by Rick Hautala
She felt suddenly flushed, but even though she was lost in the embrace and the passion of the moment, she couldn’t help but notice something…strange.
Samael wasn’t like anyone else she had French-kissed before—even Frankie Sheldon, her sweetie back in elementary school when she had first kissed a boy.
It was his tongue.
It wasn’t just big. That would have been unsettling enough. It also seemed—
This is impossible!
—like it had a life of its own.
It slid between her lips and teeth like a snake, nestling into the ground.
It writhed…It twisted…It undulated…It throbbed as it moved in and out of her mouth, almost gagging her with deeper and deeper thrusts but, at the same time, it created a violently sexual rush like she had never experienced before. Every nerve in her mouth was, for the first time in her life, truly alive. Warm, tingling rushes mixed with sharp, jabbing chills that spread up and down her body, centering in her lower belly. The feeling was so intense she actually imagined that his tongue was forked, and each moist, pointed tip was exploring depths of her mouth she hadn’t reached even when she had gone down on a man.
This is absolutely insane, she thought as she clung to him greedily and ground her hips against his hips.
She was dimly aware that they were in a public area. Anyone passing by on Congress Street would see them. Any moment now, she expected to hear someone yell: “Hey! Get a room!”
And that’s all she could think about.
She wanted him now—his body, mind, heart, and soul—more than she had ever wanted a man. Of course, he had no soul to give her. He had forfeited it eons ago when he had shed his angelic nature and embraced his demonic side.
But Claire knew nothing of that at this moment.
All she knew was that as insane as it was, she had to have him.
Now.
She was relieved to see that Sally wasn’t home when they got upstairs. It was only then, when they entered Claire’s bedroom and he began to undress that she saw his tail.
Her first thought was that it was a trick of the light or…or something…a shadow cast by the gloom in her bedroom because all the shades were drawn. Then, when he pressed her naked body down onto the mattress, she got a better look over his shoulder at the fleshy appendage as it flicked back and forth.
She had never heard a scream like the one she let out.
It—like his tail—was not human.
It all but took the paint off the walls, and she couldn’t help but wonder what her neighbors would think. They probably thought she was being raped and murdered, and as she struggled to free herself of his weight pressing down on her, she thought that’s exactly what was happening here.
She kept making strange squealing, grunting, impassioned sounds as she tried to break free of him.
Samael, for his part, wasn’t expending much energy to pin her down on the bed and hold her. Even though his grip was firm, it also had a gentleness that made her think how safe she had felt when she was a little girl, and her father had hugged her when she was frightened by lightning and thunder or had had a bad dream.
This is a bad dream!
It can’t be real!
The heat of Samael’s body was…amazing. Even through her outright panic, she was amazed how holding him—she was hugging him even as she was trying to wriggle away—filled her with a feeling of contentment and excitement…as if he was both the source and the relief of her panic.
“What’s…What…How can you…?”
“Shhh…” Samael said, holding his forefinger to his lips and gazing deeply into her eyes.
She was trembling. Her skin was slick and sticky with sweat. Exhaustion wrung her out as if they had already been making love for hours. When he shifted to one side, rolling off of her, the relief from the pressure of his body was almost terrifying.
She wanted…she needed to have him as close to her as possible.
In every possible way, she wanted nothing but to have him inside her.
Now!
“Who are you?” she finally managed to say, no more than a strangled gasp. Her voice was ragged and raw, her throat on fire.
As she waited in the silence for his reply, she was relieved to realize that she didn’t hear the sound of approaching police sirens because someone in the building had heard her cry out and had called the cops.
Her body was tingling all over. The pleasurable rushes rippling through her made her drowsy. She had a feeling of imminent danger but, ironically, both the danger and her safety from it were in his embrace.
“You mean what am I, don’t you?”
His tone of voice was soothing…mellow, calming, but nevertheless, Claire was jolted by his comment. A chill worked its way deep into her belly. She licked her lips, aware of how dry they were…like they were on fire.
Is that from his tongue? She wondered.
Her neck made faint snapping sounds, like a string of firecrackers going off in the distance as she nodded.
“Yeah,” she said, hearing the dry croak of her voice. “What are you?”
Samael’s smile widened, and in the preternatural light, his teeth gleamed wickedly.
“Oh…” Samael sighed as he lay on his side, propping himself and resting his cheek on his hand. “I think you have a pretty good idea.”
Claire did have a pretty good idea, but there was no way she could articulate it. She was wondering when this had tipped from “normal” to “impossible,” and why hadn’t she noticed?
“For real? Yes,” she finally said.
Gazing into his eyes was hypnotic, and looking at him—his smooth, flawless skin all but gleaming a dusky red in the semidarkness of her room—she realized it had started the instant she had laid eyes on him last night at the bar.
Was it really just last night?
She had been through so much since then—the attack and near rape, the trip to the emergency room, the walk home, lunch at Dominick’s, and then the fire.
How could so much have happened in less than twenty-four hours?
It was too much, too fast.
