Potions Inc.

Ghosts with Heartbeats: Part Eight

Nyx could see the whole city from his apartment window. She pressed her hand against the glass and watched her breath fog it up, felt her heart pounding away in her chest as the hissing of the shower stopped.

She wasn't dressed up, had next to nothing in her backpack besides her toothbrush and a change of undies. She hadn't expected to find him so quickly, to be treated so well.

Over the years, men had treated her in such a way that she had come to expect the very, very, least from them. Lucille in particular had made it clear that she wasn't worth leaving his apartment for her favorite fast food place, so he had always ordered takeout when he'd let her stay longer than half the night. He'd always order a little less for her, to help her of course.

Cliff's apartment was leagues better than Lucille's. He even kept it clean.

"Do you...want to go somewhere?" Cliff asked, sliding the bathroom door open. "You could pick a place from here," he came up beside her and pointed a talon toward a brick-red building with a neon-blue sign packed within a kaleidoscope of other places. When he pointed, light blue outlined the building and the window showed its name, "Uriel's."

"Or, if you're not a fan of seafood, we could try...," he nudged her with his shoulder, "you all there?"

She chuckled and nodded, "It's just...this is all I've got to wear," she shrugged, looked up at him with an embarrassed smile, "I'm not such a good planner, you know. If Lilith had packed my stuff I would have had a change of clothes..."

Cliff pressed a finger to his lip in thought, then motioned for her to follow him. What Nyx liked about Potions was that if she wanted to go to the back room, then she'd actually leave a room to get there. Cliff's apartment was like one big room where to get anywhere one just had to turn and they were there.

On the opposite side of the wall sat a sleek white desk and a bookshelf off to its right. When Cliff waved a hand over the desk, a holographic monitor blinked to life along with a keyboard. He typed in some things, then offered her free reign of the computer.

"Amazing things you can do with the Internet," he said, "pick whatever you like. It should be here within the hour."

Nyx hovered her hand over the screen as he walked back the way they had come. "How do I pick?" she called out.

"Just wave your hand to the right," she did and another dress popped up, "and if you like it, just tap the screen two times."

An hour later, her choice arrived with a gong-bell reverberating through the apartment as a sliding door opened, closed, and a package plopped onto the floor. Nyx had fallen asleep in the bathtub but the bell had jolted her awake.

Cliff knocked on the sliding glass door, "Something for you."

The gown was the definition of silk, of waterfalls cascading down curves, hugging her body as it fell. It made her feel graceful, like a goddess, like Oshun the Orisha of Love and Beauty. She admired herself in the mirror-window, then tapped the glass to make it clear once more. She decided she'd pin up her locs. Make them look elegant tonight, free tomorrow.