Night Giving Back, Part 2

Andy disentangled from Laura and padded to the door, pausing only long enough to glance back and see that both of her bodies were watching him with identical, composed expressions.

He opened the door to find Emi standing in the elevator, hands folded, six arms wrapped around herself in a kind of accidental embrace. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair pulled back with a little more care than usual, and her eyes flicked from Andy to the open doorway and back, not quite believing she was expected.

She smiled, exhaling the nerves, and said, “Hi. Is this a bad time?” but her voice was so gentle it sounded almost like she was apologizing for taking up space.

Andy shook his head. “Not at all. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Emi’s breath hitched a little at that, and he saw something unguarded in her face—a kind of naked gratitude, as if she’d been holding herself at a distance for so long that being invited in felt like a restoration. She stepped inside, her six arms fidgeting in their old, familiar pattern: one smoothing her dress, one tucking a loose strand of hair, two clenching and unclenching, two hovering in a way that suggested she was ready to hug someone at a moment’s notice.

Laura stood as Emi entered. Both of her. The two bodies crossed the room in perfect coordination, stopping just shy of contact, then holding the beat as if waiting to see what Emi needed.

Emi did not flinch. She simply let her arms fall open—three and three, like the petals of a flower—then hugged both Lauras at once, one in each pair of arms. The two of them formed a small, silent knot in the center of the living room. For a second, nobody moved.

Andy watched, feeling the axis of his world click back into place. The three of them together again—he could remember every permutation of this triangle, from the treehouse in third grade to the blanket forts at Emi’s house to the infinite, unfinished conversations in the back row at the library. It had always been Andy and Laura and Emi, and the sense of reunion, now, was so strong that he had to swallow it down before it overwhelmed him.

The knot held for a while, and then Laura eased out of the hug. Both bodies stepped back, but she didn’t let go of Emi’s hands—four of them now, tangled together like the roots of some old, stubborn tree. Emi smiled, and Andy saw in her face not the flustered, ethereal girl of the first weeks here, but a woman who’d found her ground again. She beamed at Laura, then at Andy, and let her hands drift open in a little flourish of welcome.

“I didn’t think you’d actually want to see me tonight,” she said, to both of them, though her eyes lingered on Laura. “I thought it would just be—” she shrugged, “—the two of you, you know, together.”

Both Lauras shook their heads in perfect symmetry. “No. It had to be all three,” she said, and her smile was more than answer enough.

Andy, for his part, watched the strange gravity of their little orbit. The three of them belonged here together, but the way the moment bent around Laura was different now. She wasn’t apologizing for being alive anymore. She wasn’t even apologizing for being the center of things, for being the axis of Andy’s world. Instead, she just… was.

He let himself drift back, half-sitting on the edge of the red sectional, and watched as Emi and Laura found their new footing.

“I missed this,” Emi said, voice soft, “and I don’t even know what ‘this’ is anymore, but I missed it.”

“Me too,” Laura said. “Even when I was gone, I missed it.”

Andy thought about how this had felt, last round, when the three of them had come together on the terrace and, later, in the Dance Hall: like a painful echo, a reunion of ghosts. Laura had been so sure she was bad for him, for everyone she loved. Now it felt like the three of them had actually made it, as though the story they’d started together might finally be allowed to have a happy chapter.

A silence fell, but it wasn’t empty. Emi looked at Laura, then at Andy, and said, “Do you remember the meteor shower?”

Andy smiled. “Which one?”

Emi giggled. “The big one. The year you both stayed up all night on the roof, even though you got grounded after.”

“Oh, right,” Laura said, eyes bright. “We convinced you to sneak up with us. Your mom got so mad.”

“She made me promise never to do it again,” Emi said. “I did, but I was lying.”

“You always were a bad liar,” Laura teased.

Emi grinned. “I know.”

