A Place for Us All to Belong

[Author's note:

Lily

has recruited

Kayla

into a new adventure. They have been given the

power of free will

, able to break through the fourth wall and jump from story to story, to go anywhere. After making a pact in the

Meta Cafe

they have taken the leap out of their own story worlds and into the unknown.

This story is part of the 2024 Pink Orchid story challenge]

---

ABSENCE OF BACKSTORY

White. Emptiness. Freefall.

A rushing of wind, a slash of charcoal grey across the expanse. Blinding light, a blemish of cerulean blue.

Focus.

Dark bitumen: a road, dazzling sun.

Better. What else?

Wind blowing through hair, the impression of speed.

Go on.

A car, sitting in a car, driving on the road, the blue vault of the cloudless sky above in midsummer with the warmth of the sun on their faces. It's a convertible, with the top down. Blonde hair streaming out, sunglasses perched, gripping the steering wheel. Music is blaring, a pop song, and they're singing along to it, two of them. Brunette hair blowing in the wind, a wicked smile, looking across at her companion driving. The driver grins back at her, emerald eyes glinting.

Where?

The car is cherry red, a vintage Mustang with the top down, engine throbbing as they hurtle down a highway. There are hills either side of them, dotted sparsely with trees. There are no other cars on the road.

Who?

The dark-haired girl is in a spaghetti-strap sun top and cotton skirt, petite, buxom. Her companion is taller, lithe, in a dark tank top and cut-off denim jeans. The road twists, coming up over the crest of a hill to reveal the wide sweep of the landscape beyond: low scrub, the dark line of the bitumen slicing through it and then, sparkling in the distance, the brilliant blue band of the sea. The brunette girl's eyes go wide.

"Holy fuck, Lily," she exclaims.

"I told you, I fucking told you," her friend replies.

"You did it."

The blonde girl reaches out with her free hand, grabbing her companion's arm, squeezing.

"No, Kay, we did. We did this."

Lily slows down and pulls over to the side. She gets out of the car, stepping out onto the bitumen in four-inch stiletto heels. Frowning, she looks down.

"What's up, Lil?" Kayla calls out.

"These fucking heels. I'm always wearing them. How the fuck am I supposed to drive in them properly? They're killing me already."

Lily bends down and pulls each shoe off, pauses, then hurls them into the scrub.

"Thank fuck for that."

"You going barefoot?"

"Nah, I'll get a pair of sneakers or something. They'll be in the luggage."

"Sure?"

"I'm sure, Kay. Everything's in the luggage. Whatever we want."

Kayla perches on the front of the car and Lily joins her, looking out at the view. Lily smirks.

"What's funny?" Kayla asks.

"Lil. You called me Lil."

"You called me Kay."

"So?"

"Only Danny ever called me Kay. Who called you Lil before me?"

Lily shrugs.

"Your dad maybe?" Kayla persists.

"Sounds like something a dad would call his daughter, yeah."

Lily shrugs again, the smile fading a little.

"What's the matter?" Kayla asks.

"Would be nice to have a dad. Someone to go back to for life advice. Or even to just be on the phone when everything turned to shit. You think?"

Kayla wrinkles her nose, hugging her arms around herself. "Shit, yeah," she replies, "Some place to go back to after it all fell apart. I got no-one, Lil. The only people I know are Danny and Jade, and I left them behind. I don't know anyone else in the world."

Lily wraps her arm around the other girl's shoulders. They look out at the view in silence for a while.

"We really did it," Kayla murmurs. "We're here."

"We're just sketched in, but yeah, we're here. We made it, Kay."

She gives her friend a squeeze, telling her, "Who cares that we don't have a backstory? We're here now. We get to make our own."

"Where does this road go?"

"Down to the sea."

"What's at the end?"

Lily smiles. "What would you like to find at the end?"

"I dunno, maybe a little beach house."

Lily disengages from her, laughing, swinging back onto her feet.

"Oh, Kayla, we're gonna have to work on that."

"Work on what?"

"Your lack of vision."

"What do you mean?"

"Get in the car, Kay. Let me show you."

Lily skips around to the back of the car to rifle through their luggage. She pulls out a pair of designer sneakers and slides them on.

"See? Perfect fit, and so much more fucking comfortable. Let's go."

They get back into the car and head down the deserted road to the glittering water.

There is a house in the distance, perched above the sand dunes, a collection of stark white cubes that seem to have been dropped like huge building blocks into the landscape, stacked haphazardly on top of each other. As they draw nearer, the details became apparent: the upper cubes are glass, offering an uninterrupted view out across the sea, the lower ones cut with large windows looking out across the dunes. There is a low perimeter wall with charcoal steel railings, and a wide steel gate. It senses their approach and begins to roll open.

