by Jason Ridler
Here, it was thin. Still distant. An electric burn with sugary tones. I flicked my room’s switch and the flavor led me further into the dark. The apartment wing had a right turn down the hall. The walls were littered with framed oil paintings of doves, and then garish spectacles from Rome. They weren’t original works from great masters, but a novice imitating their style. In each, the eyes of the central figures were too big. They smelled not of magic, but of limited talent.
One showed a Thracian tossing his net upon a tiger, trident poised for victory against the giant beast. Another depicted Julius Caesar charging into a mob of Gauls upon white stallion. Another featured an orgy of the gods, with Jupiter in his many animal forms—swan, horse, bull—defiling goddesses and mortal women.
But the last pulled my short and curlies. It was the best rendered, sharpest, and more realistic of the bunch. Which made it terrifying.
Juno, wife of Jupiter, stood at the tip of a precipice. She held the head of her husband. Before her was a crowd of lion-clothed women, doing the same with the severed heads of their husbands.
My balls retracted as I passed it by, following the dirty, burnt aroma until it was interrupted by something . . . sweet.
Around another corner, the sweetness hung before a door on the right. I was at the heart of the apartments, like the dreaded final room in Masque of the Red Death, and I worried I would find a clock that tolled me into oblivion, or a key to the mystery of the two missing girls.
The knob was iced. The AC roaming the halls would make an Eskimo shiver. One hard turn and the door opened. Humidity and somber red light hit me, and the pungent aroma of sex stained every sense.
On black sheets a woman was being drilled by a guy. There was a pillow under her ass and he held her legs up so he could keep his rhythm tight and regular. Everything smelled of sweat and oil, lust and tangs of flavor gracing the humidity of their session.
“Golly,” I said, announcing my arrival. “I guess this isn’t the shitter!”
The guy jumped back, pulling out his willie, but good God it took awhile given its length. He covered himself up. “Shit, Terra,” he said. “Is this creep your husband?”
The redhead on the bed crossed her legs, hands over her bush. “Not any of the ones I remember.” She was buxom, with far more curves than Nico. Older, my vintage, and in full command of her beauty. She touched herself and smiled. “You late for a wedding, friend?”
“No,” I said, playing innocent and shocked but trying to be polite and pretending I couldn’t taste the aroma of her clit with every word. “I’m Richard, Maxine’s brother.”
Her name was like a gunshot to the young guy with the horse dong. “I need to shower before the finale, Terra.” Something tells me he was in the climax of the film and saw Maxine go serpent berserk on Nico.
“Thanks for the wake up, Riley,” she said. He pushed past me into the darkness with a handful of clothes. Terra pulled a black silk sheet over her form with such a careless air it only covered her bottom half, with one leg exposed like the slit of a skirt. “Such a good boy. Always makes me feel younger. He’s going to be a big star. A big, big star.” She winked to let me in on a joke so obvious even a moron could decode. “Maxine’s big brother, huh?”
The taste of magic crept through the atmosphere of fresh sex on clean sheets. “Yes,” I said, keeping up the gosh-wow Mid-Western naiveté. “Richard. Are you the star of the film?”
“Bless your heart,” Terra said. “Your sister’s the star, Dick. I’m what they call the antagonist. The big bad queen who wants her youth . . . or something.” Something broke her patter. Probably the memory of the demon that emerged from Maxine’s mouth. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve been looking all around for Maxine, but can’t seem to find her.”
Terra’s cattish attitude received a new polish. “Well, I don’t keep track of other people’s schedules. But she might be—”
“What da hell is youz doing?” TV had moved silently in his big black shoes, high ball glass in his hand. “Told ya to stay in the room.”
“Relax, munchkin,” Terra said. “This is Maxine’s brother.”
“Don’t call me dat!” TV said. “Unless you wants me to write you out of the flick.”
“Then I’ll ask Octavia, pretty please with a cherry on top, let me back in,” Terra said, and the fume in her gaze was matched by TV. The hate between them was strong and mutual. “Now give the nice man his drink. He’s visiting his sister, the star of our film, and we don’t want to be rude. He and I were having a very nice chat.”
