Just Another Lost Angel

Maz's voice was a horse rasp. "Fuck yeah, I can feel it alright." She gazed up at Tonia. "Fuck, Ton - this kid is fucking incredible!"

By now, Brooke's vibe and the little show in front of her had her nicely worked up and she was ready for some action herself. It had been quite a party and it was time to bring it all home. She pointed at Tonia, standing in shock in a little silver dress, strategically cut to show her tattoos and navel piercing. Her long blonde hair was down for once and she looked like sex on legs. For the first time since she had sat in Maz's makeup chair, Brooke spoke. "Maz has apologised to Kyle for all the shit you've thrown at him. It's your turn now, Tonia."

She turned to Maz as Kyle looked on impassively as though he had not even registered her presence. "You - little Miss Cum-Dump. You're with the old American tart now!" She crooked a finger at her, beckoning her towards her.

It just kept on getting better for Brooke as she saw hesitation on the girl's face as clearly as she could see the cum stains. She knew what was coming an instant before the words were out. "I don't fuck women."

Her heart singing, Brooke gave her a smile that had turned Royalty and hardened warriors to jelly over the years. "You do now -- time to suck some nasty old American cunt!"

She timed her climax to coincide with Kyle's second coming and flooded over Maz's face as she ground the girl's mouth against herself, coming hard and relishing the revulsion that was emanating from her in waves. This time Kyle came in Tonia's mouth and both Brooke and he were in seventh heaven as the cum oozed from her lips.

She gave them all a moment then sent a thought out to Kyle to get dressed and wait for her outside in the street. He did as he was bid and she joined him two minutes later.

"Happy birthday, Kyle. Hope you enjoyed your little gift. The three of you will remember it in different ways, but you'll never be able to tell anyone." She kissed him on his flushed cheek. "But you'll know your first time was spectacular and they won't give you any shit in future."

He stared back, unable to take in what had just happened. He thought he recognised the woman from somewhere, but her couldn't think where. His mind was in a whirl. "Thank you, but... how?"

Brooke touched his face. "You don't need to worry about that. Just make sure the next time is with someone you care for. And be gentle, yeah?" She paused and laughed. "At least until she tells you otherwise."

As Kyle nodded, Brooke reached up and pulled him down for a long, passionate kiss. "Thank you for a lovely evening, Kyle. Now go and enjoy the rest of your life. I think it's going to be a good one."

She watched as he walked away, never looking back. She was in Seventh Heaven and she was certain he was too. Which was something that couldn't be said for Maz and Tonia. She had left them, entwined on the bed, fingering each other whilst licking Kyle's cum and Brooke's juices from their faces. Again, she was delighted to feel the waves of revulsion and loathing pouring from them like water over Niagara Falls.

She took one last glance at the dim light coming from an upstairs window. "Goodnight girls and thanks for the show!" She sent out one last thought and could still hear the muffled screaming and shouting as she closed her car door. It had been a very satisfactory night indeed.

The following lunchtime, Brooke was sitting in the supermarket coffee shop. It was hardly her venue of choice, but as with the cigarette that had started it all, it was a means to an end. It gave her a perfect view of the checkouts and it was coming up to hand-over time. She watched in amusement as Maz and Tonia approached their tills, sashaying like catwalk models and studiously ignoring one another. Tonia had a lump on her left cheekbone that no amount of slap could cover up and Maz was wearing a high neck to cover the livid purple love bites her once-best friend had given her. Fate had conspired that they were on adjacent tills and they stared daggers at each other as they set up and logged in. Brooke repressed a laugh as she saw Maz shift uncomfortably on her stool, wincing in discomfort. Kyle had done a good job on her and she had certainly felt him, the little bitch.

She smiled as she finished her wishy-washy excuse for coffee. One last job to do before a proper Barista version back in town.

She saw the girl she wanted to speak to heading for the main entrance after her shift. She was pretty, with a golden halo of naturally curly hair, pale blue eyes and a cute little rosebud mouth. Brooke hurried after her, catching up as the girl headed across the carpark towards the main road.

As she approached, she sent out calming thoughts. "Excuse me but you're Alice, am I right?"

