30 - Going Home

They both awoke giggling, realizing they had fallen asleep together, naked about each cumming so hard they nearly collapsed. Miss Natalya dismounted Amanda and allowed her to get up and stretch a bit.

"Good thing we only have one patient today, and I usually keep some spare clothes here just in case." Miss Natalya said through a big yawn. Amanda smiled back and couldn't suppress her yawn now.

"I don't think it matters what I wear anyway, with the way the patients seem to judge, but I think I still have my outfit from a couple days ago in the drawer as I didn't wear it that long. Just need to freshen up a little in the bathroom first though, I'm a bit sticky for some reason." Amanda winked at Miss Natalya. They both laughed a bit at her comment and went off to clean up for the day, forgetting to start their morning off right and it wouldn't be until the end of the day that they fixed that.

The day went on without much excitement. One boring patient came and went in the morning and the two lovers just fidgeted a bit all day working at their various mundane tasks, neither one really engaged in work, each a little apprehensive for some reason. Finally, as midday approached Amanda walked in to Miss Natalya's office.

"I was thinking, since we don't have anything else scheduled for this afternoon, I was going to leave early to get a head start on tonight. Lots to do and not that much time left." Amanda said to Natalya, a hint of sadness in her tone.

"I'll be following you out. Same here, big night tonight and I don't want to be late." Natalya responded; her tone tinged a bit darker as well.

Amanda packed up her desk and headed for the door, not thinking straight at the moment, but caught herself in time to stop and turn around before she forgot something important. Natalya was looking in her direction, wondering if she was going to stop or not. Amanda walked back to where Natalya was standing and grabbed her hands.

"Almost forgot our goodbye kiss." Amanda said as she leaned in closer to press her lips to Natalya's. She felt the slightest bit of hesitation as if there was something more that Natalya was feeling right now preventing her from reciprocating completely. Then she broke off the kiss.

"I just wanted to say, I love you, Amanda." Natalya's eyes were filled with emotion as she looked on the edge of tears. Amanda looked up at her and smiled.

"And I love you too." With that she returned to her attempted kiss, but this time the hesitation was gone. Their tongues explored each other's mouths as they kissed as deeply as they ever had before. Their arms wrapped around each other, pulling each other close, and holding on tightly. Amanda felt drops on her cheeks, and opened her eyes to see Natalya crying, the emotion of the moment too much for her. Amanda stood on her tip toes and kissed away the tears, then planted one final kiss on her lips, before moving away and heading back out the door.

Natalya stood and watched Amanda leave for the day, then stood a moment looking around. "I've been doing the best that I can, I guess we'll see whether any of it has been good enough." With that she grabbed her things from her office and locked up. She walked down the hall as usual heading home for the big night.

......

Tyler headed over to Dr. N's office hoping to catch her before the end of the day to tell her the good news about her and Becks. She's been on cloud nine since their breakthrough take out session and she just wanted to tell Dr. N since she had a lot to do with it. She turns the corner and heads down the hallway toward the office, but as she gets there, things don't look like she remembered them. She walks around and checks if she's on the right floor as she'd been pretty spaced out over the last couple days with everything that had happened. She's pretty sure she is and as she looks at where the office should have been she noticed the door slightly ajar and the doctor's name missing from it.

Tyler saw a maintenance guy sweeping the floor and cleaning up some other trash so she walked over to chat with him briefly.

"Hey, sorry to bug you, but what happened to the therapist's office that was here just the other day, this place looks abandoned." Tyler asked, a bit confused.

Laughing the maintenance guy responds, "There hasn't been anything in that office for years, I have no idea what you're talking about. Go in and have a look around if you want."

Tyler leaned on the door and pushed it open. Sure enough, the place was a mess, dust everywhere and boxes all around that were left behind by the last tenant or maybe used as an old storage space. Again, she doublechecked the office and the floor and was sure she was at the right place.

"Huh, that's really weird, I was just in here last week and it was a nice, clean office with people in it." Tyler didn't think she needed therapy for hallucinations, but now she wasn't too sure. "Thanks, and sorry to bother you...um, Mr. Temesto? is it? Have a good one."