They remembered a few more stories, the kinds that had lived in their bones for decades but, for Andy and Emi, had been boxed away by grief and guilt. Andy found himself talking more than usual—telling stories he’d almost forgotten, or maybe just stories he’d never dared share before. Laura and Emi chimed in, filling the blanks for each other, sometimes disagreeing over the facts, sometimes just laughing at the way memory changes when you share it.

After a while, the stories drifted out, and the room fell quiet. Emi’s arms had stopped fidgeting, and Laura’s bodies sat as close as ever, but there was an ease in the way they held themselves now. Emi glanced at the clock, then at the window, where the moon hung low over the dark sea. “I guess we’re waiting for Myra?”

“Yeah,” said Laura.

Emi nodded, and they all let the silence stretch. There was no pressure to fill it. For once, Andy felt like he could just be, without having to fix anything or worry about what would happen next.

Laura turned to him. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Are you?”

She nodded, too. “I think so.”

Emi’s lower right hand reached over and squeezed Laura’s. “Thank you, for inviting me.”

Laura met her eyes. “It wouldn’t have been right without you.”

They waited in that little bubble, the world beyond the glass and steel of the Suite reduced to whispers and the slow click of the clock. For a while, the three of them let the silence lap at their edges, as if none wanted to disturb the new, hard-won quiet. Andy felt a warmth in his chest that he didn’t want to name—not nostalgia, exactly, but something like it. If there had ever been a moment in this strange second life that was the inverse of grief, it was this.

Laura’s right body leaned into Andy, her head on his shoulder, while her left linked hands with Emi. The three of them sat that way, a loose braid of old and new selves, and let the world outside their circle shrink away.

They did talk, now and then. Andy brought up the blanket fort in Emi’s parents’ basement, the one they’d built over two weekends when Andy and Laura were in sixth grade; Laura, both bodies at once, recounted the time they’d gotten lost in the Willow Run woods and Emi had mapped a way back using nothing but moss and stubbornness. Emi remembered every pet name they’d ever invented, every teacher they’d driven to distraction, and she could still recite the “magic words” they’d made up as a password for the club they never let anyone else join.

“You realize,” Emi said, glancing from Andy to Laura, “we’re still us. Even with all this…” She gestured at herself, and at Laura’s two bodies, “...extra.”

Andy smiled. “I think we always will be. But maybe a little better than before.”

Laura, left, nodded. “We’re not haunted anymore.” The right one squeezed Andy’s knee. “It feels good.”

Emi’s eyes went bright and a little glassy, but her smile was all relief. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, voice a hush.

They didn’t make a ceremony of it. No speeches, no self-conscious declarations of “let’s always stay friends.” They just let it be, three kids grown up and broken in different ways, now reassembled by a miracle neither of the living two would ever have dared to hope for. The moment stretched, easy and unstrained.

The elevator’s tone was different than before: a low, stately double chime, as if it knew the weight of the moment. Laura looked to Andy, and Andy nodded. He opened the door.

Myra stood in the hallway for a full two seconds before stepping through the doorway. She kept her hands in her pockets, shoulders square, twin fox tails pulled tight and low behind her, as if she meant to smuggle her whole self past the line of sight and leave only the smallest possible footprint in the room.

She looked around once, eyes unfocused in the way only a blind person’s could be, then squared her gaze on Laura. Not on Andy, not on Emi, who smiled with all six arms already open, but directly at Laura—like she had spent the last five hours rehearsing and this was her cue.

She said, “Why did you invite me?”

Not “Hello,” or “Good to see you.” Just the question, spoken in a voice so flat it might have been an accusation if not for the wariness hiding behind it.

Laura didn’t move at first. Both bodies sat on the couch, arms folded in mirror, knees pressed together and feet side by side, but only one looked up.

Laura’s left body tilted her head up, but her face stayed flat. Her right body didn’t move at all. The posture, the symmetry, was pure Laura—guard up, but not to shut out, just to keep from bleeding too much all at once.

