Four syllables inside a minor note, and I ain't laughing now that you're long gone

“Geez, are they going to come up for air anytime soon?” Dani asked incredulously. She let out an awkward laugh, trying to joke her way through this surreal situation. Because without comedy, she wasn’t sure how she would handle what she was seeing right now.

Nick had similar questions himself.

Right now, Cinder wasn’t holding anything back. Like a starving dog finally let off the leash, she was going wild, and mauling whatever she could get her hands on, in this case, him. And while he normally wouldn’t be opposed to making out with someone- not even Cinder- the situation itself left him with a feeling of doubt and wariness that he just couldn’t be comfortable with.

“Cinder! Stop it!” Nick finally was able to get his hands on her and hold her back, giving him the opportunity to look into her eyes.

What he saw reflected in them made his heart stop for a moment.

Desire. Raw, overwhelming desire, the sort of desire he never expected to see coming from someone who seemed so staunchly opposed to sexual interactions like Cinder.

It was such a stunning sight that he actually didn’t know what to do for a second. He looked at her with his mouth flopped open, and she did the same, dropping her jaw and licking her lips as she gazed hungrily at him.

What exactly was Nick supposed to do here, when confronted with someone who, up until now, had made it clear how much she despised him, but now seemed to want him badly?

It reminded him of the times he had kissed her before. Those had been due to Ella’s encouragement of keeping things “fair” but this…

This was different.

Is it, though? He wondered briefly. After all, Cinder and Ella… they’re the same person. Is it that wrong of me to think that Ella wanting something means that Cinder also wants it, deep down?

That line of thinking was dangerous to consider, and he’d been trying to avoid coming to that conclusion for a while now. But, when faced with Cinder’s overwhelming desire for him right now…

It was kind of hard to think in other terms.

And it didn’t help that Cinder herself was being intentionally cagey as far as he could tell. Moving on him physically without using her words to explain what she actually wanted. That wasn’t something Nick was thrilled about.

As if she was reading his mind, Cinder started to struggle. His hands were holding her arms, just below the shoulders, and she started to twist against him, looking at him with hot eyes. “Let me go!” She finally said, her eyes flashing. “I’m just trying to kiss you! That’s what you wanted, right?”

Talk about a loaded question.

“…Is that what you want?” Nick threw the question right back at her, hesitant to hear what she had to say.

She licked her lips. “What I want… is for you to stop talking, and let me go,” she said in a husky voice, pushing against him and trying to kiss him again.

The desire with which she gazed at him was hard to argue with. But Nick felt compelled to speak on behalf of her stated wishes all the same.

“So then… you don’t have a problem with kissing me?” He asked her.

“No, I don’t fucking have a problem with it!” She snapped at him. She squirmed again. “Fucking kiss me, you bastard!”

A violent thought surged into her head, and as a result, a burst of pleasure surged through her body. She started to quake as all the pleasure that had built up in her body began to overwhelm her, and she tilted back her head and let out a loud, passionate moan as she practically came in Nick’s lap.

Nick froze. He didn’t know what was happening, or what he was supposed to respond. He held her tightly, and just… hugged her again.

As Nick’s heart pounded in his chest, he found himself finally able to think again. This was not how he’d expected the last five minutes to go. Cinder was behaving in ways that alarmed him, and at the moment, he wanted nothing more than to reach out to her and help her as best he could.

Whether or not this was what she needed, well…

“Okay, I think you’ve made your point,” Dani said, standing up and walking around the table. She wanted to set things straight before the other woman completely recovered from her orgasm, and take back control over the situation.

Otherwise, Cinder was going to dominate the whole evening, and Nick would practically be her prisoner and get the life kissed out of him.

That would be a pretty nice way to go, in regards to Cinder’s other actions, but Dani wasn’t exactly thrilled by the outcome.

She pulled the two of them apart. Cinder staggered backwards, clutching her chest as the color returned to her face and her eyes regained their light. She raised her head, and her gaze met Nick’s past Dani. The two of them stared at each other for a long time, without saying anything.

And all the while, her heart continued to race.

“Cinder… that…” Nick needed to say something. He felt like he was at a crossroads here, and he needed to make sure that Cinder didn’t feel ashamed or judged for what had just happened. “I… I really enjoyed that,” he confessed. “Thank you.”

Cinder’s amber eyes opened wide, and she stared at Nick in muted disbelief. His words rattled around in her skull and she shook her head slowly, trying to process everything that had just happened. “I… I just, I…”

“That was so hot!” Holly gushed. “You go, Cinder!”

Dawn shot the other girl a look. She wasn’t sure if that was the sort of thing Cinder wanted to hear or not, not right now. Not after the kind of day she’d had. And indeed, the latina’s face morphed into a look of frustration and she clenched her fists together tightly.

Then she raised her head, and her eyes met Nick’s.

“…What am I supposed to do now?” She rasped out. Her voice was hot and heavy and raspy, strained raw by the passion of her kissing and her moans in his mouth. It was mortifying and embarrassing, but she moved past that.

