Snake Eyes Read online

  “How? Are you a fucking superhero or something?” she demanded.

  “No. I’m...” Tanis sucked in a breath and braced for the worst. “I’m lamia. That’s why I’m strong, and run fast, and smell better than others, and see better than you in the dark. That’s why I have two cocks. Lamia daughters can be born with one, or two, or a vagina. We vary, but we’re all daughters.” She paused. “I’m part human, but I’m also part not human. And I’m not supposed to say this to you, or talk about it, but I am because I care for you. A lot. I won’t lie even if it makes you think I’m a lunatic.”

  Naree stared at the hubcap folded over like a discarded bottle cap. “So that’s why you said you’re not trans when I asked you. Cause you’re lamia. You’re your own—okay. Alright. I get it.” She said nothing else for a long time. Not as they’d gone back into the apartment, picked at the decimated remains of their dinner, or started a second movie. Tanis didn’t dare touch her, sitting down the couch from her to give her space. She felt like she’d ruined everything, that once again, what she was and who she was wasn’t good enough for someone. Naree’s silence did little to appease it. There should have been a barrage of questions, or more demands of proof, but there’d been none, not until the second movie was over and Naree stood up and looked toward the bathroom.

  “Wasn’t Lamia a snake lady? In Greek myths?” she said, not looking Tanis’s way.

  “Yes. She’s half snake, bottom half.”

  “So not the snakes-on-head women.”

  “No!” Tanis had practically shouted, and Naree flinched. She immediately felt like an ogre, and she reached out a hand, stopping short of actually touching the other woman. “That’s a Gorgon. We’re enemies. Lamias and Gorgons are enemies. It’s a long story, but they’re different. We’re different. Gorgons hunt our kind for sport.”

  “Oh, okay.” Another pause. “So it’s real? The myths? Legends?” Naree asked.

  “Yeah. I... yeah. I know that’s hard to believe.”

  Tanis anticipated the accusations to start. She expected Naree to pack her bags and demand Tanis take her home, except instead Naree said, “When I was fifteen, I met someone online. She called herself Amanda. She knew things. Could do things that’d make Anonymous shit their pants. I was joking about a DDoS attack in an IRC chat and a second later—literally a second—Amanda was in my system. My computer went nuts, and when I asked her what she’d done, all she said was, ‘Magic.’ Which sounded like bullshit, except she turned on my printer that wasn’t connected to the electrical socket and printed a hundred papers all reading ‘How do you like it?’ The laptop in my bag that I hadn’t set up to the wireless network at my parents’ house? Connected to the IRC chat and I got a wall of, ‘How do you like it?’ My phone got two hundred text messages. My TV, my DVD player—‘How do you like it?’ over and over, on the screen and digital window. She was everywhere, and when I freaked out and ran downstairs, she followed me. She was in my parents’ phones, computers. The microwave. Even the fucking Roomba came to life and rammed itself against my foot. I couldn’t escape it—her—and I didn’t until I screamed, ‘Stop’ and then it did stop, at once, as quickly as it’d started, like she’d heard me. Amanda did things no one should be able to do, and I started to believe that maybe magic was real after all, you know? Cause my microwave shouldn’t be warning me off of DDoS attacks. But it did.” She paused. “Incidentally, fuck Roombas. I hate those things.”

  “I don’t have a Roomba,” Tanis said, for lack of anything smart to say because she had no idea what a DDoS attack was, nor did she understand how any of that other technical stuff could happen. It was all Greek to Tanis.

  Or, not Greek. She spoke Greek.

  Chinese, maybe.

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Naree’d smiled at her and shrugged. “So I’m going to get in the shower. You want to come with? Could be fun.”

  “...”

  And that’s how they’d started, truly started, from Amanda and Roombas to awkwardly sweet shower sex that extended to ‘most of spring break’ sex, and beyond. After graduation, instead of moving out west and accepting a top notch programming career, Naree took a contractor job she could do remotely and moved down to Percy’s Pass to live with Tanis. Naree rolled with the punches of Tanis’s fucked-up snakey life as best she could, discovering fairly quickly that having a preternatural girlfriend had its challenges (like asking her to open stubborn pickle jars meant, more often than not, breaking them by accident), but she muddled through, and when Tanis was summoned back to the Den and assigned her hunting-for-Mother duties, Naree was the one to talk Tanis out of running. The twenty-percent survival ratio wasn’t particularly good odds, and neither of them relished the idea of being on the lam the rest of their lives.

