"Pinky" : An Uncomfortable Story

            Slowly braising in sun tan oil on this unclouded day, visions of melanoma danced in his head.  My problem, he thought, you know what my problem is, I lack gratitude.  That's my problem.  If I could just learn to be grateful I would find  happiness with what I have.  I should read a book.  Somewhere there's a book on this gratitude.

He reached down and moved his penis to one side to let it tan on the other.

A shadow passed over him.  He smiled.  Loving fingers, strong and knowing picked up the tense knot of his shoulders, lifted, squeezed, kneaded with thumbs and let them fall.

Maybe its status.  Or maybe I think too much about status.  Maybe that's my problem.

The hands picked up his shoulders again, kneaded the tension out of them, palmed the skin of his neck and behind his ear, lovingly, circled back to his shoulders, lifted, squeezed and released.

A cool sea breeze from the surf off his private stretch of beach property moved over him bringing the scent of sweet coconut oil and salt water.  He opened his eyes under his sunglasses and held out his hand.  He snapped his fingers.  The shadow went away, returned and placed a cool plastic cup in his hand.  There was no straw.  He held it up and pointed.  "Hey.  Straw."  He tapped the glass and stuck out his lips and made smoochy noises.  "Straw."

The shadow passed over him again and put a straw in his glass.  He put the straw to his lips. The shadow padded through the white sand to the igloo cooler filled with fresh fruit on ice.  He heard the sounds of her hand rummaging through the ice water.  The ice cubes rattled as he sipped at the bourbon and tea and he felt himself begin to drowse in the heat.

Of course I have stress.  Screwing widows and orphans and defending sons of bitches in wool suits is stressful.  But what chafes my fanny is that after a while the money stops existing and it just becomes a score on a board.  What you want is true love.  Yes, I should read a book. True love.  And Mindfulness.  They must be connected.  My real problem is that I always -

A wet, ice cold fist clamped around his cock.

"Ahh!  Holy shit!"

A female voice screamed happily, laughing and hooting as she jumped out of his reach.

"Pinky!  You did that on purpose. Daddy's going to spank your ass."

By the cooler a sweet young thing, not so much a woman as a female, capered and laughed, shrieking and pointing.  She was short and slender, with light brown skin thinly covered in fine dark hair - and nothing else at the moment - a little over five feet tall when she stood upright, though she tended to stoop slightly when she walked at his side.  Her unruly hair was distinctly wooly and thick, and her face square as a block with a pugnacious jaw and thick wide lips.  Her eyes were blue and shining with mischief under thick powerful brows looking like a sexy, tough Italian peasant with large nippled rounded breasts.  She was far stronger than the skinny waif she appeared.  The muscle structure of a Homo Erectus, male or female, was fundamentally different from a Homo Sapiens, closer to that of a chimpanzee.  Sapiens men underestimated her and she had won money for him in bars at arm wrestling. 

He fished out an ice cube from the glass and threw it at her.  She had been snacking on an apple.  She threw the core at him and shouted something in that high voice.  He picked up the core from the sand and threw at her and she caught it.  She threw it and it hit him in the face knocking his sunglasses away.  He set his glass down and sat up, blinking and holding his hand against his eye.

She cooed in her worry-voice and scurried over to him.  She nuzzled him and brushed her thick lips against his. Gently she pulled his hand away from his eye and examined it.  She chittered and brushed the sand away as he blinked.  He felt her other hand drift down between his legs and console him there.  "Yes, I think you owe me an apology," he said as he drew her close to him.  She sniffed at him, sniffed his face, his ear, took his ear lobe between her lips and held it gently with her teeth.  She ran her fingers through his hair, affectionately grooming him as her hand played with him below.

She expertly curled her fingers around his stiffening phallus and let go of his ear.  He sighed affectionately as her warm breath brushed his face.  She whispered love sounds to him. She put her lips to his ear.  "Wow-wha."

"Wow-wha, honey."

She put her forehead against his head and pressed, the cave woman way of kissing.  He rubbed his head against her.  "Where's my little apology?"

She scooted down and rubbed her forehead against his belly.  He spread his legs.  She ducked down further and he felt her lips kiss his balls and then her thick hot tongue lick his rigid phallus.  He closed his eyes in bliss, put the drink straw to his lips and sipped the coolness as she took him in her mouth and rolled and rolled and rolled her tongue around his throbbing boner in a way Angela never did and never would.

