14 comments/ 21608 views/ 18 favorites Mating Rituals By: karma_bonds PART ONE It was a guitar. That's what woke me. There was the insistent strumming that matched the beat of my heart. Or was my heart the beat for the guitar? I couldn't tell. But whoever was strumming needed to knock it off. I don't care how beautiful or magical it seemed. I needed my rest dammit. When I tried to sit up my forehead smacked against the underside of something. "Fuck!" "It's too early to be invoking power words, Poofs." A masculine voice that was probably sexy to other females grated in my brain. "Even though you did fall asleep under the table." "Well gee Butters," I growled back. "A good roommate would have been nice enough to move me out from under it!" "A better roommate would stop passing out under it." He countered. "Then move out if you don't like it here." "I just don't like you here." "There really is a girl under your table Infamy!" A woman's voice interrupted our banter. I finally managed to crawl out from under the hardwood table. The five empty chairs around it and the sixth one seating asshole with long legs on it made it almost impossible. I have a tendency of being cranky the morning after a raging change. But when I peeked out from underneath the table and saw the woman in one of my robes I was furious. I stood up as naked as the day I was born. I glanced over to the head of the table where Infamy sat. He was handsome. But then I never met a bloodsucker who wasn't. He had dark hair and cool grey eyes. He was unusually tan for a vampire but I guess that was the benefit of being an Ancient. He was tall and built like a swimmer. Wide shoulders, slim waist, long legs. His chest had sprinkle of black hair. The tattoos on his body swirled in the dips of abs. I sighed like I always did when I noticed he was good looking. It was just a damn shame he was an asshole. "I have rules here Infamy." I said trying my hardest to smile. By tilt of his eye brow, I guess I failed. "What is wrong with your face?" Yup. Failure. "Infamy," The woman said. "Who is this naked girl?" I think it was the girl part that angered me to the point of no return. I felt my ears expand from the side of my head and bones cracking in my lower spine. "Heather," Infamy moved with that inhuman predatorily grace that made him lethal. "Be a dear and leave. Remember how I told you my roommate has deadly temper tantrums?" "Yes." Heather the blonde wasn't that stupid at least. She was staring nervously at my ears. Then I twitched and her eyes darted around me in panic. "She's about to have one now, so you might want to leave." She stayed still for a second before she fainted to the floor. "Oh crap, Flame." Infamy picked up the girl easily. "Between me and you what are we going to say this time?" I shrugged and headed towards the bathroom for a hot shower to rid me of my anger and grogginess. "Your ears are sticking out again!" He called from the living room. "And watch your tail!" I flicked my tail at his door as I walked past it to get to the bathroom. I the spikes in it knocked a ragged hole through it. I shut the bathroom door with a grin on my face as his swear words followed me through the door. ***** Ok you're probably wondering several things. Like, what does this narrator look like? She seems like such a pleasant individual! She must certainly be a beautiful young maiden of awesomeness. And I won't disappoint. As the vampire said, my name is Flame Bard. Ok. Not my real name. And NO. You don't get to make fun of my name. Ever. Or I will LITERALLY eat you. I am one of the few remaining female dragons left in the world. Unfortunately, because we live on Earth we have evolved into shape shifters, adapting a human form. It's not a glamour like many others of the Folklore use. We, like our cousins the werewolves, actually use two forms. We look, feel, smell, taste, and sound like humans or a dragon. So I guess you could categorize me as a Shifter. A long time ago, about three hundred years ago, the Last World was overrun by demons. Big, ugly, red skinned, black horned, big teeth, soul sucking demons. The Rulers managed to reopen a door to Earth and send many of their people here. It was an intense joint effort thing. Now humans had no idea what to do when a bunch of inhuman looking creatures dropped into the middle of a densely populated area. And it's not like we could actually return to where we came from. So in a bold act, a fairy queen begged for the help of the humans. It was insane for about fifty years. Intense prejudice and extreme violence. Apparently, humanity didn't like us and had heard stories about us. Made me wonder if there were ancestors here or if the Rulers had been sneaking off to mess around with the humans. Or who knows what else. But facts were facts, the humans had knowledge of us. We had no clue about them. But the first fifty years, humans discovered that they couldn't kill us easily. If at all. They realized that even though they out numbered us, they could never eradicate us. So they tried population control, registration camps, registration acts, assassination