House of Atreus. Bedroom of Ira Almasy, 2am.


Balfour Spectre collapsed into the arm chair and tilted his head back to observe as she moved to her dresser, drifting in that ghostly way of hers. His eyes lingered on the relaxed, angular shoulders from which fell layers of pale blue chiffon. Even her dressing gown was all decadence and unearthliness.

In a way she was the most honest person he had ever known. People are not creatures. They do not always dress to reflect the danger within them - but Ira Almasy did.

"Stay tonight?" she drew open a drawer, delicately procured a tray of fine needles. No. Not precisely - quills, rather, the fine hollow stems of some thorny creature. In his muddled drunkenness Balfour could not recall which.

He ran a hand through his hair, damp with sweat, and shut his eyes. "No. I shouldn't."

It had been a long day and he'd come straight from losing himself at a nightclub. He was tired. Balfour felt her close all of a sudden and forced himself not to look, acknowledged her only with a slight shudder as she spoke.

"Stay tonight. Here, this will help."
            Waxen eyelids flickering open feverishly, he saw now that she stood before him holding in her palm a single needle with pointed, tapered edges and something... something milky white in its spine. "I shouldn't."
"Arms."

The wizard slid his arms forward as though in earnest prayer and swallowed as she kneeled against the wooden floor, right between his legs as knees drew apart. His gaze shifted, lambent, from her pale blonde locks and the white of her sharp jaw. Her slender and cruel hands. "You first," he heard himself say in a damnably tremulous voice.


Ira paused and looked him in the eye for what seemed an age before she methodically drew one end of the needle to her own wrist, pricking the soft skin there. Not even a droplet of blood as the drug seeped out, tip pulled away before the liquid was altogether drained. She stared into space, an emerald glow curtaining her irises fleetingly. He watched her blink, nothing to give away what effect it had.

Sweat cooled against Balfour's collarbones, clammy with discomfort - she moved the other end of the quill to his right arm. He looked away in time to only feel the sharp, piercing sensation.

"My poor, beastly boy..." Ira murmured and the pain disappeared presently. He looked back to find no sign of entry but felt a burning in his eyes, cool flames licking at nerves that did not exist. Her voice was deep now, warped. Closer. "Come to bed."

Balfour looked at her, strange inhuman beauty at his legs, ivory hands now empty as they slid up along his thighs and settled on the hem of his untucked shirtsleeves. Slipped beneath to firmly grip his bare sides. He drew breath. The lavish little bedroom they occupied seemed to grow vague; a haze of impermanent objects.

He licked his lips, found that he had reached out to caress the sharp slope of her cheeks. Everything about her reminded him of fine, gossamer spider webs. Intricacy that could only entangle further entangle a battling victim. Balfour  knew that even without the influence running through his veins, he would have given in to this pleasure.

Not her temptation but his weakness. "I hate you," he leaned forward to clumsily seek her lips. Ira smiled into the hungry kiss.