The Foundry | Part Two | Chapter Fourteen
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Three | Dominion
Chapter Fourteen
Alan was taking Echo out for some fun. They’d spent time in public before, eating together and competing athletically her first time around at The Foundry, and back when she’d still go to ‘that one place’. Now though, he was leading her into the neon lit entrance hallway of Darkside, each line of light passed beneath was like the rib of some great stomach they’d been entering — purples and blues, pink highlights, a bit of black and white sparkling throughout.
She’d never even been to a dance club before, the idea just seemed like a nightmare to her.
Forever and always, at parties, bars, and big social gatherings — Echo would find herself floating aimlessly. Often chasing around the one person present whom she actually wanted to be with, yet, to feel their burdened energy by her consistent hovering if she didn’t find others to have a painful conversation with, or some corner to stand in, or another completely lost person to sit with silently.
Taken to a place like this with someone who had no intention of leaving her side, and for the very first time, let alone someone like Alan, who she’d always found wielding such force of authority within a room, was bringing a sense of realized self-worth into Echo rarely felt before.
Dancing with him — sensing the people around her seeing this gorgeous human loving her who wasn’t afraid to show it — awakened her. Lifted by this supportive man to move with freedom from her own anxieties borne of those other’s stares, Echo was free.
She liked to move an awful lot, and her hips happened to enjoy flowing even more. People got weird when she’d let herself get into it, even if beside other women for whom it was apparently not a problem.
Men would ogle her and some of them would be a little extra angry about it because of who she was. It seemed to take everyone off guard seeing her flow freely, breaking preconceptions they’d not known they had, often triggering attitudes which would make her feel unwelcome in response. Especially the cisgendered women who would see the men watching; they’d be the nastiest with their glares, and those=e who were most persistent with those attitudes of rejection when she encroached space they’d wish to claim their own.
Something inside her would alchemize this straight to spite; knowing these women were often quite jealous of her body and blind to all else she faced.
The pop in her hips would get just a bit more apparent in face of the hateful ignorance of her would-be-sisters, that curve of her spine achieving ever higher states of grace in front of their blindness, and the smile plastered across her face would grow exponentially to feel their displeasure in her joyful rebellion during this wonderful time with Alan.
For herself, and her right be here as she was, to be enforced by one whom these women would wish to have beside them, was a most glorious feeling to Echo’s spirit. She’d wish it burn into their mind like it had Priscilla’s. She hoped they got a good look of those parts of her body which made them project anger — uncaring whether it was because of their hatred of men’s unfair expectations onto themselves, or just because of those ways they’d let themselves go.
She’d not care one bit to make that distinction for herself. They were lost to how her beginning within a male body offered slight advantages to these superficial things they’d allowed themselves to become so insecure about, and it would twist them into callousness.
When Echo would mention this consistently present energy she received, off-hand, sometimes to people she’d thought friends, women would often get mighty defensive about it. One even tried to convince her this was a projection of her insecurity, and that people had every right to be curious, because Echo had ‘chosen to look different.’
Echo wondered if they ever figured out why they went out of their way to fail so hard at gaslighting her about the specific, and quite accurate intuitive perception she was having about large portions of cisgendered women. She’d love to know if they ever figured out who was the one ‘projecting insecurity.’
Long had Echo been beyond this kind of ‘pathetic horse-shit,’ and to now feel that embodied in form, along with someone who could show her on their arm with pride, allowing her to realize the worth she’d always known quite wholly of herself into the material — felt extraordinarily good to Echo Béleaph.
She’d never imagined it could have turned out this perfect.
That it would be here, in a place of such healing and spiteful revelry towards volatile ignorance, where it would finally happen. Yet, Echo had been rewarded for her suffering that evening at Darkside. The universe conspired to draw the cave-dwelling shadow sorceress into public, and it had clearly been Cameron who enacted this will of divine manifestation.
There was such a precious emotional imprint received by Echo. Sweat had made her tank top most-completely see-through. Alan had a hand all the way up it and was fully groping her breast, that damn spine was arching most gloriously once more, and she’d shifted her gaze from the holy heights she’d been witnessing far beyond and above Darkside towards the entrance.
Rory Tyrell was standing slack jawed beside Cameron, who’s reaction Echo wouldn’t be able to recall, for one reason or another, and they were staring her dead in the eyes.
Echo could tell they were hating every second of it too.
It was they; Rory, who couldn’t look away this time, as Echo found even more bend, some way to push her ass out a little farther, biting her lip as her breasts surged forward. Alan saw what was happening — he’d heard about all that passed between them, the way Rory hurt Echo so badly, and how much she still longed to know them — he’d never held it against her at all. Alan had a situation much the same with another. He’d actually found this opportunity quite healing in that regard.
Alan bit Echo’s ear then, as Cameron broke emotionally, fleeing Darkside entirely — clearly hurt most from how this situation seemed to be leaving her as some kind of even-person-out.
That was when Echo’s favorite bit of all happened; when Rory couldn’t bring themself to chase after Cameron. She’d realized then as they continued staring — she could go back now — she could eat fish again. Everything was going to be okay after all. Leopold was going to be so relieved.
Echo spun in her ecstasy from this realization and held the sides of Alan’s face, lifting his gaze from the intense focus it had upon her moving body, and she kissed him harder and longer than she’d kissed anyone in her life. Despite the speed, that wrought intensity; every movement, breath, dash of tongue, and bite of his lip had been of absolute and most synchronistic perfection.
She hadn’t even cared, only looking back eventually, once they’d begun dancing again, as her eyes naturally averted that way. Echo wasn’t surprised Rory had left, but she certainly hoped they’d stayed to watch a while first.