She answered, “Because I wanted you here.” She looked at Myra, not away. “I forgave you four days ago, Myra. I need to show it to you, not just say it, or you’ll never believe it.” Both voices, layered, simple. There was nothing professional in the tone. No therapist, no posturing. Just the even handoff of truth.

Myra stood with that for a beat. Then she came in, moving with a kind of brittle poise; Andy could see the tremor in her fox ears, the twitch of uncertainty at her wrists, but she didn’t hesitate. She walked around the red sectional, found the edge of the couch by sound, and sat on the far end, knees together, hands flat on her lap. Her twin tails curled up behind, a nervous tangle of russet and white.

The room didn’t settle immediately. It was Emi who moved first, her six arms a blur of subtle self-comfort—tucking hair, smoothing skirt, folding in, folding out. She watched Myra, then Laura, then Andy, as if triangulating the exact pressure in the air. Then she scooted over, patting the seat between her and Myra, a silent invitation. When Myra didn’t budge, Emi just rested her lower right hand on Myra’s wrist, not grabbing, just a weight.

The atmosphere changed, but not with a jolt. It was more like the air had thickened, or the lights had gone down by a click, or maybe it was Emi’s Velvet Hours already humming at the edges. Time slowed in that kind of space; the hands on the clock stuttered and reset, the distance between words stretched out.

Nobody needed to break the silence. It filled in, slow and even, and the four of them—Andy, Laura, Emi, Myra—sat in a square, each a corner of an impossible table.

Andy glanced at Laura, both of her, and felt the heat of her stare. He was always aware of her, but tonight the bond between them was as taut as a wire. He could feel her waiting for the moment when the world would shatter and reform around her, waiting for the next brush with the impossible.

He realized, suddenly, that she was waiting for him. For him to start. For him to make the move.

He looked at Myra, then Emi, then back to Laura. “Is there anything you want to say to each other?” he asked, letting it hang for a second. “Or do you want to just… be here, together?”

Myra’s mouth quirked. “If there’s a script, I didn’t get it,” she said, the first hint of humor in her voice.

Laura shrugged, both shoulders. “There’s no script.” She paused, then, “I missed you, Emi. And I want you to know I’m not jealous of you, or of Andy, or of what you have. I want you to be happy.” Both heads nodded, as if driving the point home. “And Myra, you don’t owe me anything, not even this.”

Myra looked at Laura, both of her, and considered. For once, her fox ears didn’t flick, didn’t search for a tell. The tails, though—two of them now—uncoiled at the small of her back, settling on either side of her hips like twin satellites. They’d been under perfect control at dinner, but here, in the Suite, she let them relax, and Andy realized for the first time how much had changed for her since the last round. She wasn’t hiding anymore, not the newness or the power or the unnameable need that always seemed to live inside her.

She said, “Thank you,” to Laura. Then, quieter, “I thought about not coming. But I think… I need this, too.”

Emi, ever the weather system, immediately filled the gap: “It’s good, Myra. You should stay.” Her voice was gentler than usual, and all six arms opened in a little gesture of welcome. “You’re always welcome.”

There was a little adjustment, a re-settling of the air in the room, and the four of them found themselves arranged at points on the red sectional: Andy at the center, Laura bracketing him with her left and right, Emi tucked close on one side, and Myra at the end, both her fox tails fanned out across the cushion as if marking her perimeter. No one spoke for a while. The clock on the wall ticked out half a minute. Emi’s Velvet Hours ran on low, stretching every heartbeat, slowing every gesture.

Andy felt the moment crystallize, a weird, suspended hush that wasn’t tension so much as possibility. He didn’t want to be the one to break it. But he did, anyway, with a simple: “I’m glad you’re here, Myra. All of you.” He looked at Emi, at Laura, at both of them. “I missed this.”

Laura, both of her, reached for his hands—left to left, right to right. Emi echoed, her upper right hand settling over Andy’s. Myra watched, her gaze searching Laura’s faces, then Emi’s, then Andy’s, as if waiting for a signal.