"Come lay down," he said, stretching out on the beach towel.  "Come lay down with daddy."

She straddled him and spit in her hand twice.  She rubbed the thick spit on his phallus to lubricate it as he sighed and lifted his head to watch what she was doing.  "Come on Pinky.  Daddy's waiting for his apology.  Yes he is."

She mounted him. 

She slipped him deep inside. 

She began the act of apologizing.  Far away, beyond her bobbing shoulder, he heard a screen door slam.

About a century ago the perfectly preserved bodies of a tribe of cave people had been found in Madagascar, in a cavern that had been sealed off for hundreds of millennia after a landslide.  Toxic volcanic gases had displaced the oxygen, killing off the tribe but saving their bodies so perfectly that a genome project had been able to resurrect this lost species of Home Erectus by mapping and recreating the DNA.  Immediately their money minded modern counterparts began to explore what commercial uses semi-human humans could be put to without much offending the civilized conscience. Their sensitive, exuberant and startlingly intelligent natures made them exquisite, highly prized companions, far beyond mere domestic animals.  And - when properly dressed for dinner - they were delicious.

One night during the early experimental stages of the Hominid Genome Project a virile young undergraduate was alone on the graveyard shift with one of the first generation Homo Erectus females, an assertive adolescent named Lucy.  While preparing a dinner bowl of fresh fruit salad, the gentle Erectus folk were solid vegetarians, he had been eating a chocolate bar.  Lucy put her long arms around him affectionately and sniffed at it.  She made begging sounds and held out her hand.  He gave her his candy bar.  She ate it with excitement and held out her hand for more.  He refused.  She grasped his hand and firmly led him over to her soft bedding in the corner and then made him an offer he wouldn't refuse.  It was in the interest of science he told himself as he moaned and felt his sweet release inside the hairy and eager virgin's tight depths.  By the third time they coupled he knew it was no longer about science.  When the morning shift came in, Lucy was cheerfully munching through her fifth chocolate bar from the vending machine and the exhausted young man could hardly walk.  Lucy had assured the survival of her people  for all time.  Homo Erectus were talented at something for which there was a thriving demand.

"Oh Pinky . . . Oh Pinky, Daddy loves his Pinky.  Come on, Pinky.  Who's a good girl?  Who's a good girl?  Yeah, baby.  That's the way.  Who's a good girl?"

Her eyes went slightly crossed and stared straight ahead. Her lips suddenly pursed into the reflex round pucker, what commercial hominid breeders called "the O face". He felt the gorgeous shiver of her orgasm below, once, twice around his cock, pushing him along to the edge with her.  

"Huh?  Huh?  Who's a good girl?  Who's daddy's good girl?  Huh!  You're my good girl."

"Dan."

The sharp female voice was coming from behind him.

"Angie.  Jesus.  Wait."

"We need to talk."

"I'm gonna pop.  Oh God.  Wait."

"Dan! Stop fucking that damn monkey for two seconds.  I'm asking you nice."

However the damage was done.  Pinky stopped her thrusting motion but stayed perched on top of him, looking up at her rival.  She wiggled her hips in defiance but Dan growled as his erection deserted him.

"Goddamn it Angie, can't a guy get his nut off around here?"

"Your office called."

"Fuck, not now."  But Pinky had lifted off and dismounted.  She hobbled off to the fruit cooler and squatted on her haunches sulking.  "What's so damn important it can't wait?  Or you just can't stand to see me have a little fun?"

"Your law partner called, oh you remember them right?  The guys you earn a living with?  The people who pay for all this?

"I pay for all this."

"They want to know where you've been for the last week."

"Aw Jesus."

"You told them you were on vacation. That's what you told me. They didn't know anything about it."

"I just . . . It's just . . .I can't."

"Can't what?"

"Can't go back."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I get tired sometimes.  I hate my job.  I hate them."  He stopped the next words from coming out of his mouth - I hate you.  Legal wife and help mate and co signer of a truly devastating prenuptial agreement.

"So you're doing what, you're having a mid-life crisis?  Is that why we bought that?"  She jerked a thumb towards Pinky.  "Your monkey fucker?  You can't buy a big dirty motorcycle like everybody else?"

"She's a pure bred Erectus Africanensis .  She's just as human as you are.  Maybe more.  Anyway, she got sand in my eye and she was saying she was sorry."

"I don't fuck a guy to say I'm sorry."

"Try it some time."

"She was into it!"

