IX. The Morning After

George sat on the toilet seat, hands trembling as piss dribbled between his thighs. The slit was there—shallow, raw, like a razor’s hesitant slip. The evidence of Lanie’s magic splitting him... No, her open.

She was Georgia now.

She’d trusted Lanie. Seventeen years of shared pains and joy, of laundry-folding and mortgage payments and Lanie’s midnight whispers about “something more.” Even when her dragon scales split her shoulders. Even when the fuckfest nights left her throat scorched from screaming. But last night—the poet… John… his fucking hands, the romance, the borrowed clothes—nearly unravelled her.

“Lanie!” Georgia fumed as she stormed into the ritual chamber.

“Undo this. Now.”

Lanie didn’t turn. The harness in her hands hissed as she carved another rune. “Undo what? Your pretty new pussy?”

The room temperature spiked. Scales erupted down Lanie’s arms, wings shredding her robe. Dragon-Lanie loomed, sulfur eyes glowing. “You’re mine, Georgie. An accessory. That cunt’s just another showpiece.”

Georgia stepped into the inferno, her skin glistening. “Kneel.”

Lanie snorted. Fire licked the ceiling. “Delusional bitch.”

Georgia’s veins burned—a live wire chewing through her spine. Blood magic had never been able to touch her yet Lanie had sewn her shut with it, stitch by stitch, a marionette of meat and regret.

But the thing inside her unspooled now, dragging the word and magic up her throat like a rusted fishhook. Her nose bled black.

“Kneel.” The word tore from Georgia—a barbed wire snag in her throat—in a dozen voices: George’s growl, Georgia’s whimper, the Demon’s...no!

Lanie’s knees cracked tile. Scales fell like ash.

Lanie’s pupils slit. “You shouldn’t have been able to—”

Georgia gripped her horns, forcing her to meet human eyes. “You bound my manhood to your clit, to drain it,” she said, calm as a guillotine. “Apparently blood magic cuts both ways now… Horde Breaker.” She spat the title Lanie had once worn proudly—the dragon who shattered others' treasures just to lick the shards.

“How long?”

Lanie hissed. “Since the first Friday.”

Georgia smiled—the grin of the demon. “Time to switch diets.”

But as she leaned in, she caught it—a flicker in Lanie’s gaze. Not fear, never fear, this was a plea. The same as when she’d seen when Lanie miscarried in their shitty studio apartment, George’s hands slick with her blood as she clawed at his shirt, screaming, “Don’t you dare let go.”

The same damn eyes when Lanie tried to storm out during that blizzard in ’09, barefoot and shivering, only to collapse against the doorframe and rasp “Make me stay.”

Lanie’s eyes swam—dragonfire drowning in saltwater. Georgia tasted her own tears, bitter as cheap bourbon left to evaporate. Just like a dying ember's last gasp, her resolve died in a flash. Her knees buckling as she fell to the floor herself.

The dragon wasted no time. She stood, grasping Georgia’s hair, yanking her face to her crotch. The stench of sex and strangers’ cum hit her like a brick. Lanie dragged her wrist across her face—wetness sizzling to smoke—and barked, “Clean me,” voice stripped raw, “Good. Girl.”

Georgia’s tongue moved as tears flowed freely. “Do you… love him?”

Lanie’s grip tightened. “I claimed you.”

“Then why—”

“Quiet.” A thumb smeared her mixed juices across Georgia’s lips. “You...are…MINE.”
But as Georgia glanced up, she saw it—Lanie’s jaw clenched, her fire-dimmed eyes avoiding hers.

“Look at me,” Georgia demanded, still sobbing.

Lanie turned, smoke curling from her nostrils. “This snatch doesn't like to wait.”

“You’re scared,” Georgia pressed, voice like burning embers. “Of wanting him? Of losing me?”

Lanie’s laugh cracked. “Scared? I’m a dragon.”

“Dragons hoard,” Georgia said softly. “What happens when there’s nothing left to steal?”
For a breathless moment, silence. Then Lanie yanked her closer, breath hot. “Enough. Remain on your knees.”

Georgia remained.

Lanie’s command hung in the air like a blade. Georgia’s knees still on the carpet, the fibres scratching like whispered accusations.

“You’ll be my wardrobe this week,” Lanie said, her voice a serrated purr. She flicked cigarette ash into a chipped mug labelled World’s Okayest Sorceress. “John’s taking me to meet the friends. Needs me in satin. You’ll play the part.”

Georgia’s throat tightened. “And what if I say no?”

Lanie crouched, her stiletto digging into the floorboard’s groan. Her pupils flickered—dragon-gold, just for a heartbeat. “You won’t.”

Somewhere, Ash drifted where a moth once had flown. The bulb hummed, indifferent.

 
 
X. Poetry in Action

That first night, Georgia became a slip of black lace—the kind they drape over coffin handles to make rot look like romance. Lanie slid her into place, stitch by stitch, like a coroner would.

