The Eclective: The Pride Collection

  What the hell were they talking about? Isabella strained to hear more but was overwhelmed by a wave of lightheadedness. She needed to sit down before she passed out. Finding the nearest chair, she slumped into it and waited, gathering her thoughts. Bits and pieces were returning—a clear blue sky, a scimitar slice of orange sun, green trees, a rope, then…nothing. Except this overpowering desire to find Eileen. And warn her…but about what? Were the students planning some mean joke on them both? The love notes! That must be it. If the other kids tried to publish them, she would kill.

  Isabella looked up just as the man in a suit and Ms. Jenkins walked out of her office. Isabella stood but neither the counselor nor the man looked her way. How fucking rude is that?

  “I’m going to try to talk with the parents again,” the man in the suit said. Damn, he sounded like a detective, Isabella realized while the sinking sensation returned to her chest.

  “I so wish this could have been averted,” the counselor was saying and only now did Isabella see the woman had been crying. Ms. Jenkin’s eyes looked puffy and red.

  My breath! Isabella tried to inhale but it was like the air had become thicker, almost like glue. She stood and reached for the counselor and found herself in the auditorium. How the hell?—she looked around her. The lights were off but she knew where the far aisle between the seats led. Out back. Slowly, hesitantly, she began walking down the gradual declivity toward the empty stage. At least her lightheadedness had left her, but in its place a black cloud of dread settled around her. Eileen. Suddenly Isabella knew where she would find her lover. Out back where they always met—their secret rendezvous, the only place on school grounds they could call their own. No longer walking, but running, Isabella dashed up the side steps onto the stage and raced behind the curtains for the rear exit. She reached to push open the door, but instantly she was standing outside. Panic and confusion ripped at her as she looked around her. She saw two empty employee maintenance vans and a brick wall, beyond which was the athletic field. Only last Friday, right where she stood now, she and Eileen had shared a long passionate kiss. How she wanted to hold her friend in her arms now. She whirled sensing someone behind her. Eileen! No, Isabella was alone. Her gaze found the wall beside the exit door and anger blasted through her like a deadly poison.

  DYKES.

  “You bastards!” she screamed in rage at the spray painted graffiti.

  Yet when Isabella clawed at the crudely written message on the wall, she froze in absolute disbelief as she watched her digits passed right through the cruel word and the brick underneath.

  Panic tore at her insides. Without even taking a step, Isabella was suddenly inside a dark room. Clutching both arms across her chest, she shivered wondering why the darkness was so damn cold. Even colder than the high school. Deep inside her, a new fear had taken root and she was powerless to stop its growth from crawling under her skin like an out-of-control thorny vine. She could feel the prickly sensation of goose bumps spreading over her forearms. Suddenly she remembered what she’d wanted to warn her friend about. Don’t do it. Please, Eileen, my love, don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Don’t—

  The pair of coffins sat on two separate tables at one end of the room. A single ceiling light shone down on the open caskets like a forlorn beacon from an old lighthouse. For a split second, Isabella stared down at the tiny gold crucifix. In intricate detail she could see the Savior’s tiny hands mercilessly nailed to the cross. But He hadn’t saved her. Nor had He saved Eileen.

  Isabella took a slow, deliberate step toward the light. Waves of intense gloom washed over her, making her feel like she was drowning. But you can’t drown a dead…

  Their pact had started out innocent enough. If the two girls could not spend their lives in this world together without being exposed to such emotional cruelty, then together they would leave to a place where peace and tranquility would be guaranteed—or at least that’s what she’d been told the Bible promised.

  “I always want us to be together,” Isabella had vowed to Eileen. And her lover had repeated the vow. Last Friday after they had been discovered kissing, Eileen had been more emotionally distraught than Isabella could stand to see her. So they’d made their pact to leave together.

  Isabella moved nearer the caskets, dread eating at her insides like starving termites. What had she told her best friend? I’ll go first. First? What had she meant…suddenly she knew.