"Why not?  When was the last time you were?"

"You want to know when?  Someday.  That's when.  Someday when your little tramp is gone, the next hominid is mine.  I want an Iberian Blue, one that's hung like a horse, I swear to god and I'm going to make you watch us go at it like bunnies and see how you like it."

"You'll castrate the poor little bastard.  Just like me."

"I'm that far - " she held out two fingers an inch apart. " - I'm that far from divorcing your ass.  When are you going to get a clue?"

"I had a clue once, Angie.  When I was a poor kid in the Bronx I once had this clue.  It was a beautiful clue.  A brilliant, shining clue.  And now I'm fucked.  How did that happen to me?  I lie here on my nice little beach with my Bourbon and tea and I ask myself where did my clue go?  What'd I ever do?  How did that happen to me, Angie?"

"Who gives a fuck about your little self pitying clue?  You need to wash the monkey sweat off your dick and get in this house and call these people back and tell them you were dying from a deadly disease or in coma or something, but you need to be a man and stop acting like a spoiled baby."

He glanced over at Pinky.  She wasn't angry.  He had never seen her angry.  She was troubled.  She looked upset.  She didn't like raised voices or hostile body language.  She couldn't speak but it was obvious she understood.  He held up his hand and made a sign to her.  Carry the stuff in.  She nodded and stood up.  He rolled his eyes and smiled for her, a shit eating grin that was supposed to say Don't Worry About Daddy.  But he could see she worried.  She was worried a lot about Daddy.

On Monday afternoon, inside the office, while leafing through a pile of documents on his screen, his cell phone buzzed.  North Memorial emergency calling.  It was his wife.  She had been attacked.

He raced to the hospital and to the information window.  The receptionist waved him down the hall.  He found her laying in the intensive care ward with a cotton patch taped over her eye and stitches leading under it.

Her other eye saw him enter the room with a cold indifference and he saw the IV drip on her arm.  She seemed almost cheerful.  Those must be good drugs, he thought.

"What happened honey?  Are you all right?"

She held up two fingers.  Now they were touching.  "Countdown is this far minus zero from divorcing your ass.  She did this.  With her fingernails.  They saved the eye.  Your girlfriend goes.  Or I go.  There's only room in this house for one alpha female, and I'm it.  Handle it.  Or I'll be so far up your ass you'll be living out of a dumpster."  She rolled over and turned her back to him.

The roads frayed ribbon strung through the green hills that bulleted by as he stared straight ahead with tears in his eyes.  The roadsides were lined with white picket fences behind which horses grazed.  Pinky did not so much sit in the passenger seat as occupy it the way a big dog might, unbuckled, the window of the Porsche rolled down and her head far out in the wind that blew back her wiry hair and flapped the sleeves of her simple red flowered dress.  She grinned into the wind showing big square teeth.  He imagined driving close to a tree where a low hanging branch might strike her head off.  Or driving the Porsche fast into something and her unrestrained body hitting the windshield and killing her instantly.  Anything but this.

As they passed a limpid lake he swung off on a dirt road and drove far out of sight.  When he was sure they would be alone he pulled into a patch of weeds near the water's edge and turned off the engine.

Pinky had done this before, parking together in quiet spots late at night; kissing and petting and then frantically copulating in the back seat like a couple of kids under the stars.  She hopped across the gearshift and put her head in his lap. 

"No honey," he said. "Maybe time for that later.  We're going to have a picnic."

The sound of his voice, the timbre of it made her look up in concern.  She tuned his mood like radar and looked into his eyes searching for something there.

"Don't worry baby," he said.  "Everything's all right.  Let's go."  He waved his hand.  "Shoo.  Out."

She opened the door, clambered out and closed it.  While he went around to the trunk, she walked to the water and found wild flowers growing.  He opened the trunk and took out a wicker picnic basket, a blanket and big utility bag.  He closed the trunk and she was standing right there holding out a fistful of purple flowers to him.  He set the bags down and took the flowers.  He took out the largest and reached over and laced it behind her ear.  "Come on," he said.

By the water, in the shade of a tree he spread out the blanket for her.  She settled down on the blanket holding the flowers to her face and picking at them. He opened the wicker basket and took out a papaya.  She turned at the scent and looked at him.  He held it out.  "For you, baby.  I know you like these."  She put the flowers down and took the papaya and sniffed it.  She took a bite from it and turned to watch a mother duck and four ducklings glide across the water.  She pointed and huffed.