Andy caught her eye, and, with a little nod, made space on his right, an invitation. She hesitated, then reached across and covered his hand with hers. Her skin was cold, always was, but it warmed almost instantly under his. The tips of her fox tails twitched, then stilled, splaying out along the couch behind her.

Andy smiled, slow and honest. “You don’t have to do anything,” he said, aware of how outnumbered he was, how delicate this circle was. “We can just stay like this, if you want.”

For a moment, he thought that might be all there was: just the four of them, hands locked in a living chain, letting the Suite do its magic until the awkwardness receded into comfort.

But then Emi, her head tilted, leaned in and rested her shoulder against Andy’s arm. The second and third pairs of her hands sought out Laura and Myra, each touch feather-light, like she was testing to see how real any of this was. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t have to: the heat of her presence, the hum of her energy, said everything.

Myra’s tail—her left—curled around Emi’s wrist, hesitant, but then, finding no resistance, wrapped once, then let go. Myra shifted closer, not much, but enough to close the circuit. She glanced again at Laura, waiting for some sign of jealousy or resistance, but there was none.

Laura looked at Andy, then at Emi, then at Myra, and said, with both mouths, “I want to try something.”

No one moved.

Laura gave Andy’s hands a squeeze, then, one after the other, let go. Both of her bodies settled in on either side of him, each head leaning to his shoulder. For a second, they sat like that, a tangle of black hair and white arms and the impossible perfection of being together, really together, after so much loss.

“What’s the something?” Andy asked, but his voice was little more than a vibration.

Laura’s left hand, the one closest to Emi, reached out and brushed Emi‘s face, a gentle touch along the jawline. Emi shivered, and the lowest pair of her arms encircled Laura’s waist. On Andy’s other side, Laura’s right body faced Myra, and with a nod, invited her in.

Myra’s fox tails moved first, crossing the gap, then her body followed, until she was pressed to Laura’s side, her cheek almost but not quite touching. Andy felt the pulse of her breath, fast and shallow.

“I want to feel it,” Laura said, and Andy understood. For the first time since the Bond of Marriage had been upgraded, she was opening it all the way, letting the bandwidth go full blast.

He held his breath. Then, as if on cue, Emi reached for his face with her upper left hand and pulled him into a kiss. Her lips were soft, a little trembling, but the shock of connection was electric: her hands, her arms, her entire body pressing in, every one of her transformations tuned to maximum, drawing out sensation. She tasted like the faintest hint of sake and sugar, and she held nothing back. Andy felt her need, the sweetness of it, the longing and the gratitude and the animal, low heat of want.

He broke the kiss, and before he could speak, Laura’s left head took over, her lips covering his, tongue insistent and bright as a flame. He reached out, found Myra’s waist, and drew her in. Her body was all angles and tension, but it melted under his hand, and she made a sound—a tiny, wild whimper—that was new even to her. Emi, seeing the shift, leaned in from the other side, her hands mapping every inch of Andy she could reach, one on his neck, one on his thigh, one tracing slow, searching lines up and down his spine.

The Suite, always tuned to the needs of the harem, seemed to darken the lights, to hush the world beyond. Time lost its regularity. Emi’s Velvet Hours bent it until the seconds became minutes, and the minutes became a slow, rolling hour that stretched out in every direction.

Andy turned his head and kissed Myra. She gave in, and her lips were hot, almost feverish. The taste of her was salt and adrenaline and something green, sharp, alive. Her hands gripped his shirt, knuckles white, but she didn’t pull away. If anything, she pressed in harder, her tails snaking around his waist like she was afraid he’d leave if she let go.

Laura’s right body watched them, eyes wide and dilated. The Bond was at full intake, and Andy could see her taking it in—the echo of Myra’s sensations, of Emi’s. It was a feedback loop, a harmony.

He remembered what Laura had figured out at the end of last round. With Connect, he could split into two bodies at once. He’d always assumed it was one male, one female, but the rules had changed. The upgrade Laura had figured out, allowed for both bodies to be him, if he willed it. And with two Lauras, and two partners, there was no reason not to try.

