After April's brain managed to pull itself out of the sucking, viscous embrace of sleep, the first thing she saw as she blearily thumbed on her shattered phone screen was a text from Michelle.
"heya xX charlie said u were having a tough time, needed a word? perhaps more than a word (lol). let me know, can hang out. luvu xox -chell"
She took a second to focus her eyes long enough to read the words, and then locked the screen, groaning, before rolling out of bed on to the floor. Landing in a heap, she found herself staring at the back of an empty can of an energy drink that had rolled under her bed. "UNLEASH THE BEAST!®" read the blurb, in a garish yellow font. April wasn't sure she had much of a beast in her to unleash in that moment, but decided she probably needed to at least try to move somewhat before her joints locked up.
Her arms still hurt, badly. The bone-deep ache had diminished a little, but it had been supplanted by a gnawing sting around the puncture marks that was arguably even more distractingly unpleasant. Worse still, the pain in her skinned shins had come back to haunt her anew, the anaesthetic provided by the hospital having long since worn off since last night's car ride. "Actually, no, that was the morning," April thought, glancing at the digital readout on her bedside table. 3:52pm.
"Glad to see my sleep cycle is healthy, at least," she muttered, heading into the bathroom to examine her body's collection of damages further.
It occurred to April as she examined the puckered red marks on her arms up close that this was the sort of thing that should probably have been treated by a doctor to start with, disinfectant or no. April didn't know much about the specifics of human physiology, but she imagined that when a cut went deeper than the surface skin and into the underlying substrate of fat and gristle, that was probably pretty bad for you. Her one saving grace was that the spines that the creature had stuck in her had been fairly thin, and passed in and out near to straight up and down through the skin; as such, the cuts more resembled the work of an oversized needle than they did a stab wound from a knife. That and the fact that her stiffened wrist, despite complaining at her painfully as she twisted it about, seemed to have regained its full range of motion while she slept.
Should probably, definitely have had that looked at. Oh well.
She contemplated making the trip back to Whipp's Cross for the second time in as many days, letting a medical professional deal with it all. But, she considered, the she would have to explain why she had seemingly been stabbed, and then, if they pushed her, she might end up having to explain the monkey, and how she'd been sucked into a handbag, and- no. She didn't think she could face that quite yet. The inside of a white room really didn't feel like the most inviting place for her to end up that afternoon. If her arms started getting worse, then she could go and see a doctor.
Maybe.
Nonetheless, she did her best to tend to the raised markings as best she could on her own, peppering her lower arms with a constellation of little beige sticking plasters from her cabinet. Together they made it look like she had indeed had a misadventure with a porcupine, or perhaps was making a very punk-rock fashion statement. She did her best to address the leg wound next, making an effort at replacing the soiled bandages with a roll of gauze that she wrapped tightly around her calves, and even half succeeding at creating something passable.
Energy for the day already largely drained from that fifteen minutes of work, April traipsed into the kitchen, pulling open the cupboard to poll for some sort of food item. Deciding upfront that this was definitely a "low spoons" kind of food prep night, she shoved aside some netted garlic cloves, onions and tomato sauce that were the latest victims of her at-home practice pizza scheme. Instead she retrieved a half-empty box of Kellog's® Krave® and a packet of ready salted crisps, pouring the cereal into a bowl to pick at dry. After munching contemplatively for five minutes, she grabbed a glass of water, then continued to alternate between cereal and crisps one-handedly while she checked Twitter and the day's news with the other.
Notably, no reports of bizarre phantasms beyond all comprehension lining the streets...
She flipped back to her text app and pulled up the thread with Michelle, swiping out a reply to her one handedly while balling up the now empty crisp packet with the other.
"Hey girl, yeah actually that sounds great. You free today? Could use a chat. x"
Her finger hovered above the send button for a few seconds, until she quickly went back and added another line.
"Also sorry about last time. Again"
She let out a long breath.
'I have to tell someone,' she resolved. 'Whether I'm actually seeing fucking ghosts or this is a mental breakdown, I have to let someone know.' For either one of those possibilities, Michelle was probably the right person to speak to. The fact that she was a licensed therapist in her day job was almost just a bonus on top of her general infatuation with the bizarre. Michelle tended to collect unusual people and beliefs around her, and even if she didn't adopt much of that herself, she was always one to at least entertain crazy, for better or for worse.
The downside, of course, was that interacting with Michelle could be quite a lot, especially for the uninitiated. 'But it's not as if I'm not already overwhelmed...'
There was the other reason, too, of course, that she was both nervous and excited at the prospect of seeing Michelle. The same reason it had been a while since they had hung out in any more personal capacity than a group night out with mutual friends. April decided she would cross that bridge when it arrived in front of her.
She had been walking around in her underwear until that point, so, after tossing the empty crisp packet at the waste bin, she walked back to her room to shrug on some clean panties, tracksuit leggings, and a tank-top. Pausing to look at herself in the mirror, she considered for a moment, and then added a pair of stuffers to her sports bra underneath the top. Might as well still make a good impression, after all.
