Chapter 2: A Shower of Distraction
The bathroom door clicked shut, muffling the distant, frustrated murmur of Mike still negotiating with Mrs. Anderson’s retreating silhouette. Steam, thick and fragrant with Rick’s sandalwood soap, curled in the air. The bioluminescent tiles along the shower wall, usually pulsing a gentle blue, flickered erratically—a strobe of violet, then a sickly green—before settling on an unstable, flickering amber. The shower’s mist, designed to form artistically perfect spirals, instead twisted into jagged, asymmetrical shapes, like broken glass hanging in the air.
Rick stood under the torrent, head bowed, letting the hot water pound the flour dust and bakery fatigue from his shoulders. The strange light show in the tiles registered only as a minor annoyance, another bit of household magic on the fritz. He was so tired he could have slept standing up.
The shower curtain, a sturdy canvas barrier printed with tastefully abstract croissants, was yanked aside with a violent rasp of rings on rod.
Rick jerked, water sluicing into his eyes. “What the—”
Mai Harata stood there, completely naked. The erratic tile light painted her athletic body in shifting gold and shadow, highlighting the curve of her hip, the swell of her breasts, the damp, dark triangle between her legs. Her clothes were a discarded pile on the bathmat. Water vapor clung to her skin.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, her English accent cool and crisp against the humid air. “Just needed a distraction.” Her eyes, dark and unwavering, dropped from his startled face to his cock, which was soft, nestled in its thatch of brown hair under the spray.
Before he could form a coherent protest—This is my parents’ house, you’re my parents’ friend’s daughter, I just wanted to wash my hair—she was moving. She dropped to her knees on the bathmat, heedless of the water splashing her skin. Her hands, strong and sure, grabbed his hips, pulling him toward her mouth.
“Mai, for fuck’s sake, wait—”
Her mouth was on him before he finished. Her lips were warm and firm, sealing around the soft head. She didn’t wait for him to harden; she took him in, her tongue a flat, wet pressure along his underside, and began to suck with deliberate, rhythmic intensity.
A groan was torn from Rick’s throat, part frustration, part involuntary pleasure. His hands slapped against the wet tile for balance. “Stop… that’s not…”
But his body betrayed him. Under the insistent pull of her mouth, the heat and the skilled friction of her tongue, he began to swell. Blood rushed, thickening him, lengthening him against her palate. He felt himself hardening to the point of ache, his cock now a rigid weight in her mouth.
She felt it, too. A low hum of satisfaction vibrated through her lips around his shaft. She pulled back, just enough to let the swollen head pop from her lips, shiny with her saliva and pre-cum. She looked up at him, water dripping from the ends of her hair onto her chest. Her grin was feral, devoid of sweetness.
“See?” she said, her voice a husky challenge. “Needed a distraction. That fucking tree, the leaf, all that talking. Boring.” Her gaze dipped back to his cock, now fully erect and curving upward, throbbing. “This isn’t boring.”
She leaned in again, but this time she used her hand, wrapping her fingers around the base of his shaft, squeezing firmly. She took just the head back into her mouth, her tongue swirling around the sensitive corona, lapping at the slit where a bead of moisture had gathered.
Rick’s head fell back against the tile with a soft thud. His protests dissolved into a hissed, “Jesus Christ.” His hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk, pushing himself deeper into the wet heat of her mouth.
She took him, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked him deeper, her hand working in tandem with her mouth. He could feel the back of her throat, a tight, resisting ring of muscle, and then she relaxed, letting him slide even further. The sensation was overwhelming, a deep, claiming suction that pulled at his very core. Her free hand slid between his legs, cupping his balls, rolling the tender weight in her palm.
“Fuck, Mai… I’m not… you can’t just…” His words were shattered, gasped between the sounds of her sucking, the wet, filthy noises echoing off the bathroom walls. The tiles flickered violently, casting frantic shadows.