He let himself split. The world didn’t stutter; there was no dizzying magic moment. It was just… easy. One version of himself with Laura (left) and Emi; the other with Laura (right) and Myra. Each body aware of itself and the other, the boundaries soft but unblurred.

The reaction was instant. Emi gasped, eyes wide, then began to laugh—a real, wild, delighted sound. “I didn’t know you could do that!” she said, and her hands doubled their work, exploring the new, second Andy, touching both as if they were one.

Laura’s left and right both shivered, then grinned. “I was hoping you would,” she whispered. “I want to see it. I want to feel all of you, at once.” There was no greed in the words, just an honest, undiluted hunger for connection.

The effect was immediate. The world didn’t break apart or double, it just made room: two of Andy, each perfect and real, sharing the same mind, the same hunger, the same impossible love for everyone in the room. Like standing in both places at once—no dizziness, no split, just the rightness of always being everywhere he was needed.

Emi blinked, stunned, then let out a wild, delighted laugh. “You have no idea how hot that is,” she said, then covered her mouth, instantly shy. Her upper hands went to Andy’s shoulders, the middle pair to Laura‘s, the last set at her waist, holding herself steady in the strangeness of it. She didn’t pull away, not even when both of Andy’s bodies pressed in, one kissing her, one kissing Laura, the space between them erased.

Myra stared, as much as a blind person could stare, her mouth parted in awe. She touched Andy’s arm, then, with a trembling hand, reached for the other Andy, who took her by the wrist and pressed her palm to his chest. Both of Andy’s bodies felt the cold of her skin and the trembling in her pulse. Myra laughed—a short, breathless sound—and the tips of her fox tails curled around each other, as if she needed to anchor herself in the new reality.

Both of Laura’s bodies, her faces flush, her eyes wide and blue and shining, turned toward Andy. She didn’t speak, but the mirroring was perfect: the arch of brow, the flick of tongue across lips, the angle of her chins as they leaned in, one for Emi, one for Myra.

The heat came up slow, then hit all at once. The first Andy (left, with Emi and Laura) felt Emi’s six arms everywhere—hands in his hair, on his back, raking gently along his sides, one hand between his knees and another cupping his face. She knew the rhythm, kissing him with a shy but insistent hunger, her lips sweet and plush, her breath catching every time Laura pressed close. Laura, here, was wild and relentless, both arms braced on Andy’s chest, her tongue pushing into his mouth, her teeth nibbling his ear as Emi took over kissing, her hands already stripping away his shirt.

The second Andy (right, with Myra and Laura) found Myra more hesitant, but only at first. Her hands moved with a doctor’s certainty, mapping his chest, his arms, his hips, fingers tracing scars and lines he didn’t know he had. She always did this, he suspected - Emotion’s Map or not, her blindness had taught her the importance of the tactile. When he bent to kiss her, she made a tiny, involuntary sound, a whine from deep in her throat, and the tails—God, the tails—wrapped his thigh and squeezed until he had to shift to keep his balance. The tails were warm, plush, the fur impossibly soft, and when he stroked them with both hands, Myra shivered so hard she nearly doubled over. The foxfire exploded out of her, a flickering green aurora that ran down her arms and over her cheeks, lighting her up like a myth. When Laura saw this, the nearer self just smiled, leaned in, and whispered into Myra’s ear; whatever she said, it made Myra’s breath hitch and the fire surge brighter.

The sense of time twisted. Emi‘s Velvet Hours worked on the entire room, so even the pacing of words and movement stretched and slowed, every second thick with anticipation and charged with the promise of more, time slowing down for all four of them so that a full day could be packed within a single night. The two Andys, synchronized by desire and will, found it easy—natural—to trade places, to swap partners, to meet again in the middle. If there was any jealousy in Laura, it didn’t show; both bodies were flush with pleasure, every touch magnified and multiplied, the Bond of Marriage flowing like current.