April had a monochrome tattoo of a slightly abstract starfish on her upper left arm. Given the only semi-obscured damage to her lower arm, though, the overall impression it was now giving was of having dug claws into her skin as it climbed its way up there. April considered covering the whole ensemble by wearing her still-soiled jacket, but then wondered why she was being so damn fashion conscious while the world was going mad around her, and decided not to bother.
Her phone dinged with Michelle's reply.
"its fiiine, youre good"
April texted back.
"Good to hear. When do you want me round?"
"im free, come by whenever"
"You still in the pits?"
"ya, pitier and sweatier than ever, come see <3"
April rolled her eyes. "The Pits" was the nickname of the basement apartment Michelle rented, but her tendency to move around a lot and stay with friends made it an open question whether she would actually be there on a given day. April was glad that she was; the Pits was at least familiar territory, and a trip she could make without much effort. Slinging her bag over one shoulder, she pocketed the phone and walked over to the door, closing the blinds on her way out.
At the back of her mind, April had been entertaining a comforting fantasy. She had, since waking up, not seen the slightest thing out of the ordinary; no painted monkeys staring at her from the back of her cupboard, no tunnel to an alien world at the bottom of her cereal bowl, and no blue slime creatures hiding around the corner to paint interesting new patterns in blood on her skin. Perhaps, she reasoned, it had all been a dream, or some sort of transient psychosis that had passed away while she slept. As such she felt her stomach drop rather hard when she opened her door to the fourth floor balcony and walked directly into one of the ghosts.
She could tell it was one of the ghosts, because the outward opening door passed right through it without stopping. The figure—who was a mostly normal looking man in a black coat, but wearing something resembling a motorbike helmet and wielding a bizarre assembly of articulated metal hooks where his hands should have been—paid seemingly no mind to the inch and a half of solid hardwood intersecting his body. April herself stumbled forward in surprise and barrelled right into him. This time, to both her own shock and, it seemed, that of the ghost, they made a tangible contact where they touched. April's hands still sunk into the figure, but he wasn't intangible so much as he seemed to be composed of a semi-permeable substance that only mildly resisted pressure, resulting in a sensation akin to dipping both arms into a large churn filled with warm, unusually viscous milk.
The helmeted man jumped, oil-sheen visor twisting around to stare at her in apparent shock, and let out an abrupt, mechanical shout that sounded like somebody blowing a French horn from the other side of a rattling radiator manifold. April jolted back, pulling her hands out of the man's chest and leaving two roughly hand-shaped imprints that slowly filled back in, in the manner of a shape pressed into custard.
"I'm sorry!" she cried, instinctively. The man gave her a reproachful stare, then stepped backwards into a flat plane of nothing and vanished out of existence.
April crouched down on the threshold of her flat, put her face in her hands, and let out a muffled scream of frustration into her palms. A neighbour from a couple of doors down, out watering some hanging plants, peered at her strangely.
"I'm- I'm fine," she said, looking over and waving him off. "Just had to let something out a bit, that's all."
"More power to yah," croaked the man affably, turning back to his plants.
She straightened up and headed down to the street level, keeping an eye out for any more out of place figures, or any incongruous occurrences more generally. There were some strangely coloured patches in the corners of the stairwell, but she was fairly sure that was just mould and dried piss, and didn't particularly want to venture close enough to confirm.
Reaching the street level without seeing anything particularly more suspect, she walked the five minutes to the bus stop and hitched the EL1 into town, where she jumped off to change onto a service that should have been a 169, except the reel of rotary tape displaying the fluorescent green route numbers had somehow managed to get stuck on "8". She squinted at it for a moment with a vague sense of disquiet. The side-display had the correct number though, so she climbed on and tapped her card on the contactless reader.
"Yeah, it's the 169. Display's broken," said the gruff-voiced driver as he thumbed backwards in a 'get moving' gesture, giving the impression that it was a sentence he'd repeated a lot that afternoon. She nodded and went over to stand by the door as the vehicle started up again.
Michelle's basement apartment was a single floor occupancy that constituted the lower rung of a three-level renovated town house, the revenue scheme of a particularly unimaginative corporate landlord. "The Pits" had been the cheapest offering due to the lack of natural lighting, but Michelle had always said that the fact that she had her own door more than compensated for this, and April couldn't help but agree. It meant that she didn't run the risk of one of the upper floor neighbours asking about her plaster-encrusted arms when she hopped down to the below-ground landing and rang the doorbell.
There was a moment's pause, then the sound of sliding bolts echoing through the wood, before the door shuddered open to reveal Michelle in a green-orange floral patterned sundress, contrasting her black-framed glasses and dark hair, tied back in a bun.
"Hello, April!" she said excitedly, before glancing down at April's arms, and continuing in a similar tone, "what happened to you?" She grinned, as if April had brought her an interesting gift to examine instead of a set of fairly conspicuous injuries.
"I, uh. I'll tell you later. Who's this?"