attempts, betrayal, pacification. Violence was their favorite response. When we showed no signs of breaking, they adapted to fit us. They accepted the good and the bad in after about a hundred years or so, no human existed that remembered what it was like not to have a brownie as a maid or an elf as a teacher. We were called Mystics, separated into either Folklore who needed human glamour or Shifters, who could assume human form. Either way, the humans accepted us. Just how I personally got stuck with the Ancient Asswipe...well...I own the one story four bedroom house we live in and he's got scads of money. I'm like his day time guardian so long as he keeps the fridge full. That's the deal. It takes a lot of money to feed a dragon. What? You don't believe me? Then I guess you're not that stupid. ***** The hot water felt so good as it sluiced down my body. My metabolism is pretty fast so I have a nice figure. I'm decently tall and slender. But my ass is huge. I don't know why, it just is. Infamy likes to tease that it's because my tail is really long so my human counter part responds with a big butt. Except when my tail pops out in human form (like it is now) it pops out right above the crack of my bubbly butt. So what now? I have tan skin, just like all dragons do for some reason. I have never met a pale or black skinned human dragon. We are all just a light brown. I have long dark brown hair that shines red in the sun. It curls down my back prettily when it's not wet and plastered all over me. My eyes are a light brownish red too. I don't actually consider myself pretty but when I bother to make myself sexy I get double takes every now and then. I finished up in the shower and stepped out. After drying I hung up my towel and walked naked from the shared bathroom to my bedroom. There were two other bedrooms but this was the only bathroom. I had the biggest room on the left side, away from the others. Infamy took the one on the right of the bathroom. The layout was the reason I like the house. The living room, the kitchen, and the dining room were all one giant open room that we separated with using markers such as the kitchen counter, the giant wooden table, and the couches and pillows that were sprawled in front of a giant flat screen television. There were no walls at all between these rooms. But there was a doorway that led from the dining area to the hallway. Infamy's door was smack lined up with that door. The other two empty bedrooms were to the right, hidden by the hallway wall and mine was to the left, after the bathroom. I liked that someone would easily walk into his room before they walked near mine. Vampires are fiercely territorial against strangers. They are extremely vulnerable to attack in the daytime -when I'm usually at work- but at night they are awake and alert to protect their area. I was lucky Infamy's territory consisted of more than my home. It was nearly the whole block. No other bloodsucker would come near me while I slept. He also proved to be extremely 'MINE is MINE' with me too. Once when another vamp just looked at me hungrily Infamy partially decapitated him. The blade he used wasn't sharp enough for the task and then he stopped only because I pulled him off. In dragon form. I shut my door and studied my room. There were shelves all along the top of the wall where herbal candles lit themselves at my command one by one. My bed was in the center of the room. It wasn't really a bed. I can't sleep on those. It was a bunch of giant gold pet pillows that I had made into a circle because I don't just roll around, I do flips and stuff apparently. I had no carpet on the floor, just cold hard concrete because I was sick of burning the rugs when I couldn't sleep. So the scorch marks were all on the floor. Along with claw and horn scratches. I didn't have any wooden furniture in my room. A lot of the things were made of stone or metal. It was a lot of grey on silver on black. Nothing white or wood lasted very long here. My drawers were specially designed by dwarves. I took a bunch my jewels and metals to them and had them craft this piece of art. It looked like a drawer but it sparkled and shimmered. There were shots of gold and silver that veined through the glittery jewels that also blended together. The surface was cool and smooth to the touch and every time I saw it I smiled. I picked out my usual clothes. Dark jeans and a light colored tank top to go with. Humans are ingenious at clothing designs. Even if other things are none too good in my home. When I walked into the living room barefoot, I could still hear the damn guitar. The vampire walked back into the house from the front door. Apparently it was either early morning or late evening for him to be able to go escort his guest out. Then I smelled the charred flesh. "Aw great," I groaned with agitation. "I just changed!" He laughed. "She gifted me with her blood, don't worry about it." "As in she put it in a cup for you?" He walked towards the kitchen counter where a ceramic black mug was. He held it up to me in a salute. "That's just gross." I remarked. "Says the being