Nikki's Halloween Party - Part 10

"See?" Nikki grinned, "Always considering the angles. What I get and what you will get for becoming part of our little family is this - life eternal. You will always be just as beautiful as you are today. You will have power and wealth and all the things you've dreamed of. And, once a year, you will come here to this house with me and the others, and you will have one hell of a party."

"And force someone else to make this same sacrifice?"

Nikki looked hurt by the suggestion with her pouting lips and lowered brow.

"I would never force anyone to do anything they didn't want deep down. You can refuse right now and you and your boy toy can leave, but you'll be back where you were. On the outside looking in. I'm offering you the best of everything, Kitten. All you have to do is say 'yes.'"

Aubrey considered, ignoring the leer Nikki gave while she studied the younger woman. It was everything Aubrey dreamed of. The future Aubrey envisioned for herself was attainable and at the cost of what? Innocence? Nikki was right about one thing - Aubrey had little use for innocence. She wanted power. She wanted to be able to level the playing field in this man's world. Not only compete, but o succeed. To win.

"What's it going to be, Kitten?"

"Yes." Aubrey said it fast, not allowing herself to second-guess.

"I knew you were the smart one, Kitten. Now we seal it with a kiss. And your life changes forever."

Aubrey's heart clenched, and her skin crept with cold fingers walking up her spine. Even as Nikki wrapped her slender arms around Aubrey's waist, Aubrey felt cold like she never had. Her pelvis pressed against Nikki's and then the seductive host's lips were on hers. The kiss, at first, was tender and exploring, like that of a new lover. Aubrey felt a rush of desire and her mouth opened. She felt the quick flick of Nikki's tongue and then Nikki's mouth sealed over hers and she inhaled.

It was like something inside Aubrey became unmoored and ripped from her, connective tissue being torn away while this essential piece of her soul ripped loose and drained from her mouth into Nikki's. At first, that left a strange emptiness inside her. Then, it filled.

If her skin felt cold, that was nothing to the chill that rose inside her. Whatever sympathy or caring she once held was vanished. What remained was her cunning, her desires. Her body shifted underneath the cat costume, her muscles growing harder and thicker, the soft shapeliness of Aubrey's body giving way to a more toned and sharper version of itself. And there was the feeling at the center of her. She looked down between her breasts to see the bulge grow at her pelvis, a swelling that indicated masculine sex. The arousal she felt, growing to a mind-numbing level, shifted from the familiar internal itch to an external hunger, a need to penetrate and ravish.

'Beauty, brains, and a big swinging dick,' Nikki had said.

When Aubrey looked up to question Nikki, she was gone. That was fine. Aubrey's new desire guided her to the mirror where she admired this muscular, more aggressive version of herself. She liked how her fingers could trace along the ridges of well-defined abs, how the corded muscles of her arms shifted while she moved. And there was the round, thick swell at her crotch. She had never experienced an erection, but she loved the insistence of it, the way the tight spandex of her cat costume restrained her new cock and excited it all at once.

"Aubrey?" Damian called from the bedroom. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yes," she purred. her voice had deepened a touch. Not enough to be confused as masculine, but with a new huskiness that dripped with seductive promise. "I am feeling just fine. Be right there."

Desteny felt safe against Elijah's body. He was taller and thicker and having him wrap himself around her made Desteny felt like there was a sort of cocoon keeping her safe from the bizarre world outside the door.

"We haven't heard anything in a while," he whispered.

"We just need to wait until morning," she replied.

That had been her mantra. Once the sun rose on this house of horrors, they would be safe. They could resume their lives and forget all about this. Part of her stung with the guilt over abandoning Damian and Aubrey, but this was a life and death situation, right? She couldn't be expected to take care of everything? It was best to let Elijah worry about such things. He was the man, after all. Her whole job was to be alluring to a man, and a man's job, not that Elijah was doing such a great job of it, was to take care of his woman.

Elijah was too scared to consider much past the individual seconds that ticked by. He was frozen by the unreality of the night. His greatest ambition going into the evening was to get laid. Here he was consoling his girlfriend while he wrestled with the existence of ghosts and the afterlife and the fact that something was chasing them that he couldn't begin to understand. What the hell was he supposed to do?

