"That was Lily?" Melissa asked again. "The real Lily? That's what she looks like inside your head? When you slip inside to see her, she looks like that?"
I nodded, "Yeah. Like I said, that was the real Lily."
Susan seemed equally stunned as she asked, "Even inside your head, she's a nine-foot-tall blue demon with massive black wings and a long tail and huge wicked claws on her uh, paws?"
The three of us were cuddling in the big king-sized bed. It was about two in the morning, Sam and Troy left for their own room just a little while ago. The five of us had a good night, after Lily's appearance we all got back to enjoying our private new years party. We drank, we talked, we all watched the fireworks outside over the harbour and listened to the music on the TV.
It was nice, things worked out ok, neither Sam or Troy asked about signing a contract with Lily. The guys asked lots more questions though, and they both seemed sort of awed by her demonstration. All in all it was a pretty good evening.
And I was afraid those ten minutes I spent flying with Lily might have spoiled me for life. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The feeling of soaring and swooping and gliding and diving, flying naked above the city with nothing but our own wings and muscles keeping us aloft.
I finally forced myself to focus on my girlfriends again and our conversation, and it took a moment to remember Sue had spoken last, and what she'd said.
"She's only eight and a half feet tall," I corrected her, "But otherwise yeah that's her. Why? What's the big deal?"
Melissa sighed, "Mara all the time you've talked about bullying your cute subby bottom of a demon, I pictured her being your size. I thought she had to be small and cute and cuddly. How the hell do you bully someone big enough and tough enough to rip a grizzly bear in half?!"
I frowned, "What does her size have to do with anything? She's amazingly cute and incredibly cuddly. And she turns into a big flustered mess whenever I get flirty with her. Uh, except I should probably stop doing that. At xmas I found out she sort of sees herself as a mother-figure to me? That might be why she gets so flustered."
My girlfriends both face-palmed, and Melissa said "No more flirting with your demon-mom, Mara."
I pouted and grumbled, "No promises."
"If you're feeling flirty, you've always got us you know?" Susan suggested with a smile.
I grinned and cuddled up closer against her as I asked, "Oh? Was that an invitation?"
Melissa moved closer against me as well, and together the two of them helped me forget about flying. For now, anyways.
The next morning we were up and dressed and downstairs at the hotel restaurant at eleven, to meet Sam and Troy for brunch.
None of us was wearing anything fancy, Sam was in blue jeans and a t-shirt, Troy wore black jeans and a hoodie. Me and Melissa were both in leggings and tunic tops, mine were all black, hers were pink on top, blue on the bottom. And Sue was in stretch jeans and a tight t-shirt.
We got a table, then the others all visited the buffet and loaded up their plates with various breakfast goodies while I stayed at the table and just sipped a small glass of juice.
The food smelled good, and the buffet had a really good selection. Just looking at my friends' plates I could see waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, home fries, and fresh fruit. As good as it all looked and smelled though, I wasn't actually interested in eating any of it.
"You aren't hungry Mara?" Sam asked. "Are you feeling ok?"
I nodded, "I'm fine, just not hungry? I guess dinner last night was more than enough, I probably ate more than I realized. Or maybe I ate too many snacks and stuff after dinner."
Melissa frowned, "I don't remember you even touching the snacks last night. And you only had three or four coolers."
"Whatever," I shrugged. "I'm fine, so don't let me stop the rest of you from enjoying your breakfast."
Susan and Troy were already enjoying theirs, and Melissa and Sam both dug in as well.
As they ate, we all talked a bit more. Susan got Troy's dad's contact info so she could speak with him about the home renovations. We also talked about school, which would be starting up again on the sixth. So we had another five days to get ready for it.
Then when everyone had enough to eat we all headed back to our rooms again to get packed up.
Me and my girlfriends got our stuff packed away, then Melissa asked "Mara? Can Lily fix these rips in the carpet? Otherwise we're going to get a huge bill for the repairs."
Lily had been quiet since we went flying last night, I remembered she said she'd need to rest after that.
I tried asking, "Lily are you around? Can you fix this?"
There was a few seconds pause before she responded, and she sounded sleepy. "Yes Mara, then I'm going to rest some more."
As the three of us watched, the carpet seemed to ripple and move on its own, and it sort of 'healed' back up again as the eight long tears disappeared.
"Thanks Lily," I said.
I almost wished I could tuck her back into bed or something. I found myself feeling sorry for her. Like as amazing as that experience last night was for me, I knew that was her normal form. That would have been normal for her, and all this time she's been trapped inside boring old mostly-human me.
And realizing that ten or twenty minutes of being her own normal self left her so tired and so drained, it made me even more sad for her. She said at one point it might take us ninety years before she was free. Thinking of her having to wait that long before being herself again made me feel even worse for her.
"Mara?" Melissa asked as she put an arm around my shoulders. "Are you ok?"
Susan's arm wound around my waist as she added, "You look really sad. What's wrong?"
I sighed and reached up to hold both of them as well. "I was just thinking about Lily. She had that one little taste of freedom last night, but it'll be years and years before she's actually free."
"I know," Melissa replied. "We're doing what we can for her though."
The three of us hugged each other for another minute or so, then finally grabbed all our stuff and headed out. Along with my backpack I had another bag with the leftover drinks.