"No bother at all miss, Happy Halloween!" The maintenance guy replied.

......

Natalya was walking to the location where she was instructed to wait. Not knowing the precise time was a little nerve wracking, but she would be plenty early enough at this point so she stopped worrying once she found the spot. She saw a bench nearby and decided she'd rather sit and wait than stand around awkwardly. As she neared the bench, she noticed it was occupied. It was a little off the beaten path for someone to just be wandering about there, and since she wanted to sit down anyway, she went over to approach the person. They were dressed in a long cloak, with their hood pulled up over their face to shield them from the evening chill. As Natalya nears the bench the mysterious figure lowered their hood.

"Didn't expect to see you here." Natalya says, a sound of pleasant shock and surprise in her voice.

"To be honest, I wasn't sure if I would see you here either." Amanda said in a guarded tone. "I guess they were right then, huh?"

"Right about what, and who are they?" Natalya asked, confused a bit herself and not sure what was going on.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything. The people I work for I guess is who they are and they were right about who you are. At least that's what I'd have to guess from the scenario playing out here tonight. I had hoped I would be here alone on my trip home."

"But, why are you heading home this way, this is supposed to be a dark portal waypoint? And maybe they aren't as right as they think they are, but isn't that always the case?" Natalya asked, but her voice trailed off as she felt a bit dejected.

"Oh, right, dark portal. Well, since the nexus connects everywhere we don't create any extra portals for our transport if any accessible portal exists, dark or otherwise. Part of our climate pledge. This one just happens to be your dark portal, I guess." Amanda explained.

"Not sure it's my dark portal exactly, but I get what you mean. Aren't you worried you'll end up in the wrong place if you don't exit the portal at the right point?" Natalya asked.

"Not really, although, to be honest, this is the first time I'm doing this alone, so who knows? The nexus should be able to tell who belongs where and reject anyone who doesn't pass their credentials test at the gateway." Amanda sounded a bit anxious herself and really hoped everything they had told her was right.

"It was nice having you as my assistant, and you were nothing like what I expected which is why I never suspected you up until the very last minute. Of course, by then it was too late for me anyway since I had fallen head over heels for you." Natalya again sounded happy, but the slight darkness crept into her tone.

"If it makes you feel any better. I'm really kind of a dark angel, not really fitting in with the goody-two shoes angel crowd. I do have my place though and it really works well for situations like these. Someone else wouldn't want to get caught up in this kind of endeavor, but I have little to lose." Amanda admitted.

"I see. So, your place isn't all that inclusive either. What really got me was the way you played the sub so well, and my god, the sex. I didn't expect you to have that in you at all. What pushed it so far over the edge was the goth girl look you were rocking." Natalya almost sounded like the woman Amanda knew again.

"No, but it's not a surprise. I've never heard it described as inclusive, for anyone. Yeah, I was having a lot of fun with the outfits. The look on your face when I first started going all out was precious. And the fact that it made you want me that much more made it all worth it." Amanda shared. "But, from the other side, again, dark angel here, so not all of that was playing around. Most of it, in fact, was real." Amanda smiled and turned to look at Natalya.

"Mind if I sit down then?" Natalya asked, for some reason feeling like she should, even with how close they had become.

"I'd be delighted, and I was wondering why you hadn't already." Amanda replied, sliding over slightly and patting the bench next to her.

"So, are you sure you won't be let in where I'm going? I wouldn't want you to be stuck somewhere you didn't want to be." Natalya asked, fidgeting a bit on the bench. For some reason, just sitting next to each other was again awkward after all those crazy days together.

"Only one way to find out, I guess." Amanda quipped, still smiling at her partner. "Maybe if we try to go through together, we'll be kicked out of both and end up someplace better? I've heard tales of a more accepting place, at least for people like me."

"That would be nice. Both staying together and being in a place that was a lot nicer." Natalya said a bit dreamily, hoping that such a place existed. "So, what's with the whole dark angel thing anyway, didn't realize there was all that much hierarchy."

