by Cecilia Tan
“Danger?” I echoed dully, before Vermilion Gate reached out to stroke the trapped-ink tiger on my hip and Blossoming Peony traced the outline of the dragon on my other side.
Golden Lotus continued, “Once your blood is like ours, the eyes of your flesh will see, and the fangs will bite. A grave threat to you, and your loved one, but one which we can negate, if you still wish for our blood-gift. Remember, it is also eternal life, which goes hand-in-hand with eternal loneliness, unless you choose a suitable partner for such perpetual pleasure which results from your own stinging kiss.”
I thought of my boyfriend and his deep-humming needles caressing my flesh as he’d created the dragon and the tiger, but I also remembered his constant request to give me more “special, intimate” adornment, one for our mutual benefit. I asked the sister, “Do the bites show like scars, or do they go away?”
“Ours were on our breasts, which were decorated, but yours will be on each hip, which likewise will be re-embellished with more mutually pleasing designs,” Lotus explained before guiding me over to the stool where I usually sat to do my work. Before I’d had a chance to completely sit down, Vermilion knelt down beside me and, without hesitation, opened her painted lips wide and sink her incisors into my flesh. The pain was brief, intense, yet highly erotic, like losing one’s maidenhead on a smaller scale, followed by the soothing pleasure that comes after that first, yet final pain. Seconds after she bit me, I felt a small fuzzy warmth on my skin, which just as suddenly departed from my flesh, leaving an odd coolness in its place. When I glanced down, I saw the translucent streaking movement of something small and orange-black-striped darting away, until it became utterly transparent and finally vanished in a haze of small dots of color that disappeared in to the surrounding air. But before the last of the flecks of freed ink, which had once been my tiger vanished, I felt a second sharp, moist quadruple jabbing in my other hips. I turned my head in time to see a quartz-bright flurry of flapping wings and an undulating serpentine-fanged head rising up from my bleeding flesh, up past the bent head of Peony and into the warm air of the studio before it, too, turned into a miasma of blue, emerald-green and bronze-yellow freed ink, which rained down on the tiled floor in tiny, splashing droplets of pooling color.
Following my earlier example, the sisters lovingly applied daubs of ointment to my hips. Lotus bent down over my lap, tongue aimed at my mons, before I said, “Not now. I’m having my monthly.”
This brought a smile of surprise to her face, and she said, “This is an auspicious sign. You’re in a time of great power, of flowing yin, which mimics yang action. The magic of a woman’s blood is most potent, and when added to the alchemy of the lusting blood....” Her voice trailed off seductively, as if allowing me to come up with the possibilities inherent in my new-found condition. She then used her hands to massage my mons (being careful not to dislodge the tampon string trailing out) and motioned for her sisters to likewise caress my breasts through my thin T-shirt.
Only after I’d come once more, the musky gushing lubrication pleasantly cooled by the surrounding air, and I shuddered once more under their expert, soothing petting, did they offer a more tangible payment to me, after properly tying their dresses closed and smoothing down their ruffled hair. With a sweet, secret smile, Vermilion reached into her coat-dress pocked and extracted a small black and red embroidered satin pouch, while saying, “Wear these when your own special tattoo is applied. The sensation will be most exquisite while the needle vibrates.” Then she handed the pouch to me.
Opening it, I saw the liquid metallic glint of two beautifully carved ben-wah balls within and, as I started to voice my thanks, Peony added, “These can also be attached with a silken string to the underside of a man’s Jade Shaft or heavenly Dragon Pillar while it is being tattooed. Our original benefactor assured us that the sensations are equally erotic. Perhaps he who will embellish you will appreciate them once it is time for you to decorate him. He was the one who applied your tiger and dragon, no?”
Nodding, I merely smiled as they departed my shop, all the while creating suitable designs for my own mons in my head, although I’d allow my boyfriend the pleasure of choosing his own design once I’d bestowed my new-found blood kiss on him—after he’d tattooed me and discovered how real a tattoo could actually feel.
Of course, I’d have to do some boning up on Chinese sexual literature first. After all, once a customer of mine gets a tattoo, it is uniquely hers, and hers alone.