“We’re filming,” TV said, thrusting a glass at me: the sides were studded with fake diamonds, making it a challenge to hold if you didn’t have career calluses as thick as camel toes. “Can’t have tourists making noise and walking around da place.”
“Which is why Mr. Graham is staying right here until Octavia’s done.”
“Octavia said—”
“Octavia doesn’t want us making a fuss with all the excitement today.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” I said.
“You’re not!” Terra said. “Now if we need you, TV, I’ll be sure to ring the bell.”
TV plucked his cigar from his mouth. “I’ll be happy to ring your bell, Terra.”
TV clunked down the hall in the darkness, turned the corner, then vanished.
“I apologize for the manners of our esteemed screenwriter,” Terra said, throwing off her sheet. “But our producer thinks he’s a genius, so we must suffer his poor taste and foul aroma while trying to make a beautiful film.” She rose from the bed, her legs strong and graceful from years of dancing, with just enough flesh on it to reveal her age. She had not been an ingénue in a good long time, but her firm, sweet cheeks were hung like a ripe apple, a ride that was built for comfort, not speed. I tracked her whole body as she gave me her back and studied a coat rack from which hung robes, scarves, and slips.
Then I saw it.
Across her right shoulder blade, a tiny sigil had been carved faintly on her skin . . . so faint it was invisible to the naked eye. But if you’d spent as much time in the dark as I had, you could pick up a sigil like a faded radio signal on a radar screen.
But the sigil, goddamn it . . . it wasn’t Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, Japanese, and it . . . moved, as if I had some kinda reading problem like dyslexia. Whatever it was, it was fighting me to stay hid, and the shape was a complete unknown.
CHAPTER 23
I BIT DOWN AND FORCED THE IMAGE THROUGH MY MIND AGAIN, through it against my memories and hoping my joyride with Montague Summers might yield a tool, an insight, a goddamn nugget of wisdom . . . But all that came back was a taste, the one that I’d been tracking, the one that now had a hint of substance beyond the tremulous flavor of magic.
Blood and iron.
Terra took a black silk robe, casting it across her shoulders before threading her arms into the sleeves. Upon the backside was embroidered a golden Japanese Kraken. She pulled her hair from the inside and let it drape the creature, turned, and tightened her belt. “Please, Dick. Make yourself at home while I freshen up. Just don’t run along the corridors and making TV even more grumpy than usual.”
“I’m grateful for the company,” I said, raising the glass as she smiled, turned, and walked into her bathroom. The door closed.
I put the glass on her nightstand as Terra turned the taps. The water covered up the sounds of her peeing out whatever that young stud had done. The magic on my tongue split . . . half went to the washroom, the other half to the nightstand. I reached for the nightstand knob as Terra flushed.
She opened the door, the silk robe caressing her white body, lightly tied like a Christmas present that had almost been unwrapped. I was fanning out the top sheet. “Sorry, when I get nervous I liked to make the bed.”
God, that sounded better than I could have hoped.
Terra walked toward me. Freckles emerged. Wrinkles. And her beauty didn’t drop one iota. And
it was refreshing. She was playing a full-grown woman, and she owned it like a soldier owns his rifle. “Well, aren’t you a domesticated gentleman.” The sheet landed and she cut herself between me and the bed. I drew myself up as she placed a long fingered hand upon my chest. The taste of magic on her back was stronger, but I couldn’t make out the sigil. I’d have to touch it and, if I could, taste it myself. Then I’d need to see what was hidden in that nightstand.
“Dick,” she said, playfully, right hand reaching for my neck, “would you like to lie down and wait for your sister here?”
“Oh, wow,” I said, “I’m sure you have things to do.”
Her red nails wove into my hair.
“Only one thing comes to mind.”
She pressed me to her and our lips touched. Brandy and cigarettes stained my mouth as I wrapped my arms around her, but gentle, hands on the small of her back instead of grabbing her ass and lifting her to the nearest wall. She must lead. Few Midwest used-office-furniture salesmen were secretly Rudolph Valantino.