who eats raw meat." he countered before sipping thoughtfully. "Our new neighbor. And he's not human." "Really?" I asked. I was genuinely curious. "Well what is he?" "Male." Infamy's voice took on a hard edge as he tossed back the rest of the blood. "A shifter I'm sure." "Well let's go say hi." I said walking slowly to the door. But I saw the look in his eyes. His pupils were starting to bleed into his iris, making that light blue a dark black. "You just fed off of the blonde. So-Son of a bitch!" He did that flash forward attack and bit my shoulder. Dragon's aren't known for speed. Oh, yeah, we're faster than humans, but put us in a ring with a vampire and you'll think we weren't moving. We're strong. One of the strongest Mystic's. But even we couldn't pull a feeding vampire off of its victim. Which unfortunately, I seemed to be. You see, it's always a bad idea to let a vampire feed straight from your body. Why? Because vampires will release a venom that's more like a drug. Eventually you could wean someone off of it...that takes decades, which I don't have because of my work. The side affects of not taking the bite include, grogginess, lack of appetite, lack of energy, and just a plain coma like state. So I suffer his bite and his territorial behavior because I don't want to be asleep for twenty years or so and once he's done he'll pass out for at least two days. Dragon blood is not just spicy, Infamy told me. It's a sleep aid. I never understood how anyone thought that a vampire bite was sexy. His claws were roughly digging into the back of my head and my hip as he pulled me closer to him. I could hear him swallowing and slurping at my shoulder. It was painful and it was gross. I hated it every time he did it. When he was done, he collapsed and I followed him. We stayed slumped for awhile before a knock on the door prompted me to make the effort to push the ass off of me. I wanted to kick him but I settled for picking him up and tossing him through his bedroom door, completely ripping it off it's hinges. I rubbed my shoulder and tsked at the blood that was drying on my shirt. It wasn't a lot but it wasn't a couple of drops either. I was wearing a sports bra so I didn't mind taking the shirt and tossing it to the garbage. My shoulder didn't have any wound, just two tiny pin pricks where Infamy's teeth pierced and that would be gone within a few hours. The blood loss was making me hungry and the crankiness returned with a vengeance. I walked to the door anyway and answered. "What?" I was looking straight...glaring at an impressive mass of chest beneath a white wife beater. I looked up to the male at the doorway who was smiling and opened his mouth before stopping to give me a puzzled look. He leaned down and sniffed at my hair once before taking a step back with that look of confusion. Which allowed me to admire the beauty of him. He was taller than me, I figured around six feet or so since I was average anyway at nearly five and a half feet. He had golden hair that fell in messy waves to his shoulders, shining brightly in the early morning light. I took a moment to reflect that was probably why Infamy had passed out so quickly. His eyes were dazzling jade green that caught my breath. A lot of his handsomeness was detracted by the beard on his face that was long and bushy, but I could still see that the male had rugged features. Hard planes on his face and an aristocratic edge that refined him His body was big and muscular. Not like Infamy, wiry. But a male built for strength and battle. His scent was teasing my nostrils. Something pleasant, familiar, alluring...and repelling both at the same time. He had broad shoulders, muscled arms, chiseled chest and eight pack abs. His hips were fine and I longed to sink my claws into them, have those hips brush with my own. His legs were toned and finely made. The male never said a word but my superb hearing picked up his increasing heart rate. His blood started to heat in his veins and it called something primal within me. I could hear myself purring, the sound vibrating from my chest up through my throat and escaping between my moist lips and nostrils. "You're a female." He said shocked. "And you're in heat." "Mmm." Was my response. It was getting hot in here wasn't it? His jade eyes flashed golden for a second and that caused me to moan for some reason. "Lady," He said thickly. His voice was a pleasant timbre, accented very slightly in a casual way. "Please. Stop to think clearly." There was something in the way he said please that made me sniff him again. That deliciously...obnoxious odor...that teased my senses and aroused me to the point of pain. I rubbed my thighs together as I felt moisture pool between my legs. My breasts grew heavy and my nipples tightened beneath my sports bra. Suddenly, my skin was too tight and I was burning up with the need to be touched. "Lady," He said again, he bowed his head. "I beseech you." It was something in the way he said "Lady" that made me reach out to him. When I touched one muscular pec he fell to his knees and looked me in the eye. That was when I saw him