A plain looking man with a scruffy brown beard wearing a t-shirt depicting a green cartoon alien head had walked out into the hall behind Michelle, and was staring at April curiously.
"Oh, this is Clyde!" Clyde put his hand up in greeting as Michelle spoke. "He just popped by, but he was about to get going I think, so let's not keep him. See-ya Clyde!"
"Bye Shellie! Let me know what you think!"
April and Michelle squeezed back against the wall to allow Clyde to shuffle past them on the threshold and up to the street level. April gave Michelle a confused look.
"Clyde's writing a book!" she said, by way of explanation. "It's about the paranormal. He wanted me to take a look at his draft."
"Huh, any good?" asked April, looking back over her shoulder at him.
"Nah, it's pretty terrible. But he is enthusiastic! Want to come in?"
"Yes, please."
April stepped over the threshold and shuffled out of her boots, looking around at the decor. Since she had last visited, Michelle had seemingly placed a number of pleasant looking pot plants on all of the side-tables, but the effect was counteracted somewhat by a large stained-glass decorative panel that had been hung from a nail on one wall. It seemed to be an abstract depiction of a pack of wolves amid a yellow savannah, biting the feet of an elephant, which was rearing in pain.
"Pits look nice," she said, staring at the image.
"Thank you! I managed to get them cleaned up after your last visit."
April shuddered internally. "I uh- Sorry, again. About that."
"Don't worry, honestly! Happens all the time."
April wasn't too sure about that, but decided to let it lie as Michelle walked over to stand next to her. For a moment they both stared at the ugly picture together.
"You like?" Michelle ventured.
"It's, um. Interesting." April tried again, "evocative?"
"I found it at a flea market, couldn't resist." She turned away and walked down the hall. "Coffee?"
She walked into a combination kitchen/dining room and began filling up a kettle.
"Yeah, please." April followed her and took a seat at one of the wooden table chairs.
"So Charlie rang me about you," said Michelle as she put the kettle on to boil, not looking over her shoulder. "Said you'd been involved in some crazy shit!"
"Yeah... ah, yep," said April, looking down at her feet.
There was an awkward silence for a few minutes, as Michelle set out two mugs, filled them with hot water, and stirred in coffee grounds. She pulled open the little half-size fridge unit that sat on the counter, took out a carton of milk, and poured two splashes of liquid into the cups, stirring it in. Finishing, she put the milk back in the fridge, picked up the mugs, and clacked them down on the table. In a fluid continuation of the movement, she spun around, twisting one of the chairs so its back was facing April, and then sitting down on it with her legs splayed out in the manner of a youth pastor trying his hand at looking cool and approachable. Michelle, to her credit, was closer to pulling it off, but the fact that her dress was hiked up to her inner thighs didn't help too much. April did her best not to stare.
"So!" Michelle began, staring at her intently.
"...so?" April picked up a mug of coffee and sipped at it, eyeing Michelle nervously over the rim.
"So tell me about it all." She cocked her head, smiling at April implacably.
"I, uhm. Crashed a bike," April hedged, suddenly oddly self conscious. Why had she thought this would be a good idea again?
"I heard! Is that why your arms are all fucked up?"
"No, that was. That was something else." April stared into her coffee. "Michelle... I..."
"Yes?"
April teetered on the edge for the moment, then abruptly switched lane into the second-highest entry on her list-of-things-she-should-probably-say-but-didn't-want-to-broach.
"...I am so fucking sorry about last time. I know I fucked up your, sofa- I. I should have stayed to help clean up, at least. It was fucking sh- it was, uh, it was fucked up of me. I'm really sorry."
"Honestly, don't worry about that. It would hardly be the first time I've seen it happen."
"Yeah, but, like, it was my responsibility and I didn't own it. It was a fuck up."
Michelle tilted her head, smiling indulgently. "That kind of play is always pretty high risk already, you were clearly embarrassed, it's a shame you left so quick but like, I get it. Honestly."
"Yeah, but I should have at least, like, texted you after."
"It would have been nice, but I'm over it, you know?"
"Do you want me to pay for the damage?"
"Nah, washed right out."
April raised an eyebrow, incredulously. "Really?"
Michelle's mouth quirked up at the corner. "Well, okay, no, not really. But cushion covers are cheap."
April put her face in her hands, face flushing red. "I'm so, so fucking sorry."
Michelle stifled a bout of laughter, "April, it's okay, I promise!"
"Next time, I'll be more careful what I eat before-" she stopped abruptly, looking down at the mug of coffee she was drinking, and nearly dropped it to the table in consternation.
Michelle snorted. "What, you were thinking- today?"
"No! I- I mean-" April set down the mug, cautiously this time.
"Look, don't worry about it. We can figure it out. But also, hey- don't think I don't see what you're doing, here."
"What do you...?"
Michelle looked at her pointedly, setting her own coffee mug down in the table. "Trying to distract me."
