Honestly, she'd been twitchy for weeks. She had an overactive libido, and at first, she had felt a bit slutty as her sex life became seriously active. It had kicked in after she'd popped her cherry as a high school senior, and since then she hadn't been able to keep a relationship with a dude longer than a few months before she got bored with them and their lack of imagination in the bedroom. It'd been fine until she'd hooked up with some hot guy that worked in a hotel downtown a few months ago. Best. Sex. Ever. But she'd never gone back to look for him. Sometimes she thought about it, but even when she intended to find him again, she got sidetracked by other things. Almost like her brain had been programed to avoid him. She couldn't even remember him much, or what hotel he worked for. One of the small cozy ones. Both his name and the hotel always seemed to hover on the tip of her tongue but refused to manifest into a fully fledged thought.
So now, she compared every guy she was with to that guy, and they failed. Badly. Witchcraft was her last hope of finding good sex in Savannah. Desperate times…
"What if you conjure a demon or something?" Darcy asked as she headed into the kitchen and out of view. The refrigerator opened and closed, and a can of soda popped and fizzed.
Well, if a demon showed up, then Sage would be experimenting in real life monster hentai then. She found that notion strangely erotic. She wouldn't tell Darcy about it though. The poor girl already thought she was weird as hell, and if things got any stranger, she might try to have Sage committed. Or worse…evicted. Until she secured a new job, her school loans were paying her half of the bills. She couldn't get booted right now. "I'll figure something out."
When she finally escaped the one-woman questioning squad, Sage closed herself up in her bedroom and flipped on the light. Her black satin sheets were wrinkled and in need of a wash. She'd spray-painted all her wooden furniture black or dark purple, and most of her accessories were the same. Maybe she fell into some stereotypes about art students, witches, and whatever, but black and purple were her favorite colors, and it made decorating for Halloween easy because it was a year-round theme.
As she passed her dresser, Sage ran her fingers over a miniature bronze statue of Persephone. She wasn't sure why she'd chosen the goddess of the Underworld as her goddess, but she felt a bond to her. A daughter meant to be one thing in life, but seduced by another world, by a man everyone else misunderstood. Sure, Hades had kidnapped the goddess and tricked her into eating the pomegranate so she couldn't leave him, but she loved him too.
Oh, to be the object of affection by a man who had challenged Olympus itself to have her.
She sighed. The concept of a mysterious and deadly man riding out of the shadows because a woman's beauty and innocence was all that could keep his darkness at bay was utterly romantic to her. Erotic. She wanted it for herself more than she could put into words—well, other than the innocence part. Darcy had that down though. Sighing, she picked a flower off the weeds she'd put in a vase earlier in the week and placed it at the goddess' bronze feet. "You're so lucky, Persephone. Maybe one day I'll find my own Hades."
Sage went about gathering up the printed spell and her bag of essentials, checking that she had her lighter in the small pocket. Then she changed into the black sheath dress she'd sewn for this very occasion. She frowned at the chipped black polish on her fingernails she had painted only last night—she would have to live with it.
To finish her appearance, she kept her makeup simple: purple eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, blacker-than-midnight mascara for her light lashes, and dark purple lipstick to match her hair. Though her fashion sense lay somewhere between goth and punk rock chic, black lipstick never worked out for her, unfortunately. It always stained her teeth.
"Do I look the part?" she asked as she exited her bedroom, bag in hand, and twirled.
Darcy set down the book she was reading and grunted. "You're not wearing a bra." It wasn't a question. "Are you at least taking a jacket?"
"No, Mother. If I'm dancing naked in the moonlight to conjure a lover, I'm not covering my assets with a jacket. I expect to be kept warm by the flames of sexual conquest."
"Your assets are going to freeze off," her roommate ignored her other statement altogether. "It's dropping into the sixties." It had been seventies and eighties all week even though it was the end of October. Got to love coastal Georgia weather.
"You're welcome to come with me if you're concerned I'll die of frostbite." Sage was from Connecticut. This weather would be comfortable. "Live a little. Some nature deity might ravish and corrupt you. We'll laugh about it later."
Darcy picked her book back up but couldn't quite hide her masked laughter. "You're insane."
"Just in tune with my sexuality is all." She picked up her keys and cell phone and headed for the door. "See you tomorrow. Don't wait up."
"Can't wait to hear all about it." Darcy didn't sound that thrilled.
After picking up some dinner to-go, the drive out of Savannah took a good twenty or so minutes with traffic. She
