Chronicle - Mel and Chris Ch. 02

She walked carefully, she couldn't remember the last time she'd tried to wear heels even half this high and wondered for an instant how she'd let Mel talk her into them. The feathered wings on her back meant she walked a tightrope. Even more frustrating was how easy the demon made heels look. Damn that charming, lovely chameleon, thought Sam as she gripped the candy bowl and opened the door in the middle of another 'trick or...'

There were six children, apparently two families as two sets of parents stood midway from the street to the small front porch. Sam bent over and put a candy bar in each proffered bag or plastic pumpkin in turn to a smattering of 'thank yous.' She squinted for a second at one little bunny-eared girl who'd circled around and squinted back and Sam quickly tossed the last bar into her bag, her thighs would be happier she'd given it away. She stood up as the children all turned to run off, she noticed the two mothers' eyes slightly hooded, their husbands' eyes behind them glittered.

'Shit,' Sam silently vocalized as she smiled and waved with her free hand, she hoped her cheeks weren't beet red. She wasn't used to wearing a bustier that cupped and pushed her breasts up while offering minimal coverage, like everything else she wore it was the white of heavenly purity, her white heels, white thigh-high stockings, the white pleated, mid-thigh skirt and bustier, and of course her angelic wings and halo. What the husbands on the path probably found most heavenly was the view of white flesh and two erect buds of pink down her bustier as she delivered her candy. Fortunately they all turned and walked back to the footpath but she swore the two husbands glanced back quickly.

She was about to close the door when she saw what she took to be the first arrivals for their Halloween party, the tall, heavy man wore a peaked grey cap and grey cape, a long walking stick clicked on the concrete each step, his dark blond beard and hair flowed freely. The heavily pregnant woman alongside him had lighter blonde hair with what looked like silver highlights in the streetlights and the front yard lights. She had on a flowing silvery dress and cape, her hair parted around two pointed ears. They waved and smiled at the children before turning onto the walk to the front door. Sam set the candy bowl on the little table just inside the door and stepped carefully out.

"Yon angel," said the hefty man, "well met. Have we come upon the abode of Chris and Mel?"

They stopped at the front steps.

"Hail, Gandalf the Grey," said Sam, who wasn't sure on the latter but decided to give it a shot, "and Lady Galadriel. You're at the right place, tho' it not be the Prancing Pony."

Sam bowed and when she stood the couple beamed, obviously pleased at being recognized. Or at the view.

"I'm Sam," she resumed, "but, alas, not he of the green thumb."

"You're a heavenly sight, though," said the woman.

"I'm Roger O'Dell, and this is Jeanie," said the Wizard, "I'm the computer center manager."

"Indeed," said a voice behind Sam, she turned and saw Teresa in her crisp, dark blue suit, a white shirt, dark blue tie, black shoes. She had a plastic martini glass with clear, bubbly liquid in it and her hair darkened and slicked back.

"Bond, Teresa Bond," she said, as she stepped out to stand next to Sam, "you gave Chris the terminal and the modem."

Roger nodded.

"It means he never comes out of his room," Teresa sighed, "neither of them do!"

"Anyway," Sam nodded to her left, "Chris and Bobby are setting up the kegs around back, we have all kinds of soft drinks and lemonade in the fridge. Pizzas be a bit later, snacks in here."

"Sounds good," said Roger, "I could use a flagon of ale."

"Take 'em around," Teresa said, "I'll keep an eye out for more."

She kissed Sam quickly, to the quirked eyebrows of their onlookers.

"Do you live here too," asked the Elven Queen, "Sam?"

"No," a bit wistful, she pointed to her left, "just drop by regularly. Around that corner and head back."

Sam tread carefully as she followed the couple, just around the corner she heard voices in the back discuss the tapping of the two pony kegs. Just as Roger made it to the side door from the house Sam heard clicking and suddenly Roger was engulfed, a pair of black leathery wings flapped.

"Avaunt, foul demon," the Lady said, Sam not sure where the acting ended and the real feeling began as her husband was wrapped tightly in a hug from Mel.

"Holy... shit," said Sam. Six inch stilettos with platforms, black and red, black thigh high stockings with lace tops. Sam's skirt left an inch of her pale thighs exposed between it and the tops of her stockings but with Mel, there was so much of her fit thighs covered only by her garter straps that the black skirt deserved that name only because Sam couldn't think of what else to call it, it was hardly more than a wide belt. Her bustier was red with black panels and covered even less than Sam's did, the bulk of Mel's round breasts exposed. The black wings and a yard long red devil's tail that swung from the waistband of her skirt completed the outfit.

