Drenched

by Janine Ashbless

  “Do you understand now?” she murmurs, laying a hand on his chest and sliding her fingers between his shirt buttons.

  He can’t answer. Yes, he understands, because it makes sense at long last: why she never talks about where she comes from; why he’s never met her family; why she never ages. But the words bunch inside his throat and refuse to come out, as if they think they will be safe there. He can only look down, wide-eyed, at the pout of her breasts and the play of her wet hand on his shirt, and at the great inhuman mass below. So he sees the other end of her tail as it comes snaking out of the bath and slithers toward him, muscling up between his calves and wrapping about his thighs in a figure-eight. The golden eel-flesh feels surprisingly warm despite its slickness, and almost soft—until the muscles beneath contract. He doesn’t try to fight as she pins and binds him; he knows already that she’ll be far too strong for that.

  So it doesn’t really surprise him when she digs her long nails into the cloth over his crotch and tears through the fabric like it’s no tougher than a paper towel. She shreds his trousers until his groin is laid bare; he feels the cool air but he doesn’t dare look. Those nails must be sharp as razors. He meets her eyes instead, searching frantically for something human beyond the vertical ophidian slits that her pupils have now narrowed to.

  “It’s a pity,” she murmurs, her lips almost brushing his. Her breasts are making damp prints on his shirt. “I liked you, Martin.”

  The champagne bottle is heavy in his hand, and threatening to slip from his numb fingers. It’s heavy enough to be a weapon—if only he could wield it decisively. If he could pull away enough to get a good hard swing, instead of pressing up like this against her. If he could stop thinking about the way his balls are tight with fear and his cock taut to the point of aching as it butts and rubs against her through the rents in his clothes, no longer constrained.

  “I liked you very much,” she concludes, bearing him over, off his feet altogether now, flat on his back with his legs tangled in her coils. Water washes over the bathroom tiles, soaking him as his shoulders hit the floor. Somehow he’s kept the bottle aloft, his instinct recoiling from smashing the glass. Lucy wrests it effortlessly from his grip with one hand, and as he lies beneath her she snaps the green glass neck with a press of her thumb.

  He’s appalled by her strength.

  Champagne gushes out and falls, a frothy magma.

  “Have a drink, Martin,” she urges, tilting the bottle over him. Champagne foam slops on his shirt and throat and face. “One last drink to remember me by.” It’s glugging on his face, fizzing up his nose, filling his mouth. He twists his face away, trying to catch his breath as she pours it over his lips, snorting and gasping the golden liquid out of his airway. “One last time, Martin,” she repeats, slithering over him. She has no hips any more, no pelvic girdle, but she’s pressed against him where her hips used to be, and his cock is so stiff between them that even her firm flesh must yield to its jut. All of a sudden that narrow slit of hers finds itself in conjunction with the swollen bell-end of his erect cock. Blindly, frantically, the two push together. “One last time!” she gasps as she engulfs him.

  She’s hot and tight and slithery-wet inside, and she sucks on him.

  “Oh!” Martin gasps, choking on the falling champagne, his hips bucking. It’s never been like this before, not even in their finest moments. Lucy looms over him like a falling angel, her breasts shuddering as he thrusts up into her; mouth open like she’s going to swallow him whole. She’s pinning him and half-drowning him—he’s beside himself with terror—and it is just perfect.

  Then the champagne runs out. The last splash glugs out on his writhing lips and then she tosses the empty bottle aside. He hears it smash against the marble. For a moment they both go still, breathing hard. Martin blinks stinging eyes and looks up in supplication into hers. If this were any other sexual encounter between them, this would be the moment she would slap his face.

  Oh, how nervously he’d begged her—flushed with his shame and need—to slap his face, that first time.

  But this is no ordinary bout of sex play.

  That’s the moment he feels it: the narrow tip of her serpentine tail, inveigling its way between his ass-cheeks. It’s smooth as silk, a little slick, and far too strong to resist.

