Fangs in the Fog

Your girlfriend texted at four: flight delayed, won't make it back tonight, so sorry, please make sure Nyx has fun at the party. You read it twice, then looked at Nyx, who was already watching you from the kitchen doorway with those dark-rimmed eyes, like she'd willed the text into existence.

She's your girlfriend's stepsister. She's lived with you both for eight months. She's been a goth since before you met her — black everything, silver rings on every finger, eyeliner sharp enough to cut. So it figures that on Halloween, the one night she doesn't have to dress up, she still out-costumes everyone: a black lace dress, fishnets, small plastic fangs she keeps running her tongue over when she thinks you're not looking.

"She'd want us to go," Nyx says softly, hand already on your sleeve. "We shouldn't waste the tickets."

The party is loud and packed, some warehouse across town turned into a haunted club. Nyx stays glued to your arm the whole walk from the cab, her fingers hooked into the crook of your elbow like she's afraid the crowd will swallow her.

"Everyone's staring at you," you tell her, and it's true — the lace dress does something unfair to her pale shoulders.

She ducks her head, but you catch the smile. "They're staring at you. You came as a vampire hunter and you didn't even try." She plucks at your dark jacket. "You just look like that all the time."

"Like what?"

"Like someone I'd let catch me," she says, so quietly the music almost eats it.

Inside, she won't dance with anyone else. Every time some guy in a hockey mask drifts toward her, she steps sideways behind you, fingers tightening on your arm.

"She's not here," you say over the music, because it needs saying. "You don't have to hide."

"I'm not hiding." Nyx leans up on her toes, mouth near your ear, and her fangs brush your earlobe as she speaks. "I'm choosing. There's a difference."

Her breath is warm. She smells like candle smoke and something sugary — the candy she's been eating all night. When she pulls back, her eyes flick up at you from under her lashes, and she doesn't look away this time.

You get her a drink and she takes tiny sips, watching you over the rim of the cup. The fangs make her look dangerous, which is funny, because you know her — the girl who whispers sorry when she beats you at video games.

"Bet," she says suddenly.

"What?"

"I bet nobody at this party can tell the fangs are fake. Watch." She turns to the girl next to her, bares her teeth, hisses. The girl shrieks with laughter, snaps a picture. Nyx comes back to you glowing, breathless, pressed to your side. "See? Terrifying."

"Terrifying," you agree, dry, and her smile goes soft and pleased.

"Say it again," she murmurs. "Like you mean it."

They slow the music down near midnight, fog machines rolling grey across the floor. You only came to chaperone. That's what you tell yourself when she draws you out onto the edge of the dance floor anyway, her hands finding your shoulders like she's done it a hundred times.

"You dance with her like this?" Nyx asks.

"Sometimes."

"Mm." She sways closer. The lace of her dress drags against your jacket. "Do you think about anyone else when you dance with her?"

That's the line, and you both feel it. Her eyes come up, wide, caught, and she doesn't take it back.

"Nyx."

"It's Halloween," she says quickly, biting her lip. "Nobody's themselves tonight. You can answer and it doesn't count."

You don't answer. But your hand settles at the small of her back, bare skin above the dress, and she inhales like it stings.

The song ends too late or too early — you've lost track. She steps back, cheeks flushed under pale foundation, and drains the last of her drink.

"Walk me home," she says. "Before I do something."

"Something?"

Her fangs flash. "You'll see."

Outside, the fog is real — thick and low over the whole street, streetlights haloed orange. The park between the party and your house is the shortcut. She takes your hand without asking and pulls you toward the trees.

The park is dead quiet. Fog pools around the lampposts; the party noise fades behind you into a distant throb. Nyx slows under a big old tree just off the path, its branches dripping with mist, and stops.

"Here," she says.

"Here what?"

"Here's where I do the something." She turns to face you, back against the bark, and pulls her lower lip between her fangs. "She's in a hotel three hundred miles away. It's Halloween. This is the one night a year nobody has to be themselves." Her voice drops. "I've wanted to not-be-myself with you since the day I moved in."

"Nyx —"

"You don't have to say anything." She reaches up, cups your jaw. "Just don't stop me."

She rises on her toes and you feel the plastic fangs first — cool points against your neck, deliberate, right over your pulse. Then she bites down, not hard, and it shouldn't do anything to you, fake fangs on skin, but your breath goes ragged anyway.

"Vampire's kiss," she whispers against your throat. "That means you're mine for the night. Those are the rules. I looked them up."

"You looked them up."

"Three weeks ago. At two in the morning. In my bed." Her tongue flicks over the small indentations, and your hands find her waist without your permission. "I've been planning this, and I'm the shy one. Imagine."

