Sweety stood before Alex, arms daintily clasped in front of her, her head gazing downward shyly, and one leg bent so just the tip of the shoe touched the ground. "Am I acceptable, Master?"

Alex cupped her head in his hands, her silky white hair flowing over his fingers, "always Sweety. You are more than acceptable. I am at a loss as to how you could ever be more perfect."

The corners of the little doll-like girl's mouth curled up, exposing beautiful pearly teeth. She hadn't ever smiled yet. At least it was the first time he'd seen her smile. And she was smiling at him. It seemed he was wrong, her smile now made her seem even more beautiful. They stood there and just gazed into each other's eyes.

"Well, I didn't set this up so you two could just stare at each other." Interrupted Lucy after several uncomfortable minutes. "Go, take her out."

"What do we do?" Asked Alex as he, for some reason, suddenly found his mind blank about how dates work.

"Take her to dinner, see a movie, take her dancing, I don't care. Go!" Lucy waved the two out of the house. "Whatever she will have fun doing. Her, not just you." She added as she closed the door.

The two walked down the sidewalk, her hand clasped in his. She wrapped herself around his arm and leaned her head against him as they walked. He felt her warmth. He felt the softness of her skin on his. The flowery sweet smell she extruded invaded his nose, swam in his head. He dreamed of something like this when he thought about girls, but this was so much more, so much better than he ever dreamed. But, did she really love him? He was now certain he loved her. How could he not? She was perfect in every way. Everything he ever dreamed of in a girl. Of course she was, the spell literally built her that way. But he wondered, did she feel the same? And even if she did, was it real? Did she have to love him? Did the ritual give her no choice? He wanted her too. Was that part of the problem? Did she love him to satisfy his need for her to? Alex felt his brain would explode. Whenever he thought this had to be real, thinking of how the spell worked shattered his hope with doubt. He was never more unsure of everything in his life than he was right now, but he was sure how he felt about her.

"Sweety, what do you like?" He finally asked, after walking for a while.

"I like you, Master." She replied. "I love you more than anything."

Damn, Alex thought. It sounded like another slave girl answer to him. What a master expected a slave to say. "What else besides me?"

"I don't know, Master. You are all I know."

Damn it Lucy, he thought. She was right about this, wasn't she? He had to find out if she could be her own person. If she could make her own decisions.

The area where Alex and Lucy lived was connected to an arts district that served the college they attended. Or that Lucy attended, Alex wouldn't start for another week.

They passed an ice-cream shop as they traveled. And Alex thought, if he was going to see if she liked food, he might as well start at the top. Alex nearly wore out the guy behind the counter, having him fetch samples of every flavor for Sweety to try. One positive note was the girl squealed in delight with every flavor she tasted.

Alex looked at the poor clerk, "I promise, we will buy something. She's just never had ice-cream before."

"Never?" The kid asked.

"She's been kind of sheltered her whole life." He said. All thirty hours of it, he added in his head.

When she had tried every flavor Alex looked into her bright eyes and asked, "ok Sweety, which flavor did you like the best?"

She looked back into his eyes for what seemed forever. Alex began to worry that she really couldn't make choices on her own, until…

"May I have more of that one, Master?" She pointed back toward the beginning of the freezer case. "Please?"

He followed her finger to the carton of the vanilla with caramel swirl.

"Of course Sweety," Alex was smiling so big he felt his cheeks would rip. He turned to the clerk who stood in bewilderment of the strange couple in his shop. "Can We have a cone of that, and one of the peanut butter chocolate?"

The two got their ice-cream and Sweety began to lick the cone feverishly. As they left the shop hand in hand, Alex became aware Sweety could wrap her tongue completely around the cone. He nearly choked on his ice-cream.

Another employee, a young girl, came out of the back of the ice-cream shop after they left.

"Did she call him master?"

"Yea," replied the clerk, in a kind of dazed voice.

"Must have been one of those weird S&M couples." She shrugged as she headed back to the prep area again.

"What I wouldn't give for a girl to call me that." The boy said quietly.

"I am not calling you master!" Came a shout from the back.

They finished the cones and Sweety was once more latched softly on Alex's arm. When not actively doing something, he noticed she seemed desperate to be touching him. He had to wonder if she was conditioned to do it or did she get something from being in contact with him?

They arrived at the park in front of the school and it was teeming with activity. They seemed to be setting up a stage and vendor booths were scattered everywhere.

Alex stopped at a few booths and bought a sampling of treats for Sweety. She ate a few french fries, had a bite of his corndog, nibbled some popcorn, but she ate almost all the cotton candy. It was definitive to Alex, caramel and cotton candy, Sweety loved sweets.