  With a despairing cry Martin arches and tries to thrash his way free, but he’s locked in a baroque tangle of limb and tail, his legs held open and his butt-cleft defenseless. When he tries to push at her shoulders she captures his wrists and pins them to the tiles, pressing down with all the weight of her torso, and he feels her wet clench about his cock, like a fist pulling him back into place.

  “Oh Martin,” she purrs, and it’s the growl of a monster.

  He stops struggling, locked in place. He doesn’t dare fight it.

  The invasion of his ass doesn’t even hurt: that’s the shameful thing. She slides into him like she belongs there, like he’s a sheath made for her, like she owns him. It feels like what he’s been waiting for his whole life, and though he never knew that, somehow his body did; his ass surrenders to her without resistance, no matter how the muscles of his legs and arms strain. Nerve-endings he’s never guessed at spark with pleasure as she slides in and out, easing his clench, deep and then deeper. Lightning flickers up through his body and flashes behind his eyes. Now he’s making bestial noises, and calling on God—but God isn’t there, can’t be there, not the God of mercy and truth and purity. Only the magna mater, dark and golden-gleaming, overwhelming him, possessing him inside and out, filling his ass and milking his cock and stooping low over his face to bite his lips bloody.

  “One … more … child …” she groans, her voice trembling, her eyes hugely dilated. Her lithe not-hips dance, driving her slippery cunt up and down on his shaft even as her tail pumps in his ass, touching places that have never been touched before. And Martin knows he is lost.

  There.

  Oh God yes.

  Swept away. Gold and black, flame and darkness, like a great flood-tide. He pours out his pale gush, and for a moment his own light burns like phosphorus in her depths. She is the whirlpool Charybdis; she is Tethys; she is the Ocean and he is drowning in her.

  And he wants nothing else.

  But when he surfaces, long hours later, cast back up on the shores of consciousness, she is propped up on her arms looking down on him, and there is no goddess or serpent in her eyes. Just, for a moment, the Lucy he thought he knew.

  She looks pensive.

  “I should kill you,” she says softly. “That’s what I’m supposed to do. To keep the secret.”

  Martin runs the dry tip of his tongue across his swollen lips, tasting salt and blood.

  “But,” she murmurs, “the children will need their father. Goodbye, Martin.”

  “Don’t go,” he says. “Please!”

  For a moment she holds his gaze, regret naked in her face.

  Then candlelight dances only on an empty bath, on smashed bottle glass, on slick tiles. He feels the hot hard tears gather in his chest and writhe their way up toward his throat.

  This is how a man breaks.

  ♦♦♦♦

  The fairy Melusina, also, who married Guy de Lusignan, Count of Poictou, under condition that he should never attempt to intrude upon her privacy, was of this latter class. She bore the count many children, and erected for him a magnificent castle by her magical art. Their harmony was uninterrupted until the prying husband broke the conditions of their union, by concealing himself to behold his wife make use of her enchanted bath. Hardly had Melusina discovered the indiscreet intruder, than, transforming herself into a dragon, she departed with a loud yell of lamentation, and was never again visible to mortal eyes; although, even in the days of Brantome, she was supposed to be the protectress of her descendants.

  - Sir Walter Scott: Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
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  The Pool Party

  ♦♦♦♦

  By Primula Bond

  “I’m glad we made the effort to get up so early,” remarks Kara, setting up her easel. The first lemony fingers of the morning trace the craggy walls of Roquebrune castle. “It’s so quiet! No tourists yet. No traffic. And look at the sea down there! It’s like wrinkled silk.”

  “Loving your enthusiasm, honey, but we’re only catching the sunrise because those fucking mice kept us awake all night.” Suki yawns, pouring two black coffees from the cracked thermos flask they found at the back of a dusty cupboard. “And I’ll bet that when we stagger back to the creaky old hovel that there won’t be any water for a shower.”

