[Fiction] The Moth's Flame

[IvIaniac]

Disclaimer: The characters, plot lines, titles, and whips in this story are purely the work of a bored writer. If you come across any of these in your daily life, good for you.

Welcome to "The Moth's Flame"!

Note 1: Writers crave critique and reviews. Believe it or not, it makes us write better. So, if you want to see the quality of the material improving, please leave your thoughts after reading!

Note 2: This story is written in 3rd perspective, from our protagonist Amber's POV. It may not always stay this way, however, as I wish to experiment writing certain chapters from the point of view of another character. Or maybe not. We'll see. If so, this will be clearly mentioned right before the chapter begins. If there is no character mentioned, simply assume you're in Amber's head.

x - x - x - x

Chapter One - "Not this again"

"C'mon, Ashley!" Amber mock-pouted, throwing a balled-up sock at her room-mate. "It's gonna be fun!"

Ashley smiled sweetly as she threw the sock back. It bounced off Amber's bed and onto the strewn mess of clothes on the floor. "No."

"But why?!" Amber crossed her arms over her chest, looking hurt. "What's so important that you can't make it to the party tonight?"

"Just … stuff …" Ashley hedged, averting her eyes.

"Stuff? What 'stuff'?"

"Nothing."

"Ashleeeey!" Amber whined. "C'monnn!"

"It's none of your business, Amber!" Ashley suddenly snapped. She bit her lip as soon as the words had left her mouth.

Since they joined as freshmen a year and a half ago, the pair had been closer than the bestest of friends. Neither of them had siblings, and even since their first day together, had found in each other the sister they had craved whilst growing up. Needless to say, they shared everything with one another.

Which is why Ashley flung herself across the room and snatched an extremely shattered-looking Amber up in a vicious hug before she threw herself off the roof. To say that it was none of her room-mate's business was nothing short of sacrilegious. She knew had gone way over the line.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that!"

"S'okay," a tiny voice emanated from her chest. After a few seconds, she tried pushing Ashley away. "You're squishing me!"

Ashley hastily let her go, and laughed at a very disheveled, very petite Amber panting for breath, her normally ruler-straight auburn hair crooked.

"I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "Really, I am. Not just, for, you know, glomp-ing you, but for not coming with. You understand, right?"

"I actually don't," replied Amber. She sighed when she resigned herself to the fact that Ashley wasn't going to tell her. "But I just hope that it's not Max you have a date with."

Max. The abusive "boyfriend" Ashley had just managed to get away from, less than two months ago. Amber had known her friend was unhappy - even though she had loved him limitlessly - and that she needed to get her friend out of that train-wreck of a relationship before he got her to the ER again. Once had been enough - Amber still got shudders as she remembered her best friend's face; her eye blackened, her lip swollen and cut. And, of course, the oozing gash coursing from her hip to halfway down her thigh. Amber knew what they had both gone through to get her out. And she knew that Ashley would be retarded to even think about that bastard.

But hey, love's love, right?

"Max?" Ashley giggled, to receive a glare from the red-head. She tried straightening her face immediately. "No, Amber, I don't have a date with Max."

"Good."

Ashley grinned, and gave her best-friend another hug. Then, she got off the bed, and rifled through her wardrobe, throwing the clothes she considered "trash" at that moment onto the ever-increasing pile on the floor. "What about the strapless blue?"

"You know it's very difficult for me to tell you what to wear when you don't tell me what you're wearing it for, right?" Amber grumbled.

Ashley chuckled. "I need to look sexy. Like knock-em-dead sexy. Slutty."

Amber rolled her eyes, then assessed the blue strapless dress for degree of sluttiness. "Isn't the black strappy one sluttier?"

"Thought so too," Ashley responded, pulling out the number in question at that moment. Censor-worthy short. And incredibly tight. Slutty, indeed.

It was made of a silk-like material, with bands of criss-crossing straps lining the bottom of the deep back. The same pattern of straps covered an inch or two below where the dress ended, to try giving the dress a mockery of decency. The entire sophistication was held up by a pair of wafer-thin black straps, designed to dig slightly into its wearer's shoulder blades. This was a dress that accentuated a woman's cleavage even if she had none to speak of, and one that was made for being worn for only a couple of hours - at most.

"You'd better not drop your phone," Amber teased. But behind that playfulness was the slightest hint of admiration. Ashley had never even tried to hide the scar on her thigh. If someone can't accept me for my imperfections, she would say happily, then they don't deserve me. Besides, it's one hell of an ice-breaker!

Ashley giggled. "You know, I might just! Lemme try it on."

It was when Ashley was modeling the dress for Amber that she noticed the sharp red line coursing down from just under Ashley's brown hair and disappearing beneath the tangle of straps. She jumped off the bed. "Ashley, what's that?"

"What's what?" She looked confused.

"That scar," Amber said, pointing at her, her eyes bulging.

"Um … Max …?" she replied uncertainly.

"No, not that one. That one," she said, going over and touching the puckered skin of her back with a fingertip.

Ashley flinched slightly. "Oh … Damn it," she muttered, looking very much like a deer caught in headlights.

"Ashley?" Smoke was practically billowing out of Amber's ears.

"It's not Max, I promise!" she backed away slightly. "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me …" she mumbled.

"Liar!" Spittle shot out of the redhead's mouth like bullets from a gun. "You know what it took to get you out of that mess?!"