"I see them," he said as he unzipped the utility bag.  Inside was a folded body bag.  He unzipped the body bag and took out a black Smith and Wesson.

She was looking at him when he came up to her and sat down next to her.  She looked at the gun.  She had never seen one before.  She looked in his eyes.  "Wow-wha," she said softly, and touched her forehead to his cheek.  "Wow-wha," she said again. 

He pressed the round muzzle of the barrel between her thick beetled brows and pulled back the hammer with his thumb.

"Wow-wha," he whispered.

"I don't believe in God, but this meat is heaven."

Ralph nodded at his wife.  "Great rib roast, Dan.  I've heard hominids were good, I didn't know they were this good.  Tastes just like roast pork."

"I thought they were supposed to be a little stringy," said his wife Judy.  "She's not stringy at all."

"It's just fundamental barbecue," said Dan, basking in the glow of their pleasure.  "Low and slow.  That's how you roast.  Low and slow.  Shiraz?"  He held up the bottle of wine.

"White wine with poultry.  Red wine with beef and Erectus," said Judy, holding out her glass to be filled.

"They eat dogs in Korea," said Ralph.

"Shut up!" said Judy.  "I'm sorry Dan, this guy."

"They do!" said Ralph.  "What's wrong with eating an animal you knew personally?"

"You must miss her terribly," said Judy.

"The house is quieter at least.  Can't have two alpha females around.  It gets ugly."

"But this is delicious," said Ralph.  "And expensive I'll bet."

"They don't eat meat do they?"

"No," said Dan.  "Lucky for us."

They laughed. "You should see a marriage counselor.  Can't you get Angie back?  You belong together.."

"Irreconcilable differences," said Dan cutting a piece of meat and putting it in his mouth.

"Well," said Ralph.  "This meat is really delicious.  Now I know why hominid is so expensive."

The door to the kitchen opened and Pinky came in wearing a pink frock with daisies and a bright red apron with her name on it.  She was carrying a tray of fruit and set it on the table.

"Sit next to Daddy," said Dan patting the chair next to him.  She pulled back her chair gracefully and sat.  "Wow-wha," he said, blowing her a kiss.

"She's a sexy little honey," said Ralph.  "When can I get a go at her?"

"Well, that's up to her," said Dan nodding at Judy.  "Pinky's not fussy."

"You really miss mommy don't you?" said Judy, speaking to Pinky.  Pinky looked at her blankly.  "Where did she go?"

"Oh.  Some place nice.  A big farm in the country her family owns.  Lots of space to jog in. Such a health nut. I'm sure she's happier where she is now with all that open space."  He speared another piece of rib roast and lifted it to his lips. "You know," he said softly, "Really one hominid species tastes pretty much like another."

He whispered to the piece of meat trembling on the end of his fork. "Mommy go bye-bye."

Inchoate Dread, Indescribable Foulness

By Lisabet Sarai

I'm not much of a horror fan, in film or in literature, partly because the genre tends to evoke unpleasant emotions. Poorly conceived or executed horror just seems silly and useless, a waste of my precious time. Horror written or filmed with skill and subtlety scares the bejesus out of me and can trigger nightmares. I don't seek out either extreme, though occasionally I'll end up subjecting myself to something gory, gruesome or terrifying by mistake.

There are two exceptions. One is Edgar Allen Poe. In Poe's hands, horror become poetry, and my literary appreciation overcomes my aversion to fear. The other is H.P. Lovecraft.

During my undergraduate days, someone introduced me to Lovecraft's work. In turn, I introduced my father. Together we devoured the Lovecraft oeuvre: “The Colour Out of Space”, “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Dunwich Horror”. Through Lovecraft's tales, dad and I prowled the streets of Arkham – modeled after a Massachusetts city not far from our home - and roamed the wild. stony hills to the west, where ancient horrors lay buried under the still waters of the modern reservoir – never named but obviously the Quabbin. We joked about altars to Cthulu; we contemplated the ghoulish music of Erich Zann. For decades, dad and I would return to Lovecraft again and again. My current volume was a Christmas gift from perhaps a decade ago, only a few year years before his death.

Why did Lovecraft's work hold such appeal? From the perspective of craft, the peculiar recluse from Providence, Rhode Island didn't begin to match Poe. Lovecraft's stories seem flowery and over-written, especially by today's standards. His complex, meandering prose is studded with polysyllabic adverbs and self-conscious inversions of structure. Nevertheless, somehow, Lovecraft managed to capture a true sense of dread – to hint at an impenetrable darkness underlying the banal realities of every day life. And that, it seems to me now, is the essence of horror.