April stared at her. "Uh-"
"Seriously, what's been going on?" She folded her legs up onto the chair and sat cross legged, staring at April across the table. "Charlie is worried, and I mean, worried. He was telling me some crazy sounding shit. You crashed a bike? You got into a fight at a bar? You've been hallucinating? You turned up this morning on... a bus covered in slime... talking about being stabbed by a porcupine- see, look, I am saying it out loud and it just sounds... well!"
"I, uh..." April dithered, and Michelle cut her off again.
"Now, look." She adjusted her glasses. "I don't know how much of it to believe. Maybe it's all bullshit. Honestly, Charlie was also talking about seeing you turn invisible, so, maybe he was on something? It wouldn't be the first time."
"No, I don't think so," muttered April belatedly.
"Well, okay then. Maybe things with you are even more interesting that I expected. Or perhaps it was all just a 'big misunderstanding'? Either way... tell me about it!"
April felt herself begin to sweat as Michelle's gaze bore into her. She shifted back and forth uncomfortably. "I, um..."
She glanced up, met Michelle's expectant gaze, then looked away again. Then, with a sudden burst of resolve, she jerked her head back up and blurted out the first thing that landed on her tongue.
"I've been seeing ghosts!"
Michelle's eyebrows rose, but she stayed silent.
"And, people chopped in half, and. And yesterday, while I was at the bar, I was swallowed by a- by a handbag, and-"
April found herself choking on the words, and swallowed hard, trying her best not to look at Michelle's face.
"And, I was in this, tunnel. And fell out of it, and there was, this red forest made of vines, and. Fuck, Michelle! It's fucking- it's insane! There was, a guy in armour, and this blue... thing that fucking stabbed me... Oh, and oh yeah, it all started when there was this talking monkey at my job, but also since then, there are these people that I can see and that nobody else can, and other people can't seem to touch them, and..."
She trailed off for a moment, grasping at the air with her hands. Meeting Michelle's eyes again with a pleading look, the other woman's face was projecting nothing more than a vague air of surprise, which felt disarming enough to allow her to continue.
"And... and it's not fucking normal! And I don't know what's going on, or if I'm going insane, except it- except it was real, the injuries are real, I-"
April ripped off one of the sticking plasters to reveal one of the puckered marks in her skin.
"I don't know what it means. It feels like the whole world has gone crazy, and. And nobody else knows what's going on except for me, maybe I've gone crazy, I don't know. I just don't fucking know! And I know this sounds mad, but it happened, and if it is just me being crazy then maybe I should be locked up, but I. I don't think I- I don't think I'm crazy! It think something really is going on! I..."
April trailed off into a few seconds of shocked silence that echoed across the table.
"April?" Michelle eventually said, tentatively.
"Yeah?"
"Are you fucking with me?"
April put her face in her hands. "No, I am not fucking with you."
"Okay, good. That's good to know, because it means that there are two possibilities."
April looked back up at her. "...yeah?"
"Yeah. Either, you've had a psychotic break, or- God forbid- you're an urban fantasy protagonist."
April slumped back in her seat. "Fucking hell."
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"Now, I have to admit, the second of those two seems pretty unlikely," she paused for a second, as if struck by a sudden thought. "Although given what Charlie said, huh. Food for thought."
April looked at her glumly, not saying anything.
"But either way," Michelle continued, "it's okay! We can figure this out."
"Can we? I don't fucking know, Shellie. It's fucking insane. Everything has gone insane."
"Oh come on, April, you were hardly normal to begin with."
Michelle got up off her chair, leaving her mostly-full coffee cup steaming in front of it, and walking around the table to stand in front of April. Reaching out, she gently cupped April's chin with her hands, lifting her head upwards out of her own crossed palms until they were looking at one another. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face, and April was so caught off guard by how unexpectedly intimate the moment felt, she momentarily forgot to be upset.
"It's going to be okay. I promise."
April vocalized a sort of softly agonized moan, and flumphed her face forwards into Michelle's stomach. A corner of her brain was telling her that the on-again off-again friends-with-benefits flirtation she had had with her friend in the past probably didn't entitle her to post-meltdown cuddles, but for her part Michelle seemed to not be objecting in that moment. April allowed herself to stay there for a short while, her sitting and Michelle standing with her arms hanging around April's back, as she sobbed silently into the fabric of Michelle's dress.
It was likely a testament to how utterly worn down she was feeling that it was almost thirty seconds before her innate interpersonal embarrassment forced her to pull back. She looked up at Michelle, and wiped a tear from her cheek, flushing. Michelle looked back at her, expression concerned but thoughtful. One-handedly, she yanked out another chair from under the table, and sat down so that the pair were now facing each other on the same side of the wooden surface. Reaching out, she put one finger under April's chin, guiding her face upwards until she could meet her gaze.
Michelle's glasses framed her face neatly in a paired counterpart to her tidy pulled-back bun of hair. She looked surprisingly businesslike for the context, an image only slightly diverted away from by the faint damp tear stain on her dress smeared across the stomach area. April shivered slightly.
"I feel like we can test this empirically."