  “You’re making me feel really guilty now for dragging you here. The plan was to waft about on the Cote d’Azur, following in the footsteps of Picasso and Matisse and their merry men, but it’s not exactly paradise, is it?” In the few minutes it has taken Kara to dip the soft sable of her paint brush into her palette to mix powder blue and white, the dome of sky has been washed with a starker, harder blue. She flattens her brush against the canvas and makes the first sweep. “There isn’t even any local talent we can get our mitts on!”

  The girls both breathe deeply. You can get high on those paint fumes.

  “Don’t remind me. All this sun and sleeplessness is making me horrifically horny!” Suki watches a hang glider launching from the cliffs above their heads. It wheels and arcs through the air like a green and orange striped bird of prey. “And you know how grumpy I get when I go without!”

  Kara laughs. “You’ll be dragging that old geezer who gives you free pastis in the village bar back to bed for a good hard ride if we’re not careful. Or maybe we should just cut short this vacation and go home.”

  “You’re normally the sensible one, K. Not a quitter.” Suki taps her sketch pad against her chin. The hang glider hovers over a strip of beach far below. “We’ve only been here for three days!”

  Kara glances up. Her friend’s limbs already glow with a honey-hued tan and the strengthening sun is turning her fair hair to buttery curls of gold. She rubs at her still-pale skin and tries to ignore a sudden twist of jealousy.

  “Let’s go into Nice tonight and have a few drinks in the old town. We’ll make a decision tomorrow.”

  The hang glider lands silently on the sand.

  It’s early afternoon when the rental car bumps reluctantly back up the rutted lane overhung with ivy and vines. The pink cottage looked so quaint when they first arrived here, so brimful of promise and adventure, but in the glaring sunshine it just looks scruffy and there’s an eerier silence than normal, broken only by the cooing of a pigeon which has made its nest in one of the bedrooms.

  “The electricity’s gone again! The milk’s gone off, and even the wine and beer are warm!” Suki snatches out a bottle of mineral water and slams shut the fridge, sending a family of huge black spiders scuttling across the floor. “I’m going to find a signal and phone the bloody airline to change our tickets!”

  Kara is nowhere to be seen. Suki marches to the end of the garden, ignoring the terraced vista of vineyards and tiny villages unfolding beneath her. She holds her arm up and waggles her phone desperately at the sky. Nada. She’s opening her mouth to swear blue murder when there’s a sudden flurry of leaves and twigs and wings over the other side of the riot of bougainvillea hiding them from the world like a couple of sleeping beauties. Two bright blue kingfishers swoop out of the garden next door and up into the sky.

  “Is that you breaking and entering, Kara? What are you thinking!?”

  There’s no answer. Suki clambers up on the old stone wall. The heat sings in her ears. Her tongue feels thick and dry, sticking to the roof of her mouth.

  She doesn’t stop to query what made the birds startle like that. All she can think is that if there are kingfishers over there, there must be water.

  Through the tangle of greenery she sees an expanse of velvety lawn. Her gaze is led past marble statues of naked goddesses, past sculpted topiary in vast terracotta pots, and lands on the sapphire glitter of a swimming pool. It’s so bright and tempting she can’t hold back. Within minutes she is pushing through the branches, ignoring the twigs scratching at her skin, and running up through the grounds. She’s vaguely aware of the white wedding cake facade of her neighbors’ grand villa, but she’ll deal with any trouble later. Right now she’s so hot she just dives, fully clothed, into the cool water.

  She reaches the mosaic tiled floor of the pool, lies there for a moment, then turns and swims swiftly to the other end, her body merging fluidly with the watery element, lungs stretching to bursting point, the sky wavering above her, no sound, only her limbs pushing aside the weight of water.

  As she spreads herself like a starfish and floats up to the surface, she glances around. The French doors of the villa are all closed. They’re rectangles of enticing darkness, inviting her to explore the forbidden interior.

  Maybe it’s time she made herself scarce.

