|
Divinity
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
Copyright 1992 Lauren P. Burka
Legal for all forms of electronic distribution SAVE those involving
sale or other restriction.
Divinity
The water spilled over my hands. Too hot. I wasn't used to
it. If I ever needed a reminder of my changed estate, I had found it.
I understood razors. I could cross a street without getting hit. But
every day I burned myself on something. Sally has long since given up
trying to get me to cook.
The sink had filled with soapy water. I dipped my fingers
into the suds and grease and waited for it to cool a bit. I could see
out the window. Glass towers rose above the residential buildings,
their mirrored sides reflecting the sunset I could not see. I could
have been standing on top of it, feeling the evening breeze go right
through me as I picked one mortal out of a city to play with. I'd let
them toss my dice and if they won, I'd give them something they cared
about. If they lost, I took. Not souls, for no one cared enough to
value souls anymore. What sport to take what they didn't know they
had? I took sex instead, or pride.
Never gamble with gods. Even if you are one. They don't like
to lose.
"Michael? You were supposed to have the apartment cleaned by
the time I got home."
"Hello, Sally," I said. The water in the sink had got cold.
I drained and refilled it.
The bedroom door slammed behind Sally. I heard the sound of
clothing and other belongings hitting the wall. She'd probably had
another bad day at work. I'd better get the dishes done soon.
The front door rattled. Loud swearing drifted in from the
hall as Meredith wrestled with an old lock and a bad copy of the key.
I knew better by now than to open the door for her.
Meredith finally wrenched the door open and swept into the
apartment, trailing her coat, her purse, and a gravity-defying hairdo.
She would be coming home to change clothes between one low-paying job
(retail) and another (waitress).
"Hey, Sally," she called out in her thick, beach-bunny accent.
"Is Michael busy?"
"I don't know if he's busy," came the muffled voice from
behind the bedroom door. "Michael, are you busy?"
"I'm doing dishes," I replied.
"He's doing dishes."
Meredith was stripping off clothes and hanging them in the
hall closet. Unlike Sally, she didn't care what I saw. She wasn't
merely resigned to the lack of privacy of living in someone else's
spare room. I was male. I didn't count, most of the time.
"Well, I want to borrow his mouth, if he's got nothing better
to do with it."
"Michael," called Sally, "Meredith wants you to..."
"I know, I know. She wants me to give her head. Well, why
can't she ask me herself?"
"Meredith, Michael wants to know why you can't ask him
yourself."
"Because he's a boy, that's why. Tell him to get over here on
his knees, OK?"
"Michael..."
"I know. I know."
I washed the last of the grease off of my hands and dried them
carefully. This little game had started a month ago when I got in a
fight with Meredith. She could argue with devastating logic when she
wanted to, but logic didn't seem to fit the airhead image she
cultivated with such care.
"Eat me!" she had shouted.
"You want me to eat you? Get down and spread your legs."
That had shut her up for an entire twenty seconds while her
jaw opened and closed silently.
"You can't."
"Why, afraid I'm better than the bitch who threw you out?"
That wasn't strictly fair. Meredith had moved in with Sally after
some dramatic argument with her ex-lover which resulted in a bruise on
Meredith's perfectly made-up face. "Afraid you might get to like it?"
With perfect Meredith-logic, therefore, she had stripped off
her clothes, dropped into one of the chairs, and hooked one leg over
the arm.
She always came. Sometimes twice. She never talked to me
about it. I suppose I could pass for a particularly square-jawed,
short-haired dyke if she tried to imagine it, but not if I talked.
And me? I gave to her because I figured as long as one person
was getting some pleasure from my presence, I was ahead of the game.
I got a towel from the hall closet. When I turned back,
Meredith was seated in the chair, naked, in her favorite eat-me pose.
She had her arms pillowing her head and her hair untied, the
bleached-gold ringlets tumbling down over her shoulders. Her nipples
were already poking upwards from breasts that weren't quite heavy
enough to sag. Her legs, impeccably shaped by years of running in
high heels to catch trains, were spread wide in an invitation too
casually unselfconscious to be really obscene. She had shaved her
armpits, but not her pubic hair.
On my knees, I kissed the inside of her left thigh very gently
as I slid my arms under her legs and lifted her just enough to push
the towel under her butt. This was her fantasy, but I was the one who
had to clean up afterwards. I continued the kiss up towards the
juncture of leg and body, finding the soft, barely-furred crease where
blood pulsed beneath her skin. I delayed tasting that deeper crease
that would be wet and ready for me. If I were careful, the wait would
make her come harder. If she thought I were teasing her, she would
spend the next week trying to make me miserable. It was a challenge.
