Marnie's best friend

Marnie does her best to ignore the voice in her head as she takes the bus to Alexa's apartment. Uhazral gives her not a moment's rest, but instead natters on to her about every person nearby. She wants to fuck her father—but then, what woman doesn't? it says of the woman sitting in the seat ahead of Marnie. Or, of the bus driver, He would be so much better if he had darker hair and meaner eyes, no?

Marnie distracts herself by texting her best friend. Repeatedly. Urgency and desperation creeping further and further into the tone of each successive missive. The first simply says, "I need your help," to which Alexa had reasonably replied, "Sure babe, whats up?" The most recent one reads, "You'll never believe it, but I can't stop it," to which Alexa's only response was a confused, "????"

For some reason Uhazral doesn't make her … affect … anyone on the bus in the same way that it forced her to alter poor Cathy. She practically jumps from the bus when it reaches her stop and runs down the sidewalk to Alexa's apartment, careful not to look at the people around her. When she reaches the prim, grey edifice that Alexa calls home, she punches the call button for Alexa's unit. A confused voice: "Marnie? What's going on?" followed by the buzz of the door unlocking.

Alexa's apartment is cluttered and messy, much like Alexa's mind and, often, her body. At the moment, Alexa's dark black hair is swept into a tidy ponytail, and she wears a gym tanktop with purple sweatpants and a matching zip-up hoodie over top. She fixes Marnie some tea and sits next to her on the couch.

"Tell me," she says, with the kind of penetrating simplicity that has always worked on Marnie since that day in junior high when they met.

"I'm not sure how," Marnie says. "Not sure how I can tell you so that you won't think I'm joking, or crazy."

"That bad?"

"Look, see this amulet?" Alexa nods. "Right, so it turns out it has a demon in it…." And Marnie tries her best to explain about Uhazral, the Tangiers Group, and the amulet's strange powers. As she does so, Alexa's expression grows more and more incredulous.

Marnie's face falls. "You don't believe me."

"It's not that I don't believe you, honey. It's just … difficult to understand what you're telling me. A demon in an amulet?"

Marnie bites her lower lip as she thinks of how she can prove it. Oh, there are so many ways, if that is what you desire, my pet, Uhazral says. She shivers as the thoughts, unbidden, blossom.

Just as visions of her and Alexa making out, exploring each other's naked, sweaty bodies as Uhazral's powers transform them into something alien, something amazing, the doorbell buzzes.

Alexa answers it. The door opens on a large black man in T-shirt and shorts. He's holding something in his hand. "Ah, Vic. What can I do for you?"

Vic holds out the item--a DVD. "Just wanted to return this. Sorry, I didn't know you had company."

"What? Oh," Alexa giggles, "it's just Marnie. Marnie, this is Vic. He lives across the hall from me." I bet he does, Marnie thinks. "He's a …" she pauses, looking to him for confirmation as she says, "microbiology student?"

Vic flashes a brilliant white smile. "Postdoc, yeah."

"Well, look at that. Marnie here is a grad student in history. Look at me, an insignificant little personal trainer, surrounded by academic types."

"I wouldn't say you're … insignificant," Vic says. His eyes move up and down Alexa's trim and fit body.

The combination of her exercise regimen and her genes make her more conventionally "hot" than Marnie. Alexa always seems comfortable with, at home in her body, dressing to call attention to herself and acting in a similar fashion. When she isn't at home, she tends to wear clothing more appropriate for her luminous Latina facial features and her rounded, bouncy bubble butt. Whereas Marnie has been with her boyfriend Stephen for years, Alexa has never managed to hold on to a guy for more than a month or two at most—not that she seems to mind this lifestyle.

But it's true that, as far as Marnie knows, Alexa has never been that keen on black guys. Oh, she's flirted with them as she is doing with Vic now … but they've never numbered highly in her conquests.

So when Uhazral whispers in Marnie's mind, Make her take some black cock in front of you, a part of Marnie is … interested. The opportunity is certainly convenient. And the alternative if Uhazral's perversion is not satisfied would mean sacrificing herself.