Explicitness is one notable characteristic of today's horror. Last week Charlotte talked about “Alien”. In the one scene I recall (perhaps from a trailer – I'm really not sure), a parasitic alien creature forces its way out of the chest of a character in which it has been growing. You see every detail of ripped flesh, every disgusting inch of the emerging monster. Horror these days means geysers of blood erupting in the wake of a slasher's axe, or the corruption and decay of a long-dead body - rotting intestines, eyes torn from their sockets, white bone glimpsed through rifts in blotchy, diseased skin.

Lovecraft's horrors are more often glimpsed, sensed, or intuited than fully revealed. Even when the protagonists are finally confronted with the awful truth, the horrors they face are “indescribable” and “unimaginable”, too monstrous to be more than imperfectly captured in human language. Then, too, Lovecraft often wrote about inner terrors – the threat of madness looming over us poor humans as we try impose some order on a chaotic, evil-infested universe. “Inchoate dread” is one of his favorite phrases – incipient, formless, hovering on the edge of being, but nevertheless a shadow one cannot escape.

Lovecraft skirted the edge of madness himself – and so have I. I spent months in a state psychiatric hospital as a teenager. The shambling, zombie-like walk of my drugged fellow patients still haunts my dreams. Actually, I discovered Lovecraft only a few years after that stay – perhaps the recognition accounts for my perverse attraction to his work.

Quite a while ago the Erotica Readers & Writers Association had theme challenge on their Storytime list: parody. I ended up writing a tale that captures the flavor of Lovecraft's prose, while including a great deal of (pretty horrible) sex. The title is “The Shadow Over Desmoines”.

My hand trembles as I pick up the pen to begin this chronicle. Every fiber of my being recoils from the thought of reliving the events that led to my incarceration in this house of madness. However, my doctors here are convinced that writing about my "delusions", as they call them, will help to purge me of them. I have my doubts. The lights here in the hospital burn day and night, and we are always attended, but this does not dispel the irremediable darkness in my soul, nor assuage my awful loneliness.

Still, I will make an effort.

It began six months ago. I moved to Iowa to make a new start, after my dear wife passed away and I suffered a moderately severe heart attack. I had been a newspaperman in our small New England town, but my cardiologist recommended that I retire from that relatively demanding occupation. After Evelyn's passing, I was troubled by nightmares, distorted melanges of disturbing imagery suffused with a indescribable sense of horror. In coming to Des Moines, I sought peace, a respite from my grief-induced visions. Iowa, I reasoned, would be the essence of normality, sanity, midwestern friendliness and common sense.

How mistaken I was in my sanguine rationalization.

I purchased a pleasant, sunny bungalow on a quiet, maple-lined street near the bus line. Once I had settled in, with my books and my records neatly stored, I looked forward to days of reading and contemplation, interspersed with an occasional fishing trip, and tranquil nights. At first, it seemed that I had achieved my objectives. I slept soundly and dreamlessly. I took long walks, and made a start on the book that I had always planned to write. I became friendly with Horace Farmer, the librarian at the neighborhood branch, who I discovered enjoyed a game of chess, a beer, and a philosophical discussion as much as I did. Though I am nearer fifty than sixty, my heart problems have left me somewhat frail. I welcomed the opportunity to relax and appreciate the deliberate pace of midwestern life.

I met Leonora Gratsky two weeks after I moved in. She appeared at my door with a home-baked blueberry pie and an irresistible smile. Though properly, even primly, dressed, and extremely well-spoken, she radiated some indefinable quality of carnality that made me distinctly uncomfortable. Leonora was petite, with sharp elfin features. I could not refrain from noticing the voluptuous curves of bosom and derriere under her high-necked blouse and calf-length skirt. Her gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a conservative bun, but when I looked into her dark eyes, I saw an untrammeled sensuality that simultaneously attracted and appalled me.

We conversed in a neighborly fashion for several minutes. Apparently, she inhabited the house across the street, a dwelling somewhat larger than mine but equally neat and ordinary. Perhaps the gardens surrounding it grew a bit more wild and rank than was typical on our street, but the place appeared to be in good repair. I told myself that different people have different standards, although somehow the lush vines tumbling over her fence and creeping across the sidewalk engendered an inexplicable uneasiness in my soul.

