Chapter 23 –
Hailey POV
“What happening babe?” Anna asked worriedly.
With a dizzy giggle, I drained the last swallows of my bottled water and shook my head slowly. “Oh Anna, I admire your optimism sweetie. But the next few months with Miles are going to be nothing short of ritualistic soul-flaying.”
I leaned in conspiratorially, “That maniac won’t rest until I’m laying every last ravaged fiber of my raw, shuddering essence onto the alter of his sadistic ambitions. You’ll be lucky if there’s enough left over to fill a thimble when he’s through with me!”
My voice had dipped to a heady, almost sensual purr by now – equal parts exhilaration and trepidation thrilling my senses anew at the prospect of whatever crucibles awaited.
Something animalistic flickered in Anna’s heavy-lidded eyes as she traced a fingertip along the swell of my cleavage.
“If that’s true… then you’d best enjoy THIS while it lasts. No sense holding anything back before that prick tries to devour your light entirely!”
Then her hand cupped the back of my neck and pulled my mouth down hard onto her own.
I whimpered in shock even as our lips collided in a drunken, sloppily ravenous kiss that scalded with the urgency of pure id.
The entire world around us seemed to melt and dissolve into the hot, thrumming pressure of Anna’s tongue gliding past my lips, her teeth tugging at my bottom lip with a needy growl.
After what seemed like an eternity suspended in that molten, languid rush, my friend finally broke away with a mischievous grin that lit her face into a radiant vision of pure feminine rapture.
“Since Miles is hellbent on methodically grinding your passion down like so much emotional charr…” she purred, lips still inches from my own slack, stunned expression, “… you’d best get it out of your system now while you still can!”
With that, Anna spun on her heel and sashayed through the gyrating crowd of drunken partygoers once more, casting expectant looks over her bare shoulder as she melted into the diffuse pulses of strobe lighting, hips already swiveling in tandem with the irresistible bassline throbs.
I stood paralyzed at the bar for a long, drawn-out beat. Mind still reeling from my friend’s spontaneous, wildly provocative encouragement toward cosmic levels of exultant indulgence before the storm hit.
“Did she just kiss me?” I muttered.
Then, as if a switch flipped in my consciousness, I finally surrendered to the soaring tides of defiant revelry. Anna was right – I would leave absolutely nothing in reserve tonight.
No wisps of ego or pride or excess energies for the unstable Director to snuff out or defile the moment our “process” began in earnest.
He could have my hollowed vessel when the time came. But tonight, before the agonies and tortures truly commenced?
Tonight, would prove an ecstatic, unrestrained offering to experience worshiped at its most raw and visceral.
A night of absolute, animalistic celebration and festivity before the inevitable hungover descent into Miles’ profane artistic apocalypses.
With a deep, trembling breath, I downed the last swallows of tangy liquor sloshing around the bottom of my glass.
Then I slid off the barstool and joined Anna once more amid the sensual roar of the crowd – slinking through the heaving tide of bodies until my fingers entwined with hers in a white-hot static charge of unapologetic connection.
The next few hours blurred into a prolonged, churning hysteria of revelry wholly devoid of self-consciousness or restraint.
Of swaying in each other’s arms, stifling unbound howls of exultation with tangled, breathless kisses whenever that soaring crest of feeling simply grew too monumental to contain.
Of trailing blazing, lingering touches across feverish skin glistening with effort and euphoric exertion.
Each brush and caress reminding me why this ravenous, all-consuming indulgence of physicality and boneless passion MATTERED – fanning the precious flames worth preserving even when everything around them conspired toward total annihilation.
Fists clenched around sheens of amber hair, teeth grazing flushed collarbones as we rocked together, mindless of our surroundings.
Simply two sparks among a combustible sea of kinetic, hedonistic frenzy that demanded total and unapologetic celebration before the reckoning truly began.
Some part of me knew those persistent trills of elation simply could not last.
That eventually, exhaustion and dissolution loomed to reclaim this small sphere of pure adrenaline and visceral connection with the world.
But in those fleeting eternities, nothing existed except the coiled raptures coiling low in my core, the blissful pools of abandon and timeless NOW spreading outward to annihilate thought or anxiety or consequence.
Just molten, sensual NOW glowing and radiating with all its liberating, cathartic fervency.
Only in the hazy, grey-tinged predawn hours did the fever pitch finally break.
At last, Anna and I slumped together in wordless communion on a deserted streetcorner, awaiting us rideshare back home to the dreary realm of consequence and obligation.
My friend’s head lolled against my shoulder while cigarette smoke spiraled from the tip of her dangling hand.
I watched the meandering wisps twisting toward some unfelt breeze, let them imprint on my blissfully vacant mind like some sort of transient Eastern calligraphy.
Eventually, she heaved a sated sigh and nuzzled my throat with her pliant lips. “Still with me in there, babe?” Anna mumured in a hoarse, thoroughly ravaged rasp.
I managed a weak tilt of my cheek against her hair, some final lingering embers banking just enough heat to allow a dreamy smile. “There’s no place else I’d rather be,” I murmured simply.
Tomorrow, the Crucible would come with all its oppressive demands and odious, soul-lacerating agendas. But for that one eternal moment, I’d transcended… and shot straight into the heart of my own profane truths.
It would be those ecstatic resonances I would carry into the coming hurricane alongside Miles.
A beacon to dance before with taunting defiance, refusing to shrink from its cold indifferences until my last shreds of self-had burned away into the mantric ether of unfettered passion.
His torments awaited, and I would face them without fear or uncertainty. Because in those ephemeral suspensions of bliss, I’d reconnected with the purest core of conviction smoldering within.
And only from that cathedral of unshakable authenticity could I ever hope to survive, or even transcend, the Agonies to come.
…
The night had devolved into a dizzying blur of bright lights, thumping music, and too many cocktails to count.
Anna and I stumbled out of the club around 1: 00 am, giddy with drunken revelry.
“Oooh, I know what we should do next!” Anna slurred, looping her arm through mine as we meandered down the sidewalk.
She pointed across the street to a sharply dressed man waiting for a ride. “See that handsome guy over there? I bet you can’t work up the courage to go plant one on him!”
I laughed, the alcohol emboldening me. “Oh yeah? Watch this!”
Before I could think twice, I crossed the street towards the stranger, Anna’s raucous cheers egging me on.
He seems to be a billionaire or sort; well I don’t care.
As I reached the unsuspecting man, I tapped his shoulder.
“Hello handsome!” I greetings in my drunken self.
When he turned, I puckered my lips and landed a sloppy kiss right on his mouth.
To my surprise, he didn’t react much, seemingly too stunned to push me away.
I pulled back with a triumphant grin. “Luckly you, mister! Consider that a free gift for tonight!”
Rejoining Anna, we dissolved into a fresh fit of giggles at my boldness.
“Holy shit! You did it girl!” She screamed!
However, the fun came to an abrupt halt when Anna suddenly stumbled forward… directly into the path of an oncoming pedestrian!
“Watch where you’re going!” He yelled.
Definitely having a bad day!
They collided with a sickening thud, and Anna crumpled to the pavement.
In an instant, she was violently ill, her earlier overindulgence finally catching up to her.
“Hey, you watched where you’re going!” I shouted at him.
I rushed to her side, the smile melting from my face as the consequences of our reckless behavior set in.
Steadying my wavering friend, I hailed the nearest available ride to get us both home safely and put an end to our wildly drunken antics, at least for one night.
“Well, it’s a wild night indeed!” I sighed.