I spread my hands over her belly and snuck the thumbs down
into her fur, tugging a bit on the lips. She drew a sharp breath,
giving the first sign that she even noticed me. I closed my eyes and
kissed her cunt very softly, only parting the lips with my tongue
after I'd taken a deep breath. The juice of her dripped down my chin,
reminding me of how it felt to eat a nectarine over the sink in the
summer, getting sticky. Parts of her were rough and parts very
smooth. I tasted through layers and layers, down to the hot little
center.
Her stomach went taut, the muscles pulled into a new alignment
by my attentions at her groin. I dared not look up at her face.
Wishing I had an extra hand, I probed the lower parts of her cunt with
a finger, feeling past ring after ring of muscle. Penetration was
politically incorrect but technically appropriate. I'd have my
fingers out before she was coherent enough to protest.
Parts of me were stirring too. My cock was bent exactly the
wrong way in my jeans. The discomfort kept me sober. This was for
her alone. My knees hurt. I tensed and relaxed my calf muscles,
sending blood to my feet without moving.
Meredith gave a long, drawn-out moan. Her hands emerged from
under her hair, fists clenched, small bicepts pale and marble-hard. I
slowed my pace just enough that she sank back into the chair, gripping
the arms with her perfect nails. The towel was getting soaked. I had
two fingers inside her now, stroking the walls of her cunt.
"Michael, fuck you with a lightbulb! I wanna come now. Two
lightbulbs. Aaaah..."
I leaned into her, pressing my tongue to her clit, keeping a
rhythm that strained my jaw. At that moment, I couldn't remember if
she'd ever said anything to me before while we were so engaged. I
must be getting good. The first spasm squeezed my fingers.
Encouraged, I licked harder, sending her into a crying, dripping,
cascade of pleasure.
A hand pushed my forehead back.
"Stop!"
I took a deep breath, wondering when I'd got so dizzy. Salty
liquid had dripped down my hand to my wrist. I licked my fingers one
by one, with a bit more enthusiasm when I realized she was still
watching me. My jaw ached.
Meredith grabbed the towel and ran it between her legs. She
got up and pounded on the bedroom door. "Sally, is the shower free?"
"At the moment, yes."
"Well, unlock the door."
Ah, well. I washed my face and hands in the sink.
The bedroom door opened, letting Meredith in and Sally out.
Sally was dressed in jeans and an embroidered shirt. Her
short hair was pasted back rather severely. Earrings brushed her
shoulders.
"We're going out," she said.
"Out? Let me get my shoes."
"Do something about your breath."
"I can't brush my teeth. Meredith is in the bathroom."
"Then do something else about your breath."
I found a mint in the pocket of my other pair of jeans, ran a
comb through my hair, and pulled on my shoes.
"Would you mind telling me where we're going?"
She had her back to me. "Reception for an artist. Loft in
Cambridge."
No wonder Sally was in a bad mood. She'd had a gallery of
some sort not too long ago and lost it due to financial troubles. Now
she was working as a legal secretary. Still she put in a mandatory
appearance at this party or that, pretending she still played that
particular game.
Somewhere along the line she'd lost something else, and now
she wouldn't go out alone in the dark without someone to stand between
herself and evils I could only imagine. I'm not female.
But then if she didn't need a bodyguard, she probably wouldn't
have taken me in. I was male, yes, and utterly helpless. I'd just
discovered that there were too many fourteen year old pieces of
chicken on the street, and since I was old enough to shave, I couldn't
get more than three dollars a blow job. Knowing that I was immune
from dying gave me a sort of recklessness. Knowing that I could very
well spend the next fifty years getting more and more hungry gave me
another.
She watched me panhandle by the train station, and was nice
enough not to call the police when I slept in the entrance to her
apartment. She didn't seem to like police too much either. Then I
took a chance and made her an offer, clean her apartment if she'd let
me use the shower. After a while it became a habit. Then she stopped
kicking me out after I'd done her dishes. I didn't mind sleeping on a
floor. Streets are harder. Some day maybe I'd get around to
establishing a fake identity, but I was having moral problems dipping
into the criminal underworld while I lived with Sally. Or maybe it
was just despair.
"This way."
Sally brought us down the train. I stayed close enough to
look like her boyfriend, but usually not close enough to touch her.
She stood with her arms wrapped around the pole of the train, looking
like a folded paper statue. When the train stopped, she jumped out so
suddenly I was almost left behind.
As we stepped over the granite curb, I heard a scream rising
from the alley like someone was torturing a baby.
Sally clutched at her purse. "What the hell was that?"
"Cat," I said.
"Can't be."