We met the guys again in the lobby as we all checked out, then the five of us said our goodbyes and stuff there. Me and Melissa gave Sam and Troy both hugs but Susan just shook their hands. She didn't feel like she knew them well enough to get huggy with them.
Sam and Melissa made plans to call each other next week, and finally we all went down to the parking garage and parted ways there.
The drive home was fairly quiet, and once we were back at the apartment I spent the afternoon doing chores. I also took some time to call my mom to wish her a happy new year. I talked with her for a while, she and Carol didn't go out or do anything too wild but it sounded like they had a very good night together which made me happy. I told her about partying downtown in a fancy hotel room, but as excited as I was about the flying part I left that out.
After the call and the chores, me and my girlfriends spent the rest of the day being lazy. We cuddled together on the sofa and ignored some shows on the TV, and we talked a bit about random stuff.
Eventually Susan commented, "The only thing about last night that disappointed me, was Sam and Troy never got a first-hand magic demonstration. And I never did find out exactly what Lily did to Sam before."
Melissa grinned, "I can tell you about that. She made Sam into the perfect little femme-boy. He was the exact same size and shape as Mara, but he was still a guy. His hair was down to his shoulders and he was a bit younger too, like eighteen I guess? So instead of the tall strong wiry manly dude he is now, he was short skinny weak petite and effeminate. He was absolutely adorable. And I caught him and Mara practically cuddling at one point."
Susan got a wide smile on her face as she listened to Melissa, then she looked at me and asked "Is that true Mara? Were you into adorable little Sam?"
I felt my cheeks go pink but I sighed and stated, "He was vulnerable and upset and borderline freaking out because he'd just found out magic was real and had his whole body changed into something he didn't want. I was just trying to comfort him and help him feel a little more stable or whatever. And it wasn't cuddling, it was hugging at best. Platonic hugging."
Sue seemed to realize from my tone I didn't want to joke around about it, or maybe she understood what I said about Sam being freaked out by being changed like that. Either way, her smile faded and she just nodded "Ok Mara. That makes sense."
Melissa on the other hand kept grinning, "I still think you were into him like that Mara. You looked a little too involved, it wasn't just hugging him to make him feel better. And you're blushing now just thinking about it."
I frowned at her, my tone remained serious as I said "Whether I was attracted to him or not, that wasn't him. He didn't want to look like that and I'm sure he still doesn't, so it doesn't really matter. Not to mention he's gay so he wouldn't be interested in me regardless, so please just drop it?"
She seemed to get the message finally and nodded "Ok Mara. I'll stop teasing you about it. Sorry."
After that I got up and went into my room. I was still uptight but I didn't want to take it out on my girlfriends by mistake. So I tried to distract myself by reviewing the pictures I took over the weekend for that assignment, to try and decide if there were any worth turning in. Otherwise I'd have to go back out in the cold and try again.
Melissa and Susan both followed my example, Melissa went into her room to do some work and Susan opened up her laptop and used the coffee table as a desk.
It was hard to concentrate on the computer though, and my thoughts kept wandering off in various other directions. I kept thinking about Lily, and about last night.
After about fifteen minutes I really hadn't accomplished anything, and I was further distracted by Susan reacting to something on her laptop. She sounded sort of stressed and upset as she muttered a quiet "Fuck."
I wasn't getting anything done anyways so I left my room and sat next to her on the sofa and asked, "Everything ok?"
The expression on her face was hard to gauge, she looked troubled and maybe upset, but I couldn't tell if she was sad or angry or something else.
Sue sighed, then gestured at her laptop "I was just looking at my emails. Remember I told you I had to see an abusive bastard of a therapist a few years ago, after my dad died?"
I shifted closer and put an arm around her as I nodded "Yeah. What's happened? Is everything ok?"
"I just got an email from his office," she replied. "It freaked me out, seeing that name come up."
"Why did he email you?" I asked. "Did you open it?"
She shook her head, "It wasn't from him, it's from his secretary. It was basically like a form letter, nothing personal. Apparently he died a few weeks ago and they're just contacting all his patients. Like asking if I want my records transferred to another therapist, because they're closing up the practice."
"You're ok though right?" I asked. "Like you're not freaking out or anything?"
After a moment Sue smiled, "Honestly I think I'm going to celebrate. Now I'm wondering how the bastard died."
I watched as she typed his name in to search the web for any news. It only took her a few minutes to get the answers. There was a small blurb saying he died on December fifteenth of exposure. Basically he froze to death or something, after wandering away from his home late at night wearing nothing but pyjamas. They figured maybe he was sleepwalking or something, it was classified as an accident.
"Huh," Sue said as she read it. "That was the weekend you took me to meet your mom and Carol."
I felt a little lurch in my stomach. As soon as Sue said it I knew what happened to the guy. I woke up that morning full of energy, and Lily told me she took care of some personal business. Now I knew what she meant. She found the guy who abused Susan and she ate him.
Before I got too deep thinking about that another thing suddenly struck me. Lily fed while we were flying last night, but I didn't have that big energy boost thing this morning. I just felt completely normal. That left me wondering if things worked differently for me when she fed in her normal form, compared to when we looked like me.
I added that to the list of things I wanted to talk to her about, once she was feeling better.
For now I just asked Sue, "You're sure you're all right?"
She smiled and gave me a kiss, "I'm fine Mara. Thanks for worrying about me though."