Parties (Girls Weekend, #2)

by C.M. Nascosta

She had perfected the art of fitting in over the years; of being pretty, popular Ris, chameleon-like in her ability to slip into whatever role was required of her, but these days she found herself less and less inclined to be anyone but herself. And we’re not impressed.

Silva loved escaping into the pages of stories about women who weren’t afraid to pursue their happily ever afters, who allowed love to conquer all and found comfort in her preferred genre’s reliability that the couple would always wind up together despite all of the obstacles in their path, no matter how prim the princess or how much of a scoundrel her rake seemed at the beginning.

"Bluebell, don’t pretend you don’t love butterin’ this big ol’ biscuit. You think I’d be able to keep your side of the bed warm with a flat ass? This space heater does all the heavy lifting."

There was nothing wrong with her, only the mixed messages she had received growing up — that her body was too much, that she took up too much space in her own life, which somehow made her less. Too much, and made smaller as a consequence.

They fucked for the betterment of Elvish kind, and for that we thank them.

I love anthropology and cultural studies. I could spend weeks in the museums that cover ancient civilizations.

"Nanaya was an ancient goddess," he explained with an arched eyebrow, "of sexuality and pleasure and war. She was worshiped under many names . . . Inanna, Ishtar, Tašmetu . . . I thought it was a fitting sobriquet. That’s what I’ve been calling you in my head all this time."

"None of it, or the upstairs stuff, to be honest. I don’t want to be peed on, I don’t want to be a part of your weird circle jerk, I don’t want my asshole licked by some stranger who’s simultaneously being plowed by every single member of a k-pop weretiger band, I don’t want to take turns on a five-guys-one-girl train. Ris . . . I think I’m vanilla."

"What the fuck?!" he shouted, his voice reverberating in the muscle car’s interior as she wheezed in laughter. "How did this happen? We’re both too hot for this!"

but after a lifetime of being told what to do and how to look and what to think, her field of fucks to give was barren.

There could be anything out there, she thought. Maybe even a Bigfoot. Rationally, she knew there was no such thing, but there were always people who claimed to have seen one while camping deep in the forest range off the Applethorpe Wood.

"How many bones do you think you have, lad?" His voice was smooth and lilting, dripping in menace, and Silva shivered in exhilaration. "Do you think it’s enough to account for every time you treated her poorly? I’d hate to double back and break them twice, but we all do have to make sacrifices now and again."

"You're my heartbeat, Silva. You're the pulse in my chest and the blood in my veins. You want to rip me open, dove? Take a bite out of my heart? It already belongs to you, so you can do as you wish, and it doesn't matter what you call me. You’re the only reason for breathin', and if you come to your senses and kiss me goodbye in the morning and then put me out of your mind, it won't change a thing. It won't change what you are. You'll always be mine, Silva. That doesn't mean you should want me as yours."

She’d always had a vivid imagination, but for the last year she had felt as though she lived in an entirely separate world in her head, her rich fantasy life softening the edges of a harsher reality.

"I don't know, but isn't it kind of crazy the way we de-evolved like that? Elves were chosen consorts of the high fae! We committed genocides! We were apex predators! Now we're one step up from humans, and all it took was fucking them for a few hundred years.

My ancestors were able to disembowel ogres with their bare hands, now I get period cramps and have to take three days off work to lay on a heat pack and cry. What a fucking letdown."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say it's a letdown that you're not able to commit genocide with your giant turkey dinosaur thumbnails anymore." He tipped his head back consideringly, the documentary forgotten for a momen...

His plan, he’d explained, was simple: charm Nana first, flirt the cousins into submission, captivate the room in general with his genial southern charm, and avoid her mother.

She was told she was too big, took up too much space, and was therefore of lesser value, and so she tried to be as invisible as possible for most of her adolescence.

She was going to live a lifetime with him, and that would be the balm on her broken heart when he was gone, to sustain her for a lifetime without him.