for the first time. The beautiful jade eyed dragon. His pale skin, blonde hair, and light colored eyes had confused me. But I knew the scent of a male dragon very well. They were the reason I was allowing a vampire to feed from me daily. I refused to be a broodmare for my species. The anger inside of me drowned out my lust and I slammed the door in his face. ***** Mating Rituals of the American Midwest The day I meet Katrine, I know I am going to struggle: do I want to fuck her, or do I want to *be* her? Or, as is the rare, tragic case, both? Behind her vintage glasses is a pair of twinkling, cobalt blue eyes that seem to be telling a joke even as the house burns down around her. Something in the way she flips her ebony, shoulder-length curls suggests she started the fire herself, on a day she knew to be dry and windy. We work together, tending bar at a place with a screen door entrance and three illegal poker machines along the back wall. Well, I work. She sits behind the bar and blows smoke past the shoulders of men in alternating John Deere and Colts caps. She flirts with the younger ones, and puts Folsom Prison Blues on repeat for the old guys in the same ironic spirit. Both result in tips for the smallest of mercies; she's making money simply by passing the pretzels. "Where ya from, darlin'?" They often ask, taking her in with a lot less subtlety than I do every shared shift. She is tall and thin and unmarked by the hard living and high fructose corn syrup of rural Indiana. In her lilting, vaguely European accent, she lies that she is from just outside of Paris. About fifty percent of our regulars mistake Paris for its own country, so she doesn't bother to tell them she's really from Luxembourg. During slow times when I'm trying not to stare at her, I look up Luxembourg on my phone. It is a tiny speck surrounded by more important places with a population half the size of Indianapolis. They speak three languages there, and I ache to hear her say something in any of them. I want to watch her lips forming the foreign noises and pretend she is telling me things she'd never tell anybody else. I stabbed my green card husband with a corkscrew and had to flee Chicago, she'd intimate to me in German. In the softer Luxembourgish, she'd confide that she's actually a duchess with a dark past. Meet me in the back office in five minutes. Take your skirt off. This daydreamed directive is naturally in French. Reality is a walk-in cooler, however. The only source of heat is her breath on my neck while she helps me maneuver the keg. I shiver being so close, and she confuses this for something else. "Silly girl. Why do you not grab the jacket if cold? He is right behind the door." Her smirk, though rendering her face terribly asymmetrical, makes her even more attractive. I feel goosebumps forming along my shoulders. Her softer, larger hand grazes my own while we wrestle the Miller Lite onto the dolly; a second kind of warmth spreads between my legs. Do I gasp aloud or is it only in my head? I have my answer when she flashes that crooked grin again. "Anna, do I scare you a little bit, yes?" She pronounces my name "Ah-na," and it conjures up an image of a much more sophisticated person. Ah-na does not wear a frayed jean skirt and a Ramones t-shirt on the busiest night of the week. Ah-na buys makeup that actually suits her coloring instead of pilfering it from her much-fairer roommate when she's not home. Ah-na would press this slightly older, intensely sexy woman against the back of the cooler with her smaller frame, look up at her defiantly and tell her that after all these weeks, she's tired of the teasing and the broken English innuendoes. She would bite the woman's bottom lip and ask if she seems scared. But Anna flushes, stammers something that sounds like "no" and wishes, for maybe the tenth time today, that she was somebody else. *** Five minutes before last call on Friday night, the place buzzes with what I have come to think of as the Mating Rituals of the American Midwest. Middle-aged patrons lean their heads together, kicking off their long night of regret with sloppy kissing. The younger set hangs boozily on one another, rubbing each other through their jeans on the dance floor to a 90's power ballad. I watch Katrine watching it all, a wry smile condemning it even as she mirrors it. She leans her considerable cleavage over the bar and pouts playfully at a regular who is insisting she do a shot of Jack with him. She'll do the shot, but only after she puts his ten in the register and sinks two singles into our tip jar without asking first. "You as well!" she motions to me with one hand and with the other she taps on the bar until a five appears underneath it. She pours me a generous one, deposits the five in the register, fishes a one out and silently drops it into the jar. The fire goes down quick and hard while the horny patron looks on, nodding his approval. "Another," he booms, and Katrine and I lock eyes. Because I am small and not a drinker, the whiskey warms me almost instantly, making me brave. As I pour three I feel her hand on me, sliding