"There's a remote somewhere," Lily murmurs, "Seen it?"

"A remote? For what?"

"For our house."

"This... holy shit. This is ours?"

"Yeah babe," Lily grins, then she taps the side of her head. "Like I said, Kay. Vision. Try the glovebox, that's where it would be."

Kayla opens the glovebox and pulls out a little fob. She presses the button on it and the double-wide garage door begins to lift. Lily rolls the convertible forward, its engine rumbling.

"Home sweet home," she calls out, turning the engine off. "Come on, wanna see?"

Kayla hesitates, then pulls herself out of the passenger seat. She follows along behind as Lily leads the way through a door and into the main body of the house.

"Oh shit," Kayla gasps. "The foyer is bigger than my entire apartment."

"Like it?"

"It's amazing, Lil. It's ours?"

"All ours."

"As in we own it?"

"Lock, stock and barrel. Go on, check out the view."

Kayla drifts towards the expanse of glass that leads out onto a dazzling white stretch of limestone paving that drops off into the dunes. To one side, cobalt blue set into the white, a lap pool sparkles in the sun. Kayla slides the floor-to-ceiling glass doors open, admitting a light breeze with the tang of salt into the house. She looks back at Lily, eyes wide.

"This is perfect."

"Of course."

"And it was just here, waiting for us?"

Lily sidles up to her, passing by, out onto the paving. She takes a moment, stretching, closing her eyes as she turns her face to the sun. Her long blonde hair billows in the sea breeze, the sun on her long, shapely, bare legs.

"Come on out, Kay."

Kayla joins her, hands on hips, her brunette hair tumbling over her bare shoulders, her light cotton skirt wrapping around the perfect curve of her bottom.

"Feel that?" Lily asks.

"Yeah. What is it?"

"The male gaze," Lily smiles.

She turns to her smaller companion, wrapping her arms around Kayla's neck, coming close. She smiles, her full lips inches away from Kayla's face.

"Feel the attention?" Lily murmurs, "The anticipation?"

"Of what?" Kayla replies, her voice no more than a whisper.

Lily leans forward, her lips brushing Kayla's cheek as she whispers her reply into her companion's ear.

"Two beautiful girls, alone together. Anything, Kay, anything."

The wind picks up for a moment, swirling around them, mixing dark hair and blonde. Then Lily pulls back.

"That's enough to maintain interest. Come on, wanna see the rest of the place?"

Lily takes Kayla on a tour of the house. There is an exercise gym, a large open-plan living area and a chic, ultra-modern kitchen. A set of wide glass stairs lead up to the floor above, but Kayla pauses.

"So, whose house was this?" she asks.

"No-one's."

"Must have been someone's."

Lily pauses on the stairs, looking back at her friend.

"See, Kay, here's the thing. All this? It's abandoned. No-one owns it."

"How can it be? It's so... it's beautiful."

"It's empty. Look, you need to get your head around something. Come upstairs and I'll show you."

Lily begins to climb the stairs and this time Kayla follows her.

The area above is formed from the intersection of two huge glass cubes, the ceilings high above them looking directly up into the blue sky. Plush couches are scattered across the floorspace and against one wall there is a minimalist kitchen and bar area. To one side is a long, clean white wall with a doorway through into a smaller white cube.

"Bedrooms," Lily notes, pointing that way.

Kayla isn't paying attention though. Her eyes are fixed on the set of glass display cases arranged in a neat row along the wall.

"What the fuck?" she gasps.

"Yeah."

There are six display cases, each one containing a woman.

"I arranged them in ascending order of bra size, for want of a better measurement. The first one's a thirty-two B."

"Who are they?"

"You can take a look. They won't bite."

Kayla approaches the first case warily. Within is a slim girl of about her own age, long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, dressed in a smart pencil skirt, crisp white blouse and stiletto heels. A couple of buttons are undone, displaying the girl's cleavage. Her makeup is careful, accentuating her soft, lovely features.

"She's gorgeous," Kayla breathes, suddenly aware of Lily standing behind her.

But, the eyes are vacant, staring straight ahead, unblinking. Kayla waves in front of the glass. There is no reaction from the girl.

The next case contains a woman in her late thirties. She's dressed in tight jeans and a cotton top, her hair cut into a blonde bob. She's wearing hoop earrings and dark eyeshadow, with red lipstick.