"Is. They're fighting."
A small, black bolt of fur sped under my feet, almost making
me trip.
"Told you."
Sally gave me a dirty look and pulled me in the front door.
Cats. The Mother kept a couple of them lying about her
throne. Not my mother, you understand. The Mother. She'd acquired a
taste for them back when they inhabited her temples in Egypt. These
cats were big. Panthers. Sometimes they bit one of us. We laughed
about it. They interjected the pungent scent of mortality to the
realm. They died so soon. And now they were all I could remember.
The senses of a human are not those of a divinity. I cannot
remember what The Mother looked like. Or my treacherous brother, who
brought the charges against me, or the rest of the tattered refugees
of a hundred pantheons who judged me. I can't remember the discomfort
of hanging by one foot from a rope that was tied to the roof of the
world, or what I had felt when they passed a sentence of fifty years
of mortality.
I can only remember the cats.
And how one must not gamble with gods. They don't like to
lose.
There was a thin cloud of smoke hanging over the party. The
huge loft had been redone as a studio, decked with abstract paintings.
The floor was interrupted with art, or with trays of discarded drinks,
if one could tell the difference. People were talking in groups. The
carpet was stained with cigarette ashes. As usual, most of the
important people with men, the only women their dates. Someone
offered me a drink and I turned it down, then changed my mind.
Alcohol bit the back of my throat, giving me the dizzy feeling
in which I could almost remember divinity. Almost. I'd told a street
person my story once. I wasn't sure if he believed me, but he told me
to try acid. Maybe I would some time. I got some expensive snack
food from a tray and quieted my stomach.
My mind had been wandering again. Sally was deep in
conversation with a man who wore very sculptured clothing and a very
sculptured haircut. She had introduced us, but I didn't remember his
name. He was looking at me with more than casual interest. I
wondered if I should offer to do him a favor, in Sally's name, and if
the favor would get her something she wanted.
By then I needed to use the bathroom. By the time I'd
returned he had drifted away, to be replaced by a tall, black-haired
woman in a green silk kimono and black pants. She soon had Sally
swept up in an art-world minuet. Sally's eyes were looking brighter,
almost human, talking to someone about her favorite place to be.
Talking to someone female. No threat. No challenge.
"The last retrospective at the ICA? I was there on opening
night. Yes, I was impressed, but I know who they could have got if
his boyfriend hadn't had a fight... Ah, do you mind stepping into the
hallway? This smoke is a making my eyes hurt." The tall woman smiled
apologetically.
"Not at all." Sally turned after her.
She was not exactly pretty, but interesting. I wondered if
anything warm and breathing would look interesting after almost having
Meredith. Her smell hooked into my senses. I was wondering if she
was wearing some familiar cologne.
We were out in the hall. Someone opened the bathroom door,
spilling more smoke into the hall. Not tobacco this time.
"Oh my," the woman said, coughing. She motioned to a door.
"This is the new part. They haven't renovated it yet. I
don't think anyone else knows it's here."
We shut the door behind us. There were no lights, but the
windows were open to the spring evening. Blocks of orange light from
the street broke up the black expanse of floor.
"But about the ICA," Sally began, turning back to our
companion.
Her eyes opened very wide, and her hand dipped into her purse.
Funny, I hadn't known that Sally carried a gun.
I turned around very slowly.
The woman was gone. In her place stood a man, much taller
than she had been, black hair down to his waist, and eyes that seemed
to glow. He was wearing her clothes, though. They seemed to fit
perfectly. The scent I thought I remembered was thick in my nostrils,
cloying as a drug. Around then I noticed that the sound of the party
had faded to silence.
"Put the gun away," I said. "It won't do any good against
him."
"What are you talking about, Michael?"
He smiled at me. "Michael. Is that what you're calling
yourself now?"
I shrugged. "I needed a name. They took mine."
"Michael!"
"Sally," I said, "Meet Siljuria Sheh, Incubus."
"What?" Her revolver still held steady on Sheh's left eye.
"Incubus. The gods make them for playthings, then let them go
when they get bored." I felt the bitter prick of jealousy. This
created thing ranked higher than I did now.
Sheh smiled at me, coldly. Did he want just to gloat? I
recalled how his female persona had been so precisely calculated to
disarm Sally. I was more than a casual judge of male flesh, though
most of them men who had had me were none too pretty. Sheh resembled
an animal than a man. Very beautiful. Very hungry.
"How pleasant of you." he said. "I've had better manners than
to mention your parentage."
"Yes, well, you've hardly the wit for an original insult. You
must have found me by accident. I'm sure you couldn't have reasoned
it out."
"Are you both mad?" asked Sally.