All of that gender-specific behavior was bullshit. He didn't want to have to be the one who took charge here. And why should he? because he had a dick? Was that supposed to make him some kind of all-knowing sage that could get them out of this?

"We should find Aubrey and Damian," Desteny said with a sniffle. "I keep thinking about them. I feel like we abandoned them."

'Sure,' Elijah thought, 'what she means is that I should go look for them while she stays locked up and safe in this bedroom.'

Desteny nestled deeper into the crook of his arm. "Don't you think we should do something?"

Maybe he should. Maybe that was better than the knot of fear in the middle of him that made him feel sick. if he was to walk out the door and be - What? Attacked? Killed? - taken by the forces that were alive in this house, at least the anticipation of the horror would be done with. He could be satisfied knowing he had done what Desteny wanted him to do. He would have lived up to her high expectations of him.

"You want to wait here while I go check?"

Desteny looked up at him with her plaintive doe eyes.

"Would you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure I will."

He had to untangle himself from Desteny and climb up the wall and back to his feet. The walk from her to the door felt like it went on for a thousand years before he felt the cool handle of the door under his hand.

"Stay here. I'll be back."

"Hurry," she said.

'Sure,' he thought. 'If you're so worried about my safety, why make me leave in the first place?'

he eased the door open and stepped into the empty hall. The same dim yellow glow from the wall sconces greeted him, a glow that would have been comforting under different circumstances. Now, it felt as if the shadows grew and leaned and writhed, each a pool from which some new horror might arise.

The door closed with a click behind him and Elijah felt more alone than he ever had before. Guilt resonated in his thoughts while nonetheless wishing he could be the one left behind, the one safe behind a door. Still, he pushed on, exploring the hall from whence they had come. He moved quietly, his hands outstretched as if to make his tread lighter in the hall.

He would have to make his way upstairs and then find Aubrey and Damian. Then, back up to get Desteny, and then...? Then. That was the problem. He supposed wait until morning with the notion that there was some safety in numbers. This was all Desteny's unspoken idea. But every time he wanted to double-back and refuse her, he thought of the way she filled out that harem outfit, how much his lust for her clouded his judgment.

Shockingly, he made his way to the foyer and up the steps to the second floor. More hallways, more shadows, and the light here flickered and danced.

"Damian? Aubrey?" he called out in as loud a whisper as he dared.

No answer.

He would have to begin opening doors and face whatever waited on the other side. And so he began with the door closest. The first was locked. The second immediately gave under his hand and he pushed into the room.

It wasn't a room, exactly. At least not the kind with which Elijah was familiar. he supposed it was the kind of room you had when you had a big mansion like this.  A haunted mansion, he reminded himself.

Against the opposite was a full-length mirror and a vanity, a backless stool in front of that. Every other bit of the walls were given over to dresses and tops and skirts and shelves of shoes and hats and accessories of all sorts. Women's finery the like Elijah had never seen. the clothes looked expensive and decadent, an entire room given over to feminine beauty. Even the vanity was decorated with scarves draped over the back, while makeups and skin treatments dappled the surface of it. He guessed that the sweets cent of the room came from those lotions and potions dedicated to perfection.

"See something you like?"

Elijah spun and realized he had drifted into the middle of the room. the door closed behind him, silent, and now the woman who invited them here stood between him and his escape.

"Don't come any closer."

"Or what?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "What is big, strong Elijah going to do to me?"

"I don't want to hit a woman, but I will."

"You're not going to hit me, darling. And I don't want to hurt you. I just want to help."

Elijah's eyes narrowed. "Help me?"

"Mmhm. I admire how you were so brave and came crawling out of your little hidey-hole to protect your lady fair. But it's unfair, isn't it?"

Nikki took a step closer, and Elijah took an unconscious step backward.

"Look at how much you have to carry on those broad shoulders of yours. Wouldn't it be nicer to be the one care for? Just once? Not to have to live up to any expectations, just be pretty? That's what Desteny does, isn't it? She can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. All because she's hot. And, between us, she is one hot piece of ass, isn't she?"

Another step forward from the gorgeous woman, another step back from Elijah. The backs of his knees struck the stool in front of the vanity.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing you don't want."