  “No!” she screamed. Had she really done it? The constriction encircling her neck smothered her cry of terror. Isabella flew toward the first casket. Please, God, make this be a mistake, she pleaded, squeezing the crucifix so violently she pierced her palm with the points of the tiny cross. She stared down into the open coffin at the pale face with closed eyes. Her own face. No! No! No!

  “Hi, love,” a gentle voice said.

  Isabella gaped at the figure as it sifted through the solid mortuary wall. A petite nose, a chin, lips, pretty blue eyes, hands, feet, torso—Eileen appeared in a dark dress and walked over to her. “So you finally arrived,” she said. “I was afraid you weren’t going to show.”

  Isabella stared in horror at the thick red welts around her lover’s neck. “We really did it, didn’t we?”

  Eileen tried to smile. “We promised. We had a pact.”

  “We were wrong. I went to school to try to warn you. Don’t do it. I was too late.”

  Eileen giggled awkwardly, making that sweet sound that so attracted Isabella. “I can’t believe I really did it,” she said lightly running a hand over the angry abrasions on her neck. “You went first. Then yesterday, me. . .I just saw our parents.”

  “Upset, I bet.”

  Eileen nodded her head. “It’s bad. Really bad.”

  “My little sister?”

  “Can’t stop crying.”

  Isabella felt Eileen reach for her and watched in morbid fascination as Eileen passed right through her casket.

  With a barely perceptible motion of her chin, Eileen said, “I’m right next to you,” indicating the casket beside Isabella’s.

  Isabella jumped when Eileen clasped her hands. Her fingers felt normal, solid, like a person’s, even though she’d just seen her friend pass straight through the mortuary wall. This wasn’t happening, Isabella screamed inside.

  “We really hung ourselves,” Isabella said, her tone filled with infinite anguish.

  “It’s not so bad, is it?”

  “Yes it is. The rest of our lives…wasted.”

  “No one will ever make fun of us again.”

  “This was a huge mistake.” Isabella felt Eileen’s embrace, but her friend’s touch only compounded the cold. “We can never go back,” Isabella mourned. Her eyes roved to the caskets. “Never ever.”

  “But we’ll always be together,” Eileen replied, yet Isabella saw the tears on her lover’s cheeks, and her expression of despair.

  Isabella squeezed her eyes shut, praying with all her might she would open them and find herself alive in Eileen’s arms behind the high school auditorium. It would be Friday again and together they would scrub off the nasty graffiti and then bravely return to class and ignore the stares and taunts. Please, please let this be.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” Eileen began to pull Isabella away from the caskets. “We have to leave now.”

  “Where?”

  “Why, you know.”

  Isabella cast one last wistful glance at her still body. “I don’t think I’m ready to go yet.”

  Eileen shrugged sadly. “We have to—do you think there are gay angels in heaven?”

  Isabella fingered the gold crucifix. “I don’t know. It would be terrible if there weren’t.”

  Eileen nodded wanly, looking one last time at her casket. “It would be really sad.”

  Along with her best friend and lover, Isabella felt herself floating away.

  *

  A perfect day for a hanging…

  Isabella opened her eyes, momentarily disoriented. A pe
rfect day for a hanging? Bullshit, she mouthed, staring out her bedroom window and embracing the sensations of absolute relief cascading over her. She was alive and comfortable in her own bed. Thank you! Rising above the eucalyptus hedge, the sun shone almost directly into her face. The rays were warm and refreshing and already the bad dream was breaking apart in imaginary droplets like oil on a watery surface. It had seemed so real. Our pact! She thought of Eileen and the humiliation they had been subjected to at school. Yet she realized no amount of taunting or hazing would be worth…she looked for her chair. It was under her desk where it belonged. The rope—only a wicked vision from the dream. Downstairs she could hear her mother in the kitchen whipping up a Saturday morning breakfast for her and her younger sister. Very soon, Isabella realized, she would have to have a serious talk with her parents.

  The savory scent of a frying omelet wafted under her nose. I am hungry. Isabella smiled. It felt so good to be alive! From this point on, she would take pride in who she was.

  Eileen! Oh my God. Surely she hadn’t taken their pact seriously. Isabella feverishly dialed her companion’s number.

  Eileen answered after the first ring. “I had a weird dream,” she blurted out before Isabella had said a word.