When Andy kissed Emi, she melted against him, her six arms pulling him so close he felt her heartbeat in his own chest. Her lips were soft, but the pressure behind them was fierce, and when he slid his hands under her dress, she gasped, giggled, then pulled it over her head with a casualness that surprised even her. She was nude underneath, skin glowing, hair loose, her breasts small and high and perfectly sensitive. Andy kissed her neck, then her collarbone, then let his lips drift lower, tasting the salt on her skin and the sweetness of her need. Emi didn’t hesitate—she never had, not really—and when Laura reached for her, they tangled together, a tangle of arms and legs and hands, every one of Emi’s six arms engaged in something: two holding Laura’s waist, two raking Andy’s back, the last pair framing his face as she kissed him again. Laura gasped at each kiss Andy gave her.

With Myra, it was different. She was shy, but only because every sensation was new. She had only been with Andy once like this. Andy found her hands shaking as she undressed, but when he kissed her, all hesitation vanished. The foxfire went brighter and brighter, and when he pressed his mouth to the base of her ear, she cried out, her tails whipping around and locking his arms to her back. She wore nothing under her tee and leggings, and when the clothes came off, she was all sinew and curve, every inch of her humming with energy. Her tails, responsive as extra limbs, moved with a will of their own, and when Andy stroked them slowly, she whimpered, hips bucking, her face flushed and glazed with need.

Both of Laura’s bodies watched, present, greedy for sensation but never for dominance. Andy felt her eyes on him at all times, four blue pinpricks in the half-dark. She gasped with each kiss he gave Emi or Myra, she shivered with each touch of his hand on the other women’s bodies. She pressed close to Myra, and whispered to her, fingers gentle on the fur of the tails, and Myra shivered in pleasure, the foxfire spilling onto Laura and casting both women in an otherworldly light, adding to Laura’s need too.

For a while, it was just this: a slow, rolling shift of hands and mouths and bodies, every possible pairing explored, every sensation fed back through the Bond. Andy had never felt anything like it. Whenever he touched Myra or Emi, or either of Laura, Laura felt it, and with each shift, each exploration, Myra’s foxfire burned brighter and leapt onto Emi and Laura, lighting the whole room. The pleasure stacked, harmonized, until it was a single, trembling chord that vibrated through every person there.

At some point, one Laura straddled Andy, her thighs pressed hard to his hips, her hair loose around her face. She held his face in both hands, kissed him deep, then guided him inside her, slow and careful and sure. Emi, behind her, held both of them in an embrace, her arms a living cradle, her mouth hot at Andy’s neck. When Andy moved, Emi moved too, their bodies in perfect sync, and Andy pulled Emi closer, kissing her, both Lauras gasping in stereo, the pleasure ringing through the Bond until it was impossible to say who felt what first.

On the other end of the couch, Myra had her head thrown back, teeth bared, tails rigid behind her like the wings of a great bird. Andy’s other body was buried in her, hands gripping her waist, and when Laura’s other body pressed close, the green foxfire leapt from Myra to Laura again, and every time it cycled, the pleasure ramped higher, spreading wider.

The cycle repeated, then repeated again. Emi’s Velvet Hours made it possible for the night to stretch forever, for every configuration to be explored, for every secret touch or whispered word to land, to ripple out, to come back stronger. Andy made sure to tend to every partner, every pleasure, every need. With Myra, Andy took time to stroke every inch of her tails, to learn every spot that made her tremble, to hold her hands when she needed grounding. With Emi, Andy let her dictate the pace, letting her six arms guide him, letting her ride him, watching her find herself in the heat of it, allowing her Hexasutra transformation to show him pleasure no one else could give him. And always, always, both of Laura: eager, loving, sometimes wild, sometimes gentle, always wanting to feel it all, to live in every possible version of the night.