She pulled off with a final, lewd pop, her lips swollen and glistening. “Why not?” she asked, genuinely curious, even as her hand continued to stroke him, up and down, her thumb smearing pre-cum over the head. “You’re stressed. I’m bored. Your house is a magnet for weird shit. This is normal. This is human.”
She stood up in one fluid motion, pressing her bare body against his wet, soap-slicked front. Her skin was hot. She kissed him, hard, and he could taste himself on her tongue—salty, musky, intimate. His hands, seemingly of their own volition, came up to grip her waist. Her nipples, hard pebbles, scraped against his chest.
“Stop thinking,” she whispered against his mouth, her hand sliding between them to guide him. “Just feel.”
She turned them, pushing him back until his shoulders were against the cool, flickering tile. Then she lifted herself, one hand bracing on his shoulder, the other positioning the broad head of his cock at her entrance. She was already wet; he felt the slick heat of her against him. She didn’t hesitate. She sank down onto him in one slow, relentless, breathtaking motion.
“Oh, god,” Rick choked out, his fingers digging into her hips.
She was tight, impossibly so, a silken, clenching vise around his invading length. She took him all, until his pelvis met hers, his balls tight against her ass. She paused there, fully impaled, her head tilting back, a raw, gratified sound escaping her throat. The water from the shower cascaded over them both, plastering her hair to her skull and shoulders.
Then she began to move. She rose up, almost letting him slip completely out, before slamming back down, taking him deep in a hard, driving rhythm. No tenderness, no gentle exploration. This was pure, frantic connection. Each downward stroke was a claiming, her inner walls gripping and milking his shaft.
“Is this… is this what you wanted?” Rick managed to grunt, his own hips beginning to meet her thrusts, driving up into her as she came down. The slap of their wet skin filled the steamy enclosure, louder than the shower spray.
“Yes,” she hissed, her eyes burning into his. “This. Exactly this.” Her hands scrabbled against the tile for leverage, her breasts bouncing with the force of their joining. The pace intensified, becoming punishing, glorious. He could feel the coiled tension in her thighs, the fierce clutch of her cunt around him, the way her breaths came in sharp, frantic gasps that matched his own.
He was losing himself in the raw, physical truth of it. The bakery, the weird leaf, his complicated love for Stacy, the constant, low-grade chaos of his family—it all melted under the primal hammering of their bodies. He slid a hand between them, his thumb finding the hard, swollen nub of her clit. He pressed and circled, matching the rhythm of his thrusts.
Mai cried out, a sharp, bitten-off shout that was pure need. Her inner muscles clenched around him in a sudden, vicious spasm. “Right there, don’t you fucking stop, Rick, please—”
Her orgasm hit her like a seizure. Her body arched, taut as a bowstring, and she trembled violently against him, her cunt pulsing and rippling around his buried cock in wave after wave of intense contraction. The sound she made was a guttural, continuous moan that was almost a sob.
The sight, the feel, the sound of her coming undone triggered his own release. With a final, deep drive up into her quivering heat, he buried himself to the hilt and let go. His climax roared up from his balls, a white-hot torrent of release that seemed to strip him bare. He came in thick, pumping spurts inside her, his own groan a long, shuddering exhale against her wet neck. He held her there, pinned between his body and the tile, as the last pulses drained from him.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the shower and their ragged breathing. The tiles had stopped flickering, settling into a steady, dim purple glow.
Slowly, bonelessly, Mai slid down his body until her feet found the floor. She leaned her forehead against his chest, her breath hot on his skin. “Well,” she panted, a hint of her usual smugness returning. “That worked.”
Rick, still coming back to himself, just shook his head slightly. He reached behind him and turned off the shower. The sudden silence was profound. “You’re a menace.”
“You’re welcome.” She stepped back, grabbing a thick, black towel and wrapping it around herself. She tossed him another. “Feel less stressed?”