  “Me too.”

  “Feel like talking?”

  “Sure.” Isabella sensed the next question before Eileen even asked it.

  “Do you think there are gay angels in heaven?”

  Isabella felt the gold crucifix against her chest and grinned. “Yes!”

  #

  Alan Nayes writes across all genres, topics, and life styles.

  Read more about Alan Nayes and his books at www.anayes.com

  Books by Alan:

  Barbary Point

  Gargoyles (Resurrection Trilogy, Book One)

  Plague (Resurrection Trilogy, Book Two)

  The Unnatural

  Smilodon

  Girl Blue

  Return to Underland

  Moon Blossoms

  P.J. Jones

  Bibi fluttered erratically behind the catteyas. Though the rainbow-hued flowers were in full bloom this time of year and an iridescent sheen of dew clung to their soft petals, Bibi paid them little heed. She was too busy fretting over Naima.

  She should have been here by now. Naima had been on the hunt all morning. As their colony’s fiercest hunter, Naima was always the one sent first into danger, always the one willing to make sacrifices. Ironically, Naima’s daring made her the one sprite despised by the colony elders.

  Just then, Bibi’s lover burst through the hanging vines of pearl blooms, shaking a coat of mist off her amber wings and golden hair. Naima’s bronze skin shone beneath the rays of sunlight, reflecting the contours of her toned arms and smoothly muscled thighs. A bronze bow was strapped to her back, and she gripped her sword in one hand, a heavy sack in the other. When a slight breeze caught her hair, making the silken threads dance wildly across her back and shoulders, Naima looked more magnificent than a goddess. But something troubled her. Her hazel eyes that normally shone with specks of green and gold darkened to the color of rust.

  “Where have you been?” Bibi nearly choked out the words.

  Naima fixed her with a pointed stare, then sighed while dropping the sack onto a nearby flower petal. “I told the others,” she said with an edge of finality to her voice.

  Despite the moisture in the heavy forest air, Bibi’s mouth went dry. Terror coiled around her limbs and seized her wings as she dropped to a nearby petal. “You did what?” she rasped.

  “I told them about us.” Naima fluttered down and knelt before Bibi until they were just a breath apart. “I’m tired of pretending. Tired of lying.”

  Bibi opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  Naima drew her calloused hand down Bibi’s cheek, then wiped away a tear with the pad of her thumb. “Don’t cry. You wanted me to tell. I could see it in your eyes the last time we made love.”

  “They will banish us,” Bibi cried. “Predators will find us if we live alone.”

  Naima leaned closer and gently traced the contour of Bibi’s lips with her finger. “Then we will go someplace safe.”

  Bibi’s eyes fluttered shut and a soft sigh escaped her lips as she leaned into Naima’s embrace. It was true. She had wanted Naima to tell the others. She was tired of pretending, too. Besides, she knew it was the only way to escape a union with Kaj. Her mother had been trying to force her to bond with him, ever since he announced he would make Bibi the head of his tarin.

  Bibi did not care that Kaj had the strongest hive in all the colony. Not that he was destined to be the colony elder. She did not care that as his mate, she would preside over nine other females and be the bearer of his daughters. Bibi had no desire to mate with Kaj.

  Not ever again.

  When Bibi opened her eyes, Naima’s hard gaze had softened, but a fire still shone beneath her golden irises. Bibi knew Naima loved her. Of that she was sure. At that moment, she realized it didn’t matter that they would be outcasts, for neither of them would be alone as long as they had each other.

  “Daughter!”

  Naima released Bibi when she heard the shrill scream. Bibi’s mother, Anu, was meddlesome and manipulative. Anu had been trying to cajole Bibi into accepting Kaj as a mate. Kaj, the lazy, egotistical slog whose tarin already numbered nine females. How many more wives did he need to collect? He already had more than enough to serve his every whim. And rumor had it that his whims were often sadistic and cruel. Bibi was too delicate for the likes of Kaj. She wouldn’t survive a full season as his mate.

  Yet, Anu was willing to sacrifice her daughter to this barbarian just so her family could rise in status.