No, it didn't. She stepped away from Roger and Sam saw her already black eyes surrounded by black and crimson shadow that caught the porch light as if they were bottomless wells. Sam saw the pointy tops of dark red horns sticking out of her mass of piled black hair. Her lips were the same reddish black color as her eye shadow. Even her closely-trimmed fingernails were painted in glossy black that reflected light.

"Roger!! You've lost weight!" She said firmly as she stepped back, her hands on his shoulders, his mouth hung open as he stared, "And you must be Jeanie!" Mel released Roger and stepped to her.

"Look at you," Mel said as she looked at the protruding stomach, "congratulations."

She hugged the woman, who hugged back after two heartbeats of resistance. Then Mel stepped back as all three onlookers stared open-mouthed at her.

"I'm Mel," she said, looked at Jeanie, "I'm Chris's succubus. Your husband has helped us soooo much!"

"Ah," said Jeanie, her eyes worked their way down the demon's body, "YOU'RE Mel."

Sam saw the glance at Roger that meant this revelation was going to be discussed later.

"C'mon," Mel said as she pulled what Sam thought was a rolled up leash from a hook on her waist, "let's go find my prey."

"I just have no idea," they heard Chris say to the tall, broad barbarian warrior standing next to him, a broadsword in a scabbard on his back, "how you got someone to bring you two pony kegs of beer all the way from San Francisco."

The barbarian poured himself a dark beer from one of the miniature kegs that they'd surrounded in ice in plastic storage tubs, both hooked to a CO2 canister thanks to Bobby's contact. He'd stayed back east until just before classes began and returned over thirty pounds lighter.

"Bit foamy, but mostly settled," he said, "you just need to have real friends."

He sipped at the beer, nodded his head, handed it toward Chris, who took a sip then handed it back.

"Ah, nice, but I've still gotta drive and get the pizza. Plenty of time to drink after that."

Sam saw Chris had skintight leather jeans, a sleeveless skin tight leather vest and something around his neck. Mel stepped ahead and put her hand on his shoulder to turn him, Sam saw his eyes widen a bit before she pushed her mouth onto his and his eyes closed. While they were kissing Mel lifted the leash and by feel clipped it onto a hook on the front of Chris's choker.

"Come here and say hi to our friends," Mel pulled him, Bobby the Barbarian had turned also. His breechcloth and open faux fur vest meant his solid definition was obvious. Sam wondered if with less weight his height had rebounded or something.

Thirty minutes later Sam had given up on the heels. Mel zoomed around the place on those insane shoes without pause, made sure everyone had drinks and snacks and whatever, tail and wings swinging.

Sam snuck downstairs and found the white slip-ons she'd kept ready to match her costume, an audible 'ah' as she pulled them on. She'd earlier resisted Mel's entreaty to avoid underwear but just before she opened the door she worked her hands under her skirt and slipped the white boyfriend cut panties down and tossed them on Teresa's bed and wondered what those mothers would think now.

She climbed the stairs and met Chris who was coming in the side door with a couple of large empty plastic bowls.

"Sam," he said, "give me a hand with some more chips?"

She nodded and turned right to follow him into the kitchen.

"Is your friend, Frank, coming?" Sam asked as they refilled the bowls, "Haven't seen him much since Shelly and Helen left."

"Working," Chris said, "he usually only works Friday and Saturday nights during school, but he said the extra tips they'll make tonight will make it worthwhile. Plus he's concentrating extra hard on his classes, says no way U of Chicago will reject him. I wonder why he's so determined..."

"I would guess," Sam's smile was almost as broad as Chris's, "it has nothing to do with a certain blonde freshman already there..."

They gathered up the filled bowls and went out the side door, the warm evening followed a cold snap that meant a total lack of insects and kept most people outside.

"Bobby," Mel said, "where is this mystery woman of yours?"

"She's coming, said she'll be here a bit late," he shrugged, a nervous twitch in his eyes, Sam had seen plenty of the guys here so far with that twitch when facing Mel. It was subtle but she'd used the same reddish-black eye shadow on her areolas and the barely-there bustier offered regular views as she moved. Added to that her lack of underwear under the barely there skirt entranced onlookers as it swung.

But in this case Sam was pretty sure Bobby barely saw Mel, despite his habit of practically drooling when she was around him. She'd never seen the big guy in this mood.

"C'mon, prey," Mel hooked Chris, "time for you to go get our pizzas!"

