The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Grace Darling

The people and events in this story come from my brain, not the real world. Regardless of what that tells you about my brain, it means that I’m not writing about you, your mom, your friends, or your friend’s friends. So you can’t sue me. Neener neener.

If you’re under age in your territory (and you know what I mean), then read something else.

Note—This is a new tale featuring Grace and Gina, two characters from some of my other stories. It’s not essential that you first read their earlier stories (found here at the EMCSA and at my web site), but it may make a few references to their past more clear.

© 2001 Aerosol Kid

At first, Gina wasn’t all that excited about chaperoning her sister’s slumber party. Now that she was a little high, she didn’t mind so much. It was a hazy Saturday evening in June, and Grace was back from her first year in college. She and a handful of briefly dressed teenagers were lounging around on a blue blanket in the far corner of Mom’s giant backyard. Mom was away for the weekend on a business trip, hence Gina’s presence. Sure, Grace was nineteen now and capable of looking after herself, but Gina didn’t want to get the frantic call the next morning to come over and help her little sis clean up the pizza, puke and God knew what else before Mom got home. However, she’d arrived to find Grace—vanilla-scented and wrapped in a fetching cocktail dress—quietly holding court in the one part of the back yard that was completely hidden from all the neighbors. Gina was pleasantly surprised that they were kicking it mellow.

Grace’s new friends intrigued her. This was a thoughtful bunch, instead of the usual cadre of wild party girls. Of course, there was Sylvie—Grace’s partner in crime from high school—still dressing like a skinny little raver girl, yet somehow more poised after a year away at school. Tamra was a stunner with a strange allure: she was a black hippie girl in Birkenstocks, with quiet charm and classical looks. Gina had no doubt that art students tripped over each other in their rush to paint her. Tamra’s girlfriend was also an earthy type, a Phish-era sort that usually made Gina nauseous, but Kim was generous and funny. Maxine was most interesting to Gina, because of her volatile mixture of molten redheaded beauty and shy bookishness. Her elegant powder blue sundress contrasted with the earth-mama halters and skirts of the hippie couple. Yep, Grace could do a lot worse in her peer selection.

“Bleh. Cottonmouth.” Grace complained as she passed a substantial joint to Gina. Again.

Gina lazily pulled the twin straps of her tank top and overalls back up over her shoulder and reached out to accept. “You’re too kind, bud,” she smiled, making everyone giggle. Playing Cool Older Sister was kind of fun. “Be right back,” she exhaled, coughing a little.

It was time to run into the house and round up some things. On the way inside, she entertained herself by changing the words of a pop song to “Oops I Crapped In Your Mouth.” Several minutes later, she was still deciding which CD’s to take back outside with her, mulling the thermostat setting of the AC, wondering if there was enough ice cream, and at last finding a gallon of spring water and some cups. When she returned to the blue blanket in the back yard, an earnest conversation was taking place.

“Gracey. Just because you’ve never experienced anything like that, doesn’t mean you can’t open yourself up to the possibility,” Tamra said, apparently in defense of Kim.

“Exactly,” Kim said, blinking her bleary red eyes. “How can you just blow off what I’m saying like that?”

Grace was obviously enjoying herself, but she was a little flustered. “I’m just saying, show me the evidence, dig? Whatever happened to the scientific method? Right, Gina?”

Setting down her cargo of water, cups, CD’s and ice cream, Gina regarded her little sis. “That depends on what we’re talking about. Gracey.” Tamra’s nickname was a hit.

“We’re talking about contacting the spirit world,” Sylvie announced dramatically, eliciting a few hoots from the girls.

Gina made a show of putting her hand to her chin and looking skyward. Then she plopped down next to Tamra. “Hmmm. Well, considering I’ve never heard Grace say ‘scientific method’ her entire life, my guess is she’s just playing devil’s advocate. It’s a thing she does.”

Maxine laughed at this. It was the first peep Gina had heard from her in quite awhile. “What about you, Maxine? What’s your take on spirits and such?”

Unsurprisingly, Maxine looked at the blanket and fidgeted. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she said, “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve read things, but I’ve never had any paranormal experiences.”

Grace crawled over to Maxine and slipped an arm around her in a display of solidarity. “See! Max is with me. Show us the proof!” Maxine laughed at the attention and leaned into Grace.

