The Divine Gambit Ch. 13

13. Dance Card Waiting List

I had thought we were only heading to the apartment to drop off our things and turn around. I was sorely mistaken. It turned out that Sam and Beth had makeup and hair to do up. I just accepted it when Sam informed me, although I didn't really understand -- Why bother putting a lot of time and effort into it when we were going to a place that used its lack of lighting as a draw? Who would even see their endeavors? I didn't ask them to explain or challenge them on it. It was what they wanted to do and I wanted them to feel comfortable with whatever was going to happen tonight.

So, I was left with some time alone. I didn't really have anything I needed to do. In lieu of anything necessary or otherwise productive, I took a shower and fussed with the clothes still in my closet. There were lots of the original outfits that would no longer fit me. I only now realized that required someone from Aisling's office to have gotten my sizes. Thinking about how they had acquired them was slightly concerning, but ultimately, it was for my benefit. I let those concerns fade away to allow the worries about meeting Zoey to take over.

After cleaning my room of the clothes I had never worn that nonetheless wouldn't fit me anymore, I crashed onto the couch in the living room. I was out of obvious mindless tasks to occupy myself with. Delving into my concerns about how to develop my newfound existence into something sustainable wasn't particularly enjoyable, but it was something I needed to do.

I absolutely needed to pump the breaks on becoming intimately involved with multiple partners. Antonin could espouse his knowledge of the past and all the other magically inclined individuals could confirm it, but I wasn't comfortable with the process, historical precedent be damned. At the very least, I wouldn't survive starting all of these relationships simultaneously. Some part of me was permanently binding the girls I was with to me. I had to be more selective, or at least more cautious, moving forward, just to stay sane.

Several parts of me were actually happy Zoey was overly skeptical of what I told her. My dragon assured me that her strength of character -- her ability to look exactly what she desperately wanted in the face and say, "I think this might be misleading me; Let me examine it closely before proceeding" -- would be incredibly useful as a member of our household. I was more content that her indecision and caution gave me some breathing room. It allowed me time to get to know her as a person instead of just my friend's academically challenged younger sister. It also provided an opportunity to get used to the idea of having two girlfriends and to come to terms with the insanity that having two parallel relationships would be, before adding a third into the mix.

Speaking of two girlfriends, my two lovelies joined me in the living room, having completed their makeup and hair. They looked absolutely stunning, decked out in their complimentary red and black outfits. While lost in my own thoughts on the couch, I had gotten the impression that most of the time they had spent was actually invested in their relationship, which was a very reassuring development. Sam had spent the last hour going through what she understood of the basics of makeup, which all went over my head, but was incredibly well received by Beth. Lacking a parental figure to instruct her or resources to experiment herself, Beth had avoided most makeup by necessity. Now, after working with Sam and the insane development from the magic, she looked like a different person. Still young and spunky, energetic and vivacious, but no longer carrying the wear of life if you looked for it. Just walking to me across the room, she looked like an actress at a gala, strutting confidently towards her target.

"Zoey just texted me. Said we should meet them in half an hour or so outside one of the girls' apartments and that we'd walk into the club together. One of them knows the doorman, I guess, so we should get in easily."

I scoffed, "I dare say any group that has a single guy accompanying Sam, you, and Zoey wouldn't ever have trouble getting into a bar, no matter how exclusive. Did you get an address?"

Beth nodded, "Yup, and we should get going. It is Friday night and it's not like we really know the traffic here."

A cursory glance at the address and a navigation app highlighted a subway exit one block from where we were told to meet Zoey and her friends. I was prepared for the transit interchanges to be full of both tired workers heading home to decompress after their week of work and overly enthusiastic night owls just waking up to take over the town for the weekend. What I wasn't prepared for were the blatant looks of jealousy and envy every other male gave me, and the confused evaluation every woman put me through. Beth and Sam were starting the night off with their guards up, as far as I could tell through our connections, and spent the time on the subway being incredibly tactile with me. I don't think there was a single moment when I wasn't in contact with one of them. Having two stunning women practically draping themselves all over you, their eyes never wandering and their attentiveness ensuring yours never left them, garnered a reasonable amount of attention from our fellow passengers.