Samael nodded slowly while maintaining steady eye contact with her. It was creepy, but when his head was tipped down, she looked in vain for evidence of horns on his forehead or on the top of his head.
Does he have horns?
Does every demon—because that’s what he is…a demon!—have horns?
He certainly has a tail…and a forked tongue.
Claire kept staring into his eyes, telling herself this was totally impossible while, at the same time, trying to accept the impossible.
It had gone on far too long to be a mere dream. Plus, there was a certain logic to everything she had done—things she had said and thought last night and today—that weren’t at all dreamlike. She glanced down at her hand to be sure because, long ago, someone told her that you can’t look at your hands in a dream.
But she could see her hands as she flexed her fingers.
“You’re not dreaming,” he said, as if reading her mind.
Still, as she looked back at Samael, trying to figure out exactly what she was feeling and wondering why she wasn’t totally repulsed, a terrifying sense of unreality washed over her. She shifted so there was a bit of distance between them. Lying there naked in front of him, she felt vulnerable and open in ways she never had before, but when she glanced down the length of his body, she was in for another, even greater surprise.
He didn’t have any genitals.
“What the—?” she squealed as she tried to twist away from him. Yet when they broke contact, she didn’t leap off the bed and run, screaming from the room. Still, she put a safe distance between them and stared at him, panting hard.
“You don’t have any…? How can you…? What’s happening?”
Samael smiled at her, obviously understanding perfectly what had surprised her. He looked at her and then gave her an almost shy shrug and said, “Why do you think they call
it Hell?”
“You mean you can’t…? But I felt…when we were lying down…there was something…you know, hard pressing against my leg.”
“A tail can do more than wag,” he said, and he followed this with the most temptingly evil laugh she had ever heard. Memories of his tongue sliding around inside her mouth like a live snake again both repulsed and attracted her.
As if in demonstration, Samael lay on his back and hooked his hands behind his head as Claire stared at his sculpted body. His abs and pecs stood out in sharp relief. Her mouth actually watered.
What happened next absolutely floored her.
His tail slid up between his legs, glowing and glistening wetly in the semidarkness of the bedroom. It kept extending until it was more than three feet long. The shaft of the tail was thick and smooth, and the fleshy tip was pointed, shaped like an inverted heart. She watched in rapt fascination as it began to wave gracefully from side to side like a cobra being charmed.
The impulse to reach out and touch it was overpowering. The tail curled and swayed so sensuously Claire didn’t realize she was licking her lips hungrily. Her breath was coming faster and faster, whistling in her throat as a hot rush of blood flushed her face and breasts.
“Go ahead,” Samael said with a soft, kindly voice. “Touch it."
Shocked that he seemed to be reading her mind again, Claire gaped at him. Her mouth dropped open, and her vision blurred as her pulse started racing even faster.
“It doesn’t bite.”
With that, he thrust his hips up off the mattress and watched with her as his tail wagged back and forth as if it had a life of its own.
Ever so slowly, Claire reached out until her fingertips brushed across the fleshy member. Its heat all but seared her fingers as an electric shock traveled down her spine to her crotch. A slow, throbbing ache filled her groin, and all she could think was: I really am going to go to Hell for this.
“Go on,” Samael urged.
Claire glanced up at him and saw his face, flushed with pleasure and anticipation. He smiled at her wickedly, the sensuous, shimmering glow in his eyes as intense as an acetylene torch. It flared when she finally found the courage to wrap her fingers around it and squeeze it ever so lightly. She shuddered with pleasure when the tail twitched and swelled up like a pressurized hose.
“Oh my God!” she whispered. “It’s so…responsive…”
Samael snorted and said, “It’s best if you not use that name.”
“What name?”
“That name…the one you used just now. It kinda spoils the mood.”
“Oh, you mean Go—…Sorry.”
“’S okay. I can take it.”
His tail was still quivering in her hand, swelling so much she feared she’d lose her grip on it. The skin was oily, and she could feel the rigid muscles beneath. A heavy throbbing deep inside it was keeping time with her rapidly increasing pulse. She tightened her grip all the more and then, without thinking, started running her hand up and down the length of it. She felt compelled to put it into her mouth but resisted that…at first.
Samael was making the most peculiar moaning sound she’d ever heard as he lay back on the bed, rolling his head from side to side. His eyes were narrowed to slits, and he licked his lips with his forked tongue. In a deep, resonant voice, he said, “Please…use it…any way you want to.”
She knew exactly what he meant by that, and she also knew that she should stop this right now.
The truth was, she should never have let things go this far, but she was too far gone to care now. She kept running her hand up and down the tail until she stopped with her fist clenching to the top of the shaft just below where it flared out into a fleshy point. It felt like it was about to burst. Flushed with heat and moaning softly, Claire parted her legs and lowered the tip carefully until it was probing inside her.
It was as if his tail had a life of its own. As soon as the tip entered her, the entire length stiffened and thrust forward so hard and fast it surprised her and brought tears to her eyes. She let out a strangled shriek and began to cry, but they were tears of pleasure as well as pain as he thrust deep inside her. It touched places inside her she didn’t even know she had.