“Exactly,” Sylvie agreed, sliding over to Grace’s other side. “Concrete evidence.”

Tamra poured herself a cup of water and shared a look with Kim. “Oh, we can do that. Right, baby?”

Kim was nonchalant. “We could summon a spirit. I mean that is...” She looked at Grace. “...if you can deal with it.”

“Hah!” Grace opined. “Bring it, yo!” Tamra rolled her eyes at this.

Gina was incredulous. “This is what y’all are gonna do tonight? Talk to ghosts? When I was a freshman in college, I was getting twenty-one year old boys to buy me wine coolers and sneak me into bars to see bands.”

Grace patted her on the head and affected a cheap southern accent. “Yeah, you musta partied real hard, in the good ole days, big sister. After walking home from classes in six feet of snow, that is.”

“We’re sophomores now, technically,” added Kim. “And if you must know, we did the clubs last night. We just wanna commune with the spirits tonight, right girls?” There were noises of agreement.

“Sor-ree,” Gina conceded. “I was just making an observation. I’m glad you’re not tearing Mom’s house apart. And Kim, if you can summon a spirit I’ll be most entertained.”

Twenty minutes later, pee breaks had been taken, ice cream had been eaten, and a large scented candle was arranged on a plate in the middle of the blanket. At Kim’s insistence, Gina surrendered a baguette from the kitchen, which was placed next to the candle. It was dark now, which added to the mood. Gina and the girls arranged themselves in a circle.

“Okay,” Kim began, lighting the candle. “Please try not to laugh, just snigger to yourself.”

Of course, Grace lost it and had to put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

Kim stuck her tongue out at her. “No more pot por vous. Just join hands and do what I tell you.”

Gina slipped her left hand into Kim’s, and Maxine hesitantly cupped her right.

“You may not think so now, but Kim can really do this,” Tamra warned from the other side of the blanket. “If you get freaked out, just break the circle.” She looked so solemn that Gina shivered.

“Oooooh!” remarked Sylvie.

“Eeeek!” added Grace, ready to pee herself with laughter.

“Okay okay! Shhh!” said Gina.

Kim made a show of stretching out her neck. “All right. Everyone close your eyes.”

Gina complied, feeling like she was eight years old again. A séance at a slumber party... Her errant overall strap slipped down over her shoulder again, but she was tightly gripping hands in the circle now.

“Beloved spirit,” Kim intoned. “We bring you gifts from life into death. Commune with us, beloved spirit, and move among us.”

Gina stifled a giggle fit. She couldn’t help it, because she was still pretty high. Kim squeezed her hand.

“Be not afraid, beloved spirit. Commune with us. Move among us.”

The wind whooshed slightly, and the candle flickered on the other side of Gina’s eyelids. Maxine gasped, making her smile. She rubbed the redhead’s hand reassuringly.

“That’s it. Don’t be afraid, beloved spirit.”

Her eyes still closed, Gina strained with her other senses to detect any presence other than the six of them. Nothing seemed to be happening.

Then a forceful gust blew through the yard, threatening to extinguish the candle. Gina wondered if a storm was blowing in. The other straps of her tank and overalls slipped down in the breeze, and now she was in danger of losing her outfit. But she didn’t dare break the circle.

“Yes, that’s it, my spirit. Are you with us?” Kim asked.

The candle grew very bright. Gina felt the heat.

“Kim? I’m, um, a little freaked out,” Maxine said.

“Shhhh. Max, don’t worry. Nothing bad can happen,” Kim assured. “Now, we don’t have a table for the spirit to rap on, so we’ll have to use something else for communication...”

There was a tap, and everyone flinched.

“What was that?” Grace demanded.

“CD cases,” Gina guessed, eyes closed. “Tapping together.”

“Very good, my spirit,” Kim encouraged. “Please tap once for ‘no’, twice for ‘yes.’ Are you indeed with us?”

Tap, Tap

“Who’s doing that?” Sylvie demanded. Tamra shushed her.

The wind grew restless again, mussing up Gina’s hair.

“The spirit doesn’t want anyone but me to talk,” Kim urged. “Are you recently departed, spirit?”

Tap

“Are you a very old spirit?”

Unable to stand it any longer, Gina risked a look at the CD’s with one eye. All the girls were still linked hand in hand. When she saw half the stack raise up unaided and clack down on the rest two times, she nearly peed. “Kim...”