  “Daughter!” If possible, Anu’s tone became more shrill.

  Naima heaved a sigh before standing. “Your mama calls you.” She looked down at Bibi and silently cursed.

  Bibi’s wide amethyst eyes made her appear so fragile, like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web.

  Naima pulled Bibi up beside her and wrapped one arm around her shoulders to steady her trembling limbs.

  “Let go of her!” Anu screamed as she burst through the pearl blooms while thrusting a first toward Naima. “You are a sin! A sin against The Elements!” After landing on the flower petal with jarring force, she seized Bibi’s wrist and jerked the girl to her side.

  “Mama, please.” Bibi broke free of her mother’s grasp.

  Naima saw where Bibi had inherited her fair skin, delicate features and silky, indigo hair. If Anu would just drop that annoyingly persistent look of hostility about her, she might even pass for a beautiful woman on the rare occasions when she smiled.

  Anu narrowed her cold gaze at her daughter. “The others are convening. You must plead your case before you are cast off.”

  Bibi turned to Naima. “What am I to say?”

  “Do not look to her,” Anu hissed. “You’ll do as I tell you. “ She waved a hand toward Naima while piercing her with a dark scowl. “You will say this witch lies, so that she may shame us.”

  Bibi shook her head. “No, mama. She does not lie. I love her.”

  Anu gasped, splaying her hand across her heart as if she had been pierced by an arrow. “What are you saying? Are you saying that you would defy the laws of nature? You will be cast out, and your shame will taint me and your sisters.”

  Bibi moved beside Naima and took her hand. She raised her chin while narrowing her gaze at her mother. It was the most beautiful act of defiance Naima had ever seen. “What shame is there in loving another female while the rest of you fight over a few stupid slogs?”

  Anu’s eyes widened before she let out a horrifying scream, making her sound as if she were being eaten alive by a nest of starving thorn wasps. She sprang off the flower and ripped a thorn off of a nearby gavee plant, then flung it at Bibi.

  Naima jumped in front of Bibi, easily deflecting the projectile with
her blade.

  “Go!” Anu spat. “And never come back. You are no longer my daughter.” She turned and flew back through the pearl blooms.

  Naima wrapped Bibi in a fierce hug. “I’m sorry.”

  Bibi pulled out of the embrace, determination in the hard lines of her jaw. “We must go.”

  Naima nodded and then clasped Bibi’s hand. “We’ll find safety. I promise.”

  *

  That night they nestled down in a thatch of prigs. Naima held Bibi while she wept into her shoulder. When Bibi’s mouth finally sought Naima’s, they made love, bathed under the soft glow of humming fire mites.

  After several days travel, they carved out a dwelling among a razberry bramble. Though the spiders were many, they were harmless, preferring to ignore the sprites and feast on the flesh of the rosy razberry fruit. Naima stripped away the thorns on the inside of their shelter, and Bibi layered the cozy den with soft colorful catteya petals.

  Naima hunted in the early morning while Bibi picked berries within the safety of their shelter. During the day they sang and frolicked in the nearby spring, and at night they made love beneath the light of the pale moon.

  As the days lengthened and the night air grew warmer, Naima sensed a change within Bibi. She became withdrawn, preferring to watch the sun set in solitude rather than take flight with Naima. But when they made love, Bibi clung to Naima, digging her nails into her flesh as if she feared she would slip through her grasp like the fragile petals of a moon blossom in a soft summer breeze.

  All the while, Bibi refused to speak of, or weep for, the family she’d lost.

  Dark thoughts troubled Naima as she returned home from the hunt one morning with a spindle rabbit tucked under her arm. As she hacked through overgrown snake moss that draped like a heavy curtain across the bramble, she paid little heed to the stiffness in her shoulders or the aching in her tired wings. She’d been too occupied worrying over Bibi. Naima feared that once again, she’d find Bibi sulking on the moss rocks, staring vacantly into the water as tadpoles swam by her feet. This was how she’d found Bibi for the past several days after she returned from the hunt.

  Naima had hoped a fresh stew would cheer her mate, but the gloom over Naima’s spirit told her otherwise.