  Because that’s how Tanis thought of Naree—not as a ‘for now’ or a ‘for the foreseeable future,’ but forever.

  She was the previously unheard-of species of snake who mated for life.

  Home. She parked out back, beside the dumpster, and before walking inside in only a bra and her piss-stained jeans, she grabbed a hooded sweatshirt from her backseat. The winding stairs up through the apartment building squealed as she took them two at a time, her finger running over her house key in preparation for putting the night behind her.

  “I made lasagna. It’s in the fridge. Okay, to be honest, Stouffers made lasagna but I heated it up once already and didn’t eat the second half because I figured you’d be hungry,” Naree said in greeting. Tanis looked at the clock on the cable box: half past three in the morning. Naree was bundled up in a blanket on the couch looking like a burrito, her bare toes peeking out from the purple fringe along the edge of the afghan. Her hair was in a bun, a few sloppy tendrils framing her face and, on the left side, twisting around her gold-rimmed glasses. The TV blazed. Tanis didn’t recognize it, but it was yet another shitty rom-com. Naree had a weird thing for old Meg Ryan movies.

  “Missed you,” Tanis said, bending over the couch and wrapping her wiry arms around her girlfriend. Naree traced her fingers over the winding snakes tattooed on Tanis’s wrists, arms, and up to her neck. She tilted her head back. An awkward, upside-down kiss ensued, but they made it work because that’s just what the two of them did: adapt. Tanis sucked on Naree’s bottom lip, taking comfort in Naree’s gentle squeeze on her wrist.

  “Rough night, babe?”

  “As per usual.” Tanis nuzzled at Naree’s head. She smelled like dandruff shampoo and shower gel and... something else. Tanis couldn’t place it, but it was there. Something human and female and warm and she wanted to rub herself against it, but that’d be weird, so lasagna it was. She tore herself away and padded toward the kitchen to get food.

  It was good she hadn’t stuck around the Den any longer than necessary. Watching your mother devour the crazed snake man who’d just inseminated her was a distinct appetite killer.

  Two minutes with a microwave and she had a serviceable if not delicious dinner. She flopped down on the couch next to Naree. A soft, squishy body pressed against her, Naree’s head propped against her bicep. Meg Ryan did Meg Ryan things on the TV, which included wearing overly large sweaters and looking gassy.

  “I don’t know how you stomach it,” Tanis said between bites.

  “What, Sleepless in Seattle?”

  That, too.

  “No, what I do. I can barely stomach it, and I was raised with it.”

  They’d had the conversation before, numerous times after Tanis’s nights out, and just like those other times, Naree answered with, “I understand there are rules that go with you being you. If I dated a human chick, I’d get human rules. Date a lamia, get lamia rules. Here, gimme a bite. Girlfriend toll.” She opened her mouth expectantly, and Tanis shoved a heaping spoonful into her maw. The room now smelled like overly-processed tomatoes and, to a snake nose, chemical preservatives. At least the tomatoes were stronger.

  “You coming to bed after dinner? Or are you going online?” Naree asked.
>
  “I’m not tired yet.”

  “I didn’t say anything about sleep. I mean, you could. If you’re boring.”

  “...oh.” Tanis paused, swallowing her food. “I need a shower.”

  “So take a shower. You’re really bad at this, babe.” Naree leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of Tanis’s mouth, her tongue flicking out to capture a wayward gob of sauce. It was just enough to provoke, and then she was gone, sauntering away, her afghan a billowy yarn cloak trailing behind her. Tanis looked from her dinner plate to the hallway Naree had just occupied and started shoveling lasagna. Sure, she’d just seen a pair of lamias doing a twisty, clawy, hate-fucking thing, but what better way to replace the memory than with something hot and wet and...

  Shower first. Shower.

  She finished her dinner, rinsed the plate, and beelined for the bathroom.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NAREE ON HER hands and knees, facing the wall, shoulders pressed into a nest of blankets, ass up and presenting. She grunted every time Tanis’s lean hips pounded against her ampleness. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t supposed to be, either. She’d asked for dirty, and dirty she got. Most times there was one cock in, one capped with a condom to keep it clean when Tanis came, but not this time. This time it was all gripping muscles and the slithery slide of well-lubed orifices.