She lived with her nephew Frederick, she told me, a strapping young man of twenty five year who, unfortunately, had the intellect of a child of seven. He was a comfort, managing the heavier tasks around the house and never causing any trouble. Since her husband passed on two years ago, she was especially glad of Frederick's company.

Leonora encouraged me to drop by and visit anytime, but I doubted that I would take advantage of her offer. Shivers ran down my spine as I watched her swaying hips retreat down my path and across the street to her own dwelling. Nevertheless, I found my body reacted to her as if I were fifteen intead of fifty four. I had to spend a quarter of an hour reading Popular Mechanics before my tumescence subsided.

I tried to forget my curvaceous and disturbing neighbor. Despite my best intentions, I found myself looking over toward her house from my window, both night and day, straining to catch a glimpse of her. I never saw her, though occasionally I discerned a hulking male figure shambling around the place, dragging heavy black bags of trash. I assumed that this must be the feeble-minded nephew. I like to think of myself as compassionate toward those less fortunate than myself, but something about his fleshy form and beetling brow repelled me.

You can read the rest of the story on my website, if you're so inclined. It's pretty funny, in considered opinion, but I'd like to think it captures a hint of the terror Lovecraft, at his best, evokes – indescribable but nevertheless real.

For me, sex and breath combine in a single word: SUCCUBUS. The legend of Lilith fascinates me. It is mysogynism at its most accomplished. I have been looking for ways to turn this myth upon the kind of men who created it. The Sisters in this story are my attempt at retribution on behalf of wronged women everywhere.

I may have over-reached myself this week. I have barely had time to edit this story. Please forgive any minor errors.

Beware: this is a dark and violent tale. Enjoy.

The Sisters

© Mike Kimera 2011

Bear Creek, Missouri 1884

My name is Jonas Kale. I am fortysix years old. I was married two days ago. By dawn the Sisters will have taken the last of my breath from me and I will be dead. Most of my strength has already been drained away. The face I see in the mirror is that of an old man, hollowed out by life.

I have determined to spend my last hours recording what has happened to me. I know it will be difficult to believe. I ask you to remember that I am a dieing man with nothing to gain from lies and nothing left to lose from the truth. I do not intend to rail against my fate. I am the architect of my own demise. I hope that by exposing the Sisters for what they are I may save some other soul from their clutches

The Sisters are the maggots curled in sleep at the center of our darkest desires. They are all the things our blood calls for and that our conscience cannot accept. They live in our dreams and our heart. They are the succubi of which legend speaks and they steal our lives one willing breath at a time.

I am not a fanciful man and, unitl recently, I was not a particularly evil one. I am a man of business of the kind you might meet in any small town in Missouri. I came west to Bear Creek fifteen years ago to make my fortune. Those first years were hard, lawless and sometimes violent. It is perhaps an indication of my character that I thrived upon the diet of struggle and pain that was fed to me. I built a tidy business selling necessaries to farmers. I worked hard and bargained harder and I did not squander what I earned on liquor or gambling as some many around me did. I was a sober, frugal man and proud of it.

My only vice was the money I spent on whores two or three times a year when I went on business to Sedalia. I had lived my life without the comfort of a woman in my bed. On those trips to Sedelia I allowed myself the luxury of buying the services of women who were skilled and willing and wanted nothing more from me than the coin in my pocket.

My fall toward the clutches of the Sisters began two years ago, when the new railroad arrived and Kale Food and Grain began to make more money than I had ever imagined possible. Iwas left with time on my hands and money in my pocket and like many a man before me, I allowed myself to be pulled into sin.

My visits to Sedalia became a monthly event, yet the increased frequency did nothing to sate my appetites. Instead I plumbed into what seemed to be a bottomless well of lust and desire. I discovered that for enough coin, there was nothing these women would not do to me, to themselves or to each other.

I was aided in my downfall by two whores: Maude and Muriel; substantial women, well into their thirties, who compensated for their expanding flesh and diminshing charms with a lubricious imagination and a complete absence of inhibition. They knew my tastes and propsed to me a form of entertainment for which I developed an insatiable craving. I would hire the youngest, freshest whore available and have Maude and Muriel bind her and use her for their pleasure and mine for a couple of days at a time. I never used the same young whore twice but Maude and Muriel became constants in my life.