He dried his face, avoiding her eyes. “I feel… something.” He did. The weariness was still there, but it was buried under a layer of spent, buzzing energy and a deep, unsettled curiosity. He looked at her, really looked. She was calm, centered, as if she’d just had a vigorous workout. The artifact, the reason for her “distraction,” was momentarily forgotten. But not by him. “What are you going to do with that thing? The leaf.”
Mai’s expression shifted, the predatory focus returning. “Study it. Find out what it powers. My mother hunts dragons. I’ll hunt this.” She walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door open, steam billowing into the hallway.
Rick finished drying off, his mind clearer now, sharpened by the adrenaline crash. He dressed in clean clothes and headed downstairs. The living room was quiet. Mike was on the couch, scrolling his phone with a look of deep resignation. Casey was in the kitchen, unloading pizza boxes.
“Mrs. Anderson?” Rick asked.
“Threatened to mobilise the Neighborhood Watch if the ‘pulsating garden gnome’ isn’t removed,” Mike said without looking up. “I told her it was a one-time fungal event. She did not believe me.”
“Where’s the… gnome?” Rick asked.
Casey nodded towards the sealed terrarium on the dining table, now serving as an impromptu holding cell. Inside, on a bed of peat moss, sat the smoky vial. The leaf within glowed with a steady, patient light. Mandy and Felicity sat cross-legged on the floor in front of it, a spectrometer borrowed from the university and a crystalline dowsing rod from Jan’s last ‘care package’ between them.
“Energy signature is stable but non-Euclidean,” Mandy muttered, frowning at a readout on her tablet. “It’s not giving off waves. It’s giving off… angles.”
“It’s a key,” Felicity whispered, her nose almost pressed to the glass. “Look at the gold tracery. It’s not random. It’s a map. A very, very tiny map of somewhere.”
From the hallway, Mai watched them, her towel swapped for a tight tank top and shorts, her hair damp. She held her right hand slightly behind her back, fingers curled inward.
Rick noticed. “What’s with your hand?”
She glanced at him, then slowly uncurled her fingers. On her palm, etched in a faint, luminescent green, was a perfect, miniature imprint of the leaf from the vial. The gold veins shimmered under her skin. It pulsed once, in time with the artifact in the terrarium, and then faded to a faint, ghostly tattoo.
Mai met his gaze, all earlier bravado gone, replaced by a cold, genuine thrill. “It marked me,” she said quietly.
Across the street, in Mrs. Anderson’s living room, the curtain twitched again. This time, the phone was already in her hand, its screen illuminating her determined face as she dialed a number that was not the HOA.
This time, the phone was already in her hand, its screen illuminating her determined face as she dialed a number that was not the HOA. It was a number scribbled on the back of a business card she’d been given years ago by a serious man in a charcoal gray suit who’d said to call if the “atmospheric anomalies” ever became “patterned.” The line connected after one ring. “Yes,” a cool, androgynous voice answered. “Location and manifestation.”
“The Williamson-Kapowski residence,” Mrs. Anderson whispered, her eyes fixed on the living room window where the terrarium’s green glow was just visible. “The dead hawthorn opened. A contained luminescent object was removed. The glow is patterned. It pulses in a… a map-like sequence.”
“Understood. Stand by.” The line went silent for ten seconds. “A containment team is dispatched. Do not intervene.” The call died.
Mrs. Anderson allowed herself a thin, satisfied smile. Order would be restored.
Chaos, of the friendly and familiar variety, arrived at the Williamson front door twelve minutes later.
The first wave was Jan, Godfrey III tucked under her arm like a fuzzy white purse, her red braid swinging. “Show me the glowy leaf!” she announced, pushing past a weary Mike. Behind her, Yukio maneuvered her cane through the doorway, her eyes scanning the room instantly for Mai.
The second wave was Fatima, elegant and poised, followed by Hank who looked vaguely confused, and their daughters. Kim moved with a silent, watchful grace, her hand resting near the curved sword hilt at her hip. Maryam, in a backwards cap, shadowed her father, already eyeing the stack of pizza boxes on the counter.