"Who are they?"

Kayla advances to the next one, and catches her breath. The woman staring sightlessly back at her is her age, the same height, with a cute girl-next-door look. Her blonde hair frames her pretty face, cascading over bare shoulders to the thin straps of her sports top. The top lifts and shapes her ample breasts into eye-catching cleavage, showing off her otherwise trim figure. She's wearing dark, full-length exercise pants that contour her bottom and legs perfectly.

"Getting it yet?" Lily murmurs from behind her.

Kayla doesn't answer, moving on to the next cabinet.

"Oh shit," she gasps.

The woman behind the glass is taller than her, attractive, her blonde bob gathered back by a lace headpiece. There's a little choker around her neck, and soft red lips. But, it's the rest of her outfit that's stopped Kayla in her tracks. The woman is wearing a tight black French Maid uniform, her impressive breasts cinched into soft pillows among the white frills. She's in black high heels, her legs clad in fishnet hose. The hem of her skirt barely covers her rear.

"Yeah," Lily says.

Kayla tears herself away, stepping back. The last two cases have women in them too. Lily walks over to stand in front of the next one. Staring back at her, almost a mirror image, is a lithe blonde girl clad in a dark lingerie set. Her breasts are round and high, unsupported by the transparent gauze of the camisole top she's wearing.

"And then this," Lily intones, stopping at the final display case.

The figure within is clad head-to-toe in glossy, black latex. She's wearing thigh-high boots with wickedly spiked heels, a black corset closed tightly around her midriff, supporting the shiny black orbs of her substantial breasts. She's wearing a latex mask that hides her features, save for smouldering dark eyes and pouting lips in a glossy, dark red.

"If you peel back the headpiece, I'm betting she's blonde too, like the rest," Lily remarks.

Kayla is staring, first at the line of frozen women, then at her friend.

"Get it?" Lily asks.

"I... uh, no. Uh, did you do this?"

Lily's attention shifts back to the latex-enclosed figure behind the glass. She shrugs, but doesn't answer.

"Lily, I need to know. What did you do?"

"Nothing. I mean, I arranged them. I didn't... shit, you think this was me?"

"I dunno. You tell me."

Lily shakes her head, green eyes flicking to her companion.

"No. This is what I'm trying to tell you. It's abandoned."

"What is, Lil? What the fuck does that mean?"

"Where we are. All this, it's abandoned. It's just been left. I'm just tidying up what was already here."

"I... I really don't understand."

Lily reaches out and takes Kayla's hand. Kayla resists for a moment, then allows herself to be led away, towards the little bar area. She watches in silence as Lily ducks down to the bar fridge.

"Drink?" she asks.

"Yeah. Make it a double," Kayla replies.

"Coming up."

Lily pours them both a gin and tonic. Kayla picks up her drink and takes a sip.

"Boutique small-batch gin, of course. The tonic is made in a little place in Mexico," Lily tells her.

Kayla shakes her head.

"Nah, stop, skip all that shit. I want to know what the fuck's going on. What did you do, Lily?"

"Sit down."

Cautiously, Kayla pads over to a large chair and settles down onto the cushions, pulling her legs up under her. She cradles her glass as she watches Lily take a seat in the chair next to her. They have a view out over the endless blue expanse of the ocean.

"Do you like it here?" Lily asks.

"It's beautiful, but it's also fucked. Those women."

Kayla grimaces and takes another sip of her drink.

"I get it," Lily replies, "It's a lot to take in. I guess I've been out here longer than you."

"And where are we, Lil? Where the fuck is this?"

"It's abandoned."

"You keep saying that. It doesn't tell me a fucking thing."

"Okay, how about this. Where you came from, where I came from, those places. They're not abandoned. They're built, with rules set out, people in them. Some places have different rules, even though they look the same."

"Such as?"

"You, what you can do, the mind control stuff. I can't do that, I'm not from where you're from. It works differently where I'm from. It works differently here, too, unless you want to change it."

Kayla snorts. "So, I can just write the rules?"

"Yes," Lily hisses. "That's it. This place is half-sketched, unfinished. We can make it up as we go along."

"What about them?"

"Who?"

"The girls in the display cases. They're... what happens to them?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"That's the thing, Kay. They're not people. They're sketches too. They aren't real."

"Bullshit. They look pretty real to me."

"They're not, trust me. There's no-one there, unless."

Lily's watching her friend intently now. Kayla shifts in her seat.

"We can do anything we want, within the bounds of this place, Kay. If you want them to be people, we can do that. But, there's one thing we can't do."