bills into my back pocket. She wants another embarrassed gasp; I respond by shaking my ass against her palm. This earns an appreciative hoot from the customer and two gentle swats from Katrine. Another shock between my thighs is quieted only by the second Jack Daniels. Katrine rings the last call bell and we are both busy for several minutes, pulling drafts and selling half a bottle of Cuervo to the just legal crowd. "Please for them to wait to vomit until they are out of the carpark," she mutters, and I laugh, too loudly. I feel targeted by that fucking sexy, lopsided grin and it undoes me. "She is a bit tipsy, no?" "One more for the road?" asks the regular, gesturing towards the bottle still on the bar. "You drink any more and you have—how do you say? Cock of whiskey." He guffaws at this, charmed by the insult. "Darlin' when I get home, whiskey dick is gonna be the least of my problems." I cringe but pour the shot anyway. Domestic bliss and the bartender are natural enemies, after all. "You're not joining me?" "I need to start closing up," I say, sliding the drink over. "Buzzkill," Katrine shouts, correctly using the term I taught her last week. She grabs the Jack and pours two more, clinks them together and passes one to me. "I promise I do most of it, ok?" The third shot doesn't even burn when it goes down. With inhibitions suitably lowered, I stare at Katrine as she knocks the shot glass back. I allow my gaze to linger at her lips, painted a light magenta that sticks to the rim. I know I am officially drunk because I can't stop thinking about her lips, and that color, marking my naked body. *** We're empty, lights are back up and Katrine switches the stereo from Tom Petty to some European trip-hop that would confuse and anger the farmers around here. I don't mind it—the lazy haze it invokes makes me think of it as her soundtrack. "Pass to me the mop?" she asks. I'm dumbfounded that she's actually keeping her promise. All I've done is close out the register while she fills condiments, washes glasses and sweeps up. I'm half-heartedly wiping the bar down when I feel her suddenly at my side. "Men to me are very easy," she muses. "Oh? Why's that?" Ah-na goes with it, because she is bold and because Katrine has positioned herself so very close. She smiles and leans in even further, taking the rag from my hand. "He wanted very much to fuck us, no? We make a lot of cash from him tonight. When I say 'cock' to him I think he gets hard one." "Hard-on," I mumble, "And yeah, probably." My attention is elsewhere, however. Katrine fixes her deep-set eyes on me and places her hands on my shoulders to square me towards her. I have to brace my knees from buckling, "And if his cock does not go," she whispers huskily, "I think he is happy if we fuck each other for him to watch." These words hang in the air as she tucks her fingers under my chin, forcing me to meet her gaze. "This is not so bad, I think." I am no longer that girl who blushed madly in the walk-in. I sense the heat coming off of Katrine, the floral notes coming from her hair, her soft fingertips stroking my face and I am somebody else entirely. "There are much worse things," I agree. "Yes. Only I think he does not watch. I think I keep pretty girl all myself." And with that, she lowers her face to mine and kisses me. There is no hesitation. The whiskey and weeks of teasing loosen my tongue into putty for hers to mold. She licks and sucks and bites it with a zeal atypical for a first kiss, making me lean on the bar for leverage. I squeal when she nips particularly hard at my bottom lip, and she laughs. "So delicate." In her accent it sounds like deli-KATE. I answer her playful scorn by grabbing a handful of her thick, black hair and pulling it, hard. "Mmmm. Now she is feisty." Her hand slides over my chest, clutching my right breast and resting there. With her other hand she grabs my ass, pinching it, then kneading it with her long fingers. Her mouth on mine, a dance she is definitely leading with more confidence than anybody I've ever known. Her nails dig into me and I feel myself opening, relenting. I want to give her more, or I want her to take it. "Anna," she coos in my ear. "Since now you are with boys only, I think." I freeze. Am I doing something wrong? I reflexively draw back, disengaging my fingers from her silky curls. She snorts, not unkindly. "It is okay. I know you like me when we meet." She strokes me underneath my shirt, working her expert fingers around my nipples. "I like you too. Americans worry too much about such things." I moan my agreement, kissing her from her earlobe to her collarbone. My hand roams over her gorgeous tits and I mimic her, massaging her petite, pale pink nipples, feeling them spring to life at my touch, hardening more. "For many weeks I wonder," she whispers into my neck. "How does she taste like?" A sharp intake of breath followed by a further dampening between my legs, I can only make noises, not form language. Katrine shoots me that crooked grin and I instinctively part my thighs, nervous but needing. I am self-conscious about the heat and scent of arousal