“When did you pass over, spirit? Twenty years ago?”

Tap

“Fifty?”

Tap

Gina tried again. “Kim!” A strong gust of wind made her bite her lip. Her overalls continued their unhurried descent to her waist. She might be hanging out in the breeze any second.

“A hundred?”

Tap

“Two Hundred?’

Tap

“Spirit,” Kim chided. “Are you pulling my leg?”

Thunder sounded from the next county, grumbling sotto voce of things to come.

“Kim, I don’t want to do this anymore,” Maxine said softly.

Gina opened her eyes to see everyone looking carefully at Kim. Even Tamra seemed a little on edge.

“I don’t really like the vibe of this particular ghostie,” Sylvie agreed, shivering.

Kim seemed very calm. “Grace, have you seen enough?”

Grace licked her lips thoughtfully. All hands were still joined in the circle. “So there’s a storm blowing in, and we heard a few taps.” Her soft, honeyed alto calmly measured out her disbelief. “Sorry, but I don’t buy it.”

“Grace, I saw those cases banging together all on their own,” Gina said.

Grace effortlessly imitated her sister. “Gina, we just smoked a giant spliff.” Looking closer, she added, “And you’re losing your clothes, babe.”

Gina glanced down, relieved to see she was still mostly covered up. “I didn’t wanna break the circle, Miss Skeptic,” she shrugged, which only hastened her impending nudity.

“Siblings, please!” Tamra said. “Gina, you can get as naked as you want and this girl won’t complain. Grace, what’s it gonna take to convince you?”

Grace smiled at Tamra, then at Kim, enjoying the challenge. “I want something more substantial. I want Kim to, like, channel this so-called spirit, or something like that.”

Maxine struggled to free her fingers from Gina’s as she rose up to her knees. “Fuck this noise, guys. Convince her without me.” Her pretty sundress fluttered nervously in the wind.

But Gina and Sylvie held onto her hands. Kim tried to calm her down. “Come on, Max. I’ve done this a million times and nothing bad has ever happened, okay? We need everyone in the circle.”

Maxine lowered herself back to the blanket. “I’m not very comfortable with this,” she insisted.

But they all remained in the hidden back corner of the yard and concentrated their thoughts, as the wind picked up and the thunder punctuated Kim’s requests for the spirit’s return. Some time later there was still no response, and Gina started thinking about getting inside to beat the rain.

“Beloved spirit, move among us,” Kim intoned again. “Commune with us, oh spirit.”

Nothing. Gina flexed her thighs around her numb feet, which had long since fallen asleep.

“Commune with us, oh spirit.”

“I have to pee!” Sylvie whispered.

“Five more minutes,” Kim pleaded. “I can do it. Move among us, beloved spirit!”

“I’m here,” said a clear, familiar voice. Gina jumped, as a big raindrop smacked onto her back.

“Who’s that?” Kim asked carefully.

“The one you call for,” came the voice again. From within the circle. Gina was unable to keep her eyes closed, but when she looked around, the other girls still sat with eyes shut tightly, and there was no evidence of anyone else.

Kim opened her eyes then. “Who are you speaking through?” She looked carefully at all the others and noticed Gina, who shook her head.

“The youngest one of this house,” came the reply. Lightning struck, not too far away.

Gina stared at her sister, unbelieving. “Grace? Are you fucking around?” It was sprinkling now.

Her sister’s lips moved, while her eyes remained shut. But the voice wasn’t quite Grace’s. It sounded older, duskier. “Hmmm. Fucking.” Her mouth twitched in a tight smile. “The sisters fucked, once before.”

Gina gasped, reddening at the memory. “Grace?” Her sister would never, ever tell anyone about the things that had happened last year, when they were captives of Erik and Faye. She looked around and nearly burst into tears when she noticed everyone looking at her, wide-eyed. Sylvie and Tamra wrenched their hands away from Grace’s and recoiled from her.

Little Sis looked up. “Grace-darling wanted proof. Grace-darling is watching through Grace’s eyes. I have her body.”

Maxine leapt behind Gina and Kim, as Sylvie and Tamra skittered across the blanket, away from the thing speaking through Grace.

“Kim! This isn’t what usually happens!” Tamra was clutching Kim’s arm, frantic. “What is it?”