If the girl was taken aback, she did not show it. Brooke could do this in her sleep after all. She nodded. "Erm, yeah. Why?"

"Oh, just wanted to check on something. Have you got a boyfriend, Alice?

The girl looked a bit nonplussed at such a direct question from a stranger but looked Brooke in the eye. "Not at the moment, no."

"Shame, pretty girl like you."

Alice shrugged. "I'm not eighteen yet. Plenty of time."

Brooke probed her. "Three weeks to go, huh? Got a big day planned?

"Meal with a few friends and family. Just nice and quiet. I don't like a big fuss." She narrowed her eyes. "Look what's this about?"

Brooke turned on her winningest smile. "Oh, just want to see two nice people happy. So is Kyle not your type then? I hear you knocked him back a couple of times. He's a bit torn up -- I think he's carrying a torch for you, Alice."

She looked pensive. "He seems nice, but I dunno, he just seems... nervous. Shy. Maybe a bit nerdy." She thought for a moment and stared off into space. "He is quite cute though..."

Brooke nodded. "So?"

She pulled a face. "So... I doubt he'll ask me again. I was quite firm."

"I'll ask again. So?"

"So... that's it I suppose. Silly, eh?"

"If you don't mind my language young lady, it's not silly -- it's downright fucking stupid." Brooke held a finger up to Alice's cute little nose. "Don't cut that off to spite your pretty little face, Alice. You may not yet be eighteen but time moves faster than you will ever know, young lady. So get your sweet little ass into gear and ask him yourself. Take it from a silly old woman who's lived a little, yeah?"

And with that she was gone.

Alice Vickers was a sweet, well brought up young girl and was very rarely heard to say a bad word, despite her friends habitually swearing like troopers. She stood on the edge of the carpark in the supermarket she worked at part-time with her hands on her hips and an incredulous expression on her face. She puffed out her cheeks and shook her head in wonder.

Heads turned as young girl shouted at the top of her voice. "What the fuck just happened there?"

Ten

Becky lay in Brooke's arms unaware of the tears in the woman's eyes. Brooke knew this was their last morning together and it was tearing at her like nothing had ever done before. She had slept with princes, princesses, emperors, gangsters, porn stars, rock stars. The list was almost endless and she had bedded names from history that everyone still spoke of. Some of the names were legends; many rightly so but some were utterly misconstrued and a few were almost comically remembered for things they had never done. If only she could write a reliable history, but no-one would ever believe it.

And now, here she was at the end of her time as Brooke Landry; ending way too soon, as had the Swinging Sixties era. She had known Rebecca Taylor all too briefly, but at least she had known her. She had affected her way beyond her comprehension -- this girl barely out of her teens should have by rights merely been a pleasant dalliance when put up against some of the great men and women she had known.

But as they lay there for the last time, Brooke Landry realised that she loved Becky Taylor more than all of them put together and it was ripping her apart.

It took all her willpower and millennia of experience to keep it from the girl as they showered and had coffee. Becky was her usual bubbly self and Brooke tried to reciprocate as best she could.

At last, she stretched up to kiss Becky goodbye. She wanted to scream and tell her she was sorry, but there was nothing she could do. Tomorrow, she would be someone else, somewhere else and there was nothing she could do about it. It was immutable. There could be no continuation -- God knows, she had tried in the past.

She gazed into Becky's ice-blue eyes and told her she'd see her on Wednesday. The lie was more painful to her than when she had been stoned to death as an adulterer or burned as witch. As Becky left, Brooke sent out a series of thoughts that she almost had to dredge from her innermost mind. She didn't want the girl remembering her, otherwise she'd come back on Wednesday to an empty house, not knowing where Brooke had gone. There was no way she could allow that to happen.

She watched the girl disappear up the street and in a numb daze, closed the door. She whispered a farewell in a language she had not used in a thousand years and felt utterly wretched.

She went back upstairs and lay on the unmade bed. Her crystal was almost dark now. She had made her plans for the next life -- she was going to wake up in Nashville and become a famous Country and Western star. McKenzie Corrigan was going to take the world by storm with her heart-wrenching, tragic back-story -- orphaned at fourteen and making her way in the bars and dives of Nashville and Memphis. They'd lap her up and she be at the Grand Ole Opry within months and winning CMA awards by the armload.