Before long, the pleasure became so intense she could feel herself slipping away…drifting into—not unconsciousness, but a state of mind that was trippy and terrifying and amazingly satisfying in ways she never could have imagined. Samael’s tail kept thrusting in and out…in and out…full…hard…and deep. Claire had no idea how long she remained in that frenzied, dreamy ecstasy. Her mind was filled with exquisite pleasure.
What mattered…the only thing that mattered was that she and Samael were connected and moving as if they were a single being.
~ * ~
“That was…” Claire was panting hard, her body slick and glistening with sweat and other bodily fluids. She licked her lips as she lay on her back on the bed, her hands laced behind her head. She stared up at the ceiling until her eyes went unfocused. “I…I can’t tell you what…what that…” She heaved a sigh. “That was unbelievable.”
“I know,” Samael said with a light, lilting laugh.
Claire wasn’t sure if he meant that the same indescribable thing had just happened to him or that he had done the same thing to uncounted numbers of women before today.
She lay there and listened to their synchronized breathing for what could have been minutes…hours…or even days, for all she knew. After a while, she became vaguely aware of life going on around her. As usual, the sound of traffic and pedestrians passing by on Congress Street came through the window and at some point—she had no idea when—she was sure she heard someone…Sally, no doubt…enter the apartment. She started banging around a bit, but then she left shortly after that. The diffused light that bled through the window shades was lemony—the way it got late in the afternoon. She could have turned her head and looked at her alarm clock, but that would have taken too much effort. Besides, it would bring an element of reality into the situation, and that was the last thing she wanted.
It was much better simply to lie here in bed and dreamily run the palm of her hand all over Samael’s chest and stomach. The muscles below the skin, cushioned by his flesh, were like curved, metal plates. As sensual and erotic as all of this was, she still felt strange about touching him…down there…where the junction of his thighs and abdomen was as flat and smooth and hard as the rest of him. On some level, the idea of a man not having any external genitalia freaked her out whenever she thought about it, but she kept reminding herself that Samael was no man…
He was so much more than a man.
They lay in bed side by side, listening to the silence and breathing in unison. Claire kept dozing off and then awakening with a start. From time to time, Samael would raise his hand and touch her, stroking her long red hair, brushing his fingers through her curls and petting her, rubbing her hips, her belly, her thighs, her breasts as if she were something rare and precious.
“We have a lot to talk about,” she whispered after a long while.
His breathing continued unabated, and she wondered if he had drifted off to sleep, or if he was faking being asleep so he wouldn’t have to talk.
Does he ever need to sleep…He is, after all, a supernatural being…so what are the rules? They say Evil never sleeps.
She had no idea where to begin with her questions, but then her hand drifted a bit lower, running along the ridges of his ribs and then lower…and lower until her fingers ran lightly across the shaft of his tail again. It was lying across his thigh like a large snake. She tightened her grip on it, marveling at its smooth, soft power…its magic.
His tail responded immediately to her touch.
“Ah-hah, so you are awake,” she whispered with a laugh as she increased the pressure of her touch and then wrapped her hand around his tail, pulling it up like running a length of rope through her hands until she reached the fleshy, pointed tip. He moaned softly as, once again, sh
e was filled by an overwhelming compulsion to bring it up to her mouth.
Which she did.
~ * ~
“So?” Claire said sleepily. “What do we do with the rest of the day…or should I say ‘night?’”
Claire kicked aside the tangle of sheets and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the drawn window shade. She couldn’t begin to describe how she felt except that she had never felt like this before.
Ever.
She was completely, thoroughly pleasured in ways she had never even imagined or considered possible. Every other sexual relationship she’d had before now paled to absolute insignificance…even the ones she thought at the time had been incredible, like when she dated Robbie Campbell. She felt both exhausted and exhilarated, as if she had just run a marathon and emerged from a hot tub after a full-body massage. When she stood up, her legs trembled underneath her, and she had to sit back down on the edge of the bed to gather her resources. Her injured foot throbbed with dull pain.
Mentally, she was sharp, her mind amazingly clear. Even when she thought about what had happened last night—that she had almost been raped—there was a peculiar clarity about the incident that gave her a feeling of acceptance and yes, even forgiveness and pity for the man who very well may have intended to kill her after raping her. Claire had been brought up a Catholic, but had drifted away from the Church as she got older. Kindness, charity and forgiveness were deeply ingrained in her, nonetheless.
She got up from the bed again, feeling a bit more stable on her feet, and began dressing. All the while, she looked at Samael, who certainly appeared to be asleep. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing with deep, regular breaths that had the appearance of being asleep, but the thought crossed her mind that he was not only not asleep, he could see though his closed eyelids and was watching her even now as she got dressed.
Feeling suddenly exposed and vulnerable, she turned away from him while she hitched the clasp on her bra and adjusted it, pulled on her panties and jeans, and then buttoned up her blouse.