Carefully, we managed to cross the town and return to the streets without incident, and Sam guided us with her phone to an unremarkable apartment block. I was still uncomfortable walking down the sidewalks with a woman on each arm, but that was how they decided we would be doing things. With only a couple double takes later, we found ourselves on the fifth floor, Sam knocking firmly on an unadorned metal door while bass-thumping music reverberated on the other side. After a second, more earnest attempt to get the inhabitant's attention, the door opened.

In addition to the cacophony of a half-dozen people haphazardly competing for airspace on top of obnoxiously loud music for an apartment environment, we were greeted by Mallory and another girl, both wearing relatively casual jeans and t-shirts. Surprisingly, despite the outfit, Mallory didn't seem quite as plain as she had before. I wondered if that was some enchantment or magical concealment she had used to force herself to fade into the background and out of my perceptions or if some aspect of her inner bat was being emphasized or suppressed.

"Hi, James! And you must be Beth and Sam! It's nice to meet you. Come in, come in."

Mallory ushered us inside and closed the door behind us while the other woman introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm Sophie -- Mallory's girlfriend. Welcome to my apartment. It's, uh, kind of a warzone while everyone gets ready. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime?"

Mallory gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and an apologetic smile before darting off to one of the back rooms. Sophie awkwardly led us into her kitchen and out of the category five storm of pregaming that was happening in the living room while the three of us declined the socially obligatory offering of something to drink.

Given that this was the first time we had ever met her, and the usual icebreakers hadn't been very effective on our end, I was concerned about what a mess of a first impression we were making. I couldn't exactly answer, 'What do you do for a living?' or 'So, what class of magic being are you?' or 'Why did Beth trip my MagiSense home defense silent alarm?' I was already flummoxed about meeting Mallory's girlfriend so abruptly. Mallory's blatant anticipation of more happy accidents alongside my shapeshifting training had not prepared me for being introduced to her girlfriend, and definitely not prepared for being introduced and then left alone with.

I was relieved when it turned out, in a case of small world syndrome, that Sophie had the same position as Sam did, working as a junior acclimatization case worker. She had actually spent an afternoon this week helping Cynthia with some of her paperwork, converting forms from the previous district for use in Philly. The two women fell into a rhythm of talking about their jobs and how it was to work with Sam's mother, occasionally introducing us to someone who passed through the kitchen.

The first woman who came to check on Sophie and us genuinely scared me. Her beautiful features and youthful appearance obscured the intensity with which she carried herself. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, allowing her severe gaze to carefully measure all three of us in the kitchen. She was introduced as Chelsea, and I found myself feeling as though she was tossing over whether she wanted to fuck me or have a magical duel, or perhaps, the latter and then the former only if I measured up. I was sure she would kick my ass. Either way, I was evaluated like I was a challenge on a checklist -- something for her to size up, complete, cross off and move on from. Chelsea carried herself with a level of presence that suggested she had been someone before, not precisely rubbing my nose in the fact but also not trying to hide it. A leader by necessity, not by choice, content now to live quietly and out of the spotlight until the next apocalypse came calling. She made no attempts to hide that she was determining whether or not I was that apocalypse.

The completely opposite second woman who came to talk with Sophie was some kind of elf. I wasn't sure if it was polite to ask, so I erred on the side of caution and didn't. She had deep azure skin and a full head of wavy, stark white hair. Her voice was like liquid honey, and she moved with a level of grace I bet many professional dancers would've envied. She cordially introduced herself as Isabella and cheerfully discussed assisting Zoey and Mallory with information security and technological integration. I was astonished when I noticed that, under her casual clothes and not particularly well hidden, she was wearing a thin collar choker. It was the complete antithesis of how she presented herself otherwise, but I didn't feel comfortable asking any questions, holding my tongue as she glode back to the common room.