She had to.

Nick didn’t know how to respond to her statement. Depending on how he addressed her…

Cinder took a step forward. The desire returned to her eyes, while also warring with her frustration and anger at the same time. She shook her head slowly, and just… watched.

Nick didn’t pull away. He didn’t flinch. He just looked at her slowly, not taking his eyes off of her for a second.

That… that was enough for Cinder. She felt herself start to relax, and her breathing returned to normal. Even with the shame and embarrassment she was feeling, the fact that Nick wasn’t rejecting her, it just… it…

It gave her a feeling that she wasn’t sure how to properly quantify. Feelings that should have been reserved for Ella, but for some reason, they were starting to bleed over into Cinder, as well. She wanted him so badly, but…

“Maybe it would be better if we moved this to the bed,” Dani suggested. She glanced over to Dawn, who nodded slowly.

The cat girl felt kind of stuck. She’d tagged along with Dani up to the Master’s Suite so she could have a chance to interact with Nick and join the two of them in a threesome, but Cinder had derailed that plan, and now it looked like she was going to be involved as well.

Was this how the rest of the night was going to go, then? Was Dawn going to be joining Cinder AND Dani in bed with Nick? She wasn’t sure how well that would go.

But she wanted to join in. At least, if she was taking part, she might be able to guide things in a proper way, and make sure that Cinder was okay with everything that happened, as well as making sure that Nick’s needs were accounted for.

“I-I don’t…” Cinder glanced over at the bed. She shook her head quickly and bit her lip. “No, not… not the bed, that’s…”

Kissing Nick was one thing. But the bed?

That… that was real in a way she wasn’t ready for.

“You can just sit back and watch!” Holly encouraged her. If Cinder wasn’t ready to take part in the events, then she didn’t have to. “And maybe even touch yourself!”

“Holly!” Mary looked at her friend in alarm. She wasn’t sure if that would have the result that they were hoping for.

“I… I love… I…” Cinder’s legs knocked together. She looked at Nick again, swallowed, and flung herself at him once more.

“Whoa! Hey!” Dani exclaimed, her eyes widening. She reached out to try and grab onto Cinder, but the other girl was a little too slippery for her. She ducked around the woman’s arms, and wrapped her arms tightly around Nick’s chest, hugging him with all her might.

Nick just stood there in shock. But, as he felt her arms cling to him, he heard her heart pounding in her chest, and he could also feel her trembling.

She’s scared… why is she scared? Nick didn’t understand Cinder, and that was the crux of the problems he faced with her. He wanted to understand her. He wanted to understand the way her mind worked, but… she was too complicated. Because she was just a part of herself. A part of Ella. Or maybe Ella was a part of Cinder.

Either way… the person in front of him, the individual who called herself Cinder, she needed him to reach out to her and hold her close.

So that was what he did. He returned her hug, and she let out a deep sigh.

Dani and Dawn stood where they were, feeling the air clear around them, like the tension was physically evaporating.

“So, what now?” Dawn murmured to Dani, glancing over at the taller girl. She wasn’t sure how tonight was going to go at this point. Intense emotional moments like this may have been cathartic, and she was absolutely happy for Cinder, but at the same time, she couldn’t deny that this wasn’t the situation she’d signed up for.

And she doubted that Dani had a concrete plan herself for how things were going to go.

Dani glanced at Dawn and pinched her lips together tightly. It would be awkward if she inserted herself into the situation again.

“Sorry,” Dani leaned down and whispered into the cat girl’s ear. “But I think… this is going to be up to you, Dawn.”

Dawn’s heart sank and her tail drooped. That was what she’d been fearing…

“I don’t know what to do…” Cinder whimpered into Nick’s shirt. The alcohol she’d binged was causing emotions that she never would have verbalized in a thousand years to rise to the surface, and she couldn’t handle them. “I just… I just wanted… wanted…”

What did she want? Did she even know?

Did she want to keep hugging Nick? Did she want him to comfort her?

To love her, even?

Did Cinder’s brain even work that way? Did she even have the capacity to love another person like that, so totally?

She didn’t know.

She wasn’t sure she WANTED to know.

The only thing she DID know was that what she was going through right now… it wasn’t working for her. It wasn’t enough. There was something missing.

And, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, that “something” required Nick.

So, Cinder stepped back, breaking the hug. She raised her head and looked up into Nick’s eyes, staring at him blearily through her tears in the hopes of finding some sign that he wanted to share this with her, that she wasn’t just forcing herself out of desperation.

“…Do you even want to do this?” She whispered to him, and Nick’s heart stopped for a moment.

“H-huh?”

Cinder stepped back, and gave Nick a withering gaze.

“Right now, the way you’re looking at me… I don’t understand it,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You’re comforting me, because you care about me… I can understand that much.”

The bitterness in her voice conveyed that even if she understood it, that didn’t mean she supported it in the slightest.