By the end of a year, my whole attention was focused on the time I spent in Sedalia. Even when I was back in Bear Creek, my mind was still there. I hugged my experiences to myself, reliving them with the same lust a miser feels when counting his gold pieces. I used my memories like a whetstone, honing the edge of my appetite for the things that Maude and Muriel provided.

It was in Sedalia that I encountered the Sisters for the first time. I had only a glimse of them but it was enough to make it clear to me that my actions in Sedalia were going to cost me more than coin. I awoke that morning with a beam of sunlight falling across my face. Motionless beneath me lay the bound, bruised, and bloody form of the small-breasted, narrow-hipped young whore who was our current plaything. Maude and Muriel sprawled across the bed, limbs tangled and mouths slack. The morning sunlight did not flatter them and for a moment they revolted me.

As I made to get out of the bed to find the po, the young girl woke. She discovered she was still bound and struggled most prettily to release herself. Then her gaze fell upon me and I saw fear fill her eyes. My flesh instantly hardened in response. I shifted towards her, her straining flesh calling to mine, and would have taken her with the cruel vigor of the morning, except that I caught sight of myself in the mirror that was postioned to reflect our frolics. What I saw there killed my desire.

My shape in the mirror was that of a ravenous demon, bent over its prey. I did not wish to see myself this way but that is not what deterred me from entering the girl. Behind my reflection, I saw two shadowy female forms watching me with night-dark eyes. I snapped my head around, snarling, but found nothing but air. I stared into the mirror once more and found that the forms had started to solidify and were not just female but comely. They smiled at me the way a wolf smiles at a lamb. I fled from the room, dressing as I went, filled with dread that the shapes would step from the mirror fully formed and hungry. I swore never to return to Sedalia.

I kept my word to stay in Bear Creak but it no longer felt like home; solitude had turned into loneliness and celibacy had turned into enforced abstinence. I was pleased when I hit upon what I thought was the perfect solution to my problem, I would take myself a wife. The Sisters must have been smiling at my foolishness that day. It was, in the end, the decision that sealed my fate.

I chose Faith Harper to be my bride. I had watched her grow from a long limbed girl into a blossoming woman whom I found deeply arousing. Faith had just reached marriageable age, she was strong enough to work, healthy enough to bear children and shy enough to be bidable. I was not the only man to express an interest in her, but I was the only one to whom her father owed money and so a deal was struck in which Faith was given up to my avarice by her father's weakness

We were married two days ago. On the wedding night I was in a state of high arousal, fueled the thought of Faith's fair flesh and fanned into flames by months of unaccustomed abstinence. As soon as we were alone in the bedroom, I fell upon her like a starving man at a banquet. Her maidenhead added something new to the experience but did not long delay me. Too much time had passed since I had sampled the delights a young body has to offer. My mouth and hands could not settle upon a single place but wanted to sample everything at once. I ploughed Faith long and deep and still it was not enough. I had been at her for an hour before I was still enough to notice her tears.

I wish I could say that I was struck down with remorse, that I fell at her feet and asked for her forgiveness, that I held her and comforted her and taught her to be my lover, but I did not.

Faith would neither speak to me nor look at me. When I forced her face towards mine her brown eyes were wide as saucers and there seemed to be no one at all behind them.

A dark wave of anger rose up in me and I brought it crashing down upon my bride, spreading her wide and pounding against her until my seed flowed hot and deep.

Only when the last of my anger had seeped out of me did I let myself see what I had done. My anger blossomed as bruises on Faith's skin, my rage was written in ribbons of her blood and my lust seeped out upon the crimson-stained sheet between her thighs.

I rocked back upon my heels, trying to take in the enormity of my actions. A man may of course chastise his wife, but I had treated my new bride like a whore on her wedding night, leaving her torn, bleeding and broken. If I were discovered I would become a periah. That of course was not the worst. The worst was that I had enjoyed it. That I had needed it. That I knew that I would do it again. I had become a monster.

I cast back my head, opened my throat and howled.

No sound came. A hand, delicated but strong was across my mouth. An arm slid across my belly, pulling me backwards until I was leaning against the cool softness of a naked woman. I struggled to turn my head but was prevented by a second naked woman, sleek and glorious, who appeared before me out of a dark mist. She grabbed me by the hair and turned my head towards Faith.

“Look at what you have done, Jonas and understand what you are.”

Her voice was like an icicle pushing into my brain. I saw not just my broken Faith but all the young whores I had used, all the damage that I had done, all the pain that I had caused and then all of it coursed into me like lava flowing through my veins. I arched my back and struggled with all my might but I could not free myself.