The final arrival was Bethany Xander-MacDougal, crisp in her gray suit, followed by her son Bruce. Bruce, brawny and smiling, gave a little wave to Felicity, who blushed. Two other Wand agents hauled in a large, brushed-metal case of scanning equipment.
“Right,” Bethany said, her tone slicing through the chatter. “Where’s the specimen?”
The living room became a tense salon. The artifact sat in its terrarium on the coffee table, a silent, radiant focal point. Jan peered at the golden tattoo on Mai’s upturned palm, her playful demeanor sharpening into genuine concern. “This isn’t a stamp, kiddo. It’s a binding sigil. You’re anchored to it.”
“I figured,” Mai said, trying for nonchalance but failing to hide a tremor in her voice.
Bethany opened her case, revealing lenses and crystalline matrices. “We’ll determine the nature of the anchor. My equipment can precisely map the resonant frequencies.”
Jan snorted. “Your fancy gadgets will just piss it off. This needs a gentle touch, a bit of intuitive unraveling. Like a knot.”
“Intuition is not a methodology, Jan. It’s guesswork wrapped in chaos.” Bethany didn’t look up as she began assembling a scanner.
“It’s worked for twenty years, Lady Percival.”
“And created a dozen problems for every one it solved.”
While they argued, Hank jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. “I’m gonna commandeer some pizza. Coming, Mar?”
“Obviously.” Maryam followed.
Casey called after them, “We bought extra the second we knew you were coming! The meat lover’s is for you, Hank!”
Calista descended the stairs then, a vision in silver hair and casual loungewear that somehow looked like haute couture. She drifted to the pizza boxes, opened one, and calmly began eating slice after slice directly from the box, folding them with a practiced efficiency. Mandy watched, scowling. “It’s not fair. You eat like a lumberjack and look like an elf queen.”
“Half-elf,” Calista corrected around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. “Metabolism. It’s a curse and a blessing. Want a bite?”
“No,” Mandy grumbled, crossing her arms. “I’ll have a carrot stick and seethe.”
Yukio, having finished a visual inspection of Mai’s palm, looked up at her daughter’s face. A knowing glint entered her eyes. Mai’s cheeks were still faintly flushed, her lips slightly swollen, her energy a satisfied hum rather than its usual frantic buzz. “You’ve got that post-coital glow, kid,” Yukio said, her voice low. “Who’d you fuck?”
Mai just offered a slow, secretive smirk.
Yukio’s gaze swept the room. It landed on Rick, who was determinedly studying a crack in the ceiling plaster, his ears bright red. It moved to the large Maine Coon, Rembrandt, who was licking his butt with profound disinterest. “Hmm,” Yukio mused, loud enough for all to hear. “It was either Rick or the cat. And the cat seems unlikely.”
Felicity and Mandy dissolved into helpless, stifled giggles, staring at Rick. Mike and Casey simply shook their heads in unison, a pantomime of long-suffering parental disapproval.
Jan broke off her argument with Bethany, her green eyes sparkling. “Oh, Rick! You dog. You’re damn lucky Stacy’s my friend and gets how this works.” She winked. “Friends of Jan’s understand exclusivity is more of a… flexible guideline.”
Rick put his face in his hands. “Can we please focus on the world-ending leaf?”
Fatima and Kim were already doing so, bent over Bethany’s scanner display, talking in low, rapid Arabic and technical terms. “…the gold isn’t a conductor, it’s a containment lattice for the verdant energy within…”
“…suggesting a deliberate prison, not a battery. A stasis field of incredible complexity…”
Hank and Maryam returned, plates piled high, and stared at the scanner’s swirling holograms. “Looks like a psychedelic screensaver,” Hank said through a mouthful of crust.
“Yep,” Maryam agreed, tapping her temple. “All the words they’re saying just bounce right off.”
The front door opened again to admit Annie Sweeney and her son Franklin. Annie, the politician’s wife, looked quietly concerned. Franklin, a calm young man, nodded polite hellos, his fingers stained a permanent, inky black from his own Fair Bargain magic.
