Regina and Soleil were helping Manu in the bathroom. I could hear the shower running, and in the midst of the noise of it, soft laughter from the three of them.

I looked to Rita. She looked at me. We were both still naked. Neither of us seemed to care about that.

"This... this is good, right?" I asked, tentatively.

Rita shrugged, and that was disconcerting. "What's 'good,' exactly? Good for whom? It kind of flies in the face of the expectations that are placed on us, but who knows if those expectations are good or not? Or—"

I raised a hand to cut her off. "Okay, okay, I get it," I said with a smile. "I wasn't really asking about the philosophy of it all."

She shrugged again, matching my smile. "Is it good for us? Yeah, probably. You have your very own artist now!"

Mine. "Huh. Yeah. Not too sure if I wanted that."

Rita's expression shifted towards disbelief and confusion.

"Right," I said, my own smile fading. "Trying to lie to a seer."

She nodded. "I know it's conflicting. We're not supposed to own people! But... we don't. I don't own Soleil, you don't own Regina. We've freed them up to devote their energies to what they want to do. You can see that in Regina already."

"What about Soleil?" I asked, trying to change the subject a little.

"Soleil had her first sexual experience with another person three days after getting here. She's spent her whole life being quiet and repressed. She's still quiet, kind of. When she's not being loud." Rita grinned. "But imagine a girl who had to argue with her parents, cajole and manipulate, just to get to do what she has so very clearly loved her whole life. Her voice lessons weren't meant for the stage, she was supposed to be a perfect, proper lady for marriage to some upper-middle-class business guy. Everything about her right now is something her parents will despise." The actor started counting on her fingers. "The fact that she's not a virgin. Her increased interest in musical theatre. Bisexuality. Her 'unserious' pet persona when she's with me. Everything snobbish conservative parents loathe. Some of it, I admit—and so does she—is based in rebellion, but a good deal is just a reaction to finally being able to spread her wings. And legs."

I snickered. "Okay, fair." I hadn't had quite so strict an upbringing, but I could understand the concept. Instead of trying to resist my parents' strictness, my rebelling was more about trying to get their attention, but I gave up on that and just concentrated on writing more and more, trying to figure out the best way to express myself. When I won a couple awards and scholarships, they did pay some attention to my work, but by then I wasn't nearly as interested in them.

"Can you imagine," Rita continued with a bit of an overdramatic, half-whispered tone, "spending eighteen years of your life in a cloistered, repressed household and a heavily-policed private school, only to discover within a week of being out from under your parents' thumbs that you really, really, really love sex?"

"And then running into you," I added a little sardonically. "You who seems to encourage all that people love to do, especially when it comes to sex."

Rita gave her trademark shrug. "Sex is a creative activity. Like we discussed earlier. The Presence adores all things creative."

"You sure don't seem to mind promoting it."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Why would I mind?"

I conceded the point. "Not sure. I... have to admit that I don't." I leaned back against the couch cushions as Regina, in the bathroom, gave a loud laugh about something. "This past week has been the best sex of my life, and it seems pretty clear that I can add 'up until now' to that sentence."

"Yeah, I could hear, earlier."

Funnily enough, I didn't blush at that. Maybe it was because I'd just given Manu a hand job there in front of the other three, and sat there while Soleil cleaned up after us, and then sat there while she lapped at Rita's snatch. Embarrassment was kind of out the window at that point, at least in that apartment.

"So," I asked, shifting the subject again, "what exactly happened to Regina? What happened here?"

"She found her connection to the Presence, and it happened to be in a time and space where she could unleash all that pent-up creativity, where she could embrace and share her truth with all of us—though it was most important that she could share it with you."

"Why am I so special?"

The shower shut off, and the chattering from the bathroom was clearer now, though still not understandable. Manu's deep, soft voice was barely heard, while Regina and Soleil's voices were much more obvious.

"I'm sure she'll tell you," Rita said, infuriatingly. "The truth, her truth, matters so much more to her now." She scratched her nose. "It's interesting, how her progress came in stages. For the rest of us, it was a sort of all-at-once experience, or at least it took its place over a few hours, not a few days. I wonder if she just had more to reconcile than the rest of us."