But the thought gave her no joy. All she could see was a tall, slim girl walking away from her, the sun shining off her golden ponytail, her cheery wave goodbye and that life-enhancing smile. She sobbed as the room began to spin and she felt the first familiar prickles as her molecules began to rearrange themselves into her new persona. Thoughts of Rebecca Taylor began to drift from her mind and she desperately tried to hold on to the last tendrils as the familiar swimming sensation of transition began in earnest.

Then it all stopped. There was complete silence and blackness and she was gripped with total paralysis. It took a few seconds before she realised. There was going to be no transition this time. She was not going to wake up as a nineteen-year-old wannabe Country star. This was it. The end.

It was her one-hundred and ninety-sixth life and it was going to be her last.

As she felt herself shutting down, she sighed and gave in to the inevitable. It had been a long, incredible story and all stories have an ending. If this was hers, so be it. She had shone like a million stars, seen history in the making and occasionally influenced the timeline herself. She had loved a beautiful girl at the end and would remember her with her last breath -- it was a good way to go out.

It was dark and cold for a very long time and she began to wonder if this was to be her new existence - just floating in a cold, black void. Then a pinprick appeared in the void and slowly it expanded, a sliver of light returning and widening until she was aware of a tall figure standing above her, long golden hair flowing about her like silk. A hand reached out and took hold one of her own, though she could not feel it. She saw her left arm stretched out in front of her. The crystal on the bracelet that encircled her wrist - the one that had shone so brightly for so long - now seemed to suck in light from around it and devour it like a black hole.

At first, she was confused, then her heart missed a beat as the figure spoke. It sounded like someone she should know. The voice seemed to be coming from a long way off -- echoing and reverberating as if it emanated from the end of a very long tunnel. It sounded nervous, almost desperate.

"Ok, you've one chance at this Becky. No pressure then. Fucking hell, stop shaking, you stupid girl. Just need to... oh fuck, three seconds... two... one..."

As the voice counted down, another hand came into Brooke's view. A copper-coloured ring on one of the fingers shone brightly -- a vivid green light, like her crystal used to give off. As the countdown reached one, the figure held the ring against Brooke's bracelet. She blinked as a laser-like light erupted from the union of the two copper objects. There was a sound like a hurricane blowing through her head and everything went black once more.

She was aware of the voice again and this time it sounded closer and tinged with relief. "Way to go, Becky." She felt a brief kiss on her forehead. "Take all the time you need -- I'll be downstairs when you're ready."

Brooke heard footsteps retreating and was sure she heard a little sob as a door closed somewhere in the darkness.

Becky walked unsteadily back down the winding stairs of Brooke's cottage. Shaking uncontrollably, she collapsed into an armchair and sobbed her heart out for what seemed like hours. Since the dream two nights ago, she'd had to use every last vestige of her fledgling gift not to give the game away to Brooke. The dream had been so vivid -- every bit as real as the dreams she'd had when this had all begun a year ago. That strange time when everything she thought she knew was challenged as her third life had begun. She still couldn't remember anything of her first two lives but had woken into her this one with such a vivid recollection of her past that she had no inkling it was all an illusion.

She was a lonely girl from London who'd had a troubled childhood. Her mother had given birth to her way too young and had descended into a downward spiral of drug and alcohol addiction. The company she kept in her formative years led her to believe that she would soon be going in the same direction, so in order to make a complete break, she had come to a small town in the south-east of England to attend Veterinary College. She had been there a week when the dreams started. For five nights in succession, she watched what she could only think of as a potted biography of a different person as they progressed from life to life. It was all so real, she felt she could reach out and touch them. She felt as though she had lived those lives herself. Finally, when she awoke on the last morning, realisation dawned.

The relief that her sad life until now was a work of fiction was palpable, but that relief was tinged with fear as realised she was meant to select one of the people she had witnessed. She didn't know why, but it was imperative that she chose one of them. Somehow, despite the magnitude of the revelations, she took it all in her stride.