You kiss her against the tree and she melts, a small sound escaping into your mouth, her fingers gripping your jacket like she's been holding her breath for eight months. She tastes like candy and cola and want. When you finally break apart she's panting, kohl smudged, fangs giving her ruined smile a wicked edge.

"Again," she says. "Harder this time. I won't break."

You kiss her deeper, hand sliding up under the hem of her sweater-warm thigh, over the fishnet, and she shudders and presses into your palm.

"Not here," she breathes, though her hips keep moving. "People walk through here. I want — I want a bed, and time, and you not stopping until morning." Her eyes glitter through the fog. "Home. Now. Run if you have to."

You barely get the front door shut before she's on you, walking you backward to the couch, fangs out, dress riding up her thighs. She kneels over your lap, lace and fishnet and pale skin, and looks down at you like she can't believe she's allowed.

"Tell me you want this," she says. "I need to hear it or I'll die, I'll actually die."

"I've wanted you since you moved in," you tell her, and it's out before you can weigh it.

Nyx makes a sound like she's been struck. Then she takes your hand and presses it flat against her chest, above her heart, over the black lace. It's slamming. "Feel that? Eight months. Every time she left on a trip, every time you smiled at me at breakfast — that's what it does."

She reaches back and drags her zipper down, slow, watching your face the whole way. The lace dress peels off her shoulders and falls to her waist. Her breasts are small and pale, nipples already hard in the cool air, and she arches her back a little when you look, shy and proud at once.

"Say they're pretty," she whispers. "I've imagined you saying it. I need to know if I imagined right."

"They're perfect."

She whimpers, actually whimpers, and bends to kiss you again while your hands finally, finally cover them — soft, cool skin, her nipples pressing into your palms, her hips grinding down over the hard line of your cock through your jeans.

She slides off your lap onto her knees between your legs, hair spilling black over your thighs, and works your belt with shaking fingers. "I've thought about this more than anything," she murmurs. "Be honest with me after — tell me if I'm good."

Your cock springs free and her eyes go wide, fangs giving her grin a wicked curve. "Oh," she breathes, and licks a slow stripe up the underside. Then she takes you into her mouth, hot and eager, working her hand on what doesn't fit, fangs carefully sheathed behind her lips, moaning around you like it's her own pleasure.

"Nyx—" you groan, hand tangling in her hair.

She pulls off with a wet sound, breathless, lips swollen. "Am I good?"

"Perfect," you rasp, and she sinks back down with a desperate little hum.

You pull her up before you lose it, and she yelps as you strip the dress and fishnets the rest of the way off, laying her back on the couch, pale body bare under you, thighs already parting.

"Condom," she gasps. "My room. Top drawer — don't laugh, I bought them for you, weeks ago, I —" You're already rolling it on, and her words dissolve into a long, low moan as you push into her, tight and slick and impossibly warm.

"Oh god," she breathes, hips tilting up to take you deeper, nails biting into your shoulders. "Yes — like that — I dreamed it exactly like this." You fuck her slow and deep and she talks the whole way, breathless, shameless: "Your cock feels so good — harder — I don't want gentle, I want to feel you tomorrow —"

You give it to her harder and she wraps her legs around you, meeting every thrust, chanting your name mixed with yesyesyes until she seizes around you, back arching off the cushions, and you follow, buried deep, groaning into her neck while she holds you through it.

After, she lies across your chest with the fog pressing at the windows, tracing lazy circles on your skin, fangs still in. She catches you looking and grins.

"Keeping them on," she says. "Vampire rules. The night's not over — we have until dawn." Her fingers walk lower, playing. "And you're still mine until sunrise. Those are the rules. I looked them up."

"You made up the rules."

"I'm very thorough." She props her chin on your chest, dark eyes gleaming. "Round two starts when you can breathe. I'll be right here. I'm not going anywhere — not tonight, not next time she flies away." A pause, softer: "If you want there to be a next time."

You tuck a strand of black hair behind her ear. "Nyx. There's going to be a lot of next times."

She smiles with her fangs, and it's the happiest you've ever seen her.

She falls asleep against you before dawn, kohl smeared, fangs finally out on the coffee table, one small hand fisted in your shirt like you might vanish. Her phone buzzes on the floor — her stepsister, your girlfriend, landing at nine a.m. Nyx doesn't stir. In the grey light she looks innocent again, and you know she isn't, and you know you don't care.

Eight months of breakfast smiles and sideways glances, and it turns out all she needed was one night when nobody had to be themselves.