Tongues wrestling in hard moves, she messed with my hair as I drank a bit deeper, as any man would, but she set the tone. A little bite. A little lick. Ramping me up. Wanted me to make a big move. Every ounce of me wanted to assume command, but I teased back, gulping air. “Wait, weren’t you just with that other guy?”
Her eyes were hungry. She wasn’t used to men resisting. “He’s a boy.” She gripped both ass cheeks and ground herself into my crotch. “I need a man.” She snaked her right leg around me and I was forced to grab two handfuls of her ass. Both legs tied in a bow around my back, I brought her up so she can look down and kiss me hard, long, gnashing. Then her breath was in my ear. “Fuck me.”
A thousand erotic forms and flavors paraded through my mind, and I wanted to jam her against the wall, pinning her to the door, and thrash ourselves against any surface as I ground deeper and deeper into her mysteries . . . but that was me, not Richard.
My fingers kneaded into her firm ass I turned toward the bed. I laid her down across the dirty sheets that I fanned out, but her legs were still tied around me. “Don’t bother undressing,” she said. “Drop your pants and fuck me. Now.”
I dove into her mouth. Terra’s hands tore at my belt buckle and zipper with a skill and acumen best reserved for jewelers and clockmakers, and soon she grabbed my throbbing piece.
Her eyes lit up with a hint of honest shock. “Oh, wow. You’re really big. “
I smiled. “Thank you.”
“No,” she said, pulling me closer, “thank you.” She used my piece to strike her pussy lips, each time saying, “thank you,” in breathier and breathier whispers until I felt her open up to receive me. She guided me in until I filled her. Her mouth parted in a long “Oh, that’s so good.” And it was clear Terra is a talker.
Like Nico.
I surged forward, driving hard, and Terra seethed with pleasure until I controlled my shit and wiped Nico from my mind. Focus, I screamed at myself. You have a job to do, and blasting off right now will not get it done.
I regulated my breathing like a snake charmer and began again. Another stroke inside her and I was learning more from her mystery. She’d had a kid, once upon a time, and there was room to begin with, hence the need for boys with lion pricks. The difference with mine? I was what they call “full.” Spend enough time with Tantric Shamans on the circuit, and you learn how to fill a woman, any woman, with what you have, thanks to a silent mantra in my brain that ran whenever I entered a woman. Circular breathing finished the spell. And Terra was releasing her legs, then tightening them, unsure of how much I’d brought to the dance, since what I have is substantial, and I’d found her erogenous zone.
Her eyes widened, then shut. “Oh fuck.”
My pants peeled off my skin and dropped to my ankles as I pulled back, almost out, and then slowly, surely, pushed straight and hard into Terra until my balls tapped her ass. The black robe was splayed open, and she moved as if swimming in an oil slick, writhing as I moved. “How . . . how do you know how to . . .” I gripped her ass tighter. My churning rhythm cut off all capacity to make full sentences. She gripped the sheets, eyes rolling back as I sent wave after wave of full, slick pleasure. She tightened around my piece. He her legs shook. Her sweet spot was on the left, so I ground there, pulling her ass to and fro as she held her breath and everything seized. I quickened. Her elbows locked, head rolling back, and then I just pounded into her and everything clenched until she shook, rising and falling like an out of control Bride of Frankenstein who got hit with too much juice. Taut, she shook, eased her frozen spine, and then breathed out with a moan.
“Oh fuck,” Terra said as I slowed things down. “I haven’t come so fast since high school . . . Where the hell did you learn to move like that?”
Looking down, I smiled. “High school. I was pretty popular.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She exhaled hard. “But . . . you haven’t finished.”
“It would be rude to finish first.”
She laughed, hips starting to grind again, though in gentle circles instead of a bucking bronco. “A gentleman, with a giant cock? God, it’s almost worth being on this picture.”
“Is there a problem with the picture?”
Her mask dropped back, knowing she’d said too much in the heat of the moment. “Not right now. Here, let’s try something different.”