"Well, since you asked. I don't usually talk much about it, but to be fair I haven't had anyone who wanted to listen before." Amanda started, her cheerful look dimming slightly. "I had a bit of a rough time growing up and made some bad decisions because of it. I was always a bit of a troublemaker, at least the people around me all thought that. And then there's just who I am and how I am, you don't see a lot of us there. To be honest I'm not sure what redeemed me either and they will never tell me."

"Sorry to hear about all your struggles, I'm sure a lot of it wasn't all on you. Why won't they tell you, that seems weird? Since you're already there it doesn't seem like it would hurt much. We hear about it every time we wander to closely back on the path and haven't strayed enough. Every time we do something right you would think it was the end of the world." Natalya shared some of her own basic struggles.

"Part of it has to do with my assignments. They think me knowing what redeemed me might provide an unfair advantage in helping other people figure out what might redeem them. It's supposed to be a bit of a journey, not just telling them what to do. Maybe there's still something that could redeem you, who knows?" Amanda said, a bit of hope lifted her voice at the end.

"Sorry, but even your best effort wouldn't be able to redeem me. A demon born, a demon for eternity. There isn't much chance of that changing." Natalya stated, seemingly convinced of her fate.

"I guess, I'm not really an expert in that area, but from what I've seen you were actually trying to help some people, even though it was still combined with your overall master plan. Whatever that had to be." Amanda said, emphasizing her phrasing and adding too much drama.

"Well, my overall master plan didn't work out so well, but thanks for asking." Natalya joked, her face dropping a bit realizing her failed assignment.

"What exactly was I sent to disrupt anyway? We're not great on details again, remember?" Amanda asked.

"Oh, I guess there's no harm in sharing now. I was sent to spawn new kinks to unleash on the world." Natalya said matter-of-factly. "Our only real hope was Amy and Belinda, and we won't be sure how that turned out for a little while."

"So, you're a-" Natalya cut her off before she could finish. "Kink demon, yep kind of a minor demon as things go, but I could never live up to the expectations set by my sister."

"Well, you likely succeeded in unleashing one new kink on the world, then." Amanda said, then asking the obvious question. "Is your sister the Ravencrest everyone hears about then?"

"Yes, she is. When I said I was a distant relative, I kind of mean by time. Our mother was the matriarch and she spawned the two of us, so long ago now. My sister was the great evil, I was just a troublemaker looking for attention, or what demons really fear in their families, a normal kid. Natalya's flair for the dramatic showed in her tragic retelling of her youth. "And yeah, big whoop, one whole new kink, my quota was at least three. If I was able to create even more, I might have raised my status a little. Social media has spawned more new kinks than I have."

"Oh, wow, that's pretty harsh. So, you kind of had the same childhood as me really. And it probably means that your heart isn't as black as hers. Certainly not from what I have seen." Amanda said, again her cheerfulness and optimism crept into her voice. She really thought Natalya wasn't evil at all, but a little misunderstood. "Well, it wasn't for a lack of trying, and tell me about it, everyone is battling the social media demons these days I guess, even when it's some friendly competition for your side. Although I don't think you belong in that group, personally."

As they finished speaking a swirling darkness arose before them and the emptiness of the dark portal dripped its foreboding blackness over its edges. They both stood and approached it, neither one really sure what to think and neither of them really wanting to go back either. But staying would just delay the inevitable. Their people knew where they were and it wouldn't take long to track them down.

"You still sure you want to take this one?" Natalya said over the deafening silence of the void.

"I'll be happy to take it, as long as I'm with you. This is much better than I hoped." Amanda replied. "I notice you've kept your collar on." Amanda reached up to play with hers.

"You too, I see." Natalya reached up to touch hers as well.

The two took each other by the hand and started walking toward the darkness. Just as they were on the precipice, about to step into the nothingness, Amanda turned to Natalya, embracing her for what could be the last time. She pressed her lips to hers as tears filled her eyes and kissed her deeply. They crept into the portal, still locked in their embrace, not wanting to let go. As they crossed the threshold and disappeared into nothing, an odd flash of multicolored lights encircled the portals edge. Neither of them had ever seen that in a portal before. Then just as quickly as it had appeared the portal was gone, with just the empty bench alone in the woods.