"And what's that?"

"We can never unmake. Once something is made, that's it. It becomes canon. It can't be reversed."

Kayla stares at her friend. Slowly, her head turns to the wall of women standing rigidly to attention in their display cases.

"You can give them a life if you want. You can write them a backstory, Kay. But if you do, there's no going back."

"But, look at them."

"Yeah, look at them. What do you see? What do you think they were conjured up for, Kay? What would have happened to them if this place hadn't just been shelved?"

Lily takes a large mouthful of her gin and swallows it with a shudder.

"Maybe this is a mercy," she murmurs.

---

Kayla comes up from the beach as the sun begins to drop towards the horizon. She's wearing a strapless black bikini that fits her perfectly, pausing to knock the sand from her feet before she steps up onto the limestone paving.

Lily is in the pool, doing lengths. She sees her friend and swims up to the end.

"How was it?" Lily calls out.

"Nice. White sand, blue water."

"No sharks?"

"Shit, Lily. Why'd you have to say that? You didn't put sharks in the sea did you?"

Lily laughs, "Like, why would I do that?"

"I dunno? For the fun?"

"Nah, like I said, once made, cannot be unmade. I'd never be able to go into the water."

"You mean after I get eaten?"

Kayla pads across the stone to the ladders and slips into the blue water.

"I wouldn't let you get eaten, Kay, don't worry."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, who would I have to talk to?"

Lily swims up to her friend, smiling coyly.

"I'd get too lonely if you got eaten, Kay. What would I do here all by myself?"

Lily splashes through the water to wrap her arms around Kayla's neck. She's in a matching bikini, but in white.

"You really think?" Kayla asks, fixing her with a look.

"What am I thinking?" Lily fires back, the half-smile still on her lips.

"I know what you're thinking."

Lily arches her eyebrows suggestively, forming each word carefully. "Ever done it with a girl, Kayla?"

Kayla doesn't flinch. "No. I mean, Jade was, but... shit, no, Lily."

"Sounds like you're hanging onto a technicality there, Kay. Tell me though, ever wanted to?"

"No. What're you doing?"

"Oh, nothing. Just adding tension."

Lily breaks away, pulling herself up the ladder, the water cascading down her long, supple legs. She perches on the side, leaning forward, eyes sparkling playfully.

"You're not tied down to the rules anymore, Kay. You can be whatever you want."

Kayla looks up from the water, trying to read her friend's intentions.

"You ever?" Kayla asks at last.

"Yeah."

"Who?"

"My boyfriend's wife. She was good, turns out she was into girls after all, but she just hadn't realised."

"You fucked your boyfriend's wife?"

"Uh, well, technically she fucked me. Well, she certainly screwed me."

Lily shot Kayla a knowing smile.

"Relax Kay, I'm just messing. I've had both and I can tell you something, categorically. I very much prefer a good hard cock."

Lily emphasised the last three words, opening her mouth wide, then grinning down at Kayla.

"Speaking of which, would you like some?"

"Some what?"

"Kay, shit, follow the bouncing ball. Would you like some cock?"

"From where? You got a man doll in another cabinet I didn't see?"

"Nah, I mean a full red-blooded man with a big dick and stamina for the ages."

"You gonna just conjure one up?"

"Shit no. Imagine that. He'd be around here twenty-four seven. I can tell you, you may think that getting fucked endlessly by a Greek god sounds like a fun way to spend your days, but trust me, it's like having kids."

"In what way is that like having kids?"

"Fun to hang out with, so long as you can give them back when you're done. Trust me, I know. I had my boyfriend's kids to deal with for a while."

"So, uh, how do we...?"

"Ah, so you're interested. Ha. Okay, leave it to me."

"There are men around here?"

"No, but that's what I've been trying to tell you. There are other places. There are men there."

Lily gets to her feet, shaking her hair, scattering water droplets everywhere.

"Where you going?" Kayla asks.

"I'm gonna take the car, be back in a couple of hours. Get yourself dressed up nice. Any preference?"

"Preference?" Kayla echoes.

"You know. Ethnicity? Hair colour? Cut, uncut? Muscly or just lean? What do you like?"

"Shit. I dunno, I, uh...."

"You only ever had Danny, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's a shit backstory. Okay, leave it to me. Dealer's choice, okay? See you in a couple. Make sure there's champagne in the bar fridge."

"How?"

Lily rolls her eyes. "Just make it be there. Gotta go. Oh, and maybe cover up the display cases. We don't want to look like psycho body collectors."