But I did recall the term “Jade Veins” for the labia, which I found most appealing....
Circe House by Jason Rubis
I whistle at the kennel and out comes Dog, shuffling on splayed hands, thickly-callused knees. He keeps his eyes down. Except for his breathing (which is loud, ragged) he’s silent; a very good Dog. I press a hand to his flank and only then he whines, lifts and presses his head against my belly. Rough and bristly that poor head, scored with old razor-scars.
I’ve brought Dog his dinner: a bent metal dish loaded with pink gristly meat. Not at all appetizing by me, but when I set the dish down, he clambers over to it, slavering. He won’t eat, though, until I give him the word. A good dog, as I say. I squat on my heels, chin in hand, and watch his face. His mouth works, chewing nothing—it’s perhaps dreaming, independent of the rest of him, that he’s eating. I don’t doubt he’s hungry. Spittle drips from his lips onto the dish’s rim.
It’s a cold night. A draft is blowing through the kennels, and I shiver under it, it stiffens my nipples. I’m as naked as Dog; the cold won’t let me forget that. There are screams from some of the cages, desperate or lusting and some just noise. You will get some, the new ones mostly, who need noise—any noise—in the late hours. So they make it. I hardly hear them anymore.
I begin pulling at my cock, squatting there. A silly thing to do, nothing but a nervous reflex. My cock just lately reformed, it’s still pink and very tender. I can’t stand my fingers on it, I jerk and curse with every stroke, but I don’t stop. Perhaps I’m doing it out of sympathy for Dog. I can’t let him eat just yet, you see. It’s against the rules. Therefore I’ll suffer with him, if covertly. A sin is only a sin if you confess it, and I won’t confess this one.
Dog’s age is difficult to tell. He was here when I came here. He’s not young, but he’s too strong—arms and legs and middle too hard with bunched muscles—to ever be mistaken for old.
He had me once, early on. He was allowed to—punishment for a sin I did confess. It was my uncocked period since my arrival, so it was strange to feel him mount me. Strange but not unpleasant. My cunts have always taken to business quicker than my cocks. Dog’s body reeked of old straw and shit and sweat. He hooked his hands around my shoulders and bit them bloody and got inside me. The thrusting, I remember that very well. Very short, hard thrusts, the feeling that I might simply split in two down there.
It might be my remembering all that now that’s making my hand go faster. An idea has taken hold of me, inspired partly by Dog’s drooling. It might be good, I think—appropriate, perhaps—if I were to come before Dog is signaled to eat. My torment becomes my satisfaction, which becomes Dog’s... you understand me.
The idea, at least, is appealing. But am I up to it? It normally takes a week at least before I can come with a new cock. I decide to try. I get up and plant a foot on either side of Dog’s dish. He whines questioningly as I get to work.
“Yes. You know what I’m going to do, don’t you? You like watching me. Dirty thing.”
More whines. Dog knows very well what I’m going to do, apparently it excites him. He falls back on his ass—he can’t bend forward far enough to lick himself, but his own cock is stiff against his belly, and he can grind and push his hips with a steady enough motion—miming fucking—to keep him happy.
I let my mind fill with Dog’s thrusting cock, with memories of a hundred other cocks and cunts as well. Fuckings given and received, certain other things. Smells and sensations, mostly. It’s enough. The
burn my skin gets from my jerking hand makes me wail along with Dog’s neighbors, but then—oh yes. I’m rewarded with a sudden, familiar ache in my spine and the boiling in my balls and the sight of my white stuff spattering on the grimy concrete alongside Dog’s meat.
“Now you eat that,” I say, pointing. It’s an order, formally speaking, but Dog doesn’t need an order now. Too hungry. He’s back on hands and knees, face in the dish, snuffling and gasping as he bites up piece after piece of nasty meat. He bolts it all, even the few bits soiled by my spill.
“Dirty thing,” I tell him tenderly. “Disgusting. Dirty fucker.” More whines, broken with coughs as the last of the meat goes down. I give my dripping self a few last strokes, checking for damage. I find none. It’s tender, but it would be anyway. Good. I’m lucky tonight.
