Having completed his censing, Dashwood extended his arms and recited a paean to “Lord Satan, God of Power,” concluding it with “Hosanna in profundis.”
A dozen voices echoed, “Hosanna!”
Dashwood stood before the altar with his back to the congregation and unbuttoned his robe, prompting the congregants to do the same. Gazing reverentially at the portrait of Lucifer, his cock in one hand and his balls in the other, as if in offering, he exhorted his God Satan to gather his power and arise. The rest of the Hellfires followed suit, save for Elic, to whom Archie handed the aspergillum. The brass shaft felt heavy, hard, and cold; he chafed it with his hands to warm it.
“Credo in Satanas, qui laetificat juventutem mea.” Dashwood stroked himself erect, as did those congregants who were not yet fully tumescent. “I believe in Satan, who enriches my youth. I worship Thee.” Bowing, he kissed the dark nest between Lili’s thighs.
Elic, standing across the altar table from Dashwood, widened Lili’s legs until her heels were at the very edges of the altar. This had the effect, because of the chains attached to the leg bands, of pulling her sex lips wide open, exposing the entrance of her damp little nick, against which Elic positioned the aspergillum. The instrument being more sizeable than that of the average man, and a good deal more rigid, he nudged it in slowly to allow her flesh to yield to the harsh intrusion. He heard a ragged little sigh issue from her throat, though perhaps it had come from him. In his befuddled state of mind, he couldn’t be sure of anything—except his own white-hot arousal.
“In spiritu humilitatis suscipiamur a Te, Domine Satanas,” chanted Dashwood as he rubbed himself faster, Archie beating the gong in time with his strokes. “Et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi.” In a humble spirit may we be received by Thee, Lord Satan, and may the sacrifice we offer be pleasing in Thy sight.
Elic pressed the aspergillum deeper into Lili’s weeping quim. Her hips rose and fell languorously, her breath fluttering the veil over her face. She let out a little growl of gratification as he buried the instrument fully inside her. He thrust it in rhythm with the gong while caressing the slippery folds of her sex, very lightly for now, and avoiding the clitoris lest she come off too soon. The Bona Dea was not to spend until the chief friar’s initial discharge; Elic’s instructions had been quite exacting on that point.
Harry fetched the cauldron of water, standing at the ready as Dashwood masturbated in earnest.
“Come, Lord of the Temple,” chorused the congregants, still displaying their privates, though most had ceased diddling themselves, no doubt in order to save their pent-up lust for the banquet. “Come, Lord of the World. Come from the Gates of Hell.”
“Behold Satan’s bride,” Elic said as Lili writhed to his teasing touch, her expression rapturous through the veil. “The Infernal Lord is within her.”
The candelabras quivered in Lili’s grasp, casting an odd, stuttering luminescence over her shuddering body. In Elic’s intoxicated state, it seemed as if time itself were advancing in jerky little snippets instead of smoothly and seamlessly, as it ought to.
Archie beat the gong faster and faster in time with Dashwood’s strokes as the chief friar beseeched Satan, in a voice grown hoarse, to accept his offering. “Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae sed et cunctae familiae tuae, quaesumus, Domine Satanus, ut placatus occipias.”
Dashwood, his face blood-flushed, nodded to Harry, who positioned the cauldron to receive the impending oblation. Thus forewarned, Elic grazed the edge of Lili’s clit with a slick fingertip, drawing a gasp of startled pleasure from her. She thrust her hips up in a wordless plea for release. Not quite yet. Elic gentled his touch, withholding that release as she writhed in an agony of need.
Gripping the edge of the altar table, his hand fisted in the fur, Dashwood gave himself a few firm strokes, then stilled. A low groan rose from his throat as he ejaculated into the chalice held by Harry.
Now. Elic thrust the aspergillum faster as he massaged Lili’s most sensitive flesh in a way that he knew, from long experience in pleasuring women, would bring her off instantly. She cried out, her back bowed, as she climaxed. What an exquisite sight she was, thrashing in sensual abandon. Elic’s cock rose against his belly, hot and hard and aching; his balls felt as if they were stuffed to the bursting point with gunpowder. Were he to climb atop this table and take this woman right now, he’d go off like a howitzer the moment he entered her.