She didn't have to think twice. The woman who was known as Brooke Landry in her current life was quite simply, the most stunning woman she had ever laid eyes on. It was love at first sight and she was no less striking in her earlier lives. As Becky slept on the sixth night, five images hovered in front of her -- the faces of the men and women she had dreamed of previously. She was aware of her arm rising up and her middle finger, the one with the copper coloured, crystal-studded ring on it, pointed to Brooke.

Thereafter, it felt like she was living all of Brooke's previous lives in fast forward. She marvelled at the famous people she had slept with, shook with every orgasm and felt the rake of bullets across her back. There was the searing fire at Nagasaki, the drownings, the burnings. One moment she was Jean-Claude making love to a Princess, the next she was a courtier at Versailles, her be-wigged head bobbing as a French nobleman took her from behind, her face buried between the legs of a middle-aged Countess. There was an orgy in Rome where she was a Senator, not caring if his partners were male or female and the reverie ended with her stoned, immaculate, as a rock legend made her moan in ecstasy.

She woke with her sheets soaked, and not only from her sweat. She was like a bitch in heat for a week and those she chose as her lovers were utterly worn out from her insatiable desires. Poor Damien had borne the brunt of her feral outburst and had barely been able to keep pace with her as she urged him on to ever greater depravities.

Then as suddenly as it had all descended upon her, every memory of those nights left her. For almost a year, she was back to being just plain old Becky. But somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, she knew that something big was going to happen soon. She felt different but couldn't quite put her finger on it.

College was going well and she loved being with the animals. She made good friends and quickly realised that she was pretty much addicted to sex. Then she had the thing with Lucia and lost her all too soon.

It was all over aged twenty -- or so she thought.

Then she had seen Brooke Landry in the supermarket and it had all changed again. The woman hit her like a whirlwind and she had never been happier. Then the dream came to her two nights ago. In it, Brooke Landry was lying on a bed in complete darkness, despite it being almost midday. Her skin was translucent and her breathing so shallow as to be barely discernible. A tall, blonde-haired figure stood over her, holding one of her cold hands. As a digital clock on the bedside clicked over to twelve noon, the figure held a ring on the middle finger of her left hand against the bracelet on the wrist of the stricken woman. There was a blinding green flash and the woman stirred.

This was followed by the same scene, but the ring touched the bracelet a second after midday and the woman remained still. The next time through, it was a second too early and she remained still once more. It repeated over and over, hammering home the point it was making -- the timing was crucial. One second early or late and it was all over.

That was the point at which everything came flooding back to her -- the series of dreams, choosing Brooke, her fictional childhood. She knew now that she was indeed different - very different. She'd had two other lives before this one, although she had no recollection of either of them.

And her feeling that something big was going to happen had certainly come true. Becky Taylor then knew she had one shot to save the life of the woman she loved, and it had scared the living daylights out of her.

She was still shaking some five hours after the event and it took all her willpower not to go back up and check on Brooke. She took some painkillers to relieve her pounding headache and poured herself a stiff gin and tonic from Brooke's drinks cabinet. She had taken two very sizable gulps from it when heard hesitant footsteps on the stairway.

Her heart thudded in her chest as the door opened and a tired, pale looking figure leaned on the doorpost, smiling gently at her. A long, elegant finger pointed to her glass. "Got one of those to spare for a very old lady?"

Becky rose without a word and made the drink. She replenished hers as Brooke crashed into a chair. She handed her the drink and Brooke drained the glass in one. "Sorry, needed that."

Becky tried to calm her raging emotions. She felt anger, relief, confusion. She didn't know how she felt, other than completely raw. She somehow managed to keep her voice neutral. "Welcome back." As she sipped her gin, she was aware of a single tear trickling down the side of her nose. "You fucking scared the living shit out of me, Landry." As Brooke had done, she gulped down her drink in one. "Another?"

Brooke nodded and her voice sounded weak. "Shit, yeah please. Dying ain't what it used to be."

Becky was busy once more for a moment and Brooke took the refreshed drink from her. "You saved my life -- my lives. I have a lot to thank you for. But... how? Why?"