Fingers lingered where skin had become fabric, pricking seams into Georgia’s hips like cigarette burns on a motel mattress. “Quiet now,” Lanie murmured, though Georgia’s voice was fast becoming a relic, much like her wedding band becoming a choke-chain.

The closet light buzzed, a dying bulb flickering like a junkie’s pulse.

John, poet of shit, smelled of cheap cologne and cheaper promises. His knuckles still crusted with ink from scribbling bad poetry in Denny’s napkins. His hands trembled when they grazed Lanie’s waist—spider-leg fingers, all tremor and hunger.

Georgia felt every touch through the silk.

“You’re luminous,” John breathed, voice cracking like a bourbon bottle dropped on pavement.

Lanie laughed, heavy and a little too warm, like a butcher's knife sinking into warm butter. “You should see me when the moon’s a hangnail.” She arched into his grip, dragon fire simmering under her skin, while Georgia’s seams tightened.

By the second night, Georgia had swallowed John’s lies without chewing—

‘I’ll leave her by sunrise,’ he’d think, fingers snarling in Lanie’s hair.

*You won’t,* Georgia seethed silently, her edges unravelling a bit more each time.

Lanie’s telepathic voice slithered through the void between them: Jealousy is unbecoming, pet.

Georgia bit down until her phantom gums bled rust, she didn’t answer.

On the third night, Georgia became a dress.

Not just any dress—John’s desired dress. Crimson satin, as clingy as a scream, stifled mid-throat. Slit riding high enough to tent trousers but wholesome nonetheless. Lanie zipped her up with a smirk, the zipper’s teeth biting Georgia’s spine. “He wants ‘girlfriend’ energy. So be my sweet thing.”

Her satin itched. Or maybe this was the curse, chewing through Georgia’s resolve like maggots in a carcass.

The dive bar reeked of IPA and stale hops. Like the kind of regret that sticks to your shoes. John’s friends were pretension personified. A fellow poet with a septum ring more qualified to be a cattle brand. A guitarist who clearly tuned his ego instead of strings, and an overly skinny woman with a snake tattoo that appeared to hiss when she laughed.

“Lanie’s a muse,” John slurred, hand possessive on Lanie’s hip—her hip, the dress’s hip, whatever.

Lanie sipped her whiskey neat, smiling like a razer blade sliding through the pages of book. “Oh, I’m more of a… patron saint of credit card debt and third-degree burns.” The group cackled, teeth glinting like switchblades left in the rain.

Georgia’s silence weighed like brimstone.

You’re quiet my pretty thing, Lanie prodded, telepathy velvet-wrapped arsenic.

Dresses don’t talk, Georgia tried to shoot back, but her thoughts sank like stones in a shallow creek.

Stolen moments would tell many a story that night. The poet eyeing Lanie’s throat like he wanted to carve sonnets into it. His thumb rubbing circles on Georgia’s satin seams. Lanie’s laugh, too sharp, too bright, too theatrical. A firework aimed at the moon and missing.

“Tell us how you met!” Snake-Tattoo leaned in, her serpent’s tongue flicking like a lit fuse.
Lanie’s heel ground into Georgia’s toe under the table, a steel kiss. “John spilt absinthe on my favorite grimoire. I made him lick it off—carpet and all.”

The table roared. Georgia felt the dress’s seams strain, threads snapping one by one, each pop, another bit slipping its leash.

Midnight. Parking lot.

A stray cat yowled by the dumpster, its eyes reflecting the bar’s neon sign—HELL’S HALF ACRE—the same shade as Georgia’s rage.

Lanie leaned against a dumpster, well fucked and twice as hollow; she lit a cigarette with a snap of her fingers. “Don’t you dare fade bitch,” she hissed. Smoke curling from her nostrils like a dying man’s last confession.

Nothing. Not a word.

*Georgia? Speak up*

Lanie felt it: the dress’s seams constricting, and then the satin going slack like a marionette with cut strings. Lanie's fingers dug into the dress, anything to get a reaction, but Georgia'a silence was like a flatline hum in the breeze.

“Fuck,” Lanie muttered, choosing to stub the cigarette out on her palm. The burn hissed, but the pain felt borrowed, like grief stuffed into a stranger’s coat.

The pulse still wouldn't answer. "Just… hold on. Please”

Somewhere, moth wings crisped. The flame never cared to know its victim’s name..

 
 
XI. A prayer Answered

The ride home was like a live wire jammed into Lanie’s spine. John’s cologne clung to the fabric, only cheapened now from the night's bullshit. Every red light, a judge’s gavel poised in midair.

Lanie's knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. “Fuck you, Lanie!” The dress constricted around her lungs—was that Georgia’s heartbreak?

She cranked the window down, letting the first drops of rain prick her face. "Breathe, Lanie, Breathe. Just a while longer" But the road continued to fold like a jackknife, over and over.