Panting, Dashwood squeezed out the final spurts into the chalice, straightened up, and rebuttoned his robe. Taking the chalice from Harry, he raised it to the portrait of Lucifer. “Domine Satanas corda nostra mundet infusion, et sui roris intima aspersione foecundet. May our hearts be cleansed by the in-pouring of our Lord Satan, and may He make them fruitful by sprinkling them with the dew of His grace.”
“Ave Satanas,” Elic said as he drew the aspergillum out of the breathless, sated Lili, stroking her trembling hip as he did so.
“Hail Satan!” cried the Hellfires.
Elic handed the aspergillum to Dashwood, who dipped it into the chalice of water mixed with his spendings. Crossing to the back wall of the sanctuary, directly beneath the Satanic portrait, he shook the brass phallus twice onto the floor while blessing it, in the name of Satan, with the “seed of life.” He repeated this benediction at all four corners of the sanctuary and returned the aspergillum to the altar table.
Turning to the congregation, Dashwood said, “Let us pray.”
Together with the Hellfires, Elic recited, “Pater Noster. Qui es in Inferis…” Our Father, who art in Hell…
At the conclusion of the heretical Lord’s Prayer, Archie handed the chalice with the ladle in it to Dashwood, who bowed over it, saying, “Hic est calyx carnis stimulous.”
Taking the chalice from Dashwood, Elic held it over his head. “Behold the chalice of voluptuous flesh which gives joy to our life.”
Archie then offered the paten to Dashwood, who lifted the little wafer. “Hoc est corpus Inferno Deo Nostro.” He touched the red-tinged wafer to each of Lili’s nipples, then pushed it into her damp slit, saying, “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts that gave Thee suck.” Withdrawing the wafer, he held it aloft, saying, “Behold the body of our Lord Satan. Accept the body of Satan and the chalice of voluptuous flesh in the name of the Infernal Lord.”
The congregants, their hoods still low over their eyes, filed out of their bank of misericord chairs and approached the sanctuary in a single file procession. The first man, whom Elic recognized from his stature as Lord Bute, withdrew his cock as he ascended the altar steps. He bowed to Dashwood, who said, “Corpus Satanus,” as he touched the wafer to the tip of the semierect organ.
“Amen,” responded Bute, who came to stand opposite Elic at the altar table as the second man approached Dashwood. Lowering his hood, Bute bent to confer a ritual kiss upon Lili’s quim, gliding his tongue along the pink flesh in a way that made her sigh with pleasure.
“Sanguis Satanas,” said Elic as he ladled a bit of brandy from the chalice into the little hollow of Lili’s navel. Bute lapped it up with evident relish, straightened, and said, “Amen.” Raising his hood, he stepped aside for the next communicant.
One by one, the Hellfires took their turns. Bringing up the rear was Lord Turek, who walked up to Dashwood holding a rigidly erect penis that was bowed, narrowing toward the tip rather like a Turkish dagger. After receiving the host, he lowered his hood and approached the altar table, eyeing Lili with icy rapaciousness.
Elic caught Turek’s eye and gave him a warning glare, to which he responded with a mildly amused nod of acknowledgment. Indeed, the kiss he bestowed upon Lili’s sex was surprisingly brief and chaste. It was only when he went to lick the brandy from her navel that he employed his tongue, which was unusually long and pointed, recalling Lili’s characterization of him as a snake.
“Amen.” With a frosty smile at Elic, Turek returned to his seat.
E
xtending his arms, palms down, toward the Hellfires, Dashwood intoned, “Lord Satan saith, in chaos and drunkenness, I rise again. You shall revel in the lusts of the flesh, which are fornication, ribaldry, luxury, sorcery, drunkenness, and revelry. My flesh is meat indeed.”
“Caro mea vere est cibus,” repeated the Hellfires in Latin.
“Brothers,” Dashwood continued, “we are slaves of the flesh, meant to revel in fleshly things. May the almighty King of Hell grant you the fullness of life and the attainment of all you desire. May He shower His blessings upon you and fill your fiery lance with never-ending streams of the milk of life. Ego vos benedictio in Nomine Magni Dei Nostri Satanus. I bless you in the name of our Great God Satan.”