If there was jealousy, it never lasted. The pleasure was too all-consuming for anything so small to take hold, and with her Bond, Laura felt at the center of everything, no matter where Andy was. At one point, Emi and Myra ended up together for a moment, both clutching at each other’s hands, both eyes shut, both bodies glowing in emerald fire. They weren’t lovers, not in that moment, just companions on the same impossible ride, each grateful for the other’s company, each aware that the real, deep connection was to Andy, and that this was only a harmony, an echo, a kindness.

There were breaks—long, slow stretches where they lay together, tangled, letting their bodies cool, letting the echoes fade. In those moments, Andy would sometimes drift, mind loose. He would open his eyes and see both of Laura watching him. He would see Myra curled up, tails wrapped around her knees, body boneless with contentment. He would see Emi, arms sprawled every which way, one hand always searching for his, always wanting to touch.

Sometimes, in those breaks, someone would laugh. A real, wild, uncontrolled laugh, as if the joy was too much to be contained in any other form. Emi was the first to do it, then Laura, then Andy himself, until even Myra, usually so quiet, let out a wild giggle that made her tails lash the cushions and the green fire spark up again. They would laugh, then kiss, then let themselves drift, and time would reset, Velvet Hours stretching time for another round, Inanna’s Garden blessing the Suite with both contentment and desire.

It went on for hours, or maybe days. Time lost all meaning. There was no world outside the Suite, no future or past, only the rhythm of the four of them together, the slow, careful unfolding of every possible pleasure, every possible kindness. Andy lost track of whose hands were where, or who kissed whom first, or how many times they’d cycled through each configuration. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the fullness, the sense that this was what the world was supposed to be like, at least for tonight.

When the end came, it wasn’t a crash or a burn or an orgasm so strong it erased memory. It was a gentle drifting down, the sensation of falling asleep in a hammock, the world rocking and safe, every muscle and nerve washed clean. The two Lauras curled together, one head on the other’s shoulder, both bodies sated and bright and shining. Emi, hair tangled and face glowing, rested her head on Laura’s chest, arms wrapped around both of them in a way that looked impossible but made perfect sense. Myra, spent and trembling, lay with her back to Andy, her tails draped over both of them like a blanket, the last flickers of foxfire dancing over their skin.

Andy, two again, let the two bodies drift together and merge again, holding the circle closed. He watched the three women—four, really, if you counted both Lauras—sleep, their breathing slow and perfect, and felt a peace he hadn’t known since childhood. He let himself slip, just a little, into sleep, and the Suite hummed around them, safe and warm and outside of time.

Sometime in the deepest part of the night, Andy woke, eyes opening to the dark, the world hushed and empty. The women were still asleep, their bodies tangled, their faces serene. Andy watched them for a while, then shifted his gaze to the painting in the corner, the one that held Katherine.

She was awake. She stood in her meadow, the sunlight pouring down, hair loose to her ankles, arms folded. She watched the Suite, and Andy, and the sleeping women, a small, real smile curving her lips. She looked at him, nodded once, then turned to the wildflowers at her feet and knelt, picking one, holding it up to the sun. The gesture was so simple, so profoundly normal, that Andy almost cried.

Katherine looked at the flower, then at Andy, then back to the flower. She smiled again, wider this time, then walked to the edge of the painting and leaned against the frame. She looked content, not trapped. She knew she could leave, now, if she wished. She looked at home.

Andy lay back. The fullness in the room—the warmth, the bodies, the air heavy with the proof of love—was matched only by the calm in the painting. He held both at once, the wildness and the peace, and knew that neither would ever diminish the other.

He closed his eyes, and dreamed nothing but good dreams.

Emi: Foursome! (Participant) +3 VP
Myra: Foursome! (Participant) +3 VP
Emi: Double-tag-teamed by the Master! +3 VP
Myra: Double-tag-teamed by the Master! +3 VP
Emi: Had sex in front of the Master! +3 VP
Myra: Had sex in front of the Master! +3 VP

Achievement Unlocked! (Andy) The Guilt Triangle
Achievement Unlocked! (Myra) The Push +5 VP