Two other girls came in as Isabella departed, introducing themselves as Eva and Becca. Becca presented like a hard-nosed, no-nonsense professional military background type, although I wasn't entirely sure about what she said through her Scottish brogue. It was confusing to me why she was consorting with the skittish, sheepishly affectionate, hanging on her every word Eva until it was revealed that they were both werefelines. Becca shared that she was a wereleopardus and that, despite the false cognate nature of the name, she was related to ocelots, not leopards. Leopards were actually of the panthera family, while the colloquially used word panther referred to either leopards or jaguars with specific recessive genes that made their skin and fur black.

When Becca concluded her well-rehearsed verbal explanation of what she was, Eva happily shifted partially instead, releasing her soft, wiggling brown domesticated cat ears and fluffy tail, encouraging all three of us to give her scratches and pets. It was just surreal enough that I didn't think about how weird it was to be petting a person I had just met until after I had done it for a few minutes, the woman happily purring away in blissful delirium from our attention.

Becca eventually pried Eva away from us to finish getting ready and a completely different pair came into the room. These two were even more obviously not run-of-the-mill humans than Isabella had been. The first was a deep-slate gray woman, only an inch or so taller than Beth. Her figure was nothing like Beth's however, as she was stocky and broad rather than Beth's bordering on malnourished petite. Her loosely hanging dress seemed to blend into her skin, and after staring for several moments, I realized they were the same material. Her picturesque face and perfectly smooth skin captivated me so much that I didn't immediately understand what she was. When she very carefully stepped past me to get something from the fridge, she smiled and whispered "You don't need to hide your gazes from me, sweetie. I'm a nymph, after all."

That's when it clicked. She was an oread, an animated granite statue in the form of a woman, an earthen elemental maiden -- a nymph of the mountains, much as a dryad would be of the trees or a naiad of water. She introduced herself as Liane in a teasing, sensually light-hearted French-touched lilt, but with such hunger and curiosity in her voice that Sam clearly felt threatened. My gorgeous redhead came and wrapped her arm around me as we chatted with the newcomers. This did little to buffer Liane's interest -- if anything, the nymph didn't even notice that I had come here with two companions and that one was clinging to me, as her eyes simply failed to perceive anything that wasn't me.

The final woman I was introduced to inside Sophie's apartment made me question parts of myself I wasn't aware would be challenged tonight. Helen cooly introduced herself, shaking my hand as impersonally as she could without being offensive. She was obviously an orc, and it seemed that mundane human fantasy had gotten them exactly right because she would fit perfectly in a Warcraft cosplay convention.

I wasn't prepared for just how imposing she was physically. Nearly matching my new height, her skimpy attire showcased her entire physique. That absolutely felt like the correct word to use in this instance because Helen looked like a Mister Olympia competitor standing backstage, waiting for her name to be called. She resembled the contestants from the 60s and 70s, where the participants still resembled highly muscular but athletic humans, in contrast to the exaggerated dysmorphic displays of recent times. Honestly, the fact that she had green skin and visible protruding tusks was less distracting than the masterpiece that was her body.

When she turned her head to answer one of Liane's questions, her abs rippled, visible to everyone who dared look as the daring cut-out sides of her dress prominently displayed her impressive body. Helen might not be the alpha of this group, but she contrasted Chelsea's overpowering intensity with calm, dispassionate rationality. Her sparse comments indicated an incredibly pragmatic disposition and made it easier to accept that her less-than-receptive introduction was just her standard behavior, not any indication of displeasure. When Liane and Helen departed, I found myself having enjoyed our interaction and how Liane used her optimistic charms to play off Helen's dry wit.

Zoey was conspicuously absent throughout my jarring introductions to her friends. I caught glimpses of her moving through the entranceway living room several times, but she intentionally avoided coming over to interact with us. I was hoping we would get a chance to talk, just the two of us, or perhaps with Beth, Sam, and maybe Mallory. It didn't seem like she was interested in that. Not now, at least.