“Ave, Satanas!” the congregants roared. “Hail Satan!”
“Ite, missa est,” Dashwood said. “Fornicemur ad gloria Domine Satanas.”
And so ended the dark mass, with the chief friar’s final exhortation to go forth and fornicate to the glory of their dark Lord.
Four
KEEP THOSE on,” said Darius as Charlotte, having undressed down to her shoes and stockings, bent over to untie an above-the-knee garter. The stockings were the plain white ones ladies had taken to wearing of late, but the shoes were fashioned of brocaded silk with sharply pointed toes, an ornate silver buckle, and very high, curved heels. He liked how the height of the shoes shaped her slender body, forcing her back into an arc that accentuated her dainty breasts and firm, shapely derriere. “And leave the ribbon ’round your neck, as well.”
“I prefer to take them off,” she said as she continued untying the garter. He knew why. There was something reassuringly natural about complete nakedness, a kind of purity. The shoes and stockings imparted an aura of salaciousness that unsettled her, despite her dark longings.
Darius stepped behind her and swung the riding crop at that tempting little ass; leather struck flesh with a satisfying snap. Charlotte shrieked as she fell to the floor of packed earth. “You cur!” she cried, rubbing her bottom as she knelt on her haunches. “You…you…”
Crouching so that they were at eye level, Darius seized a handful of her hair, still in its diamond-studded coiffure, and tugged her head up, forcing her to look at him. Softly, calmly, he said, “’Tis best that we understand each other from the outset, my lady. You may remain here, in which case you will abandon yourself to my will and comply without hesitation to my demands, no matter what they be. ’Twill be a compact between the two of us, a binding covenant.”
He stroked the riding crop lightly down her throat and over a trembling bosom, giving the nipple a sharp little flick. “Or you may put those back on.” He nodded over his shoulder at the heap of finery and underpinnings on the iron chair, which she’d laboriously divested as he’d watched, making no move to assist her. “I’ll even help you with the laces and hooks,” he continued. “And then you may leave here, and we shall be quit of each other. Which shall it be?”
She stared at him for a long moment, then lowered her gaze, licking her rouged lips. “The first.”
“Say it.”
“I…I suppose I shall stay.”
“And enslave yourself to my will? Say it.”
“And enslave myself to your will.”
“Look at me.” Darius tilted her chin up. He was no mind reader—he sensed desires only, not other thoughts or feelings—but a human’s eyes revealed much, if one searched thoroughly enough. Charlotte’s revealed a frisson of apprehension at this rough handling…as well as a breathless surge of excitement.
She craved this rough treatment, she thrilled to it. Did she not, he would hardly be doing it. It was she who had set this particular caprice in motion, not he. He was just a peaceable, reclusive djinni who’d had the poor fortune to brush up against this rather complicated human when all he’d wanted was a bit of slumber in a dark, quiet place. Now, having sensed that human’s hunger to be mastered and punished, he had no choice but to appease it, to play the role in which he’d been involuntarily cast.
Ah, but if only it were a mere performance, a simple matter of acting the brute in order to satisfy the lady’s predilection. It was the curse of Darius’s kind to absorb a human’s desires to the point where one was not just willing, but eager to act upon them—to become, if only temporarily, a different man, the kind of man who would, for instance, relish the opportunity to abuse and degrade a woman such as this.
Darius could feel it already, as he knelt staring into Charlotte’s eyes, sensing a riot of wants and needs—cold chains, tight ropes, the crack of his palm, her tears of shame and relief at being whipped, bound, caged, penetrated, used. She didn’t just want this brutal treatment; she wanted him to want to inflict it, and so, God help him, he did. He wanted to make her writhe and groan and suffer, he wanted to spank that pert little ass of hers raw, he wanted to force his cock into every part of her that could take it, but most of all, he wanted to make her submit. She needed to bend to his will, utterly and completely, to be thoroughly chastened and taken to task. He wasn’t quite sure why she craved this as she did, but the need for punishment consumed her—as, now, did Darius’s need to be the instrument of that punishment.