"Not yet," I answered.
"I've never been anything but," answered Sheh. "But then, I'm
a plaything of immortals, and my sanity is of no consequence. I'm
sure Michael didn't take it into account the last time he had me at
his mercy. Did you, Michael?"
"Ah, well, The Mother wanted you punished. I obliged."
"And you, of course, are known for your obedience." Sheh's
eyes narrowed. "I know your name. I could say it now. Draw
attention to you. Lots of us are looking for a minor deity of chance,
recently demoted."
I thought about that. Many creatures of many different planes
thought I owed them something. I could not die. This would be a
liability. Too bad I didn't believe in repentance.
"Siljuria Sheh, if you would invoke my name, I don't think I
could do anything to dissuade you."
"You're right," he said. "How lucky for you that I've decided
to overlook your lack of appropriate humility. I'll do only what I
would with any other mortal I fancied."
"There are rules," I said, frantically wishing I knew what
time it was. After all, at worst, he had me only until dawn.
"There are rules," Sheh agreed. "You may still run."
"Don't."
I turned to see Sally's revolver pointed at me. "I think I
know what he wants, and I want to see you give it to him." Her face
was twisted into something ugly, made pale by the outside light.
"Do you really think watching me get mauled will make up for
anything anyone did to you?" I asked.
"No. I'd enjoy watching, though."
Sheh was looking at her. I sighed and wished she hadn't drawn
his attention. Incubi are single-minded creatures. If Sheh wanted to
see me struggle, he wasn't going to like having someone else mess with
my motivations.
"Sheh, leave her alone. She doesn't understand."
He didn't wave his hand, or anything else remotely dramatic,
but her gun suddenly got long and wiggly. She dropped it and jumped
and started to back up to the wall. Up until that moment, it would
have been possible to believe that Sheh was an ordinary human wearing
strange contact lenses. But not with guns turning into snakes. Sally
just didn't know how lucky she was.
Sheh very deliberately stepped out of the way of the door.
"Now, Michael. You can still run."
I thought about it. I could do what they both expected and
try to escape. But then I'd eaten Meredith for an appetizer and
stayed a little hungry for the rest of the evening. Sheh wanted me.
More to the point, he wanted me screaming, weeping, and helplessly
pleasured, and so drunk with the taste of Incubus that I'd thank him
for hurting me. So I'd lose a little dignity. There are worse fates.
He was standing behind me now. It was one thing to decide not
to run, and another thing to follow through. I was remembering how to
be afraid. The door seemed to retreat from me. A hand touched my
shoulder, so cool and steady that I could feel myself shake against
it.
Liquid fire poured down my back, and I felt something tearing.
My clothes. And my skin.
"Look at me."
Sheh was standing in the light, watching my blood drip down
his hand. I was thinking that his fingernails didn't look sharp
enough to have done the job.
"You're mine now," he said, and licked. He had his eyes
closed as he ran his tongue up and down his fingers, with a look on
his handsome face like he was having sex, only better.
When Sheh had cleaned every last drop of me from his skin, he
looked up, and he changed. Flesh melted and flowed, turned dark,
acquired inhuman textures. His eyes got larger, and his teeth gleamed
in the yellow light. The smell of him grew thicker. Hot drool mixed
with my blood dripped from his jaws. Just like Mother's pet cats.
I should have known he wouldn't keep a man's shape. I felt my
skin flush with shame that Sheh would think to take me thus, as an
animal. The immortals were having an extended joke at my expense.
And then he moved. He made a sound, almost too thick and loud
to be a purr, vibrating the floor and my feet, rising all the way to
crotch level. Silk-in-water fur rippled over steel muscles of a
different design than mine. Sheh arched and stretched with evident
delight.
How silly of me. If anyone in this room had contempt for me,
it was me alone, not Sheh.
I laughed and knelt to the great cat who padded across the
floor to me. Sheh took a teasing half-step to one side and let his
cheek just brush mine. I reached out for his head, encouraged when he
only blinked and gave another deep purr. My fingers barely skimmed
the softness behind his ear. He leaned into my touch until I could
put my arms around a neck that was, I swear, as thick as my waist.
Sheh pulled back a bit until we were eye to eye. His were
yellow and slit up and down. The very tip of his tail was dancing.
Whiskers tickled my nose. He tilted his muzzle and licked the side of
my jaw. I closed my eyes and let my lips part so that our tongues
just met. The taste, hot and sharper than alcohol, seared down
through my throat and into my heart. I whimpered and held tight to
his neck as his tongue snaked deeper into my mouth and two-inch teeth
nipped at me in play. Several different kinds of pleasure converged
in my neglected cock, which sprang to sudden and insistent attention.