Sam admired Chris's body, much slimmer than Bobby's but very well-defined. The tight leather pants showed his every part in fine detail, she'd heard about their adventures on the old front porch and bedroom window, they both enjoyed Mel's showing off and it was clear Chris was happy to do his part.

"Hey, Dave," Chris said to his TA, a not too successful Ranger, "wanna give me a hand with the pizzas? We need to run to the Pie."

Sam guessed he picked Dave as he was alone and looked a bit lost, Terry had his WWI flying ace helmet, goggles and jacket on and was sitting with a WWI-themed Pam on his lap, Sam didn't know WWI battlefield nurses showed that much cleavage. Both had beers and were talking to her friend Cheryl who was dressed as a tiger, her black face the only skin exposed by her tight and furry orange and black striped full body costume. A knot of folks around the Wizard and his Elven Queen and some soccer teammates in another group rounded out the attendees.

"Sure, Chris," he drained the last of his beer and stood. Sam decided to follow them out as Mel led Chris and Dave followed, soft nods showed he and Sam agreed that was the best angle. Sam noticed the attractive boy and girl pair dressed as matching pirates followed but they ducked through the side door and into the house. She'd find them later and get to know them, she'd heard the boy was a biology undergrad, the costume made it hard to be sure but she had the idea she'd seen him around.

At the corner of the house she saw Ben and another soccer player and their girlfriends, then a couple more people behind them on the walk. Chris and Mel greeted them quickly, Sam smiled silently at the tight expressions the girlfriends tried to hide on seeing Mel, but Chris sent them to the back saying if they wanted hot pizza he needed to get going.

"What the hell...," Chris said most of the way down the driveway, he looked toward the road where a low, throaty throb approached from the right, headlights indicated a car on the way, "that's a muscle V8, big ass carb... Fucking hell... They don't make anything like that anymore..."

Sam, Mel and Dave looked quizzically at him as he spoke in tongues but he stared at the road as an old but beautifully painted and maintained maroon red Mustang drove slowly past, obviously the source of the sound. The driver was obscured but slowed as if locking in the house, then pulled off to apparently find a parking spot.

"1971 Boss 351 'Stang... holy hell," said Chris, "I'm going to kill whoever's driving that car and take it. I like my old car but that's almost the best Ford ever built."

They heard the sound cut off a couple of houses away, then a car door close.

"I don't know ANYONE with a Boss 351," Chris said, "oh, holy, holy, fucking holy hell."

Three sets of eyes stared anew at him, worried expressions at his sudden and obvious insanity.

"It's Bobby's girlfrie...," he started, then stopped.

Sam's mouth dropped open as a tall, six foot at least, woman stepped around the bushes and stopped at the base of the driveway, four sets of eyes stared at her.

"That costume, it's perfect. It's the best I've ever seen," said Mel, the first one to recover.

Sam wasn't sure if it was the one piece costume or the pale, incredibly pale, skin, so much on display. Over the calf boots, then the blue with white stars bottom section cut so high her nice but not overly wide hips were bared, a gold faux-whalebone bustier and a red breastplate that perfectly highlighted her very large bust with a bit more coverage than Sam's, her tiara perfectly placed in her dark brown hair. The woman's face was rounder and softer than her figure seemed to countenance and was quite attractive if not quite beautiful.

'She's not albino,' Sam thought, she knew she was pale but compared to this woman, she was practically Cheryl.

"Thank you," the woman said, her voice added to her oddness in Sam's mind, "I'm Anna. Is this the place where I will find Bobby?"

Chris was right, thought Sam. Wow. This was Bobby's secret girlfriend.

"He's in the back," Mel pointed with the hand not holding Chris's leash, "I'm Mel and this is my prey Chris."

Chris smiled and lifted his hand, a slightly embarrassed look on his face Sam took from hoping no one would tell Anna what he wanted to do to her and not the leash.

"Yes, Bobby told me all about both of you," Anna said in that weird, inflection-less voice, "and you're Sam, the redhead."

Sam lifted her hand in greeting.

"I'm Dave," the last of the quartet said to Anna's nod and continued smile.

"Head on back," Mel said, "going to send this one off on an errand and I'll be heading back too."

"Thank you," Anna said, she strode in low heels, Mel matched her height only because of her own, exceptionally high heels. As she did Mel unhooked Chris and turned to watch Anna.

Sam turned as well but heard two quiet voices.

"You saw her eyes?"

"Green," Chris said, "So pale. Tall. Green eyes..."

"Go get the pizzas," Mel kissed him quickly, "I'll be here."

"Peter had a car like that," Dave said in his own monotone, "not that color and kinda beat up. Sounded like that too."