Home felt like a closet-sized studio reeking of incense and desperation. Lanie clawed at the zipper. “Come off motherfucker,” she hissed, the fabric resisting like a second skin.

The satin peeled away with the effort of wrenching a tooth free from the gum. The dress lay crumpled on the mattress—just fabric now, lifeless as a shed snakeskin. Lanie knelt, palms pressed to the bodice. "Please! Please let it work."

The sleep spell spilt from her lips like a broken lullaby:

“Thistle and marrow,
dragon-chained, dragon-fed,
Unknot my love from
The threads in her head.”

The dress shuddered. It worked.. Yes!

Georgia materialised on the bed. Naked, weak, frail, asleep and incomplete. Lanie’s breath hitched. She traced a finger down Georgia’s sternum, stopping where she noticed that single detail that she had prayed for.

“There you are,” she whispered with a smile.

In the bathroom’s tumour-green light, Lanie fell apart.

Her glamour slid off like rotting meat, revealing the mess beneath. Eyes bloodshot like a jaundiced drunk, lips chapped from biting back bile once too often. She gripped the sink, talons scratching porcelain. “Pathetic,” she spat at her reflection.

"The greatest of dragons, reduced to this." She whispered to herself in disgust, "A con artist in a skin suit, betting on cheap spells for borrowed time."

She stumbled back to bed, collapsing beside Georgia’s broken frame. The room spun.

“Even dragons need sleep,” she slurred, though the words tasted like a lie. Her hand found Georgia’s—the frail finger from which her ring had slipped off.

Lanie’s last thought before the dark swallowed her: "Burn faster, love. Please Burn faster."

Outside, the rain mourned the moth’s wings. The flame claimed it was mercy. The silence only left bruises.

 
 
XII. A girl’s first time

Georgia woke to a fistful of lightning in her gut. The sheets were a crime scene—rust-brown smears covered in the metallic tang of pennies and panic. She screamed a raw sound that cracked against the bedroom's thin walls.

Lanie burst in, hair wild, lips still smudged with last night’s plum-coloured lipstick. “Oh, kitten,” she crooned, scooping Georgia against her. Her arms were a paradox: silken touch, iron beneath. “Shhh, it’s just your body learning to betray you.”

For three days, Lanie played saint. She pressed heating pads to Georgia’s cramping belly—the kind you’d use to thaw a frozen pipe—and hummed Patsy Cline while massaging her shoulders.

She stirred honey into chamomile tea, the spoon clinking like a jailer’s keys. “Every girl bleeds,” she said, painting Georgia’s nails shell-pink. “But you, baby? You’ll bleed prettier.”

By Thursday, the storm between Georgia’s thighs quieted. Lanie stood in the doorway, backlit by a dying sun. Her smile was a switchblade. “All better?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Good. I’ve been starving.”

She straddled Georgia on the mattress, denim skirt riding up to reveal the glint of her clit piercing—a tiny silver barbell, cold as a sniper’s bullet. “You owe me,” she whispered, fingers twisting in Georgia’s hair. “Lick. Make us both shine.”

“That’s it,” Lanie moaned, thighs tightening like industrial vices. “John’s mama expects his girlfriend to arrive in champagne silk—no stains, no seams. Just… perfection.”

Her hips rolled, grinding the cold rose gold of her piercing against Georgia’s tongue. “You’ll make such a pretty dress, kitten. Tight little corset, zipper down the back like a knife slit.

Mmm—fuck—keep licking.”

Georgia gagged, the taste of Lanie’s arousal sharp as stripped copper. She tried to wrench free, but Lanie’s fingers clawed deeper into her scalp, nails etching runes of ownership.

A thought slithered into Georgia’s mind, honey-thick and unbidden—a voice not her own: Don’t fight it, baby. Please—

The unspoken thought hung there, volatile like a dragon's scale soaked in kerosene. Georgia froze. ‘Did she—?’ Lanie’s rhythm stuttered like a stalled engine. Her eyes widened—a flash of dragon-gold panic.

She snarled, “Kindness comes with an expiry date,” and slammed Georgia’s face back into the heat. Her orgasm, a short circuit snapping through both of them, scorching the question to cinders.

When it was over, Lanie slumped against the headboard, lighting a cigarette with hands that didn’t quite shake. “You’ll love the design,” she said, smoke curling around the words.

“Champagne silk, sweetheart neckline—you’ll be the number that stitches us together.”

She traced Georgia’s jaw. “While I Smile for his mama, play the blushing bride-to-be, nice and clean,” she trailed off, staring at the water-stained ceiling.

Lanie exhaled a plume of spite. “Don’t fret, baby. Even brides need their pretty little things. Even the ones they outgrow.”

Georgia stared at the cracked mirror, her reflection split into a million jagged pieces. One of them was still clean.

Outside, a dog howled. Somewhere else, a moth, wings still damp from the cocoon, beat against a flickering bulb. Drunk on the false promise of warmth.

Continued in Part 5