Kim tried to get a grip as she stared at Grace, who slowly moved to all fours on the blanket. Somehow Grace was dangerous, even in her dainty cocktail dress and tressed up hair. Especially when the lightning struck, causing the world to blaze with the palette of daylight. Because not everything brightened: in those flashes, Grace’s eyes were black as coal. Gina was deeply unsettled but curious. She didn’t look away.

“Kim?” Tamra pleaded. “Baby, what’s going on? Can you stop it, please?”

Gina was still looking into her sister’s eyes as the storm rolled in.

Kim sounded unsure. “Grace?” she breathed, almost inaudible.

“Grace cannot answer. I have her body. And you will invite me into yours.”

Gina heard Kim sigh. The lightning was strobing weirdly now. Improbably, her sister was clearly visible in the dark. Had to be some trick with the lightning. In the flashes, Grace’s eyes went from clear hazel to dull black nothing. From gold-flecked, honeyed irises to a blackness that pulled. Pulled Gina toward Grace. No. It pulled the thing inside Grace toward her. Gina felt her self deep in herself. And inside her body, she moved to one side, making room for a second self. She felt her eyes roll back in her head, felt herself inhale slowly as she was filled, very full, by something delicious.

“No,” Kim moaned next to her. “I don’t want you inside me. This is wrong. Leave us alone!” Gina felt the other girls moving around in the pile they had formed opposite Grace.

“I have the older sister in thrall, as well as your lover, summoner of spirits,” Grace declared. The storm broke then, drenching them all, making Grace look even more deadly. More regal. Gina rose to her knees and shoved her tank and overalls down to her waist as she regarded her sister. Peripherally, she sensed Tamra doing something similar.

“What did you do to them?” Kim struggled, brushing wet hair from her face. Sylvie and Maxine cowered behind her, soaked. “No. Who are you?”

“My name,” Grace said with relish as she crawled across the blanket to cup Kim’s face in her hands, “is Mary Tress.” She kissed Kim then, long and deep, while Gina and Tamra knelt at attention and the other girls whimpered. “You want proof that things like me move among you, and I want to feel pleasure. So we will begin.”

Gina felt a hand brush her hair in the rain, and turned to see Tamra reaching out to her. The delicious heat in Gina blazed at Tamra’s ripe curves and at the perfect oval shapes that made up her delicate coffee-colored face. Before she knew exactly what was happening, she was on top of her little sister’s friend, frantically working at the buttons of her skirt. She leaned her bare chest into Tamra’s greedy mouth, accepting the hot kissing and licking that mixed with the cold rain and made her shiver.

Then she was on her back and Tamra was straddling her, grinding down insistently, rambling a soft tumble of praise in between sharp exhalations. “I always had a thing for your sister but I never dreamed how beautiful you would be and...” gasp “You’re so perfect and small and lovely and—” gasp “I want to fuck you so hard...”

Gina felt Mary Tress working inside her, felt something slide the straps off what she would normally use to restrain her words. “Jesus, Tam,” she burst out. “You’re like an eighteenth century painting and you are so amazing.” She grabbed Tamra’s butt with both hands and squeezed. “It’s like I’m being fucked by some art or something and you can do anything you want to me, baby.”

She was dimly aware of a commotion on the blanket next to her. While Tamra made her squeal, she realized that Sylvie and Kim were getting Maxine out of her dress.

Gina lifted her hips, because Tamra was hiking down her overalls and panties around her ankles, and roughly shoving her tank back up around her neck. She opened her legs awkwardly on the soaked blanket and writhed as Tamra did things between her thighs. She wasn’t sure what was happening. Probably there was a finger in her asshole. There was definitely something all over her cunt. The stimulation made her cry out as lightning struck. In that explosion, Gina saw Grace pull Sylvie aside and start to kiss her.

As Tamra’s tongue fucked her pussy, Gina stuffed her fingers into her mouth as her head lolled to one side. She saw Kim ravishing Maxine, whose surprisingly lithe body was now fully liberated from her elegant blue sundress. For a second, Gina was envious, but her back arched off the wet blanket as she orgasmed, buzzing.