  “Fuck, fuck,” Naree panted, reaching between her legs to rub. “I’m close.”

  Tanis was, too, and she gritted her teeth, enjoying every lewd, wet squish as Naree manipulated her body into orgasm, her yelp strangled as she thrust back at Tanis, forcing Tanis to the hilt in not one contracting recess, but two.

  Every muscle in Tanis’s body furled as she flooded the girl before her. Pulse after pulse, Tanis’s brow furrowed, her heart beating so hard she thought it would explode. Naree went flat on her stomach on the bed, and Tanis collapsed on top of her, buried deep, keeping as much of her weight on her elbows as she could. Naree’s hair had come out of its bun halfway through the coupling, and Tanis swept it to the side, over the shoulder with the butterfly tattoo, placing a string of soft kisses across the back of her neck.

  “Holy shit, I needed that,” Naree gasped.

  “Mmmm.” Tanis explored soft, human flesh, her hands traveling down Naree’s gently rounded sides to stroke over her hips. She brushed her cheek against the back of Naree’s head, shifting so she popped free of her body with twin wet slurping sounds. Naree murmured. Tanis nuzzled the side of her neck, tongue sweeping out to capture the salt of her sweat, nostrils flaring at the female scent, so familiar and strange at the same time. It was all Naree, but it was just a little sweeter than usual. A little more sugary.

  Anything smells sweet compared to Adder’s Den.

  Tanis rolled to her side and pulled Naree close, Naree’s rump settling into Tanis’s front—convex, concave, two shapes perfectly melded, their limbs entwined, their breathing short, the sheets beneath perfumed by sweaty love. Tanis wrapped her arm around her middle, her fingers stroking the underside of a plump breast. Her fingers swept up to graze a nipple and Naree giggle-squirmed.

  “I’m a disaster. You do good work.”

  “I know,” Tanis whispered against her ear.

  “Smug much? You’re smug. I guess you deserve it. I don’t think my legs work.”

  And so Tanis abandoned the warm dent on her side of the mattress to scoop up her girl. If people saw the lithe woman carrying the roundish, wobbly-bitted woman, they’d wonder how she managed, but inside the apartment walls, Tanis could be free with her strength. She cradled her love to her chest and carried her to the bathroom. Naree placed a soft kiss at the base of her throat, her arms looped around Tanis’s middle, as they stepped into the tub. A knob turn—three quarters to the right but no more than that—for perfect temperature, the bath faucet spouting out all the cold water on Tanis’s feet before she moved the lever over to open the shower. She held Naree close, water pouring over both of them, only relinquishing her hold when Naree insisted on standing.

  Naree washed Tanis’s hair, her stubby fingernails kneading Tanis’s scalp in soothing circles. Tanis attended Naree’s back with a marauding loofa. Little kisses and hidden smiles and whispered secrets, the evidence of their tryst swirling down the drain with the suds. Despite soap and gels and water hot enough to turn their skin pink, Tanis could smell herself on Naree when they toweled off and tumbled back into bed. She fell asleep with the comfort of entwined bodies and entwined scents.

  It was nice. Until the phone rang at ass o’clock.

  Naree growled and burrowed under her mountain of pillows. She’d migrated to the opposite side of the bed over the course of the night and balanced precariously on the edge, a sheet mummifying her from foot to chin. Tanis stretched to snag her jeans from the floor, fumbling around for her cell in the pocket. Luke’s piss had sunk into the denim; there were only a few splashes of it here and there, but to Tanis it reeked. Tanis snagged the phone and stumbled down the hallway to throw the jeans into the washing machine.

  She thumbed the answer button, barking a barely-tolerant “Yeah” into the receiver.

  “Got some bad news, doll.”

  Bernie. A glance at the hallway clock. Six-thirty. Two whole hours of sleep.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Ariadne’s missing.”

  Ariadne was one of the favored—a True Daughter. She was pretty, with long golden hair, blue eyes, and skin the color of sand despite never seeing the sun. Her body was voluptuous in that pinup way: not too thin, not too fat, with curves for days. She crammed her coconut tits into too-tiny bikini tops, showing off soft, pampered flesh and a belly button ring with a dangling dolphin charm. And though her human half was lovely, it was her snake half that stole the show. Ariadne had some of the prettiest scales in the Den, in iridescent pastel blues, violets, and greens that looked like they belonged on a mermaid. When she slithered around, they gleamed like gossamer fairy wings.

