Let's Talk Here

A public place seemed better, at least for right now. A waitress brought water and glasses to the table, and Lois sipped the cool liquid thirstily. Angelica Blaze and her mother sipped their glasses more demurely.

"So...you're not on birth control?" Ella Lane said.

Lois nearly choked on her water.

"No," Lois admitted. "But look, mom, I'm not even on my cycle, I can't..."

"Oh, that's a small issue," Angelica Blaze said. She reached out a finger and tapped the reporter's glass.

Clear water suddenly darkened and swirled, as if blood had been dropped into it...but it blossomed and bloomed, until the "water" in the glass was a dark purple. Against her better judgment, Lois raised it to her nose to take a sniff. A floral bouquet greeted her noise. She took a tiny sip.

Wine.

She set the glass back down, throat suddenly dry.

"My point is...even if I were to have sex tonight, there's no guarantee that I would get pregnant," the reporter protested.

"True," Angelica said. "But are you willing to have sex, to free your mother's soul?"

The reporter felt both women's eyes on her. She hated being put on the spot like that. Then again, her tubes were tied...it was impossible she could get pregnant.

"Yes," she said.

"And if you did get pregnant, you would let the pregnancy run its course? Keep the child?"

Lois Lane had always been in favor of a woman's write to choose...but she knew, in her own case, what that choice would be if she did ever get pregnant. Not that that could ever happen.

"Yes."

"Well then!" Blaze said with a smile. She tapped her own glass, the water swirling and darkening into a coal-black wine. "I'm a bit of a gambler. I propose we have sex, tonight. Just you and I, unprotected. And whether or not you conceive, your mother's soul will go free. Do you agree?"

"Do I have a choice?" Lois asked quietly.

"Always," Blaze said, suddenly serious. "I have been many things, Lois, but I am not a ****. I bargain, on my own terms; but I do not steal or take by ****."

"But if I don't fuck you, my mother goes to hell."

A cold hand touched the reporter's shoulder.

"That was my choice, my dear." Ella Lane said, her voice very tired. "I...I thought of it like killing two birds with one stone. You never seemed ready to settle down, to have a child of your own..."

Lois shook her head. A part of her just wanted to get through with this. Like ripping off a bandaid.

Her hand closed around the stem of the glass, and she brought it to her lips. Tilted her head back and drained the whole thing, in one long gulp.