The other oddity that I noticed was that Zoey was holding a solo cup most of the time. She had said that she didn't do much actual drinking when they went out, and none of the other women here were pregaming with her, so it stood out as an oddity. I was ready to dismiss it when Mallory came back to us. The brunette approached us, wrapped her arms around Sophie's waist, and then quietly began talking to our isolated group.

"You guys just about ready to go now? Sorry to just dump you like that, James, but Zoey needed help with her outfit. I keep telling her that she looks stunning just the way she is. Sam seems to have the right idea -- when you look like that, less can be more."

Still glued to my hip, Sam blushed immensely while Beth nodded in agreement. Mallory continued, "I think she's pretty nervous about how tonight will go, though. She's been drinking, here, which is very unlike her. Just, don't hurt her, alright?"

"Not like we've been given any opportunities to, given the crash course assessment everyone else here ran while she avoided us," Beth responded.

Mallory shrugged, "Just, when she comes around, please be gentle with her. This isn't exactly easy for her."

Apparently still feeling defensive even after the compliment, Sam spoke out, "J awakened a week ago, was thrown into our world without anyone to guide him, and relocated cities after my mother threatened him if he didn't. He dropped his old life completely because he had to. On the first night, he met with Queen Aisling without any explanation of what was going on. He moved into a new apartment after signing his name to papers he couldn't have understood with the agreement that he would meet with lawyers and an academic the next day. He's been learning our history, magical theory, his own new body and its limits, how to deal with being a dragon, a girl he accidentally enchanted, a girl who spent her entire childhood lying to him, life in a new city, life in a new economic bracket, and how to interact with multiple people vying for his attention as a power player in a world he was unaware of.

"No one here is going to hurt Zoey. If that was the goal, J could've just walked out and requested a different set of trainers, never seeing her again and leaving her mateless. If that was the goal, J could be asking what she's willing to do to earn her place with him, extorting her for whatever value she had if she ever wanted to feel whole. That's not who he is. So fuck right off with 'isn't exactly easy.' It actually is really fucking easy. She doesn't have to decide to give up her life, or all of her friends, or her family, or her house, or the degree she's spent three years working towards. All Zoey has to do is decide if she wants to accept J for what he says he is and get out of her own way, so she can have her cake and eat it, too. We're here tonight to show you who we are and that J is exactly what he says he is, but I'm not going to just sit here and listen to you suggest that he is anything other than the most caring, genuine person in this room. He's here to open his life to her if that's what she wants or to move along if she doesn't."

I squeezed my hand where Sam held it, hoping she would get the message that she had gone far enough. A verbal altercation with one of Zoey's friends in their home was not any way to endear ourselves to them. Beth licked her lips and played with the pocket of her dress while Sam responded, avoiding any potential inclusion.

Surprisingly, instead of appearing angry at being called out, or embarrassed and chastised as Sophie did, Mallory appeared pleased. She seemed to accept what Sam had said in my defense, almost appreciating that one of the girls had come to set the record straight without my prompting.

"I appreciate that your introduction has been even more tumultuous than most, and that this situation is a part of it, and I didn't mean to diminish your struggles. I just meant to ask for consideration for my friend. You don't know everything, and neither do we."

Sam answered frostily, "Fine. We would have anyway."

Sophie interjected, attempting to bring the atmosphere back to politely distant from the icy extreme it had fallen to, "So, honey, you said the gals were ready to go?"

Mallory nodded, "Yeah. Liane just got her final polishing coat done, so we're all ready."

With that, we departed Sophie's apartment for the club we were going to, only a few blocks away. It was slightly uncomfortable for me because the two groups were clearly still somewhat segregated. Zoey was avoiding me and Mallory was guarded in support of her, so the people I was familiar with weren't exactly opening up to include us.

Luckily, Liane went out of her way to interact with me, and by extension, Sam and Beth. I discovered that the 'polishing coat' Mallory had mentioned was a fairly important task for her if she went out. She explained that, as an oread, she was more than just a woman who happened to have a deep connection to stone. She wasn't just connected to a mountain off in the Appalachians a few hours away -- there was a specific peak that was her. She was the mountain.