April blinked at her, still fairly distracted by her face. "How- um, how do you mean?"
"Like..." she sat back. "Okay, you say you're seeing ghosts. Are there any in the room with us right now?"
April scoffed. "Come on, Shellie, I was being serious, don't joke around."
"No, I am serious! Are there?"
April gave the room a cursory once-over. "Uh, no."
"Hmm."
"I'm sure there's plenty outside, though. I saw one this morning. Almost punched a hole in him, actually."
Michelle leaned a little closer. "I see... Want to go out and try to find one?"
April shuddered. "Thanks, but no thanks. I think I'd rather sit here and drink my coffee for a while, if you don't mind." She picked up the mug and took a quick sip, then set it down again, dejectedly. Michelle quirked her head to one side slightly.
"Okay, that's a shame, but maybe we can still work with it." She sat in thought for a moment. "You said you were, uh- what was it? 'Swallowed by a handbag'?"
April grimaced. "Yeah, I know how it sounds."
"No, no- I mean, maybe we can replicate that? How did it happen?" She caught April's nonplussed stare. "Don't worry, I'll keep hold of one foot, I can always pull-" She broke off as both she and April began cracking up. After struggling to suppress the giggles for a minute, she managed, "okay, okay, maybe I wasn't being super serious there, but. For real! We could try it. How did it go down?"
April forced down the fit of laughter that had somewhat broken her prior reverie. "Hah, well, um. Hmm. Well, first I got punched in the face..."
Michelle winced. "Hopefully that part is non-essential. I say we skip it."
"Yeah. Anyway, I was lying on the floor next to the handbag, staring into it, and the next thing I knew, it sort of just... unfolded? Then re-folded, back around me, and I was in this like dark tunnel made out of handbag stuff."
"Huh!" Michelle stood up and walked over to a side-counter, yanking open a drawer and rummaging through a clutter of miscellaneous personal belongings.
"What are you doing?" asked April.
"Just one moment..." Michelle wandered off into the hallway through the open door. A sound of rustling and soft clunking sounds echoed back through into the kitchen-dining room. April heard a louder clattering, followed by a triumphant "ah-ha!", and Michelle strode back into the room holding aloft a green, faux-leather handbag, patterned rather unpleasantly as if it were pretending to be crocodile skin. "Is this similar at all?" Michelle asked, holding it out to April like an offering to the spirits.
"Uh... not a super close match, I'm afraid."
"Hmm. Hopefully it doesn't matter too much." Clutching the bag, she walked back around the table, pushing the chairs she had been sitting in back underneath it, before stopping in front of April to survey her. "Get on the floor?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Get down on the floor, like you were then." She gave April a somewhat commanding look. "Go on!"
"Uh... okay. Sure."
Thinking back to that night in the bar- had it really been only the day before?- April got onto her hands and knees, looking up at Michelle's table and trying to approximate the position she had been in after she had been knocked to the ground in front of where the unpleasant men had been drinking. Determining the approximate angle, she shuffled around in an uncomfortable wiggling motion, curling up her body to mimic the pose she had struck on that previous night, dazed and contorted with shock and pain. She craned her neck to look forward, Michelle slightly out of focus above her.
"The bag was lying there, in front of me."
"Zip facing towards you, or away from you?" Michelle knelt down.
"Towards me- yeah, that's it."
Between the two of them, they adjusted April's prone pose and the relative position of the floor-strewn handbag, until April was looking at an eerie recreation—with all the specific details replaced—of the scene she remembered from the night before. They both held still for a silent moment, April gazing into the open pocket of the faux-leather handbag, waiting to see if anything happened.
"Anything?" said Michelle finally, breaking the silence.
"Uh, not that I've noticed."
"Hmm. Strange."
"Well what were you expecting? I'm pretty sure this stuff is just, well, random."
"I don't know, maybe you somehow stumbled upon some kind of esoteric handbag-based ritual for opening dimensional portals?"
"Well, um. If I did, then this isn't cutting it."
Michelle dithered for a moment. "Maybe, uh, try sticking your hand inside of it?"
April reached out and slid a free hand into the handbag, held still for a moment, then began poking around the interior. The empty bag flopped around on the floor unimpressively. April lifted her arm and waved it aloft, wielding the thing like a strange, ungainly glove sewn from the hide of an unusually smooth dragon.
"Not working," she eventually concluded, letting it slide off her hand and onto the tile floor with a thwap.
"No," muttered Michelle, sounding genuinely dejected. She knelt down on the floor next to April, and the pair both went silent for a moment, April letting herself lie limp, Michelle peering at her. April let her eyes fall to the wooden floorboards, the stress of the past few days pulling the strength out of her.
She heard a shuffling noise and a soft thunk, and glanced back up at Michelle, who had gotten onto her knees. As she watched, Michelle adjusted her dress, then rolled onto her side, stretching her legs out until she was also lying down, facing April.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey."
"You okay down here?"
April sighed, rolling onto her back. "So, do you believe me? Or do you think I'm just crazy?"
