While I don't necessarily have anything on hand that was created with the intent to titillate, I do indeed have this. It's a portion of a story I'm no longer writing that I now use as a proof-of-concept of my style. Be forewarned, it's LONG AS FUCK. Like, 2000-word long.
[spoiler=This is how I write slightly longer stories. So not EXACTLY what I'm selling, but I'm proud of this nonetheless.]With a little trepidation, I approached the door. Room 7, huh? Okay... but where was the doorknob? Is it a magical opening? I should probably hold up the room ke- yep, that worked. I could push it open now? Weird, it had to be some kind of magic to make it open like this. I walked in, and-
...wow.
This wasn't a dorm room, it was an upper-middle class house furnished like a MANOR. A jacuzzi in a bathroom larger than my old room. A mini-fridge. Two bedrooms looking utterly stunning with beds likely genetically engineered, despite not having genes, to be as soft as possible. This is insane! And...
yep, she's here.
- - - - -
Miss Leather Cyberpunk stood before me, a weary eye her only gift to me as she managed to steal glances of suspicion away from her belongings, which she had plopped down on the couch.
A welcoming sight indeed.
Managing to tear my eyes away from her for any amount of time, I plopped my belongings and behind on the other couch and began unzipping. Where did I put it...
I have no reason to trust her.
Consoles, PC tower, I know I put it in this bag...
D'AH! One minute in a new environment, and I'm already starting to lose my mind, aren't I?
The lengths I went to to get this thing. I swear to god if I left it at home...
You'll drive yourself mad, Fansa. You don't even need to trust her. Malcontent or not, she appears harmless.
Oh, right, I tucked it in here...
Oh, I really can't help my own paranoia. I need to get a grip one of these days.
I'll do it...
I'll do it...
NOW!
NOW!
...now, I don't necessarily think she KNEW I was going to hold her at gunpoint out of the sheer tension in the room, but she's clearly readying some form of magic aimed at my cranium as well, so...
- - - - -
"Well, I don't know if this makes me trust you less or more right now," I crack.
Was that a small smirk? Guess the rock could have a sense of humor. Nevertheless, it's gone fast.
"I'm going to assume your weapon is of a lethal variety?" she uttered with a mildly panicked resolve.
"I don't think that's much of an issue in a place like this. Real question is, what sort of magic were you about to blast me with?"
"Wh... what? This... probably isn't magic. And what do you mean, 'not an issue'? You hold something lethal! You really want to be responsible for taking a life?!"
Hold on, something was up with her. I closed my eyes as I mulled it over.
Aaaaaaand I had the download on her. Wow, she was gonna fall fast. Just, stay calm, Nico. Stay calm...
"L-let me get this straight. Ignoring me for a second, you don't know if you were about to blast me with magic, meaning you were either cursed with something or signed up for something you still have too litle knowledge of. And regardless of THAT pathetic showing, you knew that your powers wouldn't kill me. So, something to pacify me. And given how much you were hesitating to even do anything to me, it clearly isn't something like a sleep spell. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say... draining me of life energy, potentially proving fatal? How much of that did I get?"
Oh, she's wavering. She's wavering hard.
"That's not... W-how did you..."
"Oh, I know, have known, and can learn a great many things, miss... uh... Fansa Tellion." Creep route. I was going creep route. I was able to skim her thoughts just enough to get her name. It's FUN to go mastermind every once in a while!
...aaaaand the good feeling's gone. Her face is white.
Uhhh...
"J-just enslave me already. I knew from the start I wouldn't last five minutes in a place like this. What other things do you know? You've probably put some kind of cryptic mind-programming package in my head by this point, haven't you? Just, take me, do whatever you want to me, then kill me when I get in your way! But I probably don't need to tell you your own plan, do I...?"
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...
~~~
"UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..."
Yeah, she was very suitably broken... as were her tear ducts. Wwwwwhoops. Time to let the good girl take over with the metaphorical tissues.
"What?" She whimpered, utterly defeated.
I quickly flipped the safety back on and chucked the gun over my shoulder. "Hey, hey! Look, okay? It's gone. I brought that for self-defense, and you were REALLY freaking me out like seriously I could've sworn you were gonna take my life right then and there and I have NO idea where that confidence came from within me BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT! The point is, you don't need to worry about me. At least, not in the way that registers me as a threat. And my psionics aren't that developed, all I scraped was your name. No time bombs on me."
Fansa's face contorted from the extra dash of confusion and desperation added to the despair as she plopped onto the couch. Quickly, though, she recomposed herself. Must've been through a lot to be able to do that... "But then... why did you scrape that at all? Why didn't you just stop at calling my bluff? What made you do ANY of that?!"
"I, uh... kinda get carried away when I'm in my element, putting the pieces together, all that. Uh, I apologize."
Fansa looked up at me, nearly as composed as when she walked in, but her eyes noticeably scarred from my... ah, untamed Batman impression. Shit, I felt REALLY bad. "Hm... Fansa? I can't help but feel like we got off on the wrong foot." I stuck my hand out.
"My name is Nicoletta Doulis, and my hand is outstretched. Put 'er there."
She looked at my hand, her expression softening every second. Slowly, her hand reached out for mine, her arm getting dragged along in the process, and our extremities met in the middle- her face quickly turning a faint shade of red in the process.