radiating from me, but once her fingers slide my panties aside and enter me there is nothing but sensation. I shut everything off and focus on the in and out, how easily she works herself inside me, soaking her fingertips and painting the outside of my lips with my slickness. I hear myself growl when Katrine's index finger settles on my clit, at first gently tapping it, then encircling it with slightly more pressure. I am her puppet, her piano and any other toy with which she wants to play—responding to her touch with no real will of my own. Katrine must sense the surrender, because she removes her hand from between my legs. I whimper involuntarily, eliciting a laugh. "Somebody is greedy." Then she brings two fingers, doused in my wetness, to her impossibly soft, swollen lips. "Finally I know," she winks. I watch her swallow them, lick them clean, making noises as though she's savoring my juices. "Sweet. Like I think already." I blush at this revelation and it does not go unnoticed. "You never taste," she asks. I shake my head, blushing deeper. Then she grabs my face with both hands and pulls me to her, kissing me with a renewed intensity. Her tongue overlaps with mine and I am awash in my own salty sweetness; I suck myself off of her until there is nothing left. "I tell you so," she says as she takes a step back. "Now I want more." Once again I freeze, not understanding. Should I do to her what she just did to me? Underneath this slight panic is an undercurrent of wonder: how does *she* taste? I realize that I want very much to know. My reverie is broken by her undoing the buttons on my jean skirt and sliding them past my thighs onto the floor. Now I understand, and another type of panic sets in. I have recalled this scenario several times as I touch myself in the shower, or after a long night at the bar, trying to quiet my mind and body for sleep. Tracing my fingers along my slit, imagining her dark head of springy curls nestled between my thighs never fails to bring me over that edge. That it's about to happen now, in reality, is almost too much for me to bear. The muscles in my legs tense and she seizes them harder like she feels my hesitation. "Sweet girl," she cajoles, kissing my right knee and working her way up. "Please to not be shy." She removes my panties and I wince but acquiesce, feeling the cool air meet and mix with the warmth she has caused. She spreads my lips apart with her fingers and pauses. "Why keep a pretty pussy such as this away?" She answers this hypothetical by nuzzling my clit with her lips, briefly running her tongue over the hood. This quick contact alone causes me to shake, and another growl escapes me. "Oh...she is sensitive, yes?" Katrine looks up at me, eyes laughing, teasing. "Yes," I murmur. But I don't want to be teased anymore. I do the thing in my daydream; I run my hand along the back of her bowed head, I channel Ah-na and give her a slight push towards me. Katrine runs her tongue in circles over my lips, occasionally flicking against my clit. I swell and harden from the intermittent shocks, encouraging her to suck longer, harder. I grow so wet that I start leaking down my thighs and I am embarrassed at how primal it all feels. As if on reassuring cue, she licks the droplets from my skin and declares me delicious. I am very close. Without her hands holding my legs, I'm not sure I could stand on my own. I shiver, I swear, I lose myself and everything for seconds at a time. She fucks me with her tongue, in and out, in and out, and I feel myself clenching around her, contracting and releasing. Suddenly, she removes her hand from my right thigh and deftly slides three fingers inside me. With her lips wrapped tightly around my clit, teeth slightly clamping down, she licks and sucks in the same rhythm as she fingers me, and that is when it happens. I scream out, start sliding downward, my juices streaming out of me, the first drops hitting the ground. The rest Katrine collects in her mouth. She drinks me, laps me up like a thirsty animal at a scarce water source. When the waves finally subside, I crumple against her a moment, leaning on her in order to stay upright. "Come here," she says, drawing to her feet. She grabs me at the waist and flashes me the Picasso grin. "You are okay?" "I am," I choke, my voice cracking on the second syllable. "You are more than only okay, pretty girl." She leans in to kiss me and my smell and taste all over her is enough to prompt a twinge between my legs. This, along with her compliment, causes me to redden. "You see. I am not so scary," she laughs, planting a kiss on my nose before collecting my clothes from the floor and passing them to me. "And now we know quite some things, yes?" Her smile, her scent, her accent—they are infinitely more intoxicating now. As my brain returns to my body, I watch her resume closing and I wonder, for the hundredth time, what Katrine is doing in this place. It's a nearly self-contained population. Outsiders who stumble into this town rarely stay for long, she can't possibly be different. I knew after three years here that two years was my limit.