“Annie,” Casey said. “What’s the verdict? Is this one of yours?”
Annie approached the terrarium, her ghostly calico cat weaving around her ankles. She studied the leaf for a long minute, her farmer’s daughter eyes missing nothing. “It’s a masterwork,” she said finally. “But it’s not Verdant Pasture. The life inside it… it’s not a plant. It’s pretending to be one. It’s something else wearing green.”
A heavy silence fell. Bethany’s scanner began pinging faster, a rising, urgent chirp.
The front door exploded inwards.
Splintered wood and the shattered deadbolt flew across the hall. Six figures clad in matte black tactical gear stormed into the living room, their movements brutally efficient. They carried neither guns nor wands, but short, blackened metal rods that hummed with a sound that made teeth ache.
Mrs. Anderson’s call had been answered.
One grabbed for the terrarium. Ben Bryant, who had been quietly holding Mandy’s hand, moved with a jock’s reflexive speed. He tackled the man around the waist, driving him into the wall with a crash of drywall.
Another swung a rod at Mike. Bruce’s large hand shot out, his steampunk wrench intercepting the rod with a shower of orange sparks. “Think again, pal,” Bruce grunted, shoving back.
Calista didn’t draw a weapon. She simply raised a hand, and the room flooded with blinding white-gold light. Flames, beautiful and terrible, licked up her arms. “Leave,” she commanded, her voice echoing.
“Honey, the curtains!” Casey called from where she’d ducked behind an armchair. “Silk. Very flammable.”
Yukio’s mad grin split her face. She lunged, using her cane not for support but as a weapon, cracking it against a knee with a sickening crunch. The invader howled.
Kim’s curved sword was already free, its edge singing as she parried a swung rod. Maryam, beside her, whipped her Louisville Slugger from a back holster, its surface shimmering with a similar protective sheet. “Heads up, Kimmy!” she yelled, swinging for the fences.
Chaos. Beautiful, destructive chaos. A rod discharged, and a wave of force vaporized a lamp. Rembrandt and VanGogh yowled, a chorus of fury, and launched themselves from the top of the bookshelf, a flurry of claws and teeth aimed at eyes.
Mike, pressed against the wall, saw Mandy staring, frozen, at the vial now clutched in her hands. He met her eyes. He didn’t shout. He simply dug into his pocket, pulled out the keys to his prized van, and tossed them in a high, deliberate arc.
They landed at her feet with a jangle.
“Take Felicity and Mai!” His voice cut through the din, calm and absolute. “Drive that thing as far away as you can, as fast as you can. Now!”
Mandy’s fingers closed around the keys. The vial was a cold, throbbing brand against her chest. She grabbed Felicity’s arm. “Time to go!”
Felicity, wide-eyed, yanked on Mai, who was poised to join the fight. “Mai, come on!”
Mai hesitated, her fists clenched. Then she saw the logic. She snatched an entire, untouched pizza box from the counter and sprinted after them.
The three young women bolted through the shattered doorway, into the cool suburban night. Mandy fumbled with the keys, her hands shaking. The old Chevy van, parked in the driveway, unlocked with a solid chunk.
“Get in, get in!” Mandy yelled, scrambling into the driver’s seat. Felicity piled into the passenger side, and Mai leapt into the bench seat behind, pizza box held tight.
Mandy shoved the key into the ignition. The engine, lovingly maintained by Mike and Hank, turned over once, twice, and roared to life with a throaty, dependable rumble.
She didn’t look back at the house where light flashed and weapons clashed. She slammed the van into reverse, backed out with a screech of tires, then threw it into drive.
The headlights carved a path through the darkness as the van accelerated down the quiet street, leaving the Horny House, the fighting, and the bewildered stare of Mrs. Anderson behind. The artifact pulsed on the seat between them, its green light painting their faces in an otherworldly glow, a compass pointing toward an unknown destination.