"It's not him, I swear!" Backing away much quicker now.

"Then?!"

"I … you … uh …" Deer-in-headlights. Very disoriented deer-in-headlights.

Another glare.

"You wouldn't understand!"

"Try me."

"Um … okay … well, um … there's this - this guy …" She looked quite reminiscent of a shifty-eyed child caught doing something naughty by his mother.

"Seriously?!" Amber demanded incredulously. More wet bullets. "Another abusive relationship? Really?! What's this one's name? Max-didn't-harm-me-enough-so-I'm-back-for-more?!"

"It's not like that!"

Amber threw herself back on her bed, praying to whatever Gods existed to wake her from the crappy dream she was having. "Whatever, Ashley, you're on your own this time. I'm not going to clean up after you." She didn't mean it, of course, but she hoped she was convincing enough to try get some sense into her retarded friend's head.

Ashley bit her lip. "Um … Amber …?"

Amber grunted into her pillow.

"Listen to me?"

Another grunt.

This wasn't working. She sighed, and then went rummaging in her wardrobe once more. Brightly-colored bras flew all around, chased by monochromatic thongs and boy shorts. She found what she was looking for, and touched the leather-wrapped handle before tossing it to land on Amber's back.

"What now?" she rolled over, and her eyes widened as she picked up the very sharp-looking whip her friend had thrown to her. "What … what is this?"

"It's a whip," Ashley replied, rolling her eyes. A glare in response. "Sorry. Yeah. Well. It's the whip that gave me that scar."

"You whipped yourself …?" trying to fathom why someone would even own such a thing.

"No," Ashley responded, pushing the image of a play-school teacher out of her head. "This is … His."

Amber's eyes narrowed. "Max?"

"No, no! I … well, I don't know His name …" she thought for a second. "No, no! Wait!" She knew the look Amber gave her. "Okay, wait. You know sex?"

Amber looked very much like she would have preferred to be behind an impenetrable glass-wall rather than within arm's reach. "Sex? Sure …"

"Well, okay, imagine you don't know sex. 'Cause that sex you know? That's not sex. Not even close."

"So I don't know sex now?" Better go along with it while you think of an exit strategy.

"No, you do know sex …" Ashley looked like she'd confused herself. "Okay, you know what, never mind. This is the thing, okay. There's this guy. I'm going to go visit Him tonight, He's agreed to see me a second time. He's … a sort of sex-god. Literally. Sex with Him is like … all the previous times having sex was losing your virginity, and then this is real sex. Seriously, I never thought it could get that good." She looked dreamy.

"So what's the whip got to do with it?" Lamp on bedside table. Eleven steps to the door. Eleven steps to freedom.

"The whip is a tool He uses sometimes. Did you know the arousal and pain sectors of our brains are pretty close to each other?"

She's going to kill me all the while thinking she's turning me on? Okay, yeah, this one's gone. Wow, Max really did her good.

Looking at her friend's expression, Ashley went on. "Not the point. Anyway. This guy? I was referred to by this other girl, and like I had to go for this audition, and then He agreed to have sex with me. At first I thought it was just a joke, right, 'cause who has auditions for sex? But boy was I wrong. And, He's agreed to see me again tonight."

Keep her talking. Lull her into a sense of false security. "Uh-huh …"

Ashley scrunched up her nose. She sat down on the bed next to Amber, who flinched slightly. She stared deep into Amber's eyes. There was definitely no indication of any sort of mania in her eyes. "This is the truth, Amber. Trust me." She took the redhead's hand. "If it was anything like Max, I would have been out quicker than a firework in the rain. I'd never let you go through Max again, I promise."

"But he hurt you, Ashley. He whipped you. With this." She twitched disgustedly, and the whip fell off her lap.

"Yes, he did hurt me. But he didn't harm me. Believe it or not," Ashley grinned, "it actually felt quite good."

Confused. "Good?"

"Yeah," she chuckled. "Remember how I told you arousal and pain are close? Well, when you're aroused, and you're physically hurt? It gets you … more so."

Amber was shaking her head in response. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Trust me, you've got to try it to believe it." Ashley's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Hey, why don't I ask him if he would be interested in doing you? Besides, he only gets new girls from recommendations from people he's already … doing."

Amber's first impulse was to say no. But, as always, she thought on it for a second. Here was her best friend - nay, sister - who was again getting herself into something that was surely going to end up with her getting hurt. Or harmed? She shook off the distraction.

She knew Ashley probably as much as she knew herself, and refusing her from it wasn't going to achieve much. If anything, it would make the crazy girl crave for it even more. And, what else could she do? She could, perhaps, go to the cops, and report … what, exactly? She had no evidence, hell, she didn't even know his name, or what he looked like. She could trail Ashley, but then again, what evidence would she have? She wouldn't exactly be able to look in on them having sex …

"Ugh. Sure. Why not?" The reluctance she felt was real.

"Yes?" Ashley stood up, almost as shocked as an eel. "Seriously? Yes?"

"Yes, yes," Amber winced.

"Oh my God, oh my God! Oh, you'll see what I mean! I hope he takes you! Oh! Oh, you ha -!" And the rest of her celebrations were drowned by her enveloping hug.

"I hope he takes me, too," Amber mumbled back. Otherwise how am I going to get you away from your flame, you silly, silly moth?