"Is that my problem, too?"

Rita sighed. "I don't know that it's a problem, exactly."

I frowned. "That's not an answer."

"You ought to be used to me not giving answers."

I let out a single, bitter laugh, sharper than I'd intended. "That's for sure." I took a slow breath to calm down a little. "Are you... Does it bother you that I haven't accepted your offer?"

"My offer?" She looked momentarily confused. "Oh, to sleep with me?"

I nodded.

"No, not at all," she said, and she took me seriously, which I appreciated. "For one, I'm not lacking; for another, I know I'm not exactly your choice of partner. Would I enjoy kissing every inch of your body?" The question alone made me feel things. "Of course I would. But like I said, I know I'm not your choice of partner." She got to her feet and stretched, slowly, languidly, showing every inch of herself off. "See?" she said, with a half turn and a wink.

And I had to admit, she was right. What was pretty much a sexy display did nothing for me.

"Now," Rita continued, moving towards the coffee table. "Imagine what I just did."

I could feel the fire in her voice, and I wondered what she was doing.

"Close your eyes, and imagine it," she said as she knelt down beside the table. I did as she asked, picturing, idealizing, that slow, beautiful stretch. "Imagine it not as an act of my free will, but as a result of your words. As if your poetry had sunk deep into my mind, had pulled me to my feet like a marionette, had pushed me to display myself, to show myself to you."

My mouth ran dry. Her fire was calling to mine.

She had closed the distance between us. Her hand fell on my right knee, where Regina's hand had lingered for so long just a short while ago. "There are two kinds of people you're attracted to," she said, very close to my ear. "In general, of course. Men," her free hand now touched my chin, and her voice whispered in my ear, "and submissives."

I followed the lead of her hand, felt her lips press against mine, felt my lips part and hers, and our tongues dancing around each other's. In contrast to the wild, visceral experience of earlier, this was gentle but insistent. I could not control the wind, but I could direct my sail, and I chose to let the wind carry me where it might, at least for a moment.

It was no less spiritual than Regina's dance. It was just different.

"And that, dear poet, is why you haven't accepted my offer," she said, still low, still seductive, still submitting—no, still giving the impression, the act of submission. The actor, playing a role. "And now that you realize that, and you know what I'm doing, you can understand what I'm willing to do to have you."

To have me.

Rita was offering to play the part of the the submissive, so that I could dominate her. Which, from an actor, was an act of dominance.

"I can feel your confusion," she said, whispering now. "The paralysis of it. The temptation of it. You know who I am, what I am."

An image came to my head, mirroring words I'd spoken only that morning: Why do we blame Eve, when it's the Serpent...

An unfortunate flood of associations from my brief time in the church and from general cultural absorption swarmed my mind. You know who I am, what I am, she said, and my mind replied, Demon. Devil.

"Yes," she answered my thoughts. "That's what you feel about me, deep inside, isn't it." It wasn't a question. It wasn't an accusation. It was a confirmation, whispered in my ear, one I couldn't deny. I could almost feel the forked tongue licking my earlobe. "That's part of the problem. You asked me if it was good. We all have this concept of good and evil as if they're absolutes, but in the micro sense, in the personal sense, there isn't that kind of guidance."

Rita chuckled. "I'm not evil, am I?" she continued, if possible even closer to me. Her breath was full of the Presence. She was full-on acting. Her hand on my knee slid upward to my thigh. "Just like you're not. We're just creators. People who influence people. You see right through me. And yet..." Her kiss met my cheek, just where Regina's had before. "And yet, you still want to want me."

I swallowed. I nodded, my cheek rubbing against hers as I did. Distantly, as though they were in the next city instead of down the hall, I heard Regina and Soleil helping Manu to his bedroom.

"Like so many other things, you can't accept, because you don't want to accept, even though you're curious, intrigued. Even though you desire to want that, if only to know what you're missing."

