down, see her front two tentacles parted, your hand pressed in between. That sight alone makes you feel like you’ve just swallowed your own tongue, the rush of excitement feeling like it’s going to burst out of your chest. Your mind focusses on every detail at once, as if wanting to remember this precious moment forever - the few visible inches of her pink-white stomach, the spots of her sides hugging the pink colour down the grooves of her hips before curving out again to travelling down the outsides of her tentacles. The insides of her tentacles are the same pale pink-paleness as her stomach, a colour you seem hard-wired to find unbearably sexy. And at the root a frill of semi-transparent skin is stretched between the parted two limbs, the soft skin stretched taut and feeling impossibly smooth beneath your hand.

You move your fingers just a little, hearing her breathe in heavily beside you. You look up to see her eyes half closer and pink lips parted beautifully, invitingly. She focusses on you again with difficulty, stating with great import, “That’s particularly sensitive. And delicate, which is why I yelped when you bumped me.”

“I’m sorry,” you start, before she smiles very warmly, her voice deepened with satisfaction:

“Oh, please don’t be. Or,” she smiles cheekily, “you could make it up to me?”

“How,” you breathe out, feeling so far out of your depth but desperate to keep going.

“Like this,” she moves her hand on yours, and you happily let her guide your fingers to stroke along the amazingly smooth surface, all while trying to keep your heart from exploding. She guides your hand down further, making you reach just over the edge, feeling distinctly like your reaching under her skirt. Her grip adjusts your fingers, lightly pinching your index finger and thumb together over the hem.

You hear her moan softly, look up into her eyes, open and staring at you, pink lips open and breathing so hard you can feel it on your cheek. The colour between her spots is so hotly pink now, standing out starkly against her pale blue hair, framing her face as she stares wantonly at you, half-voiced breath sounding like she’s trying to beg.

You move your hand, running that point of contact slowly along the delicate edge, making her eyes flutter shut as she breathes out harder. Her other hand reaches out and unconsciously grabs a bunch of your loose nightie, squeezing it rhythmically as you run your touch along her, making her beautiful voice moan in each breath as you try not to think about how very close her hand is to your chest.

As if the sound and sight of her couldn’t be any more captivating, the spots on either side of her face seem to move, and it’s only when it happens again that you can see the spots winking out in sequence, a ripple of lightness pulsing up her face. You look down, see the next ripple travelling up her shoulders and neck. You look down further, see the spots of her tentacles winking out in frantic ripples, pulsing out from where your fingers are touching. You see her tentacle rising and tensing in time with the ripples, see the ends curling and uncurling, gripping repeatedly at nothing, the vivid colour between the pulsing spots burning so hot it's almost red.

Suddenly her hand on your chest pulls you towards her, finding yourself staring directly into her hungry eyes. Her spots slowly stop rippling, settling into a distinctly crimson hue, the same red as her parted lips, open just before you, each hot breath felt directly on your open lips.

With visible effort, she closes her eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath, the red colour shifting back towards pink. She opens her eyes, her voice deeper than before, breathy with effort, “I’m, I’m sorry.” She closes her eyes and takes another steadying breath to shift her hue all the way back to purple, her vivid colour leaving the spaces between her spots as they seem to shrink back to their original size, leaving her looking now much paler and softer. She breathes out, and adds more normally, “I’m sorry about that. I just got a little… grabby.”

She lets go of your top, abortively reaching out as if wanting to pat the spot she grabbed, her colour shifting all the way back to a cool blue-white. “Did I hurt you?”

“You didn’t hurt me,” you manage. Surprised is another matter entirely. You want to ask what just happened, but can’t quite think how to phrase it: ‘out of curiosity, why did you turn red and hungry?’ “Are you okay?”

She laughs weakly, her pale skin flushing back to purple-white as she looks over at you with great tenderness. “Yes,” she breathes, reaching up to cup your cheek, “Yes, I’m okay. I’m just sorry if I scared you.”