The woman in front of me watched with a soft smile on her face. She traced her finger down my chest and my agony ceased.

“I am Meridiana. My sister, Naamah holds you in her tender caress. We are the succubi you have summoned.”

“I did not sum...”

Meridiana place her finger on my lips and I found I could no longer speak.

“Do you need to be reminded of how you summoned us, Jonas?”

I shook my head, fearing a return to agony.

“Prepare him, sister,” Meridiana said, “while I see what may be done for our sister, Faith.”

I gave no thought to how I was to be prepared or what I was being prepared for. My mind snagged on the title Meridiana had given to Faith.

“Is Faith also a sucubbus?” I asked, filled with fear.

“All women are our sisters, Jonas,” Naamah said, her voice as soft as velvet. She clamped one hand around my throat, keeping my gaze on Faith, and stroked her other hand down my belly.

“If all women were sucubbi...” she said, wrapping her long fingers around my soft sex and making it immediately erect. “...men like you would be extinct.”

Meridiana was running her hands over every inch of Faith's body, caressing her softly. Faith did not wake but she murmured wordless happiness like a babe in its crib. I found the sight deeply arousing.

“Even now he lusts, sister,” Naamah said, working her fingers slowly along my shaft.

“It is all he has left.” Meridiana replied. “he has rubbed himself against his desire for so long that he has worn away everything else he might have been.”

She stalked across the bed towards me on her hands and knees with all the ferocity of a puma and still my arousal did not slacken. Meridiana mounted me as casually as I might climb into a saddle. Her sex held mine like a fist. I was filled with dread yet I could not help but sigh with pleasure.

“Faith bleeds inside,” she said, pressing harder at the point of our union. “She will die and the spark of life you have just planted in her will also be snuffed out.”

Naamah snarled and raked her nails down my back, rending my flesh.

I cried, not from the pain, not from regret for Faith but for what I knew must be the consequence; I would be hanged for this.

Meridiana licked away my tears and said, “Yes, Jonas. You are going to die.” She kissed me softly on the cheek. “We can make your death useful and pleasurable.”

Her sex pulsed around mine and pure joy shot up my spine.

“Give us your life's breath, Jonas tonight and tomorrow night and we will use it to heal Faith. Do you agree to our bargain, Jonas.”

I am still not certain whether I agreed to save Faith or to redeem myself or simply to experience more of the joy the Sisters had to offer. Nevertheless, I gave my consent.

As soon as I agreed, Meridiana began to transform. Her mouth widened, her tongue lengthened and huge flesh covered wings sprang from her shoulders. Her sister moved backwards, lowering me onto the bed.

Meridiana rode me fiercely, It was a joy beyond all measure. At the point of climax, Meridiana rose off me, clamping her mouth over mine, and forced her long tongue into my throat. As my seed sprayed impotently across my belly, Meridiana began to suck the breath from my lungs.There was pain, excruitating, endless pain, as if I were being seperated from my limbs slowly on a wrack.

Then it stopped.

I had time to turn my head and see Meridiana lie over Faith, kiss her gently and expell my breath into her lungs, before Naamah mounted me.

By the magic of the Sisters I was already painfully hard again. Naamah was slower than her sister, using her obscene wings to control her rise and fall on me, keeping an even rhythm that held me constantly on the edge of release. With each rise she pushed one of her talons into my skin. With each fall she sliced a shallow channel into my chest. The pain was exquisite. When I reached the point of climax, Naamah dismounted and clamped her mouth over mine. While she sucked out my breath, she worked my sex with her hand, once more spraying my belly but this time rubbing my seed into the shallow cuts she had made.

While Naamah caressed Faith and breathed my life into her, Meridiana, squatted on my chest, wings extended, the talons on her feat anchored in my skin.

“Do not leave this room, Jonas. Do not touch Faith. We will return tomorrow at dusk, to finish giving your sorry life to Faith.”

As the sun rose the Sisters vanished. I fell into an exhausted sleep, not rising until the afternoon.

Faith was still not conscious but her skin was flush with health. I on the other hand had grown old and weary. I set about writing my last will and testament, leaving all that I have to Faith and her child. Then I commenced this document.

It will be dusk soon and the Sisters shall return. Already my flesh craves them and my flesh has always proved stronger than my spirit.

I swear on my eternal life that the above statement is true

Jonas Kale