One vendor was selling glow sticks, rings and other neon novelties. Alex bought some rings to wrap around Sweety. They sat on a bench, watching the sunset while Alex cracked the tubes and wrapped Sweety's arms in the glow rings.

"So pretty." She sighed watching the colors dance across the sky.

Alex gazed at the girl watching the sky in wonder. "Yes, sunsets are pretty." He took hold of her chin and turned her head toward him, "but they can't hold a candle to you."

She smiled for the second time tonight, again for him, and giggled. A pink, rosey color rising on her pale cheeks. The glow in her eyes grew brighter. "Oh, thank you Master." She whispered.

Alex grasped her hands and raised her arms up in front of her. She gasped at seeing the rainbow colored bands.

"Is this magic, Master?"

"No, it's chemicals really. Reacting to each other and creating light in the process. It's called photoluminescence, I believe. Chemical reactions create energy and dissipate it as light… " Alex realized he was babbling about geeky stuff again. His other attempts at dating fizzled at this point, the girls were bored to death. But Sweety listened to him intently, she seemed to be enraptured with whatever he talked about.

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"That is amazing. Don't stop, Master." She whispered in a breathy version of her babydoll voice. "My master is so smart. I could not have asked for a better master." Her eyelashes fluttered as her face slowly drifted closer to his. Her lips parted slightly as her eyes closed.

The thump shook the whole park as the amps kicked up. Spotlights shot into the sky and neon lights climbed the stage. The DJ dropped the base and thumping EDM filled the park. Neon wrapped people crowded the area in front of the stage.

"What is happening, Master?" Said Sweety, as her attention was drawn to the commotion and away, for now, from Alex. He sighed in relief at how close he came to losing himself in her. Yet, a knot in his stomach wouldn't let him forget how much he really wanted to.

"Oh," stammered Alex trying to get his racing heart under control. "Th…they're dancing. It's another way people have fun."

"It looks so fun." Said Sweety, getting up off the bench, pulling him up with her. She raised her arms in the air as her hips rolled. Her hands and hips swayed in rhythmic patterns, like a divine belly dancer. She rubbed against him as he tried in vain to move with the music too. She spun on her tiptoes and curved her back so her hands were ninety degrees behind her as she spun. She swayed and whirled to the music so that the glow bands on her arms streaked lines in the air. Her arms weaving patterns of light around her. She was graceful, she was hypnotic, she was sensual and she was attracting the attention of the whole park. Her eyes grew brighter, and then her skin began to glow. She was emitting light from her body. Alex knew he should be panicking, that he should be worried about people seeing her. Hell, practically the whole dance area in front of the stage had stopped to watch her. But he couldn't look away. She was spectacular. It was like he was watching a sun go nova on the face of the Earth.

She spun up to lay against Alex as the music ended. Her arms draped over his neck and the glow from her skin faded, but her eyes were still burning brightly. He held up the unsteady girl as she panted breathlessly, from the exertion.

"Oh Master, that was wonderful." She said, in between breaths.

"Is that your new most favorite music," Alex asked jokingly, "instead of the sound of my heart?"

She looked into his eyes and drew him in closer to her, "no Master, never. Nothing could ever be… more beautiful… to me… than… the music… of… your heart."

Their lips touched and Alex felt like he had touched them to a live light socket. It wasn't painful, but Alex could not think of another way to describe the energy that passed between them. Out of her and into him, out again from him and into her the power cycled. Over and over, rapidly accelerating. His heart pounded, his blood raced. The bench behind them was flung a dozen yards away. A few of the vendor booths collapsed. The lights on the stage exploded in showers of sparks from the wave of energy that pulsed out from them.

The park was plunged into darkness when the lamp posts went out.

The first thing Alex was aware of when their lips parted was the aching need to put them back together again. The next was the screams from the park goers huddled in the darkened venu.

People screamed, the only illumination from the chemical lights worn by party goers in front of the stage. Alex took Sweety's hand and pulled her toward the park entrance.

"Shit, shit!" Muttered Alex as they fled the rising chaos. "What was that? What happened? Was that from us?"

"That was our love, Master" she said plainly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The physical energy of our love made manifest."

Holy shit, thought Alex as they ran, together we make a bomb, great!

Sirens were closing in on the park. Alex turned down an alleyway just outside the park, dragging Sweety behind him. As the lights of the emergency vehicles sped past the alley entrance, Alex held her back against a wall and shielded her from view.

"Oh, Master." She whispered, as she lightly kissed his neck. He could feel a pull to her now. Like they were oppositely charged poles. Her kisses moved up his neck, making her way to his lips. "I need you, Master."

"Sweety, we don't need another explosion right now." He panted. When the lights died down he crept with her back into the street and headed toward the house.