I swear, her teeth grazed my ear.

"Last night, we talked about indulgence."

My memory flickered to the feeling of her hands on my breasts, just as vivid in that moment as the feeling of her hand halfway up my thigh. I felt too tense, and too relaxed, to even moan. My breath was caught in my throat and I didn't have the strength to pull another in.

"Last night, I indulged," she continued. "I used this interest, this power I have, to draw you in, to fracture your sense of time, to show you just what we can do, and what you have been doing."

The laughter of Rita's singer, my dancer, and my boyfriend felt very, very far away.

"I want you to think of what will happen," she said as my hands trembled, "if you decided to... indulge."

We kissed, then, again, long, and slow, and deep, and... and I could see it all. I could see the act of it, the art and the lie of it, and the truth that lay behind it. She wanted me. As she said, she accepted that I didn't want her. And she knew, in her heart, that her power couldn't truly make me want her back. Not directly, not in the way it made Soleil want her, or Manu want me. But as much as she could dominate Soleil, or Emi, or whoever else she wanted, she also knew how to submit, how to channel that part of herself, how to drown herself in that role.

How to give herself over to my poetry, and let it drown her in fire the way her performance was drowning me.

It would just be an act. I knew that. She knew that. It wouldn't be the truth of Manu's total submission. Or Regina's. But, the serpent said, for a moment, for an hour, for a night...

We separated, we breathed. My eyes fluttered open, and had been closed long enough that the dim light in the room felt stunningly bright. Then I met her eyes, and saw the fire, and felt the Presence.

And I saw Rita's smile.

Pure, genuine. No artifice, no acting, just her. Smiling at me. And I felt myself smiling back, warm, friendly, calm.

"You're terrifying," I said, and she nodded. Our smiles broadened, brightened.

"If anyone ever says that true friendship can't survive sexual tension," Rita replied, giving my thigh a friendly squeeze, "tell them all about this."

We laughed together, loudly. "I don't think I'll tell them about this," I said.

"I didn't think you would."

I gave Rita a hand off her knees, and she sat next to me, lacing her fingers with mine. In the bedroom, the laughter had progressed to other sounds, other noises. I could feel Manu and Regina taking care of each other, and I could almost get glimpses of the way Soleil was handling them.

"Wanna join them?" Rita asked.

I shook my head. "No, not right now. Let the submissives have their fun together."

Rita nodded, and, hand still in mine, she lay back against the couch cushions, as I had earlier, and I joined her. Together, as if it were a song on the radio, we listened to our three friends create a symphony of sound. I had never really listened to the creaking of a bed frame before, but now it sounded like a cello, supporting the small choir. Laughter and cheerful chatter made a counterpoint to moans and gasps. And through it all, Rita and I just... listened, hand in hand. Two mind-controlling creators having a moment together, enjoying the pleasure of their chosen.

It felt... right.

It had been such a very long day. In the warmth of that moment, in the beauty of the noise, my eyes started to close, and my mind started to drift.

And in my dream, I was fire.

I moved through the forest, and where I looked, trees smouldered. Where I passed, the ground smoked. My fury, if I were angered, would set the treetops ablaze.

The rain would not stop me. A flood might slow me down, maybe. I could be one with the Presence, travel under the earth in magma and through the skies in solar flares. What was a little water?

I could...

burn through my own home

chase myself into the street

follow myself terrified and naked in a flaming tornado of shattered reflections

I was both hunter and hunted,

both fear and afraid,

both hard and soft.

I was confused, and I was confusion.

It took a quiet song to lift my hand free, to bring me, aflame, to a softer place. It took another hand to calm, but not quell, the contradictions in me. A gentle dance to take me to a place of rest, where I wound up in the arms of the wounded, and with my arms around strength. The fire was put aside for a time, and with Manu's lazy kisses on my neck, I fell into proper sleep.

And in that sleep, I could hear my dancer, telling me why I was special, why her knowing my truth mattered so much. She said it all in only three short words, and for all my skill and poetry I couldn't have possibly crafted something more beautiful in so short a time.