In a surge of sudden good feeling, I throw my arms over Dog’s back and kiss up and down his spine. Dig my nails into his ass, reach under him to diddle his balls. Well, I’ve always been fond of Dog. He barks joyously and lowers his head so I can scratch his neck-nape. We play like this until I’m bored, then I push him back into his kennel, lock the door.
I leave with the pleasant feeling that I’ve done well. It’s not been seen or remarked upon, but it was a good job nonetheless. I have a little smile on my face as I pass the others in their various kennels and cages.
Cat is in one; she’s jealous. She always is. She’s yowling, pressing her middle against the bars, bumping it, displaying her swollen cunt for me, but she’s up on two feet, that will never do. Cat is a strange one. She isn’t given the Needle regularly, like the others are. She only received it once, on her arrival—which, like Dog’s, preceded mine. Doctor wanted to keep some of her old self intact, I still don’t know quite why.
But I’ve finished for tonight. No way could I give her anything of me, not a single drop, not a moment’s stiffness. I reach through the bars and give Cat’s wet cuntlips a quick caress in passing, just enough to tease. I keep walking, idly sniffing at my fingers.
Ooh, Cat doesn’t like that. She hates it—and me—enough to speak. I’m a filthy cunt bitch, I fuck, I suck, BITCH, she’ll tell, she’ll tell, she’ll TELL. She’s like a child, the way she repeats things. I could say I’ll tell on her; she’s really not supposed to speak, Doctor doesn’t like it. But I’m in too good a mood. I shake my ass at Cat as I shut the door of the kennels behind me and then there’s nothing else for Cat to say.
Is there?
‡
My name is Mignon, or anyway it is now. I may have had another name once, but that was Before, it would even predate my time at Tiresias. Not really so long ago, but once you go to one of the Houses and are Changed, everything before dies.
If I look in a mirror I see someone very small and thin, with skin so pale and fine you can glimpse a green-blue lace of veins under it. My hair is black, beautiful shining ink hair, long enough these days to flop about my shoulders. I’m proud of my hair. Sometimes Doctor lets me wear a bright beaded collar that sets it off nicely—the only item of clothing, she says, that I need.
As for the rest of me, I’ve got small, highly-arched feet with tiny stick-out toes. Long enough legs, no real hips, and two actual breasts, each sized just right for me to cover with a spread-fingered hand, each surmounted with a brown goosebump of a barely-worth-mentioning nipple. My face: large, quizzical (Doctor’s word) eyes that aren’t quite as dark as my beautiful hair, a nose that I understand is what’s called snub, and a wide mouth whose lower lip droops a bit more than I would like. It makes me look petulant.
You’ve already heard enough about my cock, I think. I’ll just add that I’ve got no hair down there (shaven per Doctor’s preferences), and that when what I’ve got is a cunt or a vadj or a twat, that’s narrow and tight, with an embarrassingly large clit. There are little white half-moon scars in a profusion all around my crotch, whether it’s cocked or cunted (those are from the razors).
There’s me here. And Doctor of course, and a few very select unChanged servants to do work too rough or heavy for me to do. And Dog. And poor horrid Cat. And a host of others, in the kennels and some in the stables and others in other places. Beautiful screaming Falcon, up alone in the Eyries. Dolphin, with her blue-bald body that twists in her tank with such sinuous, filleted grace that you might never guess she still has arms and legs. Bear and Hog. Horse. Ape. A lot of others, including the new ones, many of whom haven’t properly been Changed yet. And then there are the really low mad ones, Snake and Spider and the one I’ve never really figured, who sits swallowing endlessly, who chirrups sometimes and flings himself about his kennel until he’s bloody and needs mending.
Doctor told me he was a mistake. He didn’t come out properly, she said, we all make mistakes. She said, Who am I supposed to be, God?
‡
“I feel strange,” the very nice young man says, “coming to you like this.” He grips his hat in both hands, turning the rim round and round. “Silly, really.” Seated here in the reception parlour, he looks very pink about the neck and ears. Like he’s been well-scrubbed by a conscientious Someone.