"For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that one handbag experiment isn't enough to rule out or confirm either possibility."
April bit her lip. "But you think..."
"I don't know what I think, April. I think that there's something happening here that I don't understand, but I am going to keep an open mind, no matter what."
She shuffled over to April, propping herself up with one arm so that she could look down at her face.
"And I think that my friend is having a really tough time right now, and I do want to help out. I do."
They met eyes, Michelle's face hanging above hers. April lifted herself up too, twisting around a little so that they could face each other head on. She let the tension hang in the air for the space of a long moment before she gave in and broke it, dipping her head forward to touch her lips to Michelle's. Michelle didn't pull away, and kissed her back, lidding her eyes gently as they locked lips silently for a while before mutually pulling apart.
"Is this... how you want me to help, right now?" Michelle looked thoughtful.
"I, uh. Maybe?" April trembled a little, partially with the effort of holding herself in the rigid pose on the ground, partially as a consequence of a sudden flush.
"Um, right here? On the floor?"
"Probably preferable to ruining the sofa again."
Michelle scoffed, rolling her eyes. "April, just don't try to take a strap on a bad stomach and you'll be fine."
"You really know how to set the mood."
"Okay, fine, let me try again..."
She leaned in and kissed her harder, this time. When they broke apart April was breathing heavily enough that the tension of the earlier discussion was largely pushed to one side in her brain, which was probably the intention. Michelle reached out and stroked her cheek with her thumb, mouth forming an unspoken "aww".
"Want to come to my bedroom?" she asked her.
April looked down. "Probably a good idea. I don't actually want to break my back trying to fuck on the hardwood."
"I like how you assume it's your back that would be being broken." Michelle winked as she sat up and stood, pulling April to her feet with one hand. "You do still have a dick, right? Didn't get any surgery while you've been avoiding me?"
April thought that the bulge in her leggings at that moment probably belied that possibility. Michelle snickered.
"You want a ticket to ride?" April said, making an attempt at banter. As the words came out she thought it probably actually sounded fairly unimpressive, and so reached out to cop a feel of Michelle's boob through her dress by way of compensation. She carried the motion forwards to push her down onto the bed after they rounded the doorway into the bedroom. Michelle splayed out atop the covers, legs spread out beneath the dress to offer her an excellent view of a pair of pink cotton panties that had a slightly damp spot in the centre.
"You are still hot as fuck, Shellie..." April muttered, taking off her jacket, then continuing, "...thank you for this."
Michelle scoffed. "Typically the dweeby 'thank-yous' are saved until after the sex. And you're hot too, by the way."
April pulled off her shirt, tugging it past her breasts, and one of the bra inserts she had added earlier pinged out comically from inside of the fabric cup. They both watched its trajectory as it landed on the floor next to the bed.
"You sure about that?" asked April, quirking an eyebrow.
"Shut up and fuck me, please."
April decided that she also wanted to do that. She pulled her bra off over her head, then slid down her leggings, slipping fingers into the fabric of her socks to toss those away alongside them in a loose pile. This left her standing only in her panties, which were tented out at the front in a most unladylike manner. She left them on for the time being, sliding into bed next to Michelle while hiking up the other woman's dress with one hand, tracing small circles in the damp fabric above her pussy while she kissed her again. To her delight the fabric moistened further as she incorporated a healthy amount of tongue, and so she pulled down the panties for better access, feeling Michelle kick them off to the side.
"I don't think I'm going to be able to shimmy out of the dress like this," Michelle muttered between breaths.
"Keep it, it's hot to fuck girls in dresses." April ran her index finger around the soft moist part of the labia, occasionally brushing her middle finger over the exposed clit.
"Did you hear that- ah- from some teenage schoolboy?"
"Nope. Educated guess from the available evidence." She slipped the two fingers in an inch or so, enjoying the sensation. It felt pleasant, in a sensory way, and when she twisted the fingers to and fro it did interesting things to the feel of Michelle's body against hers as they kissed.
Realizing that she still had one free hand, April pulled down her own underwear, allowing her dick to flop out without any particular dramatic flair. She had been on hormones for long enough at that point that she was unlikely to cum any fluid, and she didn't get hard as readily as she once had, but that sort of functionality tended to be a use-it-or-lose-it affair. Thankfully, April had been "using it" frequently enough over the past few years that she was still able to be a good girl when required.
She rolled over the top of Michelle, positioning herself so that she could kneel between the other woman's legs, arms either side of her. Michelle had managed to free one breast above the neckline of her dress, and so April gave the nipple a gentle kiss for good luck.
"That's nice..." Michelle muttered, so April lingered there, licking the raised edge softly.
She reached down with one hand again, thumbing Michelle's clit, then parting her with a pair of splayed fingers as she pressed forward. She guided herself down as she thrust into her slowly, avoiding placing too much of her weight on Michelle's hips. Taking her moan as encouragement, she placed her hands back on either side of Michelle's body, and ground her hips back and forth into her, enjoying the pleasantly erotic warmth. It was definitely a nice change of pace.