Terra gasped as she slowly pulled away from me, turned, and went on all fours. The robe was covering the sigil, but the taste wa in the air, dirty and loud. She presented her ass in the air like a wild animal. “Take me.”
I griped my piece and used it as a paint brush, teasing her sex with it. She moaned with wet shivers.
I rubbed it hard, forward and back. Her face lay upon a pillow, writhing with eyes shut. She licked the front of her teeth with a sweeping gait, breath hitching like a rabid dog until I plunged myself deep inside. Her mouth gaped and stretched as I pulled her ass to me and tapped that spot of her few men can reach.
Her eyes shot open. “Oh God.” Terra threw her red mane back, gripped the bed, and banged towards me to bring her to a climax. She was all business. And so was I.
I caressed her back, pulled back the robe, and touched the indecipherable sigil.
A flare of pain rammed my mind’s eye and for a second, by balls retracted.
“Something wrong?”
I grabbed her ass. “Just lightheaded.”
She pushed back and forward. “You’re working too hard. Let mama help.”
And fuck if that didn’t work. But that sigil was too strong to be fucked with . . . I needed a plan B.
Tantric Shamans are a weird breed. They call their pieces the Godhead, which is damn presumptuous, but they also fought demons at the behest of Matrikas, Hindu Goddesses. Part of their journey is using sexual congress to understand the divine nature of creation in the universe, of sex being a game of questions and answer. So it was that some Shamans could cast a spell in which a woman whom they slept with could only tell the truth. The catch, of course, was that if the spell was cast on a woman who was forced against her will, the man’s Godhead would shrivel up and become the nesting ground for fresh maggots. Hence, it was rarely used.
But Terra was about to climax again and my balls were packed, loaded, and itching for release. With my right hand gripping her ass, my right hand snaked under the black silk. The sigil was warm as my hand slid up her spine to her neck and she kept jamming into me.
My fingers kneaded the Tantric code into pressure points. Terra banged back at me with desperate thrusts. All ten of my fingers then clamp down at just the right angles as I stabbed one more time against her sweet spot.
Terra exhaled deep. Everything hummed. “Terra, can you hear me?”
She looked straight ahead. Couldn’t see her face.
“Yes,” she said, breathless, sweat glistening on her uncovered skin.
I switched to circular breathing to reduce the thrum of lust about to break
. “Terra, you will tell me the truth, and I will finish our partnership.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Maxine?”
“She ran away, after what she did.”
“What did she do?”
“. . .”
My ten fingers harder and she moaned.
“She . . . hurt Nico.”
“Where’s Nico?”
She shook. “I don’t know.”
“When did you see her last?”
“This morning, before Maxine attacked her, her face . . . oh God, I don’t care, I still love her.”
“Who?”
“Nico.”
Questions blistered in my mind and concentration was fading while fingers quaked and member shook.
“What did Maxine do?”
“Attacked Nico. With a snake.”
Terra shook harder, emotions for Nico running wild. Damn it, everything was starting to hurt, and while Edgar made sure I had a deep threshold for pain, this wasn’t the arena I used it in. “Who gave you the sigil on your back? Octavia?”
“I don’t understand.”
Shit. She didn’t know it was there. “Do you feel there’s a phantom itch on you left shoulder?”
“Yes.”
“When did it happen?”
“When we started shooting.”
My piece was no longer listening. It began to drive Terra into ecstasy.
My hands shook. “Who . . . was in your bed . . . when you first noticed?”
That was it, I was going to come.
“Nico.”
My hands released their pressure points and gripped two glorious handfuls of ass and I pounded away like it was prom night. Terra screamed as her sex gripped me, tried to stop the train of pleasure, but it was too late. We came at the exact same time and, for a brief, weightless moment, we were one.
We caught our breath. I began to pull myself out. Terra whined. “Do you have to? You feel good in me.” So I shuffled out of my shoes and the pants around my ankles, and returned inside her sweet darkness, but lay to the side until we were spooning.