Doctor lowers her cup and says, “Bull.” It’s a little explosion from her lips, a soft labial fart. Her eyes crinkle as she says it: an observation, a judgement passed.
“I beg your pardon?” His tone is carefully surprised-sounding, but you can see the recognition flame up in his eyes. Bull is just a word to him still, but it’s a very particular word—it’s a word he’s thought of and on a lot more than you or I have. It makes a strange tickle in his back skull. He hears that word and there’s an answering rush of blood in him.
“Bull,” Doctor says again, still more emphatically. Allowing a faint suggestion of prurient interest to creep into her voice. It goes easier, she told me once, if you have that faint suggestion of prurient interest. To a lot of them, that signifies approval. “With a bull’s big pizzle in those beautifully-pressed pants of yours.”
I glance at Doctor. “Pizzle?”
“Pizzle, little Mignon. He’s got one between his legs. What a bull fucks cows with. A bull’s cock. Pizzle.”
Well, I know what a pizzle is, actually. But this is my role in these proceedings, to squat naked to one side, inviting caresses. Doctor’s little exotic beastie. I also in addition keep the tea-cups full and ask certain wide-eyed questions. Keep the conversation-cups full, as you might say.
It seems to be working. The very nice young man is glancing nervously at me—well, he’s been doing that since he arrived, but now it’s because he’s wondering if I’ll be hanging about. He’s got a few questions of his own for Doctor. You can almost see them, trying to tear themselves out of his mouth. Questions related to bulls, I would guess. Their significance in symbolism and mythology—that’s always a safe path to tread.
We might find out later that he had killed someone or even several people, gored them with a letter-opener or some such thing. Trampled them. And on the walls of his humble flat dozens of pictures, naive bull-shaped scrawls such as a savage might make in charcoal or ink or red paint on a cave wall.
In this one’s case, though, I doubt we’d find any such thing.
Doctor reaches for the instruments laid out on the tea-table. I watch her lovingly. Little sweet Doctor. Her hand with its short dirty fingers and red, red nails. Little clever feet made hooflike by her pointed black shoes. Small scrumptious body wrapped in a pristine white coat, left unbuttoned so the black corset underneath is artfully displayed. Her dark hair streaked with so many colors: copper color, sky color, bright lemon color.
Doctor. Sister Change. Lady Moreau. The Zookeeper. As many names as most women have hats. Highly respected in her field. Unchallenged, really.
She picks up her Needle and sights dust-motes down its length. The very nice young man watches her hand with an almost embarrassing eagerness. Actually licks his lips. This is what he came for.
“Mignon? I wonder if you’d give us a moment?”
Clearing away
the tea-things, I say, “Of course, Doctor.”
“We’ll be moving to the stables eventually. You may go and read for a bit. I’ll call if I need you.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“And Mignon... pet?”
“Doctor?”
“If I don’t call, don’t come.”
‡
One more thing on the very nice young man. The next day I went to the Stables. Yes, he was there, and he was Bull now, properly naked and on all fours as a bull should be, his head bent over his loaded manger, champing industriously. His pizzle stiffened a little when he saw me (I saw it) and he mooed and shifted his weight on his palms so his balls swung. He would have loved to break free of his stable and get me. A delicious shudder in that thought.
Still, in spite of his imprisonment, he looked endlessly happier than he had the day before, in his stiff clothes and awful tight shoes and his excruciating manners. So happy, he’s a happy little Bull-man now.
But I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you that.
‡
Clients were handled rather differently at Tiresias. It’s odd, things seemed much more chaotic there, even though the staff was considerably larger and rather better organized. People just came in off the streets, I remember, you seldom had the kind of private interviews and conversations Doctor lavishes on our clientele. I think they liked at Tiresias to give the impression that we simply had no time for such things.
That House was infinitely cleaner and better lit than this one—none of the mess and stenches Doctor tolerates—but the noise got terrible, much worse than the screaming in the kennels. A client would get his Change or her Change and then they had to tell the whole world, it seemed. Needles were seldom used—pills and philtres and sweet anointed cigarillos were the favored means of administering the necessary elements; I sometimes wonder if that was the cause for the extra noise.