She leant down to kiss Michelle on the corner of her mouth, feeling her gasp against her lips, faintly. April thrust harder, hearing the breaths speed up. Michelle reached up to grasp at April's body, one hand gripping onto one of her arms, and inadvertently she dug into the still painful puckered skin above her wrists. April sharply gasped due to the sudden pain, her rhythmic motions interrupted.
"Ouch."
Michelle relaxed her grip, letting April start up again. "Sorry. Fuck, you feel good."
April grinned, giving her a quick smooch. She was starting to feel something build, now, and so slowed her roll slightly, trying to avoid making this a disappointingly short affair.
"You want me to keep going- mm- now, or do you want me to hold off?"
Michelle grunted. "You can cum in me now if you want, so long as you don't knock me up."
April pressed herself into the building heat at her crotch. "Yeah, don't worry, that's pretty- aah- biologically unlikely."
Michelle failed to reply for a few seconds because she was busy swearing softly under her breath, but eventually managed, "you're lucky I'm so fucking turned on right now, because otherwise I might not accept those odds." She gripped April's ass with both hands, anyway, adding some extra weight to the thrusts.
They were both panting now, and April felt a prickling at the base of her spine and back of her neck that told her the orgasm was likely to be fairly inevitable at that point. For what it was worth, Michelle seemed to be having a pretty damn good time too as she writhed under her, pressing her hips upwards to meet her own and putting extra pressure on her clit. April leaned into it, feeling the knot of pleasure build in her dick until, gasping, it burst out of her, sending her collapsing down on top of Michelle in a shuddering, sweaty mess. Michelle put her arms around her back, and they kissed, enjoying the sticky feeling where their bodies were still intertwined.
"You know," said April, "it'll probably sound like the chronic bullshit of the terminally horny, but I really wasn't expecting this when I asked to come over today. I think it might have been what I needed though."
Michelle snorted. "Really? What did you think you were getting?"
"I don't know. Someone to talk to? A little bit of on-the-house-therapy, maybe?"
"Well, you get both of those too. I do charge extra for this kind of therapy, though."
"I'm pretty sure that's a breach of professional ethics, so don't try your luck." April smiled against her lips.
"Depends on what I take payment in, I think."
"Oh yeah? What are you asking for?"
"How about a pussy full of trans girl cum?"
"Oh? Then I think we're square." April thought for a moment. "Metaphorically at least. I am firing blanks."
"Good, because I was serious about what I said befo..." Michelle trailed off, tensing slightly underneath her.
"What?"
"April, can you get off me? I feel kind of weird."
"Uh, sure." April rolled off of her, twisting so she was lying on her side, facing her in the bed. Michelle's forehead had creased, as if she was struggling to solve a tricky mathematical problem. She closed her eyes for a moment.
"What?" April asked.
"Feels like I have a cramp or something. Urgh, my legs are going numb."
"Huh." April put a hand on top of her. "Did I go too hard for you?"
"No..." She sounded uncertain, though.
Michelle's dress was still hiked up enough from their earlier activities that skin was exposed up to above her waistline, and so April ran her hand down over her midriff and across her stomach, in a soothing gesture. As she brushed her fingertips over her lower stomach, however, the surface grew oddly hot, as though until extremely recently a hot water bottle had been draped across it. Michelle let out a soft "ow" as the fingers lingered, so she pulled her hand away, frowning in concern, then sat up on the bed to look down at her friend.
"What the fuck? Michelle, you're breaking out."
The base of Michelle's stomach was covered in a patchwork of circular red blotches, spread unevenly across otherwise smooth skin. April watched as the surrounding area seemed to grow increasingly more flushed, blood rushing to the surface. She was certain that it hadn't been like that five minutes earlier.
"You have a serious rash, babe. Are you, like, allergic to..." April cast around. "...sex?"
"Uh... no?" Michelle sat up too. "It hurts like a bitch, though. What... urgh!" She had pulled back her dress and was now seeing the same mess of red splotches spread across her stomach. "What the hell? Do you use allergenic body wash or something?"
"I don't think so?" ventured April, equally baffled.
"Let me go to the bathroom and take a look." Michelle swung herself off of the bed and stood up, walking over towards the door. She took about five paces and then stumbled abruptly, hand shooting out towards the wall to hold herself still while she stood there panting for a moment.
"Are you okay?" asked April, increasingly concerned, "Need any help?"
"No, I... Just give me a minute." Michelle steadied herself and walked out into the hall, leaving April perched on the bed, looking after her anxiously. There was a faint hiss that sounded like water being turned on.
She stared at the door for thirty seconds before reaching down and picking her phone out of her pocket amid the pile of discarded clothes on the floor. Flicking the screen on, she was annoyed to see that a small triangle sliver of glass had come loose from the cracked surface. Miraculously, the touchscreen still seemed to be registering her fine, though.
There was a text from Charlie, asking how she was doing, and so she thumbed out a quick response. She had just pressed the "send" button when there was a hard thud from the other side of the wall.
