Of Love and Iron Ch. 03

Her mother appeared then at his side with a sympathetic smile of her own.

"Looks like you'll be home-hunting," she stated. "That's way too far to drive."

Rachel's smile dropped then as her mind went to work.

Her first realization was that she knew nobody anywhere near that part of Pennsylvania.

"Well, I'll be shelling out for college anyway, so paying rent shouldn't be too much of a stretch."

She spared a brief, thankful thought to any deities that listened that her job was currently online.

With the sudden stresses of coming down from the high of being accepted into her school of choice, having to hunt for another job would have made her panic.

Her father stared incredulously at his wife, seeming aghast with her easy acceptance.

"You're an easily swayed one, aren't you?"

"Who do you think helped her put the portfolio together?" she retorted with a small smirk.

Her father only groaned as they headed into the kitchen to have a long chat.

As the three hashed out all the details, though, Rachel was sure that all the apparent issues would be solved.

It only took a week of her looking at ads to be proven correct.

Just as her enthusiasm began to fall from so many dead ends, she hit a stroke of phenomenal luck.

While she wasn't against the idea of dorms, she felt that living with so many people she didn't know would probably not end well.

She'd happened upon a classifieds website in her search for off-campus housing, and one ad in particular caught her eye.

The cost was a bit more than what a two-bedroom dorm room would cost, but the listed size of the apartment and what went with it for the price was astounding.

Whoever posted the ad seemed to have standards as well, given the list of qualifications for any applicants.

She'd sent an email to the address given, and found the poster, apparently a woman named Aiko, to be very well-spoken in the phone conversation that shortly followed.

That very weekend found her meeting Ai for the first time.

It was clear that Ai was nervous from the moment she was invited inside.

From the beginning, Rachel had the impression that Ai was forced to get a housemate, rather than wanting one.

For Rachel's part, she hadn't been expecting Ai to be quite as pleasing to the eyes as she was.

She fought to keep her eyes up as she moved behind the slightly smaller Asian, but felt a blush creep onto her face when, for just a moment, she swore Ai caught her.

When they took their seats to hash details out, Rachel removed her jacket, and that was when things changed.

She'd decided to just be herself for the meeting, rather than selling a perfect housemate to Ai that would vanish as soon as the papers were signed.

As such, she'd thought nothing of wearing some of her more Goth-styled clothes.

She wondered how bad of a decision that had been when Ai's gaze locked onto her silver shirt.

A pattern of grinning skulls wrapped around the edges, changing from black and red along the shirt. They worked into a small spiral moving into the center of the shirt, where a horrific creature was illustrated tipping a red liquid from one of the skulls into its fanged maw.

Text made to look like rusted metal scrawled around the creature, spelling out the name of a gruesome horror film, which fell into obscurity decades earlier.

She realized, on thinking about it, that the shirt painted a darker picture than she would've thought.

Then Ai's gaze moved up to meet her own, and a grin split her lips.

"I didn't know anyone else even saw that movie," she mused.

That was all it took to break the ice, and the women spent much longer on conversation than either had been expecting.

By the time Rachel left, the deal was struck, happily for both sides.

She was graduated and moved into her new home scant weeks later, almost a month before her first semester of college began.

As she'd expected, she and Ai got on surprisingly well, mostly from a shared love of all things scary and bloody.

They got into a routine quickly, trading off chores weekly.

It was the second month into her college life that things, once again, changed.

It had been Rachel's turn to clean the apartment, and Ai had made the mistake of leaving the hallway closet she used open.

When Rachel was maneuvering the vacuum around the ajar closet door, she spotted a large, open box on the floor.

Her cleaning paused as she stared in utter incomprehension at the various items she saw in the box.

Some things were blatantly obvious as to what their uses were, causing the blonde's face to take on a tomato's coloring.

The others were more mysterious, until she connected them with the ones she could identify.

The vacuum continued screeching into the air as her mind wandered.

Thanks at least in part to being a frequenter of the club back home, it wasn't overly shocking to see BDSM paraphernalia.

She'd seen more than a few people fully dressed in fetish gear at the Djed, and after the first few times, the shock value had worn off for her.

A keen interest had taken its place instead, only growing with the more time she'd spent at the club over the year.

She'd never found any women to try any of the interesting ideas rolling around in her mind out with, but she had learned a lot from those few she conversed with.

While the items themselves weren't anything overly impressive for her, it was surprising that Aiko had them, since she seemed relatively straight-arrow, despite who her brother Alex had told her their father was.

A crystal-clear image of herself kneeling down to Ai suddenly appeared in her mind, and the blonde felt heat pool between her thighs.

Shaking her head, she pushed herself into returning to her cleaning.

Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, the same moment that Ai noticed her staring at her gear.

Flushing bright red, a pulse of anger worked its way through the Asian as she moved to the oblivious woman.

When Rachel turned the vacuum around, she jumped at how close the very irate Ai was to her.

Feeling the heat still pulsing through her, she switched it off so the apartment was suddenly flooded with an oppressive silence.

Thinking she was on the way to her room, Rachel pressed against the wall to allow her passage.

Aiko's lack of movement furthered her confusion, as did the angry glare focused on her.

"Uh, Ai-?"

"What're you snooping in my stuff for?" she demanded.

Rachel stared in confusion at her while her mind worked out that she'd been caught staring at her housemate's sex toys.

Turning an even brighter red, she opened her mouth to respond-

A knocking sound broke Rachel from her revelry, and she violently shook her head to clear the memory and blush both away.

She turned to find Ai leaning against her doorframe, smirking at her.

"You must've been enjoying wherever your brain detoured to," she laughed.

Shrugging, Rachel switched the monitor off and made her way over to Ai, throwing in an exaggerated sway to her steps.

When she came to a stop in front of her, her eyes were glazed over and her lips were in a seductive smile.

"Very much so. Curious?" she whispered.

Ai shivered at the feel of breath on her ear, making her own face redden.

At some point during her reminiscing, Rachel had unconsciously slipped her collar back on.

She hadn't noticed the weight before then.

When Ai wrapped her index finger into the D-ring and pulled her head down into a hot kiss, though, she was glad she had...