Her hand feels so warm against you, the feeling of her touching you feeling so distinct and good - almost as distinct as the wonder at how very close you just came to your first kiss. “I wasn’t scared,” you hear yourself say, and you know it’s true. “Surprised, but not scared.”

She looks at you then, like she looked at you back when you met, seeming to be see all the way into your thoughts. Slowly, she smiles again, “Interesting.”

You just stare, knowing you’re missing something but not yet sure what.

“So,” she says with her former, cheeky voice, “it’s my turn, isn’t it?”

“Um, sorry?”

“Truth,” she gleefully states, “when did you, as you put it, ‘know you liked girls’?”

Ah yes, Truth or Dare again. And now you had to tell her the Truth, the one you’d been avoiding all evening, repeatedly trying to work it into the conversation but chickening out at the last second every single time.

You could dodge it now, answer without telling her.

But… you wanted to tell her. You wanted to risk it.

You take a deep breath. “I… guess, it was similar to you, in a different way. I always liked girls, but that wasn’t ‘anything out of the ordinary’ either, not until…”

When you don’t finish the sentence, she gently reaches out, taking your hand in hers, her smooth fingers sliding between yours to warmly hold your hand between your chests. She’s still holding your face, her spots narrowed, making her look much paler, her skin that same fond purple-white as she look at you, eager and expectant. “Until?”

You take a last, deep breath, before you ruin everything. “Until I transitioned last year.”

You wait.

You wait for her to pull away. You wait for her to push you away, to sneer in disgust, to scream at you to get out of a girls’ cabin and never ever come back!

You wait, breath held, heart deflated, ready.

What you’re not ready for, is her to squeeze your hand. What you’re not ready for is to look up into her earnest eyes as she happily remarks, “So that’s what you meant by being new to dresses?”

You breath out all at once, “Exactly,” you breathe again as if for the first time, smiling almost manically, “And new to, well, 'liking girls being a thing’! I was so used to thinking of myself as straight, it’s been weird now thinking of myself as a lesbian, when nothing about who I like has changed!”

She’s still smiling at you, still holding your hand and face, those precious points of contact still impossibly, joyfully there! “So then,” her skin and lips flush a little warmer as she bites lip, “what kind of girls do you like?”

Your heart stops. How can you say ‘you’ without being so obvious?

“I, um…” your eyes widen, and you smile with what you hope is cheekiness. “Actually, it’s my turn.”

“Okay,” she smiles, eagerness in her eyes as she leans closer to you, filling your world and holding you transfixed gazing at her. “What do you really want to ask me?”

“Uhhm,” you try to swallow the quaver in your voice, but find no room in your chest, already filled with the beating of your heart. “I… Truth: have you ever been with someone, like me?”

“There’s no-one like you. But if you mean, have I been with a - what’s your word for it?”

“A, um, a trans girl.”

“Yes, a trans girl, then yes, I have.”

“Oh.” You kick yourself for having that be your response, and end up kicking yourself even harder when you try to fix it by adding, “Was it… good?”

She smiles cheekily, “I think it’s my turn, but given your so seem so invested: then yes, Adira was lovely.” She looks away wistfully, her voice full of fondness, “It felt different with her, more honest, more me. I think it was because she didn’t treat me like a kinky fetish, probably because she knew what that felt like herself.”

She laughs, “For Uvash’s sake, I was even comfortable letting her see me without my -” she suddenly stops, looking back down at you. “But,” she visibly changes tack, leaning a little closer, “to answer you question, it was good. It was just her, and me,” she lets go of your face, using her suddenly pinker fingertips to run down the inside of your arm again and make you shiver, “eagerly exploring each other’s bodies and making the sweetest love to each other.”

“Oh.” you’re breathing too hard to kick yourself, “That sounds, nice?”

She smiles eagerly, “It was, but,” she uses her free hand to poke you playfully in the chest, making your heart skip a beat, “now it’s my turn.” Her spots wince narrower, making her paler as she asks in a smaller voice “Truth: what do you think of my legs?”

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