April looked up. "Chelle?"
There was no reply, so she stood up, shrugging back into her tracksuit leggings and loose sports bra, not bothering to pin it closed behind her. Walking out into the hallway, she was momentarily lost, but located the adjoining bathroom by way of following the sound of still running water. The door was closed, but the handle complied to her touch, levering open to reveal the sink, unattended while gushing water from the single-flow tap, and Michelle half collapsed against the wall, her dress discarded in a heap next to her to reveal her mostly naked body.
"Michelle?! What...?!"
She ran over and knelt down, leaning over Michelle's semi-prone form. Immediately she put her hands to the skin where the rash had been, only to discover that the red blotching was now a deep crimson-scarlet, and had spread across her entire torso. Even more alarmingly, something resembling a sort of greyish crust or skein seemed to have grown over a patch of skin across the base of her belly region, like the skin was itself flaking off in sheets, or as if she had spilled a batch of quick-dry glue that had now formed a hard crusty layer over its top.
That would have been bad enough on its own, except that the layer was veined with branching filaments, giving it a sort of fungal look, and the points where the fractal branches met were knotted in such a way that they almost seemed to hook into the skin. She got an impression of a pitted skin surface beneath the flat outer layer of stuff.
"Michelle!?" shouted April, growing slightly hysterical but doing her best to maintain focus. "Michelle, what's happening- can you hear me?"
Michelle's head lolled, eyes focussing loosely on April's face.
"April... stomach hurts..."
Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck, chanted April's internal monologue, as she did her best to straighten out Michelle on the bathroom floor. The background sound of rushing water leant the scene the tense ambience of a kettle boiling over, but the thought of shutting off the tap somehow didn't seem to occur.
"I'm going to call an ambulance for you, okay?!" said April, groping at her pocket, before belatedly realizing that she'd left her phone back on the bed. She stood up and made to turn back towards the doorway, but at that moment Michelle screamed, and April whirled back around despite herself to see what was the matter.
It didn't take much looking.
The plated encrustment of miscellaneous grey-blue matter was growing at a visible and alarming rate, across Michelle's stomach and up towards her chest. Small flaky appendages were levering themselves up out of the surface of the fibrous substance, and were wiggling in a probing, experimental manner, seemingly trying to pull the matted surface out taut, looking for handholds in uncolonized patches of skin. At the base of the probing pseudopods, the previously solid fibrous material was slowly becoming liquid, melting back into a smooth, gel-like consistency. This didn't seem to be any sort of barrier to its motion, though, and if anything the contorting parts of the mass were able to use the liquid patches to become even more mobile, attaining greater degrees of twisting freedom.
A solid plate of the substance, adhered tightly to the skin of Michelle's stomach, abruptly cracked across itself, a handspan-sized rough scale of grey keratinous scabbing levering itself upwards... and taking a chunk of skin with it. The hooks of whatever the stuff was were firmly embedded in flesh, and so as it pulled itself up, cracking like an athlete rising from bed and stretching its stiff spine, the surface of Michelle's belly tore open along the seam, blood gushing out in messy clots. The red liquid seeped around the encrusting mass, weirdly semi-solid. On closer inspection, the blood too had small flakes of matted hair-like fibres in suspension. As it leaked onto the floor in stunted spurts, a few of them twitched, limply, of their own accord.
April was screaming too now, in shock and horror. Her own voice was rising above even Michelle's own, which, while no less frantic and filled with pain, was becoming increasingly rattling and wheeze-laden, her body struggling to pull in breaths. April was able to out-shout her as she fell to her knees in front of her, scrabbling with her nails in an attempt to pull the stuff off of her friend, but only succeeding in levering off yet more patches of skin and oddly brittle chunks of bonded flesh.
The thing was pushing and pushing and pulling itself out of Michelle's stomach, tearing itself away in chunks, and cannibalizing her body in order to do it. It flowered out of the hole it had eaten like a fungal bloom in accelerated time, blue-grey in colour, growing itself in hard sheets and in stabbing spines. It pooled its softer parts as gelatinous masses that inflated themselves into ball-like tumours before relaxing into flaccid tendon-like ropes, binding together the greater mass.
The whole thing was starting to make its own sound, now, a sort of sucking-clicking-groaning that grew louder as Michelle's cries tapered off in a series of ugly, mournful whimpers. With a sudden, cracking wheeze, they cut off entirely, and April realised that the corrosive pit had reached the lungs beneath the outer skin. There were a series of sharp cracks, and, horrifyingly, she watched as Michelle's ribs levered themselves up out of her body, the skin stretching out over broken pointed tips before the white bone poked through in spurs, tearing the chest cavity open to reveal a wet mess of blood and puss and blue-grey matter. Filaments of pseudo-fungal strands grew up the edges of the protruding ribs, reaching the tips and eating away at them, shaping the ragged, broken bone into thin, elegant-looking white spines.
Familiar looking spines.
April suddenly knew exactly what she was looking at.