Sam glanced at Mel and Chris as they silently turned their eyes to Dave then back to each other. Chris put his hand to Mel's chin and pulled her for a quick but deep kiss. She couldn't read the thoughts they silently shared.

"Let's go, Dave," Sam watched Chris give a final smile as he led Dave to his car which was parked in front of the house, she turned and followed Mel who walked purposefully toward the back yard.

"I'm a tad confused," Teresa said in a soft voice as she stood next to Sam, a bit apart from most of the milling crowd. She'd replaced her pseudo-martini with a pale beer ultimately delivered from San Francisco, Sam had followed suit. Chris and Dave had returned with the pizzas and spread them out on the picnic table and the hordes had descended. A few people were still working on slices, others had just drinks, the close to thirty people spread amongst a few groups.

Sam and Teresa watched as Bobby and Anna stood next to each other, he worked the taps as she rubbed his muscular back with one hand and took samples of the beer as he handed them to her. He'd held off until Chris returned to introduce her around, they'd met in a microprocessor design course meant for senior CS undergrads and first-year grad students in related fields.

"About? Makes sense she'd be in that course if she's doing bioengineering. Pretty new subject though. She's cutting edge."

"Not that, my angel. Look at those two, I've seen Bobby leer plenty, hell, Mel handles him like a champ. But he looks... so happy."

"Didn't know he had it in him," Sam said as she took a long swig.

"And so does she. If only I had someone who looked at me like that..."

The elbow in the ribs wasn't very angelic.

"Anyway," Teresa said with a chuckle, "I get how she looks at him. But she sounds like, hell, she sounds absolutely the same no matter what. But they're clearly smitten."

"Speaking of smitten," Sam said as she drained her plastic cup of beer, "where the hell is the demon and her prey?"

"Oh..., hmm, I've never heard Mel so quiet as she was since Anna arrived, after Bobby introduced her I saw her tug Chris, they're inside somewhere."

"Weird," the redhead shook her head, "need a refill? I do."

She took the proffered cup and went to join the small scrum of others with similar ideas, Terry and Pam walked with the Barbarian and the Amazon, all had full cups, Anna towered over most except for her boyfriend who beat her in height, if only by fractions.

With wizardly aid Sam filled her two cups and his, she saw Jeanie come out of the house with a fresh lemonade, followed by Mel and Chris. Mel had Chris's Polaroid and he had his 35mm SLR with the flash attached.

"Okay everyone," Sam thought Mel's voice was off in some way, as if she was trying to sound like herself and not quite succeeding, "make yourselves decent. I'm going to take crappy pictures and Chris will take good ones. You can have the Polaroids and Chris can get you good ones once he develops them."

"We'll have an 8x10 glossy," Anna said, her arm around Bobby and his around her, Sam couldn't read Mel's face but she wondered if anyone else even noticed the demon's slight shiver.

"Cool," said Chris, over here, he stood them in a pool of light in front of the tall hedge separating their house from next door, "smile."

The shine of green from the tall, pale woman's eyes caught Sam's notice. She wondered what it would look like in the picture. Chris directed couples and a few other combinations as Mel ambushed people with the Polaroid and slowly seemed to come out of her funk.

"Roger," Chris asked his lab manager, "can you take this one? I want to get us. I know you've done some photography."

He gathered the housemates and Sam, Mel and Pam and Roger took a picture, they added Bobby and Anna and he took one more. Chris thanked him.

"Next request," Chris said, "it's just past eight. We promised the neighbors we'd keep it down so if everyone can move inside we can keep going. We'll leave the beer out here but we have three floors. Plenty of room!"

To a round of cheers and 'salut' people grabbed chairs and filed into the house.

"You okay, Mel?" Sam asked her as she threaded angel and demon arms as they trailed behind the crowd that had disappeared inside.

"Oh, Sam, yeah," she said but without her full brio, maybe she was tired thought Sam, "it's ok. Doubt anything will happen tonight."

A KPUD TV mobile news van that stopped at the edge of the driveway left Sam's 'what the fuck you talking about' stuck in her throat. A black-suited figure hopped out of the passenger side, it was a woman. Obviously a woman, as she and Mel drew near they saw she was dressed in what was apparently a skin-tight one piece costume and a mask that covered her face and head above the base of her nose and had two, peaked ears sticking up. She was medium-tall, mid five feet something, although the tall heels made that harder to gauge. Her chest wasn't quite Anna's but was still impressive in the suit. She slid open the side door of the van as a man with a three day growth of beard and a KPUD baseball cap walked around. He hefted a portable camera from just inside the open side door.