“Christ, Tamra!” she managed, trying to slide out from under her sister’s enthusiastic friend to return the favor. But Tamra locked her forearm across Gina’s stomach and began thrumming her clit as she slipped her tongue deep into where her finger had presumably just been. She relaxed and let Tamra work her. “Oh. Baby...” Gina nearly sobbed when she came, chastising herself for almost passing up the multiples that made her chime like church bells.

Before she could catch her breath, Tamra pulled her up off the blanket, pleading “Now. Fuck me now!”

Gina let some rain pool into the caramel crevice below Tamra’s heaving ribcage before descending on her. Feeling Mary’s directions, she slid her knee against Tamra’s pussy, took a dark nipple into her mouth and sucked gently. Tamra grabbed the scruff of Gina’s neck and sighed as Gina rocked her knee, slowly and firmly, teasing her with rhythmic pressure.

“Kim, please don’t... please don’t stop!” Maxine was wailing a few feet away. She sounded shy and reserved even as Kim sexed her up. Gina speculated that this drove Kim crazy, based on her own reaction to the plea.

On the other side of the blanket, Sylvie was having an epiphany. “Grace! I just remembered everything! Do you remember that night last year, when we rolled and—oh yeah!—when we rolled and we were in the back of that truck with that guy and—no baby please don’t stop doing that!—when we did all that stuff to each other? When you’re finished there—oh!—When you’re finished there, I’m gonna do all those things to you again!”

Gina’s knee was tired, so she licked a trail from Tamra’s stiffened nipple down her tummy and into the neatly trimmed snatch below. The taste she encountered there made her eyelids flutter, and she came again. She barely completed one divine revolution around Tamra’s engorged clit before fingers wrapped around her hair and she heard, “Oooooh! Gina, you’re my favorite!”

“Relax hon,” Gina cooed. “I want to make you feel half as good as I did.”

She took Tamra’s whimpering and humming as permission to proceed. Now that their positions were reversed, Gina tried to figure out what Tamra had been up to between her legs. It didn’t take very long. The rich mixture of smells and tastes here was overwhelming, and Gina’s feet splayed awkwardly off the blanket, into the wet grass as she struggled to maintain her station. She gripped Tamra’s thighs, but she kept slipping out of the different places she was trying to fill with her tongue. Then strong hands gripped Gina and lifted as something positively electric happened in her cunt. She couldn’t separate the pleasure from what she was eating from the pleasure further south. She was a little too addled to care. Mary Tress seemed to have a shard of herself in each of them; they all blended together and somehow it all felt like self-love.

The beautiful, slick world between Tamra’s legs began to rock violently, causing Gina’s tongue to slurp out of its connection. She grabbed onto Tamra’s stomach with sticky fingers to better appreciate the magnitude of the quake. As many hands pulled her into the grass, she saw Tamra’s face: she was staring straight up into the sky, mouthing a wordless ah as she twitched and jerked on the blanket. She couldn’t seem to inhale.

Someone turned Gina’s head. “I want to taste her on you!” a voice murmured in her ear. She caught a glimpse of Kim’s curly brown hair as hot lips pressed against hers. Kim lapped up Tamra’s tastes and smells from Gina’s sticky skin, and her enthusiasm caused Gina to cross several shivery peaks.

Eventually, Mary Tress directed all the girls to focus on the “youngest of the house.” That’s where the weird gaps in Gina’s memory started, along with moments where she seemed to get bumped out of her own head for lack of room...

...she was inside Sylvie once, giggling as they guided Sylvie’s body to ravish her sister’s...

...then flitting inside Maxine to share the quiet redhead’s new adulation for Grace’s petite, exaggerated curves...

...watching as Tamra’s crush on Grace flowered into action, tasting the rainwater and sweat on Grace’s lips with Tamra’s tongue...

...feeling the delicate sensations inside Kim as she bent over Grace’s breasts, lightly brushing them with her own, and experiencing the spike of arousal when Grace lazily slid a hand across her tanned teardrop ass to slip a finger inside her, and...

...floating back to Sylvie, who looked up to see Gina, kneeling a foot away from everyone else, smiling dreamily down at the Grace Fuck Festival going on in her mom’s back yard...

Gina blinked, finding herself back in her own head, then finding that she still shared it with Mary. The rain had long since stopped, and steamy fog wafted over the naked girls before her. Crickets had resumed their chirping. In her delirious reverie she realized that Mary had spared her from making love to her sister, in a way. Relief made tiny ripples in a sizeable ocean of afterglow, but she noted it nonetheless.

