His voice was in her head, detached, amused, utterly alien in its amoral rationale as the endless, writhing tentacles that were his body crawled over her, wringing ecstasy from her until she had no more to give.

Airi shuddered and looked back at herself in the mirror, critical blue eyes noting the blush of heat in her cheeks and hardening of her nipples as she stood, nude, for her own inspection. Her classes were over- she had even attended all of them. She was becoming a conspicuously good student in the hopes of blending into the student population, and thereby escaping the notice of the creatures infesting her school.

Her tactic seemed to work well enough to keep her under the radar of most of the monsters. Or I just haven't blundered into the rest of the ones that are the administration's pets, she thought darkly, remembering her hellish detention. But then, some seemed utterly independent... but that wouldn't explain how Luju got his job. There has to be a connection somewhere. And how did they know that she wouldn't report her own attacks? How did they maintain this eerie silence? Did they have a database of students that had been attacked? Was it all of them, and they just didn't know? Or only a select few?

What if I just started talking? She shook her head, dismissing the thought almost immediately. The complete lack of attempts at covering up their crimes from the independent-seeming monsters and Luju's obvious involvement with someone with power in the school, if not one of the Headmasters themselves, meant that someone was covering up for them- someone she couldn't afford to be careless with, not after having experienced the lengths to which they would go to punish her. She needed more information.

And that's why there will always be one monsters I can't afford to hide from. She stared at the brooch clutched in her white-knuckled fist. It was obscenely cute, an adorably smiling face grinning at her from within a nest of delicately curling tentacles. The brooch would bring her informant to her soon, and she slipped on a thin silk robe, its delicate material clinging alluringly to her curves. Maybe I'll just gift-wrap myself for him next time. The snarky thought didn't even matter; she would get the information she wanted no matter what it took, she promised herself, glaring defiantly at her reflection.

Seating herself on her dresser, back to the mirror, she settled herself to wait, one hand fiddling with the trailing end of her robe's sash. Without warning, a sly smile spread slowly across her face, and she languorously licked her full, pink lips. The one who holds the element of surprise in negotiations has the upper hand. Hmm...

He understood, of course. The call wasn't the kind he expected, but nevertheless he heard it. Even without words, her intent was clear as she held the brooch and thought on it in her bathrobe. And so, the strange monster Antipode recognized the call and was pleased. He hadn't known if Airi would ever actually call him there. Still, he would take advantage of it. He would give her what she wanted, and in exchange he would take what HE wanted. That was the way negotiations worked. Or so he felt.

***

For a little while there was silence. He wasn't there yet, even though Airi had called. Perhaps it took awhile for him to show up? Maybe she hadn't called correctly? But still, Antipode expected the few minutes that passed to be quite tense. After all, she expected the appearance of a monster, didn't she? At this point, Antipode had already appeared. At least part of him had. But his invisible form waited, entering her room without her knowledge, preparing everything so that his grand entrance was as dramatic as possible. And preparing so that she could not escape if she instead got cold feet.

Her door was sealed. Her bedroom window was barred. (invisibly.) The very area around her room was altered enough so that sounds could not escape. She could be as loud as she needed and nobody in the next room would hear her. With seemingly everything in place, Antipode was ready. If he had a face, he would have smiled. This would be interesting.

There was a rumble. The brooch in her hand started to glow, and shake. The entire room seemed to tremble as though a mild earthquake ran through the building. As the roar built up, as it reached louder and louder, there was a familiar voice, one which Airi knew all too well.

"Who dares disturb my slumber?"

Does he need a written invitation? A fucking chariot? What's the point of being a creepy fucking abomination if you can't even answer the call of a hot chick in a bathrobe quickly? Airi had never been known for her patience, and so she spent the few moments of waiting for Antipode, unaware of his presence, venting her discomfort at the coming negotiations by fuming impatiently. The pressure finally became such that she growled aloud, "Where the fuck are y-"

The brooch in her hand shook violently, vibrating hard enough that she fancied she could hear her bones humming with it. The room echoed its motion, a rumble going through the air as it quaked. Already tense, her mind supplied the image of a chibi-Antipode lifting her room like a section of dollhouse and rattling it. Her eyes darted to the window, half-expecting to see an oversize eye peering in at her, waiting to hear his voice in her head chiding about her lack of patience, or some such inanity.

The rumble grew thunderous, Airi wincing and raising her hands to her ears as she waited for Antipode to exhaust his theatrical bent, snorting and rolling her eyes as his voice boomed in her mind. Well, two can play that game.

Waiting until the cacophony in her room faded enough that she could lower her hands from her ears, she calmed herself and replied, "You've forgotten me already, Antipode? I'm hurt..." She smoothed the silk clinging to her with an absentminded air, the fabric becoming almost translucent as she ran her hands over it, almost fondling her luscious curves. "I suppose there's no point in continuing to summon you, if you don't recall our agreement, then." She tossed the brooch she held into the air, certain that one of the monster's many tentacles would be able to easily snare it before it hit the ground.

(Meh. Work stuff sucks... but I doubt I'll have that problem for much longer. So, I apologize, but I am definitely able to continue apace now! ^_^; For reasons that totally suck IRL, but whatever. I need more writing practice anyway.)

As the brooch reached the highest point in its arc, right before gravity would exert its' hold once more, a tentacle did appear to snatch it right from the air. And for now, at least, that one tentacle, visible and coming from a location that was hard to discern, was all that could be seen of the omnipresent alien. The tentacle glided down, and placed the brooch gently in Airi's lap.

"I am not your boyfriend, to become irate at because he was late to dinner with you at a fancy restaurant."

Weird metaphors aside, the voice he projected into her mind was just the tiniest bit... disappointed. No dramatic reactions, no fear, not even any excitement. She just responded with boredom. Antipode hadn't expected that.

"Be that as it may, I did not renege on our agreement. I have come as you summoned me, and my short delay was something only reasonable. After all, I could have been in a different galaxy when you called. Or I could have been busy with something delicate, which I could not finish quite immediately. After all, it was only a minute or two."

He was off guard. That should be clear, at least. An entity of such power as he should not be making excuses for himself about why he was "late" to his own rape party.

In fact, Antipode knew this. At least, part of him did. But it was not the part actually speaking to Airi now. Antipode's mind, split as it was into many layers, knew many things. But though communication between these layers happened much faster than between, say, the communication between the neo-cortex and the r-complex in the human brain, there was still the matter of emotion. And Antipode was off guard.

The fact that she was practically caressing herself wasn't helping. He really wasn't sure. This was not in the set of responses he had seen thus far.

"So, with it being perfectly clear that I did not forget, I assume you did not call me just so that I would have an excuse to toy with you again. You wanted something, and I am here to help. Just ask away, and I shall be of service."

But once he was done providing his service... well, she'd practically gift wrapped herself, hadn't she? He supposed that knowing what it would mean to contact him would cause a different than normal response. But he still hadn't predicted it! His knowledge of humans might not be as complete as he hoped.