“…But is that enough?” She asked him. “You said it yourself, the way I treated you…”

No, she couldn’t go that far yet. She couldn’t say she was wrong. Everything she’d done, it had been for Ella! That was why she’d been hostile! That was why she’d felt sickened by the situation! Yes, maybe she’d gone too far, but…

Admitting that she was wrong would be like admitting that her entire reason for existing was wrong.

And Cinder wasn’t prepared to say that yet.

“…I don’t know what I want,” she finally admitted. “I’m supposed to make Ella happy, but… I don’t… I don’t know…”

What did that even mean, at this point? Nothing that had happened today would make Ella happy. She’d taken what had started out as something fun and exciting for her other self, working out in the gym, and completely ruined everything.

She was the worst. The absolute worst.

“…Cinder, you deserve to be happy, too,” Nick said quietly. He kept his distance, not wanting to startle her, but he had to make it clear to her that she wasn’t wrong for feeling the way she did. “You’re not just a part of someone else. You’re not just Ella’s ‘defense mechanism’ or ‘protector’ or whatever you want to call yourself, you’re a person, too.”

Ella had already realized that, he was now understanding. Even though she was apprehensive about Cinder and didn’t like turning into her, she’d realized that Cinder was a part of herself who needed to be considered.

That was why she’d been determined to make sure that things were “fair” between them, and that if Nick kissed her, then he would have to kiss Cinder, as well.

Cinder seemed to finally be coming to terms with that fact herself. And she wasn’t handling it all that well.

Her brain was currently bathing in hormones. The orgasms she’d been enduring all day were almost short-circuiting her, and the exposure to Nick and all the kissing they’d done had punched so many holes in her defenses that the wall she’d built around her heart may as well have been made of tissue paper.

If Nick pushed, he was confident that he could bring that wall tumbling down. But he didn’t do that, because he was afraid of what would happen.

He was afraid that Cinder wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So, he would wait. Wait until she was ready.

But the other girls weren’t going to wait for that.

“So, Cinder, are you going to be joining us, then?” Dawn pulled Nick’s arm into a tight hug before either of them knew what was happening. She’d just sprung up out of nowhere and inserted herself into the conversation!

It was such an un-Dawn thing to do that Nick was at a loss for words for a moment.

“Buh- Wha- …Huh!?” He sputtered out, staring down at her as she tightened her grip, pulling his arm against her modest chest. He could feel her heart pounding through his sleeve.

Cinder’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Dawn, stunned.

“Wh-what are you doing!?” She roared, and like a switch being flipped in her brain, her anger returned, and she fired a furious glare at the cat girl who until right this second she had seen as the closest thing she had to a friend in this room. “Let go of him!”

“You’ve been hogging him all night!” Dawn snippily replied, tightening her grip in response. “It’s my turn to get some cuddles with Nick!”

Okay, this had to be a bit. That was the only explanation Nick could come up with. This wasn’t like Dawn at all.

He was so frozen in place, staring at her, that he didn’t even notice Dani observing the three of them carefully.

Sorry, Dawn. It’s a risky move, but right now, you’re the only one who I can count on. I certainly can’t pull this off.

From what Dani had been observing, Nick and Cinder were stuck in a loop. Cinder was too confused about her emotions to move past where she currently was, and Nick was too deferential to Cinder’s needs to actually lead her where she wanted to go.

It was an example of Newton’s First Law of Emotion in action! A body at rest would remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. Like a childhood friend in a harem romcom, the relationship would dither without progress until another rival entered and changed the dynamic.

To that end, Dawn would serve as the sacrificial lamb.

Cinder had snapped out of her fugue, and now she was getting angry again. But, to Dani’s relief, it was a different kind of anger, now.

“We were having a conversation, you fucking bitch! Who do you think you are, just jumping in and ruining it!?”

…Okay, yes, she was still cursing people out.

That wasn’t the point!

The point was that her anger had gone from seething, bitter resentment and malice to indignity and frustration.

And, whether she was aware of it or not, jealousy.

“Cinder, if you’re going to join in, then you have to make a choice!” Dawn insisted, holding Nick even tighter. There was a very good chance he was losing circulation in his arm, but Dawn’s medical training assured her that he would be fine with just a bit of that.

More important was Cinder!

“I… I don’t know, okay!?” Her face was hot. She was too overwhelmed by emotion and alcohol to properly think through her choices, and Dawn knew it.

She didn’t want to take advantage of the other girl, that wasn’t the point. But if Cinder couldn’t stop and think about what was going on, then she wouldn’t be able to talk herself out of what, in Dawn’s eyes, she clearly wanted to do, but wasn’t ready to confront herself about.

If Dawn could just rope her into it before she had a chance to get defensive, then there would be light at the end of the tunnel. And then, when the dust settled and Cinder sobered up in the morning, things would be fine. As long as they didn’t get too out of hand, she had confidence that the other woman would be able to accept what had happened.

And if not, well…

Dawn would accept the responsibility. But for her sake, for Cinder and Ella’s sake, and for the sake of Nick and Dani’s evening, someone had to step in and steer the ship, and that person was going to be Dawn. For better or worse.