And to think I'd observed with such condescension the effects
of my kisses on mortals, when I was a god. Next time I'll have more
sympathy.
I was good and drunk with the taste of him, too dizzy almost
to sit up. Sheh bit at my tattered shirt, tearing cloth. He licked
my throat, tasted my sweat, then turned his attentions to my nipples.
His tongue was very rough and pulled at my flesh. I tried to hold on
to him, but he gave one swipe of his paw and knocked me down, leaving
four long bleeding cuts in my chest. So I could still feel pain. No
matter. I'd decided that I hadn't given nearly enough attention to
this body in the year I'd had it. Anything with this capacity for
sensation couldn't be so bad.
Sheh took another swipe at my legs, shredding the jeans while
leaving most of my skin intact. He settled one paw on each thigh,
claws barely extended, pinning my legs open. His breath ruffled the
hair of my groin. I put my hands behind the back of my neck and
locked my fingers together.
A touch almost too soft to feel stirred my cock. I bit my
lips and moaned. He licked me again, savoring the salt of my precum.
His tongue went down between my legs, curling over my balls and into
the crack of my ass. I moved and felt his claws come out just a bit
more, in warning. Sheh tasted the length of my cock with
cat-washing-kitten deliberation, now taking it partway into his mouth
so that I could feel the roughness of his hard palate against the
head. My hips thrust upwards and I screamed because his claws had
pierced me, and because I was coming.
And when I was complete, he gathered up my leaking fluids with
his tongue. His mouth found mine again, giving me our mingled tastes.
Sheh sat back, his tail twitching and ears flat, and snarled at me.
It's not always easy to tell the gender of an animal by sight.
They know each other, but their sex is tucked neatly away. I'd been
certain the cat was male, though. Perhaps it was something in the
scent, or the attitude, or a certain heaviness of jaw. I had not
doubted what he would want from me, nor mistook his demand.
Sitting up a bit stiffly, I cast aside the remaining shreds of
my clothes. I got up on my hands and knees, feeling the hard wood of
the floor and Sheh's impossibly soft fur brushing against me. Sheh
mounted, staggering me with his weight. His forelegs braced me. My
stomach tensed as his strange anatomy pressed against my ass.
I wept at the shock of penetration. It was too beautiful a
sensation, too soon after orgasm. I wanted to faint. I did not. His
tongue stroked the back of my neck with almost apologetic softness.
Sheh growled deep in his throat. The pitch rose with his pleasure. I
leaned into him, letting his shaft take me deeper. My insides
rearranged themselves to accommodate his entry.
A sound of a booted heel scuffing floor broke my
concentration. I looked up to see Sally watching us, her arms folded
tight. I wondered what she saw, and what she thought of it.
Sheh moved inside me. He bit at my shoulder, and his growl
rose to a tortured-baby shriek. My body shook, held on the razor
points of his teeth and claws, as I absorbed the spilled passion of a
divinity.
I did not faint. Some time afterwards I fell asleep curled up
against the fur of his chest, with his teeth still holding me pinned
and his whiskers in my ear.
There was gray light in the windows. I stretched a bit,
feeling the soft, dark curve of a cat's body against mine, paw thrown
over my ribs and tail wrapped around my leg. Then the fur rippled and
grew smooth, and the claws were fingers.
"Quickly," he said, and turned me onto my back.
Siljuria Sheh's eyes glittered, still slit-pupiled. He forced
his tongue into my willing mouth and bit at my lips just a little.
Long hair tickled my throat. I linked my hands across his back and
held on for just a moment longer.
Sun lanced through him, dissolving the body that was the whim
of an evening. Within seconds there was nothing left but a burning
taste in my mouth.
I was in Sally's apartment, and there she stood by the doorway
to the bedroom, watching me. I sat up, look around, and broke into
helpless laughter.
"Exactly what do you find amusing?" she asked.
"There," I pointed, where the clothes I was wearing last night
lay in a neatly folded pile, store-bought new and rip-free. "He
magicked my clothes back, but not my skin."
Catching my image in the window glass, I decided I didn't mind
the souvenirs. Sheh had drawn an anagram in flesh: human, beast, god.
"You aren't going to throw me out?" I asked, then cursed
myself for speaking up. Maybe if I hadn't, Sally wouldn't have
remembered she had an option.
"No, I'm not going to throw you out. I'm sorry about the
gun."
"That's OK," I said, and it was.
Meredith stepped out of the spare room door, wearing nothing
but underwear and the smeared remains of last night's mascara. She
halted and stared.
"What the holy fuck happened to you?"
|
|