  “Any ideas?” Tanis asked.

  “Daphne.”

  “Still?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Bernie replied.

  Daphne was one of Ariadne’s guards—not assigned to her specifically, but to her birthing den, the one to the left of Lamia’s. She was a big girl, solid like Fi, with dark brown skin and black hair shorn short with silver flecks at her temples. Bright green eyes, a broad nose, a lush mouth. Like a snake she had no ears, and her body from the neck down was completely covered in brown scales. The tips of her fingers had black talons that could peel human flesh off the bone like rind from an orange; Tanis had seen it.

  The thing was, she had a secret. Not a particularly good secret, as most anybody with a clue knew about it, but she and Ariadne were lovers. Lamia didn’t approve because Lamia approved of very little in general, but that was especially true when it came to her prized breeding daughters. They were hers and hers alone, bearing the burden of her love like canaries trapped in gilded cages. Nothing was supposed to come before the Mother or the People, and so the girls were known to wait for the queen to go into one of her deep slumbers to stage their rebellions. A freshly-inseminated snake queen meant Lamia was at her most tired, the eggs in her belly commanding extravagant resources to mature in their meager, three-day window.

  Ariadne and Daphne must have capitalized on it to sneak away.

  “Does Lamia know?” Tanis demanded, heading back toward the bedroom.

  “Oh, yes, and she screeched at me to call you. We’re on hunting duty. She doesn’t want to lose any of the home-based girls in case of breach.” A breach being the outside world cluing into a den of magical snake women living right beneath their noses. Naree might be alright living amongst lamia, but Naree wasn’t most people, and a regular person spying a pair of giant snake women, one with a long, glimmering snake tail, would incite panic.

  Tanis raked her fingers through her hair and dove for the laundry basket with the unsorted-but-still-clean underwear, pulling on a pair of boxer briefs. “Fuck’
s sake.”

  She didn’t know how or why she’d been picked for the job, but there wasn’t much sense in arguing it. What Mama said went, even if Mama was a horrorshow. “Gonna take me a while to get there. She got her eyes out?”

  “You bet. And she’s seeing swamp, which is about as helpful as tits on a bull. I’ll start sniffing. See you soon, doll.”

  Tanis tossed the phone onto the bed and staggered around the bedroom in search of fresh jeans and a T-shirt, ending up in a gray Marlboro tank top she’d picked up from the secondhand store. A pair of socks without holes near the toes so they wouldn’t drive her crazy, alligator boots. She snagged a fresh pack of cigarettes from the bedside table and slipped a smoke between her lips—tired, irritable, and longing for coffee.

  “Where you going?” Naree rolled at her, her arms wrapping around Tanis’s waist from behind, her cheek pressed to her back.

  “The Den. Two of the sisters are missing.”

  “Oh, shit. Are they okay?”

  “I don’t know.” Tanis turned to press a kiss to Naree’s forehead. “You know the drill, yeah?”

  “The drill sucks.”

  “The drill” was that there was forty-five hundred in cash in Tanis’s bottom desk drawer along with a gun, in the eventuality Tanis didn’t come back from one of her hunts. It wasn’t that she feared one of the men getting the drop on her, so much as what if her mother lost her shit one day and snapped Tanis in half? She hadn’t courted it, but Lamia was mercurial at best and an absolute shitshow psycho at worst. If Tanis couldn’t find her precious Ariadne, someone would pay. It’d be really swell if that someone wasn’t Tanis or Bernie, but who knew?

  “Call if you need anything,” Naree whispered.

  “I will. Go back to sleep. You’re tired.”

  Naree groaned and sprawled onto her back, her arms and legs stretching for the corners. Tanis shrugged into her leather jacket and made her way to the living room. Halfway there, she heard a jingle, and she remembered she had Luke’s personal effects rattling around in her pocket. She left the cufflinks and cash from his wallet on the end table for Naree. His gun would go with Tanis, as would the wallet, so she could throw it out into the swamp en route to the Den. It’d be gator shit within days.