  She climbs out, but she can’t bring herself to leave. Next door there is one broken sunbed and rough garden furniture bristling with splinters. Here there are luxurious, white, squashy loungers to recline on. And big white umbrellas. And polished teak tables.

  Suki is torn between running back to find Kara, and staying right here to taste the joys of this secret garden, like Goldilocks. Goldilocks wins.

  She peels off her dress and sprawls out on one of the loungers, barely covered by her soaking pair of panties. One leg and one arm are dipped into the water, the other arm rests across her stomach. A trickle of moisture runs from under her hair down the side of her face.

  Idly, and with her eyes still shut, Suki lets the sun sink into her skin. Her fingertips trail over her breasts. Her nail catches on one nipple. It tingles into a tip, the hard nipple trapped between her fingers like a bud. A shudder runs through her. She can’t help it. Her other hand wanders down between her legs and peels aside the wet fabric.

  Suki feels like a lizard, motionless. The heat is welding her to the cushions.

  A shadow flits across her closed eyelids and away. Her nostrils quiver. There’s the smell of another person’s sweat somewhere nearby. Sweet, but strong. Her fingers cease their wandering.

  “Kara? Is that you? Come and see what I’ve found! How about this place for a proper paradise?”

  Suki opens her eyes, peering through the fringe of eyelashes, but instead of her friend’s white, coltish legs she sees a muscular brown pair standing at the deep end.

  “Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

  A bubble of fright and excitement blocks Suki’s throat as the deep French accent growls across the space between them. Great. Now she’s been caught trespassing. But the scary guy doesn’t look like he’s about to throw her out—not just yet, anyway—because he’s currently holding a huge droplet-beaded crystal jug of some kind of cordial, swirled with oranges and jangling with ice. From where he’s standing he can definitely see her hand in mid-stroke upon her pussy.

  She bites her pouting lower lip in a shy little girl gesture. If she gives him a treat, maybe he’ll give her a drink. And if she gives him a really special treat, maybe he won’t punish her for breaking in.

  Intoxicated with sunshine and possible danger, she opens her legs a little wider, lets her finger drift even more obviously up the glistening pink crack. Her finger is the only part of her that is moving. All she can see is a silhouette, black against the dazzling sunshine. The figure doesn’t move. He’s wearing sunglasses, but she knows his eyes will be fixed on what she’s doing because her finger is tickling and teasing, dipping inside, pulling out again. As she pushes in, harder this time, she runs the palm of her other hand over her exposed nipples and as they harden with pleasure her spine arches instinctively, displaying her to her audience.

  “Bonjour. I’m staying in the cottage next
door, but I know I’m trespassing. Very naughty. Je suis tres mechante,” she breathes, bucking gently against her own finger. “So you better punish me, monsieur.”

  The man hesitates, takes a barefoot step towards her, then stops again. Suki pulls her finger out of herself, holds it up in the air to show him the juices. Then she licks it. That’s done the trick, because now he’s kneeling down at the foot of her cushion. He puts the jug down on the paving stones. She squints through her eyelashes. His erection is shoving against his faded shorts. Up close he’s much younger than she thought. He’s hunky but hairless. Watchful, yet wary.

  Suki sits up and leans forward, runs her tongue over her lips. She lifts his sunglasses off his nose. Dark chocolate eyes in a handsome, tanned face stare back at her. Long, thick eyelashes. White teeth barely out of braces. Christ. He can’t be more than seventeen.

  Next, she dips the silver ladle into the jug of sangria or whatever he’s brought and takes a greedy gulp.

  “Where is your boss?” she asks, leaning back and running her foot up his chest. “Is he going to come out of the house any minute and catch me? Maybe call the police?”

  The hunky gardener catches her foot and pushes it back down. “My boss?”

  “Le patron. Le maitre de la maison.” She nods towards the grand villa. The only sign of life is the corner of a white curtain blowing from an upstairs window. “Am I in trouble?”