The cops exited the car at the park entrance. They turned on their flashlights and swept them around the darkened pathways. Frightened party goers filed out past them as they made their way to the stage area.

"What do you think happened, Tom?" Asked the younger rookie. He shone his light toward the darkened stage to illuminate stage hands trying to sort through the cables and find where their power had gone.

"Whatever it was Jerry," Tom replied, "this is where it happened." Jerry turned around to see Tom turning in a circle with his light and noticed what his partner had. Everything, from the bench to the booths, was flung away from this spot.

"I don't know, Jerry. Maybe some kind of EMP bomb."

"Jeez," said Jerry, tugging at his collar with a finger as sweat began to pour down his face, "I know it's hot tonight, but right here is like an oven."

Something watched the two men, unseen and unheard, but radiating heat as it circled the area. It picked up the scent of the power that had erupted in the spot the two policemen were investigating and hurried off in the direction they fled.

It cruised past firetrucks and rescue vehicles undetected. It stopped in an alley to circle a spot for a few seconds before continuing the hunt. Its prey was close.

Alex slowed his pace, other emergency vehicles passed by them now, headed to the park without stopping. The couple seemed far enough away to not be suspected. Alex's slower speed gave Sweety the chance to wrap herself around his arm again.

"Did I do something wrong, Master?" She asked meekly.

"No Sweety," he said tiredly, "I just… I just didn't expect what happened, I guess."

"I'm sorry, Master. I guess it was too much. You haven't been tapping enough of the power beforehand."

Alex stopped, causing Sweety to yank his arm forward a little before she could react to stop herself.

"What does that mean, Sweety?" Asked Alex.

Before she could answer Alex felt the air temperature rise around them quickly. The air itself seemed to vibrate, like the growling of a massive beast. Car alarms suddenly began going off on the street. In the center of the road the asphalt began to melt. The black liquid boiled and began to rise. Steam or smoke began to pour off the hump. A piece of the mass stretched forward and touched the unmelted section of the street. The surface cooled attempting to return to solidity, but as it moved again, in pulling the mass toward the solid road the hardening surface cracked. The cracks exposed a red hot under layer like magma in a volcano. Another limb appeared and drug the coalescing lump out of the bubbling tar. The mass formed a huge head with massive jaws, fiery red eyes and smoke pouring out of the mouth. Two more legs pushed the creature out of the tar pool and it became definitively quadropedial, like a dog the size of a horse.

The beast crouched and lunged at them. No, not them he realized, at Sweety. It was after her! Alex shot his arm up between them, barely aware his fingers were already going through the Luminos motions. The creature collided with the shield hovering in front of his fingers. The disk was the size of a trash can lid this time, but although it stopped the beast the shield shattered when the huge head of the molten rock-monster collided with it.

Alex tried to put up another shield, but a swipe from its massive paw shattered that one as well and sent Alex toppling back onto his ass.

It stepped forward and Sweety screamed. Before reaching her its head jerked away, a fraction of a second before Alex heard the deep resonating pop of a gunshot. Down the street walked a tall blonde, white leather pants, halter top and tactical boots. Twin tactical belts criss crossed her torso and in her hands two massive automatic pistols. She fired off bursts in a staccato pop, pop, pop of gunfire, the slugs pounding against the head of the monster. Chunks of semi-molten asphalt splattered as the hail of bullets drove it back from Sweety.

The familiar rushed to Alex as he was struggling to his feet. "Master, are you alright?"

He watched the strange woman rush the beast as her clips emptied. In a single smooth motion she holstered the pistols, hopped onto the hood of a parked car and spring boarded into a flip over the creature. As she landed the woman flicked out her right hand causing fire to slither down her arm and materialize into a sword of golden light with flames dancing down the blade. She spun, whipping the blade through one of its forelegs, slicing it off. The gooey limb splashed the side of a car but the monster continued to stand as tar underneath where the limb should have been melted, and began to creep back up into a new leg. The blonde spun the blade in a figure eight as she completed two three hundred sixty degree pirouettes, slashing it across the body twice. As the red hot gashes in its side began to close she dipped into a pouch on her tactical belts and produced a glass ball filled with water. A quick side armed sling shattered the ball against the slashes in its side. Steam rolled off the creature as it quickly solidified and the magma glow was extinguished with a deep roar rising in pitch till it was suddenly silent. It hardened into an asphalt statue and crumbled into harmless chunks of street.

She opened her hand and the sword dematerialized. The blonde looked around as the remnants of the beast cooled in the broken street to find Alex and Sweety had fled.

"No, you're welcome." She said sarcastically, "no reason to hang around and thank the person who saved your ass."