"Uh... something the matter? I mean, something else?" I nervously chuckled, quickly shaking and letting go of her hand. She clearly found that a tiny bit embarrassing for some reason.
"I'm... going to assume that gesture doesn't have the same significance where you come from as from my old zip, does it?"
Ah, so "zip" was a Fansian (or maybe her world, I didn't know) way of saying "their neck of the woods." Noted. "Well, from my 'zip', what we just did was a bit of a formal way to greet anyone of any level of familiarity- it just conveys a sense of purpose, of formality, or a 'this is how we TRULY introduce ourselves' aura. I'm going to assume it... doesn't for you?"
"The grabbing or holding of hands is a romantic, borderline lewd gesture done only between those with either a bond of passionate love or close friendship or familial bonds," Fansa replied, totally deadpan.
"Hand... holding... lewd...?" I replied, quickly breaking out into a fit of repressed giggling, which I forced down as fast as possible. "Well, prolonged hand-holding is usually reserved for couples in my world, too, but it's far less rigid in its interpretations. But hey! We're gonna be rooming with each other for a good long while now, so best to get the bond of close friendship out of the way, huh? Or maybe even a bond of..." I paused. Fansa's face was tensing up again, her eyes starting to bulge out of her head.
Ohhh my god, she was okay with the implications of the shake.
"...no way. DAMN I've never had anyone latch on to me like that, that's WILD!"
"No, no, no, no, NO! You STOP that, Nicoletta! I was only reciprocating under the assumption that you didn't... mean it THAT way..." her words trailed off as she turned away, her face flaring up as if to tell me "Don't give up, Nico! She DOES find you attractive!"
"Ahhhhh, don't lie to me! I see that color on your face! Multiversal matters or no, human reactions are human reactions! Ha haaa!" I was having a lot of fun by this point, even knowing that humans could be built differently in different worlds. I wasn't an idiot.
"HmmmmmmmMMMMMMM..." came the passive-yet-frustrated grunting of Fansa, who I was actually VERY scared of. Her energy drain was still an unknown quantity that I didn't want to piss off. Hopefully, she knew I was coming from a place of good humor.
Hopefully.
"Eh, okay, I'll get out of your hair a little bit. Though, my world has absolutely no magic, no chi or whatever despite what some probably-lunatics-but-who-knows have to say on the matter, and technology's a relative thing anyway. What exactly, and to the best of your ability I don't blame you if you don't know, were you going to zap me with earlier?" To hurry along my explanation, I mimicked the hand motion Fansa did earlier during the stand-off.
The minty melted ice queen (HA! ha? ah...) got up and started to pace around the floor, before finally staring at her arm and letting the crystalline neon flame dance along it, toying with it at her fingertips. "Okay, I... I must be honest, I don't know everything. All I know is that I had this Vamp Fragment grafted onto my soul by a group I joined when I was fourteen years old. It allows me to suck the strength, abilities, and energy out of people, though the abilities only last for a little bit."
Suddenly, her head jerked up towards me. "I-I PROMISE you, it's mostly an intimidation tactic! The seal of a Fragment is unique to each one, and those in the know understand what each color means, so I don't need to do much mo-"
"SSSSSSH-shhhh-sh-sh," I whispered as I brought my finger up, inching across the room towards her.
"Did... did you just shu-"
"Yes I shushed you. Whatcha gon' do about it, huh?" I asked, sealing the rhetorical question with a wink.
"...I'm beginning to regret picking up the key that I did."
"Ah, you're just flustered in the face of true beauty, sweetie."
Fansa's face told all, the red of her blushing cheeks actually complementing the slowly-forming look of unbridled fury rather well. "Nicoletta... I'll have you know that I HATE to use the Vamp Fragment out of a respect for the life around me. And my respect- AND PATIENCE- concerning you is dwindling. Fast."
"Haaaaaaa ha, I get it, Fansa. A good threat, honestly. If I didn't beat any semblance of outwards reaction out of me and replaced it all with more overconfident bullshit spewing from this face orifice of mine all before coming here, I'd actually be really taken aback. And by the way? 'Nicoletta' sounds like someone's calling me in to discuss how they found out I was the one who posted nudes of the principal on the bulletin board in the school lobby. IF SHE'S THAT DESPERATE ON TINDER, SHE'D LET THE WORLD SEE IT ANYWAY!"
"...I'm not going to pretend I understand much about what you're spewing besides that it mostly has to do with your former principal being a closet slut, but uh... what would you rather me call you?"
"Stupid me, forgetting to bring gloves..." I quickly snapped out of it. "Uh, what was that?"
"A nickname. You went on a tangent before you could give me a nickname you'd prefer."
"Right, right! Well, uh, I feel like we could just leave it at Nico. That's what everyone calls me anyway."
"Right... Nico," Fansa said, mulling the name over in her mind before smirking. "A pleasure to meet you." She raised her left hand, ring finger completely tucked in, with every other finger pointed straight out and her wrist at a 45-degree angle. "To celebrate, I think you ought to learn my proper greeting now," she grinned.
I returned the gesture, my smile fully-formed. "Oh, this is gonna be a crazy semester..."[/spoiler]