The moon broke through the clouds and bathed Grace’s skin with its muted, milky beams. Her chest heaved as if in reaction to the light, and she started to cum. Her friends continued to coo and lick and caress and massage in the minutes that passed. Mary, still wrapped in Grace’s body, shivered and hugged herself, riding the long wave.

When her eyes finally opened, they declined to reflect the moonlight. “I thank you children for indulging me. I’m almost ready to leave you.”

Gina found she had the means to voice her own thoughts again. “What... Why did you do those things to us?”

Grace sighed, a noise that drew further attention to the old spirit inside the young girl. “I was put to death long, long ago for things I did with women. Things you children can do now with relative ease and much less fear. My soul is not at rest. So I wander, and sometimes children like yourselves call upon me.” Grace cocked her head and looked up at them reverently. “I find solace in the flesh.

“Now I must leave. When I release you, you may not remember things clearly. So my last command to you, sweet children, is to find your beds in peace, once I’m gone.”

There was a breeze. Grace blinked, and her hazel eyes sparkled in the moonlight. The other girls yawned and stretched. Grace smiled, hugged herself tightly, and whispered “Thank you, Miss Tress.”

* * *

The sun on Gina’s face made her smile. She was making some much-needed coffee in her mother’s kitchen, trying not to wake everyone up.

Everyone except for Maxine, of course. The first thing Gina had noticed after padding into the living room this morning was a note on colored paper, addressed to Grace. She felt awful for peeking, but she couldn’t help it. In the note, Maxine told Grace that she remembered doing some things that sort of freaked her out, but sort of turned her on, too. She thought she still liked boys, but she wasn’t so sure, and would Grace please give her Gina’s number? Then, note complete, Maxine had fled.

Gina smiled again at the thought of Maxine being crushed out on her. It was going to be hard to break the news to the kid that she already had someone, and he was a boy. Poor, sweet, yummy Maxine...

She wondered how much of last night the rest of them would recall, but no one else was awake yet. Gina herself remembered practically everything, but for some reason she wasn’t too traumatized. The experience of being controlled, after all, was hardly new to her. And there was no real harm done, in Gina’s book. Even though she felt no strong attraction to women, being temporarily infused with hot lesbian desires (and forced to act on them by some weird ghost) wasn’t unlike those hazy nights of drinking from her wild days. She had enjoyed fucking Tamra, and if the others were uncomfortable, they could carefully skate around the memory. They could even ignore it. She sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Seth, although she suspected if she did he’d have something to jerk off to for the rest of his life.

Once she had a little coffee in her, Gina grew restless. She tiptoed down the hall and peeked into Grace’s bedroom. Kim lay nestled in Tamra’s arms. They were still naked, and there were blades of grass on Grace’s comforter. Gina snuck further down the hall to her mother’s room. She peeped in to find Sylvie and Grace in her mom’s bed. Sylvie’s arms were wrapped protectively around her sister as they spooned and snored in the most adorable way. At least, Gina thought, they had the presence of mind to slip into some nightshirts before passing out.

Gina couldn’t stand how cute they looked, or the suspense of wondering how much they remembered, so she set down her mug, took three running steps across the floor and bounded onto the bed, causing Sylvie to squeak and Grace to yell “Holyfuck!”

She knelt at the foot of the bed, grinning while she waited for some kind of reaction. Sylvie turned over sleepily to rub noses with Grace and gently take her bottom lip between her own. Grace’s eyebrow arched, but she didn’t pull away. When Sylvie’s playful kiss was done, Grace slowly turned to look at her sister. “What did we do last night?” she asked, incredulous.

“You mean you don’t remember?” Gina teased.

“No-oo,” Grace valleygirled. “A little help here?” She looked down at her hand on Sylvie’s bony thigh and blushed furiously.

“You, ma’am,” Gina declared, reaching out to touch Grace’s nose for emphasis, “are a serious freak magnet. Even to the spirit world.”

Grace had a sudden telepathic sibling realization. “No...”

“Oh yes indeedy.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“From something I did?”

“Si.”

Grace looked down at Sylvie, who smiled back sweetly. “Looks like we made out better this time?” Grace asked hopefully.

Gina just laughed, threw a pillow at her, and left to make breakfast.

FIN