Pointing with the riding crop to the whipping stool, he said, “Mount it.”
She made as if to rise. He planted a booted foot on her shoulder and shoved her back down. “Did I tell you to stand?”
“I…No, I just thought—”
“Don’t think,” he said. “Just do as I say. No more, no less.”
After a moment’s thought, she turned and crawled on all fours toward the stool.
“Good girl,” Darius said as she slid herself onto it, its sloping top canting her buttocks upward—quite the tempting target. She gripped the front legs of the squat bench as Darius circled her, tapping her with the crop as he issued instructions. “Head up. Keep your gaze on that bullwhip up near the ceiling. Spread those legs,” he said, slapping her inner thighs with the crop. “Your knees should be as wide apart as the back legs of the stool. That’s it.”
He stood behind her, admiring the pose, which displayed in frank offering her hotly blushing, completely hairless vulva. She burned with lust, quite literally, since cantharides excited lust by inflaming the body’s most sensitive flesh. The red-hot tingling and itching stimulated the genitals to a fever pitch, leaving one desperate for sexual release.
“You shave?” he asked, stroking the tip of the crop over the slick, rosy petals of her labia.
“Y-yes,” she said with a little shiver. “Bridget—my ladies’ maid—she does it during my bath.”
“Why?”
“My…my husband was an art collector, and he wanted me to look like the women in his paintings—the nudes. You know.”
“Hairless.”
She nodded.
“And you obeyed, like a compliant little wife? I can’t quite fathom it.”
“I was fifteen when we were wed, and I’d lived a sheltered life.”
“In the seminary, yes?”
“How…how could you know that?”
She yelped as he smacked her ass with the crop. “’Tis I who ask the questions, Charlotte, you who answer them. You are not to speak except to respond to me, and then with the most sincere and humble demeanor. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “In…in the seminary, yes. I knew nothing of men or marriage, or…anything, until Somerhurst and I were wed.”
“Your father arranged the union?”
“He did.”
“Your husband, he was older?”
“Much. And…” She looked over her shoulder at him, as if asking permission to continue.
He nodded.
“And a very commanding sort of man. Very particular, very set in his ways. He would brook no disobedience.”
“Did he hit you?”
“No. Well, once, but…not as a general thing. He didn’t have to,” she said with a sort of bitter weariness. “I was completely cowed by him. Everyone was. Even othe
r men.”
“Was he faithful to you?”
She shook her head. “He had his mistresses. And his whores.”
“All very young,” Darius said.
“Yes. How…” She glanced warily at him, as if worried she’d overstepped herself by starting to ask a question.
“It strikes me that a man’s fondness for hairless quims might reflect a penchant for those too young to have sprouted any hair there.” And yet Darius, who had never, in his long existence, been attracted to a female of tender years, found Charlotte’s naked gash deeply arousing—because, of course, she wanted him to. The smoothness of it made him want to stroke and lick her, bite her, fuck her. Without hair to obscure his view, he could see, between the pouting lips, every detail of her female anatomy, blood-flushed and sheened with moisture.
“Your husband has been dead for—how long?” Darius asked.
“Five years.”
“During which time you’ve become adept at giving orders rather than taking them. And yet you continue to shave.”
“It takes weeks to grow out, and the itching maddens me. And, too, I’ve found that men, most of them, rather like me bare there, especially when they…well…”
“Gam you.”
“Yes.”
“This Bridget, is she pretty?”
“Y-yes.”
“Yes, of course,” he said as he grazed the crop up and down her bare vulva. “A pretty little Irish girl with milky skin and freckles. You like spreading your legs for her, making her lather you up and take a razor to your most private, secret parts. You relish your power over her, and the way the razor feels as it scrapes you clean. It excites you, doesn’t it? And she can tell. She can see your cunt swelling, your clit stiffening, just as I can now.”
He tucked the crop’s little paddle into her gaping slit and turned it on its side, spreading her sex lips wide open. A little whimper rose from her as he stood there, scrutinizing her most secret flesh, his cock pulsing at the sight. “Do you make her lick you, this Bridget?” he asked. “Do you make her shove the handle of the razor in you as she rubs your—”
House of Dark Delights Page 9
