6 comments/ 12528 views/ 18 favorites Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 01 By: TaLtos6 ***This is a sidebar to another work of mine (Love as a Form of Binding) and it's needed as a precursor to the ending of that tale when this is ended. The end of this will feed into Chapter 21 of that one, or if I find that it reads better, the result will be the third story. Simple, no? ROFL. It's not too long, and the coupling in it is a little varied, since I just felt like it as I wrote it. It opens a few years before LAAFOB (just wanted to get that in to see how it looked :)) and somewhere in here, some familiar characters make cameo appearances. In this, a lord tries to save someone who is loved, but the main purpose is to reveal the main players in the core 'family', if you want to call it that. For this one, there's some male-male toward the end as well as hetero incest, though neither attribute is an overriding theme through the story. If the reader is familiar with my works, I do tend to move around a little. Kinda like conducting an orchestra while wearing rollerblades. So, ... the names of the characters mean little historically on either side of the plane divider. The rest of the names and places mean even less, since it's pure fiction. 0_o *** Mojave Desert, early evening Abi slowly opened his eyes and noted the color of the light coming from the cab in front of the sleeper where he was. As expected, it was dimming slowly, due to the passing of the day and the setting of the desert sun. Not expected, were the strange flickering nuances which seemed to come with it to change the way that the reflected light lit the ceiling. He rose to a sitting position with his legs hanging off the bed to try for a better look. It bought him nothing of any value. He leaned forward and looking a little to the left through the window; he thought that he might see a plausible cause for the phenomenon. They weren't aware of the effect that they caused in the light, but it was the scurrying of many of the nasty little fucks from out of the depths of some little-known backwater of Hell which must have grown too close to the surface somehow and allowed a spillover to have happened. He crawled forward to sit in the driver's seat as he twisted off the top of a bottle of water and drained it in one long slow go as he thought about what ought to be done about it. Ordinarily, he couldn't have cared less, but there were almost always repercussions to these things and quite often the true extent was never seen at first. That was why it was always considered prudent to just deal with the little turds if one could whenever they popped up. He smirked a little at the thought. "Fine," he said to no one in particular as he opened the door to climb down, "I just hope that I'm up for it." He fastened the cartridge belts across his chest in the copper-flavored gleam to everything from the light of the approaching sundown and he raised the 10-guage scattergun to begin loading it with shells suited for the eradication of the more parasitic forms of lower demons. There were sounds in the hot wind that he noticed then. They'd escaped his awareness until now. Again, he didn't really care, but for the first time, he heard the tortured screams. It took him a second to place them with regard to their origins. They were human voices. He looked over across the landscape in the direction of origin and he thought of repercussions and ramifications. He didn't want to be at this all night. Maybe if he had a little help, he thought. It certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as much enjoyment, but it would end this stupid shit a lot quicker. He looked down and made an arcane and infernal motion with one hand. A demon appeared before him and he nodded in recognition. "There is a tear in the wall of the plane here someplace nearby. Take no more than one-quarter of one of my legions and seal it. Before that. send those little things back where they belong and use them as living visual aids to indicate what will happen to any who do not heed the warnings in the future. There are humans being harmed here. Do not make it worse. I wish that this incident is dealt with before it is noticed by anyone else. Understood?" "Yes, Lord," the demon bowed again and was gone. Abi walked off across the road and into the dust, listening to the rising cacophony as imps were rounded up and dragged off by demons who were more suited to warring with other demons of some size. He wanted to groan when he saw the car - or what was left of it. A single touch would have told him all of it precisely, but he didn't need to know that badly. It was all here to be read. A group of teenaged friends out doing something irresponsible late on a Friday afternoon, by the look of it. They'd pulled off the road here, where they shared a bottle of ... uh, ... Jack, he smiled, seeing the empty now. They were unwittingly parked within sight of a tear in the wall between the planes. Even that shouldn't have brought them harm, but he supposed that they were seen by these cretins and that had been the start. He sighed, doubting that there were any humans living now. His sense told him that there had been four humans at the beginning. The mess in the vehicle said that two had gotten out. He walked on a little and found three imps trying to copulate into the same human -- who was alive at least enough to be still struggling feebly. There was a rather small hellion, a female, who was more intent on gnawing off a piece of flesh to eat it. He raised his hand and everything stopped. He stepped closer and saw the human's anguished eyes and he shook his head. First, he removed the gnawing female's contribution by springing her jaw open by force with a loud crack. Then he removed the jaw by just tearing it off quickly. Her body went slack, but he pulled it from the girl's body and flung it down onto the ground in front of him. The shotgun's song deleted what was left of the thing. One after another, he disengaged the males in much the same manner before he looked at the victim, who was at that point aware that the horror of the attack had at least been suspended. He recognized her suddenly and it made him feel several different emotions; sadness that it had happened to her once again, a great deal of happiness to at least see her alive at all, and something which rose up in him from down deep -- his determination that if he could manage to make it happen, that this was going to be the very last time that she suffered for what had really been a very small and unknowing transgression so long ago. He regarded her for a moment, and then he spoke in English in a low and hopefully gentle-sounding voice. "Hello Andy. There were four of you. I've found three, you among them. Is there anybody over that way?" he pointed. He could sense that there was only another corpse in that direction, but he wanted to see if there was anything else in her mind other than the locked-up stasis which can occur to humans at times like this. Her eyes were wide, but she shook her head slowly. "Dead?" he asked, and after a second, she nodded. He smiled as carefully as he could, "I didn't cause this. I'm ending it." He held out his arms slowly and the human began to float toward him with alarm in her eyes. "I know," he sighed a little wearily, "I know. I'm not somebody that you would wish to hold you right now, but I'll take care of you. I always have. You've been harmed and I want to help. At the very least, I won't do you more harm." He saw the rising level of terror in her as she came and he caused her to sleep with a wave of his hand feeling sadness that she hadn't recognized him. Again. He carried her very carefully back across the road to his truck. On the way there and also after getting her inside to lie her on the bed of the sleeper, he kissed her sleeping lips very tenderly and he uttered the infernal enchantment which would help her to begin to heal, once she was out of danger. He moved forward and started the diesel so that he could get some cooler air on her from the AC. After that, he sat in thought for a few minutes, willing that his wrath not overtake him over what had been done. So long, ... so much harm ... Over nothing. He sat thinking for several minutes longer, though he heard the respectful knock on the other door and he motioned with his hand. The demon was back. Abi thanked him for what was done but then he had a new request as he spoke in his deep infernal voice. "Find me the best three female healers that I have. If possible, my female Evaine should be among them. Tell that one alone what I wish and what is needed. Tell her that this time; I am adamant that this foolishness is ended. Tell her that Andrea has come to harm again. She'll know what to do to prepare things. Instruct them all to await us at the closest rest stop to El Paso. I'll pick them up there. I should be there in a day." The demon nodded and was gone. Abi noted that he had enough pressure to release the brakes, so he began to roll. After a mile or two he became aware of her consciousness there in the sleeper behind him. "Try not to be afraid, Andy. I'm taking you to where others can begin to heal you. I need you to rest because this time, they've really fucked you up. I will force you to sleep again in a moment. Try to remember me if you can before I do. We've been friends for a long time. You only need to remember. I'm Abi. No more harm will come to you. I swear this. Now please, sleep." Over the next week, Andrea was kept mostly asleep to make her care easier to manage. Abi eventually delivered her to an old, large, and deserted abbey in a very mountainous and rural part of Hungary, not very far at all from the Romanian border. The place had been built in what had then been territory which to say the least, had been at the time very hostile to the warrior monks who had gone there after their time on crusade. The fighting had been pitched and frequent until a wave of the Black Death had passed through in the mid-1500s. It had solved a lot of the difficulties then, killing off both the monks and the villagers in the area. Now, the place was deserted and as yet unknown to the Hungarian authorities who looked after places of historic interest. He and others who worked for him had already taken steps to make certain that the place would never come to anyone's attention for as long as they needed it. Aside from the dark stains on some of the woodwork, the passing of the pestilence left little after what bones were left had been shoveled up and thrown out into a corner of the courtyard to be burned. In ones and twos, specialists of many sorts came to see Andrea and they simply began to rebuild what needed rebuilding -- and it was a lot, due to the damage done by the lower imps and hellions. Sometimes, she'd be awakened by Abi so that she could get some sustenance into her and when that happened, Andrea would feel her face for a moment with a look of wonder. "How?" "In a few days," Abi would say, "I'll tell you everything. Just try to be patient, Andy. You'll be able to stay awake soon. You might not remember them, but you have friends here who are eager to see you again." He smiled, "I think that you're so surprised that so much can be done so easily now." She nodded, very definitely interested, and also really wanting to listen to Abi. She knew that she was attracted to him and she was also very aware that if she wasn't careful, she'd become infatuated with him again so easily. As she had the thought, she sighed and looked at him, knowing that it had already happened, and also knowing that this wasn't the first time that he'd helped her. She was eighteen and had been since he'd met her for the first time in the early 1970s, and she knew that he must be at least a little older than that. She was just barely cognizant at first of what Abi and a few of the others who worked for him knew -- that she'd been held at that age for the past forty-something years by a different outside force which Abi was working against in this one case. She was just a little thing at five-nothing, whereas he was Oh-My-Fucking-God large and so attractive in a rather dark and hidden way. She could stare at him all day and she'd be happy at the end of it at NOT finding anything even remotely cute about him. He looked slightly troubled for a moment, but then he smiled, "A lot of it goes easier because you're not as human as you might think. Well, not as you once were, anyway. I take care of you when I can." Andrea wanted to ask him a lot more about that, because she'd noticed something. This time, just like all of the others, she supposed, now that some of her memories of him were coming back, she'd gotten into some misadventure and gotten ripped up. Somehow, Abi had gotten wind of it or had discovered her predicament just about at the point where it would have been too late to pull her back from the edge. He'd help her, but for the first while, she wouldn't really remember everything that there was to know about him until much later. Andrea didn't understand the next part either, but she was coming to know the way that these things went. Just when she was all better, she'd want nothing more than to give herself to Abi to show him how she felt about him for the care and devotion that he'd always shown her. She'd remember then that if there had ever been someone who she'd ached to be in love with, it was Abi, and more than anything, she wanted to be held by him tightly to feel it as he fucked her forever. She also never knew it at first every time, but there were two others who cared for her as much as he did, but once she remembered; she also yearned to feel their loving touches as well. At best, it was always only one who fucked her, but he was so sweet that she just loved him almost on sight. Yet something would prevent the rest, the final realization of her wants. Some other person would make a comment about the girl missing her parents -- something stupid of that nature while he'd be gone somewhere, and she'd be taken away and lost herself until the next time. She stepped forward and looked up. She was looking at his chest and the way that it showed his muscular build even in the dark where they were. "Abi?" She began in an uncertain tone, "Hey can you lean down a little so we can talk for a minute?" He nodded, smiling, and then he sat down and hung on to one knee. Andrea ran the rest of the way so that he could put his other arm around her bottom the way that they both liked. It was a memory which she'd always loved to think about if she could remember. "Abi listen," she almost whispered, "It's happening again, but I don't want to forget you this time. That's what always happens. I get led away and then next thing I know you're gone and then I don't remember you." "I know," he said, "Look Andy, we still have time before that thing happens to us again. I've got a doctor friend for you to meet -- again, since she's worked on you before. She can help with final details to fix you." He leaned forward, looking very concerned and she hugged his thick neck. "Listen to what she'll tell you, Andy. She's probably gonna make you feel like a silly little girl, but she has to be that way so that nobody here understands what she tells you because they don't understand English. Listen hard and remember in case it happens again so you'll have the best chance to put it all together." "Ok Abi," Andrea nodded, "but you know that I'd rather just be in love with you." "I know," he whispered, "I want that too. I'm trying to give us the best chance at it. It means that I'll have to make some big changes, since my own life has changed a lot since we first met." Andrea was getting better, he decided. She was prepared to listen to his instructions to her. The only thing that she was doing which went against everything else probably couldn't be helped anyway. She was squirming against his hand, rubbing herself against him a little. After a moment, she reached for his hand to place it very carefully over her small breast. "For you, Abi," she sighed with a happy smile, "I want you so much." He didn't mind. He kissed her and he smiled. ------------------------------------ Andrea sat looking over at the doctor that Abi mentioned. Doctor Evaine looked as though she'd had the time and opportunities to elevate looking bored into a fine art form, which was a bit of a statement, given the way that she looked. "You don't remember me at all, do you, Andrea?" Andrea looked over and tried her best, but she finally shook her head, "No, why?" The female demon sighed, "Well because for one thing, I like you and I don't like the way that they always keep you living in circles. This is the fourteenth time that I've treated you. For another thing, ... well just take a good look at me, Andrea. I seriously doubt that you've ever seen ANYONE in your life -- or lives -- who looks anything like me. I'm not so stuck-up that I'd feel insulted that you can't remember me, but holy crap Baby, I'm not like anyone that you've ever seen. I can't be. The fact that you're looking at me like it's the first time really bothers me. But Abi and I have been talking about you. We want to try something a little different this time, so that maybe you'll remember a little more. You're a lucky girl, to have somebody like him to love you." "But -- " Andrea began, "we never get to that part. I want him so bad, Evaine." The female smiled, "I guess what I should have said was that Abi never changes and he never gives up on you, Honey. He wants you too. He's wanted you for a long time. As far as that goes, Andrea, I'VE wanted you for almost as long. " "I don't understand," Andrea said and Evaine nodded," I know, and it's ok. I hope that by doing things a little differently this time, you'll get to keep a few more of the memories. If you think back to when you first knew him," Evaine smiled, "you'll see that you did know other people then. It was 1972 and you were eighteen, just as you still are. You were a bit shy at school, but not too much and you were in a tight group of five friends then; Elly, Linda, Donna, Judi, and you." Andrea nodded, remembering for a moment, "Whatever happened -- " Evaine's hand took her past the moment, "Well, one is dead of -- you don't really want to know, Honey. The point is that you're the only one who's still eighteen. I think between them, they've accumulated about a dozen husbands and about twice as many fucked --up kids who are grown up themselves now. My point here is that if you remember back then, they were all talking about the new guy. You hadn't seen him because you didn't have any classes with him, but he sounded nice, remember? Well that was Abi. He was dying to meet you back then." Andrea sighed, "He was?" Evaine nodded, "Oh yeah, but he was trying to save you from something even then. Your friend Linda dropped you off right in front of Abi in the parking lot and after about a half-hour of joking around, you got it into your head to take him home, since your parents had split by then and you pretty much had the place to yourself that year. You'd already decided that you wanted Abi. You just needed a little courage to help you along. Anyway, you got blasted drinking a bottle of tequila and your clothes came off as a direct result of it. And that's when it happened; You put on 'Sympathy for the Devil' by the Stones and you danced for Abi, trying to get him to fuck you. It was what he really wanted to be doing too, but he was afraid of what happened then anyway. You started dancing with that big redbone hound that you used to have back then, holding his front paws up and singing the 'hoo-hoo' background part so that the dog would howl. Abi tried to get you to stop before it was too late but you tried to egg him on and somebody was offended. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 01 Your life stopped pretty much right there, Andrea. If you didn't have a Great Duke in your corner all of this time ..." "Great Duke?" Andrea repeated, "Of what?" Evaine tried not to roll her eyes, "He's a lot older than he looks, but Abi is a Great Duke of Hell, Andrea. He loves you as much as you love him and I'm waiting to love you too. He's spent a large part of his time ever since then trying to smooth over what you did that night." "But I didn't do anything," Andrea protested. "Andrea," Evaine said, trying to sound soothing, "It wouldn't have counted for anything at any other time. It was just your bad luck that the big bad guy happened to be nearby. Your bad luck as well that he was in a mood that night, too." ------------------------------ But things didn't work out again for Andrea. After waking up with a searing pain low down in her belly, she rolled around in her bed and screamed. The doctors came running. It took a little while, but they finally saw the cause as they looked at her and through her with their eyes. "Somehow, a cave crab female got to her before the others and we missed seeing the eggs," one of the physicians said with concern, pointing to the place. "They carry their fertilized eggs for months at a time," he said, "looking for a warm living female of some sort to set their eggs inside of. They try the hardest to get to one on this side." "There is nothing that we can do other than immobilize her," a second one said. "And that will only stay the end for a short time," the third, who was Evaine said, "If she moves more than only a little, the young inside of her erect their needle-like spines even quicker -- far, far faster than we can hope to deal with them. If we try to even touch her in the wrong way, it will go even quicker and they will spear her from within." She turned to grab a helper passing by. "Have the call made to my male and more quickly than you have ever done anything in your life. Have it said to him that Andrea dies soon, and that if he wishes to see her one last time, then he must hurry." --------------------------------- Abi was there within the hour, but by then, all that anyone could do was to keep Andrea numbed. She didn't understand that this wasn't like any of the other times, and so Abi kept trying to show her his hopeful expression. After a time, she finally felt the way that she was being shredded from the inside. Her eyes rolled up and she died in his arms with Evaine weeping nearby. He ordered Andrea's body incinerated at once before the cave crabs could realize that their host was dead and try to leave her body. He was sad and ached for Andrea, furious that any of this had happened to her in the first place long ago. He'd always been able to save her, every time. But this once, he'd failed. After some moments, he raised his head as a realization came to him. She hadn't blundered into a tear between the planes. She'd been lured there with the others. Someone had gotten to her and in a flash of insight, he suddenly knew who it had been who had placed a cave crab on her belly to watch as it laid it's loaded eggs deep between her pretty legs as she hung immobile in his grasp. The fix had gone in before she'd been handed over to the imps. The worst part was that like this, he couldn't even send her off to the abyss and bring her back alive, though she'd be different then. If he did that as she'd been, she'd have forever been caught being torn apart from the inside endlessly. He groaned in his grief. And if he did anything to prevent that, he knew that she'd come back as a little demon with no mind, an even poorer little thing who'd only be fucked and fucked over by everyone. They walked away then and locked themselves away in their grief. Evaine did her best to keep him from brooding, but he did anyway and it took her weeks to help him past the rage that he felt, doing whatever it took to prevent him from seeking their revenge far too soon. ------------------ One day a few weeks afterward, she was a little surprised to see him try to smile a little, though it was mostly for her benefit. "This marks the end of it, I'm sure," he said to her quietly as he came back to bed, "from the point of view of the one who caused Andrea all of her suffering over his arrogance and supposed annoyance over the carefree laughter of one drunken human girl. He might have been seeking to teach her a lesson, but she never remembered it anyway. We did. And though I will say nothing of it outwardly, it also marks the silent end of a long alliance. I only wait for my chance, and I am prepared to wait a long time for it." Evaine saw that he was still not that far from his dark brooding and she wanted him to get away from it for all of their sakes. She'd been his female for a long time, and though she didn't necessarily know the ins and outs of being a demonlord, like most wives, she had a pretty good idea of what was good for her male, so she folded back her large wings and moved closer to him on the bed. She reached out and her long and thin arm slid over his shoulder as she pulled herself closer to him. Abi looked into her beautiful face as she began to speak to him very softly, her voice working the gentle, soothing enchantment over him which they both loved. He looked into those demonic eyes, trying for a moment to remember her as she'd been when she'd been a woman. It came back to him after a second and then to his eye, she reverted back to what she was now. He had to tear his gaze away from her slightly open and very sensual mouth, once he'd seen the needle-sharp teeth in it. One look was still all that was required to begin to make him hard for her. He'd always loved this. It hadn't been what he'd wanted for her that night when she'd called to him desperate to save herself and her younger brother from her vile, scheming Merovingian asshole king of a husband. The plot had become known in a very quiet way, but the news had come to her in time. The king would murder them both and the last of the Thüringian line would end by the morning. A very good thing indeed that no word of their exploits in bed had ever come to light. As it was, he was only a greedy, selfish boar of a man who'd already murdered two of his own brothers to assure that there would never be any contest to his rule. If he'd ever learned about the long line of lovers who'd fucked his queen and her brother, he might have been upset. Well, maybe not about her brother. Theu had been in it because his sister was and they loved each other. Evaine had been in it because her husband was as worthless in a bed as he was on a throne. She'd always managed to line her affairs up so that both of them always stayed well-fucked and happy. That was how Abi had found them, naked and in a bed together at an inn after their lover for that night had left them. In the morning, weeks before her husband had even had the beginnings of his treacherous plan, Theu and Evaine lay in the large arms of a demon, even better-fucked and already belonging to him as their love grew. Abi had taken them to protect them, but the only place where they'd have been safe which was even a little close was across the wall in a demonic place. Her husband had thousands of troops to search for her and her brother on this side and Abi had many things to do back then and couldn't be with them all of the time. To place them under the guard of his legions would have left him weakened and also, it would have been noticed. He'd done the only thing which was open to him as an option then. He was open and honest about it, telling them truthfully that it would change them. He still remembered the pleased shock of hearing them both tell him that as long as he liked the way that they looked, they'd be happy to go on loving him and mating with him forever, since even as a queen and a prince who'd taken many lovers together in their very quiet and hidden way, they'd never felt love such as Abi could give and they'd never been fucked so well. All the same, when it was done, he'd felt a lot of trepidation until he'd seen them running to him. It was a long hall they'd been in and about halfway to him; he'd fallen in love with them all over again for the way that their 'new' bodies stirred him. Also, that had been the point when the pair who loved him so remembered their wings and spread them to fly the rest of the way to his arms. Abi had always known his good fortune in these two hearts. Evaine leaned down to lie on her back, pulling him down with a lot of effort because he was so strong. He hadn't been resisting her at all, but with strength comes the musculature to power it, and that meant weight. He smiled and moved to get over her. "I need you, Abi," she smiled up, and they both chuckled, feeling her brother's hurried attempts to get them both wetter for each other. Abi looked down and he kissed the horns at the back of the smaller demon's head, "One of these days, beautiful Theu, I'll forget to look and if I begin to lie on you then, I hope that you'll squeak or make some sound so that I'll know in time." Theu looked up with a happy smile and said that he'd try. He spit on the fingers of both hands and used them on his sister and the large male who kept them both so pleased and feeling loved while he tried to get one last bit of his drool on the prick which could drive them both a little mad. Theu didn't need to be told. The three had been lovers for centuries and he only had to listen for a slight shift in his male's breathing. It would signal that he was ready to mount his sister Evaine. It would be the time for him to move back out of the way as they began to fuck again, the sister who'd always loved him so and the male who could make him cry out in joy. He reached out in between them and moved Abi's shaft a little bit to get them lined up perfectly before he pulled his hand back to lie on the bed and watch. Evaine moaned as Abi took her and then they began slowly. Theu rolled partially onto his back and reached for his little penis. It wasn't an accurate description with regard to the size and scale of what most human females would have wanted in a hard prick. He did possess enough to please them rather easily, though even then, what he had couldn't be said to be especially large. But next to the monster that Abi possessed, what he held in his fist was miniscule. It didn't matter and Theu knew it. Abi loved Theu's cock and always had. He watched his sister as she tilted her head back as far as the pillow would allow her horned head to go and she raised both of her legs to hold him. As he leaned down to kiss her, their long tongues shot out of their mouths and began their own loving long before their lips touched. As they moaned and began to put their hearts into it, Theu lifted his thin hips and reached between his legs to caress and stroke his own cheeks while he watched. Things began to mount for the couple fucking on the bed and the slim male licked the middle finger of his left hand before he reached to play with his anus gently. Theu sighed as he came less than a minute later. His sister hadn't even really cried out yet, though it was plain to him that it was coming. He was just so happy that they were finally all back in bed together. It had been so long. --------------------- Evaine raised herself from the bed a little to help in the fucking of her brother. She was so happy that they'd begun again. Abi's mating with her had taken hours and now she was feeling spent, filled, used, and very pleased. Abi looked down and saw the Theu had moved closer and was stroking him slowly, though there was a slightly hopeful look in his face. "You see how much we have missed you in our grief," Evaine said quietly, "Even though I wept; I took comfort in your embrace, Abi. I need it so much. Theu needs it too. There are only so many of his beautiful smiles which can come to me when I use my fingers for him." Abi looked and Theu seemed to be really pleased at the way that the shaft in his hand was beginning to become the burgeoning thing which he craved so much and hadn't had any of since the dark day that Andrea had passed. He'd been hurt as well, because he'd spent hours with her as she'd been convalescing - just as he had for her every other time. She'd forgotten him as well but this time, he wasn't so saddened at her not knowing him at first. He'd been much more optimistic this time and she'd sensed it, growing accustomed to him much more easily. This time, she'd already begun to suck his hardness almost every time that she'd seen him. It was something which she'd always loved to do with him because he was always so happy and appreciative for it. They'd already spent days lying in bed together, kissing and hugging for hours and telling each other their daydreams of languid sex in a sunny place together. Andrea had always remembered Theu first before any of them. Not being especially large as a male, Theu was the only one who'd had a chance to fuck her every time. Though sadly, it hadn't happened this last time. It was just them; a rather small and short human girl and a very demonic-looking boy whose third-best experiences were with her, hiding under the covers and feeling the way that Andrea took him inside of her. She'd wrap herself around him. In turn, he'd wrap her in his wings and they'd spend quiet hours at it, over and over, just whispering to each other. Oh yes, Theu had been particularly heartbroken when Andrea passed on. He began to lick Abi, who smiled down at him and ran his large hands over that thin and slightly effeminate-looking body, waiting for Theu to open his mouth and take him in. He sighed, "I have missed this with my young male too." Back so long ago when he'd been completely human, Theu had at first been ashamed and very disappointed at the lack of the normal male musculature that nature usually gave to boys as they approached the corner which they turned to leave boyhood behind and become men. He remained thin. It had gone even worse for him when others noticed that his hips were the same slender width as his shoulders or very nearly so. He'd had to take a lot of stick from the other boys then and he'd noticed it as the few friends that he'd ever known had begun to drift away from him. Only one remained at his side back then, the summer that they'd both turned eighteen, and Theu still cherished his memories of Hermanfrid and the things that they'd done as they'd lain in dark places together. The other boy had professed his love for Theu and it was returned eagerly. Nothing felt so good to Theu as walking away after being fucked into his bliss with his lover's semen seeping out of him. He learned then what any woman knew; that he possessed something which the right kind of man would always want. Two things happened as the autumn winds began to blow that year. Theu had been shattered when it had become known that Hermanfrid had other male lovers. He'd been caught in a hayloft together with three other young men, all of them fucking each other as though the very devil had commanded it. Well, that was the way that Theu had heard the 'crime' spoken of by several people. There had been a quick trial and they'd all been hung and burned, all except Hermanfrid because of the testimony against him. At the time when they'd been found, Hermanfrid had been on his side, being fucked by one partner, sucked by a second, all while fellating a third. It hadn't helped that his loud cries of 'fuck me' had been the detail which had been overheard and had caused their discovery. He'd only quieted down when the third one had pressed his hardness into Hermanfrid's mouth to hopefully shut him up. But only moments later, they'd been found out. Hermanfrid had been burned alive at the stake. The other thing which had happened was a little more along the lines of something which Theu eventually came to regard as a bit of a blessed event as he slowly got over his loss. His body grew in and he came into his own. That was not to say that he suddenly turned into a muscle-bound brute. Indeed, he hadn't even grown any muscles at all. Well, any more than he'd already had. His skinniness turned into slender and soft male beauty. His jaw finally grew enough to give the teeth in his head a little room to space themselves a little better and he possessed a lovely and even -- and very captivating -- smile then. Perhaps best of all from a practical point, he'd finally figured out what to do with his unruly chestnut brown locks. He kept his hair a little shorter, but with a very slightly girlish look to it, not anything obvious at all, just a hint of it. The final things which had come to him were the way that his soft brown doe's eyes began to look. With hardly any effort at all, he learned how to return a glance just so, just the way that would pass by a man who had no interest in the pleasure that he now knew how to give to a man and, ... Just the way that another man -- who did have such an interest -- would not be able to walk on any farther. Theu could call lovers to him with one slightly lonely and longing glance across a busy marketplace. He'd never been a large man, growing to perhaps five feet, six inches in the terms of the English system in use then far from where he was. People were shorter then; everyone, due to the limited nutritional content of their diet. His height placed him at just about the optimum desired height for men who were larger and very strong. That fall and over the following winter, he took many lovers, pleasing them all and himself at the same time of course. And over that time, whenever men who appreciated beauty in the men which they took to their beds gathered to share their tales of adventure or soldiering ... Young Prince Theuderic was known and very quietly spoken of as a really great fuck. That all changed when the Merovingians took over after defeating the Thüringians on their home ground, though the actual effect didn't make itself clear for several years, right as Theu was entering his awkward adolescence. His sister Evaine was taken by one of the conquering kings and kept somewhere in Merovingian Gaul. It was only a few years later when he prepared to marry her that Theu's name passed her lips, asking for him to be brought so that she could keep her pretty brother near to her. It had been allowed and they lived in her quarters, Theu making himself scarce whenever her oaf husband remembered that he even had a Thüringian queen. But that was all over with long ago now, Theu thought to himself as he sucked the thing which would soon cause him to feel as though he was transfixed when it entered him fully. Abi reached down and lifted him up, smiling as Theu wrapped his thin arms around that thick and powerful neck. "Very eager tonight, are you, Theu?" Theu smiled even wider and pulled himself closer to Abi with a nod. Evaine sighed as she watched the males in her life share a long kiss. It never failed to make her smile. Theu looked so small in Abi's huge arms and the way that they were happy then always made her heart feel as though it was glowing. Abi moved her brother to sit on his thigh, and Evaine got up to get them their cup of mead. It was another part of the taking of her brother by this large and loving male. Handing Abi the large chalice a few moments later, she eased herself back onto the bed to watch. Abi always shared the mead with Theu while they talked and joked a little. Abi's arm was around Theu's shoulders most of the time. The chalice was always in his right hand and he always held it for Theu while he fed his young lover the mead. Theu's hands would reach up and they'd end up over Abi's large hand, looking so lovely and small next to his. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 01 Abi would take a sip and Theu would reach down to play a little, though he never tickled his lover. Sometimes, Abi would set the chalice down so that he could do the same thing to Theu. This would go on for a time, and Evaine never grew tired of seeing it, the way that they sat and kissed and joked. Eventually, Theu would raise one leg to give Abi better access to him. Abi's little explorations and caresses would slip under Theu's smaller sac and he'd lick his fingers or allow Theu to do it before he slipped a finger between the cheeks to tickle Theu and cause him to sigh and reach for Abi so that he could kiss him. The next step was the mead running out, and this always mystified Evaine. She was never really aware of just how much time had passed since she'd brought her men the mead. All that she knew was that it was never too long from her point of view and that there was always enough mead in the one chalice to get them a little pleasantly drunk together. It shouldn't be possible, really. Not when one considered the difference in their body sizes. For Abi to get that little glow on ought to be enough to lay her brother out on his ass, all things being equal, but it never happened. Theu only became just as happy as her other male. It was just a part of this fascinating process to her. Sooner or later and all in good time, she supposed, Theu would be leaning back as far in Abi's embrace as he could, looking lost in the way that Abi's wet fingers caused him to feel as he was kissed in much the same way as a man might hold a bar wench and kiss her as a precursor to taking her off to a bed. But they were already on the bed and then Abi would lay Theu down so carefully and lean down to take the thin and throbbing shaft there into his mouth and Theu would be lost then, writing and groaning as Abi teased and sucked. When at last, Theu couldn't stand any more of it as much as he tried every time to make it go on even longer, he'd cry out in his soft voice as Abi continued to suck, though this time, he was draining Theu's little balls so well for him. Evaine knew that Abi only swallowed a little at times such as this, and there was a reason. One way or the other, Theu would decide on the way in which he wanted to offer himself to his lord and lover. Whichever way that it was, Abi would smile down then, lost in Theu's beauty and straining a little to retain the semen that he held in his mouth. He'd reach then and lift Theu's bottom end, bringing his mouth closer before his kisses began over Theu's anus. This was one of Evaine's favorite parts, watching as Theu became helpless for his male. With some of the semen transferred, Abi would apply the rest to this own organ and prepare to begin. This time, for the first time in so long, Abi remained sitting on the bed when he was done and Theu almost jumped on him, knowing what Abi wanted. He sat down on Abi's lap very carefully and waited, looking back with the doe-eyes which he still possessed working at full brilliance and offering his soft kisses. Abi reached to pull Theu down so that he was lying on his back on top of Abi's large chest while they shared a hungry kiss between them. Not long into it, his female reached over and moved his hardness so that it began to press against her brother's tight opening. Evaine smiled even wider and she sighed, since she was in a position to see it as one of her males pressed his hot hardness at the gate of the other. Theu moaned and relaxed himself as best he could while that large shaft worked it's slow and inexorable way into him. Abi pulled back a little every time, but the overall effect was that eventually, Theu's balls lay just on top of Abi's as they rested for a moment. Abi raised his head to ask Theu how he was and the smaller male nodded his nervous and yet still hungry agreement that they begin it. That was when it began every time, Evaine thought as she rolled onto her side and spread her legs so that she could play a little herself while her brother writhed on Abi's chest. Those balls, Evaine thought to herself; oh, those lovely things that they had, these males. Fun to play with gently, good to taste and lick, and the way that they jiggled like this as one male fucked the other and drove them both to bliss. Theu moaned and sobbed as Abi fucked him. Each thrust at the start made him weaker and also happier at the same time. He couldn't have moved away to save his life and he didn't want to. He was lost in Abi's embrace, held tightly as the demonlord fucked him out of his mind. He was helpless, but so very happy. Evaine loved this part best of all, seeing that big fat prick slide in and out between her brother's cheeks. She only needed to move her head slightly and she could lie mystified at the way that a man's prick could seem to completely disappear into the anus of another while their balls danced and bounced, once they were fully into the act. Theu's head fell backward very slowly so that he could offer Abi his lips in another kiss. He felt the way that he was being held, possessed and owned completely and it was the finest thing to him. This was something which he and his sister could and had spoken about between them forever, how Abi didn't just fuck them. Not long into it every time, they knew who owned them and they loved it. Abi took the offer and though he was growing a little rougher and more insistent in the way that he fucked his male, his kisses remained the sort which just caused Theu to want to float away, and the way that it felt ... The thing about this position to him was the feeling to the insides of his cheeks back there. To be on his knees before this male was very fine to him. To be on his back looking up as Abi mounted him was good too, because it allowed Theu to feel more like a female in it for some reason, though he had to keep his legs up then and it could get a little tiring, especially with Abi's careful weight on him because they did it slower then. Because when Abi fucked him, it was never a short thing. What he missed then was more of what he was feeling now; the subtle sensation of that thing sliding between his flanks, since he felt it most like this. He moved his legs a little closer together so that he felt it more. It made him think of animals fucking and that always made him smile. He felt like a rather small and undersized male cat, or dog, or any of the animals where a large male would mount and fuck another one's anus, either out of a desire to show his dominance or because he just liked to do that. Anyone who had ever observed it only had thoughts about the one doing the fucking, whether they were good thoughts or ones which disapproved. Other than perhaps pity, no one ever really considered the 'underdog' or cat. No one ever really knew that this might be something which they'd wanted more than anything, to be mounted, held still, and fucked wonderfully by another male, to really feel it when they climaxed because of it and also the way that it felt to almost have to crawl away on aching hips, with a slightly sore back from holding that male up. Best of all, and Theu had actually experienced it, was the way that it felt when a second male seized him and he felt the beginnings of another fucking. He remembered when he'd been taken to bed by three men one night. It had happened in just that way. As soon as one had filled him and pulled out, another had grabbed him to begin his own pleasure. Theu could hardly even stand by the dawn, let alone hobble off to his room. But it had been a grand night. Theu became aware of his own renewed need to release his seed as he felt it rising in him. He raised his head to look and he saw that his rod stood up as hard as warm stone and waved around crazily from Abi's thrusts into him. This was always the difficult part for him, because there would soon be a strong need for him to ejaculate. That was never the issue, because it was release, even if the male inside of him hadn't come yet. Like anyone else, he supposed, male or female who was being fucked, he would have wished to come at as near the time of his lover's release as possible -- preferably just after it began in order to show the way that he'd been driven to it as the coital act came to a crescendo. That was just the way that he'd have liked it to happen if it had all been left up to him. But like many men who loved this, he could easily release long before his lover was even there. It wasn't a bad thing, necessarily, and he could then look forward to a very nice after-climax fucking until the other male came. The problem was the temptation. Over all of the time that they'd been doing this, Theu had learned that it was perhaps best to leave his dick alone. One touch sometimes would push him over the edge and the next thing that he knew; he'd be crying out and spraying his seed all over everywhere. The other temptation was looking at him right now with lidded and love-filled eyes and a soft smile. Evaine loved to ask him if he wanted her touch or her lips on him then. Usually, it happened when he was really lost in the fucking and at the lowest point of his resolve. The good things which could be said about her tempting him lay in what she'd do then. Almost always -- if it was possible, depending on their position -- she'd try to bring her face near and drool on Abi's shaft and if it worked out, the new slickness felt amazing and often offered him better mileage before he finally let go. Then she'd lick her lips and ask what she wanted from her. What he always really wanted was to come for Abi with no help, but his sister knew him so well, and she had the most amazing way to play with his balls while she watched his face, and seeing the signs, she'd lower her sweet mouth over his prick and suckle until he screamed for them both. He saw her as her face began to show her want. He turned his head and rested it against Abi's cheekbone for a moment. "Abi," he whimpered, "ohhh, Abi, I love you so much. I love you both." Abi had been grunting a little at that point. To hear it was just another thrill to Theu because it pleased him to think that fucking him, as small as he was in comparison to his lover physically, was work for even an immensely strong and powerful demonlord such as this one. When he strained to look a little more, he saw the look of small surprise on Abi's face. It was always there at these times if Theu remembered to whisper his love. Abi replied that he loved Theu, looking surprised that Theu had felt the need to initiate the exchange so that he might hear it. Theu even knew the thought which was in the mind of the demon who owned him right now. Of course he loved his little male, just as he loved the male's sister. When they'd begun it, it hadn't been one or the other of them being fucked by the demon and then mentioning that oh yes, and he also might like to fuck with their sibling. Abi had seen and known the package that he was buying into, just as they'd known in only moments that 'their' demon could have many lovers to choose from. They knew this and they didn't really mind, because they knew that they were the ones whom he really loved. The only sadness was the loss of Andrea because it had been such a want in them all to have her with them in their bed, a fourth to make them all happy and to breed their young with. "I love it when you fuck me," he sighed and he felt Abi's attempt to get him to turn so that he could kiss him again. As the kiss ended, Abi groaned and Evaine asked and Theu smiled. It was all a blissful progression. "I think our male is close, so spit, sister. Spit and wet us a little there. If you wish, then suck me, please. I love to come into your mouth." As soon as they felt the new slickness, Abi sped up for the final frenzy and Theu was lost again. This time, he didn't care at all because he knew that he was in the hands of those who loved him. Evaine lowered her head as she'd done thousands of times before in the fourteen centuries that they'd been going strong and fucking each other's brains out. After only one slow lick along the underside of Theur's straining prick, she felt his hands on her head to hold her very gently as he came into her mouth. Abi let go right in the middle of it and the way that he swelled just as Theu felt his contractions caused the smaller one to throw back his head and scream for them because they loved to hear him do that. It was a cry and a sobbing wail and someplace in it, they heard the laugh which made the skin on the back of their necks tingle just before they felt Theu go limp to lie groaning on Abi. It was a long time before he was able to find the strength in his limbs to get off of the demonlord. By then of course, Abi had softened enough to slip out of Theu. Once he was on the sheets again, Theu looked over at his sister as she sat smiling at them both. "Very impressive, as always," she grinned, "I have always loved to see my men fuck." Theu crawled over to Evaine and she helped to pull him onto her so that she could caress and stroke his back and his bottom. She smiled a few moments later to feel the first stirrings of her brother's cock. "Come then," she sighed, "Fuck me very gently, little brother, and take all the time that you need so that I can feel your seed come to me. I love you both so." Theu smiled at his sister's face and moved so that he could settle in after getting his prick inside of her, hearing her heavy sigh of pleasure to feel him inside of her once more. So long, so many centuries of it and they still loved to fuck together. Many centuries ago as two large armies began to try to place themselves to best advantage for their coming struggle, Theu had been only ten years old and he was very sick. Evaine had stayed with him the whole summer and nursed him back to health though it had gone very slowly. Since the very first time that she'd seen him on the day that he was born, she'd always loved him, perhaps much more than their mother had. Back then, she'd sat on the bed where he lay wrapped up in blankets and shivering with his weakness and the fever which took a fortnight to leave him. He'd never been a strong boy and this sickness threatened to take him almost every day during the worst part over those two weeks. After that, she'd sat and read to him, trying to engage him and never letting him slip into melancholy. She was eighteen then, already largely aware of how this great slaughter would likely go. The way that she saw it, she'd be somebody's unwilling wife pretty soon and she spoke of it to Theu. He'd listened and then asked questions concerning husbands and wives, and the things that they did and given their ages, it hadn't taken them long to get to conjugal things and she told him of what she knew, though it wasn't all that much at the time, really. "We will lose this coming fight and I will die at some Merovingan's hand as he tromps in here to loot," he said, "With luck, you will be spared since you are lovely, Evaine." He'd looked away and though he hadn't meant to hurt her with his words, he just looked at the window and told her that he'd like it if she could remember him sometimes. At once, she'd climbed into the bed with him and they held onto each other as she did her best to allay his fears and her own as well. "I hope that everything will be alright," she'd said to him, "I do not know what will happen, but if I can, I will always seek to have you near me, though it might take some time, brother." She was lying fully clothed in the bed and he was in his nightshirt. She noticed the effect that her nearness had on him and asked him. He shrugged and guessed that their talk might have had an effect. "Do you really feel that way about me?" she'd asked him very frankly, and he'd nodded, "You are the only one who has ever cared about me. How can I not love you?" Evaine smiled then and she said, "I will probably end up married to a bull, but if we can ever be together then, after all of this, then I will do those things with you then because I love you, Theu." Years later when they'd been reunited and Theu was an adult, they began it out of their love for each other and they hadn't stopped in all of the time since. Evaine had always been a little taller than Theu, but neither of them had ever minded it. They could kiss very easily as he fucked her and the position still left the possibility of him lowering his head to seek out her barely-present breasts to nuzzle against until their want of something better overcame both of them and he found her hard little nipples to suckle on. Evaine eased her head back and moaned softly, so pleased to have her brother inside of her again. She felt so good that she noticed the let-down and held his head while he suckled the demonmilk at her breast as Abi looked on, very pleased and happy again. Evaine had been correct, he had been brooding, but he'd also been thinking and planning. As he watched the other two people in his sexual triumvirate copulate, he smiled, knowing what he would do. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 02 ***This one's short. It's one of those in-between chapters which sometimes happen. I didn't think of it at the time, but there's no sex in this one, sorry. I used a few bits of history for a character, but other than the famous guys, the names are changed. You might recognize the character at the end. Just remember that this happens a few years before the beginning of 'Binding'. 0_o *** ***** Nowhere, Colorado, 1PM The landscape seemed to ripple a little before her eyes, but then it was early-afternoon, and it was the last week in June, after all. Hoo boy, the first hot spell of the year. Carrie Harris ground up the dirt track which led to an old log and frame construction house. Looking at the engine temperature gage and glancing at the outside air temperature indicator in her overhead display, Carrie put her truck in Park and sat for a moment, heeding what she'd always read in owner's manuals since she'd been a kid. Allow about a minute or two of idling before switching the engine off. She looked around, savoring the air conditioning as she did. She had no idea WHY there were always these instructions and she had no clue what good it did, but ... She saw that things could be a lot worse. The place didn't look to be in any immediate danger of falling in, anyhow, so that was a plus. It also wasn't far from a stream which looked to be nowhere near drying up. The house and the land which it sat on looked a little rough, but she'd seen worse, she decided. She'd just never owned worse. Carrie was here to look at something which had been willed to her following the passing of a relation which she'd never known that she'd had. It sat on undeveloped land in the middle of nowhere in Colorado. It had been explained to her several times, but Carrie still didn't see the connection. Well, it was not 'completely' undeveloped, she guessed. There appeared to be electrical service to the place. She saw the appearance of the line of poles as they entered the little 'valley' and proceeded along until they stopped out at where the um, 'road' was, or the road allowance, she supposed. At that point there was a transformer on the pole and then there was the last sixty or so feet to the meterbox. She just wondered how long it would take between the time that she had the power turned on and the point where the place burst into flames. The place had been left to her as the last identifiable, 'Harris' in a certain complicated line of succession. She hadn't recognized any of the names which she'd read in the law firm's offices. "I don't understand," she'd said, "I'm not the last Harris. There are nine of us around here in my particular strain of Harrises alone. My parents are still alive. How does this come to me?" "It's not down the line of family," the solicitor replied, "As far as being related, it comes to you by your name from another line of Harrises. They ran out of females. You appear in your line at nearest the correct age by the terms of the will. In that line, a woman named Marjorie Harris has passed on due to illness. She was not much older than you I'd guess, and she never did anything with the place in the time that she'd owned it since she was eighteen. The property was bequeathed to her by her maternal grandmother. I can show you the whole line again, but this has been passed down from one generation to the next following only the female side of the family for getting on to a hundred years now. It sits in the middle of nothing and it's not far outside of the borders of Browns Park, Colorado, a nature and wildlife preserve -- probably a historical one too. You're rather distantly related to the woman who built it a long time ago. To relate her to you, her name was Ann Harris by her marriage to a Mr. Frank Harris. Before her marriage, she was known by a few names and for a few reasons, though she was born and christened as Ann Miller. Back in her day, she was known as Queenie. Your ancestor was known to be a rancher, a cattle rustler on occasion, and a known associate of outlaws." "Outlaws?" Carrie repeated as she looked up from the deed in surprise. The attorney nodded with a sigh, "I haven't made much of a study of it -- other than how it relates to this bequeath, of course. That whole area; that corner of Colorado and the one in Utah right next to it, it all used to be the stomping grounds for a lot of shady characters at one time. Have you ever heard of a man called Butch Cassidy, or his friend, the Sundance Kid, or Ben Kilpatrick or Elzy Lay?" Seeing Carrie's blank expression, she shrugged, "I'm a little disappointed that you've never heard of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, at least. Hollywood made a big movie out of those guys a long time ago. You might want to rent yourself a copy if you can find one. Anyway, Ann Miller and her older sister Flossy grew up on their father's cattle ranch. He often sold to outlaws passing through. There were some powerful cattle barons in the area and they wanted the Miller land. The Millers refused to sell, and so the barons did the all-American thing and played dirty, rustling the Miller's cattle. Ann and her sister just rustled them back, which the other cattlemen pointed to as what they saw as criminal activity, and they brought in a gun for hire named Bob Cornish to either intimidate or murder as needed. It never happened though," the attorney said, "The Miller sisters maintained sort of, ... romantic relationships, you might say with the members of the gang and this, along with their supplying the gang with meat and horses, kept the threats from the other cattlemen to a non-existent level. Eventually, the gang members all went their separate ways and/or died off and Ann married a rancher named Bonnington. She divorced him six years later. She married for the final time in 1928 to a cattleman named Harris. She died before him in 1956 and it was not until after his death in 1963, that this bequest became active. It is not known how much use Ann Harris made of the property before she died. You may find it to be of some use as a vacation property if you're the kind who likes to be on her own out in the middle of nowhere. It sits on a little under two hundred acres, so you might get a little out of it if you find that you don't want it. You just can't sell for two years. It's in the wording of the will. It must have worked so far, whatever the reason for it was, because no one who inherited it ever sold it. "What about property taxes?" Carrie asked. "Three seventy-six a year," the attorney said, "Lets go back to what I just said to you. Middle of nowhere. Anyway, here are the keys to the place, such as they are. Have fun, or whatever." --------------------------- It turned out to be a bit of a struggle to get the front door unlocked, but Carrie managed it and she smiled to herself once she had the door open, since at least the door hadn't fallen clean off the hinges. She walked around the place slowly and very carefully, not knowing the state of the floor at all. It made some noises of complaint, but overall, there didn't seem to be any danger of falling through. The place was sparsely furnished and none of the windows were broken, so Carrie guessed that there shouldn't be much of any resident wildlife inside, other than maybe a mouse or six. She tried not to shudder at the thought, but then she reasoned that with nothing in the place to eat, any resident mice had starved to death long before she'd been born. She walked around the place and even found the courage to climb the creaky stairs to the upper floor. There wasn't much up there, other than a very tired-looking old bed and an empty bureau. The other rooms were empty. Carrie walked downstairs and out of the door, leaving it open behind her as she went to retrieve a bottle of water from her truck. With that in hand, she stepped back onto the porch and sat down to think and take stock. The overgrown yard was out there and she could see that the fence still stood. A little work with a weed-whacker and maybe an afternoon spent slopping stain or at least whitewash would help a lot, she decided. The roof would need shingles soon, if it didn't already and the place sure could use a little paint and care as well. She fished around in her bag and came up with a tired-looking pack of cigarettes. Working one out, she found her lighter and lit one to think about things. A look around from where she sat almost made her smile at the irony of it. At almost twenty-four, the inside of her heart felt just about the way that the old place looked on the outside. With perhaps a little less cracked and blistered paint. The way that Carrie saw herself, she was about the perfect bisexual woman, right in the middle of the spectrum. At first thought, once she'd realized this about herself long ago, she thought that it might come in a little handy to be a person who was wired that way, since she'd learned that she could quite easily be attracted to people of either gender. Well, mathematically, it had sounded a little convenient at the time. Theoretically, to her, it meant that all things being equal, she ought to have twice as much fun. And of course, it hadn't really worked out that way. It just meant that she was attracted to others more often. It didn't mean that she got laid more often at all in her own estimation. But though she could tell herself that she'd had quite a few partners in bed even so, it hadn't helped her heart any. She could say that she'd had a lot of fun in the many beds that she'd been through, but she was still the same as anyone else in one needful regard. She'd never found the one. She took a long drag on the stale smoke and blew it out as she looked around, listening to the meadow birds as they sat here and there in tree branches and on the few well-rusted farm implements in sight, discussing the new neighbor, she supposed. Something which she treasured about her childhood was that her father was a swordsmith -- which was a rather uncommon occupation to have at this point in human history. All of his work had been custom orders. Unless the customer had made it plain early on that what was wanted was purely for show -- which her father had argued against vociferously -- most pieces were crafted as live blades. In other words, real swords. If there was one aspect to her childhood, Carrie supposed, it had been this which had 'shaped' her the most. She'd topped out at 5 foot, 10 inches tall which she supposed tended to narrow down the field of prospective males at least a little. And what she'd learned at her father's hands growing up had shaped her further. Carrie was not a large woman in terms of weight, though she was a little heavier than a lot of girls her age. But she most certainly was not soft. At alternating moments, she credited (or blamed) the success of the film productions of Tolkien's master works of fantasy. The design people who had worked to produce interesting and unusual swords and blades for those films had been a boon to swordsmiths all over as they faced the demand of people to own something like what they'd seen on the screen. It had also been a ton of work for her and her father, because it was one thing to make a sword which resembled something from those films. It was quite another to put in the work to craft a replica which could actually be used because there were issues of balance which came into play in a big way. Really, it had meant an almost total re-design so that the desired appearance could be retained in every case, since there is a world of difference between a movie prop sword and a real one. For all of the work, Carrie remembered it as an exciting time as well. And of course, once you knew -- truly knew - how to wield a live sword as well as a prop so that it's use appeared real, there was also all sorts of work available in teaching and even a little acting as well, not that she'd ever consider herself to be actress material. Carrie finished her cigarette and ground it out carefully, her decision made about the place -- at least the beginning framework of it all. She got to her feet and stuck her tongue out to blow a raspberry at the birds. ------------------------------- Over the course of the summer, Carrie often spent time at her hideaway as she called it. She'd hired an electrical company to check out the service and with their nod, she had the power to the place connected and bought a smallish kitchen stove and a small refrigerator. The painting got done -- eventually and a little at a time - and the place seemed to look better for it all. The really scary part of the whole thing had been the outhouse and it's mysteries and terrors and after having to sit there and look at the small rodents who absolutely needed to pass through just when she was using it and almost sit on their haunches (if not her toes) to peer at her and appear to almost have something to say to her, ... Carrie knocked down the old hazard and filled in the hole. The paperwork and applications had been a nightmare on their own, but at last she had approval to put in a septic tank and the required weeping tile bed. But having an indoor toilet was worth a lot even to a girl like Carrie was. She had no intent to craft any swords out there, since she had the use of her father's shop anyway. But she did often go to the old place with a blade or two to work at sweating and staying in shape. That was when she met the first of the larpers. She thought of it as quite humorous at first - a bunch of grown people who liked to run around and 'play' at a common fantasy world which they all shared. As the summer passed, she met quite a few of them and slowly revised her opinion. They had all the required paperwork and permits to use the area and they were really careful about trampling things. It became a strange relationship which she had with many of them. They never trespassed on her land -- once she'd gone over the deed with her GPS and marked it a little more clearly, and they always offered to let her play along. She was even beginning to like the idea for more than the rather obvious reasons. With a bit of luck, she could funnel a little work in her father's direction and she'd already seen a few, ... rather interesting prospects and possibilities for her almost non-existent love life -- well at this point anyway. ------------------------------ Somewhere on the Gulf Coast, Florida, evening The street chase was already annoying to Abi because the city was in the middle of it's summer street festival, so there were people everywhere. By the third block into it, Abi was slowly getting pissed over needing to vault over sidewalk bistro and café tables with startled customers seated all around them. Why some people's kids had to leave their half-empty coffee cups on the sidewalk after dark as though they'd just forgotten them there was the thing. He'd already gone down twice and a demonlord just doesn't do landing on his ass in public very well at all, especially in front of startled humans. In a nightclub nearby, in various places around the city core, and in two suburban homes, the littering twerps who had left those cups were in agony, covered in flames now and the thought of the news tomorrow as they speculated on the cause of these cases of simultaneous spontaneous combustion were almost enough to cause Abi to want to stick around. At least it was a festival during the evening. So other than some surprised outbursts from people at seeing an almost seven foot tall man with horns, a tail, and a shotgun run past chasing an idiot in the middle of the street, it wasn't going all that badly on balance. They probably thought that it was some buffoonery put on for their entertainment and dining pleasure as opposed to some buffoonery put on by a shit-scared asshole who would never get away anyway no matter what he did. Abi just needed to get a little closer to avoid messing up too many innocents when he took this fool. Stopping everything in the middle of a city would mean collisions and chaos at the edges of whatever zone he chose. And something which every bounty hunter worried over at least a little was the possibility of catching a second, innocent soul during the taking, since you couldn't just apologize and hand them back their lives by then. Once a soul was taken out of a body, that body would not function again, At least not properly. He thought about it and decided that it all boiled down to just words for human crimes which didn't really interest him. Embezzlement, car theft, assault, sexual assault, money laundering, fraud, kidnapping and murder. They were all just descriptors to him. Human garbage, Abi thought, and not one of the better bags of trash. He saw the faces of the people who he was running past as they looked up in surprise or shock, some of them caught in a moment of laughter, little kids in strollers getting slowly covered in sticky ice cream. He dodged and weaved as he had to. They didn't interest him much either. Personally? He was there for the fat bounty. The mark which he was running down had embezzled a ton of money from a hospital children's fund, which Abi took as likely the brightest point in the jerk's life. Other than his slight distaste at that crime, it didn't bother Abi much unless he thought of the kids who might have been affected -- and he didn't. It was the fraud, grand theft auto and the attempts to procure for the purposes of which had gotten his attention. The assorted other murders, sexual assaults of senior citizens, money laundering on a scale which could almost be admired for pretty much a one-man show and defrauding old people of their life's savings just irked him for the mess which had to be sorted out -- by someone else, he admitted, but still ... Causing mayhem without a permit. He remembered that one in particular. What the fuck kind of charge was that, anyway? Since when did you need a permit to fuck shit up? Kidnapping, unlawful confinement and repeated physical and sexual assault -- those had been the charges which had brought the two groups of adjudicating beings to the table to consider the fate of a very dirty soul. That two of the victims had perished before being found and rescued just sealed it and upped the ante. In the eyes of those two groups, the man's soul had ceased to be his own at the time of their judgement. Now, it was only a piece of currency to be traded -- once it had been riven from him. And the guy was forty-seven. Not much time left to turn all of this around no matter what he did even before the judgment had been passed. Abi did have to hand it to him, though. For a sadistic aging deviant, he sure could run. So the bounty had come out and they were offering enough to get Abi's interest because nobody else had been able to get near enough to him to rip his worthless soul from him to stop this shit. Abi saw the man turn left down a street and he ran through the strolling crowds faster, knocking a few people out of his way when it couldn't be helped. He had to catch this one now. Another short block and they'd be into the parade which was still going on. The man knew that he was running for his life and he gave it his all. He didn't really know the danger so it was really an oversimplification. His life was only one of the things at risk here. His eyes bulged when he saw the one who he'd been running from coming AT him from the front, yards ahead, but he wasn't dumb enough to stop and wonder how it was possible. He ran right into an old apartment building. Abi saw it and jumped to land on the hood of a parked and empty police cruiser which was there to demarcate the edge of the pedestrian-only section. It fucked up the hood, windshield and roof, but it gave him the altitude to vault to the top of the large cube van parked sixty feet away with another leap. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 02 From there, he ran the two strides and just sailed in through the second storey window, breaking it to fall almost straight down the long flight of stairs inside. Which he regretted not considering as he tumbled down them. The fugitive had just run up the flight of seven steps and saw Abi peripherally as he ran straight to the door of an apartment which he knew and he turned to crash it open with his shoulder. Abi stood up and dusted himself off a little as his appearance shifted to something a little more normal for these parts. He thought about things for a moment and decided that he really could have done this better. He didn't look behind him as the window which he'd hurtled through reassembled itself, the glass pieces clicking quietly as they slid up the steps to the quickly-mending frame. No one had seen his entrance, though there was the matter of the police car. He shrugged and forgot about it. He just decided that he needed to use a few others to help him now and then. As who he was on another plane, he commanded sixty legions, but making use of them for this was right out. The place would be a flaming ruin in only minutes for many blocks in any direction. He grimaced at the thought. Nearly three hundred thousand demonic soldiers loose on earth. In one place. Best to maybe not think about that, he decided. He raised his hand and life all around went on, though slowly but for himself and two others. He just needed the difference for a little while. With a sigh as he wondered why he'd taken this hunt in the first place, he walked into the apartment and closed the door. The locks and the wood of the doorframe were once again unbroken as he walked slowly on. Twenty-five feet away, he saw a young woman sitting on the floor with a game controller in her hands. A look around told him that she lived alone and that it had been perhaps a week since she'd tidied up. There was a mountain of video games in several stacks of cases all around the room and also a ton of empty fast-food packaging. He raised his hand and time stopped cold in the apartment. He didn't like trying to manage two different time sets with real time going on in the background, but he saw the knife against the girl's throat and the way that he saw it, there had already been far too much collateral damage to this hunt. He sensed and considered. Her name was, ... Imogen Patricia Butterworth. He smiled to himself. Now there was a name. Well there were a few little irregularities here, he thought to himself as he sensed to learn what he could. Imogen was nineteen and nearing twenty. She definitely lived here alone. She didn't work, other than putting in a few hours a week part-time at the local games distributor shop, more to stay with the trends and the current hits. She didn't make very much at it, either. The only child of a broken home. Mother out of the picture since she was a kid. She'd lived with her geek father until he'd died in a car accident a year ago. The settling of that had left her with some money which she was just getting to the very end of now. Other than that, ... he saw self-image problems out the ass. She wasn't tall. He saw golden blonde hair which was long with the curious type of long curls which suited that length on her, though he knew that she didn't see it that way. There were some serious body issues in her head. To herself, she was very plain and tubby on her best day, though to any even slightly charitable man who didn't tend to be particularly attracted to her body type, she'd only be thought of by the kinder description of 'a little chubby'. Abi didn't see a single thing wrong with her. To him, she was capable of a very delicious type of sensuality. But then, he was looking at her with demonic eyes, after all. He saw that she knew nothing of it; the possibility of even owning that sort of thing -- though it was almost right there for her to have. She didn't see anything but the soft roll on her stomach when she looked down. He wanted to shake his head, though he didn't. What he could do for her almost blew his mind when it all came to him. But he didn't have a reason to do it. Instead, what he saw were mostly other things. Since she'd been raised by a largely overgrown child himself, she ate terribly and it showed in her greasy complexion and the acne eruptions in her skin. She must have been diagnosed at an early age as far-sighted, so she wore the sort of glasses which made her eyes look large whenever anyone was speaking to her. Right now, her wide and frightened eyes were all that Abi could see there, though that was understandable. And she was absolutely naked. It was a detail which didn't fit for him somehow. He waved his hand and the time in the room moved on. Imogen's frightened breathing would have been the loudest sound in the room, but at the moment, the game's sound effects from the headphones in her lap and the tortured wheezing from his quarry were doing well at drowning her out. The man tensed his fingers on the knife and Imogen opened her mouth. "Daddy?" she asked nervously in a tiny voice. Abi tilted his head, taken completely off his game at that instant. "What?" "I -- I meant ... him," she whimpered, indicating the fugitive with her eyes, "What's happening? P-Please don't --"" "I'll kill her if you don't back off right now," the man hissed as he kept fighting to regain his breath. "I dunno who you are, ... wh-why you're chasing me, ... but, ... as God is my witness, I'll kill her, I swear it!" Abi only shook his head very slowly as he caused the shotgun in his hand to disappear, "Your assumptions are all wrong, Marchetti. You think the only people who might have an interest in your ass are the law enforcement types around here. Trust me; they don't even know that you're here at all. They all think you're still hiding out somewhere near Topeka, after stealing money from a children's hospital. Only I knew you were here. He smiled, "Call it a gift. And this stupid Keystone Cops chase ends here and now." Abi began to smile even more as he sank to a crouch, tilting his head and leaning in a little as his voice turned low and menacing, dripping with implied threat and also the strange reverberations of two voices at the same time. His eyes began to glow with a very soft and red light. "Funny thing about that witness you mentioned. Your word about what you'll do means less than nothing to me, chooch. I'm here on business, sanctioned by both sides. That's how bad this is, get it now? Trust me; He's long past caring about a killer whose run is over. Don't even try to repent now. He isn't listening to you anymore. Your chance to repent ended when your fate was decided. He looked around for a moment. "You chose this place to make your pitiful stand. You all get run to the ground sooner or later. You were just a little harder to catch, that's all. The degree of difficulty points just make you more valuable after a couple of new hunters just couldn't seem to grab you. The bounty goes up then, Guistino, but your chance is still gone. I don't do this for a living. This is relaxation to a guy like me. Dragging you off screaming is just the fun part. Every one of you falls down if you're chased long enough and then you do this stupid thing, create this absurd little dramatic scene when you can't run any further. We all think it's funny. Anyway, for as long as I'm here," he said, indicating Imogen with his hand, "her life is my responsibility. So get this straight. You hurt this girl and I'll slit you open and feed you as much of your own body as I can force you to eat. I'll surround you with dead women who each hold ragged-edged knives with nothing but hate for you in their hearts. You might even know a couple of them. Believe me; your death won't stop a thing." He began to chuckle in a low tone, looking as though he was really enjoying this, since he was. "Ah, I just love looking at a mouse after he's run himself into a corner. You all do the strangest dances then because you never think that what you do here is something that you just might have to pay for some day. Uh, for you, chooch, today is that day, just sayin'. They don't want to wait for you to croak, buddy." He laughed softly, "You're so important, they want you now." "D-don't move," the man said, sounding thoroughly frightened. "Promise me you'll give me thirty seconds head start and I'll let her go." Abi shook his head, "You need to get past your denial. You're already mine. I didn't come here to play tag. I'm here to collect. We already did the Chase part. We're at the Confrontation part of things now. No matter what you say or do, we'll move on to the Taking part in a minute or so. And anyway, you're really not in much of a position to dictate terms to me, are you?" Abi grinned, "I could squeeze every drop of your blood out of you from here. Eyeballs are a lot of fun when they fly out. You can never tell where they'll go after the optic nerve snaps." Imogen gasped as she felt what the man held move in an implied threat against her throat. She felt it as renewed and trembling pressure -- which tickled in some strange way. "I'll gut her if you --" "A little hard to gut her since you're at her throat at the moment, Guistino Marchetti," Abi chuckled and their eyes widened even more as they noticed that he was laughing and actually speaking at the same time, using those two voices. "The cops wouldn't want you to harm anyone if they were here, so they'd stand down right about now, since, ... you know, ... you've got that swiffing thing against her neck like that and all." Both of the voices were chuckling now. "Really nice, Guistino," Abi grinned, "Really very threatening. I'll bet she's pissing on the carpet in fear of being swiffed to death right now. You gonna dust her pretty nose with that thing or what?" Marchetti needed to look twice to see that he no longer held a knife. He had a light blue plastic cleaning implement in his hand, a slightly dirty one, too. "Then who the fuck are you and what do you want with me?" he asked in a tremulous voice. Abi crouched a little lower before them and grinned even more in his good humor, now that it had fully returned to him. "Do you really want to know, Guistino? You might say that I work for a ... lower authority." "That's not me," Marchetti objected as he shook his head nervously, "My name's Justin. Y-You've got the wrong guy." "Oh fuck off," Abi smiled as his other voice laughed uproariously, "Shit like that is to confuse humans. I don't really give a flying fuck over what you call yourself in front of the mirror. We all just go by the name you were given to begin with. You change it here; it stays the same back there. A pile of shit by any other name, you know? And unlike the cops," he smiled, "there's absolutely no chance of mistaken identity. That's just the way it works." He leaned forward, "Hey, you wanna see my badge, Guistino?" The man sensed something even more ominous at that point and he shook his head, "No. No, leave me alone." He let go of Imogen and began to crawl backwards like a crab, "Leave me alone!" He backpedalled into the couch and stayed there in his sudden terror. Abi's smile remained unchanged for a moment and then it looked to grow a little, ... deeper somehow. He seemed to swell in a way as his clothing disappeared and in only seconds, he squatted in exactly the same place on rather large, widely splayed hooves. His skin went dark and settled into a deep gray with small scales over him almost everywhere. And in two places, there were glyphs visible, the same identically in a muted blood-colored red. His head wore the wide horns and his grinning, leering mouth was full of teeth as he slowly reached out his large clawed hand toward the man to hold him motionless, though he was over ten feet away. He finally had what he wanted; Imogen sitting almost in front of him and yet out of the line of fire, so to speak. All that was directly ahead of him was the asshole that he'd come for. Behind Abi, there was a rush of air as his wings opened and swung forward once before they moved to hang above and behind him. Loose papers and video game instruction manuals flew around the room. "You don't get a phone call, since this really isn't an arrest. This is nothing more than a collection. No attorney, no bail, nothing. Your trial has already happened and wrapped up. They sent me to collect you, since I accepted the job for the bounty on your soul. All that's left is time, Guistino. Lots and lots of time." Abi laughed again, "Oh, and pain. I forgot about that insignificant little part. An eternity of pain. He chuckled in those voices again, "I even know the hell that you're going to. The warmest part of it that you'll ever see is colder than a gravedigger's ass. Most of it is howling frozen waste with rocks and plenty of snow to show where you've run until the wind blows your tracks away. I know the demonlord there very well. She and I are friends from way back. I'm glad to see that you're in such fine running form. You'll spend days at a time running from her packs as they hunt you. Ice Wolves, Guistino, and not one under two hundred and fifty pounds. They can see in the dark, smell a man's blood inside of him from seven miles on the wind and they never sleep. They'll catch you every time, but you'll always try to run because when they catch you, they'll rip you from asshole to tea kettle, Sweet cheeks. Oh my, ... bloody red snow everywhere. And that's BEFORE they deliver you to her. They'll get a pat on their heads, and you won't believe what my old girlfriend can do with a flame whip. She can take that little dick of yours off with your balls at the same time with one swing, and she'll flay you until there's more off than what's left. After that, she'll fix you up just as good as new in no time. And she'll turn her packs loose on you again," he smiled pleasantly, "Forever. Well, not forever," he said after a thought, "She'll get tired of you sooner or later. After that, she'll hand you off to her assistants, girls just like her pretty much, though they're not as precise with a whip yet, so that part of it will take a little longer, naturally. I've never figured it out to tell you the truth, but if the packs haven't brought anybody back in a little while, say oh, five minutes or so, they start whipping each other, trading strokes of their lashes slowly and moaning in joy, because it's what they like to do the most. It's when a pack drags some worthless shit like you back to them that they get a little annoyed at having to stop doing what makes them happy. So that's when they try to make it count. Because then they're pissed at being interrupted and they make every swing hurt." He stretched out his hand a little farther, noticing the way that Imogen sat looking at what hung between his thighs as he did. He said nothing of it, however. To the man, he only smiled, "Come on buddy, whaddya say to a little vacation time like THAT?" The man didn't move beyond trembling and quaking in fear. He shook his head. "B-but ... I have to be dead first. And if I'm dead ... " Abi nodded, "Yeah, so? You think that you won't be able to run? You think you won't feel it when the lash sinks in deep enough to hit bone?" He chuckled, "You think the packs of Ice Wolves won't be there to rip you apart? You'll feel it all, Guistino, all of it in Technicolor, and cranked, full Dolby stereo. You'll be able to smell your own blood every time. Oh, the agony ... You think death can numb nerve endings? We're not talking about here, chooch. We're talking about Hell. One of them, anyway. Come on, time's up." Marchetti screamed in a long wail. Imogen sat with her eyes squinched together a little from the loud and pitiful sound of it, but her eyes were open enough to see the thin beam and spot of dim brightness as it shot past her and came to Abi's hand to disappear into it. The body immediately sagged to the floor as though it was a rag doll. The time differences slipped into sync as the locks on the door behind them slid open soundlessly and the door opened slowly. "You are a little late, Huntress," Abi smiled back over his shoulder, speaking to her in their infernal tongue. What stood there was clearly a female demon to Imogen's eyes. She stood looking a little apprehensive once her eyes had taken everything in. Imogen was fascinated, but she suddenly thought of Marchetti's body and looked to see if it was there. She was pleased to see that it wasn't though now she wondered about that. She looked at the female again and felt a slight wish to be that lean and beautiful. At that point, the female demon read the glyphs on Abi and bowed, "I make my apology if I interrupt, Lord Ab-" He held up his hand to stop her and she halted in mid-syllable. "There is a human on the floor over here," he said quietly. The demon groaned to herself, "Even worse," she said softly in her gravelly voice, "My apology for that then as well. The one is taken?" He nodded, "Yes. I could have used a little help in the chase. It would have gone much better with your help and I'd have split the bounty with you, of course." "A pleasant thought," she smiled a little, "to be able to say that I once worked with you, lord. I must go now." She bowed again and turned to leave. Abi called out, "Huntress, I know you. At least, I know of you and I have heard much of your skill. If you ever tire of the one you work for, call to me. I will come and settle with him. I would give much to have you to work beside. I would treat you well beyond that, also. A share of each bounty to you for your fine work. "Not for any lord, Huntress, for you." She smiled and said that she'd consider it and then she walked out and closed the door after her. The one called Maezou faded into nothing as she walked, wondering at the sound of his truth to her. No other demonlord had ever said such a thing to her. But then she knew who he was by reputation. From what she'd heard, he was mostly cold to humans, though she'd also heard that he had moments where he could display surprising compassion to a very few of them as well and no one in all of demonkind had ever known why. But above all, he was known for honesty in his dealings with his own kind. She smiled to herself as she walked. Now she'd met the one called Abidon. She had nothing to bring her lord yet, but then it had all been speculation on her part and she did have another assignment to pursue regardless. She felt better anyway, a little grateful that this one day had held something a little different in it for her. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 03 ***Abi's collection points to some failings in a few areas, the way that he sees it. He's already had a few improvements in mind and he begins to implement them in this. If Imogen's part of the dialog reads a little "young", it's because she's nineteen and lives alone. Not a lot of chances to gain sophistication, but that'll change. 0_o *** --------------------------- Still on the western coast of Florida somewhere. "Wh –what are you gonna do with me?" Abi turned to look at Imogen in a little surprise, "You?" He smiled, "Nothing Imogen, I wasn't here for you. I'm actually very happy that you're alright and to be honest, I've been dying to talk to you. May I sit down? You don't seem to be all that afraid of me and I'd like to ask you a few questions. If it's alright, of course." She thought about it for a moment. "What are you? You look like a demon. You're not the devil are you?" Abi shook his head, "No, I'm not him. I am a demon, though." He rolled his eyes and shrugged, "You caught me." She chuckled at that, "Ok, um, is there a name? And who was that uh, girl there?" "A soul-huntress," he said, "She's actually pretty well-known where she spends some of her time. If she's not the best, then she can't be very far from it. Today, I'm here doing the same thing that she was here for, but I'm not as good as she is at all, from the talk that I've heard. And I can't really give a human a name, though in your case, I'd kind of like to. It's sort of against the rules. You can call me Abi if you like. Um, if it's not going to make you feel uncomfortable, why aren't you wearing anything? Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful personally, and I hope you can see that I haven't been staring or anything." "I don't really mind," Imogen smiled, "I have a feeling that if you wanted to, you could just see through clothes anyway, couldn't you?" He nodded and they laughed a little. "I don't know if I can really explain this," she said a little shyly, "I know I'm not anything to look at, but when I'm alone, well, I just like to be naked. I don't have to pay for the heat here, so I just turn it up a little and take my clothes off. There's never anybody to see me, and it just feels good to me." Abi nodded, "I think that's a really good attitude. I really wish more humans were like you. Besides needing to keep warm, I've never understood their shame over it. Demons rarely ever wear anything. I pretty much only wear clothes so I don't shock too many people when I have to be here. But you know, Imogen, if you don't mind me saying it, you are something to look at. I can tell a lot of things about humans, so I saw almost right off that you don't like the way that your body looks – as far as what's outside the door is concerned. Take it from me, you look great." He looked down and groaned then, "And this is where you'll give me the great big, long list of what you see as imperfections about yourself." He looked back up with a twinkle in his eye then, "Go ahead. I've got a rebuttal for each and every one. I've even got tons of suggestions." She laughed out loud, "You're joking!" He shook his horned head and kept smiling, "Nope. And almost every one is about cosmetics, and I don't mean the kind you wear. The rest are all simple, easy to do things. I did say that your nose was pretty, remember?" "Yeah," she smiled, "Nobody ever said something like that about me before." "Well, it's true," he said simply. His expression changed then and she wondered about it, "What's wrong, Abi?" He shook his head, looking a little angry, "It's nothing. I'm a little mad at myself, that's all. I'm really not much good at soul-hunting. I mean, I have lots of power and ability. I catch almost everything that's a thought or an idea. But I miss some things sometimes, and one of them has just come to me – really late." He leaned back on his hands, "I've been wondering why you called that guy 'daddy'. You don't have to say a thing, Imogen. It just hit me." She looked down, "My dad died and I don't have a clue where my mom is, not that she ever cared about me much. I got some money from Dad's will. I used some of it, about two thirds, to take a ground school course and I took some flying lessons, because I've always wanted to fly and so that I could tell myself that at least I'd done something in my life. But I saw how fast the money was going so I had to quit. I've saved whatever I could and just spent what I had to so that I could live. I can't really get much of a job. I've got my high school, but that doesn't count for anything. That guy, he'd come around now and then. For forty bucks, I'd let him fuck me and I'd call him 'Daddy'. He wanted that. He always paid me and never cheated once. I uh, I've never had a boyfriend, and if I closed my eyes and imagined, then it felt pretty good sometimes." She looked down, "But I guess that was what you must have figured out, huh?" She seemed to shrink a little before his eyes and he saw in a flash of insight that she was about to get up to get dressed. To Abi right then, it would signal something that he really didn't want to see in her. More than that, he thought that it would be a downright shame. He sat up, reached out, and touched her shoulder lightly. Imogen looked up. Abi only said, "No." She was confused, so since he was already touching her, he felt a lot of things about her which confirmed his ideas earlier. He sent her some confidence and the knowledge that he wasn't going to be critical of her. Imogen saw his genuine thoughts about her and felt better immediately. "How did you do that? And um, ... thanks, Abi." "How did I do that?" He laughed softly after a moment, "Imogen, I'm a fucking demon, ok? Trust me, I just can. I'm not going to sit here and tell you EVERYTHING about me and what I can and can't do. For one thing, neither one of us has the time. Look, I hope you can see that I'm not going to hurt you in any way, but, ... well, come here. I can't think of the last time that I've seen anybody who needed a hug the way that you obviously do." She smiled at him and after a moment, she just gave up and came to him. He guided her so that she sat on his leg and he put his large arms around her and held her for a moment. She laid her head down on his shoulder and sighed. "I uh, I hope that's a good sign," he smiled. Imogen nodded, "I've never felt a hug this good, well except from maybe my dad when I was little." Abi smiled and looked around for a moment, trying to think of how to say something to her gently. "You don't really know how to cook, do you?" He asked, pointedly looking at all of the take-out food packaging, "I'm really regretting that I didn't know you months ago. I'd have taught you how and more importantly, I'd have taught you how to shop for deals on the food you buy. You could have saved a ton. I get the feeling that you didn't know any better and that's probably because your father didn't know himself. You mother was gone, you said, so you couldn't possibly know. I know that we can't change the clock, but I really wish that I could for you. You'd be able to take more lessons then. How far did you get?" As she began to tell him about it, Abi saw her light up a little bit, just from remembering as she spoke, "I was only flying a go-slow old Piper, but I did manage to get a good start. I did everything, Abi. I even flew the very same as I'd have done if I got to fly solo, only with my instructor beside me. She told me what we were gonna do, and that unless I needed her, she was gonna just sit there with her hands in her lap and not say a word. And I did it!" "Have you still got your learner's permit or whatever they call it?" he asked, "In other words, assuming that you had enough to live, if you somehow stumbled over enough money for a few lessons to brush up and get the hang of it again, would you try, so that you could get your license?" Imogen's face lit up, "Sure!" He held up his hand then, "Just hold that thought. I've got more questions. We'll come back to that." He looked at the large screen, "What were you doing here?" "This is just a game that I was playing, it's a first-person shooter. That means you run around blasting things that'll kill you if you don't. I also like role playing games, but my very favorites are flight simulations. Can I show you?" He nodded and she was off his lap and gone, moving over to power up a PC with five monitors attached to it and laid out in a roughly semi-circular array around a comfortable-looking chair, though the monitor directly in front of it was larger. "This took me forEVER to rig up, since I had to stuff in a few video cards and get it so that none of them conflicted with each other. It lets you look out at the scenery around you as you fly. The PC cost a bit, but this is my baby. I spend days right here." Several minutes later, Abi sat enthralled as she flew through a very realistic simulated world, even handling radio calls from the artificial intelligence which ran the Air traffic Control. He heard the advisory remarks to warn her of other traffic in the sky around them whenever it occurred as well. Imogen might look off to the side for a moment then, and if she could, she'd point the other aircraft out to Abi as she acknowledged the advisory. Half an hour after that, he asked the question which was third-most in his mind. "This is a small transport that you're flying here. Is it possible to overstress it?" "Yup," she nodded, "I've got this set up for absolute realism all the way. I do dumb shit here, I can snap a wing off, just like I would if it was outside that window there. I just don't get killed when I crash. I did this because I like to fly, Abi. What would be the point in faking it? I've even got it set up to have random failures." "Have you got any time in a fighter?" he asked, "Something more nimble, you know, something very agile?" She nodded, "Gimme a minute and we'll be in a Firefox. I've got a Raptor profile that I downloaded, but they're pretty new, so I don't really trust it for really being a faithful reproduction. I figure the authors of the profile might have been a little ... optimistic or something. My Firefox profile is authentic. All of the factors and numbers are right on the money compared to the real thing. I checked for that." After her 'by the numbers' takeoff in the Firefox, she flew very aggressively and the screens dimmed for a few seconds now and then, "That would be me beginning to black out a little from the G forces – even taking the effect of the simulated pressurized suit into account." "I understand," Abi nodded from beside her, "But there is perhaps a good side. Many fighter pilots suffer from hemorrhoids caused by those forces." "Yeah, but I'd rather feel the sensation of flying. If I had to fly a real fighter every day, I'd have to put up with that too, though they get paid for it." She sighed, "One of the big drawbacks to this is that I can't really feel the Gs sitting here in the chair. I really wish I could, though. There are some parts of flying that you can't model on a livingroom PC set up." "Like inverted flight?" Abi suggested. "That's only one thing. The world goes upside down, but you're not really hanging from the harness straps then," she said as she flew a half-Cuban eight pattern without effort. "See? The horizon tilts, but if we were in that plane, we'd feel this. We can't really feel it here. This fools the eyes and the mind can visualize me flying. My heart jumps on board because I really want to fly. But my ass doesn't feel like it's flying. There's no sensations of lift and descent there and without my ass feeling it, I have enough experience in the real thing to know that if my ass isn't feeling it, then it isn't happening. End of illusion. I'm not really flying." Abi nodded and she flew for several minutes before he spoke again. "Let me see you land something big," he said. "Like what?" she asked, "I've got lots of heavy metal birds. I could bring in a B-52H, complete with the weight of the bomb load, if you want. The descent and approach take like forever in those things, but I'll show you if you want to see." They settled on a Boeing 747 freighter, fully loaded and fueled accordingly for a long flight since Abi asked for it, even though the planned flight was only a few hundred miles. Abi watched as she took off from Billings Logan International in Montana and climbed, looking for a cruise altitude of 37,000 feet and headed for LAX. "Can you change the weather?" he asked and she nodded. "I've got this set up so that it gets real world weather data from the internet every time that I start up. What's out there over the West and Midwest in here is what's really there. If you want me to mess with it to give us a blizzard in California, I'd have to re-start." He shook his head, "Too much trouble, I was just asking." Not long before she'd finished the climb-out, he turned to her, "Imogen, let me see you divert to Oildale, California. Can you simulate an engine failure on say, your number four engine? To be clear, the starboard side engine, outside, nearest the wingtip. Don't dump any fuel." She looked over at him and shook her head, "Can't. That field if I remember - 'cause I flew there one time, can't handle the weight of a 747 Heavy like this." "What would they do?" he smiled, "Rip up your simulated license? Remember that this would be an emergency. Would they turn you away?" Imogen smiled at him, "You're testing me, aren't you?" "Let's call it challenging," he chuckled, "I want to see you do it. I know you don't have the benefit of the second officer to leaf through the procedures manual, but I'd like to see it." "Ok, " she said, nodding, "but why can't I dump fuel to save weight and stress?" "I dunno, to make it harder. Pretend the dump valve is stuck closed." "Ok," she said, "You're the boss." The rest of the flight was very challenging as she flew it facing the uneven thrust of only three engines, especially during her approach and landing, since it was after dark in Oildale by that time. But an hour or so after they'd agreed on the details of the 'emergency', they were rolling along on the ground in heavy rain squalls with Imogen muttering at how much of a bitch it was to park a 747 Heavy in the general aviation parking area at that airport with so many little planes all around them. Abi was smiling. He watched Imogen do this all the way to engine shut-down and she sat back. "Ok, that was a bitch. I've flown lots of times in a Heavy through lightning and thunderstorms, but not with one engine out and making me need to counteract for the asymmetrical thrust. And never through tornado and wind shear warnings. We got blown around like a leaf." "You did have the autopilot to help most of the time," Abi pointed out quietly. "Yeah," she nodded, "but not for that wild landing. If it were for real, I wouldn't have trusted the systems for an ILS-assisted landing. For shit like that, ya gotta fly hands-on all the way down at the end." She configured a replay of their touch-down from an external view and pointed, "I almost wiped us out here when we were banked against the wind as we came in. See how close I came to mowing the lawn with our wingtip?" Her face changed as a thought came to her and then she began to grin at him. "You knew! You knew it all along, didn't you? That's why you asked about the weather, isn't it? You KNEW there'd be shit in the sky over a little place like Oildale by the time we got there tonight, right?" Abi nodded with a laugh and it caused her to laugh as well. "Yeah," he sighed, "but I also know that the field in Oildale is closed right now for the same hazards that you flew through for me. They probably wouldn't refuse an emergency approach, but not from what you flew, if it could be avoided at all. Here, let's celebrate a little." He handed her a bottle. She looked and found herself holding a bottle of rather well-known beer. He had a second one in his other hand. Both of them were opened. "Where did you get these?" Imogen asked with a smile, "I hardly ever drink because I'm so out of money, but this is my favorite cheap beer when I do. I guess you know that too." Abi chuckled, "Are we back to what I can do? These are quite real, Imogen. Don't worry, I won't let you get drunk." "What are we celebrating?" she asked as they both sipped their beer and smiled at each other. Abi decided that he hated those glasses there on her nose. She'd look much better without them. "That you passed my challenge so well," he smiled, raising his bottle to clink it against hers, "Though we might need another couple to celebrate something else if you accept my offer." "I dunno," she said a little worriedly, "You said that you weren't here for me. I don't even know where what's-his-name's body went." "I hold his soul at the moment until I can deliver it to the place that I told him that he's going. His body is in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Santa Margarita Island. The seals are migrating to their breeding and mating grounds there at this time. It always attracts many Great White sharks, who often have difficulty telling humans and seals apart. A couple of them have been feeding on his carcass for a while now. I didn't come for you, but I'm so glad that we met through the one I was chasing. I have to warn you not to fall in love with me for anything, because it just couldn't end well, and I have a female. She doesn't mind it when I do this, and I hardly ever do." He stood up and took her hand, "Come and sit with me, Imogen. We need to talk about a job for you." She stood up and he turned back as he felt her resist the pull. "Abi, ... I'm not sure how to say this, but, ... is there any way that I could maybe get to kiss you a little? You look really good to me like this. I've just spent hours alone with you. It's pretty surprising to me in one way, and not at all in another." She pointed at her simulated leather chair, "Look Abi, I've been sitting there wet as anything for hours." She looked down, "Is that even allowed? I don't want to go to Hell for kissing you, but it's what I really want to do." "You don't have to worry about that," he said quietly, "It's not all black and white or good and evil, you know. What some parts of mankind have been frothing about for centuries hasn't been that clear for thousands of years, though I guess that it started out that way. For most of the time since, it's been more like the difference between corporate philosophies." He chuckled as he put his arm around her, "Honey, if every girl who wanted to kiss one of us, ... Well, if every girl who ever kissed a demon went straight to Hell over it, I think the world's overpopulation problem would be solved in about a month. There are things to be considered, though. We're not all the same kind. We all look sort of the same to you, I'd guess, but there are dangers. The lovely female who came in earlier is fairly high on the evolutionary ladder for what we are. But if you kissed her, or a male like her, you'd probably get sick and die from it. They know this, so it almost never happens. My kind is ok to kiss, though," he said a little proudly, and Imogen laughed a little. "So it's alright?" she asked. He nodded as he led her to where she'd been sitting before and sitting down himself, he took her into his arms again as he moved her to sit on his leg. "It's fine, and I consider it as a compliment that you feel this way." She reached around his neck and pulled herself against him. The kiss was something very soft and really good to Abi, and it almost caused Imogen to pass out. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 03 "Breathe," he whispered to her, "You have to remember to breathe, Imogen. Before this goes much farther, please let me tell you my offer." Her eyes opened wide again and he held up his hand with a small laugh, "Not so fast, it's not that kind of offer. Though in a way," he said more to himself, "I guess that it might be a little like that for us both. I have a craft. I need pilots, unless I want to go on doing all of the piloting by myself – and I don't. So I want a crew. There are benefits out the backside for all of this. I'm also thinking of finding a few other humans to help with security and to help me when I come here to hunt for souls now and then. This thing with Marchetti went like a sack of crap, overall. I don't ever want to have to sweat about missing and hitting 'the girl' ever again, though I'd guess that there will always be some chance of it." He felt her hand reach for his other one and he allowed it as she placed it onto her breast. The way that she was made hadn't given her large ones, though Abi liked them and he knew that almost any male of any kind who possessed eyes and a brain would like them too. He wanted to smile to himself. If they had all of that AND a heart for someone like her, she wouldn't be stuck in a life like this by now. Those little beauties were really very nice, though the ... he hated his lack of a better term, ... body fat content tended to minimize what she had and it wasn't fair to his mind. Her nipples were rather small and the lightest pink that he was sure could occur in human females and he liked that as well. He closed his hand just a little against her breast to let her know and to let her feel the heat of his body. His mind went back many centuries to a slave market at the edge of the Roman Empire. He knew that he'd seen someone just like Imogen before and it came to him then. The girl's hair was a deep brown and it was straighter, but it was the same length or not far off. He remembered the look of abject humility as she sat on a Persian-style rug not unlike the one they were on at the moment. He hadn't done anything then but look at her and wonder why no one had bought her yet. It was nearly mid-day and all of the pretty or buxom girls had been sold. His sense told him that she'd been there for almost a week. It didn't make sense to him, because he thought she was wonderful. Her breasts were exactly the same as Imogen's. Their builds were identical. If they'd stood side by side, only the color of their hair and Imogen's glasses would have been the different details. They were both a little overweight and even though the girl who had been for sale hated being there for that reason, she was also self-conscious about her body being the way that it was, that was all. That was the only thing. It hit him then just as it had when he'd noticed it back then. The girl in the market suffered from the same visual defect as Imogen, but there were no glasses to correct the problem at that time. Abi smiled to himself because it hadn't mattered for the slave girl. That day, as he'd stood there considering, he'd done something very far out of character for himself. He was there to learn about the tensions between a pair of neighboring kingdoms. He'd been there long enough to know that a war was in the offing within perhaps a year at most. It was good for business. He'd also known of a young acquaintance who was the son of an advisor to one of the kings. The son was to be sent to the island fortress of Capri to learn and for his own safety. He also knew that the young man was no fool. Within perhaps thirty minutes, he stood at the edges of the marketplace and met the young man who had come to shop a little, though it wasn't more than a vague desire in him to do it. Abi had placed that desire, and seeing his young friend, he stepped over and walked with him, speaking of matters of state and the outlook in general. Less than five minutes after that, he could admire the look of wonder on that man's face as he saw the girl. With her poor eyesight, she hadn't really been looking around much, the way that her shame kept her head downcast. As they approached, Abi laughed loudly and the girl looked up. That was all that was required. The girl was bought, though the young man had no intention of keeping her in chains at all and Abi smiled as they walked off together, trying as they were to speak to each other and struggling over their language differences. The last he'd heard, they were still at Capri and happy, though much older as many years had passed. Abi wasn't given to doing things such as he had that day very often, but whenever he did, it made him feel good. Humans were just magical to him in this way, and he liked that about them. Besides, they bred so quickly that it was just prudent planning, after all. He caressed Imogen's breast very softly and he leaned his head down to whisper to her. "I'm offering to help you change your life, Imogen. I need a pilot and you need a better existence. I like you, so I want to help. I'll be honest," he said with a slightly serious look, "I'm not usually like this to a lot of humans. Most of the time, I don't really care about them much at all, and you've already seen how I am to the ones that I hunt when I want them. But every once in a while, I find one who just shines to me like you do. There's not really anything sinister to what we're doing here. I had a thought that if you can learn to fly as well as what I saw here, well, I have a job in mind for you. Here's the way that I see it. I'll leave you some money – a little over two thousand dollars. Every week, you take some, but not any more than a thousand at a time. Put some in the bank to pay your rent and the utilities here and try hard to save some. It's a good thing that you were taking lessons at the inner city airport here because you can walk there from here. I want you to begin taking lessons again. The money you take will be replaced before you need more. I want you to get your license and then go for the others, multi-engine, instrument, night flying, everything. I figure that it ought to take you about a year and a half, maybe two. We've got that much time, the way that I see things. I'm also going to give you a friend. The one that I'm thinking of can already fly my craft, but I see a few similarities between you. You're what I guess they call introverted. Don't worry about that. He is too. He's a little small for his kind and it's caused him some trouble now and then. He is a little gifted, since he's one of the very few like him who can shift his shape to a degree. And he's an incredible pilot. When he flies it, my craft becomes like an extension of him. What I have in mind will help you both. I want you to take him with you as much as possible wherever you go if you can, especially to the open-air market near here. He'll advise you about what to buy, and he'll teach you how to cook so that neither of you is in danger of starving to death and so that you learn. Whenever you can't take him with you, he'll wait for you nearby, as close as he can until you return." She looked up at him, her eyes huge in her glasses and her uncertainty was plainly in evidence. Abi hugged her again and as she relaxed, he kissed her very softly for a few minutes, feeling that she was leaving her dampness on his thigh as she moaned for him so sweetly. "This is what you both need," he said, "Trust me here, and believe me; you'll feel better about a lot of things. Your complexion will clear up because he won't let you buy shit food and waste my money paying for packaging. He can't eat that crap. About all that he'll allow will be a little, once in a while as a treat to you. I think that he might like a french fry from you now and then. When you're ready, you'll leave all of this behind. I'd advise you at some point to begin hawking and trading in your games to get what cash you can for them. The flight simulation stuff has to stay, so that you and he can practice." Imogen felt a little strange and she mentioned it. "Don't worry," he smiled, "It's only a little of me getting to you. I need to do this because I need to change you in little ways so that you can go where we need to go when you're ready to. It won't do you any harm at all." She almost hung from him, feeling a little pleasantly weak for a few minutes and wanting to feel him against her. "Am I going to be doing anything wrong with you?" He shook his head, "Not unless you speak to any religious scholars or priests of any sort. They have very narrow views. What this is at the end of it all is that I'm preparing a new employee. I will make the appropriate and necessary announcements to the relevant authorities. Relax, Imogen. You'll get a really long life out of this for a human and when you do pass a long, long time from now, there won't be any foul and you'll even get points for your service. Remember that I did tell shit-for-brains that I'm here sanctioned by both sides. Both sides decide on a rotten soul and one of my side does the dirty work. That's just the way that it is," he said as he lowered her to lie on her back under him and Imogen moaned once more to feel the end of his very warm shaft as it began to nudge her sopping wet vulva very gently. "You don't have to do anything, but I think it would be best if I could mate with you. It'll go faster then and you won't be affected in terms of pregnancy. I see where you are in your cycle now and you're not the sort of human who can be impregnated by me anyway. I want to do this with you if I could for a few reasons. You'll feel much better for it, we'll both feel that we've made our agreement a little binding and I need to fix your eyes while I fuck you." Those eyes opened very wide as she looked up at him, "You can DO that?" She shook her head then and apologized, "Sorry, Abi. I didn't mean to take us back to what you can do." "It's ok," he smiled as he leaned down a little to nuzzle one of her nipples as her hand reached to help him find her opening. "Would you like it if I changed my appearance to the way that I looked when I walked in?" She shook her head as she smiled up and reached out to touch his skin. "No. I'm about to be fucked by a demon. I want to see you as it haAAAPens. OHHhh," She groaned as he slid inside of her, "OHHhh, Ohh, Abiiii," It ended in her very soft and pleased smile. He stopped then and she looked up at him. After a few seconds, her vision became somewhat foggy. "What's the matter with my eyes?" she asked him nervously. Abi smiled down at her and said, "I think they're just trying to focus through those awful glasses on your nose. The prescription has changed. It's almost done. Why don't you take them off?" She reached and almost laughed a moment later. She'd always been able to see distant things well. It was nearby things which had always been the trouble. Now, she was looking at the scales on the demon's powerful chest and admiring them to see them in such clear detail. Imogen loved it. "Thank you so much for giving me my eyes back," she smiled, "Please fuck me really well if I feel good to you, Abi. I really want it to feel good for what you've done for me." It was all just her moans and their combined grunts for a time after that. Abi seemed to be able to go on forever and Imogen raised her legs after he was in all the way so that she could hang on to him for the ride and pull him against her. She came many times and often had one orgasm almost after another, though she was never loud about it. Every time that she came, Imogen pressed her head back and opened her mouth, feeling as though the only thing for it was to scream. It was what she felt like doing so much. But it never happened. As she got close and opened her mouth, all that came from her was her tight gurgle in her throat. That really surprised her the first two times that it happened, but after that, it was what she found that she liked to do even better. When Abi slowed for a while, she smiled up at him and he asked, seeing that her thoughts pleased her. "I was just wishing that I had X-ray eyes too," she smiled. "Because after this with you, I think that I want that so that I can see through men's clothes. From now on, I'm gonna be looking for a man who looks like he's got a bit more to him, but also, ..." She smiled up very softly, "I want a guy with big balls. I LOVE the way it feels when you're fucking me and I feel your's bouncing against me. It's the best thing ever. But I guess that I can't have that, huh?" Abi shook his head, "Not allowed." "It doesn't matter, Abi," she sighed as she wiggled her bottom a little underneath him, "I'm gonna remember this for the rest of my life." When he came, Imogen was in pure bliss as she felt his semen going in because it felt a little hot and very pleasant to her. She'd never felt it before when she'd done this with anyone. He'd groaned for her and she'd felt that in every bone in her body. Imogen held him very tenderly as she kissed him until he moved to get up many minutes later. "Are we ever going to do this again?" she asked him, "You know, ... some day?" He smiled at her and reached to hold her once more, "I try not to know everything before it happens, Imogen. If I do, it just gets confusing. This was a little different because I think we both needed it. I very seldom fuck humans, but I just love fucking human girls like you very much. Meeting someone like you happens very rarely to me, you're that special. We might do this again one day, though if we do, you'll also probably need to have my female and her brother as well. We're pretty close for things like this." "I've never done anything with another girl," she said as she stepped to the bathroom to wash off his semen, since it was running out of her, "But if those ones are anything like you, I think that it's a nice thought to me – once I even figure that out." "I don't think you'll need to think about it very much," Abi smiled, "You ought to take a look at your reflection in a mirror now. I'm sure that you'll like what you see." After a moment's thought and with a final quick wipe, Imogen was up off the toilet and running to her bedroom. Switching on the light, she stepped to her mirror and almost wept in happiness. For one thing, she could see herself without her glasses. After that little thrill - and to a girl who had needed to wear glasses which she knew never did a thing for the way that she looked almost all of her life, it wasn't that little – her eyes looked everywhere. She sighed as she saw that her skin was clear. Her acne was gone completely, and, ... She stared at herself. Her waist had thinned markedly. That seemed to almost make her boobs look just a little bigger, since they were now more visible because of it. There still wasn't a flat and hard tummy to her, but holy cow, she loved the way that she looked now. She spun around and looked at herself over her shoulder. Not a blemish on her ass either, and for once it looked pretty good to her, too. She came running back to Abi and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing in joy for his gifts. After a moment, she became aware of a very quiet sound. Someone was tapping, or rather, clicking very quietly at her door. Abi smiled, "That would be him." Imogen was suddenly nervous and very conscious of her nakedness. "Should I put something on?" Abi shook his head, "He looks a little different, since he's hiding his appearance so that he looks like something else as a disguise. But he's another kind of demon. He'd only see you through any clothing that you'd put on anyway if the wanted to. I think you'll just need to get used to that. I'll let him in." Imogen stared a moment later. What stood before her in her entrance hall as Abi closed the door was, ... Well, he was, ... He was large for what he appeared to be, and he was covered from his head to his, ... tail in rather wiry light brownish, sort of gray fur which she could already tell would resist any attempts to smooth it out with a brush. He looked very shy to her right off the bat, but she did like his soulful eyes very much. Something about him seemed to draw her to him somehow and she could already tell that she'd be pretty much helpless about keeping her hands off him within about the next ninety seconds at the outside. Not only was he very large and strong-looking, he was beautiful to her, so very beautiful. Dammit, she thought, he was absolutely gorgeous and so irresistibly cute in the shy way that he stood before her. She did her best as she spoke up. "Um, Abi, ... he's a, ... well, he's a dog." She almost landed on her knees as 'he' shook his head and spoke to her, "I'm not a dog." "He, ... he talks!" Imogen exclaimed. The being looked down at the floor for a moment and then back at Imogen, "Well, it would be just a little tough to get you up to speed about flying if I couldn't talk, wouldn't it?" "He is not a dog," Abi laughed, "He's an Ushandi who is very uncomfortable at the moment because he's stuffed and cramped into looking like an Irish Wolfhound." "We should be very quiet for a time, my lord," the dog bowed his head as he spoke, "There are humans still all over the ruined car outside." Abi nodded and put a forgetful notion into the minds of all of the five cops outside so that they'd miss knocking on Imogen's door as they canvassed for possible witnesses. He led the others further into the room. "My young friend's name will be something of an impossibility for you to say as a human, I'm afraid," he said a little apologetically. "I have thought of this, my lord," the 'dog' said, "If it is no trouble for her, Imogen may call me 'Dusty', since it is something like the first two syllables of my name." Imogen was still staring at him, smitten over the way that he looked. But she blinked at that, "How do you know my name, uh, Dusty?" He sighed, "I'm a demon, Imogen." "Oh," she smiled, "Right." He looked at her for a moment, "And I see that you are already a little removed from what you were as a human this morning when I saw you on the street. You should try to hide it better, though I think that it will only be possible to be seen when you are feeling some strong emotion." She was confused, so Dusty spoke again, "Your eyes, Imogen. You really want to hug me right now, as you have since you saw me. Your eyes go black with the emotion." He sighed a little wearily, "I'll allow what you wish. Go ahead." She stood for a moment and then she grinned, dropping to her knees as she hugged Dusty tightly for a moment. When it had passed, she released him and backed away a little, "Sorry. I just had to do that." "I liked it," Dusty replied with what she took as his shy little smile, "No one ever wants to do that to me. Thanks. That felt great." "What you need to know," Abi said, "is that Ushandi can obviously speak because they have advanced minds like humans. They are a type of demon, and they are no more animals than humans are. Normally, you wouldn't be able to understand each other, but I've made it possible. You won't need to have to try to hide it when you're outside together. If you try, you'll soon find that you can communicate with each other using only your thoughts. What I want both of you to do is to get this place cleaned up and begin Imogen's lessons again as soon as possible. Dusty will give me reports on how it goes." He looked at them a little sternly, "Also, you will help each other to get past the insecurities which I see in you so that you can work together without this shyness. That's why I want you living together here. Flying my craft leaves no room for awkwardness between the pilots, so I insist on this. Do whatever you need together so that you get past it. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 03 You will need to remember that Imogen is frail when compared to what you are. I am making an investment in a second pilot, so do what you need as unobtrusively as you can to protect that investment," he said to Dusty. "And for pity's sake, teach her how to shop and cook. She's human. The last time that I paid attention, they could at least feed themselves. It's not her fault, but she really needs your help in this." He looked at Imogen, "And you need to learn it if you want to make your lovely body look and feel even better. At this point in a young human female's life, you ought to be able to feel some degree of confidence in the way that you look. You should, when you feel it, be able to exude sensuality for any number of reasons. Perhaps the most important is because it feels good as you do – even if it is only for yourself most times, because it connects a female to her world. Think of your quiet preference to be naked like this. It's already there, Imogen. You only need to feel it and own it. Listen to Dusty's advice, though you know the way that things here go better than he does. I hate to embarrass him to say this, but get him a dog license if that is required here because if he is caught, the results won't be very pleasant when I send my troops to free him and demolish the place where he is held. Remember Imogen; Dusty is as important to me as you are. There is a bill of sale for him from a legitimate breeder near Oakland, California in your wallet now. He is three years old by that paperwork and there is a chip under the skin inside of his left ear next to his registration tattoo. If it is scanned, it will read correctly. You purchased him over the internet and he was delivered here today. You'll also find the shipping papers with the rest. He was owned by a nice old woman who has passed on and the breeders agreed to find him a home. "I'm not allowed to have a dog his size here", Imogen said as the thought came to her,"My landlady – " "Your landlady already knows that he is here, though she can't recall much of the conversation which she had with you when you asked about it. She remembers how she once owned one like him as a girl." Abi said, "She only knows that he charmed her socks off when they met as he walked into the building here, since he did only minutes ago." "But Abi," she began a little uncertainly, "how can he teach me how to cook? I mean, ..." "I don't look like this, not if I can help it," Dusty said, "But I couldn't walk here the way I usually look. This was bad enough. People were staring at me as it was, but I can't fit into any other dog shape, I don't think." "It's getting late,"Abi said, "and I didn't plan to be here this long. So I'll be going now. I'll try to look in on you when I can, Imogen. Good luck. There's money in your nightstand drawer. Find a better hiding place for it, and I'll put it there the next time." She stepped over and hugged him tightly, "Thank you for everything, "she smiled, "I'm sure we'll figure stuff out between us." Abi said goodbye to Dusty then and he left. Imogen locked the door and walked back to Dusty. In the darkness which was lit only by the monitors and the reflections of the flashing lights on the police cruisers around the corner, they stood looking at each other for a moment. Dusty said it first. "I'm hungry." Imogen laughed a little, guessing that keeping him fed was going to be a challenge. "I'm hungry too, but Abi told me that I'm not supposed to use any money for fast food." "Is there a 24 hour grocery store around here? We could get something and I'll make us a late dinner," he said as he stepped over to the window to look out for a moment, "Or, we could just walk over to that restaurant place there. I see people leaving there with, ... sausages in bread things. I think one each ought to be enough – or two maybe. I don't think that there's much choice at this time of night." "Sounds good to me, Dusty," she said, "Just give me a minute to put some clothes on." He looked at her for a moment as she grabbed a pair of jeans and slid into them far more easily than she would have that morning. "Crap. These things are huge on me now." It was the same story with her T-shirt, but at least it covered the poorly-fitting jeans. She found a belt to take up the slack. She didn't mind the changes in her body. She wasn't exactly a Barbie doll in terms of her figure, but she was very happy. "We'll buy you some clothes tomorrow," Dusty said, "Is it permitted for me to say that I like the way that you look better than I like the bodies of the people outside?" "Why not?" she grinned, feeling better about herself ever since making love with Abi, "Since you've already said it – and thank you , Dusty. I like the way that you look too." But I don't look like this!" he objected, "I told you –" "And I know," she smiled, "I was talking about the way that you look NOW. You look so great and I know that there's another way for you. I hope that I can see that later." She locked the door with her key and they turned to go. "I just hope that I don't frighten you," Dusty said quietly in the echoish hall, "My head is different. Everything is different then. I think I made a mistake to choose this to look like since you like it so much. I'm really a lot uglier than this." As they were about to cross the street, Imogen leaned down as she pet his ear, "Dusty, I've just spent an afternoon and evening with Abi. I wasn't prepared for the way that he looks either, but I liked it anyway." A policeman walked over to them and asked Imogen if she'd seen or heard anything earlier. She smiled at him, but she shrugged, "No, officer. I was playing video games and I had my headphones on and pretty much cranked. I'm sorry if I can't help you much. I didn't see anything until I noticed the flashing lights a while ago. My windows face the other side." Dusty waited outside as Imogen went inside of the restaurant. She came back ten minutes later with three sausages on buns and held two bottles of water under one arm. "I didn't know if you wanted anything on yours," she said, "I like mine with fried onions usually, but I heard what Abi said, so I've just got a little mustard on mine." He didn't know what mustard was, so she let him lick a little from her finger. Since he liked it, she went back and came out with mustard on his two as well. She opened the water bottles and they sat side by side on the curb together. Imogen ate hers and held his for him one after the other at the same time. She didn't know about Dusty, but she was having a great time with him. She asked very quietly, and when he agreed that he'd need a little help with his water bottle in the shape that he was in, Imogen patiently held it for him but some spilled anyway, though she told him not to worry about it. Dusty was very careful not to bite her fingers accidentally, but when his sausages were all gone and she began to withdraw her hand, he reached out with a large paw and tried to hold her hand up as he leaned down and licked her fingers. "What was that for?" she smiled. "More disguise for everyone," he thought into her head, "and a way to thank you for your help, since I'm so awkward like this." Imogen smiled and told him that he was welcome, "I liked doing it for you. What did Abi tell you about me?" she asked. "Nothing when he spoke to me, and it was before he met you. He said that I needed help since he didn't want to always fly his craft. He can fly it alone, but long trips bother him. He said that I spent too much time alone and that it was not good, so he would find me a friend who could be taught to fly his craft by me. I was really nervous and unhappy about it until now. Now, I just like you. I can't help it. I'm sure this will work if you have any desire to fly. I was here today anyway, since we came to collect a soul, so I had time to look around. Abi made it so that I can understand the speech here, but I wanted to feel the way that the words are used. I saw you, but I can hide myself so that I can't be seen by humans. I didn't know that you were the one then. You were walking from that store there with a bag of something to eat and a bottle. What were those things?" "Chips and pop," Imogen said, "I was hungry and the sub shop wasn't open yet." "I hope you enjoyed it," he said, "Since I fear to fail in his eyes, we will eat ..." he thought for the words, "carrot and celery sticks at times like that now." He looked around, "I have to urinate." She nodded to him, "Go ahead, Dusty. You've got a great disguise, right? Find a pole or whatever you want and just go. Probably best if there's not a person nearby. I'll wait." He ambled off a few yards and she was a little amazed at how long he could piss against a wall. He came back then and she chuckled, "You know, I've always been a little jealous about the way that boys can do that, just walk over and pee on something. Adult people can get into some trouble doing that, but sometimes I wish that I could do something like that too." He looked down at her from where he stood a little behind and to the side of her, "There is a small space there, where one building ends and another begins. I saw no one there, and no one is looking at us. If you want, Imogen, then go there." She looked at him nervously, "But –" "Imogen," he said into her mind, "Like this, I look as though I weigh almost two hundred pounds, the way that I see they measure weight here. Actually, I weight over two hundred and eighty. Go there and do it if you want to. I'll stand guard in front. The whole place is in deep shadows. I'll keep anyone away who might show up and I'd protect you if you needed me." "Did you look back in there?" "I can see perfectly in the dark," he said, "There is no one there." As she stood in the darkness between the buildings a minute later, Imogen saw his eyes as he looked around and then at her every so often. She was a little put-off at first, but she admitted to herself that she already liked him a lot and that even as her 'dog', he was bound to get an eyeful sometime with them living together. Then she smiled as she realized that he'd already seen all of her and she hadn't minded it a bit. And he'd seen the way that she'd watched him when he'd done it against the wall. She suddenly felt a little more daring, like a young girl with a boyfriend when they were both just children. Imogen turned toward him a little so that he could see and unbuttoned her jeans. With the zipper down, she smiled at him and pulled them down as she sank down to a squat, putting a little wiggle into it for him and she saw his smile to her then. She wanted to laugh, but she held it in and then she just went. They stepped back into the glare of the streetlights a few minutes later. "Thanks, Dusty. That felt great. I don't think it was a kink or anything like that, I just wanted to do it, so thanks." "You're welcome," he said, "Thanks for the ... show." She put her arm over his shoulders as they walked, "I'm glad you liked it. I had this naughty little thought to take off my pants so that you could see better, but I didn't want to there with all of the papers and junk." "Should we go back now?" he asked, silently as he looked up. She nodded with a little smile, "Yeah, Dusty. Let's go home." Imogen didn't really know how to handle it, not that it was a big thing, but she liked the way that it felt to her to be home. And to be 'home' to her meant, at best, that if there was no reason against it, she wanted to be naked. Not knowing what to do, she asked Dusty. "Do you see me wearing anything?" he asked. It made Imogen chuckle. "I like the way that you look, and you're not wearing clothes, so ..." She locked the door and took her clothes off. "I like the way that you look too," he said with that little smile of his. They sat down together and spoke of how to go about doing what they needed to do for a while and then Imogen looked over at him for a moment. "I was thinking that maybe I ought to tell you about myself, but then I guessed that you probably know most or all of it anyway." Dusty looked at her, "I know enough, Imogen. You don't have to worry about me reading your private thoughts. That happens in a different part of both of our minds from where we keep our memories and all of the rest." As he spoke, he saw her eyes widen a little and he knew that she'd found the way to look into him a little bit. Dusty looked down in shame, but she lifted his head after a few moments and she leaned against him just a bit as she tried to put her arm around him, though it was a bit of a stretch with an Irish Wolfhound. "It's ok, Dusty. I just saw that you had a shitty time when you were little. What were those things, anyway?" "What things?" he asked and she shrugged, "Those big things who were picking on you, making you hurt and stuff? They had huge teeth. I'd probably have crapped myself in your place." "They were my brothers and their friends," he replied quietly, now more uncomfortable over the way that he'd look to her than ever. "Too bad," she said very softly as she leaned against him, "They looked so good to me at first for some reason, until they all started trying to hurt you." She laid her head against his shoulder. "Until then, I thought they looked pretty sexy." He looked over at her though she didn't see it. She also didn't see the way that his ears stood almost straight up in surprise at her remark. "I saw that you always had things on your nose to help you see better," he said after a minute, "You must not need them now and I really like that. I've never really seen many humans until today, and I like you the best." She looked up, "Really? Or is that just because I'm the only naked one that you've seen?" He looked at her for a long moment and they sat staring into each other's eyes as she gently ran her fingers through the fur on his chest. "You know, Imogen," he said with a smile, "I have no way to laugh when I'm like this. I can see every one of them naked if I wish." She thought it was funny and she laughed quietly until she put her head back down against him. He was so good to lean against and talk to. "So you like to see me naked, huh?" she asked and he nodded. "Yeah, I do. I did mean it though. I like your body." "Well then," she chuckled with a smile, "after a remark like that, all I've got is that we give up for today and just go to sleep. You're not sleeping on the floor, though, since you're not a dog. Come on, I've got a double bed, so there'll be lots of room." "Is that allowed?" he asked in a little shock. She nodded, "Sure. Lots of people let their dogs sleep on the bed. You're not one, but I've only got one bed and I don't mind. We're getting along, so why not? You don't snore, do you?" "I dunno," he said, "but thanks a lot." She pulled back the covers with a look at him, "For what?" He was tall enough to only need to step onto the bed – which he did easily, turning once after he'd seen which side that she wanted. He eased himself down with a groan then and he said, "I was worried because I really didn't want to sleep on the floor." They said goodnight and were quiet for a time. "You mated with lord Abi," he said in the darkness facing away from her, "Was it good?" He was surprised again when her arm came to him as she reached across him to pull herself a little closer to him. "That was a once in a lifetime thing, I think," she said, "I liked it a lot, since I've never really had anything like that before. You don't mind us sleeping like this, do you?" "No," he said quietly, "I've only ever slept alone. I'm, ..." He sighed, "Imogen, I'm small for an Ushandi. I've never found a female who was even interested in a second look at me. So this is ... I want to say something that I've heard in the minds of some humans as I walked here today." "Go ahead," she whispered. "It's awesome, Thank you." "But can you even sleep like this?" she asked, "Abi said that you were cramped in that shape." "I am," he sighed, "I was going to wait until you were asleep and then change. I don't want to frighten you." Imogen shook her head a little as she looked at his back. "I'm pretty sure that I can handle it unless you're slimy in there or you smell bad. You ought to just do it so that we can get it out of the way, Dusty. Come on," she chuckled, "We're in my bed together and I really like it. We've watched each other pee for Pete's sake. Young boys pee together when they're friends enough not to mind. I think we're at least friends that much, aren't we? I even put on a little show for you and everything. What more is there?" He groaned to himself and then Imogen's eyes opened from the bed moving slightly as she saw the shape that she was lying very close to. He was even larger and his fur had changed. She saw a mane and some other thick fur from there to past the end of his shoulders. There was muscle there too, right in front of her and not really like the way that it had been before. She didn't need to touch it. She just knew it. Her arm was lifted a little bit when he'd done it. No wonder he'd felt cramped. "Hey," she began, "How can you teach me how to cook and also fly Abi's whatever it is, if you've got paws?" He reached down with an arm which surprised her for it's size and gently placed his hand on her thigh for a moment and then withdrew it. She felt that he had fingers, long ones. "Oh," she said, "Never mind. Feel better now?" she asked. "Yes," he said quietly in a deep and natural voice, "Thank you again, Imogen." She sighed and snuggled against him a little closer, "You're welcome, but I've gotta move my pillow." She lifted herself up and peeked at his profile for a second by making the pretense of fluffing her pillow. One look almost cost her the pretense anyway because she had to keep herself from staring all over again. She managed to stop the gasp which she knew was there in her throat and she eased herself down again. He didn't look like a dog. It was dark, but she'd seen enough to form the beginnings of an impression, though she almost ached a little to ask if she might see him better by turning on the light for a moment. It wouldn't have been the best way to go about it because she knew that he felt shy over his natural appearance in her presence. If anyone understood the way that it felt, Imogen knew. She'd been there all of her life. She had a little trouble with his admission about being small. He was huge as far as she was concerned, but then she realized that she was thinking in terms of lying next to her pet wolfhound and Dusty wasn't either of those things. From her quick look, she'd seen that there was something about him which spoke to her of being a sort of demon, though it was very muted in a way and there were no horns or anything like that. She wondered if her time with Abi had changed something in her so that she could lie here thinking these slightly analytical thoughts instead of pissing herself in fear to be an inch away from a being like him. She decided that it didn't really matter. She's liked him before this. Now she'd just seen the true package. She thought that the wolfhound disguise was wonderful and one of her reasons was that she'd always admired people who were lucky enough to be able to afford to have an animal companion like that. She knew that they'd have no trouble acting it out whenever they were in public since it was so easy to give in to the disguise and play the happy owner who'd care for her large friend. But other than hugs and fussing over one and loving one the way that anyone would love their dog – if she had a real one – she'd have felt no attraction like this. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 03 What she'd gotten a glimpse of was an entirely different kind of attraction – a whole new kind of beautiful for her. Seeing that she liked him even more this way, she smiled to herself because of it. This time, she pressed herself against his back and reached to hold him tighter, running her fingers into the mantle of fur over his shoulder as she did. "That feels nice," he said and she thought of what he'd said about not being of interest to the females where he was from. After a second, he felt her leg slip over him and she sighed as she carefully hugged him with it as well, "Does it ever." "Why?" He asked. "Because I've had a really great day," she said, "Because Abi fixed my eyes and he did things to the way I look and made me feel better about myself. Because he gave me a friend in you. That's what he said to me too. He said that you'd teach me stuff and then I found out that you'd protect me. I've never had anyone or anything like that. So is it true?" He turned his head and she found herself with an even better look at his profile in the dark. "Yes," he said, in a tone which sounded more like 'of course' as he turned his head away again. She pulled herself so that she was close enough to kiss the side of his face, and with a little courage, she did it and then pulled the covers over them. "Then that's why. I don't know if you can understand the way that females think, but what you've just said counts for something to a girl like me. Goodnight." -------------------------- Imogen opened her eyes in the darkness. She was surprised at what she saw there. Dusty had rolled over and he slept with his large forearm over her. She suddenly knew that she couldn't really move much since he was so heavy. She didn't mind it after a thought because he wasn't crushing her. He was only holding her as he slept and it actually felt pretty good, once she knew. But there was one detail which bothered her and she supposed that he probably couldn't help it. His breath wasn't bad at all, but it was really warm whenever he exhaled. Where she was, every time that it happened, it was as though her head was in a little valley and she found that the waves of heat bothered her. She also felt what was pressing against her thigh, not far above her knee. She had a clue, so she waited for a minute. By his breathing, she saw that he really was asleep and what was there against her softened after a moment, so she knew that it was just the same as she'd heard that a man would do in his sleep. She waited a little longer. "Dusty?" She called to him softly and the breathing changed instantly. "Yes?" "I woke up a second ago and we're like this," she whispered. She felt it as lifted his forearm and tensed to move away and she flung out her arm to hold him. "Wait, it's ok. I liked the way that you were holding me. I just can't sleep because the hot air from your breath is frying off my eyebrows. Can I move down a little?" He nodded, "Sure," It sounded a little confused to her, but she saw her chance to move then. "Thanks, Dusty," she whispered as she wiggled a little lower, "I just want to get ... a little more ... Yeaaaahhhh," she smiled with a pleased-sounding sigh from somewhere under his chin, "This is so much better." She felt the fur of his mantle against her cheek as she snuggled in a little more against him, "Is this ok for you, or should I move?" "I don't really know. I think it's ok," he began, so she moved her leg over him. "Please put your arm over me again?" she asked, "I really liked that." He sighed and she sighed back when she felt him hold her very carefully. "Imogen," he whispered, "Imogen, I-" She smiled and he felt her shake her head a little, "It's ok. I've already felt that against me while you were sleeping. I know what that's about, Dusty. Just try to go to sleep unless you think that you can't because of it." "I might not be able to," he whispered back, "But right now, I don't want to move for anything." "Do you know what a teddy bear is?" she asked in a small-sounding voice. "No." "It's a furry stuffed animal that little kids like to sleep with when they're small. I still have my favorite one. It's all ratty and worn out, but it's right there in the corner behind me. I've just found the biggest, best teddy bear that a girl could ever want to have in the world, and you're it - because you can hug me back. I hope this is ok for you." "It's ok, Imogen. I think I understand." "Good," she sighed, and they were silent again as Dusty tried to fight off his erection while he looked over her head at the tired-looking plush toy in the corner. When he felt that he understood it all, he listened to her soft breathing against his chest for a little while, thinking about what she'd told him. As far as he was concerned, it could go both ways as she'd said, so that meant that he had a teddy bear too. She was a lot smaller than he was and she felt a little cool to his touch, but that was alright. He'd never felt anything like that way that she made his chest feel right then. He smiled to himself and fell asleep again a minute later. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 04 *** Imogen and Dusty figure things out. Abi (who doesn't appear in this one) has had thousands of years at what he does, so he knows everything about all of the kinds who work for him. Just one fact which he never tells anyone is that he knows that there's something about some Ushandi and some humans. He knows that if you put a pair of them together and if they find that they like each other, something's more than likely going to happen. He doesn't know why that is, but he knows that it would work well for these two for what he has in mind. 0_o *** -------------------- STILL someplace on the Florida gulf coast. The morning brought a little strangeness. Dusty awoke to find Imogen sitting in bed looking at him. "What?" "Nothing," she smiled, "I'm sorry if it woke you up, but I was just looking at you. I'm really glad that I woke up first. I wanted to because I had a feeling that if you woke up first, you'd change back to looking like a dog before we need you to and I didn't want that, because then,..." She rolled her eyes, "I knew that you'd get all shy on me. This way, I got to look at you for a little while ... naked. I mean, the way that you really are." "H-How much is 'a little while'?" he asked. "Not long," she smiled, "Only a little more than an hour or so." "An hour?" He shook his head to clear it, "Why? You can see all of me with one look. What do you need an hour for?" "Details," she grinned, nodding brightly, "I'm a girl. We like details. I've never seen anyone like you, Dusty. I just sat here, gazing like a freaking twelve year- old girl, looking at things like, ... oh,... your face and how much I like it, big snarly teeth and all whenever you move your lips. I looked at your ears and your nose, ..." She sounded as though it was going to be a disturbingly long list. Dusty groaned. "I thought you had a build when you were like a dog, but holy cow, Dusty... you've got those big arms and I finally got to look at your hands a little, too." She held up her hand, imitating a claw, "rrrRRAWrrr." "Please stop, Imogen." "And I saw your back feet and your tail – I mean the real one, of course. I was kinda amazed at your narrow waist for a while. It sort of threw me, because you're very thin there, but it holds you together anyway. I have to admit that I was stuck staring at your little bum for a while too. It's not really little; it just looks that way compared to the rest of you. It's really cute, too. Bums are an important detail to girls, you know. I mean besides our own. I think I spent about twenty minutes admiring yours, just 'cause it's so nice and it's so firm and all. I'm really surprised that I was able to keep my hands off it – well after the one long touch, because you looked like you were gonna wake up if I kept petting it." She eyes drifted lower, "And then I got a REALLY good look at –" He was out of the bed, walking away and feeling stupid. Imogen was startled as how fast he could move when he wanted to like this. His motions also grabbed her attention because though he was shaped very generally like a canine or perhaps a hyena; his motions were a little strange, though they fit him perfectly. He didn't move like a cat either. She realized after a second that what was so strange about it was that as a human and presented with something which was built roughly like those creatures, Ushandi weren't like those things and so when he moved, she was surprised, not knowing how far his stride would take him and finding that his foot had landed in a place where she hadn't thought that it would, usually farther away, yet his strides didn't look that fast. But his progress sure did. His back legs were as long as hers she guessed, but they were shaped generally like a dog's so it was hard to tell with all of the bends and his hips were at about the same level as the bottom of her breastbone. But his front ones, ... She looked at the way that he held those claws back as he walked. Then she imagined him reaching out to slash something the way that she'd seen his brothers do in his memory. Whoa ... She almost ran to him, seeing that her little jokes were having an effect. "Hey," she smiled as she caught up to him on the other side of the apartment, "I was only fooling around. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings if I did." She looked at him with a concerned expression, "Um, ... did I?" "No," he said trying to brush it off, "No, I'm ok." Like this, his face and head were much closer to the level of Imogen's and it was another surprise to her. But she pushed it aside and reached out to hug him for a moment. "I'd never want to make you feel bad. That was just my dumb way of saying that I think you look amazing. I've never seen anyone like you, but that's not the thing. The, ... the way you look and move, ... Dusty," she smiled, "the way that you ARE is freaking awesome!" He looked up, confused, "It is?" "Ok, I love the wolfhound shape when we're outside. But this, ... Please stay like this for me? I really like it." He was about to refuse, just out of feeling uncomfortable. "Imogen, I don't think tha –" "You look sexier than anything that I could ever imagine like this," she purred as she stepped closer to him and gently took his large face in her hands. He looked up into her eyes and they were both a little lost for a moment. Imogen re-focused on his face and had three thoughts then. He didn't look like a human male at all. He didn't look like a dog, either. She wondered what it was which pulled her so hard toward him. It wasn't anything that he was doing. She was fairly certain of that. All the same, she wondered if Ushandi knew how to kiss. "I, ... I do?" "Trust me, Handsome" she smiled, "You look awesome to me." The statement seemed to hold Dusty immobile for a moment as he considered it. She kissed him then, very softly and right in front of his eyes. He blinked a few times and said, "I um, ... I have to pee." Imogen saw that the spell had been broken, but she didn't much care. As far as she could tell, she'd gotten him from feeling dumb over her joking. She wondered if Ushandi did very much of that until her thought of seeing his memories made her guess that maybe they didn't, so she decided to be a little careful after that. She guided him to the bathroom and that began more awkwardness. "You're not aiming at the bowl," she said, her head upside down as she held back her long hair while she tried to judge for him. "I don't know where to move to so that I do," he groaned a little, "There's no place for me to stand, and I really need to go now. I'm just going to run outside and –" He fell silent then as he felt Imogen's fingers. "We'll need to figure something out later, but I think you're right on the money if I hold it like this. Go ahead, Dusty. Pretend I'm not here." By then, it had become more urgent for him so he just began and Imogen aimed it perfectly, watching and trying to feel for any changes in flow as she leaned on his hips. It went on for a while, though she didn't mind. He looked up into the mirror once and saw her looking at him. She smiled and winked before she went back to aiming. "Imogen –" "Shh! I need to get this right or I'll be cleaning the bathroom since it was my idea. Tell me later, ok?" He finally slowed down and stopped. "What do I do now?" he asked. Imogen pulled off a little toilet paper and she wiped him and pat him on the flank after tossing the tissue into the bowl, "The same as me. If we can't come up with anything, I'll do this for you. It's not such a big deal." She flushed and stepped to the sink to wash her hands. "Did I, ...?" He groaned, "I'm so sorry." She shook her head, "No, I'm just washing my hands." She looked at the bowl for a moment. "Hey, you can sit something like a dog, can't you?" He nodded, "Yeah." "Let me know when you need to do the other thing, just so I'm aware. Try to sit then. I just hope that I don't have to get involved, that's all," she said. She put the seat down and sat down herself, surprised at having to look up that far. "Big rule, ok? You have hands, so I expect you to remember to put down the seat for me when you're finished peeing. This is my place, so ... " "I'll do my best," he said quietly, "But why are you, ... uh, ..." She rolled her eyes, "I thought we got past the peeing part. We're different. I don't really care about that, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to make allowances for the ways that we're different. I really don't think that we can avoid some things. I want us to learn what they are and just deal with them. So you remember the seat for me, ok?" "Ok," he smiled seeing the way that she was trying to put him at ease. He turned to go and she grabbed for his tail. "Hey, I got to hold your willy for you. I thought you'd at least want to watch me." "You're right," he grinned, seeing this as a way to smile over something together, "What was I thinking?" "I dunno," she laughed, "but I'da thought that something like this would at least be enough to hold your attention." "It is," he said, "I was just feeling better after feeling dumb." "You don't have to feel dumb," Imogen said and he could see that she was sincere." You just have to want to be my friend." "I'm your friend," he said as she began. "I wish I knew where it comes out," he said as he sat down and looked carefully, "It looks like it just appears out of nowhere. And why are you sitting like that? You sit more upright any other time." "Consideration for you and the floor," she said, "Sometimes, if I didn't do this, I'd probably clear the edge of the seat and then I'd have to help you with the shower. And it doesn't appear out of nowhere," she said, "From what you said last night; you might not have a whole lot of knowledge about these things – especially on a human." "I've seen Ushandi um, girls when they do that," he said, "I just don't know where it comes out. It's even harder to see on you because of that bit of fur." She chuckled at that word for a moment, "So tell me, where does it come out?" He thought for a moment and then gave up. "I don't really know. Where then?" She wiped and stood up to flush. When she turned around, she smiled at him and said, "A very mysterious place." She walked out of the bathroom, "Can you hold the garbage bags open for me while I stuff the junk in? It's garbage day." ----------------------------------- The first thing was the dog license. Since Irish Wolfhounds are a large and expensive breed to buy and just naturally attract attention wherever they go due to their relative rarity and size, the people at the animal control office had all sorts of questions for Imogen, which she answered as she showed them her papers. They scanned his chip after that and were satisfied, since the national database had him listed. Imogen was a little amazed and very pleased when she found his phony immunization record in with the other things, though she could tell that he was even more happy about that part. There was even a rabies immunization tag in a little plastic bag there in her wallet. It was from California, but it was recognized where they were and it was good for over a year and a half. Dusty stood it as several of the people there stared at him, and the worst part was the way that two of the women fawned over him, rubbing his fur in ways that he hated while they gushed over him. He was very happy once it was all over. "There's a leash law here, Miss," the male animal control officer said as they prepared to leave, "Dogs need to be on a leash at all times in public." Imogen wanted to hit him for saying it, though she put on an innocent face and poured on the big eyes for him. "But he's really well-behaved," she said, "He loves everybody, but he doesn't act like he needs to show it, other than to me. He's really good with spoken instructions. I can show you, if you'd like. Dusty, sit." Dusty sat. "Dusty, stay." She didn't even hold up her hand. She just walked out of the place for a few moments as she walked to the curb and back. The animal control officer said his name and snapped his fingers, trying to break Dusty's concentration. Dusty ignored him, though he was fantasizing about breaking his neck. Other than watching her over his shoulder a little, he didn't move a muscle, not even as she came back inside. He just followed her with his watchful gaze with his large tail wagging slowly as he watched her everywhere that she went. The women in the place began to bore holes in the man's head with their eyes because Dusty had already made a lot of friends with them. "Well alright," he said finally, "There are a few dogs around here who are this well-behaved, other than companion animals for the blind. What we insist on is that you always have your leash with you when you walk him. Keep it visible in your hand and ready to use. That way, we'll know and you'll avoid a citation. But be very careful when stepping off the sidewalk at intersections with him, ok? There are a lot more stupid drivers out there than there are well-trained dogs like him." Imogen told them that they were going to get Dusty a collar and a leash right then as they walked out of the door together. No one but Imogen heard his thoughts and desires for the next few blocks, once she'd explained what a leash was to him. The next challenge was to find a collar which could handle the expansion of Dusty changing to the larger shape, since they agreed that taking it off and putting it back on all the time was just going to be a pain in the ass. And that was even if they didn't misplace it somehow. The store only had one like that, and Imogen got it at a discount because that type didn't sell very well. "The previous store manager got a bunch of these with the rest of a consignment," the manager said, "Other than selling a few to goth kids around here, we didn't sell one. That one's been here forever because of the size. I don't know what she was thinking. I've never seen a dog yet who wouldn't try to get his collar off if he could manage it." Dusty stood looking very pleased to have his new collar then, just to prove her wrong. "He looks pretty happy with it, though," she smiled, "So that's one dog who doesn't mind, I guess." "They're a different sort of breed," the other saleslady said, "They're so gentle and noble in the way they move. You just have to love them." Dusty saw a pair of doggy saddle bags and he silently suggested that Imogen buy them. "Everyone here has a car. We don't. It just makes sense for going shopping." She agreed and threw them in with the rest as she paid. She was pleasant and actually pleased at what they were buying, but the sight of the leash on the counter just turned her cold to think of them walking like that. It took a little longer while everyone worked at fitting the saddlebags on Dusty. He needed every single adjustment fold in the straps lengthened so that they'd fit. --------------------------- "I'm a different sort of breed," Dusty grumbled as they walked on afterward, "I almost want to find her one day to let her see just how right she was. I'm almost sure that I could make her piss in fear during her own nightmares for months." Imogen wanted to laugh because it sounded funny to her, but she knew the way that Dusty must have been feeling. "I know," she said, "I hate that we have to do this at all." She looked at the folded, short leash in her hand and she felt worse. "You should have bought another pair of these bags," he thought to her, "They're not all that large." "You'd look like a pack mule then," Imogen said, "and I'd feel like an idiot. I have arms, and we can always take my knapsack with us wherever we go, folded up in one of those things, just in case we need it." "We'll look like vagrants then," he smiled back, "but I won't care. I've got you." ------------------------------ "I just don't like the way that humans have of making these signs of owning things," he said as they walked on after a while. "I can't say that I'd want to wear that collar all of the time just like you don't want to be wearing it," she smiled, "but I did buy one of the style that you liked at first until we found that it wouldn't expand. You just didn't see it as I paid for everything. I'll wear it for you if you want, so that you'll feel like you own me too. We're supposed to be the same. I think that's what Abi meant for us to be." "Would you?" he asked looking back, "Really?" "Uh-huh," she grinned as she removed the collar from the bag, "Gimme a second to take the price tag off and see if I have to adjust it, and I'll put it on for you right now. I know we agreed on it, but it doesn't feel fair to me that you wear that even when we're alone. I just hope that you don't mind the amount of skin that it covers when I'm naked." The collar was all of one inch wide and it had pointed metal studs around it. "I'll try really hard to get over it," he smiled and she chuckled. "What about the leash?" he asked, "Do I get to see you wear that for me too?" "Hmmph," she grinned, pleased to have brought his good humor back, "Now you're just being a kinky boy. I'll have to think about it." She stood laughing in the street over the way that his ears and eyebrows rose at that. After that, it was off to the bank and then they went to the some clothing stores, discount ones mostly. Imogen might not know about shopping for food, but she'd never been rich and saw no benefit to paying for a chain's chic interior when she was there to buy clothes. As Dusty waited, pretending to be tied up outside, he looked through the window as Imogen stopped in the swimwear section and considered a few things. "What were those small pieces?" Dusty asked and she said "Swimsuits. People wear them to go swimming." Dusty looked across the street and said quietly, "That's just stupid. You all wear clothes which you don't want to get wet, yet you wear clothes to go swimming. That's nuts." "I know," she said, "but I want to feel better about me. I already do, but I keep remembering what Abi told me. I haven't had a swimsuit since I was a kid. It's been that long since I've gone swimming. I want to go swimming now." They walked off to the market together. She bought what he told her to, stuffed what amounted to one day's groceries for them into the saddlebags and they went home. While Dusty worked at preparing their dinner after she'd explained how to operate the burner controls, Imogen got on the phone and asked to have her account reactivated at the fight school. She booked a familiarization flight for the next day. After that, she showed Dusty her flight simulation setup. His hand even fit the joystick, though it took a bit for him to find his groove for stable flight. He had a lot of trouble with the mouse. "Forget about that," Imogen said, "There isn't a plane out there in the real world where you need a mouse, as far as I know. They just use it here as a way to work the little buttons on the radios and stuff, since otherwise it would just get too complicated having to assign things. You can use the keyboard for a lot of that too, so you just need to get used to that." After an amazing dinner, they went back to flying. Dusty could see that as far as simulation was concerned, she knew her stuff. He also knew that flying in the real world was far more important, so he'd be watching her progress with interest. He pointed out that what they'd be flying was never visible on radar, so they needed to be aware of the airspace around them at all times. It caused her to wonder about it. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 04 "Hey, what is it that Abi has anyway? I forgot to ask," she said, "Maybe I can find a profile on one of the sim sites so I can at least get a clue about what I'll be flying with you." "You won't find anything like what we'll be flying," Dusty said, "It wasn't made here. It's the only one, but I can tell you a lot about it." Imogen got up to make them both a cup of tea, which Dusty loved, never having had any before and they sat together, since it seemed to be their way as they became friendlier and joked that they'd make quite an item, newswire coverage notwithstanding. The quiet thing about it was that, other than their jokes and the oblique way that they mentioned it now and then, each one wondered over the way that they felt about the other one, way down deep in their heart of hearts. -------------------------- It was 2AM and they'd been asleep for just over an hour. Dusty woke up and was horrified to find that he was lying against Imogen's back as he held her. He didn't mind that part. He was getting used to her against him and he really liked that. It had come up over dinner and they'd admitted that they both just seemed to sleep better when they were lying against each other somehow. Neither of them could recall ever sleeping that well or feeling as rested as they'd been when they'd gotten up that morning. It was the straining erection that he noticed which bothered him. As he was having his first thought over just how to get himself untangled, he felt the very pleasant sensations which she was giving him from the slow and subtle way that she was moving her hips. After the surprise at feeling what he felt and waiting silently to see if he'd been wrong, she did it again, pushing back with a soft sigh because it felt good to her. She noticed the change in his breathing then. "You're awake, huh?" Her voice came to him softly out of the darkness, "Sorry. I was lying here asleep and you woke me with a little poke. I like feeling you against my bum like this, so I guess I couldn't help myself. Do you want me to stop?" "No," he whispered, "I was just surprised. I never know what to do when I get hard with you so close to me." He heard her smile. He could actually hear her smile, he thought. She was amazing. "What I want right now," she whispered, "is to feel you moving against me a little. I think you're a virgin from what you said. It's alright with me, Dusty. Just move a little gently." He began to push back against her in time with her gentle movements. He groaned very softly and she sighed, "I want to see if we can make each other feel good, and this is pretty nice to me. But I have a better idea." She lifted her leg as she reached down to guide him in between her thighs. "Can you try to move the covers off of us a little? I'm already wet, but I want to get you wet too. I think we'll both like it better then." He pulled the covers off until she said that it was enough for what she had in mind. She was silent for a little while, busy with putting saliva on her fingers and caressing him. It felt wonderful to Dusty, but, ... "What do I do at the end, Imogen? I won't be able to hold back then." "You just come for me," she sighed with a little moan as she brought her thighs back together carefully, "Just let it go for me. I won't mind, and I'll change the sheets tomorrow. Let's just try this ok?" They didn't speak for a little while, just moving together slowly. "Ohhh, Dusty, this is sooo good. Do you like it?" He tried, but he couldn't really do more than kiss her shoulder, though he knew that she felt it from her little shiver and the chuckle that he heard. "I thought so," she sighed to him. "Keep going, Dusty. I want you to finish for me. I might come from this, I might not. It doesn't matter to me right now." She turned her head and looked back at him in the darkness, and she reached for him wanting to feel his first kiss for her. "I don't really know if you know how, but, ... Do you want to kiss me? I want to try that." Dusty didn't hesitate because he really couldn't. He was just mindful not to be anything but gentle because he sensed that it was what she really wanted from him. She groaned to feel his lips on hers and she had him groaning back in only a second. She couldn't really reach his mouth with her tongue, much more than to lick his lips, but he could reach hers easily and she moaned louder as she sucked his tongue for them both greedily, as though she was fellating it. Imogen had felt some quiet hope that they might come to something like this together. To her, Dusty was very hard to resist, though he wasn't really aware of the extent of his appeal to her. Now that they'd started this between them, she found that she didn't care anymore. She wanted him because he was warm and friendly and she felt very safe in his big arms. She had a thought that he was lucky that she was only settling for this right now. What she really wanted to do with him now... Their first kiss only lasted a little while because stretching that far was a little hard for Imogen to maintain, so they broke it and he felt a thrill to see her smile for him. "I'm humping with my teddy bear again. That's all that matters to me. I want you to get me all wet, ok?" "OK," he whispered and he began to move a little more for her. It caused her to moan even more and she began to reciprocate, humping back against him as the feeling rose in her. "Dusty, .... Oh, Dusty, ... Hey, you ... uhh ... you wanna .... Ohhh, ... you wanna hear a secret?" "Sure," he groaned quietly, "I love to hear you talk when we're in bed." "Ok, ..." she whispered as she began to throw herself back against him, loving the way that she felt that her juices were all that they needed now. The fur at the base of his sheath was tickling her so deliciously. "I, ... I, I'm ... Ohhh, " She didn't stop, but she was somewhat surprised to find the rush coming to overtake her then, and so quickly. He heard her breathing as it sped up and he felt her shake a little. "Hold me, Dusty. Hold ... Ahh! Ah! Oh, I'm COOOMMING FOR you! Fuck, this is ... Oh, oh, I'm falling in love with you. Fuck me, keep fuuucking me DustTTTTTTEEEEEEEeee." She kept going, though not as urgently after a moment or two, very pleased now. The wave of her pleasure had come out of nowhere and it was past her now, though she had the nicest glow going on now and she didn't want this to end. But Dusty was up for this now. He'd never experienced something like this and he had his own feelings driving him as well. He seized her hip and she began again, moving against him urgently, "Come on, baby. Oh, give it to me, Dusty. Come on, you wonderful thing, let it go for me. I waAANNt it!" He let it go then, not that he'd been holding back at all. Imogen moaned at the heat that she felt between her loins. She cooed softly as they went on a little more gently, telling him how good it felt to feel him making her into a mess for him. "Don't stop, baby," she sighed as he watched her ass move very purposefully, "Don't stop. This is great. SOooo good to feel. Dusty, I'm fucking smitten all over again with you." They kept moving for a time after that until they just petered out after a while. Dusty ran his large hands over Imogen's body, needing to feel her, wanting to let her know how he felt. Needing to hear her quiet and very pleased little sounds to him. "Can I ask you something, Imogen?" "Dusty," she sighed very contentedly, "You can ask me anything, unless it involves mental arithmetic right now." "I don't really know how to ask you this, because I'm afraid that you'll hit me for being dumb, but you were saying so many things to me back there that I don't really know if you ever did tell me that secret you mentioned." Imogen felt a little foolish, but she managed not to groan to herself over it. She moved and rolled onto her back and then onto her front beside him. His stock in her eyes shot up a little when he remembered that she wasn't as naturally warm as he was and he pulled the covers over her until she was covered more than halfway up her back. "Thanks for that," she smiled, "I never really knew about these things, but I have heard it said that you shouldn't ever believe what the person that you're fucking with says as they cry out – if they feel good enough to. My secret was that I think I'm falling in love with you." She sighed, "I meant that and I can't really help it, either. It's way too fast, but, ... What we did was really good for me, Dusty. I was surprised. I just thought that we'd ... you know, just hump along and if I was lucky, I'd be able to get you to come for me because I really wanted you to feel that with me. I never expected to come too and so well. But what I said to you then, well, I meant it and it wasn't just the moment or what we were doing." She sighed, "But then, I'm beginning to learn some things about you. You're always surprising me that way. Is that a good answer?" He nodded, "I'm pretty sure that I'm falling for you too, Imogen, and I have no choice either." She stared at him open-mouthed, "Really?" He nodded, "Yes. I've never felt the things I'm feeling now." "Well let's not get stupid about this," she said, "Humans take time to feel this way. I don't know what Ushandi do. I think we ought to just be a little careful and see where we end – " "We just tell the other person how we feel and then we fuck," he said, "And those are the chatty ones. Most don't have great big long romances like that, either. They just fuck and walk away. The ones who love each other stay together, that's all." Imogen asked him if there were means of mass entertainment such as movies, or if anyone wrote romantic stories and he shook his head. "I'm not surprised," she said to herself. Looking at him, she smiled, "Well I've never really had a guy try to romance me, though you seem to be able to get to me just standing still. I would like at least some of that, though." Dusty smiled, seeing her sincerity and a little uncertain hope in telling him what she'd like. It came to him as the police cars outside were dispersing, driving off to wherever they had to. The drapes were thick and dark, but a little of the passing glow from the lights washed over her softly anyway and though he could see in the dark, ... He liked seeing her that way because of the way that it made him feel. He reached to touch her face, being very careful with his claws. It lasted a moment and then he slid his hand over her shoulder and laid it onto her back. He knew that he was heavy to her, so as his arm stopped, he just relaxed it a little, knowing that she'd feel the settling of the weight and hoping that she wouldn't mind it. "I've never been in love before," he admitted quietly, "But if this is anything like it's supposed to be, Imogen, I'll do my best. I've never felt proud of anyone before. I feel proud of you, though. It doesn't matter to me that nobody can see us. When I hold you, I don't feel useless anymore, so to me, that must mean that well, ... I love you." Imogen knew it then. As the lights passed, she saw the silhouette of his head and she saw the very dim glow of his eyes as they shone for her, with a very comforting amber light. Something in the room reflected the dim glare from the flashing lights and she saw his face as well. She thought about what the saleslady had said about Irish Wolfhounds being noble in their appearance. She could agree about that, but whatever nobility they might possess, what she was looking at now in the face of this young Ushandi just put that away. She doubted that any lion could look as noble as this large beast to her. She pulled herself onto him and kissed him. They were like that for over twenty minutes. She drew back and laid her head on his chest then. "You and me are always saying 'thanks' to each other for something, but, ... well, thank you for saying that. Nobody's ever said that to me since I've been alone." Dusty looked at the top of her head, "Well, I'd like to save a few of them so I don't sound like an idiot, but I'm feeling pretty sure, so I love you, Imogen. How's that? I don't know how to do this love thing – especially here, and –" She shook her head, so he stopped. "Abi said that we'd leave here when I'm ready," she said. "And I've been thinking that he didn't mean that we'd just go someplace else in the world. That's a really scary thought whenever I have it, but then I just look at you. I'm nobody here, but I think I can do what he wants, especially with you near me. I was thinking that we might need each other. I think that wherever we go, well I hope it's a place where people like us can be in love and nobody will care. That's what I want right now." She lifted her head again, "And I love you too. Is that possible where you're from?" He nodded, "Yeah. I've never seen a lot of couples where they're different kinds, but I have seen them. No humans though, because humans can't go there. It's on the other side. You can't go there either, unless ..." She raised her head, "Unless what?" "Well," he said, "unless you got any of me inside of you. A lot of demons are poison to humans. I've never tried to know which ones, because it wasn't ever important to me. But we're a little different. You and me, we can't make babies together, but I can make you tougher and a little stronger that way." "What way?" Imogen asked, "By fucking me?" He nodded, "Yeah. It's just not done a lot. Now that I think about it, it makes you live a little on both sides of the fence, partly here and partly there. You could live where I'm from then. I just don't know why you'd want to, since you'd need a shitload of weapons there." "Why?" she asked. He exhaled, "Because of stupid shits like my brothers." "Oh," she said. "What did you mean when you said that you were humping with your teddy bear again? I didn't get that part either." She was silent for a few moments. Finally, she lifted her head and looked at Dusty again with a sigh. "Ok, big admission time. A lot of what I'm gonna tell you here, I only figured out when I was older, so you'll have to bear with me. When I was little, I was a quiet kid, but I always paid attention to what was going on around me. I never got a lot of physical contact. My dad was away a lot then because of his job. My mom never really thought much of me. I always used to get in trouble with her, and a lot of the time, I never knew what it was about. I gave up, because kids can't figure things like that out very well. I just knew that whatever I did was wrong to her. If I did something wrong with my dad, he'd tell me what it was and why I shouldn't have done it. That way, I knew it was wrong to do. My mom almost never told me. She just yelled at me and told me to go to my room if I was lucky. We didn't have much money, so I didn't have a whole lot of toys, but when you're a kid, you can play with anything. I spent a lot of time in my room because I was always in trouble with her. I didn't figure it out until later, but she sent me there so that I was out of the way, not out of her hair. I didn't understand it when it happened, but one day, I'd been in there for hours. I knew that I'd probably get my ass paddled for it, but I was thinking that she'd forgotten about me. So after a lot of worrying about catching more crap, I snuck out to pee as quietly as I could and I didn't flush so she wouldn't know that I'd left my room without permission. I heard some sounds so I went to ask her if I could come out. I didn't know what I saw until years later, but when I followed those sounds to my parent's bedroom door, I saw her with a man in there on the bed. I don't know who he was, but Mom was on top of him and I now know that she was fucking him. I couldn't see that part because I was behind her. But I didn't know that then. I only saw her face reflected in the bedroom mirror off to the side. I stared for a minute, because she looked happy. I think that was the only time that I ever saw that expression on her face in my life. And then I thought that I was in enough trouble as it was. My guess was that, knowing her, I'd be in even more trouble if she opened her eyes and saw me, so I went back to my room. If I ever see her again, well I might just punch her for making me so unhappy for so long. I was just little, Dusty. I don't think I could ever be that miserable to anybody for that long, especially a little kid - especially my own kid. Anyway, I was back in my room the next day for something else that I didn't know that I'd done or hadn't done right. I must have been thinking about what I saw and how my mother had looked so happy. The only thing that I had was my teddy bear, so I threw him on the floor and I got on him. I moved around until I found a place that felt nice, that's all. At least I was bright enough to know that I had to hide it when I did that, because if my mom ever caught me doing that, I'd get my ass paddled blue and I knew that she'd take him away from me. I couldn't risk that, because even without what I'd found that I could do, you need your teddy bear when you're a little kid sometimes. I don't know how it is with other kids, but I needed him to hang onto him a lot at night." She smiled then, "But it was my dad who caught me at it one day, not long after my mom left us. He never sent me to my room for nothing. It hardly ever happened. He'd just tell me what I did wrong if I didn't know and I'd say I was sorry and that was it. He never, ever spanked me, even for things that now I think should have gotten me something for it. He must have felt guilty about everything, so I think he went too far the other way. It didn't matter really, because I loved him so much I always tried to be good. I must have been about ten when he came home late at night after a long drive. I just remember that he paid the lady who was babysitting me and him coming to kiss me after that. I wasn't asleep and I hugged him and then he went to bed. The next day was a Saturday and I saw the note that he was gonna sleep in until noon and to wake him if he wasn't up by then. I watched the Saturday cartoons with the volume turned low and I don't know why, since it had never happened before, but I was looking at one of my favorite characters a little differently for some reason. I turned off the TV and went to my room and used my teddy bear like for a long time. I guess I forgot and the next thing I knew, he caught me. We had a long talk about things like that being private things. In his eyes, the only thing I'd done wrong was to not close my door and not pay attention to the time so I could wake him up. He didn't take my bear from me and he never said a thing about what I was doing." She smiled up at Dusty, "That's what I meant. I was humping my teddy bear again – and loving it!" She kissed him and he felt that feeling in his heart when she put her head back down. He'd been stroking her back a little the whole time as she'd been talking, and he kept doing it then, but he also caressed her bottom for her, because he knew that she'd like it. "Here's something that your bear could never do for you," he smiled, and his reward was her quiet chuckle against his chest, "Yeah." ---------------------------- The next morning, Imogen was surprised at being awakened to find that Dusty had a light breakfast prepared for her. His reply told her that at least some joking was possible when he said that she'd need something to heave into the airsickness bag during her lesson. She led him into the bathroom after that and he watched as she showered, seeing through the shower curtain after asking if he could do that. After that, she washed him as he stood in the bathtub, as cramped as it was. She ended up with a pile of towels to be washed along with the sheets later, but the two of them were clean. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 04 They walked to the airport together and after charming everyone easily, Dusty was able to remain in the office as Imogen took her flight. It went well, but Imogen grumbled a little as they walked away to go grocery shopping. "My instructor said that I flew well, so I'm pleased about that, and she also really liked my not needing to wear glasses anymore. I told her that I'd had operations. She pointed out that I'd need another flight medical so that my permit could be updated. I don't mind too much, since it was a little fun because it's way different from a usual medical exam. But it's two hundred bucks that I think I could spend in better ways – like another lesson." She sighed, "But then, I did get a break on the cost of the flight and I have another one booked for tomorrow. My instructor wants to see if I'm ready to solo. If I do ok, then I'll book that for next week and chew my nails until then. That'll be all the lessons until the week after that, since I've gotta pay my rent and some bills." They went grocery shopping again, and then it was laundry day at Imogen's house. That night, Imogen was feeling a little nervous about her lesson the next day, wanting to do really well. Dusty sensed it and he steered her away from flying her simulator. "I think it's important that you don't have the differences in this come into things before tomorrow," he said gently, "Spend some time reviewing your book lessons and then try to get some sleep so you're rested." Imogen found that she couldn't argue, so he took his advice. In bed later, Imogen found that all she really needed was to hold herself against Dusty and then she was asleep in his arms not long afterward. -------------------------------------- Dusty was watching from the window of the flight center office when Imogen flew her return approach. The first part was out of his field of view, but he waited. He saw the last part and the barest landing, but after that, they were in the air again and climbing. Dusty knew then that they were flying 'touch and goes' - circuits around in the traffic pattern to practice short, final approaches to land for not much longer than a kiss of the tires against the runway and then back up to climb, go around and do it again. He sat and watched, liking this better, since he could see her like this every time as she came around to fly her short final. He watched very carefully, looking for wobbles or errors. He saw none. They flew three rounds and he saw them climb out for a fourth. But when they landed the fourth time, the small aircraft stopped and sat idling for a minute. Dusty wondered about it as he watched, sinking slowly into a sitting posture as he did. They just sat there for a moment. He could see that they were talking. Then the door opened and the instructor stepped out onto the wing and walked back to step down onto the pavement after closing the door. Dusty's ears stood almost straight up as he stared. The instructor pilot walked to the grass at the edge of the runway and waved to Imogen. The aircraft began to move then – with Imogen alone in it behind the controls! Dusty stood up, knowing what this was. Her instructor must have decided to let her solo today. Imogen was nervous, but she was fine otherwise. She had clearance from the tower in seconds and she shoved the throttle forward to the firewall as she released the brakes. The flight trainer was off the ground in a few hundred feet and she was climbing, raising her flaps as she joined the pattern and throttling back as she did. As she positioned herself for the turn to the downwind leg which would take her past the airfield on her left, she requested clearance for a full stop landing and the response was immediate; giving her clearance and taxi instructions to the ramp in front of the flight training center. Then she tried to roll her shoulders to ease the tension that she felt there. Dusty wasn't worried as he watched her drone past. He knew that she'd nail it, but still, he stared and tried to evaluate. Imogen added some flaps and some power to counter the drag of that as she prepared to come around into her first final approach all alone in a real aircraft. Her nerves had settled by then and it was all concentration as she added another notch of flaps. She did feel a pang of regret, though. To her, this part felt far too short. The tires squeaked and she was down, lifting her flaps and pulling back on the power as she rolled out and met her pleased-looking instructor a few minutes later as she came to a stop with a gentle nudge of the brakes. Dusty regarded the woman, and he saw that every time that she did this, it was a worry to her, no matter how good the student was, but she also felt some pride for them every time as well. Seeing her instructor's thumbs up and then her hand motion across her own throat, Imogen began to shut things down as the woman walked up the incline of the wing and opened the door to lean in and offer her hand along with her congratulations. There was some paperwork after that and Imogen booked another flight. Other than wagging his tail, Dusty did his best to look bored. She called him and he walked over to stand next to her so that she could put her arm over his shoulders. He sensed that she needed that now. As he stood so that he was against her, he felt that she was shaking very slightly. As they walked out together with Dusty hating the leash on him again because it was an airfield and everyone had insisted on it, Imogen stopped and she hugged him tightly for a moment before they ambled off together. She bought them each an ice cream cone to celebrate and Dusty forgot all about being cramped and bored. ------------------------- When they got home from shopping, Imogen asked him to change for her and she pulled him to the bed with gentle tugs using only one fingertip under his collar and they spent a long time just hugging and enjoying the way that it felt to be against each other. The kisses alone were worth it to them both. Imogen slid down lower and he asked. He didn't even feel stupid over what he saw as his dumb question as she took him in her hand and began to stroke him slowly. "Being with you like this gets me hot," she smiled, "For a girl, it's a want and we get wet from it. But for you, it's different. You've been hard here forever and I love you, so I'm gonna take care of this for you, ok?" "Ok, I guess," he replied, "It feels really good." But Dusty's chest heaved in a ton of air the next second. He even saw it as it happened, but he still wasn't prepared to watch as she looked down and slowly lowered her head and began to suck very softly. He was on his side and he moved then, mostly because he couldn't help it. They were very different physically, but that didn't change his want. He lifted his leg and laid it over her ribs, curling himself a little until he could kiss the top of her head. Imogen looked up then, as much as she could from the angle, since there was less range of motion to what she held in her mouth. She lifted her head and he watched as she licked it very slowly once. "Good?" she asked with a little smile and he nodded, "Awesome." She went back to sucking very happily, pleased out of her mind to be pleasing him. "What are you, ... ohh..." he groaned and it ended with a soft growl of pleasure. Imogen waited as she kept going. "What –uhhh, happens when I come?" Imogen giggled softly, stopping only long enough to get it said. "Don't worry," She licked him again, "Just come." Then she was on it again and reaching back on him, searching for his scrotum and finding it, she began to pet and stroke it, kneading just a very little bit and then cupping it, happy to feel the part that she could get in one hand as she did. Dusty's breathing quickened and he huffed quietly, reaching to hold her head carefully. Imogen worked him harder with her mouth, hungry for him now and it amazed her a little as his breaths became soft grunts. She had a thought that if he was a guy, a human one, it would have sounded stupid. From him, a sound like that only made her wetter. He grew harder then and Imogen tried to prepare herself. She'd never agreed to let Marchetti get his dick anywhere near her mouth because the thought of it with him grossed her out a little. She remembered how much there was from Dusty the night before last and Imogen figured that this could be a bit of a challenge. His final grunt turned into a quiet, but very deep groan a moment later. She felt his body tense and she hung on and began to swallow as soon as he shot into her mouth. 'Shot' became the operative word then, so she was even more pleased, liking the gentle force of it as he came. Imogen had never done this before, but she'd always liked the idea – with the right guy. The way that she felt about Dusty, ... well she was more than receptive to the thought now. There was a lot and she couldn't manage it all. She tried though; she really tried, loving the heat of it and the taste. It was thicker than what seeped from her after Marchetti and even Abi. But it was Dusty's, and that made all the difference. When she looked up after he had no more, she had it all over her face, but she was grinning. "I feel like a porn star," she chuckled, but it faded as she saw that he wasn't laughing. He moved then and she felt his tongue as he licked her face to clean it for her. Imogen closed her eyes, feeling rather loved from it. He surprised her when he lifted her very gently and hugged her then. Neither of them had any words to share for a long time after that. They weren't needed. He might be a lot larger than she was, and what they had between them couldn't be anything but pure strangeness to anyone else, but right then, Imogen felt that she was in the arms of her male. And for once, she felt so strongly that she was where she belonged. ---------------------------- When she did feel like speaking again, Imogen took some time, thinking of the best way to phrase it. She thought of several ways, but she finally said it the way that it felt best to her. Even so, she was slow about it, wanting to get her courage up just a little. "Dusty, can I ask you something?" He looked down at her upturned face, "Yes?" "I don't really know of a better way to ask this. I was thinking about what you said the way that your kind of people go about having relationships." "Go on, Imogen," he sighed stretching a little, "Ask me whatever you want." She hesitated then, because what she wanted to ask him felt very different to what she regarded as a human relationship. But after a moment, she saw that it was the same thing, only that it was done a little differently using slightly different, though more direct terms. "You're mine now, aren't you? You're my boy, unless I'm seeing this all wrong." He smiled then, and like this, it showed her his teeth, but in a very nice way, "I hadn't thought about that," he chuckled. But then he hugged her again and sighed as he lowered his head and kissed her very softly for a moment. "Yeah," he said, "I'm yours. You have an Ushandi male." "Don't you dare say something stupid now about being small or anything," she warned him from where her face was against his deep chest. "You'll annoy your woman, and even though we're different and I'm way smaller, well, that just can't be a good thing, just sayin'." ------------------------------ They spent the rest of the day in bed together, humping in a few different ways. Imogen found that she liked it all and liked being on her back to look up at him while she held her thighs around his narrow waist. If she was careful not to squeeze him too much, she found a new use for her 'thunder thighs', as she'd often thought of them disparagingly. She could keep him in place as he slid that hard thing over her slit, and once they really got going, she didn't need to wet him with her spit. He'd lower his head and just take her away with his ability to lick and suck her nipples. His balls felt great against her ass and when he came, Imogen definitely got that 'porn star' feeling as he sprayed all over her. She figured that most women wouldn't have liked that, but then most women didn't have a beast like Dusty to please them, either. She thought of it as just their hard luck. Dusty would lower that loveable face then and make her laugh as she squirmed under his tongue while he cleaned her up. Something else that she liked was to lie against him after that. He often had a 'follow-up' shot for her, if they hadn't done it for about an hour. That was a big surprise. He could come and then come again a few minutes later, so the second time, she liked to hump against his hard belly with him between her cheeks. It felt pretty good, though he had to warn her so that she could reach back to cover the tip of him with her hand when he came. She liked his semen. She liked how it was so very warm and she liked feeling it whenever she got some of it on her skin. It made her feel great and a little dirty in a very sensual way. But she wasn't going to allow any of it to get into her hair. ----------------------------- They'd been quiet for a time, just resting after Imogen had come back to bed with some cheddar melted on slices of the baguette that they'd bought. There were a lot of slices, but there was only one plate and it had been fun to nibble on them as they'd kept their faces rather close together to keep the crumbs on the bed to a minimum. Dusty was on his side and Imogen was lying against him, though with her head on the side of his chest. She was very happy for the way that the whole day had gone. But there was one thing, and she wanted to address it now. "Hey, can you lie on your back, Dusty? I was just thinking that I haven't seen you do that at all. Would doing that hurt you or something?" "No," he replied, "I sleep on my back sometimes. I guess that I just haven't since we've been sleeping together, that's all. It feels better to me just to hang on to my bare-skinned little teddy bear. Why?" His remark made her chuckle. "Nothing really," She pushed him, but he was too heavy, "Roll over onto your back. I want to try having my head on your chest like that." He moved then and Imogen wet her thumb and reached to begin stroking him. "Can't help it," she smiled from her new place on his chest, looking back at it. "Sorry, but with you like this, it gives me a better look at a really nice part of you." "I'm not complaining," Dusty smiled at the ceiling, "But I think I've come more times today than I ever have in one day before in my life." She raised her head to look at him then and he chuckled when he felt it, "It was a joke. I've never come as much in a ... week as I have today. I just don't know how much good it will be now." He was already hard again and Imogen lifted her head to move. "Don't worry about that, Dusty. There's just something that we've gotta do, the way that I see it." "What?" She smiled as she swung her leg over him and got onto her knees, "I've been thinking about things for a couple of days now, ever since I felt the way this was against me that first night, hard and hot as anything. I'm not the right kind for you, but I'm a female. You give a female something like that to consider as she's falling for you, and it won't be long before she has a few, uh, dozen dirty thoughts, like whether it will fit and how it might feel if she could take him in all the way." She lowered herself over him and began to move, rubbing herself along the length of him and bearing down just a little when she got to the tip every time. She wiggled a little then and began to slide back. It wasn't long before their breathing deepened and Imogen was wet. "I love anything that we do when we're playing together, Dusty, but I keep having one thought, over and over. The same thought comes into my head again and again." She leaned down and stopped long enough to stretch so that she could kiss him for a moment. "It's late and we've been fooling around all day. I know that you might not have one of your long and powerful sessions left in you and I don't mind. But that thought's there in my mind again and ever since I knew that you were mine, it's done nothing but get stronger. We're not the same, but we don't care and we love each other. Take away the first part, Dusty. Just think about the rest. We're a boy and a girl. All over this world, billions of humans are fucking together right now. Most of them are probably in love. What I can't stop wanting is to fuck with the one that I love – just like everybody else. I might be the only girl in the world who's in love with an Ushandi, but I see that as the best part. I've got my male, but you need to fuck me. Once we do that together, then we'll have each other all the way, the same as anybody. So I want to do it with you now. Just lie back and let your girl figure out how much of you she can take with you lying like this." "My girl?" he asked, raising his head a little. "Your girl," Imogen nodded with a soft smile, "That's what I am now. I just want to finish this and make us a real pair of lovers all the way, because I love you." She reached back and lowered herself at the same time, feeling where the end of him was against her lips and moving slightly to adjust. Once she had it, Imogen moved only far enough back to get enough of him inside so that she could lower herself to lie on him. She put her hands on his ribs and laid her head down with a soft sigh that Dusty could feel in his heart. After a moment, Imogen began to slide back onto her beast's spike in little motions, whimpering as it spread her wide and pausing to stroke forward a little bit for the next push. He wasn't so thick as to make this very difficult. Imogen was sopping for him anyway. To her, this was just something to be savored, just a pair of lovers sliding together. To her way of thinking, he had enough for her; plenty of length in other positions. But like this, she was pretty certain that he could reach her cervix, and it was better that she find the limit in her way rather than let him find it in his, as sweet as he was. Imogen stopped abruptly when she felt it. She considered things and moved forward, away from that contact to give them some room. Then she rose up and began to fuck herself on him in slow strokes with her head lowered and her long hair on Dusty's chest as she looked back between her legs, liking the view of what she was seeing. She sighed with every stroke, going slowly on and on as she got the hang of it. She raised her head and he reached to move her hair for her so that they could look at each other. She saw by his face that it was good for him and it made her feel even better. What made Dusty feel even better was to see the way that her eyes turned black in her love. "Look up into the mirror on the wall behind me, "he whispered, "Since you've never seen it before, what you'll see is a female Ushandi's eyes when she's in love." She looked up and stared at herself open-mouthed. "I've been seeing it in your eyes at times over the past few days, "he smiled, "but it's never been like this before. Some demons always have eyes like that, some almost never. But an Ushandi's eyes go like this when she means it, so I think it's the same for you. Thank you, Imogen. I love you too." Her intent for them had only been to fuck quietly for this first time. She knew they were both tired, so it was all that she'd have wanted; that they'd finally gotten far enough to fuck as a couple. But now it was different for her. What she'd seen and listening to him had caused her to want to see if they had just one more good fuck in them tonight. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 04 "We're good, ... good for length like, ... thi—this , Dusty. If we-re really a , ... a couple now, then – hhhhh – hhh! Hhh! Hhh! Fuck me." She lowered her head so that it hung down fully as she worked, "Fuck me but be, ... be gentle and don't go in HHH! HHH! HHH. Not far. HHH! HHH! Not hard. HHH! HHH! Baby, I love you and, ... HHH! Hhh! And I'm yours now. Please fuck me." Dusty got the message. He didn't understand the mechanics of what Imogen meant, but he'd do what she wanted. Imogen moved herself a little farther up as she felt how close he could come to hitting her cervix after that, but though there were no loud and long shouts or wails, they managed to fuck for a surprising length of time to her and she had several really good orgasms before he came with that series of grunts that she was beginning to love to hear from him. "You're such a beast," she smiled as she raised her head for another kiss afterward. "I know what Abi said and I mean that in the nicest way. Can we stay like this for a while? It doesn't tickle as your stuff runs out of me like this. I probably couldn't do that again tonight, but that was amazing." She lowered her head and sighed. "You're amazing, and I'm yours now, a troubled and um, introverted human, as Abi would say. What do they call females where you're from, I mean besides females?" He spoke the word and she couldn't understand it. "It's about the closest thing to us as when you say 'girls'." "You don't call them your bitches or anything like that?" she asked. He shook his head, "No, never. Why?" "Nothing, I guess," she sighed, "I like that you don't. Guys around here use that word way too much, and the only time that I feel like a bitch is when I'm on my period and feeling miserable. Then I'm a bitch, but it's just how I think to myself then. I don't know why they do that. It would be the same as if I called them stupid dogs, since that's the word and where it comes from. A male dog is called a dog. A female one is called a bitch." She felt an impression come to her and she tried to focus on it with her eyes closed. She saw a female Ushandi, a large one from her first impression, but then Imogen saw others and she guessed that the female was about the same size as Dusty, possibly larger, though she couldn't really tell from the low view. As things progressed, Imogen saw that most of the young males nearby were only a little smaller than the female, all but one who was just a little larger than she was. That one shook visibly as she stared him down with her lips pulled back to reveal her long teeth. Imogen thought that she recognized the males, but their demeanor was markedly different now. Imogen didn't hear any mocking laughter from them at all. Right there in her mind, Imogen saw the searing glare and heard the hot blasts of the female's breath as she stood before them all with her bunched muscles quivering in her anger. There was nothing said and the young males turned away, but it was too late for that. Without warning, the female lunged silently and the bloody fur flew everywhere, the motions far faster than Imogen could follow in her mind's eye. None of them had even a chance to run. As she noticed one turning to flee, the female knocked the one she was mauling flat to the ground and went after the would-be runner with her already-bloodied claws gleaming at full extension. Imogen she saw her tearing right through the ones she recognized as Dusty's brothers and their friends. She wasn't even taking names. She was just dishing it REALLY hard. It ended with her surrounded by beaten-down young males on the ground as she focused her rage on the largest one. He looked like a large, tortured and screaming soccer ball as she hunkered over him, holding him with her constantly moving, ripping claws until she sank her teeth in deeply with a low growl. From start to finish, that growl was the only vocalization that she made. A moment later, the female's expression turned into worried concern as her face came closer in Imogen's view. Her last impression was of the body of one Ushandi lying on his side in a slowly spreading puddle of dark blood, not moving. "Who was THAT?" she asked and Dusty chuckled. "My mother." Imogen's eyes opened so wide that Dusty thought they might leave her head. "Your mother? Holy fuck!" she whispered, "She was a machine – like a running, jumping, chainsaw food processor or something. She wailed the shit out of all of those guys at the same time! Your brothers again?" He nodded, "All four of them. The other two were their friends. Ushandi mothers never raise more than a palm to their young. But if you see your mother coming and you can see her claws clearly, then she's beyond pissed and it might be your last day." "The one who was lying down, ..." "Dead," he said. Imogen was astounded, "Dead?" Dusty nodded, "A friend of my brothers and the very worst bully there. He hurt me the most and urged them all on. She killed him for it. No one would have protected him except maybe his own mother, but she wasn't around or my mother would have ripped her apart like she was nothing to get to him. What happened to me was considered very tragic and serious by everyone, not that it made me feel any better. I thought I was dying from what they did to me before she got there. She carried me home by the scruff of my neck and she was already crying by then. I didn't walk again for many days because I couldn't stand up without feeling dizzy. Other than the royal ones, we often have our young in pairs. I was a late single surprise to my parents and I've always been small. Other than my middle two brothers who were twice my age, most of them were a little older and there were six of them. I was very young then. I guess you might think of a six year-old as a comparison. My brothers would have been twelve and fourteen, two pairs. The one who died always said that I shouldn't have been allowed to live. The things that he said hurt, but the beatings from them all hurt a lot more. All of my brothers always lied to our mother and told her that I was the one who was lying, that I'd annoyed all of my playmates every time that I came home beat up. Your mother always tries to see if it's too bad, but you're supposed to learn to fight with others your own age. I didn't do much of that because I always lost, since I was smaller than the rest my age. I didn't see any point to it, since I knew what would always happen. She'd stare at the marks on me and looked doubtful after a few times. Once, I saw her hold up her own claws to one of my wounds. I think she was checking for size and spread. That day it got out of hand because they didn't stop. I never had a chance when I tried to run. It was six on one. I never had a hope. I guess that one time when I really needed her, our mother must have figured it out or heard my screams and come for me. I was badly mauled and almost died from losing so much blood. I wore the scars for a long time. It was a good while before any of my brothers could get near enough to me to apologize. I forgave them but I never forgot and we weren't the same after that. Our mother left them all to lick their own wounds and wouldn't speak to them for days, other than to warn them to get away when she saw them come to try to say they were sorry. I guess she didn't trust herself to keep it at that. My father had to find them food because she told him that since they were such good fighters, then they could hunt their own as far as she was concerned. He did it, but he didn't speak to them either. He was angry and sad over what had happened. I heard my mother cry quietly for a few days. She was heartbroken over it and she never forgave the oldest two. Ushandi young are taught to care for each other. They were supposed to have been watching out for me. For them not to have protected me was one huge thing to her as it would have been to any mother there that I ever saw. But for them to have been a part of the attacks hurt her the most and she took it hard. A young Ushandi who won't protect a younger sibling is considered worthless and he loses the trust of his parents. One who joins an attack on a younger sibling who had to trust him to even have been led to it is almost a murderer to any mother – especially his own after about the equivalent of nine years old. That day. as soon as she saw what they'd done to me - what they were about to do, my mother saw that she had four sons like that, so it really hurt her. As soon as she knew that they could hunt for themselves, she threw the oldest ones out and they were never spoken of again. Not long after we got home, the dead one's father came to our home in a rage and my mother almost killed him too. A male is larger and stronger, but nothing on our world fights like an Ushandi mother for her young. From where I was lying, I saw that she didn't say a thing to him. He got one sentence out about killing all of us for the loss of his son. She left him with half a face. Since she must have felt a little better after that; she only maimed him then. He almost crawled away. I never saw him again. When my father led my brothers back home after hunting for them, he found out about it, and I never saw my father like that before in my life. I thought my mother was mean-looking when she was angry, but he looked like he was ready to kill anything then. He found out where they lived after a bit of hunting and he killed that couple, since there were no other young. What they should have done was come to apologize for what their son had done and offer any help they could – even in their grief. That's expected then. But if the male knew of it, then the mother had to know as well and he was there for the wrong reasons. We take things like that very seriously. I was never my mother's favorite when I was little. She never made a big deal about it, but we all knew that the oldest of us were her favorites. After that day and the months afterward as I healed, she treated me like a gift to her and I never forgot it. A long time later, after I'd grown up, the lord we both work for came to ask for one Ushandi. It was his right to ask, since he is our overlord, above even the king. He wanted one who was not large, but who had fine motor control. I'd met him not long before and he tested me. That day, he called out for me and I walked to stand next to him. My parents were really proud of me. I thought my mother was going to fall down. I've been back since, and my mother is known as the mother of the overlord's pilot now so she's looked up to there." Dusty thought for a moment to remember and then he said, "I always went out to play alone after I was better. My parents didn't like the idea, but it was either that or I wasn't going out at all. I never trusted my brothers again. If I even saw them coming while I was alone, I ran." He chuckled a little, "Nobody ever tried to get into a fight with me, though. My mother was famous after that day and nobody wanted to see her like that again. So everybody just left me alone." He sighed, "Now you see why no one ever refers to an Ushandi female with a word like 'bitch'. No such word exists in our language." "No doubt," Imogen said from under her raised eyebrows, now that everything about his shyness made sense to her. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 05 *** Nobody ever thinks about the people who make stuff happen. Or in this chapter, the ones who keep it all going. 0_o *** -------------------------- Hungary, mid-afternoon They were on the ground, inside the huge cellars under the abbey. It was where Abi's craft sat whenever it wasn't in use here. It was where a lot of the maintenance happened. Ouna stood near the end of a long passageway deep inside, waiting for the ground power to be connected and turned on. Not needing a whole lot of light ordinarily, she stood staring at banks of servo controllers, trying to guess which of them had failed just by looking. One of the horizontal stabilizer sections had been fluttering. It wouldn't have been a problem in some of the atmospheres where they flew. But it had failed in the sky over the Pacific Ocean. Earth's upper atmosphere was no place for control surface flutter. Then it had just locked up and stopped responding. She needed power to test and put the likely culprit through it's diagnostic routines. With no power, everything was dark and there was no way to tell which was what other than by looking at their dark shapes. Ouna gave up the game then and leaned back from the racks to wait for some light and power. Both came on a moment later. "THAT'S IT!" she bellowed back along the corridor so that her best friend would know - in case she didn't - that she'd turned on the right things. Ouna sighed and she leaned in again, looking for the controller on the right side of things craftwise, and she tried to find the first bank. After the failure had been noticed, the pilot had switched to the first-level back-up and they'd finished the flight on that. The failure report had been made out and now Ouna and Pob were here with a job to do. Since their regular pilot was now off on an assignment to train another pilot, it had been the demonlord himself who had experienced the failure. It put just a bit more urgency to things. The little indicators on all of the devices in what seemed like the miles of racks twinkled brightly to her wherever she looked. There still wasn't quite enough light here for her to see the identifier markings clearly, since they were in a bit of an overhang below the cable trays above, so she placed her hooves a bit apart and leaned the top half of her tall body forward after seeing safe places for her large hands. The posture was a bit strange, but she could see better now. She just had to be mindful of her horns. Ouna had started out as a trooper and she was built for that role, but she'd never liked the job very much. Too much dead time waiting to be called and drilling and practicing, weeks and weeks of it. She'd switched to tecking after a lot of training and loved it, though her muscular build could be a problem sometimes. She was a rather big girl in this not-so-big-world back here and she was oftentimes faced with the problem of having to get into the tighter, smaller places. She glanced down, remembering her breasts this time and she made sure not to lean in any further. The control power here wasn't too bad and would only sting if it bit you, but some of the output signals, ... Whoa... There was an almost-silent flutter in the air at the other end of the corridor as the other tech demon banked in her flight and sailed around the corner. Pob was a very bright and also very skilled higher order imp, and as such, she was quite the opposite of Ouna in a lot of ways. Her name was actually 'Pobsha', but if she liked you, liked the look of you, liked the idea of liking the look of you - or if you just told her that you liked her little ass, then you were in the 'Pob' club, because she didn't like the longer form of her name anyway. Both of them were very intelligent, Ouna being given to logical troubleshooting procedures; step by step and by the book, whereas Pob was much more intuitive and she sometimes seemed hasty to Ouna. By contrast, Ouna sometimes seemed plodding and slow to the imp, but they were best friends who loved to watch old Hollywood movies together. Old movies were about the only notable artistic achievements that the human race had ever done of any significance at all in their combined opinion. It influenced the way that they spoke to each other, each one trying to fit a cinematic reference in where she could. Pob could do a really good impersonation of a young Shirley Temple. Most times, it sounded absurd, but that was half the fun. The big girl had long, straight, dark brown hair which she kept tied back only when she was working, and while she could look as though she could be ... well, formidable in a bar fight – and she was on occasion, she was normally a little reserved and rather friendly, a large and well-built ex-soldier demon with long, lovely hair. Pob was flighty – in everything, not only flying. Her wild and wavy, never-completely-tamed black hair even reflected that tendency in her, getting in the way and hiding her small breasts when it wasn't hiding her pale little ass. She flew almost everywhere when they were here on the ground with no one on board since there was less chance of sailing into somebody's face. Besides, it saves a lot of steps for an imp. She had the sort of face which just spoke of what she was, though on her particularly, the wide face was required to hold her huge wasp-like eyes and it tapered down to a small point of a chin. She could be snide and almost brassy sometimes, but the truth was that she was always a little afraid of being stepped on if she walked very far, so she was a little quick to make her presence known with an often saucy remark. She only came up to Ouna's hip if she stood on her clawed toes. Ouna had wings too, though they were almost always kept hidden since there was seldom the space to open them even a little. She walked everywhere, often with Pob on her wide shoulders if the passageway was crowded. If the imp was walking and somebody knocked her down, they'd often feel themselves being lifted straight up and having nowhere else to look but into the cold glare of Ouna's eyes as she stood holding them up with her other hand drawn back into a fist until the apology was spoken – and it had better not be long in coming, either. Ouna never made much of Pob's diminutive size, but she looked out for her without a word being said. Pob looked ahead and saw Ouna. The way that the statuesque beast looked to her like that, bent forward with her majestic dark ass displayed so wonderfully and the way that those long legs were spread like that, ... well, it was asking a lot of her to keep her thoughts out of the gutter. But then, the act of breathing was often asking a lot to keep her thoughts out of the gutter as well. She landed and stared. After a moment, she thought back to when they'd begun. They'd laughed and joked about it together ever since it had happened, but besides being worlds apart body-wise, they admitted to each other that they were the strangest pair of lesbians that there just had to be anywhere. Both of them had always been straight, without ever having a single thought of being anything but. Well almost, anyway. Down deep, they'd had a few thoughts, but then, doesn't everyone at some point? But one of the downsides to being a tech type was that you were here when nobody else was. The job could have absolutely shitty hours if something major was wrong, and nobody gave you a thought unless things had gone down the drain and they needed you. Even then, they only hoped that you wouldn't be too long in getting things fixed. Then they forgot about you again. So they'd been straight, supremely bored, and above all, very sexually frustrated. One night when the craft sat stood down in the cellars and they were alone on it, Ouna had brought a little contraband booze on board and since they'd been told that for certain, they wouldn't be needed for at least a day; the two friends had gotten a little snockered together in their shared cabin. The subject came up and after a lot of grumbling and whining to each other as they compared notes over how long it had been for either of them, they found themselves almost in tears from their frustration as they admitted the facts to each other. They were stuck in a demonic existence which was populated by many demonic males who lived on a different timeclock and anyway, they hadn't seen even one with a brain worth speaking to. To girls as bright as they were, they would have liked to find one who was just a little smarter than the rest, though they agreed that they wouldn't quibble and they'd take what they could get if they really had to. But their jobs kept them on or near the craft most often. And most often, it was on the ground somewhere and deserted. With neither of them having the even the slightest prospect of a half-decent fuck on their horizons, things just looked bleak. Pob had made the bitter joke that they were so horny and so unlike each other, that they might as well become lovers, just to see where it went. "You never know, we might accidently do something right." After the laughter, Ouna leaned forward and laid down a gold piece, challenging her friend to put her money where her mouth was and kiss her, if she was that needy. Pob had taken another pull on the bottle, belched, fished a coin out of her hair from behind her pointed ear, and told the large female that she was on. That led to three minutes of silent staring between them. "I'm gonna pick up your coin if you don't do something soon," Ouna warned, "and good luck trying to get it back." "Yeah, well gimme a second, ok?" Pob grumbled, "Kissing something like YOU takes a bit of thought first." "Why? 'Cause you think I'm ugly?" Ouna chuckled, "You should have thought of that before you opened your little yap." "No," the imp replied with a deadpan expression, "If you hiccup in the middle of it, I'll be trapped until you drop your next load in the shitter. I don't want to risk losing a friend over this. I'm choosing my moment, alright?" Ouna laughed her ass off and told her that she was just chicken. But Pob shook her head, "It's not that at all if you want the truth. I always call you 'horseface', but I never mean it. To me, you're more like Black Beauty, but you're a girl. I happen to think you're lovely. I always have, Ouna. But I was thinking that if this stays a joke, then I'll feel even worse. I've got this notion that you and I are each other's last chance. That's why I said what I did. So hold the phone, ok?" Ouna's goatish eyes opened a little wider as she watched her small friend pull back her very long hair and tie it with a quick knot. It took a second to get that the imp was trying to show her body a lot more courageously that the ex-soldier had ever seen any imp do before. Imps were legendary for being horny little things, but she knew that unless they were actually making out with somebody, the females all hid themselves behind their hair. "I know I ain't much," the little imp said without expectation in her voice, "but I've always admired you, Ouna. I'm just hoping that I've got something you might like too, that is, without needing a magnifying glass. So if it's ok with you, I'd like to do this while I'm hugging you, because I think I'd like it best like that." There was another moment of silence while Ouna smiled very softly. Pob was about to ask for her coin back, beginning to feel uncomfortable when the large demon moved her own hair back over her shoulders, reached out slowly and took Pob into her arms to kiss her. That first kiss lasted a long time and there were many more after it. Much later, after they'd felt wonder at how it could have happened for them, the beast held the imp again and kissed her breasts for perhaps the fortieth time that night. She looked up into Pob's black and very wet-looking eyes and told her that if Pob wanted her love, then she was never to speak that poorly of herself ever again, unless it was in jest. "I've always loved your body too, Little Bird" she said, "I've so loved the challenge of trying for the quick little peeks that I could get once in a while. I just never thought that anything could ever feel this good." She looked at Pob's body again and laid the imp back so that she could press her face deep between those little thighs. Pob stood blinking as the memory faded. With a little hop, she was airborne, flitting as quietly as she could toward the finest pair of haunches anywhere. She was careful to land far enough away so that Ouna wouldn't feel the wind of it and then she stole closer, licking her lips in anticipation as her lover stood checking with her meter and scope. "You find anything?" Pob asked quietly so that she wouldn't startle Ouna. "Yeah," Ouna replied, "This is it here. The output pulses start out ok, but then they get ragged. After a minute, they start to fade a bit and then they just disappear. There's no responses to changes in input signals after that." "Great, I've got the replacement here," Pob said, "Kill the power to that one and we can swap it out." Ouna found the supply breaker and flicked it off. She double-checked that the faulty unit was dead and turned to look back as she felt Pob's hands and fingers on her bottom. "Pobby, ... aw come on," she sighed, "Not here, ok? There's still power all around in this section. Remember the time I leaned from what you were doing to me and my tit brushed a live terminal? I got a belt so hard that I couldn't touch my nipple for two days, and with you back there then, ... I don't ever want to see you out cold like that again." She thought for a moment and added, "Well not from something that I haven't done to you – something nice, anyway. I kinda like seeing you like that if I got you like that myself. Still, I always worry." Pob stood with her arm around Ouna's thigh, doing her best to look like a thoughtful youngster – big soulful eyes and all with her fingertip against her own lower lip and everything. It was a game they sometimes played. "Little Pobby wants her Momma." "Yeah, well little Pobby can wait a little while," Ouna said. "Come on and climb up on my back. The input conductors to this thing are almost tiny and you're a lot better at fiddly things. Gimme a hand here – and I mean HERE, not back there." "Ohh," Pob groaned, turning her head to lick Ouna's thigh for a moment, "You look so fine to me standing here like this. It just gave me ideas. I can't help it." "Then help me and we'll be done sooner," the large demon said, "This is a perfect example of what I was speaking to the boss about. We can troubleshoot and swap out, but we end up with a ton of busted shit in bins. We need somebody who can fix that stuff." Pob jumped up onto Ouna's hips and crawled forward effortlessly to lean out over her shoulder at the rack, resting her ribs against one of Ouna's large horns, "This is a perfect example of what keeps me frustrated. I always gotta keep my hands to myself. You promise that we can fool around later? I want to try this idea that I have." Ouna smiled and reached back to caress Pob's ass lightly, "Come on, don't be like that. You know I need my Little Bird. Nobody's ever done me like you. I promise we can play." It was done in two minutes. Ouna had straightened up and was cleaning up her things after seeing the right outputs from the new module. Pob was slipping the faulty one into the box which the new one had come in. She wrote three demonic characters on it with a black felt pen so that they wouldn't mistake it for a good unit. "NFG?" Ouna asked, "You always write that. I just write NG – no good." Pob looked up with a little smile, "I'm an imp, Baby. We tend to be a little fixated, you know? Besides, we have more colorful speech than you walking stepladder types. NFG – no FUCKING good. You see what I mean? Huh?" Ouna picked Pob up with a grin and held her on her hip as she would a child of her own kind, kissing her and tousling her very long hair. "As though I could ever forget what makes my Pobby tick." She set Pob down a second later as they heard footsteps far away down the corridor. Abi came around the corner, walking toward them. With the odd ability which he possessed, he appeared before them ten feet away the next instant and stopped after another step. "Fixed?" They nodded and bowed, "Good as new, lord." "Good," he smiled, "I was thinking about what you said and after searching a little, I believe that I have found someone, a human." "Human?" Ouna asked as Pob groaned, "Are you sure that we – I mean you – want one of them? They're weak and they can get sick, and anyway, they never last long before they get old and die off." "I'm aware of that," Abi said just a tiny bit pointedly, moving his hands to hold them behind his back as he leaned forward a little. He saw the slightly startled and confused expressions on their faces and he chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm not annoyed. I just wanted you to have the thought that we're team players and you can always say what's on your minds to me, but it's my team, right?" They nodded. "So it's my decision who I recruit. It'll be your job to get him uh, ... integrated and feeling comfortable. We leave to pick him up tomorrow. Very light crew on this run." He held out a bottle of good champagne, knowing that wine of any sort was the other notable achievement that the human race had ever done of any significance in the combined opinions of the pair. "I believe that it's your first Earth anniversary as a couple," he smiled, "And I know that you can't get off this thing as often as anyone else, so please allow me to provide you with this and my fondest best wishes to my lovely technicians." They were surprised and they bowed again as they thanked him. He turned away and as he began to walk, he spoke over his shoulder, "And get yourselves to a bed soon. I know they way that you both are. None of my business as long as everything runs the way that you keep it, and I've always thought that you make a wonderful pair because your personalities click so well. But get to bed. I hate to sound like a pig, but the scent back here is fantastic." He was gone the next instant and there was no one in the long corridor before them. After a moment, they leaned against each other laughing. "He knew about us!" Pob whispered, "I know we've never hidden it, but I didn't think he knew – and he knew about our anniversary, too." "He knows everything, Honey," Ouuna nodded, "It's what he is. He just knows." Pob looked up with a gasp, "Ouna, I can't count the number of times that I've had little fantasies about him and getting that dick of his inside me. Do you think –" Ouna nodded with a wide smile, "Oh probably, if he was paying attention at the time at all. I've had those fantasies too." She sighed, "I think that's why he always smiles at us so much whenever we talk to him. Come on Pobby, let's get out of here," Ouna grinned, "If we hang around here much longer, we'll be disobeying a direct order from a demonlord – and you know we can't do that." Pob jumped and flapped once to get onto Ouna's shoulders, reaching to take the long neck of the bottle in her small hand. "Fuck, he's a great boss!" Ouna nodded as she began to walk, "And fuck, he even brought us a chilled bottle. Get it off my tit, Baby. "Oh, sorry," Pob giggled. ---------------------------- "Ok, I don't get it," Ouna said as she spread out the large comforter on the floor when Pob came back after bringing the mop away from washing the floor, "We've got my big rack there where we usually sleep. We usually make love there too, after we tilt yours up and out of the way. What's with the comforter? Or are we gonna watch movies and fool around down here?" Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 05 "Never mind for now," Pob said, "Remember how you were standing in the maintenance section? I saw you like that and that's where I got my idea for this. So stand like that now and lean your head on my bunk." "My back is gonna just love you for this," the large girl said as she stepped over, "And why did I need to have another shower? "Oh shut up," Pob replied, "This is my dirty little thought. You know that I go along with every one of yours. And you know why you had a shower and why I had one too. You know us. I'm gonna lick your ass for you somewhere here." Ouna nodded and leaned down looking back, "Is this ok?" Pob shook her head as she walked over to turn on the dim little nightlight before turning the cabin lights off, "You're getting there. Keep just your arms and your head on my bunk and try to step back a little more. Come on, I saw your ass and wanted to play with myself right there just from one look all that way away from you. Shove that sweet thing out a little more for me and spread your legs a little more." Ouna groaned, "Why do your ideas usually leave me feeling crippled?" Pob stepped over and laid her hand on the beast's ass, "Because of the things that I do to you and how I make you feel," she said very softly. "Don't do it if this bothers your back. I just wanted to try something." Ouna's horned head slammed down on the covers, "Here we go. Pob plays her violin, Ouna gives in – again." "Yeah," Pob sighed, smiling very softly as she stepped back to admire Ouna's body, "I've got the finest beast anywhere, and she loves me enough to do whatever I ask of her. You're the best, Baby." "Fuck," Ouna moaned into the blankets, "I love you to death Pob, so I do these things for you when you ask. But please try to spread the butter just a little thinner, ok? I'm as ready as I'll ever be, trying to blindly trust an imp – even though she's MY imp. My mother warned me about imps. She just never said a thing about the most dangerous kind. Can we get started here? My tits aren't exactly weightless, you know." Pob leaned forward, looking very curious now, "I'm the most dangerous kind? I'm just a tech imp. What's so da-" "You're a girl and you love me," Ouna said quietly, "I love you. I didn't mean anything bad. I'm just standing here with my ass in the wind feeling stupid, that's all." "Don't feel stupid," Pob whispered as she stepped under Ouna. She reached up and began to caress the finest breasts that she'd ever seen in her life, "You give me just a little time, and I promise to make you feel very loved." Before Ouna could respond, she gasped as she felt Pob's lips on her, leaving those little fluttering kisses that she'd never felt before until they'd begun making love together the first time. It was something that imp mothers do for their little ones to make them giggle, Pob had told her, but she did it for Ouna and the large demon girl melted from them every time. "I love everything about you," Pob sighed softly from down below, "I love you more every day, Ouna. It's something that I can't help." Ouna moaned softly, her hooves stamping very quietly as she began to fidget, "Ohh, I can't even rub my thighs together," she groaned into the blanket. "You can do that, Ouna," Pob sighed after lifting her lips from Ouna's nipple, "I just don't want you to get very far along before I've got you ready." She went back to suckling very softly, not wanting things to get very far at this end yet either. As demonic females, they were both kinds out of the relatively few types who could produce an amount of milk if they were aroused. The majority of the many other types didn't do that at all. Most types of imps didn't, though Pob's sort could and did. For the types which could, the amount was far more if they were nursing and that required only an infant and then it was exactly the same as human mothers when they fed their young. What some breeds of demon females could produce during arousal was always far less than when they were nursing and it was a little thicker, and not as prone to leaking past their nipples. There was never a full feeling if she wasn't already nursing and a female usually offered it only if she felt like it. If the feeling wasn't there, then she felt no let-down. What Pob gave was a very small amount, though it was thick. The way that it made her feel, Ouna would kill to get it – if that was what it took. What she produced herself was thinner than that and she gave much more to Pob's hungry lips. She was larger by a wide margin than her lover and so if they made love often, Pob got enough for it to constitute about a fifth of her diet, and she was happy to get it when she could. She just didn't want it right now, so she was a little judicious in her loving of Ouna's breasts. She moved to get out from under Ouna and she was behind her before the other demon could complain over it. She ran her hands over Ouna's flanks as she smiled up appreciatively, trying at the same time to dodge that long and silky tail as it flicked along with the rest of the fidgeting. "My baby," Pob crooned to her, "My big sweet, beautiful baby. I love your ass, Ouna. I swear there's times that I almost can't keep my hands off you. Move your legs apart for me again? I want to get in closer to the thing I love so much." Ouna groaned and her hooves stamped apart a moment later. Pob began to kiss and lick Ouna's thighs, knowing that it would tickle her. She just had to remain aware of those hooves, that was all. She made sure to keep her own tail directly behind her. Pob decided that she couldn't wait and went to her toes to press her face in between those amazing cheeks. She'd gotten the quick glimpse on the way by and she'd seen the heavy dew on those lips under there. With Ouna standing this way with her ass jutting out, there was a lot less 'under' to it, which was one of the things that Pob had been thinking about. Her comment would have earned her a joking reply most other times. Ouna knew that the smaller demon girl was far past being only fixated on that part of her body. Ouna was quietly very proud of it, too. If she was walking and knew that Pob was behind her – and if she was in the mood as well – she'd often put a little jazz into her strut and add to it by flicking her silky tail too, just for her girl. She was always a little careful about it, though. There had been the one time that she'd heard Pob's cry from around the corner and she'd put maybe a little too much into her walk. Pob got one look as she rounded the corner and slammed into the wall. She thrust her hips out and moved them down to bring her labia even more into prominence, but Pob had gone right on by. She lifted Ouna's tail and pressed her face in deeper to begin licking Ouna's anus. She was very gentle about it, just the way that she knew that her lover liked it. She had to stand carefully because of the way that Ouna squirmed and stamped, though she could feel the way that the legs stayed spread for her. "Pobby, ..." Ouna sighed, "Oh, you sweet little bird, I love you for this." "Uh-hmmm," Pob groaned back as she pressed her face in once more and her fingers slipped into her own opening. She was so pleased that her little mental calculations earlier had worked out. For something like this, she'd have stood on a step stool if she had to, but it hadn't been needed. After many minutes, Pob pulled back and she eased herself down from her slightly cramped toes to begin to focus on those large, juicy lips before her. She licked and sucked to her heart's content, even more pleased that she hadn't stopped to nibble on the way to Ouna's ass. What she saw before she began was a little amazing. Droplets of Ouna's moisture. Compared to what Pob could produce, there were large droplets there everywhere on them. A regular cornucopia, she smiled to herself as she kept busily harvesting them with her lips and her tongue. Once she had the current crop gone, Pob leaned her head back and moved in, looking for what she'd seen there waiting for her, already there as she'd been on her way up earlier. She pulled back, deciding to look for a moment. Ouna was a big girl. One of a large breed. She was proportionate in her playthings back here – all except for one detail. Ouna's large clitoris hung down like a small dick from the end of her long slit, glistening softly and waiting for only her. Pob shuddered with a very small and quick climax from only the thought. This had been what it had all been for, Pob's filthy little thoughts. It was another way that Ouna was gifted. The way that she was made and where everything was on her, standing like this exposed it all to an imp's mouth. What hung there almost throbbing in her view was another gift which Ouna had been given. As it had been explained to Pob, a thing like this was unusual for Ouna's kind. Pob had asked the very first time that she'd seen it, wondering if it changed anything for her, saying that she imagined that there might not be a lot of clitoral stimulation with a male, but Ouna just shook her head, "It might, with a really small one, I guess. I've never had any trouble. It usually doesn't stick out that far – unless I stand so that my ass is sticking out. I think it hangs down then if I really get going. Even so, I've come really well from any guy who fucked me like that." So it had become just a detail about Ouna's body to Pob, who loved to tease it gently sometimes. Other than that, it was forgotten – and then remembered that day as Pob had stood staring. After trying to think of how this might go, Pob hoped that for two girls who loved each other, it might be the finest thing. After only a few licks which caused her large lover's flanks to quiver, Pob was gone, out of there and moving quickly to get under from the front. She looked at her own hand as she closed her fingers and thumb tightly, looking carefully for any hint of her claws. She was an imp. Just a little thing compared to her lover. What she was looking at and thinking of probably wouldn't amount to much of anything. She just hoped that she could make Ouna feel good, well, ... as good as she'd been able to until now. For all of their joking and everything, Pob had really come to love Ouna very much. She tried to drag her arm between her own legs. It wasn't very efficient, but she did manage to get some of her own juices on it. Then she did the same thing along Ouna's large lips a few times and got a lot more, wondering why she'd bothered with her own. Pob moved her arm out and bent it back at the elbow and then began to nudge her fist against Ouna gently, but with some persistence all the same. Ouna groaned as she felt herself being opened, "What are you d-OHHHHhh." Pob's small hand was in past her knuckles. She held it there for a moment before she twisted it slowly, back and forth for a few moments. Then she just sank it in slowly all the way, watching Ouna's long legs quiver and feeling as though she might have had a good idea with this. Ouna clenched on her arm and it wasn't too bad, Pob thought. Right then, Pob saw what Ouna had been talking about. As she fucked Ouna, she felt and saw the way that her clitoris dragged on her arm as is slid in and out. That was why Ouna didn't feel any less clitoral stimulation. Pob was a little proud of herself for making the discovery. And of course, as what she was, there was always the possibility of an impish thought or two passing through her mind. They were like busses to humans. There'd be another one through in a few minutes, no matter what. Pob began to fuck Ouna a little more, wanting to laugh a little. She'd heard this called fisting. To a girl like Ouna, this couldn't be more than double-fingering. She looked up, careful not to prod Ouna with her little horns from underneath, thinking a moment and then she smiled as she changed her voice to sound very small. "Little Pobby loves her Momma. Little Pobby wants to make her Momma feel good, so Pobby fucks Momma." Ouna was trying not to chuckle at the absurdity of this. Besides, it felt great to her. She sighed and thanked her 'Little Pobby' as she began to push back against the motion slightly. Pob didn't want that. Ouna could break her arm without effort like this. She ignored the awkwardness of the slightly bent position as she tilted her head back and opened her mouth to suck that wonderful thing for her girl. She didn't know what was normal for Ouna's kind, but if she thought of human measure, she was sucking on over four inches of fat clit here. Ouna stamped her feet even more and she moaned in pleasure. She wanted to jump a little every time that Pob moved to take all of it in and then slide her wonderful little lips all the way to the end. It happened over and over and Ouna quivered and shook. Pob hadn't forgotten, though. She fucked Ouna a little slower that was all, and admonished her to not move. "Oohh, .. uuurrrhhh, ... Pobby, ... Pobby, I want you," she moaned, and Pob listened for the heavy breaths as the signpost that she wanted to hear. "Pobby, I –I need you. ... Now or, ... or soon. I ca-an't hhelp it!" Pob began to ease her hand back and she withdrew it after a moment. "I know," Pob said with a little laugh as she got out from under Ouna to step away. When Ouna looked back, Pob was standing in about the middle of the comforter with a grin as she toyed with herself, "What are you waiting for? Come over here and fuck me, you big thing." Ouna stood up, intending to just step over, but ... She did step over, but then she had Pob in a tight grasp as she kissed and nibbled under her jaw carefully. "What now?" she asked in almost a growl, "I thought you'd be lying down for me." "We always try to do that," Pob smiled, giggling from the way that this tickled her, "You're too big to lie on me. I had this idea today, and I think it'll work. Just try to get to your knees if you can." For somebody who was built the way that Ouna was, to get to her knees was a bit of an undertaking, but she did it, struggling a little. Before she could look up, Pob was against her, rubbing herself on Ouna and getting one leg up. She looked up into Ouna's eyes, "I'm not sure about this one part. I want you to try to stand if you can once I get both legs around you. I want to you to fuck me standing up." Ouna's eyebrows rose at that, but then she smiled. As soon as Pob had both legs up and said it was good after they'd groaned to each other from Pob getting them together, Ouna stood up slowly. The actual stroking took a little while to figure out, but then they had it and Ouna was bouncing her happy little imp against her belly and they were groaning together. Pob came over and over from the way that her own clitoris was being ground and pounded against Ouna and after a little while, it began to feel just a little uncomfortable. But Ouna saw it and bounced her harder in a different way somehow. The room flew all around her from Pob's point of view, but she came again from it. When Ouna came, holding Pob and still stroking slowly, Pob went for the dramatic pose relaxed to hang like a rag doll from her lover, her head hanging back and everything. She was careful to hang on with one leg so that she could keep her weight from hurting Ouna, since she was worried about that. Ouna loved it and how it made her feel. After the moment, Pob disengaged herself from Ouna's subsiding clitoris and asked Ouna to stand as she stepped down and back a step. Then she moved forward and pressed her face against Ouna's mound, so happy to have found a way past what had always been an obstacle for them. "That was fucking amazing," Ouna chuckled quietly as she stroked Pob's head, "Thanks for turning me into your stallion, Baby. I really felt like that at the end when you hung there. That was a nice touch." "Ok, I've been fucked in other ways by you before, but now I can say that I've been fucked by my girl stallion," Pob grinned back with a chuckle, "I don't think that we can do it that way every night, but that was really great for me." "I didn't even think that we could do something like that," Ouna said thoughtfully, but Pob shook her head. "Wait til next time. I've got LOTS more ideas, now that I know the ways that I have to place you. Did you like it when I fisted you? Was it enough?" Ouna chuckled, "Better, once I figured out what you were doing. We need more mirrors in here. I'd love to get a look at it as you do that. Was I big enough?" Pob nodded as she looked up, "You used to make me want to laugh a little when you said you wished that you had enough for me so that we could just fuck, a girl like you sounding like you had penis envy. You do have enough. I can take something pretty big with a little time to get used to it, but Ouna, what you've just made me happy with is more than a lot of imp guys have. And now we know that it'll work for us! Trust me, I'll figure out some other ways for my stallion." Ouna nodded and then she seized Pob, turning her upside down as she sank to her knees again. Pob was about to ask what she was doing, but then she felt Ouna's lips on her labia, already working the magic that she loved. She just wasn't used to hanging upside down like that. But she got past the unusualness and found that she liked it, and hanging her arms limply on the comforter. It ended the usual way; with Pob screaming her head off for Ouna and being laid down carefully and feeling like a happy puddle while Ouna lay on her side and held her. But then Ouna was nuzzling, working her way down a little. Pob knew what she wanted and just that thought caused her to feel the let-down, so she rolled onto her back with her upper body and just enjoyed the feeling of quiet pride from watching as Ouna's goat-eyes turned as black as her own from her milk. "My baby," she groaned, easing her head back down when Ouna went for her other nipple, "Oh, I love my big, dark, beautiful mare." ------------------------- Idaho, 1PM Reed Benedict ground along the dirt track in his truck. Since leaving the 23 miles of paved road to the little town behind, he could now look forward to 17 more in four wheel drive through the dirt to his retreat. He made a face at that thought. He was hiding from the world with his twenty-seven year-old tail between his legs and he knew it. The place was his uncle's and he'd been given the use of it for the summer and a little way into the fall, when he knew that his uncle would be there with his buddies to get drunk and play cards while pretending to do some hunting. Reed would have to rejoin the human race before then. He'd always been on the big side and worse, Reed had always had a bit of a clumsy air to him. It wasn't the way that he actually was, but to see him for only a moment caused some people to begin to fear to be in front of him when he fell down. Which he never did. In actual fact, Reed was very intelligent and his hands were as deft and supple in their dexterity as a heart surgeon's whenever he worked on any electronics. He had all the tickets. He had no idea when he might be able to scratch up enough money to pay off his student loans, but he was certified out the ass to work on anything electrical or electronic in nature. It was always what he'd wanted to do, but he couldn't find work. He just wasn't what fit in the minds of any potential employers. Mindful from midway through adolescence of the way that his body had of wanting to turn to fat, he'd worked out since then. It gave him an impressive physique, but that seemed to scare off job interviewers even more. Over a few years, Reed finally came to the root of the problem. You can be big, but you have to exude grace. You can be built, but you have to be handsome – at least somewhat. You might be what people can tell themselves they need in an engineer then. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 05 Reed sighed. He looked like a recruiting poster for the Marine Corps without even trying, and not the handsomely rugged kind. Just rugged - the nothing but mean-looking and rugged kind. And it was worse when he smiled. Because then, he just looked nuts, if not downright goofy. He could have saved himself thousands in loans if he'd just learned to be an electrician and spent half of the rest on cosmetic surgery. The only current bright spot in his life was the strange female back at the lodge. He didn't know what he was going to do with her, but she liked him, as odd as she was. They'd met one day on the trail back up from the lake and that had been it. He couldn't get over it. She was built like a slightly small but lovely woman, but she looked like someone who was into the 'furry' lifestyle so much that the zipper to her costume couldn't open anymore. He'd checked and seen no zipper. She looked like a woman in a dog suit, though the holes were in the right places. And she talked funny. But being the virgin that he'd been until he'd met her, he was infatuated with her anyway. She'd said that she thought that being tied up might be a little fun after he'd mentioned it. At least, that was what he'd thought that he'd heard. So that was the way that he'd left her and gone to town to get groceries for the week. By the time that he got back, he figured that she'd have been like that for a little over two hours, so she'd probably be pretty hot for it by then. ------------------------------ She was hot long before he had his thought. She was pissed. Since he'd been not bad as a lover after the first long bit where she'd had to convince him that it was alright if he wanted to fuck her, she'd decided to spend a few days with him before moving on. But it had turned into almost three weeks now. He was good for her, since she seldom found human males to be worth much more than a little fun, but he wasn't good enough for this long. She'd been trying to think of ways to break the news to him that she was leaving, but he'd come up with this stupid idea and left! Now she wasn't wondering about what to tell him. She was wondering if she ought to kill him. She'd chewed through the gag in her mouth not thirty minutes after she'd heard him drive away, and she'd been talking to herself ever since, trying to figure out this odd turn in his mating habits. "Ooooh," she grumbled, "Zele did not want this. She cannot understand why she is tied with ropes while he is gone. What for? And why can't she be on a bed? Zele does not like lying on the floor in the corner. Reed does not make Zele's little place feel that good so that she wants to lie in the corner. Nothing feels that good to her." She tried to break the ropes, but found instead that it hurt her to strain against them like that. "If Zele has to chew through the ropes also, ... "she fumed. But that was what it had taken. With the last rope off and spitting repeatedly from the mouthful of fibers, Zele got to her feet and stepped to the door just as the truck crested the last rise. Reed slammed the selector into park and ran over. "Zele, where are you going?" She was walking, obviously angry and she ignored him for his own good. "Zele wait!" he cried, "Don't go." He reached out for her arm, "I thought we had something." He wasn't sure what happened after that. She'd spun around and then he was looking at some huge dog-thing who looked to be made out of stone, but the pieces were quivering a little. He stared, but that was how he knew that she was pissed at him. That, and the way that her hot breath was uncomfortable enough where it hit his stomach to almost burn his shirt off. He stepped back. He'd never seen an animal whose eyes glowed red before in his life. "Reed had nothing with Zele," the creature hissed hotly in a low, rasping monotone, "Zele has been trying to think of ways to tell Reed that she wanted to leave. Reed tied her up. Reed is lucky that she didn't kill him then when he did not listen to her. Zele leaves now." The creature turned and walked off around the corner of the building out of his sight, furious and wondering to herself why she just hadn't killed him. There was the older, original building back there thirty feet away which had been turned into a garage and storage building a few years ago. Between her and that building was a grizzly bear who'd been snooping for food. Seeing only that it was in her way and not knowing what it was or what it wanted, Zele's paw flashed out as she walked past and knocked the bear hard enough so that he landed inside the dark, open door of the garage, stunning him. She walked around the building and along the ridge, glad to be on her way once more. She looked up after a minute, out across the valley below and up at the sky. The sunny afternoon was quite obviously over. Down below, the large expanse of tall, lush green grass blew fitfully in rippling waves from the sudden wind. The sky had gone completely overcast, and from the deepening gloom, it looked like rain very soon. Zele didn't care as she walked on, her temper beginning to cool a little. She stopped then, looking out once more as something came to her. It looked like rain, but it didn't feel like rain coming. It didn't smell like that either, and the wind was wrong in it's direction and strength. She saw the flickering in the clouds and heard the threatening rumble, but overall, it just didn't feel right to her. She suddenly didn't care if it did rain right now. This didn't feel right somehow. She turned the corner in the path which took her around the edge of the ridge into the next valley – where it was still sunny, and only looking a little dark from the way that whatever it had been back there seemed to cast everything into darkness. Reed stood rooted to the spot for another moment, wondering what he'd just seen. Fuck that, he thought, what have I been doing with that thing for all this time? He looked up, feeling the wind and wondering about the sudden shift in the weather for a moment. After that, he stepped around the corner and seeing no one there, he was about to go back for his groceries in the truck when he heard a low grunt from the direction of the garage. He spun back and tried to see into the darkness of the open door. "Zele?" What stepped out of the doorway then was plainly annoyed, though the thought of eating this weak-looking thing was a little pleasing. Reed even knew somehow, right then, that his day had just tanked and that this was not that strange girl. He turned to run for his life. ----------------------------- "I see him!" the sensor suite operator called out, "He is being attacked by a large creature!" Abi wanted to slap his forehead. He couldn't land anywhere close by. He wondered why, if he was such an accomplished lord, that it had never occurred to him to equip this great big thing with a way to rappel his people down from a hover at times like this. The grass in the valley rippled even more as a long swath of it was flattened under something very large and long. There were no human inhabitants anywhere in the valley or on the two mountainous slopes which overlooked it. If there had been, and if they'd been watching, they'd have seen the grass spring back up to continue waving in the wind a moment later. They'd have seen the two beings who were left behind as whatever they hadn't seen departed with a muted roar. Pob flew away, headed for the slope up as fast as she could go while Ouna slogged through the tall grass as quickly as she could. Pob could fly like this. Pob could fly in anything because she weighed little in comparison. Ouna was looking at a tailwind and she was in soft dirt. By then, Reed was on his back, beaten, bleeding and unconscious as the bear paced around him a few steps away, thinking in his slow and bruin-ish way about the best place to begin his dining experience. Reed opened his eyes and groaned quietly. There was a whistling screech then, growing louder very quickly and the bear looked up. Which was what Pob had wanted him to do. She didn't have any weapons, other than her claws, but she made use of them as she raked his face for him, in and gone long before he swung at her in pain and rage. She flew off through the trees, looking for a way into the clearing from another direction. When she came back, the bear was thinking of trying to eat again, but before he got more than a step closer, she sailed in silently and ripped the back of his neck and the top of his head open, tearing one ear most of the way off. Demons don't understand bears and it goes both ways. The bear's pain level had gone beyond what he felt that the meal was worth to him. He ran toward the crest of the slope down, shaking his head to try to clear some of the blood from his eye which ran freely from his forehead. Reed was only beginning to have the thought that he might live, though he hadn't tried to move yet. He'd seen some of what had happened, but he had no idea what the other thing was which had attacked. He was too messed up to even wonder about that. Ouna didn't know it, but as she reached the crest, she was blocking the bear's planned exit. They almost collided and after this sort of day, the animal was much more inclined to strike first than try to observe anything more. So that was what he did, knocking Ouna partially over and into the branches of a low tree fifteen feet away. By now, Reed was in the first stages of his coming agony, but he was still with the program enough at this point to stare at the third being which he didn't recognize as she looked around and saw her ruined weapon. But Ouna had been a trooper once and she still had her armor, so she'd worn it today. The chest plate fit a little poorly now with a grooved dent in it near enough to one of her breasts to make it uncomfortable. It came to her that a couple more belts to her armor like that last one and she'd have trouble breathing. Reed stared as she got to her uh, hooves – which just couldn't be anything other than the effect of the slight dizziness that he felt. He'd never seen anyone or anything like this. As the bear sidestepped a little, wondering about whether to run off or beat the fuck out of something for all of the searing pain that he felt, Reed kept staring at his opponent. Whatever it was – and a female, unless he was completely delirious now – had horns. She looked like some dark, insane Viking without a sword. The bear made his decision and reared up, bellowing loudly. Reed's eyes nearly left his head as he watched the strange being pull off her helmet – which until that point, he hadn't recognized as one. The horns remained and he looked at her dark skin for a second. Her eyes looked odd, all of her looked strange, but by then, he'd guessed that he was pretty badly fucked up. He had to be, to be seeing things like this. She had teeth herself. He saw that because she smiled for a second, tilting her head in an almost playful way – before she roared right back at him. The animal lunged then, but from Reed's view of things, he looked as though he'd been yanked back by a cable to land almost on his back a few yards away. He was back up in a second though, but she'd closed the distance and he saw her plough him again. He tried to run back in Reed's direction, reaching the conclusion for the first time in his adult life that he wasn't the king of the world. But she was already there in front of him again and she hit him four more times faster than he could follow, other than by the sounds of the impacts. Reed saw the breeze ripple the fur on the bear's back for a moment. He didn't know how he knew it, but he knew that the bear was dead. The smaller one was back, he noticed and this time, she was motionless for long enough so that he could get a better look at her – since by the little boobs on her chest when the wind blew her hair away for a second, it was obvious to him. Then he saw the other one as she walked up, holding her broken weapon. He heard them growl and screech to each other. He thought that he ought to be pissing himself about here. But then he remembered that he'd already done that when the bear knocked him flying the first time. After a moment, he began to understand them in his head. From what he gathered – if he wasn't wrong, they were concerned for him and his current state. Just another thing in this insane day which didn't make any sense. The smaller one was over him then, looking down at him and speaking to him. "You have been injured," she said as he blinked at her, "My friend will take you to where we can ride to a place where you can be seen to. We have nothing here for that." He looked into her strangely shaped and completely black eyes. "Are you aliens?" It came out weakly, but she heard it. She looked at the other one, "What does he mean to say?" "He means strangers from another place," the big one said, putting her helmet on again. The smaller one looked at Reed, "I'm not sure what you mean, but I think that to you, we must be." He felt a little fear as the other one stepped into his view so that she took almost all of it as she spoke to the other one. "I'm sad that this happened Pob, but this was what I meant. They're weak and they tend to die if you're not careful. He's a mess. I don't know if even Evaine can help him. We'll have to hope he lives at least that long." She looked down at Reed for a moment. "To complete your confusion, Reed," she said, "I will carry you now. There is no other way to get you down from here to the flat place below. We will travel to another place then where there will be help for you. We would prefer it if you could try not to perish, if possible." As he tried to consider it, she picked him up carefully, but she didn't look to be straining that much. She hefted him very gently only once and she dipped a little as she changed her hold on him, and then she began to walk. As she neared the crest of the rise, the wind had picked up again and the sky was darkening once more. Reed watched as the smaller one flew past him, carrying the wrecked weapon. The next thing that he knew, he was flying too, borne in the arms of the large one as she glided down toward the valley floor. "Who are you?" he asked, though the rush of air past him seemed to steal his weak words from him. He watched the little that he could see of her wings above them. She heard him, but she didn't look down. "It doesn't matter," she said, "We came to pick you up. My lord had thoughts of work for you with us. But that was before." She almost looked down at him, thought she didn't, changing her mind. "Now, I ... I don't know. I don't know much about humans. I only repair things, not beings. If you have any control over your own life or death, my advice to you now, ... " She did look down at him then, though it only lasted for a second. She looked ahead then, and he felt them slowing. "Try not to die." He was in a maelstrom of wind then, as they moved to get him inside of something which he couldn't really see much of at all. Nothing around him really had anything other than a strange, rippling shape besides the two females. He was being carried along a long passageway then, still in the arms of the larger being. The maelstrom caught up to him then and Reed closed his eyes. It had been a challenge to do this way, especially given that he was so far away at the controls, but Reed's life was 'suspended' for the moment. Abi's eyes scanned the instrument panel in front of him and turned the craft for the quick return to the abbey. He needed speed now, so to get that in this atmosphere meant that you had to get above it. He waited until his wide and gentle turn brought him back to the path which had led him here. Nearing it, he turned to parallel it and then he pushed the throttles forward and pointed the nose higher. There would be atmospheric disturbances and phenomena from this, but Abi didn't care now. There was trouble near the abbey. Outside, the lightning flashed and the thunder of it rolled as the rain began to pelt down on everything. The grass found it's freedom once again as the weight of the invisible mass lifted away. Moments later, the wind began to ease off and the rain continued, but more gently now, without the wind to drive it. Miles away on another mountainside and just beginning to have thoughts of trying to find a place to bed down for the night, Zele the walking mystery inside the guise of a hell hound heard the thunder and looked back for a moment and moved on. -------------------------------- He saw the pyre on his way in. A probing raid from somebody. Abi didn't recognize the name in the report he'd heard during the descent . He just needed to see how bad this was. As he saw the opening begin to widen for them, Abi shifted things to slow them and they descended straight down inside. Reed was taken off, but would have to wait until the wounded had been assessed. There wasn't much to it, but somebody looked at you and it was lights out if you were too far below standards – assuming that you healed quickly as well. The more that he saw, the more the little smouldering spark in his heart grew for somebody, whoever it had been. "What happened here?" he asked one of his legates. "Makes no sense, lord," the demon replied, "they showed up, wiped out the sentries and stood down as we came out to respond. We're holding them." Abi looked over, "Why?" "They said that they came to meet you. Said that they had matters of mutual interest to discuss with you, my lord." Abi looked around for a moment, "What has this cost me?" The legate thought for a moment and replied "Forty-eight, my lord; twenty-nine dead, nineteen who can fight again in a time." "Legate," Abi said quietly as he looked down, "I was elsewhere and busy. Your job is to keep things stable here and above all, quiet and unremarkable. Please tell me that the effects of this have been hidden from the humans." With the legate's nervous assurances that nothing had been seen, Abi looked up with a reddish gaze and thought for a moment as the legate held his gaze steadily and did not look away. "There are other ways to try to arrange a meeting with me. Killing my sentries is not one which I favor. Do not make a misstep like this again. Take me to them." As Abi approached, the obvious leader looked up, young and full of himself. He began to walk over with an obvious swagger as Abi tried to place him, wondering who he might work for and why this had been done. The leader bowed low and introduced himself. He was nobody. Mercenaries. And not one known to Abi by reputation. After he'd learned what he'd sought to know, Abi looked at them as their leader showed the poor judgement of not seeming to be able to shut up. He pointed to one or another and spoke a little of how good they were and what they'd done. "So you did this to get my attention?" Abi asked, "You didn't think of maybe a pair of you showing up at the gate to ask about service?" "We're not interested in service, the demon said, "We're here to offer to work for you. Imagine what we might do to your enemies, lord." "Besides please them by doing as you have?" Abi asked, "No, thank you." That shut him up. "You did all of this, and the covert approach alone must have taken a week for it not to have been noticed by the sentries whose blindness has now cost them. All of this to ask me for work?" The young demon nodded with a smile, "Fortune rewards the bold." His face registered surprise and then it shifted through pain and then reached agony as Abi stood before him. Two of the mercenaries gripped their weapons and disappeared in a red mist as they screamed. The rest stood motionless. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 05 "And disaster rewards the foolish," Abi smiled. The pain which had no physical cause grew worse until the leader stood on his toes shrieking, breath after breath. When Abi judged that he couldn't take much more without losing consciousness, Abi held it right there. And sent the demon to the Abyss forever. Abi looked at them, wondering how much of their individual efforts might have been driven by the youthful charisma of the now-departed idiot. His attention was drawn by the sounds of a hell hound in the distance, baying mournfully and howling. Just the sounds at all were unusual. Hell hounds only vocalize between themselves and that happened seldom. They can speak a form of infernal speech, but rarely do that unless they must. They can understand any human speech, but they cannot speak those languages themselves. Every one of them always look out for only themselves. They might work for someone, but only for a price. And there was one howling in grief. Abi began to walk. He had to see this. A hell hound in grief. What next? The mercenaries only watched, none of them foolish enough to ask what was to be done with them. He found the beast sitting next to the body of one of his soldiers, groaning as though he was heartbroken. The beast backed away at his approach, but not far. Abi rolled the large body onto it's back. Young, he thought, but strong. Abi's eyes looked over the soldier and he saw about everything that he'd have wanted to see in one like this as one of his soldiers. He even had well-developed and articulate-looking fingers which indicated that he could have many paths. Someone like this could have quite a path ahead of him if he had a brain in his head. He stopped then, wondering and sensing. The soldier was not dead. Abi looked into the eyes and saw nothing. They almost looked like clear glass spheres, though not quite. There were no wounds. He sat down on the ground and looked at the animal as he passed slowly around them, groaning quietly at intervals. This didn't make sense somehow. "Friend," he said quietly, "I have never seen one of your kind like you, who mourns the loss of anyone, not even one of their own kind. Why?" The animal looked up, "He found me when I was small and lost. I can remember no parents. He always fed me and cared for me. When I grew up, I remained at his side always." He sat down heavily and Abi felt it in the ground. The beast moaned. "I have lost everything." Abi knew that something like this was not allowed in his ranks. Soldiers could not have pets. "I was no pet and I am not tamed," the animal said quietly. Abi looked over and knew that the beast had heard the thought. "Come to me, friend," he said trying to smile. "I can at least give you my touch in your sadness." When the beast stepped over, Abi laid his hand on the massive shoulder and the beast felt a little better. "Did you see this? If you can, tell me what happened." Over the next few minutes, Abi learned that the mercenaries had a mage among them. He wasn't surprised, since it accounted for the thoughts which came to him from the group. He got to his knees and then told the hound that he sensed no mind in the body. What was there were aspects of personality and not much more. Then he waited while the animal cried for a time. In his long life, he'd never even heard of such a thing. The mercenaries looked up as Abi returned later, carrying the soldier over his shoulder with a hell hound at his side. He looked at them in silence for a minute and asked which one was the mage, since it wasn't apparent, though Abi already knew. There was no reply. "This hound saw everything. If you know anything at all about them, you know that their minds cannot be confused from outside of their hard skulls. If I need to ask again, whatever you have for skill will be gone and the hound may do as he wishes to you. A hand rose slowly and Abi nodded, "I have a task for you. You," he said to them all, "now work for me. Questions?" They looked at each other for a moment and one of them spoke up. "What terms do you offer?" He disappeared screaming in a cloud of red mist. The rest stared. "Does anyone else have questions?" Abi asked. "Good," he smiled, "You come with me," he said to the mage, "the rest of you speak to the legate there." He led them away. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 06 ***A further look into the lives of Abi's tech people. ~chuckle~ Some assembly required. I make mention of African Wild Dogs in this. Google them if you don't know what they are. They're endangered these days. ~sigh~ Everybody's got a gun over there these days. I think. 0_o *** ---------------------- Hungary, under the abbey "What did you do with his mind?" Abi asked as they looked down at the body on the table before them, "Was it sent somewhere? Can you retrieve it?" The mage demon shook his head, "It is scattered and gone. Why, lord?" "Nothing much," Abi replied as he considered the lost potential value of the stricken demon for a moment. He felt a little regret that he'd had one like this and hadn't known it. He quietly resolved to have all of the many section leaders look at their people for someone like this and recommend them to his personal attention. "I am only thinking that if you have no talent beyond scattering minds, then I might wish to scatter yours -- a lot more wetly, of course," he smiled grimly. "I did nothing to you while you and the rest killed ones who had value to me -- such as this one for he is as good as dead to me like this." The smile vanished as he leaned back against another table and crossed his muscled arms, "So tell me what you CAN do." The hell hound sat not far from them both, wondering why they were discussing anything. If it had been left to him by the lord in the room, he'd already be done with the joyful separation of mage into pieces. By now, he'd be busily working out the marrow from the bones, and making use of the busyness of it to help stave off the grief of his loss. Hell hounds as a group of beings had begun like many of the lower forms. But as they'd developed the qualities which set them apart from the others, they'd raised themselves in the regard of the demonlords such as Abi. They had their obvious uses, though one had to keep them fed and paid with whatever had been agreed upon, whereas a lord only had to keep his legions fed. The one here had behaved as though he wasn't a soulless thing, and it seemed a little strange to Abi as he looked down at him. Nothing like a hell hound ever displays devotion. The very idea was absurd. And yet, ... what would one call the display that he'd seen or the words that he'd heard? What other name could be applied to something like that? He looked up at the mage, "I'm waiting." "I do not know what you wish for me to say, lord. So I fear to say anything," the mage replied. Abi snorted as his eyes flashed, "My assumption outside was that in order to have done as you have, then there must be a mind in your own head which I can communicate with. I wish to know what else you can do in this regard. Can you replace what you 'scattered' with the mind of another? In other words, can you shift a being's mind from one body to another and NOT scatter anything?" The demon had been looking at the one on the table for a moment, but he looked up then. "It would depend on the beings involved, lord. Before I anger you even more, what I mean to say is that for a low one, I can do that easily." He looked at the hound in the room and quickly discarded his thought of using him in his example, seeing the glare which was being sent his way from the creature as a warning then. The hound saw that the mage still didn't understand that as what he was, he was immune to the efforts of almost any mage of any sort. "I can put the mind of a hellion into this soldier. Given time, I can put the mind of another like him inside -- an even transference. I cannot put the mind of a lord in here. That is what I mean." "What about a human?" Abi asked. "I have never done it," the demon said. "I would need time, say a few turns of a large sand glass, for there is the matter of fit to be considered, but yes, if I found no difficulties in that regard, I think that it could be done. Can a human mind change the way that it grasps the nerve pathways to the body? I do not know much of them." Abi thought for a moment, "Not major things, but some, I believe. I have seen older ones who have had infarctions in their brains and lost the ability to speak or make some finer movements. Some of them regained those things in a little time, so it must happen. But for major things, I would say no." "The major things can be found by the mind itself for what I would do," the mage said, "Minds seek these things out of need. It is the small things which are the concern. A Human can speak. This demon could as well. The pathways would need to be found. If you wish for fine control in balance and touch, then those things must be found as well. I would not wish for the mind to need to try to find those things alone in a foreign body by itself. Things might become ... crossed." Abi considered. "I have this one and I have a human. Both are useless to me as they are at present. If there is a way for you to show me your progress, then I would give you as many as ten turns of the glass and more. Succeed, and I will reward you richly. And If you can manage it, I wish not to lose the skill and the knowledge which the human possessed and I do not wish for him to be without the uses and advantages of this body. I sense some remnants of personality in this one still. From speaking with his section leader, there were a few issues over reluctance to engage a smaller opponent and crush him or her in a conflict. There was a sense of fairness in him. Something like that and only a little stronger in him would have made this one of little use as a soldier. There is no fairness in battle. But it might be a better trait in him with a human mind driving a strong body like this one. That is what I mean." -------------------------------- Inside the large craft, hours later. "What are they doing?" Pob asked as they regarded what was going on through the window of the small infirmary on Abi's craft. The location had been selected to minimize jostling to Reed. Instead, the rather mysterious 'other one' had been brought here. They saw the demon mage working over what appeared to be the body of a soldier demon, a large one. Things went slowly with mostly the mage working, and there were also some who appeared to be there to assist, though that didn't happen much. Abi stood off to the side while Evaine stood with the mage conferring together often. There seemed to be little to no actual surgery going on at all. It almost looked as though they were measuring, by their motions. "That sounds a little funny to me when you think of what others ask each other about us when we're working," Ouna said. Pob thought about it and had to nod, "Yeah, you're right." She looked over at the large, silent form sitting on the floor next to her. She and Ouna had been here to look in during their duties and checks, but that was over with now, and they'd been watching for an hour. As far as either one of them knew, the hound had been here from the beginning, over four hours now. He hadn't moved an inch. "And what's he doing here?" she asked indicating the hell hound who sat watching intently through the same window, "He keeps making sad sounds. I want to ask him what's wrong, but I don't --" There was a quiet gasp from behind them. Ouna and Pob looked back and nodded, `Hi Tozama, T'maz,`Your testing all done too?" The pair nodded silently and felt uncomfortable, but not wishing to seem rude to the only friends they had, while they stood in awe, feeling a little thrill of fear to see a large hell hound from less than a dozen feet away. Tozama and T'maz had been spawned as hellions in a far corner of the Dark Realms, a smallish and thin set of twins, female and male. They'd been found to be more intelligent than the others in their colony by a wide margin and as youngsters had become cocky over it, able to deceive and string most of the others along for their own ends and they caused a lot of suffering with their selfish pranks. They had empathic abilities which allowed them to manipulate lower demons of many sorts. Life had become a boring game to them until they'd been caught in a summoning together. The one who'd called them to him had been looking for a pair of servants. What the human sorcerer got instead was a pair of spoiled, insolent, mischievous pranksters who quickly destroyed much of his home. But he did have other servants and he used one of them to punish the pair, by showing them an illustration of some animals from far away. As they looked, interested in the coloring of what they saw for the moment, the other servant made the irreversible changes and they were cast back to the realms. Things were different where they found themselves and whenever they attempted to coerce anyone of the many higher orders, they found themselves in pain from the more intense forms of rebuff which came back to them.. That was where Abi had found them one day, a pair of half-starved adolescents, huddled together in fear and crying. Curious about them and recognizing that they had something behind their frightened eyes, he offered a life working for him and he provided instruction and direction. But he couldn't change what had been done. They were a curious pair, very subdued and always conscious that they didn't fit in anywhere. They were young adults now and if one wasn't a stupid or self-absorbed demon perhaps, or had the eyes to see without applying any of the filters which any sort of reasoning being, humans included, tend to use, they might be seen as very attractive to some. By now, however, they had difficulty believing anything like that if it was said to them. They no longer had wings or horns, other than small, pointed lumps and they'd been changed severely in other ways as well. What was left was a pair of very shy, quiet, and nervous demons who resembled bipedal; walking, talking versions of African Wild Dogs, and between them, they were the sensor technicians. Tozama handled things close in while her brother kept them out of mid-air collisions and found other things in the sky from hundreds of miles away. They'd been incestuous from the beginning out of comfort with each other and a great deal of haughtiness, since no other hellions were attractive to them, being seen as dull and stupid. Now, it was all they had, fearful to hear any more scorn and needing each other. "I am very sad," the hound said, not looking over at Pob, "I do not worry anymore. I lost my friend this day. I have nothing." The quiet remark startled the two demons, who had little to do with hell hounds in their day to day lives and saw one only rarely. Since the ones they did see were always silent, it was easy to forget that they could speak infernally, though that was even more rare. Neither one had ever heard it. Pob stepped over, a little nearer, anyway. "I don't know what's going on in there exactly, but I was told that the demon on the table in there isn't dead." Pob was the chattier of the two, and after getting over the small surprise of a speaking hound, she was a little reluctant to have him fall into total silence again. "No, my friend is not dead," the hound replied, "But his mind is empty, so he is almost the same as dead." He turned to look at Pob, "I am here since I have nowhere to go. That one was all that I knew, so I sit here and watch." He didn't see the pair who stood a little nearer now on his other side. Both of them could feel the intensity of the hound's emotion. They knew sadness as an almost intimate thing in their own lives and it came as almost a reflex to them to try to send what comfort they could. They'd already sensed that this one was not cold like any other hounds they'd seen. He felt it and turned his head. They looked nervous as he regarded them, so he nodded once in thanks. "We picked up a human today, "Ouna said, "He was attacked by a large animal before we came. Humans are weak, and he, ... I don't know why he isn't dead. His body is ruined. Even the tall female there can't do much, only keep him alive a little bit, and she's the best healer that our lord has. I've heard something about them putting the human's mind into your friend's body. I don't know how they'll do that, but it's taking a long time." The large head was looking through the glass again, but he nodded once, "That is what I was told." He looked down, "Even if it happens, he will not know me. I will still be alone. I am sad." As Pob stood next to the hound, she felt sad for him. Without really thinking about it, she touched him. His 'fur' fell flat against him the next instant. "Do not do that without my knowing," he said, "My body is sharp unless I lower things and you can be cut." "I just wanted to try to make you feel some comfort by touching you," Pob said, looking at her fingers. "Are you harmed?" he asked and she shook her head, "No. I was just wondering about the way that it felt to touch you. You feel like a sand covered stone, warmed by the sun in a sunny place outside. I liked it. Can I touch you again?" He wanted to walk away without a word. He wanted to shake his head. No one had ever said such a thing to him. He wasn't sure what it meant, but what he read from her mind was that it was a pleasant thing for her to think about and he found that he could appreciate that. He nodded, "Say it to me when you wish for this before you do it." She nodded and placed the flat of her hand against his large shoulder for a moment. The creature liked it, but didn't know what to say. Finally, he reasoned out what she was trying to do and he thanked her. Pob put her arm around him then, as far as she could reach and she hugged him. The hellions looked at each other for a moment and together, they came to stand next to him, stroking their palms against him as well while Pob hugged him awkwardly. "He would do this to me sometimes," the hound said very quietly, "I miss it already." The second sentence came out more like a moan. Pob threw her arms around him a moment later. She felt him shudder against her and it took her a little while to see his tears. He made no sound then, but what streamed from his eyes betrayed him. T'maz and Tozama began to weep for him, feeling this so strongly. That was it for the everyone, Ouna abandoning her cooler front after seeing Pob cry too. "Look," Pob began a few minutes later, as she tried to wipe her eyes, "They're all busy in there. You've been here from the start. I'm Pob and this is Ouna. These are our friends, T'maz and Tozama. Come with us. We live on this thing. We'll find you something to eat and drink and we can come back later." He looked through the window again and said nothing. "Come on," Pob said, "Please?" Tozama reached to touch his face, "Please come." He looked at them for a long moment and then stood up to follow them. "Do you have a name?" Ouna asked. He thought for a moment and said, "He called me Sandryah. I do not know what it means." "It means 'sandstone' in newer infernal," Pob said, "But I'm an imp. I'll never remember that unless I think of that stone that I mentioned. Can we call you Sandy?" He nodded, "Do as you must. I will not mind it." "Do you know how much you weigh, Sandy?" "No," he replied, "why?" Pob shrugged, "You said that you have no place to go. I want you to stay here with us. Ouna and me, we've got a big cabin, big enough, anyway. Sometimes Tozama and her brother feel alone and they come over to sleep. We're always here on this thing, pretty much, so we stay together for company. We'll keep you from feeling alone, if you think you want that." "Pob," Ouna said in warning, "Abi's gonna find out sometime, you know. He knows where Sandy came from. He knows that trooper over there kept him here somehow. What are you gonna tell him when he asks?" Pob looked up with a touch of defiance in her eyes, "I'm gonna tell him about the last five times that he left the four of us out in the middle of nowhere to watch over and DEFEND this thing if we had to -- all alone -- nobody else on it. I'm not big like you and neither are the T's. I was ready to piss myself every time. I don't even know how to work one of those rifle things that you have, and they're too big for me to do more than lift anyway. The T's are the same." Tozama and T'maz nodded their agreement, "We can't barely lift one between us," T'maz said quietly. "I don't know what Sandy weighs," Pob went on, "but I figure this big boat can handle it. Sandy needs somebody. It can be all of us, is what I'm saying. I just hope that he'd help us if we needed him sometime. He looks like he needs friends. That's good enough for me." The twins nodded. "We will help. Ouna is the biggest friend we have," Tozama said. "I want another big friend," T'maz nodded to himself. "If you show me food sometimes, I would help," Sandy said. It earned him another hug from Pob, and soft smiles from the twins. "So you tell Abi in your quiet way, since he seems to like that from you, and if I gotta, I'll try too, but you know how screechy I get when I'm emotional." They came to an intersection of the passageways and Abi stepped out before they reached it. He stretched for a moment, leaning against the corner to reach for the ceiling. "The last thing that I want to hear is Pob screeching because she's upset." He smiled, "I just stepped out for a minute and saw that you were gone. This was my guess about how far you'd all have gotten. That mage thinks that he's ready to begin on Reed soon. I thought that I'd come before he started to make the suggestion that if you didn't mind the company all of the time, then you four might like to live with this hell hound. He's the gabbiest one that I've ever seen, but I like it on him. He might fit in with you and he definitely will need friends. I see no connections in him to any other hounds. I'll make sure that there's food on board for him if he stays with you and will help protect the craft so that I don't have to worry about corrosion -- from anyone pissing in the wrong places." Abi looked at Sandy a little thoughtfully for a moment. "Do you know how to bargain? I thought that I'd have heard something like that from you by now. By the way, I like what they're calling you, Sandy." The hound looked back and nodded slowly, "I know, but I have never done it. I only knew how to live with my friend, but I can bargain if you wish." "That's a little better," Abi grinned, "I used to have hounds before. I can't imagine you working here without at least a little of it." Seeing the looks from the others, he said, "It's customary -- even required when dealing with hell hounds to define the exchange. I see that it's not a strong need in our new friend here, but I think that at least something needs to be set out and agreed upon." He looked at Sandy again, "So all that you want is food? You'd work for only food and water? You want no sex? Or are you a virgin and haven't decided yet?" There was no humor or scorn in what Abi had said, and no offence was taken by Sandy. He looked up, "I have some experience. I did not ask because I did not know what would be allowed to me. This is all very new and I feel lost without my friend. I see that you try to help, understanding how I feel." He thought for a moment, wanting to be careful in what he asked for and not knowing what might already exist in any relationships. He looked over at Ouna and Pob and their relationship became clear to him in a moment. Then he turned to look at the twins, who shrank back a little with wide eyes. He looked at Abi again with a little smile, "I want the two fur-covered ones, T'maz and Tozama." Tozama and T'maz were very nearly identical, being 'semi-identical' twins, spawned from a set of conjoined ova, each one fertilized by a different sperm. The ovae cloned and separated later in the pregnancy. It occurs rarely in humans, but is not infrequent in some types of demons. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 06 Tozama developed small soft swells on her chest as she matured and as a final slap for his particularly annoying insolence, the one who changed them gave T'maz the very same swells, though in his case, they weren't functional breasts. They only bore a resemblance, and he was ashamed of them. They now stood holding onto each other and looking almost terrified. "T'maz, the one on the right," Abi said gently, "is a boy." Sandy didn't look at Abi. He was looking at the T's as they trembled together. "I know it." He smiled and sent them his gentle admiration for a moment and they calmed only slightly, "Come to me, please," he said, "I need only the lord's agreement, but I wish to make an offer of my own." They held each other nervously, but they felt the draw and stepped slowly nearer, looking as though they might faint if they couldn't summon up the combined courage to run, which they knew would be a mistake, for hell hounds are very fast when they wish to be, for all of their mass and size. But they didn't stop in front of him. As they came, they were looking at his size compared to themselves. They were not all that much taller than Pob, though they were thin and she'd have looked a little lush in comparison to them if the three had been the only ones in a room together. Sandy was a large hell hound and the twins only needed to look up less than an inch to be eye to eye with him, though his massive shoulders were taller than their little horns, as tall as their large 'radar dish' ears. They drew nearer and began to feel a sense of wonder growing in them, so they stepped closer until the three were barely an inch apart. He began to send them images along with his quiet assurances that he'd send no commands, since by now it was understood that he was the strongest empath of the three. In only moments, their thin arms were around his thick neck and they were kissing him, both of them at the same time, their fears of him replaced by something else and needing to feel his offer to them. Ouna and Pob stared. Abi only smiled and leaned against the wall, not about to try to hurry this at all. The twins began to lick Sandy's lips and he opened his mouth to reciprocate, and they stood holding themselves against him as much as possible the next instant, their eyes closed and whimpering softly. Very soon afterward, Tozama began to fidget slowly, rubbing her thighs together because she couldn't help it and moaning quietly into Sandy's mouth. T'maz was already there, doing the same thing, though he wasn't trying to do anything with his thighs other than squirm. He was moving his hips involuntarily out and downward a bit as his thin erection waved in the air. Now and then in it, each of the twins would free one of their hands to rub their own thin chests, feeling for their nipples before squeezing one or the other, only to return the arm to Sandy's neck because needed so much to hold him. The moans grew slowly more insistent and needful, though not much louder, until Tozama shook visibly with a groan. T'maz came then, spraying his semen over Sandy's powerful chest. They hung from him after that for a moment, still needing to keep their faces in contact with his. After a long moment, they drew back a little and looked at each other. Then they both looked at the hell hound, as though they had a little difficulty understanding and believing what had just occurred. "This is how it will be?" Tozama almost whispered. "Truly?" T'maz asked in the same sort of voice. Sandy smiled, softly, very pleased now, "I promise it." They nodded then and the two leaned down with smiles to try to wipe T'maz seed from Sandy's chest. He looked back over his shoulder. "We are agreed, lord." "Good," Abi smiled, quite genuinely pleased now. "Then I give you this, from Evaine and myself. She has been watching from the infirmary and is happy that the craft can have actual protection now. You smaller ones, Pob and you twins, will be given smaller weapons for this. Not as large a Ouna's, but able to shoot multiple bursts. Just don't hit anything in here." Sandy and the T's all wore thin iron collars, the twins linked to Sandy with silent chains. They were apprehensive for a moment, until they heard his thought to them that the lengths were variable as needed and could disappear if they needed to be apart. They looked like smooth, dark steel, but there was hardly any weight to them. "So," Abi laughed quietly in a very friendly tone, "From painful solitude to hope, in a little time." He stepped to stand beside Sandy for a moment, "Never forget your friend, whatever you find there in him when he gets off the table -- if this works, and enjoy your lovers always." As the five of them stood there -- the two demons with their mouths hanging open and the twins with shy smiles now -- he eased past right through Tozama's chain as though it wasn't there with a grin and walked back in the direction they came in. "And he weighs three hundred and ninety-four pounds," Abi said over his shoulder again, "You can ride him, Pob. He was thinking of offering it. No one will knock you down anymore!" Three seconds after Abi was out of sight, the girls were laughing. Even Sandy looked surprised. "You just have to get used to him," Ouna smiled at him, "He's the best boss you could ever have." Sandy looked at the spot that Abi had been at when he'd vanished, "I will accept him because he shows me kindness in his way," he said, "But I think that I do not know what this is that we are in and I do not know how things are done. I had to stay hidden most of the time. I think that I do not need this with you, so, ..." He looked at them, "I think that I have two bosses first and the lord next. It will be easier for me that way." "Is it true, Sandy?" Pob asked a little shyly, "that you were going to offer to let me ride on your back?" What she saw was Sandy's first smile to her as he nodded. She was on him with a fluttering hop and laughing after that as he made his way down the corridor, flanked and linked to his consorts with Pob riding on his back. "You look pretty good like that," Ouna chuckled, "I think you all look great together." "What did you mean when you said you stayed hidden?" Pob asked, leaning out a little to look at him. "My friend was a soldier," Sandy said, "They are not allowed to keep ones like me. Everyone in the group allowed it because one like I am can help. I am strong and hard to kill. To be hidden, ..." Pob stared between her legs and saw the floor. She was riding on nothing. Ouna was laughing with delight and clapping her hands. "That's the first time I've ever seen you in the air while your wings were folded," she grinned, "You guys are great together." "But I could not help my friend," Sandy continued, "because I did not know the danger from that mage," he said sadly, "That mage one looked at us and we were in a ball of light. When it passed, everyone was dead and my friend was on the ground, only breathing a little bit. I was alone. The mage was surprised. I ran to kill him, but he disappeared. No matter how it goes for my friend and this human," Sandy said through his teeth a little quietly, "I will ask the lord who found me to give the mage one to me." ------------------------------- They were back at the window in the infirmary again. Sandy felt somewhat better after he'd eaten and Pob felt better to be able to sit on his back because he didn't mind. He didn't mind because he liked her. Pob had suggested that Ouna try to ride him, and he could bear her, but they all agreed that it looked a little funny, since her feet weren't that far from the floor when she did and Pob, as small as she was to him, looked much better. And once they'd explained it to Sandy, he agreed that Pob would never be knocked down again. "That is a human?" he asked, looking at the body on the other table, "I have never seen one." "I've never seen many of them," Ouna remarked, "and I've never seen one who was as torn up as that one. The lord wanted him because he was supposed to work for him, repairing the things that Pob and I replace while we keep this thing we're on working. But he was hurt. Like he is now, he'll never do anything other than maybe breathe." "Why are they just standing there?" T'maz wanted to know, "They don't look like they're doing anything." "They try to think if anything has been forgotten," Sandy said quietly, "Things like breathing and the beating of the heart come from low under the brain. To move a mind can make a jump in things and everything can stop." Ouna looked down and Pob leaned out to look at Sandy too. "How do you know that?" she asked. Sandy kept staring through the glass, seldom taking his eyes from the soldier, "It is what the mage said a moment ago. I think that the human will die when they move his mind. Now that I see him, I like to look at him sometimes." "Why?" Tozama asked. "I found that when I carried him, there was something that I could like about his face. I don't know what it was that I saw there. I just liked it a little," Ouna said, "There was something there and I don't know, somehow. Without the blood and the rips in his face if I imagined it, he was still pretty ugly. I think it was in the way that he looked at me. Do you see something like that, Sandy?" "No," he said, not looking away, "I like to think of doing what happened to that one to the mage if I have my chance, but I do not wish to be as kind as that." He felt Pob's fingers as she rubbed his ear gently. Tozama and T'maz were leaning against him. He felt better. The mage began to move his hands in strange ways and they saw that his hands were glowing. There was a discharge of some sort of light beginning over both of the ones on the two tables. "Please get down from my back, Pob," Sandy said quietly. She turned to hop off, "Sure. Is your back getting tired?" "No," He said as the chains to his consorts disappeared, "I wish to be ready to move. This will happen soon, I think. This light is what I saw before." What began as a sort of soft halo over each body grew in size and brilliance. The demons outside the room had to close their eyes, as did the ones inside of it. Pob turned away and opened her eyes a little, wondering if she ought to put her hands over Sandy's eyes for him, but when she looked to ask him, she saw that he was gone. There was a blinding flash then. In the next instant, the door to the room opened and the mage stood in it as he attempted his escape. But he only stood, staring down in sudden fear at the hell hound who stood there with his lips drawn back in a snarl. The moment ended as Ouna's fist flashed out and hit the mage in the face, knocking him backward into the room again and onto the floor. As Abi opened his eyes when the flash faded, he saw the mage cowering on his hands and knees while Ouna stood straining at Sandy's shoulders with little Pob and the others doing the same thing from the other side. All of them were trying to tell him to stay where he was. He was easily stronger than all four of them and he purposefully stepped into the room very slowly, moving one diagonally opposite pair of legs at a time, step by step, until he had the mage huddled against the wall. Abi thanked them all and held the mage immobile with a motion from his hand. They looked around the room then and there were no signs of respiration from the Reed's body. Evaine looked over and remarked that there was nothing there in terms of a heartbeat either. She turned to the other, larger body and they all saw the deeper breaths, as though the one lying there was in a deep sleep. "Hold him that way, Evaine," Abi said, "Let him rest. Whatever we wish to learn can be seen tomorrow." He turned to the mage and squatted down, "Or perhaps, we will only see that the soldier sleeps forever and there is still nothing in his mind." He looked at Sandy for a moment and he smiled, "I am sorry for what was taken from you. If your friend knew of your steady love for him today, I'm sure that he'd find no surprise in it. If this fails and I find that I was deceived, then you shall have what you want. Until then, I have a better place for him that where he is." Sandy seemed to smile slightly and he walked back to the rest and stood beside them. The mage disappeared and after a moment where she looked at the demon who appeared to be sleeping soundly, Evaine stepped out of the room as two large soldier demons waited outside of the door to step in. "Remain here tonight," Abi instructed them, "That one is not to leave this room. If he awakens, hold him here and call to Evaine and I." "Where did the other one go?" Pob asked. Abi smiled at Sandy, who began to smile as well in his way. "He hangs in chains," the hell hound said quietly. ------------------------------ In their cabin, Ouna was lying on her back on her bunk, looking at Pob with a smile. Pob was kneeling above Ouna's hips, slowly and carefully fucking on Ouna's clit, and loving the feeling as well as the wetness of what her little bum slapped against softly whenever she bottomed out. She moaned quietly. Ouna could make so much. In the next cabin, Tozama was doing the very same thing as she rode Sandy, while T'maz rubbed her nipples for her and tried to kiss them alternately. He loved his sister and had always loved it when she'd sucked him, but Sandy was so hungry about it and it had driven him a little nuts for a while, the way that he'd done it. --------------------------------- The beast which lay on the table asleep was now Reed, or, at least Reed's body to drive, if he could learn to manage it, once he'd become aware of it and accepted it, that is. There were others in the room whom he was unaware of and one of them now thought that she saw something and ran to push a swivel chair over so that she could climb up and kneel on it. Pob knelt with her chest against the back of the chair and her elbows on the table. Her chin rested on her hands as she watched a function occur which had it's origins a little above the bottom of the beast's brain pan and sent the signals on through the brain stem to cause a small female to smile. She was watching the progress of something wonderful. "Well this is nice," she grinned brightly as she watched it stiffening before her eyes, "You don't suppose he'd mind it too much if I just, ... you know, straightened it out for him a little, do you? I think a guy would prefer that." She began to reach for the erection with a hopeful expression until she heard Evaine's voice telling her that it was not advisable at the moment. Her young Shirley Temple voice came out of her then, "Awww, I just want to hold it a little. I won't break it or anything. I promise." "I'm very pleased that it's happening at all, "Evaine said, "It means that the mage was at least somewhat successful. But it's not really a sure indicator of much beyond some intact nerves and blood vessels." She smiled at the small demon, "I feel for you though, I really do. I had the very same thought, Pob." She looked down to admire it for a moment, "Now if he had this going and could carry on a conversation, I'd take it as more of a sign of success." "Why?" Pob asked, tearing her eyes from what lay throbbing against the male's stomach to look up, "If he had this going for me, I'd only have two things to say." She held up two fingers and pulled them back in as she said it. "'Yes you can' and 'C'mon, Baby, do me." Evaine laughed and looked over at Ouna, knowing that they were lovers. Ouna was chuckling as she nodded, "And that's if she was feeling especially chatty." "Well I gotta say something, don't I?" Pob protested, "I don't have a weapons-grade, silky dark beautiful ass like you do." She looked at Evaine again, "I'm serious. All she has to do is strut three steps, slam that amazing ass out as she bends a little and swish her tail once. Done. If five percent of the males that I've seen staring at it when it's busy on this thing and they're here tried to get to first base with Ouna, I'd never see her again." She looked over, "And I love your ass, just sayin', I haven't said it yet today and it's nearly nine." Ouna was shaking her head, "You're an idiot. Who do you think I do that for, Pob?" Evaine chuckled again, "Go on, Pob. If something like that's not worth a hug, ..." Pob nodded and almost flitted across the room. "If he had this going and was speaking and masturbating all at the same time, " Evaine began... "Then he'd already be smarter than almost all of the guys on this thing when it's full," Pob said with a smirk toward one of the two soldiers in the room who'd been scowling at her, "so I'd ask him what he was waiting for, that Christmas thing or Kid's Day at the zoo." Ouna bent her head down and nibbled on Pob's neck to make her laugh, "That would just mean that it was time for you to move your hair for him, that's all." She looked at the scowling trooper, "It's all I ever need." "Yeah," Pob sighed, "That's the ticket." Evaine stll worked in examining the large body, but she did look at them one again when she was confident that they wouldn't see her glance. She looked down at the receding erection and hoped for them. This thing before her, this male part, she thought, ... well, if they were successful, she didn't want to think about it, really. But there was something here to be faced. She knew the two girls well and she knew how and a little of why they'd begun. What she was looking at would be perfect for Ouna. This body was the same species. No matter what Pob might hope, Evain doubted with a little sadness in her heart that she could ever accommodate something like this. She finished her examination and walked out, hoping that the new addition didn't ruin something good. ----------------------------- Reed's mind began to clear, though he wasn't right at the edge of passing into consciousness just yet. He seemed to hang here somehow and it felt pleasant. There was a large man in his mind the next second, a rather friendly one and as he introduced himself, Reed felt a pang from far back and found himself wishing that he could have turned out looking like him. "I don't really look like this, Reed, but thank you. I wanted to meet you here first so that my appearance later didn't shock you too much. You can call me Abi." There was suddenly a chair in the space before him and Abi sat down as the camera of Reed's mind began to close in a little. "The truth is that I'm ... well, I'm a rather powerful demon. A lord, actually, though that's probably neither here nor there for what I want to talk to you about. I knew that you were skilled and talented, but also that you couldn't ever find much work. I saw that you and I might come to a bit of an arrangement. I own a large and complicated way to move around. It's full of electronics and hydraulics and all sorts of things to make a techie's heart almost glow. Things look a little different to what you might be familiar with, but hey, physics is physics. I thought that you ought to be able to learn the differences in appearance and help to keep it going. I already have two really great technicians, but their other duties prevent them from repairing many of the modules and controllers that they swap out." He smiled, "That's when I thought of you. We came to meet you, just my techs and I. You've already met Pob and Ouna. Ouna's the bigger one who carried you. They pulled you out of a certain and painful death." He looked regretful then, "We just didn't get to you in time before the bear did. Where you were, even if somebody knew that you were in a world of shit -- even after Ouna killed the bear -- there was no way that you'd have lived long enough to even get any sort of proper attention. I brought you here, but ... do you remember much of the attack?" Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 06 Reed's mind answered that he was out cold -- colder than he'd ever been in his life before. He knew that he'd been injured, but he admitted that he didn't know the extent of it. He was only thankful that the ones whom Abi had spoken of had come when they did, before the bear had done too much harm. Abi looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I'm afraid that what was done was pretty catastrophic, Reed. I won't go into too much detail, since it's a long list and I know that I wouldn't want to hear much of it in your place. What we were left with once we got you here was trauma from one end to the other. I'm just happy that your neck wasn't broken worse than it was, since the brain stem was intact enough to keep passing signals to your heart and lungs." He sat back, "I'd like to show you two outcomes, not that it matters anymore, I'm afraid." Reed asked if he was dead. Abi shook his head, looking a little surprised. "No, you're not dead, but I'm afraid that your body is. It wasn't my plan, but when we came here to see what could be done to help you, the best surgeon that I have told me that at best, you'd be a horrific-looking cripple for the rest of your life, though she expected you to die soon after life support was removed. It's a sad truth that I'm not in the business of providing life support. Through an unrelated occurrence, I found myself with a soldier demon whose mind had been removed. Everything was there and unharmed, but there was nobody home and there wouldn't ever be again. It's not a big deal to me; I have many thousands of them. But that one had hands which aren't often seen in that kind. What I saw there were perfect for the kind of work that you can do." Abi sighed, "But he was mindless and breathing and you were, ... well likely not to be very soon. I made arrangements for a swap. Your soul came with your mind." He stood up then and smiled, "I'd like you to wake up now. We need to talk in person, not with me here in your head." He held up his hand, "So on the count of four. One, " He snapped his fingers, "Wake up." --------------------- Reed opened his eyes, still wondering what had happened to the rest of the count. He inhaled in alarm and sat up. It didn't work, since he found himself being held and wrestled back down by two large frighteningly scary creatures, and that just opened his adrenal glands wide. They were holding something attached to his head as well as trying to get a wrestling hold on his arms. Evaine almost shouted at them, saying that he wasn't to be treated that way, that they might injure him. He thought the one there almost howling was about the worst nightmare that he'd ever seen on legs and began to struggle harder, in terror now. Then he saw her, the same one who'd carried him from the lodge. She was in his view, looking a little smaller somehow, but he was glad to see that one thing about her at least hadn't changed. "You're hurting him, you FUCKING ASSholes!" she yelled, punching one and then the other of the things which held him. Everything stopped then and Abi -- at least something which looked and sounded like the guy who had been in his head stepped into view. He looked at the large creatures and told them quietly to leave. As they did, he smiled down, "I'm sorry. As you are now, you're, ..." he chuckled, "You're really rather strong. I just didn't think that they were absolute idiots. I probably should have explained things to them better. Do you think that you could try to speak?" Reed made an attempt at it, but nearly frightened himself with his own sounds. The voice that he felt and heard was lower, far lower, and his words came out slow and somewhat slurred. The inside of his mouth felt huge and there were large teeth everywhere that his tongue probed. "Wha ...? I dohn no," He looked up at the female and tried to smile -- even trying very hard not to look at her breasts, "Tha -- thaaankh yoo." It got him a smile in return, though she looked at Abi after a moment, "He doesn't understand infernal." Abi nodded, "I know," he said in English, "I'm just happy that he can speak. The rest will smooth out in a little time, I think. I'll try to help a bit." Reed saw Pob a second later as she landed to stand beside him on the table, "Hi. My name's Pob. You should try to sit up, but this time, be slow. Ouna and I will help." He felt her take his arm and struggle with it. Ouna seemed to have more success with his other one. He was about to try to sit up when he noticed what they were pulling. He felt their efforts, so he reasoned and thought that it felt like they were pulling him up by the arms. But those couldn't be his arms. Ouna looked at Abi,"Does he know yet, lord?" Abi nodded, "I've begun to tell him, but he hasn't seen yet, this is his first look." Ouna's face grew concerned, "It's alright, Reed. This is going to be a shock, but you look different now. It's all they could do for you, so you'll have to get used to things being different. Please try to sit up for us?" "Theesh aren' my armsh!" Reed said in shock, "Wha did jou do to my armsh?" "Nothing," Pob said, "They're over on the other table, still attached to your old body. You're inside your new body now and we're here to help you. What you're looking at are your arms now." He looked in the direction that he'd seen her eyes look as she spoke and he looked. All that he saw there was a human form under a sheet. "Who'sh at?" "I'd hoped to avoid this," Abi said, "but I can see the denial already coming around the bend. So we'll do this graphically, I guess." He stepped over to the other table, "Here Reed, let me show you what the bear left us to work with." He pulled the sheet away and Reed saw himself, hours dead by the look of it and he saw the beginnings of Abi's truth. The side of his skull was laid completely open from scalp to chin, ear gone and everything. "Your impressions were a little wrong from what I saw in your memory, but given the trauma of the attack, and trying to factor in for shock, it makes sense. The bear hadn't REALLY gotten started on eating you, but ... " He pointed to the ruined leg and the almost completely torn--off arm. "The other side is worse." "Whad am I in now ven?" Reed said, trying to raise his hand. "You're in a demon trooper's body now," Pob said, "The same kind as Ouna, only you're a boy. I think it'll take some getting used to, and you might not see it at first, but you are pretty good-looking -- at least to us." Ouna allowed him to raise his hand and he stared at what he saw. After flexing his hand a few times and seeing it respond to his thoughts, he tried to lift his arm straight up. "You're much stronger like this," Ouna smiled, "And I can finally say that I like it -- and you. My big problem with working with a human was that humans are just weaker than we are, and you're prone to catching every bug going. That won't ever happen to you again, Reed." While he'd been listening to her, Reed thought of the little one calling him a boy. It made him realize that he could feel the breeze, so to speak, and he moved one hand to cover himself. "Try to forget about your shame," Ouna smiled, "That's a human thing. You might not feel like one yet, but you're really a demon now." "Like us!" Pob smiled. Ouna nodded, "I hope that you can get past it without too much trouble, because demons don't feel shame over their bodies. Unless we have a reason to need protection or anything we never wear clothes." She grinned a little and pointed. Reed looked over and Pob was holding her hair up smiling as she wiggled her hips back and forth to make him smile -- which he did, surprisingly. "The lord is gonna tell you what he thinks you need to know -- as soon as I shut my yap," Pob said, "But starting last night, I guess, your mind is in the body of a really gorgeous soldier demon, those are horns on your head just like Ouna's and you're gonna be a tech like we are. If you look over now, you'll see that we're all here, all the techs so we could meet you. You've probably forgotten already, but I'm Pob, that's Ouna, over there is Tozama -- she's the female on the left and that's her brother T'maz next to her. At the end there is somebody who's really hoping that you might remember him. He's the hound that the young trooper adopted as a pup and always kept near him. The trooper used to call him Sandryah. We call him Sandy. Sandy looked across the room with a little hope in his eyes for a long moment. But then he looked down, "He does not know me." He got to his feet and turned to walk out. "Waid, ... wait, ..." Reed said. Sandy stopped and looked back, thinking that Reed was probably speaking to one of the others. He saw Reed looking directly at him with a confused expression. "I, ... I ... don't recog ... I don't know you, but... some-something, ... I f-eel that something in me does." He looked at Ouna, "I cann't s-say it bet-ter. " He looked at Sandy again, "I -- I do know you, I ju-ust donnnT remember you much." Sandy had no words for a moment. Finally, he smiled and nodded, "It is enough. I can hope that I still have my friend even more now. I want to jump on the table there to be close to you again, but I cannot. I will wait," he smiled, "I will see you in some time. Thank you." He walked out, trying not to cry again, but very, very happy. "He wanted to jump ... what is he? He's somebody that I seem to know, but I don't know what he is." "He's a hell hound; big, strong, hard to kill, he says and very happy now. But it's a good thing that he knows not to jump up anyway," Ouna smiled. "Yeah," Pob said, rolling her eyes, "Three hundred and ninety-four pounds, you know?" -------------------------------------- Reed still had to go through some denial and he had a lot of trouble over finding himself being groomed to work for a demon. At least his speech was smoothing out. "Think about it this way, "Abi said, "We didn't have anything to do with the bear attack. We just saved what was left of your ass. You've never been the slightest bit happy with your life, and I can see why, obviously. You played by the rules, worked you bag off, took huge loans out for training and still couldn't get a job. And hey, let's lay the cards out here on the table, alright? Without a good job, I think you've already seen the kind of love life that awaits you. No harm you Reed, but holy shit, buddy. A virgin at twenty-seven?" He thought for a moment, "I'm trying to figure out your memory of the one who finally did take pity on you so that you could bone her. There are things there of interest to me. From what I see in your memory, she wasn't human -- or really the other shapes as well. Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter. By the way, I'd like to point out that the hell hound that you saw today is a male, so it's not her, ok?" "I know that," Reed nodded, still staring at his reflection in the mirror and watching what his new face did to follow the expressions that he was trying out, "I meant what I said to him. I don't know him, but I have sort of memories of feelings for him. Was he a friend of mine? I mean uh.." Abi shook his head, "No. He's a hell hound who has shown you more devotion than any one of his kind that I've ever seen. Every one of them is beyond selfish, though they'll work for pay. The demand for them comes because they're vicious, smart, cold and cruel, and Ouna wasn't kidding. They are exceptionally hard to kill. That one spent the whole time that you were on the table but for about thirty minutes outside the glass watching. Over twelve hours. Trust me, NO hell hound I ever met would have done that, other than for pay and a bonus at that. I'm hoping that you can see it soon, but you're now a kind of demon who I treat really well. You're not a slave to me, but I expect some service, since I didn't just say , 'Oh, he's being eaten by a grizzly, oh well, I'll just find me somebody else'. I did this hoping that you might see a few of the advantages. As you are now, you've got a lot of charm to quite a few female demons, including the two that you'll be working with the most. They've got a nice love thing going on between them, but I don't think that either one would throw you out of bed for eating crackers. Your big friend is already playing with the two furry techs who were with him earlier. They were what he asked me for, since it's always best to get a deal in place with a hell hound. I doubt that you'd need one, though. Just try to be his friend and remember him if you can. All of you have double duty. When we go someplace and I'm off the craft, it'll be up to you six to protect yourselves and the craft. Sandy will be a huge asset and I'm hoping that once you see it from my side, the soldier that you once were will be an asset as well. I figure that you, Ouna and Sandy could hold the fort against about anything I can expect you to encounter. Just protect the small ones too. You all have value to me." "Do I have any choice in this?" Reed asked. Abi nodded, "Sure. It can go three ways. You work for me as a tech. You don't like that, then you work for me as a soldier again. Or if neither one suits you, I give you the third option and pull your soul. Your mind shuts down, the body dies, I sell your soul for dirt, since it has no value on the market -- there's billions like it, after all. But I'm hoping that you like teching, seriously. The hours can be long, but you knew the business going in. This way, you get real friends -- in case you didn't know what you were looking at in their eyes. My techs are the only ones who live on this tub and they're tight together. I -- uh, try to get ready for this -- I PAY you, feed you, and you'll probably get to have at least some fun with two of them, I figure at minimum. Oh, let me point something out to you here. ALL of them like you. My techs eat together, work together, protect each other if necessary, and somehow -- and I'm too busy to watch -- they play together as well. And I ought to mention that you're a lot harder to kill than you were before. If you were used to that body at the time, you could have stuck a finger into one nostril each and rolled that bear's ass off the mountain like a bowling ball." As what you are now, you're strong, fit, damn near immortal, and sexy-looking." He smirked, "Even to human women -- for damn sure you look like you could attract a lot more of them like this. You'd be surprised how many of them have a little thing for us, way down deep, of course." Abi leaned forward a little, "Just what the fuck more could you want here?" "Well, maybe real love, at some point," Reed said. "I didn't think that body had hearing defects," Abi said to himself. "What the fuck did you think I was talking about? You can have that. Ouna and Pob already like you. You just have to try to fit in with them. I'm pretty sure they'd make room. I already know that you might want kids. So get used to what you are and have them with Ouna. Pob will be out of her mind happy and I'll put in a nursery for pity's sake. Just think a minute and tell me yes. I've got a shit-ton of other things to do here. Take a day to think about it and learn a bit. I won't mind, since this is serious stuff. Oh, and at some point, you'll have to do without Sandy for a little while. The mage who put you into that body for this is the same one who took the original mind out of that body. Our good luck, I think, but I'm still pissed over a few things. Depends how I decide, but Sandy wants to kill him for what he did to the soldier that he loved so much. If you have any questions and you can't find me, ask the rest. They're waiting for you. I try to take care of my people." -------------------------------- There was a quiet knock on the door and he got up to answer it. Pob was there. He guessed that she hadn't thought of it, but her long hair was tied back. "Hey T'maz," she smiled, but he could see something there. "What is it?" he asked, "You look like there's something wrong." Pob shrugged and let out a sigh, "Ouna's having one of her headaches. I know it's an old joke, but she gets these really bad ones and has to lie with the lights out and not move so they might go away." She leaned against the door frame, "When it gets to that point, I can't do much of anything, but I'm not tired enough to sleep. I don't want to go look at wiring drawings and I can't even put on an old movie. If I forget and it makes me laugh, she looks like she wants to kill me then, though she never says anything. Are you doing anything now? I asked her, so it's ok if you want to fool around." T'maz leaned on the door frame too and let out a sigh of his own, "I'd love that, Pob. I've wanted to ask you before, but I never got up the nerve. So you're sure it's ok?" She nodded, "Yeah. She moaned in her agony -- which I'm actually not trying to make fun of because I know she really suffers then -- and told me to go diddle myself. I told her that I didn't want to and that I might wander over here to see how you guys are doing, now that you've got Sandy. I told her that I didn't know, but I might want to jump into the puddle with you, and she said that it was fine with her, so here I am." He reached out the short distance and gently rubbed the fur on the back of his hand over her nipple, "You forgot about your hair, Pob." She shook her head, "No I didn't. I tied it back before I knocked. I'm hopeful. So I figured that I might as well look the part." She reached to take his sheath in her hand, "Besides, we love each other a lot, but, ... well, I'm an imp. Ouna knows what I am. So do you need to ask or anything first, T'maz?" He chuckled as he slid his arm around her waist, "You wouldn't believe it. We were talking a while ago and I blurted out that I'd really like to play with you sometime." "What did they say?" Pob asked smiling. "They said that they would too. Sandy said that he likes you a lot." Pob looked past him and sighed with a smile, "I sleep with a big girl and when we DO make love, it's great, but you know what I miss? I've never told her, because it's just not possible for us, but ... I miss having a lot of bodies around me. When I eat or sleep or, ... or even when I fuck -- especially then. Imps live in colonies and they do everything like that together. I never let a girl do anything to me back then and now I think that I missed out on a lot. I really miss that." He reached to hold her and they began to kiss. Pob really liked the way that his fur felt against her and the way that he held her made her feel really good too. He took her hand and led her inside. They found a spot right next to the others and a moment later, Pob felt him slipping inside of her. She raised her legs with a sigh and held T'maz as they began. "Pob's here," T'maz said quietly and Tozama smiled down and reached for her hand. Pob almost cried then, because it felt so much like the home that she'd left behind her when she'd left to work here. She'd forgotten how it felt to have other bodies close to hers when she fucked. ---------------------------------- Pob was on her side, hours later. The T's had finally been fucked out and were asleep. Pob was a lot happier than she'd been when she'd come to the door. Tozama was great in a bed and Pob had finally learned the joy of 69 with another female. When it was over, Tozama turned herself around and they were lying spooned to watch as T'maz got his courage up and Sandy fucked him. The two females were surprised at how seeing it made them feel. "They go on and on," Tozama whispered as she reached behind her for Pob's wet lips. "I know," Pob whispered as she reciprocated. "I know they'll probably speed up at the end, but so far, this is great just like this." Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 06 The next time had been almost like a party game, with Sandy trying to advise them and T'maz moving around almost out of breath to help them get their vulvas together. Neither of them had ever scissored before, and they spent so much time laughing that it almost didn't get done. It was something that Pob could never have with Ouna, she was just too small. But she fit with Tozama just fine. Both of the girls came several times, but Pob's favorite was when T'maz held her a little and kissed her. --------------------------------- With the T's sleeping, it was just Pob lying against Sandy, trading kisses for a long time. She'd really enjoyed fucking with T'maz and she loved to see him the way that he was now, not always looking as though he was one step away from being thoroughly frightened. She reasoned that if it was from anything that Sandy was doing then she hoped that he did it a lot more. She'd had T'maz three times, the last time in the ass. She'd forgotten how much she used to like that. To her, the T's were beautiful, just a perfect pair of lovers to lose herself with. she and Sandy hadn't done much of anything but kiss, though she'd enjoyed that too. She wondered if one day, .... Finally, Sandy asked her what was wrong. Pob looked at him and took a few minutes, because she was determined not to cry. "Nothing's wrong yet, I guess," she said very quietly, "It's just something that I know is coming. I came around a corner, and I knew that Ouna was showing Reed around." She sighed, "Just as I turned the corner, I saw them up ahead. She pressed him back against a bulkhead and then she got to her knees and began to suck him. She must have really wanted to do it. I know how hard it is for her to kneel on something hard like floor plates." Sandy looked at her for a moment, waiting and in a little time, she continued. "I left then, because I didn't want to watch it, but then I came back and, ... He was fucking her from behind, right there in the maintenance corridor." Pob snorted, "I can't get much more than a sniff and some dirty talk in the corridor without getting the 'hand's off' lecture, but oh no, Reed gets to fuck her there the very first day." She looked up, "Sandy, that's alright, but I was thinking that we could share him. I guess I was just being dumb. I didn't think about it until later, but I haven't really got a chance. He's the same kind as Ouna, so they were made to fit together. I can take a lot bigger than any imp has but there's no way that I can take that. From what I saw, I can't even suck him, no way." She sat for a minute as he held her while she struggled again not to cry. "So where does that leave me?" she asked, "Ouna does get bad headaches, but I don't believe the story tonight, that's all." She looked around, "I don't want to go home tonight. Can I stay here with you? I don't want to walk in and catch them as he applies his headache medicine. I haven't got the energy to screech at anybody anymore tonight." He nodded, "Please stay. He has not been here long enough to know the way that things are between you. I would like to think that he might try to think of something that he could do for you." He sighed heavily, "As who he is under his skin, I cannot even help you if he does know what he is doing." "Help me how?" she asked. "By killing him," Sandy replied. They looked at each other for a moment until her gaze finally cracked Sandy's impassive look and they laughed at his joke. It cheered Pob up a little and he moved her so that he could get his mouth over her damp sex. Pob sighed as he began, not caring at all anymore and thinking - when she could - of how much there might be for her in the arms of a girl whose body fit her own, or how good it felt to have a male inside of her who had a brain and could share her laughter. As the hottest tongue that she'd ever felt began to work it's magic on her, Pob felt herself drifting happily and dreaming of someone who cared in his large, quiet and very strong way. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 07 ***This wasn't part of the original tale. I wrote it and added it because it was a little fun to write, trying to imagine the little scenes. Besides, I realized that Abi was going to need somebody to do the wrenching on that thing. 0_o *** ------------------------- Ouna walked into the galley and Pob set the breakfast she'd made before her. Ouna said thank you and Pob nodded. After a few minutes of silence, Ouna leaned forward and said, "You're not speaking to me?" "I'm speaking to you," Pob said quietly, "I'm just not speaking to you much. You had your fun yesterday and then you gave me a song about one of your headaches. I can take a hint." "Pobby," the larger one said, "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to. I just wanted Reed to myself for a little while. I told him that he'd have to fit with us. He liked the idea." Pob smirked as she cleared up her dishes, "Well you told him a lie then. He's all yours. I'm moving my few things in with Sandy and the T's." She tossed her half-eaten slice of toast into the receptacle, "None of them have hooves. And don't call me that anymore." Ouna stared, "Hey, come on, ... we've been together a year." Pob shrugged, "I'd rather invest a year in what we had and ditch it now than feel worse after ten. I'm gonna fix those bad light fixtures out by the main bay. Sandy said he'd let me stand on his back to reach. That way, you can rest your back." She snorted to herself as she walked out the door. -------------------------------- Florida He watched them as they came, the girl and her large dog. He'd seen them sometimes and he knew that she was here for flight lessons. In his line of work out here at the inner city field, he tended to see a lot of people come and go for similar reasons. He paid most of them little attention for the most part. She was different. She didn't look right through him. They had enough of a relationship to chat in a friendly way whenever they were within twenty feet of each other. He liked to see her because she looked very pleasant to him, as though her coming here was a feature in her day which she enjoyed when she could. She was always smiling. He'd heard her voice often by now and he found the sound of it pleasant because it reminded him of some of the girls that he'd known back in Siberia. Her blonde hair and her facial features didn't match his memories, since he was from a very small place where those things were seen rarely because it was way out there where blonde Siberian girls don't often go, unless they're doctors or social workers for the government, but the tone of her voice was pretty much there – if you discounted that she was speaking English. Living here placed Balna pretty far from home. It was a better life, but it was very lonely. He had no friends and he knew no one. He thought his features made him look like a cross between a dark-haired Finn and a lighter-skinned person from Burma, and the Russian that he'd learned in school just confused everyone when he spoke English. It tended to make him shy. That tended to make him even lonelier. His sex life? Thank God for Kleenex and the internet. There were no others like him here, at least none that he'd ever seen. He didn't expect to see any either. He was a member of a dwindling minority population even back home. If you counted only the ones who still spoke the language and followed the old shamanistic ways, you'd be looking at about 1200 people, give or take. Worldwide. But this finding a better life had taken him far from his origins, first to learn aircraft engineering on state-sponsored scholarships aimed at the minority indigenous groups and then to work his way here – only to find that his credentials weren't recognized. He worked here as a line boy. He watched her until she stepped in through the glass doors of the flight center. He also watched as the dog went inside with her. He could plainly see that the animal was a male, but that didn't stop his errant thoughts from coming to him. The sight reminded him of the strange dreams that he'd been having, though in them, the beings were females, and not dogs either. The overall shape had been what was evocative to him, that was all. He always recalled the smoke of a fire in the darkness as he worked his way to it. He saw them as they turned around him, large females as long as he was tall when some of them stretched themselves out before him. Longer even. He heard them as they asked for his touch. They weren't built like humans, but he could speak with them. Every motion that they made seemed foreign to him, and yet incredibly sensual and wildly erotic to him at the same time. They'd slink around him so that he could feel their warmth against his hips as they sidled past him sultrily on their four long legs. They'd murmur to him in ways that excited him in those dreams. There was one that he'd see every time in each dream. She was always so happy when he came to the fire, and she spoke to him of hope for them. And then, ... once she'd seen that her magic was working, she'd – "Is this gonna take ALL fucking afternoon?" the voice of the fuel truck driver asked, and it snapped Balna's head around as his reverie left him. "Sorry!" he called over, "Almost finished," he fibbed, "Pretty girls, you know?" he smiled with a helpless-looking shrug. "Girls here come only if you have money. I don't have money. I can only window shopping." The driver, who was Abi , made his answer with an 'oh-how-much-longer-can-this-workday-last' sounding grunt as he waited. After a minute, he said, "I'd say that's the smart way. You're saving a ton of money." Balna finished the fueling two minutes later, closing the lid and wiping the wing nearby carefully with a clean rag, though he hadn't spilled a drop. He got up to step down and handed the driver the fuel nozzle. The driver took the nozzle and held out a clipboard with a pen, "Sign here, buddy." Balna looked up and saw the man's name embroidered over his breast pocket. The tag on the other one was the name of the fuel company. He signed and handed the clipboard back, "Thanks Harry." The driver smirked a little, "I didn't have a clean shirt the last time that the laundry truck delivered. Harry's a little pissed at me for swiping one of his, but I don't give a shit." He held out his hand good-naturedly, "I'm Jake." The gesture took Balna by surprise, since most people here barely recognized his presence. He grasped the hand and shook it, "Bobby," he smiled. It was the closest American-sounding name that he knew so he used it to get past the way that the people whom he interacted with would get hung up on his real name. "Good to meet you," Jake smiled and looked at his watch, "Hey, gotta go. It's quitting time. I'll see you around. I'm here a lot these days." With that, he rewound the hose faster than anything and was up into the cab. He started the engine and smiled over as he put the truck into gear, "You have yourself a great day, Balna. I gotta go." With that, he was gone, grinding through the gears to get home. It took Balna maybe a minute after he lifted the cowling over the engine to check the engine oil to realize that Jake had called him by his real name. The slightly disturbing part was that he was almost certain of it. ---------------------------- "Well?" He asked. "He is the one that I want," she said from the passenger seat of the truck in a tone which sounded as though she'd come to her decision. Abi looked over and saw the being which sat hidden from human eyes there. Sha'senh was a lust demon and a bit of a misfit to her own kind. She'd come to his attention during one of his visits to her plane of existence. He was overlord of the place and there had been complaints regarding the way that she alone wasn't interested in the 'normal' things. She was considered perverted and defective, and he'd been asked to oversee her execution. He saw at the time that right afterward, the rest had all planned to have a big fucking party to celebrate, the emphasis being on the second adjective, naturally. He'd listened to the evidence and spoken to her as well, noticing that for what she was, there wasn't the slightest hint of offering in her words. He hadn't expected that. To adjudicate at one of those things was to have his patience tested at best. At worst, they always tried to take it into stupid as far as he was concerned. A lust demon writhing on the ground before him moaning his or her desires was a pitiful exhibition to his eyes and a slightly disgusting way to beg for one's life. But Sha'senh had been different. She knew what was at stake, and though she was regretful that he'd been asked to command her death, she wasn't begging. She was resigned. She never took part in the orgiastic parties which went on for weeks once they'd begun. He'd asked about that and she'd said that she didn't want to spawn afterwards from something meaningless. Writhing, groaning bodies like that did nothing for her, she'd said, since they never got past the lust and the fucking into anything even remotely like fulfillment. That statement had sure twisted his horns to hear. "You want fulfillment, ..." he said in surprise, "Then why not do as your kind does? Seek out beings, humans for example. They have little ability to resist, most of them. Torture their sleep and take what you will, the same as all of your kind." He'd laid it out like that as a very mild trap. But she'd stepped right over it and astounded him again. "I know that I am deficient, lord. I wish to have only one and take almost nothing. I wish to give." Abi almost felt the need to hang onto something, thinking that his world might be shifting. He took her aside and questioned her further. From that came their bargain. She would work for him in exchange for someone to do it all for whose personality and appearance pleased her. With her agreement, Abi had stopped the proceedings right then and there. The rest were supremely disappointed, but he didn't care, telling them that the adjudication which they wished for from him was not only comprised of being solely a spectator, so their lust to see Sha'senh's final agony was going to go unfulfilled. She'd never forgotten his kindness and in her eyes, he was one whom she could follow. She'd have given herself to him, but he didn't ask or command it. It was her turn to be amazed as he'd told her that he considered her lovely and that he even had a rough idea regarding one whom she might like. She'd sat at his feet with a pleased and surprised smile as they'd flown away in his massive craft while he'd chuckled to himself most of the way, still amazed at meeting such an unfortunate thing as a lust demon who wanted to be in love. "I have begun it," she said quietly from beside him in the truck, "I had the time as I waited to tell you, so I began, always carefully because I want him and will not risk failure. I have shown him what my kind looks like and I am very happy that he likes it." As what she was, she could change her appearance in an almost unlimited number of ways to get into the minds of many sorts. But Sha'senh didn't want only that. She wanted to go deeper, all the way to Balna's heart. It happened sometimes when her kind came to take from a human. The victim could easily fall into a very deep love once they'd seen, but to a lust demon, it was only a sign that their hold was complete and they could do anything then. They felt nothing like that for the ones which they afflicted. They just crushed them in the end, every single one. But Sha'senh wasn't after a victim to feed on, other than what he might give to her, and she was prepared to do the same for him. She just wanted a clean shot at him. "Good," Abi nodded, "but have a care, demoness. What you want is a path which must go in both ways if you succeed. So do not always be so quick to give. Allow him to want to give to you as well. It works best like that." He smiled, "And I like the way that you sit here with me. The chains are a nice touch." Sha'senh sat naked in a roughly human form, other than coloring. Her variable horns were in evidence and wide today. She had a great shape like this and he admired it for a moment, looking away to drive for a few seconds and then looking again at the little chains which ran from her labia through her false navel to end in a looping cross piece through each of her nipples. Sha'senh sighed with pleasure at his kind words. "So you have attempted something with him as he slept?" Abi asked, his eyes back on the roadway to the fuel tankfarm. She nodded, "Nothing very much at all because I did not dare without permission from you, lord. I lay in the bed with him for a time only admiring what I saw. I ached to lose myself in him, but it was too soon. The last time, I tasted his body and I took his seed into my mouth as he dreamed." She tilted her head back and smiled toward the ceiling with closed eyes as she remembered. "So good. So very nice, better than I'd have ever wanted, he gives. I will not do more than that until after I have seen that he wants me and not only as a dream. He began to wake up once as I was suckling him, but I held him in the dream which I sent, showing him only me as I truly am, suckling him in that dream, and do you know? He only grew harder in my mouth from it." Abi had to smile at that. Her pleased and wishful tone just did that to him and it was so different to hear it the way that she said it. He doubted that any other lust demon would have been pleased to stop only there, and there wouldn't be this sound of happy wonder to it as they spoke, either. "Then you have my permission, Sha'senh. Do as you wish to bring this to the love that you want with him." He stopped the truck with a slow squeal of it's brakes in it's parking spot. "I need to speak to my pilot to learn of how his student progresses." With that, he looked around and seeing no one who could see them, he faded away. Sha'senh did the same to resume watching Balna and thinking of the best way to reveal herself to him. --------------------------- Balna looked around suddenly to count the aircraft on the line. Discounting all of the others types, they had five primary flight trainers; one down at the moment for it's mandated engine overhaul, and one just finished it's annual maintenance checks, but not outside yet. That left three, and he knew that two were out at the moment. He started the one which he'd been working on and slowly taxied it closer to the office, parking it in a prominent and easy to leave-from location., since he now knew that Imogen would be using it. The lust demon watched it all with interest after she found nothing like affection in him for whoever it was. A male's faint hope, perhaps, but they all had that. Imogen walked out with her instructor. She'd been trying to write while walking and now gave it up, "Go do your walkaround preflight, Imogen." Imogen began, but met up with the line boy after a moment. "Hey, Balna," she smiled, "Whatcha doing?" He smiled from the passenger seat and produced an antiseptic wipe from the dispenser with a bit of a flourish, "I am wiping sweat from controls for you, Im-o-gen. You get clean plane to fly today, ah?" She chuckled, liking the way that he always mispronounced her name, "Thanks." "Hey," he began, "What kind of dog you have? I never see one like this before you come here." "He's an Irish wolfhound," Imogen smiled. "Irish?" he asked, "Russian wolfhounds, I see many. They must hyev big wolfs in Irishland?" She shook her head, "Not anymore. And you say it 'Ireland', Balna. Balna reached into his pocket and withdrew a dog-eared little notebook. He reached to hand it to her along with a pen as he moved to get out of the aircraft, "Can you write it for me, please? Name of dog and place?" "Sure," she nodded as she took the book and found the next blank page. "There are mostly only words in here. What's the book for?" "Little English lessons," Balna smiled a little sheepishly, "I always have little book. I write down words and learn at home later on Wikpedya, yes?" Imogen chuckled, and nodded, but had to get back to her preflight inspection. Her instructor was pointing at her watch, meaning that they were already on her dime. ------------------------------ Balna had been thinking. The dreams had unsettled him as nice as they were. He felt a little as though his connection to the world around him had changed in some intangible and subtle way, so he planned to look into things in the way of his people. He planned to have only a very light meal after work and then he'd drive his beat-up old Tracker to the beach, one which he seldom saw people at. He knew of one rock-strewn section of it which people never went to and behind that in a thick little stand of trees inside the rest of the woods there, he'd make his small fire and try to learn what was what. He spent the rest of his work day planning a little, and thinking of what he might need. Sha'senh had been a little dismayed a she'd stood near him transparently, feeling his thoughts. But after a time, she reasoned that he didn't seem upset in any way. What she felt was a desire to find out. She'd felt better after that, wondering and almost deciding that it might be the time to show him. ---------------------------------- Dusty was sitting next to Imogen after they'd walked home, watching as she prepared for her simulation flight to practice instrument flight and navigation. He'd spoken with Abi after feeling him nearby as he waited for Imogen to finish her flight, and Abi had been pleased. For this, she'd be flying from one town to another about a hundred miles or so away while looking at only her instruments. Because she felt like it, her origin airport for the flight would be the one in the simulation software which was a fairly accurate representation of what was really there at the nearby airfield. She sat next to him as she worked a few things out with a pad of paper and a pen. She could have done it a lot quicker using only the planning features of the program, but they'd agreed on the value of practicing as realistically as possible. Imogen had found an accurate and realistic version of the type of aircraft which she'd be using and she loaded it up to begin after moving to her comfortable chair. "You should change the weather to heavy fog right after takeoff," he said. "Ok," she smiled, "I was gonna do that anyway." True to her word, they hadn't even left the traffic pattern before she'd paused everything and configured for zero-visibility. When she re-started, everything in her view above the instrument panel was a gray-white. "Happy now?" she asked, but he shook his head. "No cheating," he replied, "The aircraft you'll be flying is a basic trainer. It has no form of autopilot whatsoever, but this program lets you enable one with a keystroke. So you can't do that for this flight, alright?" Imogen rolled her eyes and didn't even bother with a reply. It was a pretty boring thing, just as it could be in the real version, but Dusty was determined not to allow any chatting. When she did this for real, the instructor's role was to sit there and observe and only take over if something was going wrong or there was instruction required, so even for real, conversation was minimal. He grew bored himself. He looked around and as he saw that she was hitting all of the waypoints bang-on, he grew more bored. Then he noticed that her pubic hair was gone. He didn't know that something like that could be done. He wanted to ask her about it. But he'd told her that he'd say nothing during the flight. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 07 Then he was bored AND dying to know. ----------------------------- They'd liked to sit next to each other from the start. After they'd become a couple, Imogen wouldn't feel that she always had to keep her thighs together then if they were at home. It felt more comfortable and besides, he didn't keep his together at any time either. In public was another matter and Imogen sat like any other young woman then. Imogen was still chuckling over it as Dusty looked over and down. "I thought you'd have noticed sooner, and then I forgot. Sorry." "But why?" He asked. "I felt like doing it," she said, "I've always wanted to try it. I just never had a reason before." He was confused, "I think I'm going to look dumb, but what's the reason?" She smiled at him, "I bought that swimsuit, remember? Even though I've always trimmed it, I had way too much bush to be able to wear a swimsuit like that one. I'd look like I was trying to walk away with somebody's Shiatsu or something." She had to explain it, but her reward was his laughter. Imogen loved it whenever he laughed and she missed it when he was hiding out like a dog when they were outside. "So tomorrow's Sunday," she said, "and I know a beach that a lot of people don't know about. We're going there." Dusty nodded, but then he looked at her curiously, "Wait. You said you haven't gone swimming since you were a kid. I've heard you tell me that everything around here just gets paved over and built on. How do you know that beach is even there anymore? It might be a boat-in mall by now, or a, ... I don't know, a Shiatsu dealership. Do they have those?" Imogen laughed, "I think you mean a Subaru dealership, but I get what you mean. I've been there in the last two months, Dusty. I'm pretty sure that's not enough time to pave it over, even for here." "But you said you don't swim," he said, still confused. Imogen shook her head, "You don't have to go swimming to want to go to a beach. Some people like to go there for a walk, or to walk their dogs. I happened to read a romantic novel or six where the girl would walk down a deserted and lonely beach in every one looking mysterious and wistful and she'd meet a handsome guy there by chance. So I'd go to that beach sometimes to work on my mysterious girl look. But I never saw even one guy who could have walked out of one of those novels. They looked more like the convenience store clerk type." She looked at him, noticing his expression, "What?" "I dunno," he said, looking down, "Sometimes it takes me a second to work through the knots in your language. If 'colorful' means full of color and 'hopeful' means, ... " He looked up, "What's wist?" She looked at him with a slightly annoyed expression. "A really powerful laxative used by novelists," she remarked dryly. "I'd walk along being shadowed by the same half-dozen seagulls every time – I'm pretty sure it was the same ones, all of them walking beside me, telling me to quit fucking around and hand over the fries they were sure I was hiding in my pocket. Other than them, the only guys that I met were goofy-looking jerks who must have read other books by that same author – or his wife, maybe. They were out there trying to look distant and enigmatic. But the flaw in that is that you can't exactly be distant when you're trying to hit on the mysterious girl with the thick glasses within the first two sentences. It's way obvious." She rolled her eyes, "And that guy was a surfer. I wasn't there to look for surfers. It upsets my seagull entourage when they run up carrying a board. That surfer hairstyle only works well when there's a board under your arm and the mysterious girl is a surfer too. I was at my limit going for just mysterious. I can't do surfer girl at all. Besides, you don't see many couples like that ever. I think they're the reason God made sharks. You never see them pushing little surfer tots around in strollers, do you? I like distant surfers the best when they've got some distance to them. And you blow 'enigmatic' all to hell as soon as you open your mouth when you jog over to the mysterious girl trying to pretend that you run fifty-one miles every hour and a half. Do I look like a girl who wants one of those? I stare right through their enigma and tell them to piss off. It just saves time for everybody. I already had Marchetti for the same thing and at least he paid me. Oh, and forget the ones who have that haunted look. You don't look haunted unless something's chasing you. Ex-wife, loan shark, or Dracula himself, I don't wanna know. But those are the ones who think you'll listen to their tales of woe. Fuck that, I've got my own tale." She shrugged, "Anyway, they all looked like they probably still lived with Mom. I saw the crappy cars in the parking lot. I can spot a pile of wist when I see it and I know bullwist when I hear it. All I ever got out of it was an intense desire to murder a particular novelist. He only had the one gimmick. I checked. The same fucking beach shows up for at least one scene in every novel. He even had one couple fucking in the surf. Awesome. The water washes away your juice and just one little grain of sand is all you need to complete the experience." She smiled, "But you and me, we're not going there for that. Your job is to keep the seagulls off my fries." She looked at his face and saw him looking back pointedly. "- That I'm not going to be having, ... any, ... of, apparently," she laughed. "C'mon, I'm not the same girl I was when I read those wist-filled novels, Dusty. I already know that I'm losing a lot of weight with you around and us walking all over together. I can see it too." Her eyes brightened after a second. "Hey, there might even be a sausage cart there!" she exclaimed, "You never know." His smirk was slow to turn on, but it was there, "On a deserted beach? Or were you thinking of trying to talk me into letting you buy one on the way?" Imogen went for the trembling lip and dented halo look. "Four words," Dusty said over his shoulder as he padded his way to the fridge. He was back in seconds to drop a sandwich bag onto her thighs; which annoyed her because it was cold, "Celery and carrot sticks." Imogen decided to try a larger caliber weapon. She turned on her big-eyed look. "I thought you loved me." "I do," he replied, unaffected, "I just haven't forgotten the instructions from the demon we work for – the one who can rip a human's soul right out of her chest if he feels like it. Whenever I think of him when he's pissed off, I remember that my mom doesn't live around here." ------------------------------------- The small fire wasn't exactly blazing. If anything, it burned rather fitfully in the darkness of the trees. Balna listened now and then, seeking for other sounds beside the quiet rush of the waves many yards away. What he was doing here in the middle of the night would be considered illegal, since it wasn't an area set aside for beach fires or campfires and he didn't have a permit. He knew that he'd be in even deeper if he were to be seen and discovered here now, since he'd removed his clothing. But the way that it had been done, using the things that he'd used and uttering the ancient words, there wasn't much of any smoke to the fire and it burned odorlessly, giving little light as the flames hugged the fuel of dried branches and moss. He sat thinking and feeling, chanting very softly now and then as he considered the dreams for any possible meanings. Long ago, far, far back, many of the shamanistic tribes in the land where he'd come from had lived closer to the ground in a big way. It was their lives as they saw it to be bound up with nature. He didn't know much of it, since he'd only heard references to the practise, but somewhere in the collective memory back there, the stories told of relationships with the animals and it was hard to glean what had been meant, so his interpretation had been of a joining of spirits with them, since that was the most prominent theme. But the creatures in his dreams hadn't been animals, any more than he was one, other than basically unless he practised his worship this way. He hadn't had to join his spirit with the one that he remembered from the dream. They just spoke plainly. And what that beautiful being had done for him there, ... That confused the hell out of Balna. He realized then that he was just wasting time, so he worked at letting his own spirit go to seek what might be found. As it happened, his spirit hadn't had to go very far at all. He opened his eyes in wonder, though he was still in the trance state. There was a woman of some sort standing in the middle of the now waist-high flames. Sha'senh already knew that someone like Balna didn't have any cultural references to demons in forms like she was showing him now. She knew that they had them, just not like this. She stood comfortably with her eyes closed, looking just as she'd been all day since riding in the fuel truck with Abi, though she'd discarded the chains. Balna stared in amazement, his gaze running over that body before him. His sense of wonder rose as high as the flames now when she opened her eyes to smile at him as she slowly began to dance for only him. It took him deeper in a way and he just gave in to it. He listened to her quiet speech as she told him that she hoped that it pleased him. She was truthful, telling him of finding him and the way that she felt a gentle hope in her, though she knew that she wasn't his kind. She began to change before him, showing him the shapes of several women as she danced. She almost stopped in pleased surprise when Balna asked her if she was the one from his dreams. At the time, she'd been facing almost away from him and she'd looked back over her shoulder to reply, happy as well that though he was looking at her bottom, he wasn't as mesmerized and stuck on it as most human men would have been. Balna was looking at all of her back. "Yes, Balna," she smiled as she spoke to him in his own language – the one that he missed hearing so much "It was I then, looking as my kind does with no illusion such as I show you like this. Would you like to see me that way now?" His smiling nod meant a lot to her then, and after she'd shifted in that direction and begun to slink through and around the flames in her natural shape, she was so happy to see that his maleness responded to what came to his eyes. For once in her life, Sha'senh was really proud of the way that she looked. Balna didn't even turn his head when the one that he knew as Jake appeared beside him, seated just as he was and naked as well. It just felt even more like home to him. He just knew who it was and he listened as Abi asked him a few questions about what types of aircraft he'd worked on back home. "Illyushin," Balna said in almost a whisper, and he recited the several types, his soft gaze never leaving Sha'senh. "Yakovlev", he sighed and spoke the names, "Zlin, and Tupolev, many of them." "This one is one of many that I can command," Abi said in the same tones, "She is different from the thousands of others, Balna. She wants only you, and she does not want to cause you any harm. That alone makes her very different. She wants to BE in love, to feel it and live in it. There was a time not long ago when she was prepared to die, thinking that as what she was, what she dreamed of in her heart could never come to her. She wants to be in love with you. Does that interest you?" Balna nodded slowly with a sigh, "What is her name, please?" "Sha'senh," the wondrous female sighed to him across the flames, "I am called Sha'senh. What is said to you is truth. I have never had what I see in you, Balna. I want to live in your heart, if you think that you might want to live in mine." He nodded again and she could have wept in joy. She stepped languidly out of the flames then, almost gliding to him with the most beautiful expression on her face as she came to sit before him. Sha'senh wasn't putting anything into this. She wanted to show him herself just as she was. Abi spoke more of the truth. "Sha'senh can live with you," Abi said, "she can be as any human woman that you might like to see her as. Underneath that, she is this. You are seeing her as she is naturally. If this pleases you, come and work for me," he said quietly, "I know that you have skill and many papers to prove it. The fools here will not allow you to work at what you know. They offer only courses which you will struggle at over the words of a new language, and have to fight yourself to remain awake as they do. They offer to pay for only half of the cost of those courses - after you succeed, knowing that you will almost need to work yourself to death to be able to afford them and live. Five more years, Balna. Five more years of study – to be what you already were. I accept your skill and your qualifications. I need no look to examine your papers. I can read them with my mind from where I sit. Come and work for me. Enjoy yourself with Sha'senh. My craft is none of the types that you know, but most of the same things make it fly, and those things sometimes need Balna's skill. Come and work for me, and you can leave everything. You would live on my large craft with Sha'senh and others. She yearns to learn what you can teach her and together, you can help me and each other. Say yes, Balna, and I give you to each other." Balna sat for a moment in silence, though it was clear to them that it wasn't out of indecision. He was just, ... blown away, for lack of a better term. "I have never seen someone like you, ... such beauty, " Balna said with a smile as Sha'senh rubbed her small leopard-like ear against his cheek. Her horns were small naturally and she could cause them to disappear if she desired it. But this was the way that she was and she wanted him to see her. He reached out and touched her then and it made her sigh softly as her movements caused his fingers to glide over her skin. There was no fur on her at all. Like this in her natural form, Sha'senh was pure soft and silky dark nakedness over shapely and strong musculature. Just to see her move before him could make him hard and he saw it as just another wonder about her. "I wish to be yours so much," she whispered, as she licked his ear just because she really wanted to, "And you have seen me. I came to you in dreams, Balna. I came because I had to. Say yes and I will live with you, as near as you like or not as I feel that you desire at any time. I will learn what you teach me, and I will be a good learner to you. In my turn, I will teach you all of the ways which I know to please you. I am known by some as a lust demon, though I was never a very good one. We are not any kind that someone like you could truly love. But I am different, Balna. It made me very unhappy where I am from because I wanted to love someone." She drew her slightly feline face away a little and looked into his eyes, as lost herself as he was as she looked, "I found you and now, after being with you in dreams, I want only Balna for me – if Balna wants me too." "Yes," he breathed, and Abi and Sha'senh both had to think to be sure that they'd heard it. "Yes," he said, still quietly, though with more clarity. Sha'senh sat up to fling her arms around Balna's neck, hugging him in joy before she kissed him so that he thought he might fall over. "Then I give you to each other," Abi smiled, "and I will make sure that you are not disturbed here this night. Before the morning light, you will both be in your new home together. Until then." Abi made a subtle change in Balna then just as he left them. He removed the very slight tendency which he saw there to be a little overbearing. It wasn't much, but he saw that it wouldn't be constructive. A slight shift toward being just a little more, ... clingy also came with it, but that was only a temporary effect, and he knew that Sha'senh wouldn't mind it at the start. He'd made the change for her, wanting them to really be happy, after all. The result would make things just a little sappy in his opinion, but it was what his lust demon would appreciate at the start and it would pass in a little while. With that, Abi was gone and the trance was ended. Balna found himself naked almost in darkness before his little fire again, wondering if it had all been the only the trance, somehow. But then a shape came to him out of that darkness to rub herself along him as she passed to turn around and come back. Balna knew then. She called to him over her shoulder after rubbing against him again on the way by the second time. Balna saw her slightly shy and coy look to him and he was just lost. He fell forward onto his knees and moved behind her. The way that his gentle touch drank her in as he slid his hands over her lean flanks almost caused them both to shudder and he leaned down to kiss her back. "Can I, Sha'senh?" he asked, as she felt his hardness against her opening. He hadn't even nudged her there, she thought. What a sweet boy for her. "Yes," she sighed with the slightest hint of a moan in it at the end, "Oh please, Balna." This had been her dream, she thought, and such a nice way to begin it, as she felt him slide in a bit more with little thrusts. The last one was his long, slow withdrawal most of the way back, but then he slid in again, just a little faster and in a way which made her know as it began. When she felt his balls pressing against her, Sh'honh moaned for him to tell him the way that it felt to her to be mounted and taken. She let him have his way then, bucking back against him now that they'd begun. Oh, the finest thing, she thought, to be fucked this way in the beginning. There was so much for her to enjoy like this, the sounds that he made back there and the feeling of his hands as they kept caressing her as far as he could reach. And the slapping, she thought to herself with a smile, oh, just the quiet slapping of his hips against her haunches. She felt inside him then, seeking to know if she was good for him like this or if she'd need to make any changes to increase his pleasure. What she found amazed her. There wasn't a thing needed from her. Balna was happy fucking Sha'senh just like this. He varied his speed. He changed the length of his strokes and the force which he used to drive her. Sha'senh was a little astounded. No one had ever done these little things this way to her. She watched his rise very carefully in her feeling of him, wanting more than anything to arrive at the same point at the same time when he gave her his seed. When it happened, Balna almost fell out of her. He'd never experienced anything this strongly. They both cried out together and he knew that she was offering her heart in it. The only thing that he did incorrectly was something that he realized just after it had happened. He'd pulled back too quickly because he was done for the moment. "No," he heard her chide him softly as he felt himself drawn back against her, slipping in with a completely unexpected and revived erection which felt even harder to him from his side of things. He looked up into her sweet smile, "This, I can teach to you, Balna. Never just pull out. I am one who has many gifts for the one that I seek to love." As he was drawn in once more, he groaned to feel her new tightness. It felt amazing at a time when he thought he was sated for at least a time. She wouldn't hide it if he asked, but the inside of her was lined with small, wet little tentacles no more than a few millimeters long. They were connected to her nervous system under her semi-conscious control. If she felt good, they could move. If she wanted to make it really good, she could move them in waves along the pathway. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 07 Very soon, Balna would come to know that Sha'senh could finish him even if he didn't stroke in and out of her at all. He just had to be there and she'd do the rest. If he ever asked her, she'd admit this – that it was one of the ways that one of her kind could ensnare a male. But since she had what she'd wanted and was diving into her love of him, she'd likely giggle as she did and tell him that she liked it best when he was doing his part at the same time. "It goes in both ways between us now, "she grunted a little, "I give to you as well, see? This is the way of the she-beasts such as I am; as what I make you as we learn together though you only partly and a male one as you are. After this, stay in me, Balna. I seek to make you just a little like my kind, and we can do this over and over if we wish. This time, you will find much more in you to give to me." She wasn't lying, he soon learned. They fucked for an hour or more, just like that, and he came and came and came. "What are you doing to me, Sha'senh?" he asked, covered in sweat and still hard as they stopped together. He wasn't tired. He felt ... stronger somehow, "I have never, ... I could not ever, ... " She looked back with the softest little giggle which he felt as tightening against his shaft in time with what he heard, "I make you the best mate for me as I learn to be the best female you will ever have." Her next little laugh caused them both to groan at the end of it as he ejaculated into her yet again. It was everywhere, right down his thighs to his knees and the ground and she had it all over her back end. She sighed, "My male gives to me," she whispered, "More and better than any male. Oh, I will make you a king among lovers, Balna." --------------------------------- He was on his back with her above him looking down. Balna didn't know it, but what he saw in her face was something which was never shown to humans as the simple truth which it was for her. Her kind could LOOK like they were in love, but it didn't really mean much more than window dressing to suck a male in. Sha'senh was there already, and there was no show to it at all in her heart. She'd changed herself this time, just for a little fun. The thing which was fucking herself so happily on him even looked demonic now, with much larger horns and a mouthful of teeth in her leering mouth – though her kisses were soft and amazing all the same. He saw her tail as it slid around them in her bliss and he saw her wings there above her, opened to a fair degree just so that he could see. "This is what we all look like at the moment of our triumph, "she smiled to him, "I look now as all the rest when there is no longer any need to hide anything. This is when the male that we have taken passes in his weakness. It often happens in his dreams and after this one final moment, there is no life left. They never awaken and we leave only the empty shell behind." She raised her head in joy then, her eyes closed, feeling so happy. When she looked down again, a little of the smile remained there for him. "But I only look this way for you and for a little fun for me. I do nothing here but fuck with my male once again." Her face took on a slightly serious look then as she peered down into his eyes. "I see it!" she hissed, almost in surprise, "I see it. It is there in you!" He nodded, smiling back, "Sha'senh, I had no chance and no want of one. You are the very finest." Sha'senh leaned back a little, spreading her wings wide along with her arms, feeling her own moment of triumph. She raised her horned head to the sky and the woods began to echo to the sound of her demonic laughter. "A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-OOohh!" she bent forward a little with her eyes wide and a very surprised expression. She placed her hand on Balna's chest while she tried to hide her sheepish little grin behind her other hand. "I almost pushed you out, Balna. Sorry." He smiled up at her and laughed because she looked a little cute like that and she wiggled her ass around in a way that he'd never imagined could feel so good. With a more careful little chuckling laugh and a shudder as she did it, she managed to make both of them come again just for that. --------------------------- They lay in the dried leaves and dirt of the forest floor, with various bits adhering to their bodies. Side by side, they copulated slowly, the long dark beast and the human who was slowly being changed. Balna was ran his hands over Sha'senh's body, leaning in at intervals to kiss and suck her nipples. "You have changed a few times for me," he said, "And yet these, ... these wondrous beauties here, they stay the same, Sha'senh." She opened her eyes slowly, so taken by his gentleness and the way that his deep strokes kept her melted. She almost had to clear her throat. "A wonder to me, Balna," she sighed as she rocked her hips against him, her legs holding him pleasantly captive, "I wished to change them, but I spoke truth when I said that I was never a very good lust demon. My heart always got in the way. I did not want that life. I wanted a life like what we have begun, though I did not know you then, I only ached to know that there was someone like you for me. I thought to change them, but I forgot as I changed the rest. What is under your hand and your sweet lips is me, only me, and not any illusion for our fun. They are the same ones that your hand stroked by accident when you first reached to touch me. They are what you caressed when you first mounted me, and I must have always forgotten each time that I changed the rest for you." Balna smiled, "Sha'senh, they are perfect to me." She moved to get him fully inside of her as she rolled onto her back, taking him along. "We must go very soon, Balna," she whispered, "I see the beginnings of the lightening of the sky. Fuck me only a little more, a few minutes and fill me again." It went on for less than five minutes after that. The ending was memorable to them both for it's sweet release. As he moved his arm, he looked at it, seeing the darker difference. "I give you a way to change, to make use of the strength which you now have. I saw in you some of the tasks which I must learn, and I saw that some of it will need much from us together." She smiled under him then, "I will want some help from you then. I cannot do it all myself. So I make you a little more like me in a way. You may not ever walk low as I can, but you have strength like this. You can look as you were whenever you wish." She laid her hand on his chest and the new ridges of his abdomen, rubbing with her fingertips to make him smile. "But some things will always remain now." They heard the very quiet roar out over the water as it grew slowly louder. Sha'senh pulled Balna to his feet and padded beside him as she led him to the water's edge. His clothing and the rest of the things there which connected him to his life here faded as they walked off. The sound grew a little louder and the water out there over a large area began to be blown outwards. Something large and indistinct seemed to hang over the small swells then and a square of light appeared as a door opened for them. The pair walked into the water together, losing the leaves and twigs and dirt as they walked. When the tops of the waves neared Sha'senh's head, she shifted effortlessly into a horned woman who walked holding the hand of a newly horned man. Moments later, they were swimming until they could pull themselves out inside of the doorway with a little help from a large demon and a hell hound who offered his large paw. A small female imp welcomed them with her little smiles and an armload of towels They stood then, the female holding herself wetly against the male as he looked back for a last time at the human world which he was leaving for the most part. They turned away and walked farther inside. A little ahead of where they stood, Abi glanced at the images on a pair of displays which showed him that the newest members of his crew were safely aboard. He closed the door and turned the huge craft away from the shoreline, gaining altitude as it gained speed. He knew that for the next few days, the best thing that he could do was to let them eat and fuck. It wasn't exactly productive, but it would cement what had been begun in the surest way. Besides, for those days he didn't want to really speak with them anyway. He smiled to himself. Sappy, clingy new couples were just a test of everyone's patience. ---------------------------------- Imogen walked with Dusty in the sunshine to the beach. She felt pretty good as she remembered Abi's words. She knew that she'd likely never be really thin, but she knew that she was losing weight in this new life of hers and she liked it. Today, she just finally felt the way that Abi had meant. She actually felt a little sensual. Dusty's approving thoughts came to her when she'd mentioned it, "I see it too, Imogen and I love to see you feeling good." "And this is the first time that I haven't seen one seagull anywhere near me" She laughed as she had the thought. "It's not hard to influence their minds," he said, "They're all over at the crowded beach. I told them that the big weiner on the roof of that weiner company car that we saw was for them." She put her arm over his shoulders, "You know what I'd really love to do one day? More than almost anything, I'd love to walk someplace with you where you can walk the way that you are, and not have to hide looking like a wolfhound." "Me too," he replied in her mind, "I'm too big in this disguise, and I hate to always have to act like one." "I know," she nodded, "I was just having a little fantasy about us being someplace else on a beach or anywhere that there weren't people. You could be an Ushandi and I'd love to walk beside you with nothing on, just you and me, Dusty." "And our collars," he smiled up. "And our collars, "she smiled. ---------------------------- He heard his name as he stepped out of the water. Imogen was calling him from where she stood in between two sand dunes some yards away. He trotted over. "Can you look around and tell me if there's anybody even a little near us?" she asked him. "I can sense that there isn't a human within the length of a football field except for two and those ones are ..." He smiled, "They're fucking in the woods over there." She laughed, "Really?" Dusty nodded, "Why do you ask?" "Oh, I dunno," she smiled as she looked around from the top of one of the low dunes as though she needed to check herself. "I haven't given you a little show for a while. Maybe I thought that it was about time." Dusty stared as she took off her bikini bottom and shimmied down very slowly, grinding her hips a little and smiling at him the whole way down. When she got all the way down, she began to urinate, laughing softly at the way that he smiled. When she was done, she stood up and looked around again before running straight into the water. When he reached her, she was still laughing as she tied her bikini on again. "Betcha weren't expecting that!" "No," he smiled as broadly as possible for a wolfhound, "I almost wasn't ready, but I saw it and now I know where it comes out." "So it's not such a mysterious place anymore?" "No," he replied as they walked out to have a little lunch, "But you're still my mysterious girl." Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 08 ***This one is a patchwork, I'm not kidding. Where there's a big change of scenery, I let you know at the beginning of the scene. There's some horror at the beginning, I guess, so if you need to, hug your teddy bear a little tighter and it's short anyway. Oh, maybe I ought to point out something. I find that many of my readers are well-read and knowledgeable. In case you aren't, it's no crime, but two creatures appear in this (among the others) & I'd like to point out the differences. A faun is a sort of half-human half-goat creature. They like pleasure, and some even like the idea of pleasure for the long term, though that's not supposed to be common in them. They can be foolish and make mistakes now and then. A satyra is a female satyr. The one in this is very old and she also has a few uh, habits which separate her from the rest. They're brighter than fauns and the older ones tend to be crafty. Hope you like it. 0_o **** Not far from Mayesville, South Carolina, 11:02PM, local time She leaned her head in further under the man's jawbone and closed her teeth on his neck again. He still struggled, but it was the only thing that he could do, after all. It was all they knew, once she began her gorging. She understood it, of course. Any creature fights with everything they have once they know that they've been caught by something which wants them for sustenance. It was a natural thing. It just didn't change anything. She smelled the blood, tasted it's coppery tang, loving this part as her need rose in her. The rain poured down on the struggling pair, oblivious because it was rain. She was oblivious because she was about to continue her feast and it didn't do anything to dissuade or discourage her anyway. She opened her mouth and drew back a little, smiling with closed eyes as the warm flood sprayed over her face from his opened carotid artery. She hadn't had anything this good in years. It hadn't been especially hard to do. It never was once she'd decided. She stayed for a time in the bar, smiling at the men and dancing when she felt like it. She knew that the way that she looked to men made her difficult to resist. It was what she was there for, after all. She'd never been there before, but this night seemed right and she'd been hungry. Even better, the rain went on like it was the end of the world, and the way that a lot of people tended to think that they each were the best drivers on the planet just had a way of keeping the road cops busy seeing to all of the wrecks on a night like this. That made what she'd come for even easier to do, since by the time that she'd made her choice, she could make most of the rest forget just about any details of their time there that night. They all knew it would happen, after all. The hospital emergency staff, the paramedics, the local fire departments, and the police. The rain would teem down, the roads wold turn a bit slippery, the visibility would drop to the point where most windshield wipers would be hard-pressed to keep up, ... And the people would still drive on at the very same speed. A lot of them drove even slightly faster. The drivers never had the thought, but the emergency workers knew. They all knew what a night like this would bring and so did she. So she'd danced in the middle of all of the warm bodies, smiling the whole time. She'd accepted the drinks which were offered to her, knowing what had been added to them. Tossing those ones back made her smile even more. The drugs were there to incapacitate a human female. She thought it was funny. She even knew which of the males there had done it. It might have been something in her which thought that the irony might be a little delicious; she wouldn't have been able to answer honestly if she'd been asked. She didn't really know why ... But she chose them. Something about them thinking like spiders who were there to catch a pretty fly for their perverted fun, never knowing that they were looking at the wasp which hunted them. It was a humorous thought to her somehow. The ride in the truck sitting between them had been interesting as well, since both of them kept looking at her, wondering why she wasn't out cold and growing slowly bolder as she allowed them both to cop a few feels. It hadn't been that big a deal to them, though. She was there with them and not looking as though what they'd put into her drinks had the slightest effect, but it didn't matter. What they had in mind would just probably get a little loud at the end. It did get loud of course, but she wasn't the one making all of the noise. They drove her through the rain to a run-down farm where one of them lived. When they tried to pull her out of the cab, she broke the driver's side door mechanism with a thought. While he struggled with it, cursing the old truck for choosing this particular time to fail him, he heard his friend's startled cry and turned to look. That had been when she'd hit him so hard that she'd almost broken his neck -- which would never do, she'd thought at the time -- but she'd decided to save him for last. While he slumped down unconscious, she wrapped her long claws around the other one's neck and reached across to open the passenger door. She pushed him out, but he almost hung from her grip as he half-stood in the rain. By then he was already pissing himself in his new and sudden fear but she didn't mind. She just took a couple of quick steps in the direction opposite the one in which he was facing as he squirmed and tried to beg for his life. He ended up on his back on the sodden ground with her hunkered over him as she began. She was far too quick about it, and she regretted that for a moment, but there was the other one. She just didn't want to have to chase him very far if he woke up while she was busy. It didn't take too long once she really let herself feel her hunger. The jacket and the shirt gave her only a moment's trouble until she'd ripped them away and sunk the long teeth of her maw over his chest and gorged while he screamed. She heard the gasp then and looked back with her bloody face at the larger of the two. He was clearly disoriented, but he was coming back to whatever passed for thoughts in his selfish mind and he stared at what he saw, his eyes seeming as large as saucers. He'd figured out that the driver side door was never going to open properly again and after that slow thought had worked it's way into his muddled and groggy brain, he'd been trying to get out through the other door. It still hung open in the downpour after all, the interior light showing his terror and fear very well. The rain was partially successful in rinsing the blood from her face, but she didn't pay it any mind anyway. She smiled at him, the contents of her mouth plainly evident and she chewed on what it held for a moment. She held up his dying friend by the hair and leered, her speech slightly distorted because her mouth wasn't empty, "Want shom?" The man almost reeled right back into the truck at the horrific sight and the finishing touch was the sight of the smaller man's beseeching eyes as his eyelids fluttered from the last of his consciousness while he hung bleeding out. She kicked the door shut on the second one's legs, breaking one shin and causing him to scream as well. She went back to her gorging. When she thought of the one crying in the truck again, the first man was dead. She stood up and opened the door the rest of the way and reached in to pull him out. He fought to the best of his desperate ability, but she'd pulled him shrieking to her lips anyway, lifting him a little as she sank to her knees again. This one had a better build on him. That made him better to chew on in the driving rain. She'd really enjoyed the second one, eating far more, when she heard the sound of the motorcycle as it was worked up the long, tree-lined and overgrown drive to the house. She wondered for a moment how she was going to have to tie this one up for later -- a few days from now, most likely. After a night like this one, she wouldn't need to eat any humans for a while. She could go a long time between meals like this, and she usually did, needing to subsist on the smaller animals that she caught for herself most often, but eating like she had to might make her want to return to her old life and the thought didn't really appeal to her. She didn't show the passage of much more than perhaps twenty-two winters, but she'd been here almost as long as humans had. Well, for as long as they'd been living in villages anyway. After a long moment spent in watching the light of the bike's headlights growing brighter as it approached, she knew that she wouldn't be doing anything like what had passed through her mind a few moments before. This one wasn't like the others which lay at her hooved feet. To her mind as she felt what she could of him, ... This one might actually be a little interesting to her. She made no move to run or hide herself and only stood in the pouring rain waiting. Lee Coulter didn't mind the rain. He could ride though most things under most conditions and he never gave it much of a thought at the time. Sometimes it felt to him as though he'd been riding forever, but that was alright. He'd always loved to ride, and he didn't much mind a night like this. He minded the state of the fuel gage on the top of the gas tank a lot more and he thought that he'd mind the thought of pushing a big-assed hog like his even more than that. As he'd ridden up and down the rises through the mud of the farm driveway, he'd thought that he'd seen something up ahead at the top of it by the old house. As he crested the last rise to the top, he looked at what he saw there and decided that the scene was just a little different. There was a pickup truck there with one door open in the rain, still running, and the scent of the exhaust as it hung in the air confirmed to him what had been in his mind earlier. Old truck, big old V8 engine, an owner who liked to believe that whenever he pressed on the gas pedal that it was connected to the big dick that he liked to think that he had. Lee couldn't have cared less about that. He knew one thing. Big old engines don't like to run on the shitty stuff they sold these days. They need the good stuff, whatever had enough octane to it to keep the big cylinders from pinging self-destructively in pre-ignition. A Harley needed juice like that even more, having only two cylinders and two pistons, but they were even larger than the ones in the truck and the cylinders were long. Something like he rode needed that sweet fuel -- and he had a fairly good idea where he could get a free load right now. It might have been saying something about him that he'd have these sorts of thoughts before any others. But Lee knew something else. Anyone who's ever had to push a dead Harley knows what's important. He slowed even more and looked at the rest of this in his lights. There were two men on their backs in the mud and he knew that they'd never be getting up again under their own steam, by the amount that he saw they were missing. And there was a female before him, as naked in the rain as the day she'd been uh, ... whatever she'd been on that first day of her life. She had long, dark hair and he saw the blood still there over her face, breasts and her now slightly-distended belly. Under that, he saw the thick thatch of fur between her legs and also that it kept going, though it did look a little shorter as it led his gaze down her long furry donkey-like legs to her blood-covered hocks and hooves. He looked back up and started again at the top, switching off his high beams since they were causing her to squint. Her face was very human-like under those little horns in her hair. In this light, the color was hard to tell, but the wet and dark brown fur on her legs told him enough. Her tits were pretty nice, he thought, as he looked away for a moment down at the ground, and seeing that there was a large, flat rock embedded in the mud as it had likely been since being pushed here ahead of the last Ice Age, he lifted his left foot to swing out the kickstand. With the bike thumping contentedly on it's stand, Lee looked up again at her and switched off his lights and the ignition with a little smile. He couldn't remember seeing one girl who'd been able to make him feel this way in the last, ... Well he didn't know, but it had to have been about forty fucking years, give or take. Since not long after he'd gotten back to the states, he guessed, and he'd never seen one just like this one in his long life, though he knew what she was. He'd never seen a satyra before and he tried for a moment to decide if her odd eating habits might get in the way of things. She'd been looking at him the whole time and she'd already decided that she so liked what she saw -- once he'd dimmed the lights a little. She didn't need the light at all, just as she knew that he didn't. She just wondered if he knew what she did, just by looking at him. Lee had been born in a very rural part of England, and his parents had been a pair of people who'd worshipped in a way which would have seen them burned at the stake a few hundred years before during the witch hunts. Almost all of those unfortunates were either falsely accused Christians, or they were people who practised the old and natural way from long before. Very few were actually worshippers of the one they'd been said to have been. But Lee's parents had been. As it was, most of their neighbors just knew that there was something a little odd about them. Immigrating to America not long after Lee was perhaps three years-old, they'd tried to live a little more normally since the interest had faded. Somewhere in there, they came apart as a couple and went their separate ways. Lee had been raised by his mother and she moved the two of them around quite a bit, wanting to keep him away from the influence of his father. She really hadn't needed to do that, since he'd found himself somebody else and never gave either of them much of another thought. They lived in poverty mostly, and Lee had never been the wiser for a long time. He'd spent the years of his childhood and adolescence trying to fit in, and struggling with some other things that nobody else around him of his age ever had to. Puberty and all that had been as tough on him as likely anyone his age, but he had other urges within himself to fight. In the early sixties, he'd joined the US Army, and at least the work of training and learning the skills of a ranger had been a help. Eventually, his company had been rotated to Southeast Asia where Lee felt a little more at home. Under the right conditions there, he didn't have to fight his urges. He could kill as many as he liked. He'd never made a big deal about it, but to him sometimes, it felt better than being back home, since he'd never killed anybody there. Not on purpose. But as time went on, Lee had the time to finish maturing and it caused him to look back over his life and think. That was when he knew more than anything that he wasn't like anyone else. He just looked like them, that was all. He'd been shot, but it never killed him and the wounds healed after a while. There had been times when he'd been the only one still alive in his whole platoon. He'd done his best to keep his buddies alive, but sometimes he'd failed. It had caused him to get angry, and when Lee was angry, well, ... it wasn't a good thing to be on the other side. He'd had to hide what had happened several times, because there just was no plausible explanation for what had happened. Lee was large and muscular, but it raised the eyebrows of the ones who'd had to look into the decimation of a whole platoon of rangers leaving only one survivor. And somewhere during his time over there, he'd learned something else. He wasn't aging. He kept 're-upping', opting to extend his stay every time that he was asked. He knew that he'd have an even harder time fitting in back home. But sooner or later, he knew what was bound to happen. Lee Coulter would run out of war. When it happened, he rotated back and left the service before any bright bulb took the time to think about him. He did manage to fit back into society without harming too many, but it had never felt right to him. He read through the many letters which his mother had written to him over the years, and as he did, he found the last one, unopened. It had come in the last pile and he'd missed it somehow. After reading what was there, he went home to see his mother. She'd aged badly in the time that he'd been gone, though she was very happy to see him again. "I didn't really think that you'd die over there as so many poor boys have," she'd said, "but a mother worries over a son." She was weak and ill, growing more so each day, though she flatly refused any offer of treatment. "There are so many things wrong with me, Lee. I doubt that anyone has the money to fix me everywhere and even so, I think that my time is coming to me, that's all." Lee did his best to make her life comfortable and she was thankful for it. But she knew it when she only had a little time left. So she told him everything. She was his mother, but the man he remembered hadn't been the one who'd made him with her. He hadn't been born in a hospital because ... well, because he couldn't be. These days, Lee was a little stuck where he'd been for decades. His hair had turned white, but that was the only sign of the years on him. It was still thick and full and he kept it in an old fashioned crew cut, as hard as it could be these days to find a barber to cut it like that for him. His hair was snow white and some people took him to be an albino at first, though a look into his eyes showed no sign of any albinism. Other than that, he looked like he was still in his mid-twenties and in a society where a trackable identity was everything, Lee Coulter had to hide what he was and work at whatever jobs he could find for cash. It tended to not pay well, but he found that he had little desire to earn the larger amounts which doing something unlawful would provide him. Lee was no angel not by any stretch, but he had it hard enough as it was. The satyra was smiling as she stepped over to him. From about anyone else alive, her first word as she uttered it - as what she was looking at completed her pleased surprise - would have pissed him off just a little. But she sighed as she said it -- as though the thought was about the most pleasant one which she could ever have as she looked at her hand and seeing no blood on it, she laid it on his shoulder with a pleased expression. "Demonspawn." ------------------------------ Florida Imogen sat on the edge of the bed, untying her bikini. They'd had a great time walking along the beach after their picnic lunch. The only thing which really bothered her was that they'd had to spend the time as a girl and her dog, so that meant that she could eat, but she had to feed him his half of the sandwiches, and set out the resealable plastic containers of the rest. But it had been fun. Hours later now, they'd sat together on the floor as she'd flown another instrument flight. After that, she'd loaded up something a lot more interesting to fly and watched as Dusty got the hang of it at last. They'd made their dinner together but now it was late. "Come on, Baby," she said softly, "Turn out the lights and come to bed." ----------------------------- Hungary, down in the cellars Pob reached into the container and took out the last two handfuls of her old movies to put them on a shelf with a cover that could hold them if the craft was in any attitude so that they wouldn't end up all over from it. She didn't have anything to play them on just yet, but she'd already asked Abi if he might get her something and he'd agreed, also offering his regret that she and Ouna had come apart. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 08 "I didn't think that would happen, Pob," he'd said as he'd looked down with raised eyebrows, "Even I can't tell all the time what might happen. I see that you're hurt and I'm really sorry to see it." Pob nodded with a sigh, "It's ok. I'll get over it sometime. Thanks for letting me move here. I know that you were thinking of letting me have my own cabin and I'm a little flattered that you'd think that well of me. But really, all I need is here, once I get my chin off the floor. I found out the other night that I'd forgotten where I came from. Living here in a bunch makes me feel a lot better. I just don't want the others to feel bad for me, that's all. I'm gonna tell them all not to make such a thing over it. I don't want to go on with Ouna, that's all. Nobody died or anything." The conversation happened in the corridor. After Abi had nodded and walked away, Pob had gone inside and unpacked. When she was done, she gathered up a few things and looked at them. Being what she was and coming from a colony, Pob wasn't the sort who'd hang onto a lot of things if she had little use for them. She looked at a few things which she'd packed with the rest and saw that she was looking at them for the first time in a long while, and hadn't thought of them or missed them for a time. To her mind, that meant that they weren't really that important to her, so she hauled them off to the open door of the craft. She had everything shit-canned in a moment, but as she was about to turn back to walk into the craft once more, she saw the furtive movement of someone ducking out of sight. Pob stood there looking and she felt a few things as well. Finally, she walked over very slowly. When she was maybe twenty feet away from a stack of crates, she stopped. "Please step away from there. The crate at the top doesn't look stable. That whole pile was stacked badly." It took a little while, but she finally saw a demon peek out around the side of one of the crates. It was a female, much larger than herself, though she looked nervous. Pob thought that she was seeing things. But then she realized that it wasn't Ouna. She was only the same breed as Ouna. "What are you doing out here?" she asked, "There are only supposed to be a couple of guards here, and you're obviously not one of them. I know them all." "Forgive me," the demon said, "but -- " "I'll forgive you," Pob said, "unless you've done something really wrong or stupid. But hanging around here, you'll be seen sooner or later. If it's by the wrong ones, it'll go badly for you. Come on, step away from that pile before one of them falls over or something. We can talk here." "What if I am seen then?" the other one asked nervously. "Well then," Pob smiled a little, "at least you'll be seen talking with me and not trying to hide. Come over here since you want to ask me something, by what I feel." She looked back at the stack of crates, "And I know that you're not alone. A second female stepped away from the tippish-looking stack and edged a little nearer. Pob was astounded at what she saw. Pob now wanted to know what was going on. The first female was fairly young and a little nervous-looking. She was beautiful in a way that reopened the sore spot in Pob's heart a little bit, though it wasn't her fault, she knew. She was as tall as Ouna or almost and she did look to have at least some confidence to her. Her movements were sure, and though she did look nervous, the thought of being discovered there by the guards didn't seem to hold any terror to her. Pob knew then that she was fearful for the other one. The second female was a faun, and not really a demon at all. She peered around a bit rather carefully before she trotted closer. She looked to be frightened enough for them both. She was shorter than her companion and was much more slightly built. She was as tall as a human woman who was nearer to the lower edge of what might pass for medium height among them. Pob wondered how she'd even managed to get down here this far without being devoured or torn apart until the demon explained that she'd guided her and protected her as she could. "We came to learn what we could about the soldier who was brought here," she said in almost a whisper, "We -- we know him." The story that they told the imp over the next several minutes as they fidgeted got to Pob a little. The demon asked Pob a few questions, and the faun clearly wanted to ask her own until Pob had to reach out to grab her shoulder to prevent her from running off in terror when one of the guards came around the corner. "Just stay here and keep talking," she said, "and try not to look like you're about to piss yourself, ok? Who are you?" "Lashta, I am called," the demon said, "and this is Masanna." She fell silent as she watched Pob smile to the patrolling guard. She nodded to him and chatted with him at a distance for a moment or two, explaining that the ones with her were her friends. The guard stepped closer, staring at them both -- especially the faun. His expression gave Pob the feeling that this was not going to lead to anything pleasant in about a minute or less. She'd already noticed that Lashta didn't look as though she was ready to cower or beg -- and she'd already curled the fingers of her hand into a fist, though it hung at her side. But the guard looked up behind them suddenly, his face changing to show uncertainty as he heard the low growl. Sandy was standing in the doorway with his head lowered and his body in a hulking and rather threatening posture. "They are mine," he said. The guard looked up with a slightly skeptical expression, "Yeah? Which ones, then?" Sandy jumped from the edge of the doorway to land almost at the guard's feet. He looked up only a little into the now-nervous looking eyes and his hot breath shot into the guard's face as he did. "All of them," he said, his eyes beginning to glow hotly. As though he'd just remembered something that he had to do, the guard walked on then. Lashta looked relieved and Pob noticed that Masanna looked a little thrilled. "Yeah," Pob said, continuing the earlier conversation, "He's here, still on this thing, but I don't know what you've heard. He had no mind when they got him. What's in his head now is a human one. Thanks, Sandy, even if I was being just a little rude there," She kissed him softly then, just a quick peck, hoping now that it wouldn't be the last time. The female demon looked very sad then, as though she might cry for a moment, and then it was gone. Sandy had an idea come to his mind, though he said nothing. "Tell me more about it all," Pob said. "Why?" the bigger one asked, "You are one of the important ones who ride on this. I know that much. Why would you care? I am no one." Pob shook her head, "I don't think so, Lashta." She smiled, "I think you just might be pretty important, if you can both get a bit of courage together at the same time. I can see the wheels in Sandy's head spinning. That always makes me curious." She looked toward Sandy, feeling a little subdued suddenly, but he stepped closer to her and spoke in a low voice, "Nothing has changed. I have a thought and try to make things better for my friend the imp as well. I know these ones. Let's find the large lord. I wish to ask things." He looked at the three females for a moment, "I ask for your trust and promise nothing bad to you. You must agree when I ask the large lord -- and try not to look even the slightest bit surprised at what I say to him." ------------------------- Abi looked up from where he sat considering things. "I wish to bargain further," Sandy said quietly. Abi looked at the others and nodded a little cautiously, "Go on then." "We spoke of my staying here and protecting what is yours," the hell hound began. "Yes," Abi nodded, "and I gave you the two hellions as your consorts as you asked then." Sandy nodded with an abbreviated single nod, "But Pob finds uses for me to stand on while she works." "Ouna used to let me use her for a stepladder," Pob said with a shrug. "But now I'll have to drag one around with me. Sandy's better, especially for lighting or tracing cables in the overhead racks. I just sort of stand on his back and surf along to the next light or tray." Sandy nodded, "And I know these two here. Lashta can help Reed to remember things such as one of his kind of demon must know. She can help him remember more and teach what he cannot remember. She knew my friend when he was a soldier and can help him to learn to care for his weapons, the ones he will need as he guards with me. The one called Ouna is upset and does not speak to him or me now. My friend Pob needs me very much; this faun needs protection as well." Abi turned his head to look at them and then he stared at the taller one, thinking that he saw a resemblance. The name rang a bell. "You're --" She nodded, "Lashta. I am the daughter of Ytsmon, whose body now holds another mind, lord." Abi stared even more. "Lashta... I've heard of you." He was silent for a moment and then he looked at her once more. "The young killer in the pit, that was you? You killed a pair of twenty-year-old males just to make your father smile, I heard." She nodded, though she didn't smile, "I learned from my father. Only the first was to make him smile. The second was to make him laugh." Abi groaned then, wanting to kill the mage even more now. "Ytsmon and his daughter. I spend too much time with other things. I had a pair of fighters here who could have ruled the fighting pits in the realms and I never thought of it. Well, you're here now and a part of a hell hound's bargain, I guess." He looked at Sandy again. "Tell me what you want," Abi said to Sandy impassively, "I must know that and what you offer in trade." "I want no gold," Sandy said, "I offer the same as before and the work with Pob and Ouna and Reed besides. I offer to try to be the friend of the one called Reed, since there is little of my friend there as yet and I think now that there may never be more than the little that I see. What I want, ..." He paused for a moment and then spoke his mind. "I want this demon female to be given to Reed. When the one in that body was my friend, they were together. As he is now, Reed cannot be a soldier and you would lose much again if he is killed. She can teach him everything. I want these females to be mine." "You already have your consorts," Abi said, but Sandy shook his head, "I know this and I am pleased. But they cannot sate one like me completely. I want Pob and Masanna for my wives." Abi had been slouching in the co-pilot's seat with one foot on a corner of the instrument panel until then. What he heard caused his foot to fall to the floor. "Wives?" He shook his head a little as though the doing of that might make things make a little more sense. "I grant that you are the most devoted hell hound I've ever seen, and coming to know you better as I have has shown me that you are far brighter than most. It makes me wonder about you, Sandryah. Your kind does not take -- wives. You must also know that demons don't take wives either." "That is known to me," Sandy replied, "but it is the way of fauns when they decide to pair forever. I want this one to feel better and as she stands, she feels lost. Because of what they are between them, the others are consorts. I know that some sorts of imps marry as well, though it is rare. I want Pob as my wife also." Abi looked a little annoyed. Sandy thought of what this would cost Abi and the answer was very little. He looked at Abi with the same expression. It was just part of bargaining. "You want much, hound," Abi said, "This faun, ... I don't even know how she got down here. I will need to replace my guards now. I'll grant you that she's lovely for a faun, and I understand about the demon-girl here, but I don't have the room in here when I've got troops aboard for everyone who wants a ride to hop on. Even this thing has limits and -- " "Forgive me, lord," Sandy said with a bit of a bow -- which caught Abi's attention since hell hounds never made the gesture in his experience, "I should have mentioned it. The faun can work at keeping things clean inside. I live here with the rest, but I cannot manage a broom." Abi thought for a moment and his senses told him that he felt nothing like he might if this were a ruse, for all of them felt agreeable to him. "Alright," he said with a bit of a mild scowl, "But this ends it and our bargain is set as far as your needs go, other than anything which might come up unforeseen by either of us later." He leaned a little, pausing in the act of getting to his feet as he waited to hear the response. He looked at Pob. "I agree to be Sandy's wife," she said simply. "I can live with him and the others, since we all like each other, but Sandy's been such a friend to me from the beginning and we've been a little intimate, and it was enough for me to know that I want to stay with him. I know what a wife is. My parents were like that. To be his wife sounds even better to me." "You aren't like the others Pob," Abi said, "I didn't ask for fealty from you when you came. I offered a life here and I offered employment. I could force you into this, but I never would. All the same, my beautiful little friend, this choice is yours. I can only give you in the hope that you are happy again from it." He looked at Sandy. Sandy nodded, "I agree to these terms -- especially since you gain another fighter for this craft for little more than time and her food and giving Pob in the bargain comes at no cost to you, lord." Abi heard the point, though he gave no sign of it. "Then this ends it as far as your little zoo goes, Sandryah. If Reed seems to react to Lashta well, she can stay with him wherever he is." he said as he stood up and walked out. "What do, ... "Pob had almost known that it was coming, but she'd still had to fight at forcing up the hopeful feeling in her chest during the dealings for Abi's benefit. To herself she really didn't get all of this. "That was bold Sandy. I've gotta hand it to you, but what do we do now? I can see that Masanna's got some hopes, but where am I supposed to be in this? I thought we were getting close, and -- " He turned to face them, "Now, we take Lashta to meet Reed. After I see what I hope to see, then we will go to our cabin where my wives will try to make friends with each other as the others meet Masanna." Pob shook her head, "But you told him that we're supposed to be your wives, and --" Sandy smiled, "And now these two can have a place here. Ouna will have to decide what she truly wants. If she has a brain, she might even smile a little bit. Lashta will be pleased, and to live with Reed if it goes well between them and have another girl of Ouna's kind to share him with will come as no surprise to Lashta, since it was what she had before." Lashta's eyes lit up after hearing it and she nodded eagerly. "You're his daughter?" Pob asked, "And you were, ... I know that a lot of kinds of demons do that, but I've never heard of a soldier demon who did." "Try to understand," Lashta said, "My mother found Masanna outside one day when I was mostly grown and she took her in. While my father lived, he was much protection for me and I learned many things at his hand. I know how to fight and I know how to soldier. When he was gone in his duties, it was my mother who fought to protect us. When I came of age, my mother had taken all of the fighting that she could and she died not long after. I protected my friend Masanna after that, and I took the role of mate to my father also. From what you say, there is not much left of him but his body. I want to try to help the one who lives there now. Also, it is my hope that he might like one such as me and that I might like him. That is why I came." Pob nodded her agreement after a moment of thought, "I just hope that it works for you, Lashta. As it is, Reed hasn't got a clue about knowing what it is to be a demon. I was a little afraid of him meeting another soldier demon and trying to shake his hand or something just as humanly stupid in a case like that." "If I have my chance," Lashta said, "I will teach him all that he needs to know." They looked at Sandy, realizing that he'd been waiting and Pob still wanted to know where she stood -- or where she ought to be standing. "T'maz and Tozama will like Masanna, I am certain," Sandy said, "There is only one thing that I hope goes well, besides Pob having more bodies to lie against," he smiled. "I knew Masanna a little and we have mated together once. What I want is that you can find a friendship between you and help each other." Pob was still trying to work her way through the other things that he'd said, "But I wanted --" Sandy pressed against her cheek very gently with his snout, "It is my hope that my wives become friends, "he said, "I truly wish to be your husband, and it is important to me that I be a good one." He looked into her face, seeing that she still struggled. "Pob please, I want you also. You are the smallest, but I have felt your large heart. Have you ever seen my kind mate?" "Other than when Tozama was fucking on you?" She shook her head and Masanna sighed with a warm smile. "We take only one female of our own kind. I have no wish to hurt any of my consorts -- especially not the imp who wants me so much that I can hear her heart even as she sleeps against me." Pob blinked for a moment as it sunk in. "Was I that obvious?" Sandy nodded. Masanna nodded as well, "I saw this as soon as you saw him stand before the guard." "I have heard your little murmurs as you slept," the hell hound smiled, "It was so nice to hear my name in your dreams. Your little sounds were what gave me the hope when I thought that I had a chance for us all." Pob looked at Masanna, "Are you good with all of this?" The faun nodded, "Yes. You help me, I help you. Are the others like you, Pob? I find that I liked you when you helped us outside." She looked around the large interior as they walked out into the corridor, "I think I will need you so that I do not get lost. How can I hope to do my job?" Pob found that she enjoyed hearing Masanna's voice as she spoke. She did look a little lost, even though she was a fair bit larger than Pob was. Pob remembered the first time that she found herself looking down this very corridor, wondering how she'd ever manage to do her job. She smiled, "Because you won't be doing it alone. I'll organize it. ALL of us will help, and we'll do it one day out of seven, unless there are some troops aboard. If that happens, it'll be one day out of three because they're all gonna be helping. Sandy will make them help if he has to." "I will help, Masanna," Lashta nodded, "as we have always done, you and I." "See?" Pob grinned, "You just tidy as you see it needs in between." She hopped up onto Sandy's back and held out her hand, "Climb up here with me, Masanna. I think we'd better get to know each other." Masanna looked startled for a moment and then she smiled and jumped to pull herself up. She sat behind Pob with a big smile and leaned forward to whisper down, "Thank you, Pob. I did not know how to say it just now. You are smaller, but you can be a good wife to our large one. I will help you. For what was done to help me, I will always help you." Pob was smiling herself now as she looked up and back, "Good. I'm just seeing the benefits here. With two of us on the same side, we can get our way a LOT more." "What, ... What does that mean?" Sandy asked a little uncertainly. "Nothing husband," Pob replied sweetly and the two girls laughed over it. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 08 Pob reached for Masanna's hand and pulled it forward around herself a little. The faun got the idea and did the same with the other one. To the imp, it felt good as she thought ahead a little to when all of them slept against each other. Four warm bodies with one hot one in the middle seemed to feel about right to her. ------------------------- In another part of the craft a short time later, Reed looked up from where he sat; trying to come to grips with the new -- to him -- way that the diagrammatic symbols on the system drawings looked. It wasn't too hard to come to grips with, though here was a lot to learn, all the same. He smiled, "Hi Sandryah. Have you come to watch as I scratch my head in confusion?" The hell hound didn't shake his head. His tone said everything. "No. I only came to spend a little time near you, if it is no bother." "Oh, it's no bother," Reed smiled, "Besides, I've already learned to be a little careful reaching up. Sometimes, where I'd scratch happens to be under one of these horns and I end up smacking my knuckles." Reed's expression changed a little and he laughed, "But I'm already used to feeling them up there and I don't notice the weight of them much anymore." He sighed a little, "It's all a lot for me to come to terms with. I didn't mean to cause anything, but I can tell that I've made a mess of things pretty much right out of the gate. I can see that the little one with the long hair -- whose name I can't recall at the moment -- " "Her name is Pob," Sandy said, "You have not really hurt her. She is more bothered by the actions of Ouna, the large one who is like you. As I see it, what happened should not have gone that way, though I do not think that she faults you for it. If you really wish to, you might offer her an apology, since she is here behind me." Reed looked and saw Pob as she tried to smile at him a little shyly. "I'm very sorry about what happened," Reed began, "I didn't know much and the way that the lord guy was talking, I guess I just thought that --" "It's alright," Pob said, "I feel stupid because I thought that Ouna and I could have a lot of fun together with you -- which isn't really possible, now that I've gotten over myself. But I found somebody who can maybe help you a little if you're trying to remember anything. You've never seen her, but the one who lived in there before you knew her." She almost had to drag Lashta out from where she stood trying to hide herself. "This is Lashta," Pob smiled, "I've told her that there's a confused human called Reed in there now. But she remembers Ytsmon, the demon who your body used to belong to. The group that he was in are all dead now, thanks to the demon mage who wiped out Ytsmon's mind and put yours into that head a day later. I met her outside a little while ago. She was out there hoping to find out a little about her father. One of the soldiers in your group was a friend of Ytsmon's female's before he knew her and through her, he met the one he cared for and came to love. From what she tells me, Lashta's mother died a while ago, before this all happened to him. We introduced Lashta to the one we work for and now her job is to try to help you remember a little, since we think that there is more there in your head. I'm hoping that she'll help you remember a little more about Sandy too. She's going to bunk in your cabin with you and Ouna. I'll talk to her about it later. I'm hoping that she can think a little this time. What Ytsmon and Lashta had with his deceased female soldier friend, was a little more like what I thought we could have together. The boss says to try it and if it works, it ought to be a lot of fun. You've got his permission to try to uh, ... reminisce a little this afternoon with your daughter if you think you can." "Wait!" Reed said looking confused. "This Ytsmon, who used to be in here instead of me, he had a female soldier friend and she got him together with, ... "He looked up, "Lashta's mother." She nodded, "My mother's name was Ramash." Reed tried it in his mind and came up with a feeling, but little else. "So you were born out of it and then what? He started fucking with you too?" Lashta shook her head, "No. When I came of age, Mother was crippled and weak from always fighting to keep the others off Masanna and I. I didn't want them and they'd have killed Masanna. When Mother died, I became my father's lover. Your female soldier friend died in the attack along with the rest. I wasn't there. I know that you are human in your mind, but demons do this, many of the kinds. I loved my father, but he is gone. Now, I seek to know you and try to find what pieces of his mind might be left." Reed had even more to come to grips with. "So what are we then?" Lashta smiled, "You are a human inside a demon. I am a demon who adored her father and loved his touch. I seek to help you and honor my father's memory. I have heard Pob speak of you not knowing how to be what he was. I will teach you what he taught me. I will make you a soldier demon for when it is needed of you. I know more than enough, so I would fight beside you. I have learned that one can never know what lies ahead." She smiled softly then, "So with some luck and understanding, we might be lovers. At least, that is my hope now that I see you." After a moment, Pob saw Lashta's slightly worried expression as a thought came to her. "Don't worry about it. I can tell you all about everything that Ouna likes, and if she really wants to be an idiot, I've got a few interesting ideas of my own. I'll introduce you to the rest at the evening meal. Well except for the new mechs, since they haven't got to the point where they stop screwing long enough to look around yet." She turned to look at Sandy who was still smiling, so she hopped up on his back as he turned and they left then. ------------------------ Reed turned completely around on the bench where he'd been sitting and looked at Lashta. To him, she'd looked like a slightly younger Ouna at first glance. But it had largely disappeared as he'd listened to her speak, but somehow, ... There was something about her ... She was a shade of gray so dark that she looked almost coal black at first glance, but the more that he looked at her, the more that he could see that she wasn't what she looked like in a lot of ways. He didn't know if it was what he now was, or if some of Ytsmon's recollections were flavoring his thoughts. He thought that last week, he'd have been in terror to only see somebody like her. Now, in the short time that he'd been among them, he could see that Lashta was very beautiful among them. She smiled very shyly at him, having a fairly good idea that he didn't recall much about her directly. But from what she could sense about him, she felt that he didn't dislike her and she took that as a hopeful place to start -- or restart things. She stepped a little closer. "Do you remember anything about me?" she asked him. "It's sad to me about what happened, but I think that I see something in your face for me. I am sure that if you were completely human, that I'd see nothing like that now." "I -- I wish that I could tell you that I remember you, but I don't -- until a second later each time that I look," Reed said, "Was I really your father?" She nodded, "Yes. From the time that I was very small, I felt my father's love for me, and as I grew and came to know the ways of all of the other demons, I saw that I wanted to know all of his love. I had my chance when my mother died. She told me to come to him and be his lover when she could not." She came even closer and slowly sat on his leg, still looking a little nervous, but he could also see that she felt something for him which was not purely her memories. "How long?" he asked, "I'm trying to learn the numbers here. How old was your father? I heard that he was young. How old are you?" He watched her raise her head to look into his eyes, seeing someone new in him, just as she saw some of the one she remembered. "My father was in his fortieth year. He was young for a soldier but he was one of the very best. I would go to watch when they had the time to fight between them in the fighting pit for a little fun. I would look and try to see a good match for him among the others and then I would point." She chuckled, smiling at the memory, "Most of the others would hate that because I was what would cause their beating at his hands. He always laughed as he did it so that I would laugh," she said softly. "As I grew older, I would fight with the young of the others in the same way, and when I was old enough and large enough in my fifteenth year, I heard my father call to me to kill the one that I fought. I did it and became another part of his legend. I became his mate in my mother's place after her passing and that was in my nineteenth year. Ytsmon the fighter who never lost but only once was my father. We were lovers for less than two years. But that is gone now. When I heard what had happened, I felt as though I had nothing inside me anymore to even move with. I am no one of any importance here. I am only a girl who loved her father." Her eyes seemed to be looking for something in him for a moment, "But he was not like you are, from what I see here. There are some things which are changed. You are soft in some places behind your eyes where he was hard. And I like the sound when you speak. My father was one who always weighed risks. It was something important that he taught me to do always. But I see something warm in you, less final, less thinking. More feeling. This pleases me. I see enough for me to begin. I will try to find the way to make things better with Ouna for you." "Is that the way that it's done here?" Reed asked, "A male keeps a pair of females?" She shrugged, "We are demons. Not many care. It depends on the ones in it. Many males would want several females, but it is far easier to say than to do. For one male to keep more than one female takes much and most males soon learn that it was a foolish notion. There are more risks in it for the male. I even know some females who were mates to the same male. They killed him together and they loved each other then and were happier without him. I know that there is another female the same kind as we are in Ouna. I will try to fit in if you wish it. I think that I already want to be here where you are." She looked up, "Do you think you want that with me, Ree -- uh, Reed?" He didn't answer right away. Lashta was very close to him by then. They looked at each other a moment longer and their lips seemed to find each other's somehow. Lashta's world flew around her the next instant as Ouna came in and pulled her off Reed. She hit Lashta in her rage, and then stood in some shock to see that Lashta hadn't toppled over. In the next two seconds, Lashta hit Ouna three times much harder and the last time was the worst, since she'd swept Ouna's feet out with her leg and then rammed the heel of one hand dead center against Ouna's breastbone just as she was losing her balance. Ouna was still surprised as she looked at the ceiling outside of the doorway struggling to regain the wind which was knocked out of her. She slammed her feet against the floor and vaulted upright -- straight into Lashta's open left hand, which closed around her throat. "Ouna, ... A pleasure to meet you," she sneered with her right fist drawn back. "I am Lashta. I was sired by that body behind me. I grew up learning to be a fighter like my father. Whether the thought pleases you or not, I will teach Reed how to stay alive. Also, I will teach Reed how to love with a female of our kind so that he will please us both as well as that body can -- for I have felt it with that same body. I offer you joy with him and me. But if you wish it instead, we can fight here and now, or at any time and place you choose. I offer it because it will be your last fight. I can see in you that you have not ever killed before. You, spawned to be a soldier, and you have killed nothing. Look at my eyes, Ouna. See how many there are -- and every one the same kind as we are. They died at my hands in the fighting pit, and I used no weapon. They were same as we are -- the same as you , Ouna. It will not take me long. Choose. Your death as quickly as I can bring it to you, or you learn to love the best fighter and his daughter. Show me that you have a mind and admit your fault. I know what was done. Show me that you have a heart for him and you can have mine too." Ouna tried to slowly pull Lashta's fingers from her throat. "Why?" Lashta smiled, "Because he needs to be protected at first. Because he deserves fine females as we are and we deserve the best male for us. I would share, but you need to learn it." Her face lost it's fierceness then, "You are a little older than I am and very fine to my eyes. Let us make a family and you will have the fiercest daughter who knows how to love her lovely new mother in the night as well." Besides the obvious, Lashta was making the large gesture to allow Ouna to be ahead of her in a few things. It was a matter of courtesy and standing, and they both knew that it made things easier and better for them all, since it gave them a starting point between them. It also showed a way to play it between them which offered a little fun. Ouna recognized this and was shocked. "You offer this?" Ouna asked, "I see that I was being stupid once more and you offer this to me?" Lashta nodded, beginning to smile, "You are beautiful, and it is the better side of the bargain for us all. I will have him as mine. I offer myself so that you will have him also. We three are all the same kind. We can have young with him. For now, we play the little game which I offer as well. If what I see is really there in you, we both have my father's body as we teach Reed and you will never have a more loving and dutiful daughter as I can be." She lowered her fist and released Ouna's throat, standing as they looked at each other. Ouna came to a decision and stepped slowly forward so that they touched at several points. "I never had the want of something like I see in you when I was alone before. Now? I admit that you are very lovely." Lashta's little smile faded as her eyes narrowed on a detail. "I have cut your lip, though it wasn't meant. I used only my open hands." She moved in a little and tilted her head to make a statement by kissing the blood away very softly. When she drew back, Ouna was smiling. She reached to hold Lashta around her waist and Lashta carefully slipped her arms in the space between Ona's shoulders and horns, slowly wrapping them around Ouna's neck. Reed sat in confusion and wonder as he watched them kiss and moan softly. They drew apart a little later, sharing pleased smiles, each one feeling the others demeanour and knowing that the difficulty was past. Ouna took Lashta's hand and pulled her to the table where Reed sat with his eyes wide. "If you meant all of that, then sit with me. We all need to talk plainly while I try to get over the thought of having a fine and gorgeous daughter as fast as I can blink." As they sat down opposite Reed, Ouna carefully leaned against Lashta, who leaned back and they smiled at Reed together, the tension gone between them. He shook his head in amazement, "I think I'm starting to understand you guys a little bit. I just wish I could get my hands on a video camera while I learn the rest." ---------------------------------- In the corridor on the large craft "Stop Sandy," Pob said quietly, "stop right here." Masana and Pob slid down from the hell hound's back. "I've been thinking. I think you ought to go in and tell the T's about everything. I'm taking Masanna to the galley. We need to get to know each other, so I'm gonna make us something hot to drink while we talk. We'll come by later. Just don't give away everything to the twins. I'm starting to really look forward to this, ok?" Sandy nodded and walked on. -------------------------------- South Carolina They both left a lot of things unsaid as they began something very hopeful between them in the rain that night. Little things went unspoken. Details were left for later. They just fucked each other in the rain and couldn't believe their good fortune. She didn't know that his name was Lee as she leaned over the warm hood of the running pickup truck, just enjoying the warmth against her breasts as the downpour continued unabated. She loved to have a prick in her again which was large enough for her. She loved to feel his heavy balls slap against her as the rain ran over them. She couldn't help her silly grin. She loved it when he made her come. It had been so long for her. She raised her head and just brayed out in her pleasure. She almost laughed, but she didn't. She just sighed, loving the way that her calls to him only made him fuck her even harder. She'd had many males in her time, but other than her old memory of only one, the one who fucked her so well that night was the very finest, enough even to challenge her memory of the other one. Lee knew neither her name nor her age as they rolled in the bloody mud together. It didn't matter. For once in so long for either of them, they'd found a partner who was beyond willing. They'd found someone to make love with as hard as they wanted to and still have the knowledge that that person would be alive and wanting to go at it again once they were done. The details came later, after they'd gone inside to wash the mess off in the shower of the farmhouse. That led to over an hour of mutual oral sex between them, and the little things came out after that as he'd produced the siphon from one of his saddlebags and filled his little spare can from the truck enough times to top his tank and once more for a little more range before the next fill up. She liked his name and she spoke of what was drawing her to a place. He was surprised, because it was the same thing which was drawing him, though for different reasons. For all that she was, the satyra found herself very pleased to hear that her age didn't bother him at all, and she even liked that he called her Skelly, taking it as an interesting abbreviation. In his turn, he felt something for another in himself and it was good to finally feel something as nice as that. Lee's body fascinated her about as much as her humanlike torso had those amazing legs which she could hide fascinated him, and he thought she was so beautiful. As yet, neither of them knew if this would end up as anything of a long-time pairing between them. At this point, it really didn't matter anyway. It was more than enough for now and that made it more than enough of a reason to travel on together. It was still raining hard as they saddled up and rode off. They were over forty miles away when it even began to slow down as the sky lightened. Behind them stood an old house on a hilltop with a very dirty bathtub, a damp bed, an old truck with it's one still-functioning door open, and two partially devoured corpses in the mud. ------------------------- In the galley. "What are the others like?" Masanna asked as they sat together. Pob smiled, "Well, I think they're really a beautiful pair. They've got fur that looks like sort of a patchwork and they look something like thin wolves. I mean really thin, about as thin as you can get and still not be a stick. They do have nice shapes to them and they look almost the same. T'maz is a boy, but under the fur on his chest he has boobs, sort of and he likes it when you suck on them a little, but only if he's in the mood. The rest of the time, he's ashamed of them." "So you and I are the only ones who walk, ... standing up?" Masanna asked. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 08 Pob shook her head, "Oh no, sorry if I didn't say that. They walk like we do. It's just Sandy who doesn't. You'll love their eyes," she said, "I can stare at their eyes all day. They're changed hellions and they have hellion eyes. But they've got these cute ears and two black stripes running down either side of their faces, all the way you their noses. You can make out with them too. T'maz is a really good lover. He's not huge like Sandy, and the whole thing with him when you fuck with him is that it's like a really joyful game with him. He's just happy to be with you. I also love to watch when he's doing it with Tozama. They're really such a set." She looked over, "Have you ever been with another girl? If not, then you need Tozama. She's just like her brother, always a little playful just the same way. No matter what, they always make you feel like being there with them is just the right thing, just what you needed -- even if you hadn't been thinking that you needed anything then. What's it like with Sandy?" Masanna smiled, "Like nothing you have ever felt before. The big problem is his weight, so he will never lie on you. But to fuck with? So good, Pob. I have only done it with him once and I knew that it was what I would always want. He is hot inside of him, and the way that he sends you his seed, ... " She laughed, "No matter what, it is always a surprise and a wonderful one, too. And he gives more than once at a time. He gave me his first gush, but then he held me and kept on a little and before long, I got another from him, and then again and again!" We only did it the one time, but he said that he wanted me often. It was the day before the attack, and at first, I did not know what happened to him. I heard at first that everyone had been killed and I was so upset." She smiled then, "But I should have known better. He was not even hurt at all when everyone around him was dead and Lashta's father was, ... the way that he was. Other than in anger, I have never seen her cry. But she wept then as I held her." Pob nodded and said that it was a sad thing and for a very stupid reason. "Were you and Lashta, ... did you ever, ... you know, do anything with her?" Masanna shook her head, "No. We have always been very dear friends from the first day that Ramash, her mother found me. We have always shared everything, but that never came to either of us as a thought. I know that she liked being with another female, but she is so large and though I think that she is beautiful, it was never something which came to me as a desire." She looked over with a smile as she put her arm around Pob. "But if you and I are a hell hound's wives now, I think that we will have that. I cannot think of ways not to, and I like your body." She chuckled, "I know a little about imps, you know. I saw that you tied your hair back as we came in here, and I know that it means that you are a little hopeful that I might like you -- and I do!" "Really?" Pob asked, "I was cursing a little when you were behind me on Sandy's back. I loved to feel your tits against my back, and I've been wondering ever since. Usually I can tell, but not with you, since you're not any kind of demon, I guess. Can -- can I sit on your leg?" Masanna laughed out loud and nodded, making room and helping Pob over. "If we do not have something too, Pob, then what will we have as Sandryah's females? Am I to sit and wait politely while you are with him? I would much rather help to get him inside you and then play as well. I am happy that we have another male too, if he likes me and Tozama can share him as freely as you make it sound. And if it is so, then I want to try with her, just to thank her if nothing else." She stopped speaking then as she felt Pob's hand take her breast and she reached to do the same as she leaned just a little to kiss the imp softly. They sat like that for a time until Pob stopped and looked up with a silly grin. She reached for her cup and drank the last of her tea in one go to slam the mug down with a laugh. "That settles it. Come on, Masanna. I know of a cabin right down the hall from here that hasn't been assigned to anybody. Let's go play. You know just the same little games that I do when your tongue is in my mouth. I think we've still got some time. I can't wait to watch that big male of ours do it to you, so let's hurry and we can get each other wet before we even get there." Masanna nodded, draining her mug as well, and then they were up and almost running, Pob feeling so happy and loving to hear the faun's laughter as they went. ---------------------------- It was almost midday almost half a world away. In a restaurant over lunch, that sat at a table away from the regulars and talked. Lee told Skelly all that he could of his life and she found it interesting to her because he was. "How did you come to be going this way?" she asked, "I seek a place west and a little north from here." He shrugged, "I can't really say, Skelly. I only know that the only time that I've felt like I belong anywhere was in a war. But I fought for and with humans then, so there were, ... things that I couldn't really do. Even in most human wars, there are a few rules. I, ... I dunno, really. But I sense that something's coming. I think I'm headed to the same place you are, but I know that's' not where the fight's gonna be. I guess that if whoever I end up fighting for might take me along to where I can be of some use, I wouldn't mind. After that, I haven't got a clue." They ordered another meal, which surprised their waitress. They'd already eaten one each of the largest platter on the menu. "Yeah," Lee grinned, "Give us each another one of those. They were really good." As they waited, the satyra slowly began to tell of something which she'd tried for untold centuries to forget. It wasn't just that Lee was with her now, though if he'd asked just as he had, she thought that for him, she might tell of it anyway. But now, ... speaking of it felt a little more right, now that she knew what she wanted at the end of things. "I was young," she said, "and young females can be, ... well, I do not want to use the word 'stupid', but I think that we all can make mistakes at that time in our lives which hang from our necks for a long time after. I saw a young demon in another place. That was where I lived then. To my eyes, he was perhaps everything which my heart could ever have wanted. But I had trouble trying to get him to even see me. I knew nothing of the ways of the higher demons then. You can interest the lower ones easily for a little fun, but it soon comes to you that something like that is not the best loving that one could ever have, for they think only of their own pleasure. I didn't know it, but even as young as he was, the one who caught my eye had things which he had to do. He was always moving whenever I was lucky enough to see him for a few moments." She smiled a little sadly then, "But where I was, well, it was no place for one like me to have the longing thoughts which I held in my mind then. Thoughts like that can be read by some others in a place like that, and at the time, I was very naïve. A pair of lower ones came to me to say that their lords wished to speak to me over a matter which might hold some interest to me. I went and found myself in the midst of four very powerful demons who used me for their pleasure just as the others would. At the end of that, they told me that they had been 'trying' me for another. They told me that they wished to give me as a gift to that one and that they would pay me very well for the task if I accepted." She looked down at her empty plate for a moment. "One like me, even then, could not be forced too much. It was why they offered what they did." She shook her head slowly with what Lee recognized as a great deal of bitterness. He reached over and took her hand, telling her to stop. But Skelly said that she was alright after a little while and she looked up and smiled at him a little. "I would have been far better off if even one of them had been a little like you, Lee. I might have been happy later. I had no interest in what they spoke of, until they showed me an image of the one. I cannot really say the way that I felt. He was the young demon which I wanted. I was even foolish enough to say it to them all. I felt such hope in me then, you can't imagine." Her face fell a little and she said, "But that was not a place where one can really feel such a thing as hope, for it only opens your heart to the cruel ones who would use it against you. That's what they do. No matter what you agree to, it never works out that way. They just twist it in front of your face as they laugh at you. I was given to the one I wanted, but I could not speak to him. My mouth would not work no matter how I tried. I could kiss him and suckle what he had, but I could say nothing to him. He stayed with me for a time, seeing that I wanted to be there with him, but after a while, many days, I guess, I was taken away while he was gone. I was kept in a different place and I knew nothing of the reasons for it. All that I knew was that there were many huge, fearsome fighters around me and none knew what I said. I wept in sadness and it grew worse when I found that I was going to birth what the one I wanted to love so much had planted in me. Slowly, I put the pieces together and it was an age before I placed the last piece. Before that, I came to think that I had been used by the one -- though I later thought as I still do, that he was used as well and didn't know any more than I did. But I knew nothing of it then. All that I was told was something by one of the ones who had arranged it all. I would be rewarded as was promised to me, once I birthed my young one and nursed him to a size where he could eat other food. When it happened, I held little love for him at first. But a mother grows love in herself at times like that and so I nursed him when he was hungry and grew my love for him from it. But I finally learned only that I had been used and to my thinking by everyone but my little son. As soon as it was seen that he could eat, I was cast out and placed here. I got nothing from it all." She looked down then, "Not even my own little one." She sighed after a moment, "Much later, it came to me that the one who fucked me to such joy had probably also been used and misled. I don't know for certain, but I now think that it went like that. They didn't want me to have my son and I wonder if he ever knew that I had been taken away from him. I don't think that he ever knew that he even had a son with me." Lee looked at her in silence for a time. The way that she sat there across from him made him want to hold her until she felt better, which was something that he knew that he couldn't do. If he put himself in her place, he doubted that anyone could truly make pain like that go away. He doubted that anyone ever could. He squeezed her hand softly and moved his thumb over the back of her hand very slowly. When she looked up after a time, he saw that her eyes were wet. "I've seen a lot in my time," he said quietly, "but I don't think I've ever heard a sadder tale." She smiled a little softly then, "Thank you, Lee. As for the rest of my reasons, I guess that I can say that I've gotten old enough to have gathered a bit of wisdom. What I just took to be more of my feelings, I now know how to sort out. I've come to be able to know things that I never could before." She smiled again and tightened her hand in his, "I know how you're starting to feel about me and I like it very much. A crying shame that I've lived here and wandered everywhere alone and only met you now. But I'm not going to complain too much about it. Better late than never, they say. I don't know how I know it, but I know that if I can get to the place that I've got in my mind, not more than a month from today, I have a chance to see the one who I wanted so much back then." She looked over and chuckled a little, "Oh you don't have to worry too much, I don't think. I've already had so much joy in only being able to talk to you. And what we did together, ... well, I think I can feel it when I suddenly have something to really smile about. I don't want that one anymore. Look at what happened the last time. I only hope that if I do meet him and that if my mouth doesn't work again, that you'll tell him what I told you for me. What I really want to know is what he might know about my son, that's all." The waitress walked over with their meals and Skelly grinned, "Besides, looking at you has made me hungry again in a lot of ways." --------------------------------- Florida They were walking home after another day at the beach. Imogen was pleased that she'd gotten a little nude sunbathing in by lying back in the cover of the dunes while Dusty sat watching for her. He didn't really need to watch, though. An Ushandi can sense beings around him or her usually quite easily. He'd done it so that he had somewhere other to look than at her body. He loved her very much, but it was such a nice place and the day was so pleasant that his mind just naturally turned to having hopes about making love with her. But he was stuck in his wolfhound disguise and feeling cramped. He didn't know for certain, but he didn't think it would be thought of well to be near her like that with ... Well he thought it best to be the lookout and just try to forget his thoughts. They'd be alone later and he wouldn't be a wolfhound then. Walking home, he looked up at her and still couldn't believe his luck. She was so beautiful to him and ... she was smiling. He loved to see her smile. "Why are you smiling?" he asked in her thoughts. "I was just remembering that couple that you found out about. Now we know that they're always here. Well often, anyway. I really liked it when we snuck over to watch them fuck. I liked to see it." "The woman knew we were there," he said. "Oh I know," Imogen said, nodding, "We made eye contact a few times and she smiled at me and held up her finger over her lips to let me know to be quiet. I guess that means that the guy doesn't know that we were there, that's all. At first, when you knew that they were there, I was thinking maybe that she was a hooker and that it would be a different guy this time." He stopped and sat down. "I have questions." Imogen rolled her eyes, "You always have questions. I usually love your questions because I get a look into your mighty mind. Why do we have to stop and stand here? Why can't we just keep walking while I answer your questions?" "You said that you thought she was a hooker. That means that she mates for pay?" "Yeah," Imogen said, nodding, "But I was wrong, I guess." "Is it customary to watch others when they are mating?" Imogen looked at him and shook her head, "No. If you're doing something like that in a place like that, it's actually against the law and the cops will come if somebody calls in a complaint. Some people like to do it because they like to be outside on a nice day when they fuck. Heck, some people even like to be watched. But most don't." "But it is not expected to be allowed to watch something like that or, ... or nakedness in public, right?" Imogen shook her head again, "No, of course not." Dusty looked down, "Human habits and customs are the strangest things to me. You wear tiny rags and think that you are dressed. I can see so many female asses while they wear a string up the middle which is out of sight. That is allowed but to take the string off is against the law. I thought that it was customary to be able to watch politely and silently." He looked up, "The woman was there for pay. I felt this. And before the man came from the car with the blanket, she saw you lying without your little clothes on. I thought it was the custom, so I didn't chase her away. She came to me and rubbed my ear while she watched you for a short time. I think she likes you. And she -" Imogen stared at him, "You did that? Ok, it was just the woman, but Dusty -- " "I'm sure that she likes you," he said, "I liked her because she wears different colors in her hair at the front every time that I see her here. And she -" "That doesn't matter," Imogen said. "I trusted you to warn me in time. Please don't do that again, Dusty. I only felt safe and comfortable because you were there. Now come on. I want to go home." "She is sitting over there crying," he said, "She is very upset. And she --" "And she what?" Imogen asked, trying not to feel upset herself. "She knows that I am not a dog. She has the sight to see me as I am. She thought that I was your pet until she saw. The sight of me frightened her, but I told her that I was not hunting or hungry then." "But I wasn't dozing then," Imogen objected, "I didn't hear you say anyth-" "She has other gifts, some that she knows nothing of. She can hear me as you can, in your mind, but to her, it is a natural thing, something which she was born with." Imogen looked over at something which suddenly seemed very sad to her. She'd wanted to just go, but she knew that it was too late as soon as she'd seen the woman. The term had seemed fine when they'd been watching her fucking earlier, but somehow out here by the road, she looked to be younger than that, sitting on the curb hugging her shins and weeping with her forehead against her knees. Imogen walked over. "Hey, are you alright?" The girl looked up, her makeup a mess from her tears. Her voice had a natural bit of slight roughness to it, even as she whispered, "I can't go home. My landlord threw me out. I -- I lost my job and I let him fuck me four times over the last three days to make it up. But when he was finished and we were square, he told me that I was out and that he already had somebody to live in my room then. He just drove away and left me here." She looked around herself for a moment, "I'm from Key West. I've only been here two months. I don't know where I am." She sniffled and held up a hand, counting her fingers. "I've got no place to sleep, I've got no money, I'm leaking his come out of me and I'm getting hungry." Her face looked like she couldn't hold off the feelings then, "Just perfect. I'm fine, aren't I?" Her composure crumbled then and she began to cry bitterly. Imogen looked at her and saw herself right there in that place, other than some details, that was all. If she hadn't met Abi, she'd be as good as sitting next to this poor girl by now. She looked to be maybe an inch or so shorter than Imogen at a guess since she was sitting. Her figure wasn't stunning either, though it was just an observation. She was almost too thin and like Imogen, she had small breasts, in her case, not much more than low swells with little bumps on them. Her skin spoke of a maybe Spanish background, but the feeling wasn't definite. An otherwise pleasant-looking pretty face topped it off under long, wavy black hair with a little swatch of blue near the front. At the moment, she bore a bit of the classic 'raccoon face' from her tears and mascara. Imogen was just going to pull a pair of twenties out of her bag and sincerely wish this girl the best of luck, but she couldn't really do that, not as she stood before her watching a man's come beginning to wet the crotch of this girl's cut-offs from the inside. She reached into her bag and held out some paper napkins. "Here. You're about to grow a wet spot on your shorts. I'll hide you while you wipe. I've got some more you can use a little like a pad. What's your name?" The girl spread her knees and looked down. "Oh fuck!" she said in a small voice. After a look around, she undid her cut-offs and taking the napkins, she tried to quickly clean herself up. When she looked again, Imogen had more napkins for her already folded to shape. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 08 "Thanks," she said, pushing the thin wad down, "Good thing I wore panties today. At least they're taking some of this." After getting herself done up again, she looked up at Imogen, "Thanks. I mean that, thank you. And my name's Bonny. Well, it's not really Bonny, but, ... My mother was a Romana -- a gypsy. My father was a biker." She rolled her eyes, "He insisted on naming me after a motorcycle. I've even met a girl named Harley, but nooo, I get named after something British." "You were named after a motorcycle?" Imogen smiled, "What? That was what he named the bike and then when you came along, ..." Bonny shook her head, "I'm named after the Triumph Bonneville." "And they're named after a place in the desert where there are salt flats and people go there to break speed records" Imogen said. The girl tried to use a leftover napkin to try to wipe her face for a moment. She looked up then, one eye squinted closed against the low angle of the sun, "You're just trying to make me feel better. And it's working a little." The blonde held out her hand, "I'm Imogen. I think we ought to go for a sausage over at the cart before the guy buggers off for the day. Come on, Bonny, named after a bike named after a place. I'm buying us all one." She looked over at Dusty, "Though we might get one and a half if I don't get some kind of approval out of Dusty here." Bonny got to her feet and after a quick check to make sure that her pad wasn't going anywhere, they set off, a now less heavy blonde and a thin Gypsy girl walking on either side of an Irish Wolfhound. "How old are you, Bonny? I thought you looked older when you were with that guy, but now, ..." "Eighteen, all fucked up and lost," Bonny said quietly, "I left home to get away from the constant howling world war there a year ago. I guess I've been sliding downhill ever since. A whole new rock bottom for me every fucking day." They were silent for a time after that. "Your friend," Bonny said carefully, "You know that he's not a dog, right?" "He's not a dog," Imogen said, "and he told me that you can see him as he really is and hear him in your head too. He's -- he's my boyfriend." "Oh yeah?" The shorter one asked in shock and surprise. She took a look at Dusty, who looked back with what seemed to be a smile -- and she wasn't seeing a dog. "Well you've got great taste in men then. A lot better than me, anyway. I watched you sunbathing a while back for a minute. I thought that you were so lucky to have a dog like him. Then I saw that he's no dog and I almost pissed myself. But then he told me that he wouldn't hurt me." Bonny chuckled in that smoky way that her voice had, "I thought you were even luckier then. Ok, NOW I'm just fucking jealous, alright?" "Dusty told me that you can just see things like that," Imogen said, "Have you always been like that?" Bonny nodded, "Since I was little. I got it from my mom, I guess. Sometimes what I see scares the crap out of me. But sometimes it's saved my skinny ass to have been able to see it before I walked into a trap." They fell silent on the topic as they approached the vendor. "I was about to close up and head home," he said with a smile, "But you got here just in time. I've got three sausages still a little hot. I'll give 'em to you for half, since I won't end up tossing them now, if you don't mind them a little crunchy at the ends." Sitting together on the curb later, they talked until the street lights came on, but in that time, Bonny gained at least a temporary place to sleep and a pair of friends. After hearing a little about what they were doing to get Imogen ready to fly and why, Bonny had asked. "So you work for somebody," she said, "And he's a demon. Wow, Sounds like a pretty good gig if you're careful. I always wanted to learn to fly, but by myself, I can't even keep me fed. Who is it if I can ask? I learned a lot from my mom and I have a few old book reprints of my own. Well I used to. That asshole's probably tossed them or hocked them by now. Who is it?" "I don't know his name," Imogen said, "He said that it was against the rules to tell me. He said to just call him Abi." Bonny stared with a gasp. "I know of him." She held up her hand, "Say nothing more. I know his name. What did you have to give?" Imogen shook her head. "I met him when he came into my place to get the soul of a guy who was wanted in hell or something. He didn't do anything to me that I didn't want. He fucked me, but it was what we both wanted, and he fixed my eyes and he's paying for my lessons and licenses. He gave me and Dusty to each other. Dusty is his pilot and I'm being trained to be his other pilot. We fell in love, and we're really happy, that's all." "I hope you know what you're getting into," Bonny said almost in a whisper, "He's got a lot of names. He's a great duke of hell in one of my books. Another one mentions him as the Demon of the Abyss, and he's supposed to be some bad-ass kind of destroyer." When they got to Imogen's apartment, Bonny washed her face to get the last of the mascara mess off and cleaned up the mess of the slightly disintegrating napkin between her legs. Dusty asked them to put his saddle bags on him. "How much have you got for belongings?" he asked Bonny. "Almost nothing," she said, "A couple pairs of jeans, some tops and T shirts, and some makeup. That's about it, oh, and my laptop and maybe seven books. Why?" "Take your knapsack, Imogen," he said, "From what I feel, Bonny lived seven blocks from here. We'll get her things for her." --------------------------------- They were on their way back later and Bonny was still a little wide-eyed about it. "We found all of my stuff but my laptop, and he handed that over as nice as pie. Why did you do what you did? Why did you change like that? I almost crapped MY pants then." "You didn't see it. He had it in his mind to throw it on the ground," Dusty told her in the guise of the Wolfhound again. "I just let him see who'd come back later to get the money for it out of him." He sighed then, "But he decided to be an idiot and waved that gun at me, so ... " "Good thing Imogen always carries a ton of napkins everywhere," Bonny said, "You were a bloody mess around your mouth and your one hand for a couple of minutes there before you changed back." "You've got a little pile of money from his pocket," Imogen smiled, "and the world is missing one asshole tonight." As they walked on, they passed a few bunches of young men. Most of them had something to say as they watched. Some of it was mindless shit. Some of it was a little surprising. Once or twice, it was actually admiration. "They think we're together," Bonny frowned without looking over. "At least about a quarter of them think we do things with your dog. I want to scream at them to grow up." "Don't," Imogen whispered in warning, "It would probably just get even more stupid. I don't want Dusty to risk having to change out here on the street. Let's just get home." A block later, there was no one near them. Bonny had been brushing up against Dusty's side once in a while. When that happened, she felt Imogen's fingers against her thigh because she had her hand resting against his shoulder. Bonny looked down for a moment and then she reached to take Imogen's hand in hers and rested them on Dusty's back. Imogen looked down. "Please let me," Bonny said without looking, "This is something that never happens to me. I haven't felt like I've got friends since about junior high. I know we just met today, but, ..." Imogen looked then and she saw Bonny hold up her other hand to her face for a moment, "I'm afraid that you'll disappear." Imogen heard the way that Bonny's voice cracked at the end, and she felt her eyes sting a little as well. She tightened her grip on Bonny's hand so that it wasn't just Bonny who held hers. "It's ok," she whispered, "Now I feel like I've got two friends too." --------------------------------- More than a block away, Imogen warned Bonny. "When we're at home, we like to be natural," Imogen said, "I hope you don't mind, but you're gonna see Dusty the way that I know him -- like he was back there, but nice and he can cook like some awesome chef." "That's fine," Bonny nodded, "It was a shock before, since I had no warning, I could get used to him like that, though. He's got a fantastic shape, all muscles and teeth. Fuck, that's pure sex to a girl like me. I'd love to see that." "I think that I'd like to see you when you think like that," Dusty said in their minds. Imogen looked down at him. "Well I would," he said and it made her chuckle. "Well that's the good part, I guess," Imogen said, feeling a little funny, but determined to live the way that she wanted in her own home. "You'll get to see me in all of my questionable splendor too. I like to live naked at home. I always have, ever since I've been on my own." "No fucking way!" Bonny grinned, "That's awesome. Way to go Imogen," she said quietly. She looked at the sidewalk for a minute, "I'd um, ... I'd really like to see that too. That's why I was looking at you in the dunes. I didn't know you when you had the glasses you were talking about and everything. But I sure like you now." Imogen had no reply, really. She didn't know what Bonny was trying to say to her. She'd never done anything with another girl and she didn't intend to. She just didn't really know a good way to say it. "I have to pee," Dusty said out of nowhere. They were near the apartment and almost in the very same place where they were the first night. Imogen laughed and Bonny didn't get it. "Quick," Imogen hugged Bonny as she began to whisper urgently in her ear. "Answer my questions honestly with no thought, ok?" "Ok," Bonny said in a curious tone. "You're not shy about your body right? Like you wouldn't mind it if Dusty and me saw you naked?" "No," Bonny hissed back, sensing some urgency, "Not if you were too. I think you both look awesome -- and it wasn't at the same time or anything, but we have seen each other naked, Imogen." Imogen nodded against Bonny's head, "And I don't know if you understood me correctly before, but I've come to know that you know things, like the kind of things that regular people don't know about, right?" Bonny nodded, "Sure, though everybody I knew back in Key West thought I was just a whackjob." "Ok, here's a secret, but I gotta hurry. "I meant it when I said that Dusty is my boyfriend." There was a short pause as Bonny waited to hear more, "Yeah, so? By 'boyfriend' I got that you fuck together. I'm still jealous. What's your point?" Imogen chuckled in Bonny's ear softly, "You wanna be in our club?" Bonny laughed a little, "Sure. What do I have to do to join?" ---------------------------- Imogen guided, Bonny into the little space between the buildings after telling her that it was safe with Dusty standing guard for them. "This isn't really a kink or a fetish, Bonny. It's more like a kind of game that we play for each other." She untied her bikini bottom, "Pull down your cut-offs and make sure that Dusty can see when you squat beside me." Bonny smiled, "Are we gonna flash him or something?" "Sort of," Imogen smiled, "We're gonna let him watch us as we pee for him, like we got to watch him a minute ago." "Ok," Bonny chuckled as she pulled her cut-offs right off over her sneakers. "I wanna be in this club," she giggled, "Can I hang on to you so I don't fall on my ass?" "Sure," Imogen smiled, "Hug me if you want. We just gotta hurry it a little now before somebody comes by." When they began, Dusty was all smiles. The girls were too, right up until the second when Bonny turned Imogen's face and kissed her right in the middle of it. Imogen felt shock, then surprise. Right after that, she decided that it wasn't bad and she'd liked it as something to add to the little show for Dusty. As they went on, she began to return Bonny's kisses just for fun. They broke apart as they finished and then Imogen held out another of the thousands of napkins that she always carried. Bonny took it but then she reached over and took Imogen's as well. "I know you're not into girls," she smiled, "But you guys have been great to me so try to allow me a little ok?" Bonny wiped Imogen carefully and then she wiped herself with the other napkin. They stood up then to put the things that they'd been holding in their other hands back on as quickly as they could. "Wait! Wait!" Bonny whispered, "I like this. Let's do it right for him. Let's pull up out T shirts for him so he can see our tits. Then just let me kiss you for a second. He'll love it!" Imogen nodded and they had another little thing for their little show. Bonny had a moment of trouble getting one of her sneakers through her cut-offs for a moment, but they walked back out to Dusty holding hands then. "How did I do?" Bonny asked, "Am I in?" "We need to check with Dusty," Imogen smiled. "Hey, as far as I'm concerned, you were in as soon as you kissed me. That was perfect. I just like to give him little shows like that. He's a little jealous, 'cause he can't do much other than pee like this, so the shows are for him, like blowing him kisses." Bonny looked at Dusty and neither of them had ever seen an Irish Wolfhound with his bushy eyebrows quiet that high. His ears were still almost standing straight up. Imogen had to hold on to Bonny for a moment, she was laughing so hard. "I'd say you're in!" "You guys are amazing," Bonny chuckled as she stepped over to the other side of Imogen and put her arm around her waist. Imogen looked for a second and smiled, "Oh what the heck. Why the fuck not?" She did the same to Bonny and they began to walk again. "Dusty has a bit of trouble going pee in the bathroom, so I get to hold his willy for him." She wasn't sure where that came from, but she liked the way that she felt at the moment very much. "Thanks," Dusty said, "Let's just alert the media while we're at it." "Don't be like that," Imogen said, "I'm proud of you." "No way," Bonny whispered, "That's actually kind of cool to me. What if he has to go in the middle of the night?" "Can we please find something else to talk about?" Dusty asked with a bit of a whine to it. "I never mind," Imogen smiled, "I'm getting to the point where I just get up and follow him in. I can point him in the right place all while leaning my head on his back. If I get any better at it, I think I'll be able to do it in my sleep." "Hey, could I maybe try it sometime?" Bonny asked. She looked down at him, "You wouldn't mind, would you Dusty?" "I dunno," he said pretending to think about it, "Maybe I'd prefer to have the sausage guy hold it for me." "I wouldn't recommend it," Imogen said dryly, "Maybe you didn't notice, but he puts cuts into his sausages all day long. He might forget. It's probably an automatic reflex to reach for his knife." Dusty looked up with huge eyes. "Seriously, could I try it sometime? I'd be careful." Bonny said. "You'd better be," Imogen said with a deadpan expression, "You've seen how much, right? You miss the middle of the bowl, you're cleaning up, ok?" "That's fair," Bonny said. She looked at Dusty who appeared to be getting annoyed. "You can wake me up if you need to, Dusty. That way, Mama can get a little more sleep, ok?" "I think that I'm going to make you regret those words," he grumbled. --------------------------- Imogen was sitting on the bed kissing Dusty, who sat on the floor when Bonny got out of the shower. She toweled off and then thought about putting some clothes on. But after a look at the two of them, she shrugged and decided against it and came out to sit with them. She watched for a few minutes with a big smile. "You guys are so sweet like that." They pulled apart and Imogen looked at her as she wiped her lips, "You're just saying that because you want some." "No I'm not," Bonny protested. She looked down then a little wishfully, "Yes I am." "What do you think, Baby?" Imogen smiled, "Should we let Bonny into the smooching club?" "I'd like to say yes," Dusty said, "But I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a minefield here." "Ohmygosh. Can I?" Bonny asked. "Who's boyfriend is he?" Imogen asked. "Yours, but, ... Oh, I'd love to try." "It's up to you now," Imogen said as she kissed Dusty quickly and moved to sit farther back on the bed, "I'm ok with a little sharing because Bonny just gets to me somehow. But it's your choice, Honey. I won't mind." Dusty nodded and smiled at Bonny. She moved in a flash to sit where Imogen had been sitting, but she turned to look over her shoulder when she felt Imogen move to kneel behind her. "What are you doing, Imogen? I love the way you're kneeling with my bum between your thighs like this, but you don't like -" "Just a precaution," Imogen smiled over Bonny's shoulder. "You probably won't believe me, but he can get to you the first time. I just want to be ready to catch you, that's all." "Sure," Bonny smiled in a skeptical tone. But when it happened, Bonny did feel herself sag. She reached out and held Dusty's neck and whimpered. In her life, she'd never felt a kiss like she felt then. Imogen put her arms around Bonny at the first sign of it. After a few moments as Bonny got into it, she let go of Dusty long enough to move Imogen's hand so that it was on one of her breasts before she moved it back onto Dusty again. -------------------- "What happens when you get all of the things that you're taking lessons to get?" Bonny asked. Imogen said, "That will be the slightly hard moment for me. Abi will come for us then and I'll leave with him and Dusty. I'll have to get used to flying something huge and then prove to Abi that I can do that safely. But I don't know if I'll ever come back. That's the hard part, I guess." "I didn't think of it before," Dusty said, "But you'll get at least a little of what you want with me. On that craft and anywhere we go, unless it's cold or something like that, we all stay naked. On that ship at the very least, Imogen, we will be able to walk together, just as you want." Imogen looked at him curiously, "So nobody's gonna say anything?" He shook his head, "Why would they? They won't be wearing anything either. Most of the time, it'll just be him, us, and he said that he's gathering others for a crew. When I left to come here, there were a pair of techs for the sensors, and another pair for maintenance. I guess by the time we come back, he might have a few more. He said something to me about security and others to help him when he comes to take souls." "Ok" Imogen grinned, "Maybe it won't be a slightly hard moment for me." Bonny looked a little sad. "When is that supposed to happen? I just met you guys." "A year and a half maybe," Dusty said. Bonny looked at Imogen and slowly pulled her down onto the bed so they were looking at each other. "I meant what I said. You've both been great to me, somebody that you didn't know from anybody." She reached over and moved Imogen's hair from her face. "I know you're pretty straight, but, ... did you like my kisses, Imogen? I loved yours and if it's ok, I'd be really happy if I could have a few more like that." Imogen had to smile. She hadn't changed in herself, but she had liked Bonny's soft kisses. "Sure," she said, and she reached to pull Bonny closer. As the kisses went on, just the really soft and pleasant girl kind, Bonny began to whimper and moan a little. Imogen grew puzzled -- especially when Bonny began to move a little. From Imogen's point of view, Bonny moved just a bit up and down, not enough to spoil their kisses to each other. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 09 ***This part just fell here as I was dividing things up. I wanted to add the next part, but that would have made it way long, so I cut it here - as incongruous as it might read like this. The bit toward the second half, ... I dunno, I was in a bit of a mood that night and it just flowed like that. 0_o *** Florida It was late, maybe 2AM and the little lights of the game consoles and the idling PC gave little illumination, though if you'd been in darkness for a time already, you'd find that you could see fairly well. Those little lights also cast the apartment in a soft and slightly strange hue, since they were LEDS of different colors; amber in three different shades and intensities, a couple of reds and blues and the brightest one, a piercing blue from the PC. It didn't exactly look like Christmas, but it was very pleasant. Imogen was lying on her side in bed, watching with a soft smile as Dusty fucked Bonny. The pair were also on their sides and Bonny faced Imogen from only about a foot or so away. With the expression that Bonny wore then, she looked more like a little girl having a vivid dream than a woman copulating. She'd been with them a month now and for all of her hopefulness, Bonny had never worked up the nerve to actually do this. It really hadn't mattered but for the detail because Bonny's personality, once her anguish on the afternoon they'd met was behind her, was amazing once you got to really know her. In no time, she'd become the closest female friend that Imogen had ever had - not that she'd ever had very many in her life. The truth of it was that she'd become a closer and more dear friend to Imogen than she'd have ever guessed that anyone could be. Not long after she'd known it, it had also come to Imogen AND Dusty that they loved her. They'd had no choice. Imogen's steadfast notion that she had no interest in girls remained sacrosanct in her. As far as she was concerned, there was no girl alive - anywhere on the planet - who could have ever made her even have the thought of making love with her. No girl alive but Bonny. And again, no matter how she puzzled over it, Imogen knew that she'd had no choice in it either. The only thing that she wondered about now was whether it would have happened at all between them if there was no Ushandi in their lives and it was something which Imogen had absolutely no answer for because it seemed to change in her back and forth every time that she had the thought. At the moment, Imogen was trying to decide if the way that Bonny looked then was like the sleeping girl having a gentle nightmare or a heavenly dream. It was really tough to tell. After a little more time Imogen decided that the sleeping little girl was having a fast-paced and wonderful adventure-filled dream and it seemed to fit the best. Just for fun, Imogen licked her right index finger and rubbed it wetly along Bonny's upper lip. Bonny instantly opened her mouth wider and took it in, suckling and mewling even more. Imogen decided to try something a little bolder so despite the slight awkwardness of the position, she left her right finger there and reached down between her legs for half a minute to coat the first two fingers of her left hand as best she could. She brought it toward Bonny's face. "I've got more fingers for you, Baby. But they've been in another place. Want them?" Bonny's eyes remained closed, but she nodded so Imogen touched those lips with her other fingers and the result was Bonny's face showing more joy as she sucked so gently to make it last. Imogen couldn't stay away anymore and she moved closer, kissing Bonny's face in a few places and saying the soft words that she felt. "Imogen, ..."Bonny whispered in her smoky way, "... Can ... oh, please, ... Can I suck your tit?" Imogen smiled and moved up to hold Bonny'd head to her breast. She looked over at Dusty and he slowed a little for them. It was just what Bonny wanted - without knowing that she wanted it then, and her little noises softened. They stayed like that long enough to enjoy the closeness. Dusty came eventually, Bonny had already come several times over the evening and Imogen brought herself off easily from the way that Bonny loved her tits for her. Dusty began to doze in a few minutes, and both of his girls saw that he had a right. He'd been working pretty hard for them, after all. It hadn't been planned by the others, but that morning, Bonny had finally decided that she wanted to be fucked. She'd watched many times, always looking for any way that she might help or heighten things for them. But she'd never gotten up the nerve for herself. "Well he's just so long," she'd said to Imogen as they made dinner early that evening, "I don't even know how you can take him." "No rocket science at all," Imogen had smiled, "He's too long for me too in some positions, like when he's on his back, Bonny. Then I'm just careful. He holds still for me and I find the right place for us. When I'm on the bed and we do it front to front, it's the same thing. He knows it; he doesn't want to hurt me - or you. Haven't you noticed that he always asks me if it's ok?" "Well yeah," Bonny nodded, "But I just thought that he was being Polite Dusty then." "If you want to get past this," Imogen said, "then let him have you from the back. He's not too long then, believe me. He's perfect, for me, anyway." "Yeah," Bonny nodded, "I've seen. But I don't have a nice ass to let him bang against like this one." She smiled as she ran her hand over Imogen's bottom. "Have you looked in the mirror lately? You go on the way you are and soon, you'll have a tiny ass like me - and don't you dare lose this thing. It's my favorite girl-ass in the whole world." "Well if you like it so much," Imogen chuckled, "then maybe you shouldn't always feel it every chance you get. If I'm losing my fat ass at all, it's probably from you rubbing it off." "I think you're full of it," Bonny laughed, "But just in case there's something to it, I'll just have to do it softer. If I'm rubbing it off, then I'll just savor it from now on - like this." Imogen sighed, wondering how the hell Bonny could do this and not tickle her. She really was good at it. "Anyway," she said, I'm sure your little ass will do just fine as a bumper for Dusty. It's the same thing, let him push in slow all the way and see if there's a limit then. If there is, you just tell him, that's all. Ok, back up a little and hand me that apron. I'm gonna start on the sauté now." -------- When it happened, Bonny just surprised the others and asked. Imogen put down a blanket on the floor and just laid out on her back. She'd never joked or teased Bonny over her caution because she wasn't like that at all. She'd just figured that it was something that Bonny would come to - or not. "Kneel here and lie on me, but put your little ass in the air like you would for anybody else." It surprised the dark-haired girl, but she'd smiled after a second and moved to get to her knees. Bonny never knew when she'd first had the thought of making it with another girl. She just supposed that she'd always been like that. She liked sex with a man better - theoretically. In her life to this point, she hadn't found a boy who was right for her in bed. They'd talked about it and Imogen had agreed. She'd had fewer partners than Bonny, but it had been the same. "I guess there must be men out there who are really good lovers," Imogen said, "but other than Abi one time, and now Dusty, all of the ones that I've had were just selfish creeps. The guys my age were a good idea at the time, but afterwards, I always wondered why I'd bothered." Bonny nodded her agreement, "I've had better times with other girls." After Dusty moved forward and once the fumbling for fit had passed, Bonny had let out a long groan as he'd pushed inside of her and Bonny was a little amazed when she felt him all the way in and he fit. When she'd opened her eyes and looked, she saw Imogen smiling at her with darkening eyes, "Welcome to the Ushandi club." She reminded Dusty to still try to be a little careful, just in case, and he'd chuckled, "Imogen, you're like the best mother, I think. Always just a little careful. Try to look at it from my side. Bonny's been here a while already and we decided just about at the start to let her try. And what happened? We fell in love with her, and I mean WE. I'm the same as you are over her. Ever since we all agreed, I've been dying to do this. I'm so happy about you and me. I wouldn't want anybody else. But I love Bonny too, so I want this to be really good for her. Give me a little credit, ok?" Imogen chuckled, "I give you lots of credit. I even knew what you were gonna say just now. I just didn't think you'd take this long." Bonny wanted to imitate the snore of a man, but she didn't. She just moved her ass around a little and Dusty got the hint. ------ It also hadn't been the intent, but the evening turned into one especially for Bonny. She became the focus of it all. When she'd lain her head down on Dusty's deep chest, completely spent - or thinking that she was, Imogen and Dusty just felt their hearts move inside themselves. He stroked her thigh and told her how he felt about her while Imogen moved to kiss her softly and pet her back all the way down to her ass over and over, telling her the same things when she could. "I know," Bonny had sighed, "I know. I've never been in a place where I've felt the way that you guys make me feel." "I wish that I had a camera," Imogen said, "I'd have shot miles of video of you just from the front, but so as much of the rest of you as I could get was in the picture too. Now I finally know what Dusty's always telling me. Your face, the way that you move... I've never believed that anything could look so good as a woman doing this." "Hey, what about me?" Dusty asked and Imogen laughed while Bonny just smiled. "Come on Dusty," Imogen chuckled, "you always look good." "I know," he grinned, "I was just kidding. The demon would kill us if we made a video." "Did my eyes go like yours, Imogen? That's what I always like to see, when your eyes go black as anything." They both nodded, "They still are," Imogen smiled, "I never doubted you Dusty, but I've finally seen Ushandi Girl Eyes for myself." "I'd get up and look in that mirror up there," Bonny said, "But there's no way that I'm moving right now for anything. I know you told me what to expect, but I'm feeling a little weak at the moment - and also very happily fucked, I must say." "I only felt it a little bit," Imogen said, "I didn't think of it at all until Dusty told me to look in the mirror. Then I had the strangest feeling for a little while. I felt a little like I'd been impregnated. And I knew it right away, not like in weeks. I just sort of had the feeling that something had happened then and I was never gonna be quite the same again." "Well I know that you didn't get pregnant," Dusty said, "But if it was nice, you're welcome." "That's just the way that I feel right now!" Bonny said, "I'm a little tingly down there." She sighed, "I like it. I always thought that being in love was a crock of shit to sell cards or wedding rings and stuff. But I've felt that way for a long time now. I just never thought that I'd ever fall in love with two people at the same time. But then I've always been a little weird." -------- With Dusty starting to fall asleep, Bonny slowly moved away from him to cuddle with Imogen for a while. They traded kisses and caresses until Bonny moved herself aside a little and reached down to slip two fingers into Imogen. "This is ok for you, right?" "I'm getting over it," Imogen smiled, "I was surprised at myself for a while and really confused, but I've got a handle on it now. This might not make any sense to you, Bonny, but the way that I see it; it's you more than anything. I really think that if you were a boy, we'd be here just like this anyway, with me loving you having your fingers in me. I don't think that I'd have had a chance then either. Except that it probably wouldn't have happened then because when we met you, I already had a boyfriend." She closed her eyes and sighed as Bonny began after wetting her thumb for Imogen's clit. Bonny smiled, "I'd have made a pretty lousy boy. All I've got is my body as it is, and I spent years pushing my little hips and my teeny tits out from the inside as it was. I'd just be some thin guy with a tiny little dick and little balls if I'd been born as a guy." "Shut up, Baby," Imogen cooed, "You're talking nonsense. If you had been a boy and I hadn't met Dusty, I think I'd still be in love with you." Bonny kissed Imogen and listened to the sounds of Imogen's breathing through her nose. She was careful after that, not wanting to change the mood between them, but after a time, she moved slowly and began to kiss her way down Imogen's body. She made sure to do it wetly because she knew that Imogen liked that sometimes and it was warm in the apartment. As she worked on Imogen's tits with her mouth and fingers, she took a little time for herself and found the blonde's hip bone. As she began to rub against the point of Imogen's right hip, she began to whisper a little, telling Imogen how she loved her. Bonny didn't try to get to a finish for herself. She'd come far more than Imogen had that night and she thought that it would have been selfish if she did, though she also knew that Imogen would have encouraged her. So she only humped against it gently because it felt so nice and also because it was leaving some of her and Dusty behind and she liked the thought as she gently squeezed the thigh between her own with as much love as she could put into it. She moved on after a time, kissing her way over the stomach which Imogen still wanted to be less soft. Bonny knew that even in just the time that she'd been here that there was progress there, but she felt that Imogen would probably think that she had a belly even if she didn't at all. Bonny liked it, though she was careful not to give in to her little urges to try to hold a little between her lips. More than anything, Bonny was really hopeful tonight. Since they'd begun, they'd spent hours kissing, though not terribly long at any one time. They'd both lain on either side of Dusty's chest, kissing him and each other at the same time. Bonny had loved it to see Imogen's smiles whenever the two of them licked and sucked Dusty together. But Imogen had only ever allowed Bonny so much if Dusty wasn't there as at least a part of it. What the dark-haired one was after now was a taste of something that she'd have been prepared to do from the first night that she'd been here, and in the dim light cast down from where it was reflected from the ceiling, Bonny was looking at it now. Imogen's wet and puffy perfection. She wondered for a moment if she wasn't becoming just a little fixated on it. She'd tried over her time here, throwing hints like crazy, though always careful not to be blatant in any way. Only the previous night when they'd come back from a little skinny-dipping at the beach after dark, Bonny had pushed things just a little gently. -------- The furthest that she'd dared was a few hugs against Imogen in the waves and always when the water was up around their chests. She'd only caressed those cheeks a little, touched those breasts in passing and little more. She'd almost driven herself nuts, but she'd kept it at just a little kissing as their breasts touched in the waves. She'd wanted to kiss Dusty when he'd announced that had to pee after they'd walked out of the low surf with their arms around each other and one hand on each other's bottom, their hips together and their thighs sliding deliciously. No one could see them squatting together in the dunes as they'd played their game and peed for him afterwards, though Dusty could see just fine. By now, Imogen was quite used to kissing Bonny anyway, and kissing her at those times was just their way. But Bonny had taken it a little further. She'd reached and slipped her fingers into Imogen's stream and then brought them up against those lips, rubbing slowly just a little. Imogen had reacted and even as hopeful as Bonny had been, it had still surprised her when she felt Imogen move and then felt those fingers doing the same thing to her. It had been a little messy of course, but they were at the beach and it was a fifty foot walk back to the waves to wash off. When they'd stood up, their kiss had felt a little different then, Bonny was almost sure of it, but the moment passed and they'd run back into the water again to wash what had been deflected lower from the gestures. They'd walked home after putting on hoodies and track pants, holding hands resting on Dusty's shoulders for as long as Imogen's comfort level had allowed it. Bonny was happy that Dusty had agreed to her request to 'need' to pee just then. They'd talked for a long time that morning as Imogen flew to get in some practice at collision avoidance. The way that the sudden hard changes in direction caused their heads to grow suddenly heavy wasn't pleasant for a passenger, so they'd stayed on the ground. As they watched Imogen's takeoff and departure to head off toward the practice area, Bonny had just said it. "I love you both so much Dusty, but I'm dying to make love to that girl by myself for all of our sakes - mostly mine." "I know how you feel," he'd said, "I used to feel that way all the time until you came to us. But I do understand." Bonny had sighed, "What I'd want if I could have my heart's desire is to be one of Dusty's two women, just the three of us someplace I think, doing all sorts of wonderful things together. I'm always happy when we're in bed, but she won't ever let me do the other thing that I want to do deep down inside me." "In the first place," Dusty said then as he watched another student bobble off into the traffic pattern, "You already are, though I don't think of it that way. I see us as three and I think that if it comes to be as I would like in my own dream, then all of us belong to each other. Something like that doesn't happen at all where I come from. We are too fast to use our claws." "Thanks for what you just said," Bonny smiled at the time, "I think you've just given me the last push. I love the idea of the three of us, and as far as I'm concerned you have two women." "I think I have the way forward for one of them," he smiled. Bonny knew right away, only from looking at his smiling face. "Think you could do that? I mean, need to pee sometime, if it looks right?" "Between the dunes at the beach tonight," he said, "I'll need to pee then for sure." ------- She left a wet kiss on Imogen's mound on her way by, not far from where she really wanted to. It was a bit of a final test and she thrilled to see Imogen's hips react a little. She wanted to chuckle, but she held it in. Just about home free, she thought. As she settled herself down between those golden thighs, Bonny looked over and saw that he was watching them silently. She winked at him. What a guy. Pressing her kisses home a little, Bonny felt Imogen's hips move and it felt to her like hitting one out of the park. She reached for Imogen's hips as her thighs came up and she began, putting her heart into making love to Imogen. The soft scent filled her nostrils and the taste, ... oh the taste was amazing. She lapped and licked and it was a good while before she settled slowly down to nibbling those inner lips when they'd come to her. She eased Imogen back from the fast come that she knew that she could have given her and just settled in for the long haul, caressing those thighs and breasts just so. She didn't want to rush this joy. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 09 Fuck that, she thought, she'd waited a month for this first real taste. In time though, she began to push a little, nudging and driving Imogen along. The end was even better. Bonny had to actually try to hang on to those wonderful haunches as Imogen's ass seemed to almost float for her while the blonde held the edge of a pillow in her teeth as she screamed, not wanting to wake the neighbors. When it was done, Bonny crawled up that body, feeling like she did the very first time that she'd made another woman come. She was tired now, but it had been worth the wait. Imogen surprised her again as she showered Bonny's wet face with her kisses. Bonny kissed Imogen even as she was smiling, "Welcome to the club." "What club?" Imogen smiled back. "Bonny's club." "Thanks Bonny, thank you so much," Imogen said, almost in tears with emotion, "I've been such an idiot. I want to try with you." "No you don't," Bonny said, kissing Imogen very softly for a moment and putting a lot into the quiet message of it, "It's way late to give you lessons tonight. Right now, you're gonna be Bonny's good little baby girl and roll over onto your stomach." Imogen was confused, "But, ... why?" "It's like I said," Bonny whispered patiently, "we're all tired. I know that I'd love your first try, but first tries deserve the best chance, and even though you're a girl, there's things I want to teach you as you do me. Right now, you just roll over and lie still for me, Iomogen. I think we've finally gotten to where we all can see what we have together. I'm going to put my baby to sleep." "No you're not, "the larger girl said, "I don't like to sleep on my stomach." "That's funny," Bonny grinned, "I see you sleep that way all the time. I like to watch you sleep. It reminds me that when I really needed it, I pulled some amazing luck out of myself from somewhere - probably my ass. Now roll over for me." Imogen even had a mild urge to argue, but she rolled over. She understood very soon after as Bonny nudged her thighs apart and lay down again to lick Imogen's anus very softly. Imogen moaned in pleasure, but Bonny didn't want to maximize it. She just kept on, nuzzling and licking right through Imogen's soft sighs and moans. Imogen relaxed under Bonny's kisses and was asleep within ten minutes. Bonny waited a little longer and moved very slowly and carefully to pull the covers over the one she could finally tell herself was her girl. She resisted the impulse to leave a soft kiss on Imogen's shoulder. Instead, she crept closer to Dusty and sucked him quietly until he came for her. She moved up then, staying still dutifully as he licked her face clean. She lay down on her side facing away from Dusty because she wanted to gaze at Imogen before she closed her eyes. His face came into her view from over her shoulder. "You have what you wanted, I think," he whispered. She reached up to hold his head against hers for a moment. "Yeah," she sighed softly, "Now I feel like we're three as you said this morning. Now I finally feel like I really belong to somebody - and there are two of you. I'm your woman, just like your other one is and you're our guy. He moved back to lie down again and she felt his heavy arm as it reached over her. He pulled her gently and she moved back until she felt him close all the gaps, wrapping her in his body until his head rested above hers. She moved to lift his arm a little and he allowed it as she placed his hand over her breast and said goodnight. --------- The next day was Saturday and they were out at the open air market doing their shopping. Bonny didn't make a big thing out of it, but she split her time between staying with Dusty and standing near Imogen as they both explained what to look for in fresh produce. Every now and then, she'd lay her hand over Imogen's hip as they leaned a little to look at something and Imogen said and did nothing about it. "I still care out in public," she said afterward, "But not much. We've changed a little and I like it. But the way that I see it, I wouldn't like it if I had to look at one of those clingy couples hang all over each other while I'm shopping. I don't care what they are gay, lesbians, or straight. I take your little touches as your way of letting me know where you are, that's all, just like Dusty always does it by standing so that he's against me just a little. I like that." With their things packed into Dusty's saddlebags and Imogen's knapsack they left to go home, but Bonny pulled Imogen aside. "Hey, there's a store around the corner that I want to check out. I've been working for a couple of weeks and I want to go there." Imogen asked, but Bonny wouldn't say, "There's something that I'd really like your ideas on, that's all. It's just around the corner." Imogen stared when they got there for a moment, "You wanna blow your money on videos?" "No, Imogen" Bonny said in a low voice, "These days, I'm happy all the time thanks to you two. I live in a porno with you, don't I? That's not all they sell here. Can we go inside? I feel a little stupid standing out here." -------- Imogen didn't get it as Bonny pointed. She leaned in and whispered, "Bonny, you've got to be kidding me, ... at least a little, no? Why do you want one of those?" Bonny turned away and walked back outside to where Dusty waited. Imogen watched her, knowing that she'd said something wrong and it had completely ruined Bonny's hopeful mood. "I'm very sorry if I said something stupid just now," she said. Bonny nodded but said nothing as she turned to go. Imogen reached for her arm, "Please tell me? I think I've hurt your feelings or something and I'd never want to do that. What's wrong?" Bonny looked down for a moment, "I didn't want one to fuck you with. I wanted to get a smaller one because I see that you like it when Dusty does it in your ass for you. I can't take what he has there for sure. I was hoping that you might want to fuck me with it." Imogen's light blinked on at that, "Well then let's get one. I'd do that for you." But Bonny shook her head, "Forget it. I don't want it anymore." Imogen tried a few times to reassure Bonny, but eventually, Bonny just asked her to please stop mentioning it. They walked home in silence. -------- Florida, three days later They were just deciding on dinner, now that Bonny had gotten home safely with the others. It had taken a while to get her calmed down, but she was fine now, or almost. Having no car and with Imogen gone on a night flight with Dusty, she'd decided to walk to a diner not too far from the airfield and it hadn't gone well. She knew that she was in trouble as she'd gotten up to leave. She'd been followed all the way back by four men and she'd had to run the last half mile across the field after scaling the perimeter fence. Fortunately, Imogen had landed ten minutes before and she and Dusty were looking for her just then. His sudden appearance had changed things in her favor, but two of them had seen it as a need to pull guns. Dusty was largely immune to bullets and it hadn't gotten quite that far before the cops showed up, called by the controllers in the control tower. But it had shown them a few things. Dusty would have had to change and kill all of the fools and in clear view of the control tower binoculars. Bonny had been thoroughly freaked out, but it had shown her that she was a little different now. One of the men had grabbed her by the arm and she'd swung in fear and desperation and almost laid him out flat on his back. "We're getting cell phones," Imogen said, "We need to be able to talk to each other if we're not together. And we're taking cabs too." There was a knock at the door and Imogen was about to ask Bonny to answer it, but a look at her showed her staring at the closed door with near-terror written all over her face. Dusty turned into the wolfhound again and Imogen stepped to the door and asked who it was. "Abi," said the one on the other side, and she opened it. The demon walked in then but he hadn't come alone. There were two others with him, though one of them was plainly almost as terrified as Bonny. Abi wasn't pleased by the look of him and the third one through the door as he almost pushed the frightened one just looked mean. Imogen closed and locked the door. Dusty shifted back into his natural form. As they passed by on their way in, the mean-looking one nodded to Dusty. All that he said was "Pilot" by way of greeting. Abi asked Imogen and Dusty in a quiet double-voice what they were doing. "I provided money so that you could get training. I see that you're progressing well with it, but what are you both doing here? The focus is to learn, not play house." Imogen and Dusty both tried to tell of it at the same time, and he only said, "Silence!" They stood and waited while Abi looked as though he was trying to contain his annoyance for a moment. He held his hand up while looking at Bonny, who was more frightened than ever. She felt his probing in herself and though she was frightened, she calmed herself after a moment and was able to hold his gaze. He nodded to her then, "I knew that you had the sight, but I didn't know how strongly the rest was in you. On the table, you'll find a large sketchpad and pencils. I would like you to look at the picture that you'll find under the pad. What you'll see there is one of my soldiers standing next to a human woman. Think of tactical clothing, something like soldiers might wear here or what a member of a SWAT team might wear. Don't worry about footwear; just assume they'll have combat boots. The demon requires nothing but combat pants and a vest with pockets which you'll add later. I want you to sketch them on the pad and draw your ideas for this clothing on them, if you would, Miss Bonny Polk. Try to imagine yourself having to make the clothing as well. There's a lot at stake in it for you, if you want to stay with the others." Bonny stared at him and on her, it was a strange look. It came from seeing a demon like Abi for the first time. She'd seen others around here and there in her life, but she'd never seen one like him. He stood in the shape of a large man, but she could see him clearly as he really was. That was one thing, but there was something else in her expression and it was from wondering if he was given to making jokes like this or if he was just nuts. "I haven't drawn anything like that since I was in highschool," she said once she'd found her voice, "I haven't sewn anything in two years." Abi didn't look disappointed; he just looked rather bored and reluctant to try to think of ways to convince her without any threats in it, since he knew that it would influence her ability. "I know all of that," he said, "I got that from one look. I also know that your mother was a fashion designer at one time and you learned from her. She didn't work at it much, because her job was more of a buyer, but she did teach you after she saw that you'd turned the doodles of your childhood into something which revealed your artistic talent. You know that Imogen and Dusty will leave when she's ready. I'm thinking of offering you something with which you might earn the right to stay with them, since that need is written all over you." He pointed at the table, "So please, do it for yourself, if it's really that important to you. You are already partly in another plane. You might find it rather ... difficult to live here alone like that once Imogen and Dusty are gone, I think." She walked over, looking at the others and the other newcomers as she went and she lifted the pad and stared at the illustration. "Who's the woman?" she asked, "and why isn't she wearing anything in this?" "Somebody I've seen from a distance and we've talked in her dreams," Abi replied, "I haven't met her yet, but I will when the time's right. And I don't know if you've noticed or anything, but she's wearing more than you are in that picture. Please begin now, Bonny." Bonny began to doodle and giving it some thought, the sheet with her preliminary doodles was torn off a few moments later as she began to sketch, stopping frequently to refer to the picture. As she did that, every now and then she'd look at the others who stood near the far wall. She regarded the cowering one for a few seconds, only long enough to see that the other one near him wasn't threatening him or hurting him in any way. He only stood there looking mean. She went back to her sketching, knowing enough about Abi from what she thought that she'd read in her books but mostly from hearing Dusty and Imogen talk about him. She glanced up at Abi for an instant and saw that he was looking at her with a smile. He turned to the others, "I'm going to tell you something. From right now, if Bonny can do what I asked, I have a job for her. I also have a job for all of you here. Whether Bonny can do what I want or not, there will be no others allowed into your lives, other than possibly one and that doesn't much depend on me and I'll say little to nothing about it anyway. Your training comes before anything else, Imogen, though I'll allow that you do seem to have found your way between you all. That's one of the reasons why I'm here tonight. I wonder if it would be too much to ask for a little dinner." Imogen looked a little worried then, "We only shopped for us three. I don't think there'll be enou -" "Oh sure there will," he chuckled, "I'm not about to turn water into wine or anything here, but swiping groceries from a store a few blocks away on my way over wasn't hard to do." He pointed to the paper bags on the floor in the kitchenette which hadn't been there a moment before, "Just whip something up with Dusty while I bore you with a few details." Dusty looked in the bags and found more of what they'd bought earlier in the day - a lot more, so he got to work as Imogen walked over to help him. "One way or another, what almost happened tonight made me decide that I'll need to protect my investment a little better. Even if Bonny there doesn't want to go with you or fails my little test there, she almost came to some harm tonight and it's not a stretch to think that it could have gone a lot worse. If something unfortunate had happened to her, then your progress would have suffered for it. Humans especially tend to have difficulty if they're grieving or even just upset because someone dear to them was harmed. That's what I'm facing - even though I gave you no permission to do what you've done between you. "The smaller one huddled on the floor there is a faun in reality. He's not a demon at all. I've just hidden him this way for a little while. If he ever grows a set, I might let him keep the ability, but we'll have to see. His younger sister came to live on the same craft that you'll be flying one day. She's been gone from her home for over a year living among some troops of mine, and her brother got it into his head that I was holding her against her will. It wasn't true; I actually didn't know that she was there, living with a family of demons who'd taken her in. I only found out about her recently. Someone like a faun wouldn't last long where I spend a lot of my time on Earth." He chuckled, oblivious to the discomfort and fear in what looked to be a slim young man of about nineteen or twenty. "Anyway, it seems that the fauns in the neighborhood there have more luck than brains. Look at him there. I've told him several times over the past few days that I'm not going to eat him or turn him over to anyone who would. I'd decided to go for a walk outside of the abbey where I live when I'm here. The sentries opened the gates and there he was, stuck where he'd been, right up against the gate where no one could see him. He'd been there for over an hour trying to get up the foolish courage to knock. If he had knocked it would have been the last thing that he'd have ever done. But it was his luck that I came out then. He's here so that I don't have to devote the loss of two soldiers to keep him out of the mitts of the others. He's also here as bait." Abi smiled, "The way that I want this to go is that I have four pilots, counting me. I don't want to put somebody else through that learning curve that you're on Imogen. Not everyone is like you, my dear. But I know someone who I think can be swayed and pulled into working for me and being happier herself. She had a good career as a transport pilot in your air force for a time. When she left that, she decided to pursue what she'd always wanted to do, and that was to teach school. The trouble with that was that she has just a tiny little kink in her, the same as many people do of one sort or another. Her own personal problem was that her little fantasies were getting in the way of her teaching. She was just smart enough to get out before something unfortunate happened. You see, she likes the figments of her fantasies young. As you might imagine, that sort of thing is frowned upon here, but she caught herself in time and found a way to teach for a living in a way and a place where she knew that she wouldn't be tempted, which I suppose was a good solution for her. Luckily, she still has her fantasies, and I'm about to offer her a way to live them with a young person who IS safely of age but appears to be just what she's always dreamed of." He pointed to the young man with a wide smile, "But I needed one who could appease another one of her yearnings. She's always had wishful fantasies of knowing what to humans is a mythological creature. It's a stupid notion, since they obviously exist. Fauns are very rare these days, but they've been here longer than humans. There's almost always at least a grain of truth to a legend. So for my little plan, he's going to pose as a friend of Bonny's and an acquaintance of yours, Imogen. You and Bonny will introduce him to her and he'll take an introductory flight at a time when she's there but hasn't got a student booked. I think you'll only have to let her see him a time or two and it'll be as good as done." Imogen looked over at the young man and then at Abi, "There are three female instructors on the staff there. Which -" "You know her quite well, Imogen," Abi smiled, "It's Holly Hernandez." Imogen's eyes widened, "You mean - " Abi nodded, still smiling. "You only have to introduce her. I'll make sure the rest happens." Bonny had been listening as she sketched furiously, but now she stared as well. She looked over at the young man and then her eye was drawn to the other one again, a man of maybe sixty, though he sure didn't look like any sixty year-old that she'd ever seen. He wasn't tall or large, particularly. He was just very lean and fit. For some reason, she got the sense that he was also uncommonly strong for somebody of his stature. He didn't look at her. In fact, he actually appeared to be avoiding possibility of making eye contact with her, though he certainly didn't look nervous in any way. He looked like the kind of man - if she let her imagination take over for a second - who liked to chew up hot rivets and spit out razor blades. Before breakfast, of course. She'd been glancing at him for a moment now and then, puzzled and a little troubled too. She just couldn't really tell why. But after a moment, the pencil in her hand fell from her grasp as she saw what was underneath the illusion. There were three sides to him. She just couldn't tell which of them were illusions. Abi stepped over and asked Bonny if she was done, but she didn't answer. He reached and turned her head to face him noticing that her eyes swiveled as he did it to stay locked on the other one for as long as she could. "I know that you think that you know something about me, Abi said, "Whatever you think that you know, I'd like to point out something here. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 09 Besides being rather rude," he said, "It's also very dangerous to ignore me while I'm speaking to you." Bonny's eyes locked onto his the next instant and she apologized, "I'm sorry. I just, ... I dunno, .. I - " "I don't think that you ought to be looking right now," Abi said, "I don't think you're ready to see just yet. Now, did you do as I asked?" She nodded and handed him the pad, "The second page is better." He looked for several moments before he nodded, "Better stay here tomorrow. I'll have what you need delivered. Tell me what sort of fabric you'd want for the first try. I was thinking of Rip-Stop." "Better get me a bunch of whatever you want," Bonny said, "Sewing those things up will take me longer to get back into than sketching - and I'll need measurements." "You'll have them by the day after next," Abi said, liking this now. "Can I look again?" she asked, "I saw something." Abi nodded, drawing a breath and letting it out heavily, "Look if you like. All I'm saying is that not all of it might be pleasant." "I, ..." Bonny whispered, "I know him, I think." "You're wrong, Bonny. You've never actually seen him in your life before." Abi looked a little sad for a moment and then he spoke. The man turned his head to look over and then tried to look away, but Abi forbade it with a word. The man held still then, only looking back in silence. "A very long time ago," Abi began, "there was a boy. He was born from the poorest of the poor in a large town in Andalusia in Spain. To get by day by day, he and the others like him, some of them his relations, they had to take what providence handed them, stealing, robbing, selling information or knowledge - whatever it took so that by the end of the day, there was some food for them to eat. It didn't always happen, but more often than not, he and the others didn't go to sleep hungry. But if you get a little too good at these things, sooner or later you'll rob the wrong one. That didn't happen to the boy, but the unfortunate one was a close enough relation. Right after the hanging, the authorities there put on a manhunt for the rest the likes of which had never been seen. Every single one was apprehended and put to death. All but one. The boy I'm speaking of only survived by slipping over the town wall in the middle of the night. He'd never lived out there before, and he came near to starvation after a little while. He was found by a faun girl." Dusty announced that dinner was ready and with a lot of coaxing and even some strong words, they all sat down to eat. There weren't enough chairs, so everyone sat where they could. Bonny sat on the floor near Abi's side and asked him to continue with what he'd been saying. He nodded, "She fed him and nursed him back to health against the wishes of her parents. She made it even worse by teaching him how to hunt and fish for himself, when he wasn't foraging for whatever he could find with her." He looked over with a lopsided little smile, "Do I have to tell you that they fell in love?" She shook her head, though she was beginning to feel a little as though she'd heard this story before. When she looked over, the man was looking at her, but turned his head to study the food on his plate intently after a moment as Abi told more of it. "One day, the faun's parents came to her and told her that something had to give. What they had in mind was to take the young pair to a mage that the fauns knew and were a little friendly with. The sad reality of it was that he was not a mere mage, but a rather strong sorcerer. He heard the tale and took the gold that the faun's family had saved, all of it. After that, he agreed to turn the boy into a faun, giving them all each and every one of the serious cautions that he could think of which might happen and he offered no guarantee, only that he would try and that he believed that it was possible for him to be able to do what had been asked. But once he took the pair into his home, he decided that he had a better idea. The faun's family left then, since most fauns have no patience to wait around for something to happen which doesn't really concern them. If they had stayed, they might have heard the boy's cries for help from the cage where he'd been thrown. Over the next half day, the sorcerer worked his craft. When it was done, he took what memories that he could find in the girl's mind of the boy. After that, they left the boy to his fate. She no longer knew him and she listened to what the sorcerer told her of a murdering young thief who hated fauns. The boy escaped after three days, eventually having to use his teeth on the bindings which held the wooden boughs together to make up the cage. By then of course, it was too late and the pair were long gone, the sorcerer and the human girl who he'd turned from a faun. The boy knew what had happened, of course, since he'd seen it all or most of it. He didn't hold the girl at fault for anything. He followed and lost their trail eventually. Two years later, he was still broken-hearted and he had gone from a young human man who had been taught to fend for himself in the wilderness to become an outlaw and a highwayman. He journeyed to a large city and he began to ruthlessly take over all of the thieve guilds there. In only a year and a little, he'd built it up into a criminal empire. But he was miserable. That is how I met him one night at an inn, trying to drink the girl-faun's memory from his mind. We talked and when he learned who I was, he offered me everything that he had and controlled in exchange for my part of the bargain. The gold which was offered was very nice and I liked the network of rogues even more, for I ran a hell then and it was an in increase in the amount of souls which I could trade in. All that I had to do was to augment the rogues with my own hunters. I accepted and unlike the sorcerer, I kept my word. I took that young man and from what he was, I made him a necromancer and a shadowlord. When he told me that he felt that he was ready, I told him where he must go to find the sorcerer." Abi shrugged, "I've always been busy, and for most of my long life, my doings have kept me spread pretty thinly. I didn't know what might happen. I also didn't know that my young hate-filled necromancer would need the better part of a year to get where I told him to go, for he had troubles of his own on the way. He found the one that he sought, but the girl was already six months dead. In those days, there were still such things as wolves in Andalusia. The mage had gotten himself cornered by a pack and the girl was too trusting, not having a lifetime as a human to learn the mistrust which humans use when dealing with most others of their own kind. He'd literally thrown her to the wolves, though they didn't harm her. The fall caused her water to break and she went into labor then, being well swollen with the old mage's child. The girl was cared for by the wolves, but she perished from her weakness some time later. The child was overheard as it cried and was taken in by a passing monk who tried to raise the infant boychild. My vengeful young caster found the mage then and the things which he did in his wrath were interesting enough for me to come to watch what was done for a time near the end." He looked at Bonny. "The little boy ran away from the monk as soon as he could a few years later and was taken in by a caravan of gypsies. The young rogue who I turned into someone far more powerful? He's right here. I never made his staying near me a part of our bargain. He has always chosen to stay, having little use for the lives of humans anymore." "What happened to the young boy?" Bonny asked, "The one taken in by the monk?" "He grew up as one of the band which took him in," Abi said, "He married and had a good life and fathered many children. It was said that he had many abilities beyond what is said to be normal among that people and those gifts he passed on to each of his children and they in turn passed it on to their own. As often happens among them, gift such as these tend to be passed along the line of the girls most often. Your own mother is in the strongest of that line and so then are you, Bonny. You are a descendant of that young faun girl who was made human." He looked into her face, seeing the way that she looked at the man who did not look back. "Tell me what you see, Bonny." She looked harder, trying to use the sight which she'd always had. "I see a very strong old man." The man snorted quietly and continued to eat his meal. "An illusion which he frequently uses, "Abi nodded, "It allows him to get very close quite often. Few people tend to fear old men no matter how strong they are. I've always taken it as a weakness among humans for old men and women and, ... well, never mind. What else do you see?" The man looked to be getting a little annoyed at the game which Abi seemed to want to play here, but he said nothing. "I see a ... a demon in there, I think." Abi shook his head, "Not bad for one as young as you are," he said, "But not strictly correct. As part of our bargain, he wanted to be able to have the use of his new talents for a long time. I sent him to the Abyss, from whence returned to me as what you see in that way. It changed him in some ways, but it was what he wished for then. He uses that shape sometimes as it suits him - and he is only partly a demon. You believe that you saw three things in him, but you are wrong. There is a fourth." He nodded to the man, who looked really annoyed then, but he disappeared at that instant. All that they saw was a vaguely shaped piece of inky blackness where the man had been sitting. He was still there, judging by the slight sounds of the cutlery as he ate. "Like this, my friend can hide in broad daylight. If he spreads himself thinly, he hides nothing but himself, and if he wishes it, he has no more thickness than a shadow, if that is the way that he wishes to appear. As he learned in his own art, he was and is still very quick with a quiet blade in the darkness, but while those blades are as keen and as hard-edged as steel, they are far colder and they leave no mark on the outside of the ones which he pierces with them to shred them from within." The final shape, ..." Abi looked at the area of darkness and the old man returned to view as it faded. He looked over at Bonny and she saw sadness in that face as it began to shift. He grew younger as he looked down for a moment and when he looked up, Bonny felt her heart almost rip loose as she beheld a family memory which no one in all of the generations of her family had ever seen, other than in the dreams which haunted them all at some time in their lives. Her plate crashed to the floor and shattered, the cutlery skittering off out of sight under the table. She was looking at a man of about twenty-five. He was not large or powerfully made. In fact, the outline of his body hadn't changed at all. It only looked younger, though the strength was still there to be seen in him. His hair was no longer grayish white. It was a rich and dark brown. His handsome face looked back at her with the light beard of a young man who hadn't gotten old enough to really grow the thick beards which come men could easily. He had a goatee and a long soul patch from his lower lip. Bonny stared at his eyes, light blue and very charming - even though he had no wish to be anymore. They were the sort of eyes which spoke of sensitivity and the quiet thoughts which went on behind them. As she found herself beginning to struggle against the draw that he wasn't using at all, ... She thought that they were the sort of eyes which always looked as though he was looking up from the water which he'd just been washing his face in. "His name," Abi said "is-" "I know his name," Bonny whispered as she slowly got to her feet. "I've seen you in my dreams all of my life, since I was just a tiny little girl." She stepped forward, "Sebastian." He looked uncomfortable, very much so as he put down his plate and stepped away. "You are like her," he said in a very Old-World Spanish accent to the floor as he turned away, "So much resemblance as I have never seen in anyone since I first knew my pain." He looked back for a moment, "I have been trying not to see. It tears at me - gnawing through in a way that I had forgotten. Even your name, ... " He shook his head "Please forgive me. It is such a hurtful shock to see my Bonita again." He walked away toward the window with it's heavy drapes, "A thousand years and it is fresh and new once again. I -" He froze then, turning to look toward the drapes. He stepped over and peered around the edge to look out. "There are men outside, and their thoughts, ... They hold you in their thoughts." He looked back, "How many were there when they came for you earlier? There are four across the street." Bonny stepped over and looked through the same thin gap, "It's them! They - they followed us. They must have." She turned to look at Sebastian but he wasn't there. The shadow had already passed through the glass and down the outside of the wall. Imogen got down on the floor with a dustpan and broom. Two minutes later, Sebastian was back, forming again out of the darkness and walking toward Abi, "I have them. Are they of any value to you? You may have them if I can leave after you find another to guard these ones." Abi shook his head, "No. I didn't know about who this girl is to you until I felt it once we were here. I need you here to watch and protect when the Ushandi cannot. I will take the souls though." He held out his hand and four weak glimmers passed from Sebastian's open hand to Abi's. "I have had to listen as a friend to you as you complained to me that your existence has no purpose any longer. For over a century in their years, I have listened. This night, I give you a purpose though you do not know that you need it. Keep them alive and unharmed. If it makes you feel better, then seek what this girl -" Abi halted in mid-sentence as he looked at Bonny. "You will be here to take delivery of what I have sent to you. Try as you can, Bonny, and I will give you a home with your friends, and maybe a bit more besides, though it's not all up to me. As far as Holly Hernandez is concerned, I'll be back next week for that little adventure. In the meantime, I'll give you a little gift." He smiled broadly, I'm sure that you'll learn how to work it back and forth by morning." He stepped over and leaned down to kiss Bonny's cheek, "And learn to trust Sebastian, no matter how much he grumbles." He looked at the other young man, "You will come with me. Try to master your stupid fear of me. I will keep you near me until we come back. I will give another to you in a few days, and maybe then you will see that I have never meant you harm. Can you walk like you're a little better than a mouse or must I drag you by the hair?" The boy nodded his head with huge eyes and stepped forward. "That's better then," the demon said as they walked out. Bonny felt odd and a little off-balance. She swayed for a moment and then she fell over backwards into Sebastian's arms as everyone gasped. "Bonita," Sebastian whispered in surprise and amazement. "What?" Bonny asked, looking at them all. "Please let me stand up," she said, struggling a little in his grasp, "Please Sebastian, "I know you don't have much of any thoughts for me. I feel better now. I don't know what happened there, but I - I'm ok now." She moved to stand and she heard the soft clump on the floor as she tried to take a step. Curious, she looked down then. She stared as she saw it all and then she began to cry a little, though she tried not to. Sebastian carried her to the bed and laid her down very gently. "When you think that you can, Bonita," he said quietly as he held her, "then try to get onto your knees and look there." He was pointing at the mirror. "I am sorry for what I said. I was only thinking of myself. I know that you had no part in this." He sighed as he looked down, "I will protect you," He looked up, "All of you." Bonny decided to face this, whatever it was and she got to her knees with Sebastian ready to catch her if she even wobbled. After a long, wondering look, Bonny felt a little better then, "I feel almost like I belong this way, as weird as that is. Why did he do this to me and why did he call it a gift?" "I dunno,"Imogen said, "But it looks really good on you. I hope that it's not permanent or anything but, ... well, nice tail." Bonny reached back and felt nothing as she looked at Imogen, who only said, "Higher. It's just a short thing, shorter than a goat's, I guess." Bonny tried again and found it. She turned around and looked back over her shoulder and gasped. Just above her bottom she had a furry little tail, perhaps six inches or less in length. She took her hand away and found that she could move it to a degree and now she didn't know whether to cry or laugh. "He said that you would learn to control it," Dusty said, "By that, I think he means that you can make it go away if you want to." Bonny stood up on the bed very carefully on her hooves, "I'm starting to like it," she said, "And the way that it makes me feel inside. I can't really explain it. I kind of feel like the way that I was was something that I liked, but this feels like a whole lot more of that." She got back down and sat looking at Sebastian, "I just had the thought that this must make everything worse for you. I heard what you said. I'm sorry if it does, Sebastian." She looked at him for a second, "Did I say something funny? You're smiling a little. This is the first time that I've seen you look anything but upset or pissed off." "You say my name differently than Bonita used to say it. I like it from you. It is not so bad now. Actually, it is not bad at all. I grow used to seeing you this way." He sighed a little, "It was a time when I was happy. The only time in my life when I felt happiness day after day. Forgive me if I sound like a fool, but I have not been happy in a long time. Try not to worry, Bonita - I mean, ... Bonny. I have known that demon for a long time as well. For what he is, he puts up with my moods which are so often dark. I have learned that he does as he says that he will do. He told you that you can master this, so I have no doubt that you will learn it." He looked self-conscious for a moment, "And please, I do not mean to stare at you." Bonny didn't really know where it came from in her, but she found her own smile, "I don't really mind, and you aren't really staring. I won't mind a bit if I can see some more of that smile you had on a minute ago." When he managed to smile at her, feeling better, Bonny actually sighed right out loud. "You should rest, all of you - or, whatever you would do now, I guess from what I can feel from you all. I will keep watch tonight. No one will harm you." He looked at Dusty, "I know that you can do it easily Pilot, my friend. But here in this place, ... the humans make it harder, no?" Dusty nodded, "Yes, I always have to think before I do anything. You can call me Dusty." Sebastian got up and stepped over to the window again. "Rest then." "You know him?" Imogen asked in a whisper. Dusty nodded, "Not well at all. I've seen him sometimes when I flew them somewhere now and then." Because of the presence of a relative stranger among them, it took a lot longer for them to fall asleep, but Imogen and even Dusty did eventually. Bonny sat up slowly a few minutes later and looked at Sebastian as he peered out of the window behind the drapes. He heard her motions and the gentle sounds of her hooves as she stepped closer. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 09 "You cannot sleep?" he whispered. "Don't want to," she smiled a little, "Do you want anything to drink or anything like that?" He shook his head, "Thank you but no," he whispered, "But I do wish to use the facilities. The bathroom is over there, I think?" She nodded and held out her hand, "Come on, hold my hand so I don't fall or make too much noise and I'll show you." She led him to the bathroom, but he was a little surprised when she didn't leave. "I don't know what things are like where you live normally," she whispered, "Do they have these there?" He nodded, "It is much the same on the big ship, though it is different in the abbey. There, things are the same as they have always been. Why are you standing here?" Bonny smiled, "Dusty has some trouble doing this in here, since he's on four feet all the time and there's no room for him in here. Imogen always holds it for him when he goes." She leaned down to lift the seat for him and she almost fell forward, though she did catch herself with one hand on the counter. Then she stepped back and around him, looking up. "Can I, ... hold it for you, Sebastian? I'm trying to, ... I don't know what I'm trying to do or say here, but -" He nodded, "I think that I would like that. No one has held -" Bonny's eyebrows went up, "You're joking." He shook his head, "I can have female demons if I wish. But I do not have the wish. Most of them want nothing longer than once or twice and they only know one way, most of them. You did not allow me to finish, though I do not mind. I have spent a few days guarding the faun who was here with Abi. He does not fear me. Well, he did at first." He chuckled quietly, "He was even more afraid of me than he is of my demon friend. When I took him to a room where he could sleep at the abbey, I had a demon bring us some food and drink because we would be there for a day as least. When she left, he saw me bolt the door and when I turned around, he was pissing in his fear of me." "What did you do?" Bonny asked. "Please," Sebastian said, "I need to make water here, if you do not mind. If you wish to hold it for me, then I wish for it sooner rather than very much later." Bonny reached and told him to go ahead. It was different for her, standing next to him and it gave her an opportunity to look at him. She found that the way that she was like this gave her a little more height which she found curious until she thought of her legs. It didn't really feel like it, but she supposed that like this, she was standing on her toes in a way. She looked at Sebastian and found that her eyes were at about the height as his chin. She looked down again after that, wanting to make sure that what he did went where it was supposed to. She wiped it carefully for him afterward and washed her hands quickly. "Go on with what you were saying, Sebastian," she said softly because of the echoing sound from the tiles in there, "I like to listen to about anything you say." "I was annoyed," he said, "I know that I am not pretty in some ways, but no one had harmed him in any way. It was just fear in his mind. I tossed him a cleaning rag and told him to clean up the floor. After that, I took the rag and threw it down the privy shaft in the room. I took him to another chamber where I'd asked for a bath to be made ready. I think his fear annoyed me because I was trying to put him at ease but he seemed to be trapped in it. I told him to bathe since he smelled slightly. When he made no sign of doing as I asked, I picked him up and stepped in myself. Then I saw my error, so I changed to look as I do now. I held him there and bathed him, telling him the whole while that he was safe there with me. Finally, and after a lot of quiet talk from me, he came to understand." Sebastian sighed, "And not long after that, I found that he'd gone too far in another way and now LIKED me! THAT was when I learned that he had a voice after all. I learned a few things about male fauns from it as well. That one would like to find someone female to love, but when he is faced with someone whose body appeals to him, he will seek to take what pleasure that he can. That is what I meant to say earlier. He had held it. I learned things myself at his hands. I would not want what I had for a love that night, but I enjoyed what we did very much. I can fuck hard and fast like anyone, I would guess, especially when I am not like I am now. But sometimes, ... well, I miss soft things, slow things the most." Bonny wasn't shocked at all, though she felt that she knew the way that the faun had felt to be faced with the more demonic shape at first. "I thought that you were a demon at first. Dusty's a lot like you in that way, I guess. We love each other, but he is Imogen's first, so I'm always careful to let her know that I know that. Hey, when you're done here, can I ask you a favor? Would you let me see you that other way, like what I thought was a demon?" He nodded and as they walked out, he stepped a little ahead of her and she was looking at a horned thing with gray skin, long claws, wings and teeth. Bonny smiled and nodded, "I like you like that too, Sebastian." She reached and took his hand with hers and they walked back to the window. She laid out a blanket and sat down on it looking up at him. "Come on down here and sit with me, and I won't mind if you call me Bonita. I know it's another name and I know what it means." He sat down, a young man again and she leaned against him, "I think I know what Abi wants, besides watching over us. You feel like somebody I've wanted to know all of my life and I feel a lot better now." He put his arm around her and they talked quietly for a while until Bonny began to nod off. Sebastian looked around and he pulled a cushion from a large chair and helped her to lie down before he pulled some of the blanket over her. Bonny opened her eyes a little. "I know you're some kind of wicked killer if you need to be, but I know that you're not here to hurt me. You can hug me if you want to pretend that you've got Bonita back, I won't mind." He actually surprised her a little by doing it and she sighed against him as she settled in. "I think that I'm hoping that one day you might not see me as somebody else though." "I already do, Bonny," he whispered as he put his arm over her to pull her against him. "You do not look like Bonita so much anymore. I see many differences and, ... " He kissed her ear very carefully, having to negotiate the space inside the curl of her horn. "And I find that I like that very much. I have had many centuries of missing the one that I lost. It is enough now. You are not Bonita. I know this. In many ways, you are even more lovely." "Do you like my little tail?" she smiled and she felt him nod. "I do too," she whispered, "though I hope I can figure out how to make this go away in the morning." "My demon friend does not lie in my experience," Sebastian whispered, "Though there are times, I think when he does not say everything. I believe that he said the truth that you will be able to change again as you wish, but I think that he tried to keep some things simple for you. I do not have four shapes in a way which limits me. He only spoke of the ones which I use most often and feel comfortable in. Perhaps I can look as a faun for you tomorrow sometime, if you think that you might wish to see me like that." She turned her head and reached back before he drew his own away and after a look into his eyes, she kissed him once softly. "You say the sweetest things to me, Sebastian. Good night." She felt him move against her then, but after the first moment, she knew that he wasn't really moving. He was shifting. She didn't feel bare male thighs against her anymore. She felt fur against hers. When she tried to look, she felt her horns clash quietly against his. He gave her a bit of room and when she looked, he was a faun too. Bonny rolled all the way over to face him and she found the softest warm smile in his face and her hand felt a few things which made her smile back even more. She moved closer to him and raised her leg over him. "If you like it soft and slow, then right now, I'm the girl for you, Sebastian." She slid her arm over his neck and she held him as he slipped inside of her. --------- Out in the middle of nowhere, Colorado Abi walked silently through the Colorado night. He was here to get the lay of the land for something which he was fairly certain would happen somewhere nearby in about the next year. He walked through the temporary village of tents belonging to the many role players who came here to play out their medieval fantasies. Fairly often it seemed, he heard the sounds of humans mating in the tents which he passed by. He thought about it for a moment and decided that the role playing didn't necessarily stop when they went to bed. He was past all of that in another minute and he walked on, as silent as death, thinking about the ones which he knew were coming months from now. None of those ones knew it, but each one of their souls had a bounty on it from long ago. The amounts varied between them, but they were all wanted. He'd missed them by seconds as they'd been scooped up in an anomaly. As far as he'd been able to determine, that anomaly would happen again a little over a year from now. He didn't intend to let them get away again. He stopped for a moment and looked to his left. By what he felt, there was a cave there which normally had some roots and branches from the rocky slope above hanging over the opening. It was pitch dark here. So why did he see a faint glow of light from it? He stepped over and looked inside, curious now. There were candles; many, many candles set all over the interior and in a moment, he knew that this had once been a place where humans had lived, a few members of an aboriginal tribe. The ones here had been medicine men and women. But that was long ago, and the way that the place felt to him, only a very few small animals had lived here since then, most being warded off by the lingering magic which still permeated the inside of the cave. He saw the crude stone altar. He'd been prepared to see that. What he hadn't been prepared for was the many symbols pertaining to someone's trite and rather stupid attempts at summoning. He knew then what had caused him to even look over in the first place. The pull here had been miniscule, so tiny that he hadn't even known it for what it was. There was a human female here, at just over thirty years of age. She was naked and she knelt before more symbols placed near the wall at the back. She was reading - and badly - from a book, working on her invocation when really, she should have been working on her pronunciation instead. He crept inside to stand behind her listening. Eventually, she felt his presence and turned. She was startled and frightened almost out of her wits in the next second. Her mouth opened for her involuntary scream, but nothing came out. She looked even more upset and got to her feet, a little hunched over in her terror and backed away. "You're going to singe your ass if you keep going," he said. "There are a lot of campers within a few hundred yards of here. You can't scream because I don't see the value of you waking them all up over stupid shit like this. If you think you can calm down some, I'll allow you to speak." He looked around at the soot covered ceiling, listening for her breathing to slow down. "Go ahead, I've got time. Try to get a grip on yourself and we'll talk." When he heard what he listened for several minutes later, he nodded, "Now, please tell me what the fuck you were trying to do here?" Her words came out of her hesitantly as she stared at him. To her eyes, he was a large and good-looking man, but he'd been able to shut her voice off. She hadn't been able to vocalize any sounds at all; nothing came from her larynx when she'd tried. "W-Who are you?" He smiled as the intent of all of it came to him from her. "You just GOT to be kidding. I'll tell you who I am and a whole lot more if you tell me the same things, but I want to start with you. Who are you?" "We-Wendy," she said, but he shook his head. "Nope. That's not it. You want to try again without lying this time? I won't tell you a thing unless you're honest with me." "My name's Sarah Polaski," she said. Abi smiled, "That's better. Now why did you do all of this? I have a feeling that you're a little misguided here, judging by the stuff I see." "I want, ... " She hesitated then, feeling foolish. "Go on, Sarah," he smiled, "Why all of this? I think you're a little old to be decorating the playhouse." Sarah gave up and just said it, "I want to be a vampire. I've been trying to call one, but, ... "she looked at him for a moment, "You're not a vampire, are you?" He shook his head, "No. But tell me why you'd want that - and please don't tell me that you'd like to sparkle." She shook her head, "No. I've just always loved them, that's all. I want to live a long time and be strong like they are." An expression crossed his face which resembled pity for a moment, but then it was gone and the mildly interested expression was back. "You haven't always loved them," he said, "You've never seen a vampire in your life. You're in love with the idea of being a vampire." He looked at his nails for a moment. "They're overrated. You've just been sucked in by movie and television producers. They've never seen a vampire either." He moved his arm in a sweeping motion and a glittering portal appeared in the air beside him. Three images appeared in it, two women and a man. Sarah gasped and stared. "Behold the damned," Abi smiled, "Neither you or they know the meaning of the word. In the first place, they're dead, Sarah. Oh they're quite animated, but they're dead all the same. I don't give a shit what you think you might know, but I can tell you, if you snuggled up against one in the middle of the night, the first thing you'd feel is room temperature, at best. They're not warm like you are. Some of them can mange the illusion of giving off some warmth, but all they're really doing is reflecting yours back to you. You don't really want a cold dick inside you, do you? The only thing you've gotten right is that if they turn you - and believe me, they think hard about it before they do it - you won't feel the cold when you're being fucked, because then, you're at the same temperature that they are. And why? Because you'd be dead. To become a vampire is to die. After that, you're just a spectator. They don't run big companies like in the movies. They kill somebody to go on lurking. If they need money for anything, they pull it out of the corpse's pockets. They don't go to highschool and look cool. They just hide in the shadows and look for their next victim. They don't drink cow's blood either. A lot more important is the little detail of their souls. Whenever one is made, it's like hocking your soul. You get a long life unless somebody takes it away from you, but it happens sooner or later, and then you go straight to one of the many hells which exist for the purpose. You can be a kindly vampire who always helps little old ladies across the street. You're going to a hell anyway. You'll never suck anybody's blood again, but the thirst remains with you." He pointed to the images, "And what you see is an illusion. Let me show you what's underneath." Sarah recoiled slightly, staring at the stooped shapes which looked positively creepy to her. "They're demons!" she gasped. "Uh-uh," Abi smiled, "if they were demons, you might have been more successful in what you were doing here. Vampires aren't demons. Most vampires tend to fear demons because the ones who come to claim their pawned souls ARE a kind of demon." The images faded away and Sarah looked at Abi. "What you've been doing here is summoning - or trying to - and vampires don't feel that. Demons feel that, though luckily for you, the way that you've gone about it has been wrong in many ways." He stepped over and sat on the large stone altar, leaning back on his hands, "Those symbols are wrong. The ones who sold them to you, they don't know any more about summoning demons than you do. And if they told you that doing this would call vampires to you, they just lied to get your money. That book that you were reading from is a very flawed copy of a copy and on and on of a work written by an deranged idiot. I think you've missed something important in this, no matter what your reasons. If you were somewhere, minding your own business, whatever it was, and then you get pulled away against your will and forced to appear somewhere else; would you be happy to see whoever it was? I doubt it. You'd be pissed off, just like the way that summoned demons are pissed off when they've been summoned against their will. For some reason, it usually happens to teenaged boys who think it might be fun to call a demon to them. If they're really unlucky, one appears. After that, they make sure they're standing in a circle or a pentangle or both while they piss themselves in fear. But if the one they called is powerful enough, and remember, the invocations are often specific by name, so it's not some little fucker who gets called while he or she might have been in the middle of having a crap, ... Well those are the ones that make the paper and everybody wonders how those boys came to be smeared all over the walls. As far as technique and procedure, it might have worked better for you if you'd read it over beforehand and tried to work out the pronunciation better. What I heard sounded like somebody off the short bus with a mouthful of marbles." "How should I have said it then?" Sarah asked. "Why bother?" Abi replied, "You were trying to call a vampire using a summoning for demons. Do you want a demon to appear?" He chuckled, "I'm already here. I came because I was nearby and I just had to hear it so that I could try to figure it out." "You're not a demon," she said, "You don't look like -" Her mouth wouldn't work again and she stared at him, now that his clothes were gone. His legs were crossed and he swung them forward and back, his hooves knocking against the stone quietly. "Come here human," he said quietly. "I think you've got a lot of incorrect ideas about what we are too. Come here and you won't feel so cold, for one thing. It's not a good idea to hang around inside dank caves without any clothes on. At least, for your kind, it's not." Sarah felt the pull. She couldn't help herself and she began to walk to him a little woodenly because she was fighting it. Abi shook his head, "I'm not going to hurt you. Just come here." He sat up and uncrossed his legs. Sarah tried not to look at what was there. "You can look, it's ok, I don't mind," he smiled, "You might as well, because even if I TOLD you not to look, you would anyway. Humans are just like that." Sarah strained to keep her eyes on his face. She looked anyway, and Abi laughed, "See? And you didn't even catch on fire or nuthin'!" When she got to him, Abi put his arms around her and Sarah felt such comforting warmth. "Listen," he said, "You don't need a vampire OR a demon, Sarah. What you need is a man, somebody to hold you late at night. Somebody to live the rest of your life with. Forgive me, but things not going so well in the love department?" She shook her head and found her voice, "I can't seem to find anybody I can fit with, I've had relationships, but they never last. Most of the time, I'm alone." He moved his legs farther apart and in a moment, Sarah took the last half-step nearer. She felt his large member against her and it felt good to her to stand against him like that. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 09 Abi leaned in slowly and kissed her cheek softly, "Let me tell you something, Sarah. I've been around a long time and I've learned a few things. Humans like you are magic - you truly are. You pretty much own the whole planet - at least as far as you know and by what you see." Sarah wasn't certain of it at first, but now she felt what was against her belly stirring and she knew that it was going to harden. It was a thrill of fear - and hope at the same time while she listened to him. "Humans got this far because they can adapt to almost anything. And hope Sarah! Humans have a never-ending supply of it, most of them anyway. Only a dog looking at his master eating dinner has more hope than just about any breathing human." He smiled at her, "It's true! It's one of the many things that I admire about your kind. Ok, I'm busy a lot of the time, so I don't really care about a lot of you. But I do like you." He gave her a little nudge with it, just because it felt good to him to do it. "Can I , ... " she was very hesitant, "Can I touch it?" Abi smiled and moved a little, reaching down to straighten things and Sarah moved against him, liking the feel of his hard shaft against her from far below the bottom of her breastbone to where she felt the tip, just nudging her under one breast. "You feel as though your best years are behind you, so you feel diminishing hope from that. Can I mention the things you don't like? I'm not going to make fun. I think a woman at your age is just entering her best years, unless she's had a really hard life so far." Sarah nodded as she reached to hold the nicest-looking prick that she'd ever seen, "Go ahead, your list can't be as long as mine." He shook his head and kissed her on the lips once, "You're not getting it. I really do believe that. You haven't had that kind of life, bent over working crops from dawn to dusk just to stay alive and feed your kids. Your life here has been more of settling. Your bum isn't the way that it used to be. How's this?" Sarah's eyes opened as she felt something. She reached back with one hand, but Abi was already nodding. "Firm, huh? No more cellulite on your thighs either. Just walk a lot more from now on. Don't sit down all day if you can help it. That stuff shows up naturally, but it's worse if you don't move around. Let me tell you something. Your hips are there along with your wonderful new ass so that you'll attract a mate - and I don't give a shit what's between their legs. Once that happens, you'll feel better. It's maybe a little bit late for you, but they're also there to make kids. You don't like your nipples or your breasts. Hey, gravity works all the time. Hold your breath." Sarah's eyes flew open wide again. "Can I look?' she whispered. "Sure," he smiled, loving the sound of her happy gasp the second time. He said nothing, but he removed the crow's feet near her eyes and the lines from her forehead and the edges of her mouth so that she wouldn't look quite as ready to frown. Sarah moaned from deep in her throat and she bent down to begin sucking him. "Hey," he whispered, "You don't have to do that." She looked up, "I want to." Abi chuckled, "Well I want to help you onto this thing and fuck you, but I don't give in to all of my urges." "We can do that," Sarah nodded, "I'd love to." He kissed her again, not allowing himself to give in to what her tongue sought to get him to respond to. "Just suck me, Sarah, if you really want to. Be sure to help yourself along with your hand. I didn't do these things with any expectation." Sarah did her best for him. She'd never have thought of herself as an expert at this, but she'd done it before, once in a while. When he came, she swallowed more eagerly than she'd ever done. Well, actually, she'd never swallowed semen before in her life, thinking that it was gross. "When you find someone - and you will, Sarah," he breathed into her ear as he kissed her there, "Be sure to do this for him if he does you well in bed. The one that I'm thinking of is the sort who would give a lot sometime to spend half a day licking you, just because he'll love the sounds that you make - since you'll never hold them back again if you know what's good for you - and the way that you'll move under his tongue." Sarah nodded as she worked at finishing him up. He moved forward again and Sarah stepped into his arms, "Thank you." "You're welcome," Abi smiled "and thank you as well. You're a very good cocksucker, Sarah. Don't you ever think that you're not." He pointed at everything, "Just don't do this shit anymore. Take it down. I only felt a little bit of a pull and I was curious. If you'd have gotten it right, you wouldn't even be here anymore by now. Most of us aren't very nice. Now about the one I was thinking of, ..." He glared over toward one wall, "And where the fuck - exactly - were you?" Sarah looked up in shock until she saw that the demon wasn't speaking to her. Sensing her alarm, Abi flung his arm out at the wall and Sarah gasped yet again. "Sorry if I startled you," he said, "but you're one of the humans who are assigned one of these things at birth. This one," he said pointedly, "shouldn't have allowed this mess in here. He should have stopped you." There was a male shape near the wall and he began to 'come in' a little better. He looked nervous. "Just imagine," Abi said to him, "that what she did actually worked and called one of us and not me. I'm not one to be trusted either - as far as that goes." He pointed to the candles and the symbols, "Well?" Sarah didn't understand the meaning of the melodic tones that she heard under the words, though she liked them. The language sailed right on past her ears, though the demon got it. "I tried." "You didn't try hard ENOUGH!" the demon bellowed, "You only have one to watch. You need to do more. Protect her - for both your sakes. I could have easily taken her and she would be far from your help now - forever. How the fuck would you explain that to them back at the office?" He stared a little then, seeing something that he'd known was there and he shook his head, "You're not really supposed to be like that either, you know." "I - I don't understand," Sarah said, "Who is he?" "He's your guardian," Abi smiled thinly, "He's been with you all of your life. He's visible now because I forced it. He's supposed to keep you out of harm's way and the sorts of things that humans sometimes get into. He almost failed you tonight. He would have, if I'd been in just a slightly different mood. But he's been hobbled in his task. Guardians are supposed to care for their charges, to keep them away from the likes of me, just as an example. But caring for you is one thing. Being in love with you is something else altogether. "He's in love, ... with me?" Sarah asked, staring at what to her was very beautiful - even if she mentally removed the features which human males don't have. "He's supposed to be. Just not like this. He's felt the wrong kind of love for you for over twenty-five years now," Abi nodded, "And that's not supposed to happen either. For one thing, it's a just a little bit futile, isn't it? I'm sure that you've noticed that blank spot on him. Nothing there, just smooth perfection, you might say." He smiled at the angel, "I've got an idea. You must know that this is just impossible here. I could eat a hundred of you for breakfast at your level. I'm guessing that Sarah's your first assignment and the way that I see it, you've come close to blowing it pretty badly." He looked at Sarah, "The way that it's supposed to go for those of you who are assigned one, is that they keep you out of trouble to a large degree - unless you really push things. When you die - eventually - your guardian gets another task as soon as they're born. Your guy's trouble here is that he knows that he's outmatched because I'm not some low, brainless demon, so he'd be helpless if I meant to hurt you. What I see in him now is that he'd do anything to save you, but he knows that he'd lose all the same. And you're not one of the ones they'd send an archangel for." He chuckled, "Even that would be tough, though the fireworks would be pretty grand." He pointed at the angel, "I'll tell you what. You tell me if what I see in your mind is what you really want, and I'll see if I've got enough uh, ... frequent flyer points to pull this off quietly and do my friend Sarah here one more kindness - and I'd better not hear about this from either of you." He looked at Sarah, "If he was not what he is, and I removed the um, cosmetic cover you might say, do you think you'd like him as a person? Do you think that you could return his love? Try to think of him as a man. He already knows you - everything about you. And he accepts it all, so there's nothing to feel embarrassed about with him. He's a little like me in one regard. We both see that you're beautiful. You were before, you just didn't like yourself. His vision of you is even more stunning because he loves you so much. He always has. He'd need to be guided around by you a little, since he's only watched you live, he's never lived himself in any hands-on way." "What do you mean?" Sarah asked. Abi rolled his eyes, "Was I speaking Mandarin just now or what? You want a boyfriend who loves you? I can give you a broken-down angel who's never understood why you don't have wings yourself, but he'll need your help if you want him." "I -I think so," Sarah said, "Can he talk?" "Oh yeah," Abi said, "He's just shy. Give him a chance and he'll talk your ear off just like any other guy." Sarah got up her courage and pointed, "But he hasn't got, ... um, ..." "Oh for fuck sake," the demon said, "I can't do that unless you both agree. That's what I'm trying to find out, isn't it?" He looked at the one nearby, since he'd been inching his way over, "You want her? This girl's a jewel and you know it like nobody else. I'm telling you now, I'm gonna want to see a LOT of amateur porn whenever I look in on you. I do this, and it's not the choice of either one of you - that's the official story. You won't be an angel any longer, so you can just fib like everybody else and say that I forced this on you. I'm powerful enough to strip those fluffy wings right the fuck off you so you're stuck here really doing your job and taking care of this sweetheart. And you," he looked at Sarah, "you'll need to take care of him. This isn't something you can walk away from. You do that, and he'll perish without you. Without the protection of what he once was, he can actually die from a broken heart. So I dunno, try like hell to keep him out of traffic, alright? And keep him the fuck away from your mother if you really love him - at least until after he's gotten a job. Then she can bitch that it's not good enough for her daughter, but he'll be like anybody else then. So you keep her off him until then. If she gets to him before that, she's mine so fast she won't know what happened and she'll find herself in a hell populated by bikers with no women and no motorcycles. Not one of them will so much as ask her if she wants to fuck. It oughta brighten her outlook a little when she runs into your miserable grandmother there." "Why are you doing this?" the male asked. Abi tried to answer, but they had to wait until he'd finished roaring with laughter. "Look at me. Do I look like a fucking boy scout to you? I'm doing this to stir the pot. I'm doing this because it'll be too big of a pain in the ass for anybody to undo without a barn full of paperwork. It's like a job requirement, ok?" It didn't happen at the same time, but the angel nodded first and then Sarah right after. "Done," the demon grinned as Sarah smiled at the man before her - and what she saw on him. "Ok", the demon said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them, "There's gonna be some noise over this, but I can use the laughs. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke." He saw their expressions, "Well what are they gonna do to me, send me to Hell? I used to own one myself." He stepped toward the opening of the cave, "So no more of this shit, ok Sarah? Most of us would see it as an insult and he won't be able to protect you much in that way anymore. Take it down right away, ok?" Sarah nodded. "And try to figure out a reasonable name for him between you, 'cause I'm telling you, his won't fit down here and it's too long for a first name anyway. Oh, and what he's got there will squirt just fine, but he'll be shooting blanks. Sorry, I can't help that. Have fun." With that, Abi was gone, chuckling over the stir that what he'd done would cause. He was also pleased just because, but that was neither here nor there. He'd come back, but not to look in on them or anything. He'd found a cave. And a cave was a pretty good place to sit and think without the constant disturbances of so many coming to him to ask about things. ------- Back in the cave, they were already standing against each other. Their first kisses had just ended and Sarah leaned her cheek against the one-time angel's upper chest. As a man, he looked much the same, but she saw and felt more muscle on him. "How did you get this?" "It is the difference between what I was and what I am now," he said simply. Her reaction was to toss out a 'Holy Fuck', but she didn't know how she'd explain the reason at confession. "Have you really been near me all of my life?" she asked, trying not to wince as she remembered all of the goofy things that she'd done as a kid and all of the failed romances, seeing that not all of them had been someone else's' fault. She felt better then, knowing that he thought that all of it had been because she was human. He nodded, "Yes. I felt each of your disappointments and they hurt me as well. I have loved you since we were both very small. It was always a little sad for me because I could not touch you much. To pull up your blanket for you took hours. I think the worst was when you began to pleasure yourself in your bed at night." He sighed, "But I could not touch you then either." She smiled in an understanding way, but then she had a thought, "You didn't have anything to play with, did you? All you could do was watch." He nodded. "What's your name?" "Inoccenti," he replied, "It is Italian. It means innocent." She took his hand, "The demon was right, I'll think of something later." She climbed up onto the altar and lay on her back with her hips near the edge, "We're going to change that innocent thing right now." "But I am not as large as the demon," he objected. "That's ok, Angel," she smiled as she sat up and reached for his new manhood and pulled him against her, "For one thing, there is such a thing as too big. Remember that Norwegian guy I dated? He was too big. If you were there then, you know how my lips would go numb and how I used to beg him to go in slow - which he never did." She began to smile down at what she held, admiring the way that it swelled and stiffened from her touch. He nodded, "Yes." "This is nice, what you've got here," she smiled, "I'll probably still get numb lips, but I don't think I'll mind it too much. It's nice and fat, but not too much. I can take this all night from you and love it." She looked up and put one arm around his neck, "You're so beautiful to me. I can't believe that I've had you close to me all this time. I feel like I'm holding a novel cover model. I never really started reading them until I was maybe twenty. Before that, I liked looking at the covers of the ones in the drug store a lot more." "I know," he smiled, "I was looking over your shoulder. I liked them too." "Yeah, but the male models were what I was staring at," she smiled. "Me too." She looked into his eyes, peering hard, "Am I about to have one of those 'Twilight Zone' moments here? Do you like boys or something?" He looked uncomfortable, "I tried to make a joke, I'm sorry." "Come up here with me," she smiled in relief, "I want you." They were together and fucking within a minute. Sarah was out of her mind in joy, and her 'angel' finally had what he'd always wanted. He fucked her like a fiend. They stayed on that old altar for hours; trying every form of coitus that Sarah's dirty little sexually repressed mind could come up with. At last, she saw that it was nearing dawn and several thoughts came crashing into her head then. "I've got to get to work," she said jumping down a little stiffly to begin pulling on her clothes. Then she realized that he had none, and it was an hour and a half to where she lived. She stepped outside and called work on her phone, happy to find a signal. She didn't like taking the day out of her vacation time, but she figured that she'd need at least some time to get him into her life. "You'll have to stay here until I drive into town and buy you something to wear. It should only take me an hour, so stay right here, alright?" He nodded and she kissed him then, before running out of the cave to where she'd parked her car. Sarah tore off into town, losing a half an hour over the speeding ticket. She grabbed things like sweat pants which stood the best chance of fitting her man at least somewhat and she went through the drive-through of the local place with the arches so that they'd have something to eat. All told, she was gone for two hours and struggled over the rough ground as quickly as she could, doing her best not to drop the cold breakfasts. Finally, she was in sight of the cave and she ran up to the opening. She heard strange voices, a few of them and they sounded female. When she ran in through the opening, she saw three female creatures standing and chatting pleasantly among themselves. Sarah remembered that she hadn't done what the demon had asked. The symbols were still there, though by that time, almost all of the candles had burned themselves out. The summoning had worked. Sarah stared in that long shocked and surreal moment. All of the three looked happy and Sarah's eyes bored in to the detail of the semen sliding down their thighs, since two of them were trying to lick it from each other's fingers. They had hooves at the end of their slender legs and there were horns on their heads. Sarah wanted to back away to think for a moment about how to save her angel. But she hesitated as she stared at the altar. There was a fourth female screeching softly in joy on her knees up there on the altar. She was smiling too, as was Sarah's angel who was fucking her for all that he was worth. Sarah stood in shock, the bag with the breakfasts falling to the floor with the rattle of the plastic cutlery inside. The small noise broke the spell. The moment ended. The three demons attacked and killed Sarah in seconds. Two of them found and ate the breakfasts. The third one sat down and began to eat Sarah. They were all waiting for the fourth one's turn to finish. She was still screeching happily and he was still fucking her. The ex-angel was grinning as he pulled out and jammed his prick into the female's anus so that she screamed and bucked, humping back against him almost mindlessly and happy to have him there again. He had what he'd always wanted. There were four of them and they could all fuck like, ... Well a lot better than Sarah anyway. ------- Abi was back a month later, and looking at the cave, he saw that the junk was still there, and there was blood - old dried blood which had been splashed around the place. It spoke of someone's violent end here recently. He saw the bones and rotting flesh on the remains not far from the entrance and just a thought told him that it was Sarah. He walked in farther and saw the second mess and knew the rest of the story. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 10 ***Abi decides to set up a listening outpost, and he knows just the perfect place. So he plans to move out a team of specialists who work for him. There is a term here which might confuse some readers. A "LARP" is a Live-Action Role Play - a game for adults where to quote the mighty Wiki, "a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may be mediated by game rules or determined by consensus among players. Event arrangers called gamemasters decide the setting and rules to be used and facilitate play." Got that? Good, since the land next to Carrie's old homestead is often used by those role players, who are known as "larpers" to her and others. Some names in this: B'Naht - like "bknot" Temma ought to be easy enough and Darett'h - like Darrett-HH - the last 'H' is a second syllable. For those who have REALLY weird thoughts, this is a FANTASY, ok? If you can't figure that out, your 75 year-old mom wouldn't want you to be reading this anyway. 0_o *** ***** Out in the sticks, Colorado Carrie listened to the sounds of the others sleeping. It had been a long weekend of fun for the larpers who'd come up from whatever city they normally resided in. For this weekend, it had been a chance to shed their boring, normal lives and live in the adventure a little, fighting as knights and warriors of some forgotten realm or other. Carrie wasn't all that much into their scene, though by now, she was fairly well-known among them and accepted by many. She was even a friend to about a dozen or so. It always seemed that somebody had forgotten something or other in their haste to be at least temporarily out of their normal trappings. She'd made it a point to sort of 'stock' a lot of the things that might have been forgotten. From Pampers to condoms, from bug spray to sunblock, if somebody was out of it and nobody had any nearby, they usually drifted up the path to Carrie's door sooner or later. The need for condoms had brought a young woman to her door the first evening of the previous long weekend. From that smiling conversation from Carrie's side of it, she'd been introduced to the needs to have the contraceptives. The girl had come with her girlfriend and three male friends. One thing had led to another of course, and now Carrie was the only one awake in the jumble of sleeping bags in their tent. The introduction and the quiet little tent orgy afterward had happened the previous long weekend and Carrie had been fucked and fondled all the way through, as well as the next few weekends when the larpers came to play. This was the second long weekend now and she lay thinking in the darkness, listening to their breathing. There had been a time in her life ... well, many actually, when something like this would have been all that she'd have ever wanted. The sex had been really good and there'd never been a shortage for her. The girls had shared their boys freely and there had even been one to spare. When the battles were going on and the boys were in them, Carrie had the two girls to herself. One of them had never done it with another girl, but she'd finally let Carrie be her first. The whole thing had been so fine. For the first time in so long, Carrie Willis had been so well licked, sucked and fucked. So why wasn't she happy? She lay there in the darkness thinking about it as she felt semen slipping from her anus and vagina. She smiled a little to herself at the thought. Two of the boys had taken her at the same time as the rest had watched in amazement. And yet she felt this strange sense of feeling unfulfilled, as though it hadn't been enough in some way - which was a little odd, since a lot of her body parts were telling her that she'd had a good time. She had an idea, but had been determined not to throw a chance like this away. Not long after getting the place a little fixed up with help from her parents, they'd been killed in an accident as they drove back home. Carrie didn't find out about it for a couple of days. As upset and distraught as she'd been, she had everything dealt with and was now waiting for the final judgement on the will. She stood to gain quite a lot, but that wasn't the thing. She'd held herself together through it all. Her parents would have been proud of her for it. She'd only given in to her grief in quiet moments, such as at her apartment back in the city. But it brought something to her attention. As stalwart as she'd been through the whole nightmare, she'd have given a lot right then to have had someone to lean against. Carrie was a big girl and she was very strong physically as well as emotionally. But she'd been alone through it all and ever since, her singleness had begun to really bother her. She'd managed to put a great face on whenever the larpers were up. She'd had more than a few flings with other women even before she'd met the ones she was with now. A few had joked that they'd have liked to see her take part in the battles, just to kick some male ass out of the park. Not that there had been anyone there who'd needed that especially, but still... Carrie had smiled along and ignored the comments. They only pointed to her new and sudden loneliness the way that she saw things. In her heart, she wondered if she'd ever find someone for her. In the deepest corner of that heart, she was coming to at least the idea of what she might like on a wild day when the planets lined up in whatever way that they'd need to in order for it to happen. She decided that the one for her would be a male. And she wanted him to be big. The reason for that was obvious to her. She was no little thing herself, after all. She wouldn't care what his skin color was or the nationality and/or culture that he came from. All that she cared about was what she wanted - and that was that he looked a little nice, was polite, loved her and treated her well. Everything else was just a list of details to Carrie, things which could be worked out. If she knew where a man like that was, Carrie would have bought the ticket there already. But she didn't have that. All that she had now was the realization for her feeling as she lay among the warm sleeping bodies. She took her time, but as she could, she got up and put her things on by feel, mostly. The moon was half-waning, but at least it was up there when she stepped outside and zipped the tent closed after her. She walked home and had a shower before turning in. --- The next day was Tuesday and Carrie drove back to the city to take care of some more matters for her parent's estate. She mowed the lawn and later, as she worked her way through the house where she'd been born and grown up, she asked herself if she wanted to live there and decided against it. That necessitated a complete clean-out and more than one yard sale, most likely. As she thought about that, she found herself looking at her father's gun cabinet, hidden in an alcove of the cellar. She knew where he'd kept the key, so in another minute; she was looking at weapons which her father had owned because he liked them and very seldom took any but two of them to the range. More money for her, after she'd sold them off, Carrie said to herself. But then she looked at a couple of the pieces and reached to pick them up, one after the other. There were things here which she knew that she didn't want to sell. Her father had never really been a gun collector and his own time in the military had weaned him away from the allure of owning military hardware. But there were things here, two of them especially, which Carrie knew that he loved, and one which had at least a little practicality to it that Carrie saw instantly. One was an ex-Australian Army Belgian-made FN rifle. Her father had let Carrie use it at the range a few times and she liked it for a lot of reasons. She didn't like plastic grips on most rifles. The FN's stock was made of light oiled wood and it felt good in her hands. The next was a 12 gauge pump action shotgun with a shortened stock. It was legal in that length, though barely. Her father had bought it for protection in the home, but soon realized that it was a pain in the ass for all but the paranoid, so it had always lived in the locked up cabinet. Carrie wanted that one too. At last, her eye fell on the one which had always fascinated her even when she'd been a child, watching as her father cleaned it. It was a Remington XP100 pistol. As a pistol, it was long and heavy, not suited for most of the uses that anyone might have for a handgun. It was a single shot target pistol, first produced in the early 1960s. Most people not familiar with things such as this tended to stare at it, because it looked more like a very short rifle with no shoulder stock, though it was actually a pistol. The grip and what stock there was to it had been made from nylon and it still looked rather futuristic even today. As a regular handgun, it was awkward as anything. It held only one shot and it was a bolt action piece with the bolt on the right side, so a right-handed shooter would have had to abandon his posture totally to re-grip the thing to reload, though Carrie and her father had learned to reload with their left hands. But it was famous for a couple of things. It was legendary for its accuracy out to maybe 300 meters - which is a slightly absurd range to even be thinking about using a pistol. But she'd seen her father drill out the bull on many paper targets, right next to rifle shooters who had trouble putting two shots into the same piece of paper on their best day - for all of the money that they'd spent - and that had been at two hundred yards. Two hundred yards for serious target shooters with a rifle was a walk in the park - unless there was a tornado going on, she supposed. It had taken some time, but Carrie had gotten a little good with the thing as well. The other thing which the XP100 was famous for was that it chambered the .221 caliber Remington Fireball, which had been developed in parallel with the pistol in the beginning. It was still the fastest commercial pistol cartridge ever produced by a major manufacturer and it rivaled its big brother for accuracy, the .222 Remington, though like that one, the Fireball could also be used in rifles made for it. The Fireball's bullet was just two thousandths of an inch narrower than the .223 ammunition which the M-16 chambered. When you took up the slack on the match trigger and squeezed just a little after that point, that bullet screamed out of the muzzle at nearly two and a half times the speed of sound; twenty-seven hundred feet per second. You couldn't hit anything out that far with any hope of accuracy, but aside from some slowing due to atmospheric friction, that's more than a mile... In two seconds. XP100 pistols were a little rare and though she'd wanted one of her own, Carrie had never found one for sale in good shape for any price which wasn't stupid. She smiled as she held it and opened the action just enough to see that it was empty. She took the lens caps off the pistol scope and held the pistol up for a moment to look through it. Every little girl who is lucky enough to have a normal life tends to love her father. Now she had one of the things which she'd associated with him since she'd been old enough to know what it was. She found cases for the three things and locked everything up again. She was still a little upset, still very sad to lose the ones that she loved so much, but at least she had the one thing for which she'd always remember the man. ---- Upon his return one night, Abi looked into the cave and saw that it was still relatively clean and dry inside by then. The altar was still there so that was fine, he thought. But it needed something. He hadn't come alone this time. One of the others helped him make a few alterations and the rest managed the little details as well as the constant clean up so that there wouldn't be too much of a mess to clear away all at once when it was done. After an hour of slow and careful work, there were several stone arches in the place, set there to look as ancient as the rest. Abi turned to look at his companions. He's acquired them over time here and there in his travels. All of them were slight oddballs for what they were among their kinds, though the word carried too strong a connotation of defect. If anything, their deviations from the norm in the places where they'd originated might not have been seen as desirable there necessarily, but together and working for Abi ... They were very effective in several roles as a team. They'd worked well for him many times before as reconnaissance scouts ... as spies ... as assassins if necessary... or as he intended to use them here for a little while, as a team of listeners. A cave was a good place to think, but it was also an exceptional place to listen to the soft and quiet murmurings of the demonic worlds since any world resonated with them. He turned to look at the three of them for a moment. B'Naht was from a very wet plane and her features reflected the aquatic adaptation from her head to her slightly wide and webbed feet. Depending on the light, she could look gray or green, though her long hair remained a deep tone of green in a shade which was evocative of stringy seaweed, though in texture if it was dry, it was similar to human hair. Her face wasn't wide as say, a frog or a toad's would have been. She had cheekbones under her large yellow eyes. If one thought about it, she'd have to have cheekbones, since her eyes weren't like an amphibian's on this world. They were set in sockets in her skull like most creatures here, and they weren't huge, only larger than one could expect to see in that face. She wasn't an amphibian. Her kind was adapted to live in, on or around water. They could hold their breath for an hour or more, but they did have to breathe eventually. Her nose was wide and long, though it ended above her full lips. Where she was from, she didn't need the huge mouth which a toad might have. Her ancestors had left that behind eons ago. They brought their food to their mouths by using the fingers of their webbed hands. When she stood, she was a little over five feet, six inches tall and she was shapely in a thin sort of way with swells on her chest which told in one glance that her type was warm-blooded and nursed their young. Everything about her form spoke of an ability to swim in the warm seas of her world. It wasn't apparent at first, but if one looked for a moment and watched her move in any way, the long muscles of a swimmer came to be noticed. She didn't often come into contact with large bodies of water these days, but she could swim seemingly forever, sometimes dozing a little watchfully as she rested her limbs and propelled herself slowly with her powerful tail. Her problem was that the others where she came from lived in a rather crude male-dominated society and it was oppressive to her for many reasons, the single most unsavory one was that feeling attraction toward another of the same gender was justification for execution if the preference was found out. Like a good number of the females there, B'Naht had hidden this aspect in her. But she'd met another female who was attracted to her and though B'Naht had been fearful at first, it had turned into a very deep love between them. They'd tried to leave to find a place in the wilderness for themselves but they'd been hunted and her partner had basically sacrificed herself to save the one that she loved. The anguish of watching the dismemberment in glimpses over her shoulder as she'd fled deeper into the weeds changed B'Naht. Several days later, she returned to the colony late at night and silently slew every male she came across. She had many talents and one which she used that night was the ability to crush another as though by an invisible hand at a little distance. These days, she felt much better, having found a place for herself with the others in her unofficial and odd little group. Next to her stood Temma, who topped out at about five foot, eight or so - if you discounted the horns on her head which resembled those of the pronghorn antelope on this world. Her thoughtful and attentive eyes were a little goat like as were her short and soft ears. There was a longish snout to her face which led the eye of the observer to her small and pretty mouth there just under her cleft upper lip. In fact, her entire shape bore strong similarities to an antelope in many regards. She was long and willowy, covered in short fur with a dark brown, longish mop of hair on her head. She stood on what looked to be impossibly long and slender legs which ended in hooves and just above her shapely bottom, she had a tail, also evocative of an antelope. She could run like the wind and she tended to be a little quick in her movements at times. At other times, she looked nervous and she had the tendency for a reason. On her home plane, the top evolutionary slot had been contested for ages. But over time, a clear winner came to the fore and it hadn't been Temma's kind. She and her mother had been the last and Temma was orphaned at a young age. She was the last of her kind, and she was rather haunted in some ways from her having to grow up alone and hunted at times. The only reason that she'd survived at all was her ability to cause combustion to occur in the ones she wanted to kill. She could cause madness in others with a thought, or she could just stop the passage of signals from their minds into their brain stems long enough for asphyxia and cardiac arrest to occur. When Abi had found her, she was traveling from settlement to settlement, doing all of those things to as many as she could all at once. On her world, the last of her kind had become someone to fear. She tended to be quiet, friendly to those she liked, and often very sweet. But she had her moments. Both of the females were distant relations of demons, though they wore few of the outward signs, other than Temma's horns. But if they opened their mouths, one could see that their evolutionary paths had taken them far from strict vegetarianism. Abi's gaze shifted to the third member of his team. What stood before him was about seven and a half feet tall and carried a few scars from his years in the fighting pits where Abi had first seen him. Tall, heavily muscled, and narrow-waisted, Darett'h was one of a sort of demon made to be a killing machine among demons. More correctly, he was made to kill other demons. He had a face which was vaguely horse-like, until he moved his lips in any way which would reveal his teeth and he had goat's eyes which revealed to any with enough courage to look into them that he was no stupid beast. The little tuft of hair at his chin combined with his eyes gave him a rather whimsical look, though most of those who saw him tended to fear him. Though he'd never lost a fight during his time in the pits, Darett'h had been spawned too late. It was something which he'd always regretted. He was six hundred years old and he was a proven veteran in Abi's legions where he was a little famous for his vast strength and speed - and vicious fighting ability - even among those beasts. He didn't know what he weighed and he cared even less. As he stood prepared to listen to his lord's instructions, he was in his prime. He'd never been here walking the surface of this world before, other than his time in garrison at the abbey and that had been fairly recent. For the last hundred and seventy-five years on this world, he'd been teamed with the other two, but mostly, their tasks had taken them to other worlds. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 10 He was intelligent and capable of both wit and craftiness, though he used those traits a little too seldom to his mind. He was also very sensitive in a few ways, much like the other two, which was why he was chosen for this duty as well. He could hear the thoughts and words of the infernal from great distances if he listened for them. That ability was the unusual thing for what he was, indeed for what they all were. But he'd always cursed his luck, once he'd heard of the greatest pit fighters of all time, a pair missing now for thousands of years. From what he'd learned of them, they were the same breed as he was, made to kill in the pits - with or without weapons as needed. He wasn't made to have a great mind in his skull, though he had one all the same. He wanted to fight with those two famous ones, either before them or at their sides, he didn't care. All that he knew of them - the last that anyone had heard - they were members of the Lost Horde - which made their legends even greater, he supposed. He was here to work with the others as they so often had before. They were used to living in isolation for long periods of time. He was as important to things overall as the others. They each had talents; some common to them all, and some quite unique. When they'd been brought together at first, the females had been terrified to only look at him. But after some time working together, they'd come together as parts of a well-oiled machine. If necessary, Darett'h was there to provide the muscle and when he was in a murderous mood, he was something to see when he worked. If there was no need to be covert, the two females cheered him then as they watched. They'd learned that he wasn't dull or unthinking, and after saving their skins the first dozen times or so, they came to find fondness for him in their hearts. Temma had been fearful and distant at first. B'Naht as well, and both were watchful, the green-skinned one especially for any domineering and cruel male tendencies in him. It happened sometimes, but never toward them. All that they saw in him was care, concern and a wish for some friendship. Temma bonded tightly with B'Naht over time, and she didn't mind the thought of mating with either gender. B'Naht wanted only females, ideally. But they both adored their huge protective and quiet friend and did for him as they could on occasion, knowing that in his heart, he would have wanted a female for his own. As what they were for Abi, they were regarded with a bit of fear and suspicion by the other demons. That tended to isolate them to a degree, but they didn't mind all that much. They weren't the right kinds for each other, but they were a little tribe between them in some regards. "Remain here and listen," Abi said, "You may leave to feed yourselves at some point, but try to remain out of the sight of humans if possible. It is unlikely, but you may hear something of interest from even them, so I give you the ability to understand any human tongue. Something is on the wind, and I wish to learn what it is. For this, I need listeners and a quiet place. If you find out something, you may call to me quietly. I will hear you and return. You may be here for as much as ninety of the days here. Understood?" The beast nodded for them all, "As you wish, lord." With that, Abi nodded and left. Darett'h looked around and thought that they'd won some sort of dubious prize in getting this duty. The cave around them was far better than where they lived in garrison, since they had it all to themselves and when he thought back to where he'd lived in the Dark Realms, well ... He smiled to himself. This was a palace. He set his pack down in the other room down the short hall and looked around the cave. He fashioned a broom out of a tree's bough and some branches pressed together in layers and bound with some fibrous thin roots. After that, he swept the cave out thoroughly. If this was to be their home for the next while, then it was going to be kept clean. It took them a while, but it also calmed them for listening later, once they'd eaten a little of their rations. When the rations were consumed in a few days, they'd have to hunt up something, but the thought didn't bother any of them much. They just had to remain alert and hidden as much as possible. They had a little of the crude ale which was brewed at the abbey. It wasn't nectar or anything, but it would do for as long as it lasted and they'd be sure to drink it before it went bad. As he worked, Darett'h thought about removing his armor and laying his weapons down, but they didn't impede him in any way and he was so used to carrying them that the thought soon slipped his mind. He only remembered and removed everything later, after he was pleased with the neatness of the place. He sat down preparing to listen after the light meal as the first watch. As what he was, he was bred for hardship and if he didn't move, he consumed little energy. The only thing which bothered him at all was that he was a little lonely, deep in his heart. It was something which he always kept to himself, though the others knew of it. If you're a little famous as a pit fighter, and you then take up soldiering for a demon lord, you just keep little things like your feelings hidden inside of you. Darett'h had been in love before, but it hadn't gone well. The sad part to him was that he'd liked it very much while it had lasted. But it had pointed something out to him as it ended, and that was that he was something of a misfit among his own kind. The female wanted to be fucked like it was the end of the world every single time, and when it had gone sour, she told him that it was good to learn it then, before she'd spawned from their matings, "I want to be fucked to the edge of my life every night by one like you, not this quiet pushing that I get. What sort of weak and malformed young would I get from it with you? " She'd told him that she'd tell everyone of his weak side. It had been before he'd begun to work for the demon lord who he worked for now, and it had happened far away. Her final hard words to him, calling him weak and worthless had caused him to take her to the edge of her life then. She'd looked up from his grasp around her throat. "Yes! This is what I want from you, just like this! Now fuck me!" Darett'h suddenly knew that she'd never really loved him at all. His next thoughts were memories of overhearing her prideful talk to other females. He looked into her eyes and threw her a short distance away, feeling hurt and wanting to be alone. The female hadn't gotten it and came screeching back at him demanding to know why he wouldn't take her to the edge to fuck her. Darett'h only said she needed a new partner, because he didn't think that he wanted to stop at the edge of her life anymore. That had been so long ago, but he'd never forgotten how it felt to love someone and fail in her expectations of him. He'd been alone ever since, avoiding all of the ones who made lots of noise and said that they wanted him. He could give them what they wanted. They just couldn't give what he wished for in return. He cleared the memories from his mind and prepared to begin the task that he was there to do. He sat without moving for ten days and nights, only breathing and listening while the others sought to learn what they could of this place. ---- Carrie lay in her bed at night. Another larper weekend had come and gone, though when asked by her friends, she'd begged off with a fib about her period. This night, she couldn't sleep and after a time, she found herself thinking about setting up a little store out here just for them, selling the things which she always had on hand anyway. She was having trouble trying to think of reasons which went against the idea. Then she cursed, seeing that thinking this way was best left for morning, not while she was trying to sleep. She sat up, deciding that if she was up anyway, she'd make herself a cup of herbal tea to relax her mind. As she walked downstairs, she suddenly had a strange feeling come to her and she brushed it off. It had been going on for over a week now. She didn't really even know what it was, it was just there somehow. As she sat sipping, she thought about it and felt that it was still there. Nothing bad, nothing good, just ... just something. When she finished the cup, she turned off the lights in the kitchen and was about to walk up the stairs again. But she stopped, her foot on the first step. It was still there in her mind. She stepped over to the window and looked out for a little while. The moon was full and she could see amazing detail out there. Her eyes went here and there, a little aimlessly until she saw a patch of blackness in the dark of the slope of a low ridge out there. She didn't know what it was, but she felt certain after a moment that the darkness lay in the direction of her feeling. She thought of going back to bed and walking over there first thing in the morning. She thought of tossing and turning all night long, knowing that now it would be worse. She had the feeling and a general direction to it. She'd never be able to fall asleep now. Then she did go upstairs, but not to sleep. She got dressed and took up her shotgun. Working the action once to put a round in the chamber, she set the safety and slid another shell into the magazine to take up the space. After that, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, standing there for a full five minutes to allow her eyes to get used to the darker light level out here. ---- Dareth knew that someone was coming. He hadn't called to anyone or anything, but he felt this one come up the gentle slope to the cave. Maybe an hour before he'd gotten up and stepped outside to urinate and then he ate a little before sitting down in the same place as before. There hadn't been anyone out there then. But he knew that there was someone out there now. He considered what to do about it and he decided to do nothing, so he sat where he was, breathing even less and listening even more. --- Carrie stood at the mouth of the cave, listening and not hearing a thing. She hadn't even known that the cave had been there all of this time. It took a bit of courage and determination, but she made her decision and moved to step inside, stopping first to pull her LED flashlight out of her pocket. Turning it on, she scanned what she could see of the cave's interior for a few moments and seeing little, she stepped inside. It wasn't until then that she noticed the footprints in the very thin dust, large and odd-looking, as though an oversized moose had walked through here. Everything in her sight was covered with a thin layer of dust. Her attention was drawn to the back wall for a moment and she forgot the tracks. What she saw in the light of her flashlight was a sort of altar and beyond that, she saw the stones of the old brickwork, as though this had once been a holy pace or something. She looked further and noticed that there were candles here, all of them new-looking, though she also saw a lot of drippings as well as though there had been candles used here earlier at some point. She shone the light around and noticed a bit of a short hallway, but she decided against going in there for now. After finding something like this, she planned to come back here when it was at least daylight outside and with a spare flashlight, just in case. She stepped back and leaned against a large rock lump next to the sort of pathway that she'd been on. She was wondering if she might turn this into something of an attraction for the larpers, now that she'd gotten a little more profit-minded about them. But there would be insurance issues to be considered, she thought as she leaned there, sweeping her light around a little more. She stepped away from the lump that she'd been leaning against and shone the light on it. Carrie stared then. What she'd assumed to be just a large boulder embedded in the floor turned out to be nothing like that at all. It seemed to be a statue of some sort of being who was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. She looked at it some more and decided that it must have been placed there as a warning. He was wearing nothing and his 'skin' looked as dark as the rest of the rock from which he'd been carved. He had horns which stuck out of his head at the sides close to the front of his massive head before turning downward to curl around like a ram's horns. She looked some more, and saw that all of him was massive as far as that went. He was sitting on his ass, but the top of his head was near to the middle of her chest in height from the floor. And that didn't allow for his horns. She looked at his arms and was a little surprised. They were huge, larger than any man's could ever be, but they didn't look wrong on him. They were in proportion to the rest. For that matter, all of what she saw on him looked to be proportionate. She leaned on him again as she looked around once more. What she saw now puzzled her. The place looked a little crude to her, as though whoever had made it was just using what they could to make the place into something for their uses or needs, whatever they might have been. And yet they'd had the ability to carve something as realistic-looking - for all of its size and oddness - as this statue out of the rock? It didn't make sense. She looked at his face again, this stone beast or whatever he was supposed to have been. He didn't look human, but she liked his face anyway. He looked a little equine to her in a way. There was a bit of a snout, and he had a wide sort of nose which ran from his eyebrows to the end of that snout, ending in nostrils which were located a little at the sides of it and not really where she'd have expected, such as near the top. His ears were similar to a horse's, though they were a little smaller, she guessed. With a start, she found that he was handsome to her. She smiled to herself. "It figures," she said softly, "I get a look at a statue that looks just awesome to me. But it's a statue." She shone her light a little lower, "Whoever carved this ... at least they gave you something pretty nice to look at." She leaned against the statue again, thinking about lighting one of the candles. With a little light like that, her new statue friend ought to look pretty hot in a primal flickering sort of way. "Damn," she chuckled as she had a naughty thought, "With a little romantic candle light, I might just give in to my stupid little urge right now and kiss you, after wiping this dust off your lips." She'd been joking in a light-hearted way. Well, half-joking ... sort of ... she thought. She did want to light a candle now, though. She wanted to see this statue in something other than the cold bluish glare of her flashlight. She switched the flashlight to her other hand as she dug down deep into her pocket, looking for the lighter which she always carried because some larper would always come to ask her if she had one. She was sure that she'd left it in the pocket of these jeans. She stopped to rearrange things, holding the shotgun under her left arm, the one which now held the flashlight in that hand. A couple of things happened then, though Carrie didn't really think them through until a little later. She lost a little of her balance as she fished for the disposable lighter and it caused her to put her other hand out on the shoulder of the statue for some support. That hand held the flashlight with her thumb and forefinger and though she still held it, it shifted in her grasp so that the beam illuminated the footprints on the floor of the cave once more. She saw them, but took little notice again. She heard voices. Someone was approaching the cave entrance. Whoever they were, Carrie didn't understand their speech, hearing only strange clicks, light conversational grunts and a little whispered laughter. They were still too far away to make anything more out. She looked around quickly and saw few options as far as concealment went, other than whatever was down the hallway off to the side. She didn't want to go there, not knowing what was in there. For all that she knew it might lead to a hole in the floor. But she suddenly knew that she didn't want to be noticed here in this cave for some reason. As the sounds became louder, Carrie began to look frantically for a place to hide. She looked down for a moment and then she scrambled around in front of the statue to crouch there. It took her only an instant to realize that if whoever was coming was used to the statue being here, they'd notice the other lump which was her in no time. She spun around and sat in the lap of the statue, making sure that she didn't hit anything with the shotgun while holding it by the barrel with her fingers wrapped around the sliding fore grip to keep it from rattling. She asked herself what the hell she was doing, but from the way that it felt to her, this was the safest place. She turned off her flashlight and waited. The sounds began to make sense to her as they grew louder. What was spoken was soft, almost furtive, so she gathered that they didn't wish to be heard by anyone out there. And yet ... as whoever it was came near to the entrance of the cave, Carrie still heard the speech, still unintelligible to her by the sounds, though she was beginning to understand what was said in her head. They were talking about the game that they'd hunted and killed and how it would make a nice change for them, now that their rations were running low. As they walked in through the entrance, Carrie suddenly knew somehow that they were both female and most of all, that they weren't human. She didn't know how she knew that, since she couldn't see for the bulk of the statue and didn't dare to risk a look. She just knew it. "Our large one still listens," one said to the other, "We must be quiet." Carrie didn't know what that meant, but she almost gasped as she saw a small glow from the back wall. She looked up and saw a tiny flame on one of the candles and as she looked, it grew to a regular sized flame, the sort that you'd see on any candle and the interior of the cave lit up just a little bit. There had been no one near it when it was lit. "That is enough," a second voice said, "Hang the game up over there, Temma. We can clean it further when Darett'h is finished." "These fungi are good to eat," the one which Carrie assumed was Temma as she stared at their shapes said with her mouth a little full while she leaned her thin body forward against the altar. She looked at what she held carefully, "You only need to pick off the grass." As Carrie stared at them, she saw that this Temma was a little intent on doing just that in the low light of the candle, though she seemed to have missed it as one slipped from her fingers to land on the floor and roll over to Carrie. She was looking at a mushroom. Carrie's eyes opened wider as she watched the other one who was shorter squat down behind Temma and begin to kiss her haunches. "B'Naht, "the taller one side, "Be a little careful. I don't mind if I miss a blade of grass, but I have no wish to eat something which has landed in mouse shit." "There is no mouse here," B'Naht whispered, "Only me, lover. Pick the grass all you like as you eat, but turn around for me. I want you." Carrie almost smiled to hear the tone of the reply. She couldn't see it, but she imagined that Temma would be rolling her eyes just then over the timing. To her amazement, Temma turned around and set her hooves apart to give the smaller one a little room as she tried to eat the last of what she had in a bit of a hurry after leaning her butt against the altar. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 10 She sighed softly as B'Naht began to lick what had been in her mind the entire night as they'd tromped around the meadows and woods. Carrie could almost feel herself getting a little wet as she watched Temma holding B'Naht's head tenderly while she looked down. "Please, B'Naht," she whispered after a while, "Do you know what I would want?" B'Naht looked up and Carrie couldn't believe their faces. They looked like completely different beings, but they were very beautiful to her as B'Naht looked up, still licking slowly while Temma looked down, her hips moving a little to each soft swipe of the shorter one's tongue. "I want you to fuck me," Temma sighed with a hopeful little smile, "I wish for you to fuck me in your sweet slow way and please do not forget my little tits. They ache for your kisses now." B'Naht nodded and allowed Temma to move. In a few seconds, the pair lay on top of the altar. Temma's long and graceful legs wrapped around B'Naht as they humped together kissing. Carrie watched in rapt fascination as the two made love. As strange as they were to Carrie, she felt the commonness of two bodies together. There weren't any words now, only the same sorts of sounds which Carries loved to hear ... and make herself. She leaned back a little, relaxing for the moment against the warmth of the statue. Her eyes widened again as everything that she'd missed came to her mind at once. She looked down in the dim candle light and reached out down a little, thinking about the footprints that she'd seen and noticed twice and hadn't made any connection. She wanted to groan to herself in her slowly mounting fear as her slightly trembling fingers found the hooves. She hadn't felt the warmth when she'd been leaning for a moment because of her jeans and when her fingertips had pressed against the statue's large shoulder, she'd been too concerned over dropping her shotgun to really notice the slight give that she'd felt against the surface, since it had only been for a moment. But now she could clearly remember that it had felt a little warm when she'd placed the flat of her palm there a second later, too concerned in her search for the disposable lighter. But she felt the warmth now, for fucking damn sure. She didn't dare to move much. Not now. Not just yet as she weighed her chances here. It came to her that what she felt might be due to some heat from down below. You never know, she tried to tell herself, there could be something below where she was like a hot spring, moving on its way to somewhere else to find the place where it would escape to the surface. As the females writhed together, lost in their passion and growing a little louder, Carrie thought that with luck, she might be able to get up, turn and run for her life out into the night. Her eye fell on the carcasses there on the floor, maybe ten or twelve feet away off to the side. A pair of young does. She looked at the long legs on Temma and knew what had run those fast movers down, beating them at their own game. But it was all that she had for a plan, so Carrie decided that it would have to do. She listened to the lovers, trying to judge her time. The sardonic thought came to her that she'd be sorry to jump up and create a disturbance with her hasty exit just when one and hopefully both of them were coming, but it was all there was for her. Needing to lay it out now, she reviewed things. She had her scattergun and it was loaded with five rounds of double-ought buckshot; four in the tank and one up the spout and ready to go. She just had to push off the safety and it would get fucking loud if it had to be. As she tried to relax in preparation, she very slowly reached over her left shoulder. Her heart sank after a moment as she came to know just how bad this was - and how stupid she'd been. She felt long hair back there which was not her own. She knew that from the way that it felt, the thin braid that she felt there, and the little stone or whatever it was where it had been tied at the end. She hadn't been certain at first, but now she knew as she held her breath for a moment just to see. The statue really wasn't a statue. She knew that because he was breathing very slowly and shallowly. She felt some slow and careful movement from behind her to her right. At the same time, she felt a warm and very large hand gently clamp itself over hers there on her shotgun. She felt his other hand reach around her. He didn't grab her or hold her fast. He just held her. It felt very nice. The whisper that came to her right ear was very deep and the sounds were a little harsh, but she heard him in her mind then. "Please do not disturb my friends now." She spun her head around and bumped her cheek into a very warm and firm masculine face. Carrie's eyeballs couldn't swivel as much as she needed them to, though she tried as she gasped softly. He sensed it and moved his head further around, looking at her. "We are not here for you," he whispered in that incredibly deep voice, "We have no wish to disturb anyone. But you came here." She stared, not believing this, not wanting to be here any longer, not any of it. But fuck, he was good-looking. "Please," she said, feeling a little irritated at the way that her own whisper sounded tremulous and frightened, "Please let me leave. I - I promise not to tell a-anyone th-that you're here." To her absolute disbelief, she watched as he smiled just a little for her, all while still looking serious, "I promise no hurt to you, no harm by my hand or theirs. Let them finish in peace and we can talk for a time." But somewhere deep inside her, for all of her modern sophistication as a human being living in the twenty-first century, Carrie Willis was still a creature of this world. As such, she still had the same animal instincts which even a mouse possesses. Her mind, as powerful as it was by comparison to that small creature, still shared the same basic things. Logically, she knew that there was no escape. Not now, not like this. And yet, for all of that, she still found the need to struggle, trying to get free. She fought, straining hard. Darett'h knew that she would. He held her, but he knew that she also had to breathe. She tried again even harder, but it only caused her to try to look down at the large arm which held her fast now and she looked up, her face was against his. She wanted to bang her head into his, but she felt his horn against her head, touching her lightly, just behind her ear. What hope did she have of shocking him to let her go - a great big thing like him who had horns? She'd probably need a baseball bat to even get him to blink. She thought about biting him until she saw his teeth for a split-second. Whoa ... and she wondered for just an instant why she liked that view so much. She resolved to give it everything that she had and it only brought their faces together again. Carrie looked up into those goat's eyes. As the insane moment carried on, Carrie didn't plan it at all, but ... she just somehow completed her insanity. She kissed him. She remembered it often later. She decided somewhere inside of herself that if these were the last moments of her life and if she was this close to something which looked so fucking good to her before he got down to the killing, then she deserved one last moment to feel her lips on his. It changed everything. He didn't let her go in shock. Darett'h repositioned his strong arms to hold her gently. Carrie felt the power ease off, and she took this madness to the next level. She sighed very softly and reached up to touch his face, tilting her head as she did. When their next kiss began, her thumb slid softly over his skin and she reached further because she needed to. Her fingers slipped into his long silky hair and when they stopped, her thumb began to caress his ear very gently. Somewhere in it, they both relaxed their grip and the shotgun fell on Carrie's thigh to slide forgotten to the floor with a quiet clatter. His other arm, now free, moved to hold her as well, and for that, Carrie slipped her tongue in between his lips and it grew stronger between them, whatever this attraction was. Carrie had never felt anything like this and she had a hope in her that he hadn't either. She didn't want this to stop now for anything. The others had finished by the time that the weapon slid to the floor, and they looked up to see what was going on. Now, the pair squatted just a little way off, both of them staring in wonder. "She is so beautiful," Temma said very quietly. B'Naht only nodded her agreement. When the awkward, half-turned around kiss ended, Carrie looked up at a pair of smiling faces. "Sister," the greenish one said politely in the way of her kind, bowing a little at the same time, "You make our friend so very happy just from this. How are you called? I am B'Naht and this is Temma. Why have you come here?" Carrie looked from one face to the next and she felt no fear at all of them. She found a careful smile in herself for them as well. "M-My name is Carrie. I live just outside, a little way away from the bottom of the hill - and I don't know why I came." Temma shook her head, "It does not matter. Darett'h smiles for you. We are pleased to see it." Carrie had a little trouble for only a moment with the name, not getting that the last letter was a separate syllable. "Dareth? Who's - " B'Naht giggled a little as she put her hands on the floor to lean in and kiss Carrie's cheek, "Darett-HHH," she smiled, "our large friend here. Please kiss him again in your way. It was so good to see!" "She is human," Darett'h said. Temma was incredulous. "So? Carrie is a fine female and so lovely, Darett'h. In all of the time that we have known each other, B'Naht and I have never seen you with this look in your eye, not once." She looked at Carrie, "Kiss him again, Carrie. I wish for you to make him groan. He will make more sense then." "What are you all then?" Carrie asked. She almost laughed at the urgency of their hand motions, both of them waving and urging her to kiss Darett'h again. Carrie looked back and felt such wonder as she looked into that dark face with it's handsome and slightly shy expression. "Aw, I cannot believe it!" Temma laughed a little, "Carrie has some power over him, look!" B'Naht nodded, chuckling as she leaned in, "Turn yourself around, Carrie. Temma is right. You must have something strong in you, Sister. See his face! Kiss him again before it fades. Ohhh, he even looks a little shy! There is a wonder." Carrie didn't need all of the prompting, though she enjoyed it for it's quirky charm. She looked at Darett'h and she got up to carefully turn herself so that she sat on his crossed shins. "Is this alright? I'm not hurting you like this, am I?" He shook his head, still smiling while the two females almost rolled on the floor, Temma howling quietly in laughter. "It would take more than that to cause him hurt," B'Naht grinned, "But kiss him now." She leaned forward again, kissing Carrie's ear lightly, "You make me so happy. Come now and finish him. Let us see if mighty Darett'h can stand up and not fall over from another of your kisses." Carrie settled herself a little and she reached out to put her arms around that thick neck and she kissed him again, though it lasted only a moment before she pulled herself against him as tightly as she could when she felt his own power or whatever this was. Carrie hung on him; clinging for all that she was worth. Darett'h groaned and the low sound of it went right through Carrie. She was surprised that she hadn't heard the change on her pocket clinking. She moaned urgently to him and looked as though she'd have tried to climb right into his skin in the next moment. "See!" Temma whispered, "He affects her as well." "Of course," B'Naht nodded, "He affects you, as I have seen often. He even affects me - and I am one made for only girls, though I love our boy also. No one is safe. I swear this, not from him." "Wait until the serpent rises," Temma said quietly with a knowing nod, "I yearn to see them together." B'Naht grinned and hugged Temma, whispering into her ear, "And I yearn to see you stare as they fuck together, sweet runner. I will be there between your legs to get what you make then." Carrie didn't hear them. She was lost then. She couldn't seem to stay still on him. She moved and almost writhed against him, feeling such pleasure and bliss from only his slow and purposeful kisses. With a start, she realized that this position must be at least a little uncomfortable for him, since she felt that she had to lean for him as well. She knew what was there in between them. She didn't even need to look down. But she needed this so much. She moved forward anyway, reaching carefully and trying not to groan as she felt what was in her hand, throbbing with his pulse. She wondered how large his heart must be to power that large body and then have enough and even more to harden this thing of his and even make it throb! Carrie had held a few in her day but ... She moved her legs apart and moved forward again, feeling that hot thing there through the crotch of her jeans. She wrapped her legs around his waist - as awkward as this was with her dressed - and she pressed herself against him and while he groaned for her, she moaned right back for only him. They stopped a few minutes later, their pulses pounding - his actually moving Carrie every time that his heart beat. They looked at each other, both of them open-mouthed and straining a little for breath. He reached up behind her head and she allowed it, moving closer as he pulled her head to his so that their foreheads touched. "You have questions," he breathed, "Come. Ask them of me now, like this. Ask what you would know and I will answer in kind." A moment later, the exchange began between them. Carrie learned that he was a demon - that all three of them were some form of demon. She saw that he had no wish to harm her. Indeed, she saw something else there in him which was almost too much to look at. After a moment, she wanted to know how it could be and whether someone like her could even survive that. He said that if she wanted the same thing, that is was more than possible. He asked her of her life and she felt it as her mind answered, giving everything, far more than she could have ever said. To her slight surprise, she didn't mind that he knew it all. She wanted to know of him and she saw demons like him, fighting for a little pay and a scrap of prestige. She saw him running across a fighting pit, dodging spears and arrows sent his way and jumping over pairs of others who struggled in the dust as they fought their final conflicts. He ran on, the sinews in his neck standing out with the effort, but making no sounds, other than his breath. In the pits from one end of the realms to the other, no one knew his name. He didn't roar in the middle of any fight. He didn't bellow out his challenge. Other than the grunts which came from exertion, he made no sound until it was over every time. The silent death. He ran straight into his opponent, a giant like him to her eyes and the clash alone would have killed any human alive. The fight was a furious blur until at last; she saw the one in her arms as he held up his foe by the throat and drew back his great bloody fist one last time. She was aware of the roaring, shrieking cacophony of thousands of demonic voices as he drove his prey down like a pile driver. She expected him to stand back over the other one then and raise his arms in some form of barbaric triumph but it didn't happen then. Darett'h looked around at the throngs in the stands and he picked the fallen one up by his numbed and beaten arm for the crowds, so that they might honor the vanquished. The thousands went mad, howling as Darett'h urged them on to honor his opponent and they did at the tops of their lungs. Carrie had never even imagined such a sound and it seemed to go on for minutes. Darett'h looked into the eyes of his beaten opponent and he smiled, also honoring the one in his way. Then he drew his arm back again and slammed his hand in under the ribs, right through the skin and between the groups of torn muscle, piercing the diaphragm, reaching up until his slippery fingers closed over the heart in there. He paused then, but only for a breath as he looked into the dying eyes and he ripped his hand back, snapping and flaying the ribs and cartilage to hold up the quivering heart before that face for the briefest moment. As the other beast breathed his last breath, Darett'h gave him the final honor and let him see his own heart being eaten even before it had really stopped beating. He lowered the body to the dust gently and then he held up what was left and howled in his own triumph. Several friends of the defeated one jumped over the railings in the stands to come for him at a run. Seeing the weapons in their hands, Darett'h strode over to a corpse and took up a broad-axe. Carrie gasped when one of the seven new opponents got a lucky swing in with a blade. He stepped back then as if waiting for something to happen and it did. Darett'h cut him in two within the next second and didn't even slow down until he stood surrounded by the dead. He walked off then, holding his head up, but ... Carrie somehow knew what she was looking at. He'd been hurt by the stroke and the long cut bled freely, the blood seeping down his abdomen like a wide, thin cascade from the wound. Darett'h made no sign that it affected him at all. He smiled to the crowds as he walked easily. But he didn't fight again for a time. She asked why he'd shown her that he'd been hurt so badly and he answered that he wanted to be truthful with her, and that though he was what many would have termed mighty, his life would end one day, just as hers would. Carrie had watched it all with revulsion at first, but as it went on, he explained that once a fighter entered the pit even once, his lord would make huge profits from the wagering. Darett'h had done it at first seeing it in a youthful way, but when he'd tired of it, he found that he couldn't leave that life. After that, it was a matter of developing the skill to go on day after day, training and learning to become better, but not out of the love of it. He'd done it then like a man who runs forever, knowing that the pack of hounds over the horizon gain a little more on him whenever he stumbles. A demon lord had come to see his matches one day and bet heavily on him. Taking his winnings, he'd come to see Darett'h and offered him a way out if he'd fight only in his legions. The pit that he had was one where anyone could die just as easily, but the purpose wasn't as serious or constantly deadly there. The lord told him that he was still rising and had not reached his peak yet. A shame when he reached the start of his decline and couldn't fight for anything other than his desperate survival. He offered Darett'h work before he'd reached his zenith. When Darett'h nodded, the lord spent the money to purchase him from the other lord, who plainly feared Abi and accepted without argument. After that, the scenes which Carrie saw were of him with the two females, and if Darett'h slew anyone in them, he was doing it to keep his two friends alive and it was his joy to do it. Carrie asked him if he missed the life in the pits. He told her a little, but not enough to want to go back there ever again. He told her of the two legends and that if he had the chance, he'd have wanted to fight either with them or against them. He pulled back for a moment so that she could see his smile, "But now that I have seen you, I would not really want to fight like that anymore. If I had the chance and it was important, I would much prefer to fight at their sides." Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 10 When their foreheads touched again, she asked him why he was alone, since he had two such lovely and close friends. She was a little sorry that she asked when she learned of it from his side of things. It was something which a male couldn't really explain to a female so that she could understand it. But seeing it and feeling what he felt had helped her, once she saw that his kind of demon doesn't often feel love for another. Carrie got up then, standing before him as he got to his feet. She expected that he'd be taller than her, but it came as a bit of a shock anyway. She was five-ten; he was seven and a half. They looked each other as the others held each other and sighed. "She will be very good for him," Temma nodded with her arm around the green one. "Perhaps," B'Naht replied a little coquettishly, "We must learn if she can take the rise of his serpent." "You are a doubting weed," the taller one said, pinching B'Naht's bottom lightly, "I saw through what she wears when she turned. Carrie is no pit fighter girl of his kind, but she is fine and I think that I saw that she is large enough for the serpent to hide in." "Humph." B'Naht snorted softly, "Where I am from, one looks at a female's mouth to see what size of serpent can hide down below. If her mouth is small, then her hole is as well. She has a small mouth for one of her height, I think." Temma made a clicking sound of disgust in her language, "Well I like her," she said, "I have hopes for them and if you think a moment for us also. She is one who also likes girls, so you might be pleased. How many times has Darett'h come for us when we saw only death around us? How do we put value to that? We cannot, B'Naht. We have each other often, but he has only us, who try for him because we love him. But neither of us can take him, can we? So we do all that we can, and it is only a little suckling over something which does not fit in our mouths far enough either. That and we stroke him as we can to his finish. He never complains, but B'Naht, I can see that he is not happy." She looked at the others with a soft smile, "Let them try and we must hope that it becomes a wonder to them both. And as an answer to what you spoke of, " she looked over a little dismissively, "Where I am from, we look to see if a girl's little hole is tiny, because if it is, ... " She finished off in a knowing tone and B'Naht was left hanging as Temma walked away. "What?" B'Naht asked, going to follow Temma, "What does it mean then?" "It means that her ass cannot keep up with what overflows her brain, so shit comes from her mouth." As B'Naht stared, Temma laughed as she reached to hug her, "It means that I have led you along, nothing more. But try to have some hope for them as I do. They are a strange match, even if it works." Carrie looked at the proverbial serpent for a long moment, knowing what she'd have liked, what she wanted and what she needed. What she was looking at was impressive. All the same ... well something like that was a little out of the range that she'd ever had any experience with. Then she remembered all of the times when she'd have wanted something just a little fatter or longer. Well, she was looking at both right there, all the fat and long that any ... She thought of a happy-looking female pony but discarded the thought. She remembered what she'd seen in him and as hopeful as it might have been, it was a damn sight more than she'd ever gotten from anyone in her life. He wasn't offering a wonderful love. He knew that he hadn't had even a taste of that before in his life. He was offering a serious try, along with his pledge to do his best. He was a soldier and she knew that even as a demon, that meant something. She reminded herself that she was made to pass a baby down there. She felt a bit better until she remembered that passing a baby was called labor, whereas fucking was ... well, not supposed to be ... laborious. She looked into his eyes again and that was all that she'd really needed. For something like what she might have - and she'd seen his honesty - it was worth an honest try from her as well. If it didn't work, it didn't work. And even if it didn't, she could tell herself that she'd had at least a little fun with somebody who could be called a home wrecker simply because of the damage that he'd do just trying to get through the door. This wasn't the complex game of human dating. This was just trying for a little fun and then seeing where it might go. All this was ... was the first try. And if it worked ok, well, she didn't think that she'd mind having to walk up the hill to see her big boyfriend in the cave. She wasn't the sort to judge a man by his car anyway. In this game, his demon kind of game, all she had to look at was standing in the air in front of him. He was offering that, what powered it all from his huge chest, and she also knew that there were two female friends in it as well if she accepted. She looked at things from his side. He hadn't even seen her naked, though she had an idea that he could see through clothing somehow. In this balance, she had little to offer but herself. At least it was simpler. She looked again and had to smile. Such a huge, fierce-looking male ... with such a heart-melting little boy smile. It was time to woman up. Carrie stepped forward and she lifted the hem of her sweatshirt to move his erection so that it touched her skin. After that, she put her arms around as much of him as she could and she looked up, "Have you ever been with a human woman before, Darett'h?" He shook his head, "No, but I know that you can be hurt much more easily. I would never want that." She nodded, having seen his honesty and wanting to trust in him. Carrie had never been the kind of girl who could be frightened very easily, the shock of their meeting notwithstanding. All the same, it came to her that if this worked somehow and somebody did want to harm her, then Darett'h, if he grew to love her, might be the reason for some upheaval on a geographic scale before he calmed down. She looked forward, seeing little but the muscles there on his dark chest. But after a moment, her gaze drilled down on just one place. It was his solar plexus. She looked at it and made some mental calculations. Carrie leaned in and she gave him her answer to his unspoken offer - the one she'd heard as a bashful desire once she'd dug through the blazing emotion which she knew would be hers if she tried this with the same effort as he would. She eased her lips against him and listened to his surprised gasp when she kissed him over his heart. She looked up, "Wanna try something a little different?" She was actually surprised. She didn't think that smile could get any wider. Carrie stepped back then and undid the button on her jeans. Pulling the zipper down, she bent over and untied her hiking boots. The whole thing wasn't much of a strip tease, she supposed, but when she pulled her hooded sweatshirt over her head and looked, she had to laugh at the three faces there in front of her. "I hope that I pass the inspection," she smiled as she slipped her feet back into her boots to avoid the cold of the floor. Darett'h only gazed, his vocal chords clearly forgotten. Temma nodded for him and her both and offered a soft smile of approval. She'd never seen a human female up close and naked before and she liked so much about Carrie, her wondrous body aside. She liked this Carrie even more, since this was better than looking through clothing. "I am not sure," B'Naht said in an undecided tone, "Please turn around." She let out a slightly undignified-sounding squawk and stood rubbing the back of her head while looking back evilly at Temma - who returned just the same look to her in warning. Carrie pretended that she hadn't heard it. She walked up to Darett'h with a smile and reached for his hand. She walked around the altar, thinking about just hopping up on it, and turning to lie down on her back. "Sister wait!" B'Naht said urgently as she hurried up, "Forgive my foolish talk before. Temma and I wish for this to have every chance. Let us do what we can to help." Carrie thought it really odd at first, but she managed to grab a bit of a clue. She looked at Temma, who stood smiling as she held the fabled 'serpent' and stroked it. "We will make sure that everything is wet for you. Can we?" Carrie laughed at their hopeful faces and looking at Darett'h' smile, she nodded. She grabbed B'Naht and kissed her, laying one of her best down in an instant. B'Naht hung from her grasp as though she was being electrocuted. When Carrie pulled back, she laughed at B'Naht's shocked expression. "What -? Why did you do that?" the green one asked. Carrie still held her and she hugged her for fun and the way that she felt helped it, "Because ... Sister," she smiled, "I wanted to thank you before you help." She hopped up onto the altar backwards and sat at the edge with her knees apart. B'Naht looked like somebody had given her a birthday cake all for herself. She stared at Carrie's mound for a moment before she leaned in to kiss it softly. "Well hurry things a little, B'Naht," Temma said, "You have the easier task, since Carrie must surely be wet to begin. I have the long task here - and I know that I can get him wet in little time. This is for them, not us. All that you risk is your honor if you fail." "Oh very nice, Temma," B'Naht grumbled from between Carrie's thighs, "I am here hoping to make her want a little with me later and I face a wonder in something the same and yet so new to me. Try to give me a little more to worry about." She began as best she could, trying to stay conscious of the fact that her role here was to make the human as wet and slippery as possible. Carrie sighed and relaxed in it, loving the feel of a sort of tongue which was very different to her. "You smell here like a... a ..." She didn't look up as she licked and swirled, she just held up one hand edgewise and made a gliding motion. Carrie saw it and chuckled with a nod to B'Naht's eyes which looked up, "What men ... ohhh ... uh, say here ... smells like fish, tastes like chicken." B'Naht looked up curiously, "You taste wonderfully to me. There is something here which tastes as you do? Show it to me when you can, Carrie." "Do NOT show her!" Temma cried as she stopped for a moment, "For she would follow it around forever begging." When B'Naht reluctantly pulled away, Carrie pulled her up a little to kiss her in thanks. B'Naht liked it and looking down, she buried her face in Carrie's cleavage. "I have found me another place where I want to live!" she giggled, reaching up with her webbed hands. Temma pulled her back by the tail, "Let them fuck," she hissed in annoyance, "We will have time later by the look that she wears for us. If you stay there much longer, you will die when Darett'h takes what she offers. You cannot be made much thinner and still breathe, sweet fool." ---- The scene would have looked a little like a cheesy horror movie, Carrie supposed, but it didn't matter to any of them. She'd lain on the altar with her legs apart and hanging down a little and with hopeful smiles from them both, Darett'h mounted her very carefully. He was slow about it to give Carrie time to adjust and after a minute or so, he'd had to gently shoo the others away, because they were so intent on licking and drooling as much saliva over Carrie's vulva as they could. "You make so much of this great serpent of mine, "Darett'h chuckled, "I thank you for the looks of wonder, dear friends. Your words always make me feel like a giant to be sure." "But you ARE!" B'Naht said with Temma nodding solemnly along. He leaned forward to kiss Carrie as she sighed and moaned a little just to feel a little more of him slip inside of her. "I may be a little large," he whispered, "and I hope that you and I can fit together, Carrie." He kissed her ear and leaned in farther, "I do not wish to hurt their feelings, but by what I feel with you, my lovely friends are only small there." Carrie nodded as she reached for him and pulled him as she raised her legs. She needed to know now and though he did bump into her cervix gently, he was far enough in by then for both of them to smile to each other and call it a fit. It went on for a time, with Darett'h admitting to Carrie that he was trying to hold back. But she didn't much care by then, since she'd already come twice and was doing her best to not only keep up with him, she wanted the third that she could sense was there in her now. She hadn't just come, either. The term failed utterly to her mind for spoken use to refer to what she'd felt. By himself, Darett'h said nothing about his abilities. For all that he was, he truly was a gentle giant. But hellfire, could that beast ever fuck once they found their way together. Carrie wanted to chuckle because she found it a little humorous that her throat hurt. And why? Because she'd actually screamed both times. It had never happened to her before. She could remember crying out at times when things had gone well with somebody, but until this night, she'd always been a little skeptical that some women shrieked or screamed. When she'd felt herself being overtaken by the rush that gentle Darett'h was driving her to, Carrie had just let go of everything. She felt so much that she'd just cried out once, inhaled, and as it went on, she just let it all out of her. The second time, she'd blacked out for a few seconds, and it was still going on as she blinked and saw Darett'h's look of sudden concern fade back into that look of his. That wonderful look on that face, Carrie thought for a second. She had little doubt that he could frighten the gravelly shit out of the average carved stone gargoyle with a look. But the way that he looked at her - even as he worked at fucking her - well, it was something to a girl like her. Of course she'd asked him if she was good for him. It almost went without saying, since they were two different kinds and all. He'd nodded and she'd sighed happily. Then he'd asked her the same question and Carrie couldn't help her grin as she reached up to touch that chest again, larger than any man's she'd ever seen and who knew how many times stronger. She'd run her fingers over his skin and her grin had turned soft enough to make him groan a little to see it. "What do you think?" She'd asked softly, raising her arms back over her head to stretch a little languidly for him, seeing that they were in the long cruise of this fuck now, "Darett'h, you scared the hell out of me at first." They went on for a minute and he watched her with rapt fascination under him, a wonder come to life in his arms. She drew another long breath and let it out in a long audible sigh, just for him, because she knew that he loved to see her like this. "I could get used to your kind of loving, Darett'h." He'd gasped in shock then and Carrie almost wondered if she'd said anything wrong somehow. "I didn't mean anything bad Darett'h. I'm sorry if I said - " He was shaking his head, "Carrie, I must ask, because you and I are - not the same. Tell me please and be honest with me. Do you feel ... loved?" She got it then and she nodded vehemently, "Oh yeah. I do. I know we're different, but for the last long while, I knew that this wasn't just the first half-decent fuck you've had in like forever." She reached for him, "Come on down here a little more for me." When she felt his huge forearms against her on either side, she buried her fingers in his long hair and pulled his head down next to hers, stopping him in time when she saw that his horns were going to break her nose. She looked into his intelligent and thoughtful goatish eyes which by now had rocketed up to number one on her personal hit parade. "I know that you're trying for me. I know you're doing your best. Let's slow down even more if it's alright with you. I've already come twice. I want you to come for me like the rest of this greatest fuck of my life. Come for me, you magnificent beast. Whenever it's there, just let me know and I'll try to squeeze a little. Then you just come in me. I want what you have for me." He lifted his head a few moments later and they looked at each other. "I have never - " She nodded, "And you don't have any bad habits. You're the best I've ever had, and believe me, I mean that. Just fuck me and if you're like a human man, letting it go gently so it lasts can be so nice, Darett'h." Carrie closed her eyes savoring his slow strokes now. She raised her legs even higher, knowing that he'd be careful not to hit the end of her. She wanted him higher up on her and when she felt him move that way, she moaned in her slow joy and begged him to come just a little lower for her. She was under his chest as he held himself up on those mighty arms. They weren't trembling at all while she shook under him great like a leaf quite often. Carrie looked up and asked him to come lower still. When it was right, Carrie kissed the skin over his heart again, licking there and mewling softly to him. To her amazement, he thanked her very quietly as she felt him begin to harden even more. Somehow, she knew that it had been the right thing to do. Carrie Wiilis chose her moment and finished her beast then, moving her head a little to suck his large nipple softly. The groan from him went right into her and she felt him turn rock hard and hot within her womb. She knew that no matter what they were, he was one huge and powerful male - but he wasn't an idiot. She moved one of her hands to hold the leading edge of his large hip. She'd never felt the heat of demonseed before and the feeling of that flood combined with everything else just took her away and as he thrust into her for the rest of his release, her small human hand stopped him from hurting her. Not by her own tiny strength by any means. That small hand, not so small by human female standards, showed her beast the limit if he didn't want to hurt her. As she felt him hold up right there while his gush filled her, Carrie knew that they'd both made a small statement to each other. The feeling of that heat as it was released in a long gush against her cervix took Carrie the rest of the way and she shuddered through her third orgasm. It wasn't earthshattering. It was even better to her. ---- They tried a few things that night. Carrie thought it was a lot of fun to play the mare for them by standing on a stone on the floor and bending over to hold the edge of the altar. Her 'assistants' fussed over them both, acting like a pair of concerned and worried horse owners, though they didn't know or understand why Carrie thought it was sweet to see and hear. None of them even knew what a horse was. Temma and B'Naht carefully lined their beasts up, since it was what they called her now because she was larger than they were by a little and because she could take what Darett'h had. They'd actually made a big deal out of it in their sometimes silly way, praising her for the ability. When they were satisfied that things looked to be just so, Darett'h began to fuck Carrie, and like this, he could just bang her up to a carefully explored point. Carrie laughed a little as she felt him press against her slowly for a few moments now and then so she could feel his large balls - as big as a goat's - press against her lips. The abdominal contractions from her laughter pressed back against him, but Darett'h was never forced out by it. It felt amazing to him and he'd begin to bang her again, sometimes lifting her feet from the rock. At the end of it, when Carrie was more than satisfied, but growing tired, Darett'h came, pressing against her very forcefully. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 10 "Hold me up by my hips!" she cried, hoping that this might work. Carrie had just come a little bit before that, and she held her arms out as rigidly as she could, lifting her feet up off the rock and spreading her legs wide while Darett'h held her by the hips and filled her again. Quite often in it, Temma and B'Naht had bent over and gotten underneath Carrie to squeeze and suck at her breasts or just to caress her skin in wonder. As the long moment went on now however, they stared and laughed in amazement. ---- "I have never seen such a thing," B'Naht said, still a little in awe. "You - you were made to fuck with Darett'h. "You are too easily impressed," Temma said in a feigned tone of worldly boredom. "I have never felt it, but I remember when I was little that I watched as my mother fucked that way. I did not know what they were doing then. The male was not my father, I learned later, for he had already been killed protecting her as she spawned me. But I did see it when that one with my mother was hard enough in it to push my mother forward as she tried to push back." She smiled, "He even caused her to stand on her hands as he pushed so that her legs were in the air." She laughed then, abandoning her phony pretense, "But it wasn't like what we just saw with you both. I am so happy now." Darett'h was on his back, lying on the floor and holding Carrie in his arms. She tried to explain what a horse was to them, saying that it was larger than humans, and often carried a large value to his or her owners. "Sometimes the owner of a prize mare - that's the female - wants to breed her with a prize stallion. A lot of money might be exchanged in the arrangements. The reason that I was laughing so much was because the way that you both played and acted in getting Darett'h and I together made me think of those people, wanting everything to work out and feeling concern over the animals. We're not animals, "she chuckled, "but you're both so sweet like that and I had to smile and even though I've just met you all, I've learned that with you two, a smile only lasts for so long. Then it turns into a laugh." She stretched in Darett'h arms for a second. "I've met a lot of people in my life, I guess. But even as different as we are, I think that girls with a sense of humor are the same in a way. I think you're both amazing, and if it's possible ... I'd love it if you'd consider me your friend." There was silence then, though Darett'h hugged Carrie a little, trying to tell her that she'd opened a box here. "I do not know," B'Naht began in a slightly airy tone. Darett'h groaned softly, "It begins now, just wait." B'Naht looked annoyed, "Oh shut up, Darett'h. You are a male. I can say that you are a fine one and that your girls love you. That is not in question here. But you are a male all the same and know nothing of the way that females talk between themselves. I have seen you in the little market inside the abbey walls. You pick a thing up and look at it and then you lay down what is asked. Have you ever seen Temma or I do anything like that?" He shook his head a little wearily, "No. I have seen you both waste half an hour going from stall to stall to compare prices. Then I have watched you waste an hour more in haggling and succeed in saving a little small money while everyone behind you - especially the males - silently yearns for your death. Why do you think I stand so close at those times?" "And what did we do with our small money then? "Temma asked pointedly, "We bought you ale and one of those large pretzel things that you love so. So hold your tongue, Demon. Or those gifts might become no more than a memory when you sigh sadly and say that once you had the love of a pair who would do these little things for you." Carrie looked into Darett'h's face with her eyebrows as high as his. He shrugged, "I suppose that I have just been told." "I have conditions," B'Naht said solemnly. Carrie told her that among humans, there were no conditions placed on friendships, because then they weren't true friendships. Temma snorted quietly as she reached around B'Naht to hold her breast, "And look at what it has done for your world." "What does that have to do with anything?" Carrie asked, confused now. "Nothing, "Temma grinned, "It was all that I could think of to say. I have no idea over the state of your world." I will be your friend," B'Naht smiled, "if Darett'h allows you to share your kisses with Temma and me sometimes. For that, I will love you as my friend and more. But Darett'h must also allow us to play with him as we have always done. I am one who loves another girl, but I have grown used to his tongue so that I crave it sometimes." "And I will be your friend also," Temma smiled, "but I think that I already was. If we are agreed then we must think of something that you are very good at, Carrie. It must be something which you do better than most. When we have learned what we came here to know, we must call to the lord who pays us so well. He will come and then we must leave. What we saw here this night is that you should be with us. I am not sure, but I think I have heard it said that the juices of some demons can make a human stronger, though they then can live on other planes such as where we come from. You belong with us - with Darett'h too, so we must think of this." "The bargain," Darett'h sighed, "you have not even decided that between you." "Yes we have Darett'h," Temma snapped softly, "You still do not understand your own females. Did Carrie jump up and run away? No. Look, she holds you even tighter. She has already accepted." B'Naht nodded with a little smile, "We already have our human friend. She only needs to know more and then think of what she might do to interest our ruler." Darett'h snorted, "No one asks me." Carrie looked at him, "I'm gonna need to hear a lot more of all this. But if what I hear matches the way that I feel ... well, would you allow it?" The large male looked at her curiously, "For you to come along - if the ruler allows it - I want this only as your friend. You need only ask me about the rest if I am a stupid one who must control his female. I am not stupid and you are not - " He stopped, feeling her fingers over his lips and his eyebrows rose a little. "Yes I am," Carrie smiled, "I am if you're my boy. I know what kind of life I've got. From here until I die, it will just be more of what I already had. I'm ready to try something new. But I don't want to do it alone. So I accept, but here are MY conditions. I want you three as my friends, and for a friend, I'd do a lot. I agree to whatever your girls here want of me - because they're so much fun and they're my friends all of a sudden. I wouldn't make that statement if you all were human. We take time to make most friendships and relationships because humans don't trust each other right off the bat for anything. If you wanted to harm me, why would you have waited this long to do it? I have a feeling that most demons are things that I wouldn't want to know very much, but I like this." She kissed Darett'h quickly "And I'm ready to try something with you if we can keep going on being careful. I don't want to fuck this up even one little bit. So yeah, I'm your female. You say yes, and I will too." There was more silence as Darett'h stared. "If I must get up from here where I am with Temma feeling my tit so nicely to knock our head for you," B'Naht growled. "Yes!, Oh yes," Darett'h rumbled frantically, "I was only surprised. Be my female and I am your male and come with us pleeease! If we do not agree in a hurry, B'Naht will insist that I go to the market with her again and I fear to lose what life that I have left as I stand and wait in that place while she decides over a new cloth to wrap her pretty tits with." B'Naht scowled at him, but Temma hugged her, laughing her ass off since it was true. Carrie looked down at Darett'h, "You know, the way you made it sound as though you had so little experience in love just sucked me in. It might really be that way for all that I know and I accept it. What we did was great, but I also know that you were trying to win me with that fucking sunlamp that you've got for a heart. I've never felt anything like what I'm feeling right now. But I also know that you've just paved over a very sticky spot of roadway here with your little pleading joke." She kissed him and moved to lie with her head on his chest. "You're wiser than you let on, Darett'h. It's just one of the little things that I'm really beginning to love about you." ---- They were talking as Carrie drove her pickup truck to the range. After a little more fun that night, she and 'the girls' as she sometimes thought of them brought the game down to her house and after a little work, they had a few fine meals to cook up. The others were astounded when Carrie had served them the very first roasts. "I do not think that I will want to just sit and eat what I catch ever again," Temma said. Carrie had looked over, "You mean you just, ... ewww!" As they drove, Abi was a little surprised at this human. "You have the sight," he said, "at least somewhat. Why are you so calm?" He held up his fist, "How many fingers am I holding up?" Carrie didn't even look over. "Three, counting your thumb, your index finger, and your pinky. What's the big shock here? I might not know WHO you are, but I know you're some big boss to them. I've had to listen to them all for the last three weeks about today. My eyes work too. I know you're a big guy, but I've been with my boyfriend and he's even taller than you, so I've gotten used to being a little close to a big guy. Bringing you here was my idea wasn't it?" For once, Abi found that he couldn't argue. Carrie made perfect sense and so he just tried to find a way to sit in comfort as she drove up and parked, getting out to pay her range fees. ---- She used her FN switched to semi-automatic and produced very good scores at several ranges out to four hundred yards and Abi was impressed - especially since it wasn't a target rifle and she was shooting over iron sights without a scope. "You give me something made for this and about a week, and I'll really amaze you. This is an assault rifle. It wasn't exactly made for this." She produced her pistol and nailed the bull's-eye on target after target at two hundred yards. The repeatability of her scores surprised Abi. "Very good," he admitted, "I may have use for this skill soon. But that scope will be useless after dark, and that's the best time of day for what I have in mind. And this is just shooting paper. Can you shoot when I tell you and the one is another human?" "Am I going to be allowed to stay with my friends?" she asked, "Am I going to do what you want as someone who won't live here very much anymore?" Carrie lowered the long pistol, reaching over again to lift the bolt on the action and pull it back so that the spent casing sailed out in a bright brassy arc. "You ever heard of a night scope, Abi? I can't get a really good one since they're for military use. Get me one like that and the things I'll need, and I think we can agree." He thought about it. "Can you ride a horse?" She looked over and nodded, "Well enough, I'd guess. Can you stop adding more things to this interview?" Abi laughed then and he put his arm around Carrie's shoulder, "Yes. Even I know it when I'm in danger of bargaining too much." ---- As they drove away, she looked over, "I get the feeling that you don't have hunting people in mind here. Wanna clue me in at least a little?" "It might happen," he said, watching the countryside pass by, "But I know that something is coming. I can't say what it is, either. That's' why your three friends are in that cave in the first place, to find out for me." He stretched a little, feeling cramped as he sat, "Alright. I'll get you something else for long range work. You keep that pistol ready and you're in." "What caliber are we talking here for the long gun?" she asked, "I'd want something with a long, flat trajectory." He nodded as he admired her biceps, seeing at once that she was no stranger to bladed weapons, The signs were there to be read all over her. "Well you're a big girl," he smiled, "I like that about you on top of your ability. For what I want, you'll be carrying around about thirty pounds of bang-stick, plus whatever else you think you'll need. As far as caliber for what you'll be hunting for me, I think that fifty caliber would work out. Carrie stared, "You mean like half-inch thick bullets?" He nodded, "Yes. And about five inches long overall with the case. Something with an accurate range out to two miles." He smiled as he looked at her, "You DO think you can handle that, right? You just might be protecting your three lovers, you never know." Carrie lowered her head a little as she glared over the top of the steering wheel. "Fuck yeah," she growled, "I can handle it. But it all adds up to some weight. You know that ammunition weighs a lot more. How am I supposed to carry all that AND a whack of ammunition around. I won't even get to where I'm supposed to go until the week after with all of that." "Darett'h," Abi smiled, "Let your boyfriend carry some of it." "Oh yeah." Carrie smiled. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 11 ***Abi makes a very brief appearance here. This chapter is more of a lesbian love thing, so my apologies to readers who might not like that. I was going to post this in that category, but I didn't want readers who are following this to miss it when it appears in a different genre. What happens in this chapter is more about a couple of poor girls who find each other because each one of them just knows that she has to do something different if she's going to go on living at all and she's willing to take a chance in a place where your life doesn't offer much chance for improvement. Oyan was inspired by a photo of a Munsi girl. In her part of the world it gets way past only hot in the dry season. She was standing mostly naked, or what passes for dressed at that time of year. To me, she looked as though she was watching her family's cattle - with an assault rifle. Mokonyi came to me from a photo of a Surma girl on one of the days when everyone in the village paints themselves in amazing patterns. These two will play fairly large parts in the rest of the story. This is just how they met. They're also not exclusively into girls, but I liked the characters as they developed in my head and where it went. I apologize for turning off anonymous feedback. I've just grown tired of having to remove ads placed after my stories as comments.0_o -------------------- Late afternoon/early evening, Southwestern Ethiopia – not far from the border of South Sudan. She stood looking down the long slope with a bit of a thousand yard stare, her eyes taking in the pasture-lands where she and her husband had kept their cattle. Back then of course, they'd both believed in doing what was right, living one's life the right way, honoring Tumwi and remembering one's departed ancestors, and then with a little luck, one's life would perhaps turn out well. She sighed. It hadn't really worked out that way. Someone had come raiding for cattle in the middle of the night the previous year and her husband had done his best, but by the dawn, Oyan had found herself about seven head of cattle down and one husband short. Well, a living husband anyway. Her relations gathered around her and she allowed herself to be distracted only so much. As heartbroken and upset as she'd been, she set things in motion for her husband's funerary rights, but then she beseeched her brother and together, they began to herd her remaining cattle away toward where there was a trader to buy them. She bargained hard, sold about half of them off, and bought an AK-47, choosing one which was in 'as new' condition and included a web sling and she bought a long knife of the sort that the men of her village would buy. After insisting on it and after being taught how to shoot, clean and care for it, she slung the weapon over her shoulder and walked back, herding the rest of her cattle to her brother's land for at least a time. That night, the raiders came back, but there were a few changes from the previous night. Oyan wondered if anyone could really be that desperate or stupid. Did they think that the members of a household which had suffered at their hands would be sleeping the next night? That they'd come back told Oyan that they weren't from her own village, which was a relief for more than the obvious reasons. It meant that she wouldn't have to worry about killing them. She removed her clothing, opting for silence and ease of movement. The ones which she could get close to in the pitch darkness spent the remainder of the night on their faces trying in vain to hold in their slowly spilling guts. They cried out sometimes, and as more of their voices could be heard, Oyan smiled now and then as she hunted for as many as there were. The ones which could not be gotten close to easily were shot. The morning light revealed seven dead men from a tribe which had been their traditional enemies for several centuries. Since then, some people from her own tribe had spoken to her in accusatory tones, saying that her actions could have precipitated a tribal war. She sent them away and told them not to speak to her until they'd lost enough themselves to be able to see her side of things. Her mind came back to the present and Oyan looked up to see a large man walking toward her. She'd had dreams of meeting this one. He looked white in a way that also said that it wasn't all that there was about him. He smiled and set down a flat of twenty-four water bottles. "I can offer some coffee," she suggested and was relieved if not delighted to see that he understood her. The strange part came when he began to speak to her and she found that she could understand him quite easily. She indicated that he should sit and she set about making him some of her best and while that was going on, they began to speak together as though they'd already known each other, though they'd never met. They spoke of many things as they waited for the coffee to be ready. Oyan asked many questions and the demon answered them all. Oyan liked to look at him because he was different and she saw that he was not prideful. That was a quality that she'd grown very weary of. Her husband hadn't had much of it and what he'd had, he'd told her, was quiet and inside, and it related to his wife and their home and cattle. She'd never understood why the rest of the men couldn't have been that way. "I am almost at the point where I seek help for my family," he smiled, bowing deeply, "and I seek watchers and guardians, Oyan, fighters too. I sense that you do not wish for a man much anymore. I can offer the work and the place. We would travel to a degree, and if you do want for a man at some time, I think that I know the one or ones to make you smile again – when you are in the mood for it, of course." Her face broke into a grin then as she nodded. She'd never seen a man who looked like him, skin tone aside. He was made in a way that drew a woman's eye quite naturally. It helped that he stood well over six feet, closer to seven, really. And though there weren't a lot of African features in that face, it was the sort which was good to see and the way that his face fell to easy laughter helped quite a lot too. "What do you wish for?" She held out the steaming metal cup of coffee to him and she nodded when she saw that he had it, "I was at a Surma village last year. It was almost at this time, I know it. They do things a little differently from us, but that is alright," she smiled, "What is the good of us all being the same? They go to the river often and wash every day as anyone would, but twice in the span of a year, they paint themselves there; once for the planting and once for the reaping. Their stick-fighting happens for their men at both times also and at this time, the men also fight without sticks to determine who is strongest and can therefore be the chief for the next year." She smiled and he admired her beauty in that instant, knowing that she didn't do it as much these days as she once had. "From the youngest to the oldest, the people of that tribe gather and it is such a good thing to see," she said. She looked down and fell silent for a moment. Then she looked up at him. "I was not able to come very close, but there was one woman there that I saw. By the copper rings on her arms, she is not the poorest one there. She is like me in that she does not stretch her lips or her ears, yet I know that I am sure when I say that she was the most beautiful woman that I ever saw in my life. She has many of the little scars that both of our kinds seek to have in our skin. I do not really carry many, but she does; on both arms from her shoulders down and she carries more on her belly under her lovely breasts. I want her." He looked up from the steaming beverage, wanting to be clear, "In what way, Oyan? If I am to help, I need to know." She nodded, "I understand. I wish for the chance to win her heart. She is worth it and more to me. I do not know of these things exactly, but I think that in men, the chance to want something with one's own kind is a matter which comes from within one's body. Not in all cases, but I think most. I have also seen that it is almost natural for some men to want both kinds at once if they see beauty there. I think that in women, this comes from the mind and the heart much more. I only need to get her to look at things more in my way." She looked down again for a moment and he heard her quiet humility, "I only hope that I have enough beauty left to me for her to like me." She shrugged as she looked up and across the valley for a moment. "I fell for my man not long after I met him. Even so, I chose as carefully as I could. My man was large – almost as large and strong as you seem to be, but what I feared most happened anyway. I loved my husband with all that I had, but he was killed. Since then, I do not see most men in the same way as I once did. Often, for people like mine and those like us, I see fools among the younger ones. It makes sense in a way because in some things such as the stick-fighting of the Surma people, it is a way for a young man to be able to meet women if he has proven himself. I just see it differently now from the way that I once did." "I can see the one that you speak of in my mind," he smiled, "and she is very beautiful – as lovely to my eyes as you, Oyan." "You can?" she asked, smiling then, "I thank you for your kind words to me also. How can you see her when we sit here in the sunshine together?" He nodded, "Oyan, I am not all man. There is more to me. Perhaps I should let you see so that you know." She nodded eagerly and he allowed her to see what he was, hoping that it wouldn't be too much. She saw all of him at that instant – without clothing to get in the way. She found his hooves and his horns to be rather impressive, but she really liked his tail, once she'd seen past the long and thick maleness that he had. Before anyone could see - if there had been someone in a position to observe - he changed back. "You are very nice to this woman's eyes, Some people have gods who look like you," Oyan smiled as she nodded, "What is her name, the one that I would seek?" "She is called Mokonyi," Abi said, "She had a man, but lost him to the same cause which took yours from you. Soon, she will stand looking for ones to help her with the planting. She has other things to be unhappy over. Her man was very strong for such a young one. She saw him first the year before last. That year, he almost won the yearly fighting to lead the tribe and they chose each other, but waited in their marrying for the next year. Last year, he won. She became the new chief's wife. Now," he shrugged, "she loses her place with his death. The fighting is really a way for unmarried young people to meet and decide. She is about to learn that while she is still young, she is not considered unmarried. It causes her other issues. As a widowed woman, she is a household in the way that her people look at these things. It entitles her to a small field in which to plant and grow crops. But she is alone and will have to do the work of it by herself. For her, this makes being a widow even harder to bear. She had a larger one last year which came because of her husband. The land is given to women, not men. The working of it was hard. She has not thought that she will no longer need to work that one. It will fall to the wife of the new chief. All that she sees are things which do not please her, work that she does not have enough hands to do, someone else's cattle to care for and worst of all, no man to hold at night." "I must be there before then," Oyan said, "and I may need some help in stick-fighting." He tilted his head at that and asked her why. Oyan explained, "It is a game among them, a thing for men," she said, "but all of the women go to watch and cheer. I do not wish to have the need of it, but I know that she will be there to watch as well. I want Mokonyi to see me, so I will fight if I must so that she does." "I can give you the abilities," he nodded, "You can fight that way now and no one will best you, but you must be able to strike hard like a man and also receive punishment as they do. Do not let them strike your stomach." He set the cup down, thanking her and she stood before him, looking up and smiling, "Give me the way to win her heart to mine, to win at this sport of theirs if I must so that she sees me, and to show fearlessness when their enemies attack their cattle, and I will work for you – and bring her as well, for I see that she is one that you want for this like me." Abi smiled, "I will watch to see if you need my help, but Oyan, please hear me. You are very fine to look at, and I mean for both kinds, not only to the eyes of men. I think that you are right about the way that women are more prone to love others of their kind – if they are presented with the right reasons. I will help if I see that I must, but you should take a little faith and comfort from what I say to you. I do not think that you will need to fight anyone for her heart. She sees and knows the cage which holds her almost as clearly as you saw your own. If I am not needed, I wish for it to happen that way, but I will help if I must. If she comes to this by herself through your words and by your touch, it makes a better family for us all, you and her especially." He held out his hand and she grasped his forearm. When he felt what her heart sent, he smiled wider and held up his other hand and the AK-47 that he held with it. "A gift for her," he said, "The pouch on the sling holds gold for you Oyan, to give you back what your weapon cost." ------------------------- Oyan walked down the long slope to the river. It was late morning and most of the children that she could see were playing or clowning. She could already see the one that she was looking for standing ankle-deep in the shallows out in the middle and from this distance giving the impression of a woman with long blonde hair. It could have been the light and Oyan didn't understand it, but she smiled all the same. As she walked nearer, she began to attract attention, mostly in the form of young boys because she was not of the tribe here. The composition of the group changed almost continuously of course and by the time that she began to get a little near the river, the majority were hopeful young men. "Who are you?" one of them asked. It was the question asked most often, though Oyan hadn't answered to this point since there was nothing to be gained by her reply. Someone else would surely ask the same thing inside of a hundred steps, so ... She turned once to the most irritating one and asked the obvious question. "Why are you not working? At this time of day, young men have tasks to do or they are beaten because they are still too much like boys to think that the work feeds the village." It shut him up for a little while and then he was back, pacing her stride and almost getting in her way as he asked her again and again. Finally, she stopped and answered, trying to ignore the scowling glare of the beauty standing there in the river staring at her. Oyan looked the man right in the eye and said, "Shut your mouth, idiot. You do the same as any young man and try to guide me with your eyes toward the bushes for what you think of as a little loving. Fucking me is not what I hold in my mind as loving. I have been there and all that it gives a girl is a swollen belly and more things which must be done and taken care of. To answer your question and I hope to silence you for a little while, I am a Mun woman – Munsi we are to you. I am a dead man's wife. Men came to steal our cattle. My man stood them off alone and they killed him in the dark." "You should have married a stronger man," a different man said. Oyan made no initial reply, though her lightning-quick motions went a long way toward getting their attention. Her assault rifle was off her shoulder and in her arms, cocked and with the safety off as she pointed it at the man's feet. Her eyes looked cold and shone with a deadly light. "Can your stupid mouth stop my bullet? My man was stronger than you for certain, ... boy," she said dismissively, "But bullets in the dark do not care, do they? Are you so strong that you can stop this death? No matter how fast you speak your empty thoughts, you will not even slow down the bullet which comes for you. I heard the same talk from the same brave sort of men where I lived. I will ask you the same thing that I asked them. Since you are so brave and strong, will you come and watch my herd in the night? If you are still alive and I still have my cattle after a week, I might let you fuck me then." There was no reply. She nodded as she stepped forward once more, "There is the true worth of your words. I did what everyone told me not to do. I sold some of my cattle. I bought this gun. Now, no one steals from me." Her words seemed to impress the young men in the wrong way and it pleased her to see it. She glared at the man who had suggested that she needed a stronger husband, "Without a husband anymore, I did what he tried to do for me, what you do not even have the stones to lie to me about." She jabbed her finger at her own breastbone for emphasis, "I hunted after dark that night! I found them discussing how to take more from me – who had done them nothing! I killed and I took my vengeance!" She looked up and saw that many women were listening to her. Their languages were not that far apart, so she said the next part a little slowly. "And do you know what three things that I learned from it all?" She held up a finger and pointed to the men around her, "In any tribe, the loudest warriors are most often not the best or the brightest ones. They are only the loudest." A second finger came up. "A man does not always speak truth – especially if he is drinking, but a rifle does not drink and a rifle never lies." "Lastly," She held up her weapon with one hand and gestured to it with the other, "There is not one part or thing on this which actually needs a man. From this, I have learned that I am the same as a rifle. If you hold that in your heart, then killing a man is an easy thing to do, if he has killed yours." She looked ahead and stepped into the water. "How deep is it between you and I, Mokonyi?" she asked the woman in the shallows. By now, she was close enough to see the reason for the impression of the long blonde hair earlier. Mokonyi's face and a little of her chest were painted in enough white streaks to appear to be covered. She wore a bright plastic interconnecting-style necklace. Many women all over this part of Africa wore these things, and hers was a bright mauve color. She also wore about twenty-five long and thin necklaces which suited being worn that way. They were all plastic too. But in painting herself and her friends, someone had come up with the idea of the white face and brought forth the long strands of saved packing material; long, uniformly thin strips of something akin to fake doeskin in a dull yellow color and hung it from Mokonyi's head as though it was a wig, though it was not much more than the suggestion of one. At the moment, she stood with a sleeping infant on her hip, the child's face painted in white streaks and characters. Mokonyi's eyes lifted and her glare continued, "It is up to your hip – unless you find the hole in the middle that is over your head. How do you know my name?" Oyan smiled as she stepped out, "Not hard to learn the name of the beauty who was the chief's wife while he lived. I am Oyan and I have come to meet you." "To meet me?" Mokonyi asked in a slightly suspicious tone as Oyan stepped up to stand with her. She was a little surprised at how tall the woman was, slightly taller than she stood. Her eye darted here and there and several things came to light. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 11 There was little scarification of the sort that many of the women in the whole area practiced. Also, Oyan's forehead, cheeks, nose and chin were painted thinly with a light brown on her dark skin, the lines left in it by the careful passage of fingernails to give the pattern. Mokonyi knew that this was not for the day, because the woman was from a different tribe. It was what would have been done anyway, something a little like makeup in a sense. Oyan was standing a little close, since where they stood didn't leave a lot of places to stand out of the stream. Oyan used the closeness to speak to Mokonyi quietly. Neither of them acknowledged the way that it felt to them to be this close and the sensation of one of their nipples in light contact with the breast of the other. Mokonyi wondered how far the woman had come. She smelled nothing of sweat on this one, but she did smell very warm and pleasant-smelling skin. It caused her to look down and she admired the difference in their skin, Oyan's being very much darker. She wore about ten loops of bright plastic beads around her left bicep and other than a thin wrap of cloth high up around her hips and between her legs, she was naked. The two women were dressed alike. It allowed Mokonyi to see that everywhere that she looked – or almost – the girl was carrying some serious muscle, though she wasn't actually heavy with it. She liked that for it said something about the woman to Mokonyi – that she was something of a kindred spirit – not afraid of work and even liking the way that it felt sometimes. She was built a little like that herself. "What for?" The question caused Oyan to look over a little questioningly and it also disturbed Mokonyi – though she's asked it. She'd almost forgotten why she'd asked it and now had to think for a moment, since Oyan's appearance had an effect on her. "I mean to say, why have you come to meet me?" Oyan reached across Mokonyi's front to remove a little bit of fluff which was adhered to the infant's face. The little one dozed with her forehead against the lighter woman's breast and she held the nipple in her mouth as she slept. Mokonyi watched as a soft smile appeared on the darker woman's face. "Such a beautiful little one you have," she smiled as she brought her hand back. "I saw you last year as I passed through. No one noticed me then and I did not mind it since I was grieving for my man. I think this one was in your belly and you had much the same look to your lovely face then. I think it was from knowing that you had a good-sized field to work and you had not learned that as who you were then, you could have just asked for aid. I think that came later." Mokonyi smiled thinly remembering, and she nodded at the infant, "Not my child. She is my sister's girl. I lost my unborn child the day after I lost my man. I wanted to die." There were only the soft sounds of the river between them for a time and Oyan stood with her hand lightly resting on Mokonyi's shoulder. Finally, she spoke again. "In the year since just before I saw you, we have both had our sadness to lose the one we loved so. I rose out of my sadness and I thought of you. So I have come to meet you and ask if you need help with your field. I would work for you for a share – less than one fourth if you work beside me; half if you do no work at all, and I would work all of it for nothing if we can grow a close friendship with each other in the quiet of the darkness." Mokonyi looked up, her eyes locking onto the dark ones before her. She'd learned a few things in her time as the chief's wife and one of the most important was the ability to be a little tactful. She knew that they were bargaining in some concealed way inside of their conversation. She didn't know this fine-looking woman at all, but it didn't change the fact that she'd obviously come a long way to meet with her. The fact that this was going on while they stood as though they were exchanging pleasantries while standing in a river changed nothing. When a man seeks a woman, no one much cares how many circles she makes him dance through. When two women bargain over anything, it is appreciated by them both and they can be much more direct in hidden ways where men just lay it out and speak plainly. She was trapped here, almost alone and unwanted, no matter how she looked. She was used goods, last year's news. If she'd never been married, men would have stood in a crowd before her to ask to help her with the planting. This woman was the only one to even ask her about her field. She thought this through for a moment and then she smiled very cautiously, not wanting to appear rude. "Oyan," she began quietly, "Forgive the way that I must seem to know little of the Munsi people and their ways. My man is dead. But that does not make me suddenly unattractive. The fighting to decide the new chief begins soon and – " Oyan nodded though she said nothing. She saw that Mokonyi was running down lists of possibilities in her mind and they seemed to disturb her slightly. As the lists began to run dry, Mokonyi looked up into Oyan's eyes again. Oyan smiled once more; a small, friendly smile as she almost whispered, "All of this is for unmarried girls. A girl who has made her choice and lost the one which she chose is suddenly invisible to all but those in her family – and that is very wrong to my eyes. It is what happened to me. I see many fine unmarried girls in your village," Oyan nodded, "Also; I have heard that the previous chief has returned by regaining his fighting trim. He is older, but with no young powerhouse before him such as the man which you lost, he will likely regain the position, and he already has a wife. You might come to the attention of an unmarried brother of your man, but I see little in the way of thought there. He told me that I needed a stronger man. My husband could have folded him up and hung him like a cloak from that tree, the same way that yours could quite easily from the look that I had of him when you were together. A better choice might be the stick-fighting matches with the neighboring village. You might find a champion there, but there is still the unmarried aspect. Sad to think that no one but a widow thinks of another widow. " She grinned as a thought came to her, "Perhaps I should fight for you to show them all that you are very desirable. I might have to kill a few fools, but you might see that I am serious then. I have come to offer myself to you Mokonyi, and if I must kill to show you that I mean the words which I speak, then I will." Mokonyi stared openly now. "You cannot fight in the matches. You are a woman. They will not allow it." Oyan only smiled then as she leaned a little closer to say, "Who are 'they'? 'They' told me that I could not sell my husband's cattle – though they were mine more than his. 'They' told me that a woman cannot avenge the death of her man. Even I have seen women with rifles before, yet 'they' told me that no trader would sell me a gun, because guns are not for women to use. Yet 'they' were as wrong about that as anything else. 'They' grow angry with me when I tell them what a woman sees as a simple truth – that 'they' are being stupid. The leadership of our tribes – yours, mine, and many others is settled in the same way that animals decide things about which male can mate and which cannot. Your man was very strong, Mokonyi, there is no doubt, but can you tell me as a woman that he made the best decisions as a chief? That he had wisdom?" Mokonyi wanted to answer yes of course, but she knew that it would not be the truth. A young man thinks like a young man, but he cannot see far down the road. She shook her head and looked up sadly, "He wanted to be chief – because he wanted to be chief. He did not think of what would happen after that. He did not like the job. He hated how everyone came to him with their troubles and yet no one liked his answers. He drank an awful lot then." "Are you tired of living here where there is little choice given to you?" Oyan asked. Mokonyi looked over with a smile, "Yes, Oyan. I can say that easily, but I do not think that I am ready to lie with you in the night just yet. I do not mean to offend. You are very beautiful to me, but I do not - " "Want to be held the way that a woman wants to be held?" Oyan interrupted, "Need to feel EXACTLY the way that a woman knows how to touch another one?" Oyan smiled warmly as she leaned a little closer to whisper, "Are you the only woman in the world who likes the way that a man fills her and then forgets her as he rolls over to snore in her ear?" Seeing no one in the direction that she was looking in over Mokonyi's shoulder, she drew her head back just a little to kiss the woman's ear very subtly and then she let her smile grow against Mokonyi's ear so that she could feel it, "I would never do such a thing to you. I see nothing but the beauty of a widow because I have the eyes to be able to see it as clearly as she can herself. Everyone here looks at Mokonyi and sees her beauty – and yet, no man will take her for his wife, other than as perhaps a second wife who must then fight the other one all day long to make her place in the home where she is not wanted. Imagine that one night; he takes you first over her. What would happen then? I know, Mokonyi. You would never be able to sleep in peace again. The other wife would spend every waking moment arranging for your murder. I see Mokonyi differently," she whispered, "I see the beauty which takes my breath from me every time that I look at you. It is something which I would never give up if only I might win it once." She chuckled quietly, "I can offer another choice. Forget the land and the planting. Come with me and watch as I sell the last of my cattle so that we both have some money. I have a friend – a man friend – who seeks to build his family in a different way. He offers a moving place to live most often, I would guess, and though he has the love of the woman that he has wanted for many years, he has told me that if we need a man – you and I – that he would help." Mokonyi tilted her head, "He said that he would help ... me? How does he know me?" Oyan grinned and spoke quietly, "I would love to tell you that it is because your beauty is so widely known – and it is almost that way, but he is very wise. He seeks widows to guard the ones that he loves when he cannot be there." She leaned closer, "Mokonyi, you may laugh if you like now, but the job earns pay besides and I can tell you that once you see my friend, the only laughter from you will be at your amazing fortune." Mokonyi was grinning now, plainly entertained but believing little, "What is the task? What is to be done?" Oyan shrugged, "You and I are to guard the rest. Sometimes we are to help my friend as he hunts for bad people. I have not seen it, but I know that when he hunts, it is final. There is no return from it. There is Abi, my friend, his woman, Evaine – and I have never met her. Abi is not completely a man and from what I have heard, Evaine is not completely a woman. There is another male – another who I have not met, and he is called Theuderic. He is as Evaine, not really human, I am told. He is her brother. Abi takes them both to his bed. Evaine is something that Abi says is an operator. As he explained it to me, she will stay with us all most of the time. She makes the way that we pass through the world go smoothly. She changes things as she is needed and she is a very powerful healer. What we are to do he said, is guard. He said that we are not to fear men at all, and that Evaine can help us to learn the ways of the world in the bigger places and not just the way that these foolish men say that it is." She reached behind herself and brought forward a rifle like her own with a collapsible stock, "This is yours as a gift from Abi if you accept the work." She guided the web sling past her own plastic jewellery and brought it up over her head so that she could hold it out. "I will teach you how to use it. I ask only for the chance at your friendship, though I hope that we might have more than that together." Mokonyi took the heavy weapon from Oyan and looked at it with a little awe. "This is a fine gift to one such as me," she said, "A thing such as this is something which a poor girl can never have as her own." She didn't say the rest of her thought; that no man, no matter who he was or how rich he might be would ever give her a weapon – and never one like this. "Yours now," Oyan laughed softly, "A thing which frees us both. I am happy to have the weight of it off my back and my neck feels happiness to be rid of the sling around my throat. Tell your sister goodbye and walk with me and so we may begin. I know that you do not know of these things – and I can say that I do not know fully yet either, but Mokonyi, I have been certain of how I feel for a year, and it is what I want with you. Only say that I might have my chance." "Well," Mokonyi laughed quietly, "I know that I like to look at you, and the way that you speak makes me have hope where I have not had any for so long. It cannot be a bad thing to try, can it?" Oyan shifted her rifle to her right hand and slid her left arm around Mokonyi's waist to hold her gently. "I do not think so. Come and guide us out of the stream here. I know the rest of the way to our new lives. We will have to walk more than a day to get there." As they walked out of the river onto the bank, Oyan laughed as they found themselves surrounded by young boys, ranging in age from maybe three to about ten or eleven years of age. All of them wore the elaborate and colorful body painting which had obviously been done for them by the women in their lives who loved them, mothers and aunts and grandmothers. They were all very proud of the way that they looked. Not one of them wore more than a thin thong of leather around their slim waists. What hung between their young legs showed none of the promise of what might be there one day, since they were only young boys after all. Oyan laughed and the sound caused Mokonyi to smile along. "I like boys at this age the most," she grinned, "They are so easy to fall in love with – even if they are not your own relatives. Their hearts are so pure and it shows in their smiles." Mokonyi nodded, "And the ones who are my relatives make me love them even more in my pride of them," she said as she kissed three of them goodbye and handed the infant to her sister. "They are still little boys and they are not shy to show it," Oyan chuckled as they walked out of the village a few minutes later, "You kissing a few of them goodbye caused them all to want our kisses. I do not even know them but I like the boys of your village. It is little wonder to me that they grow so large and strong when they are older." Mokonyi began to laugh and nod as they walked, "Well if you hold such nice thoughts of them in your mind Oyan, then perhaps it is best that you do not look down at yourself. They are still boys and that makes them mischievous at the heart of things." Oyan looked down and she threw her head back to laugh even more. She wore several bright streaks of the many shades of river mud used for the body painting on her skin, showing exactly where she'd been touched from her breasts to her navel and a little lower. Her mouth fell open in amazement and she spun on her heel to look back. The same boys stood waving at them with angelic expressions on their faces. She waved one last time and turned away. "How did they even DO that?" she asked, smiling. Mokonyi shrugged, "I do not know either. I only wish to know how they could do that and not leave a single mark of it on themselves." "They must have had some in their hands," Oyan said as she leaned back a little to look over, "They left you with a handprint or two on your bottom." Mokonyi nodded with a smiling sigh, "They left quite a few on yours as well. They only dared to leave a few on me because they know that I am very fast with a slap. They knew that you are a visitor and probably not as quick because of it." -------------------------- They walked until they reached Oyan's village by the evening and she was able to cobble together a meal for the two of them as she introduced Mokonyi to her family. Mokonyi was impressed with Oyan's brother and his attitude and view of things. "Your family loves you so much," she said, "and they accept anything that you say that you will do, your brother most of all. It is very good to see." Oyan laughed a little as they both saw the shy smile on the man's face, "That is because they know me. My brother would do anything for me just as I would and have for him since we were children. I was once like almost every other woman, doing what I was supposed to do for my family. Many people of all sorts just place a girl in the way that they think that everything is supposed to go. That is fine for most, Mokonyi, but it is not fine for me anymore. When I lost my husband, I lost the world - everything. It made me look at things. A girl is supposed to meet a boy that she likes and they marry and go on together. But things are not like that for my people and many others any longer. My husband died for nothing. He lost his life to thieves. I was still breathing and walking, but I lost everything as well. I was only still here; needing to eat the same as anyone else, having the same tasks which anyone does, cattle which needed my care and watchfulness, but in my heart, I was as dead as my man. Well you cannot live like that and I could see it clearly. I needed to change something. Mokonyi, I know that I am still good for a man to look at, but what can come to me from it? It was hard enough to find the man that I had. A lot of men are selfish, but he was not. How to find another like him? Everywhere that I looked, I saw no man even a little like the one that I loved. I wanted to cry but I had already done enough of it. I looked at my rifle, and after some thought, I changed myself," she said, pointing to her heart. "I saw that I need to be able to take care of myself alone. It is not the best way, but it is at the bottom of everything," she said. "A grown woman can take care of herself. After that, any person wishes and needs to be loved. I am no different. But the men that I see are not what I would want anymore. So I saw my choice as finding a man who would have me and needing to make do like that, or doing something different; finding another heart like mine and if it could be done, then I would see my good luck and take care of that heart for as long as I could." She fell silent then and Mokonyi said nothing. She was thinking. "So," she began, "you saw me, and then you heard that my husband was killed as well." She wiped her eyes for a moment and then she looked at Oyan, wondering what they might have and whether it was what she could make a life out of. "I make it sound cold and I do not mean it that way. I know what you wish for with me and it is not such a strange thought to me anymore. I come from a poor tribe of simple people," she said quietly as she looked down. "I have nothing if one lays the worth of my life against what many people have. I would give all that I have – everything and more - if I could change what happened on one day." Oyan said nothing. She only sat and watched the other woman's tears stream down for some minutes while trying to keep her own from trying to join in. After a time, Mokonyi looked up and tried to smile, "I think that we are both broken and that some of the broken parts will never heal, Oyan." She reached for Oyan's shoulder and after laying her hand there, she began to stroke the skin there very softly with her thumb. "But I finally see what is in your heart clearly. We are only partly broken inside, Oyan. I can tell that you like me, and I can say that I like you. You were only the first one to see that we can go on if we need and care for each other. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 11 Teach me what I must know about this gift that I hold, and I will try to live with someone who cares for me as I try to learn the way to care for her." Oyan couldn't reply. She could only nod through her own tears. A moment later, the two women sat holding on to each other as they wept quietly. Oyan's brother came out to them many minutes later, carrying half a dozen full magazines for the weapons. He set them down and smiled, "I do not know where your path will take you, sister. I only hope to see you alive again someday. Take these. I bought them for you and I hope that they keep Oyan and her friend safe." The two women slept near to each other that night in the hut where Oyan had lived with her husband when they'd been just starting out and didn't have enough to really live together on their own. That was where Oyan and Mokonyi bedded down for the night. But they didn't intend to sleep together. At least, it hadn't been their intent. Mokonyi wasn't quite certain if it was what she wanted beyond friendship, though she kept up a bit of slightly hopeful chatter and Oyan wouldn't have pushed it for anything, because she knew that no matter which way that this went, there was a fairly good chance that she'd at least have a friend to live with and they could hopefully care for each other in some regard. The thought of trying to begin something wasn't really what either of them wanted in that place, though they spoke in quiet whispers to each other and held hands in the darkness for a while waiting to fall asleep. After trying twice to get comfortable and not really meeting with much success, Oyan opened her eyes. Mokonyi was lying on her side facing her with a soft smile on her face, but she said nothing. When Oyan saw it, she raised her eyebrows quizzically and Mokonyi moved herself forward to place her arm over Oyan's shoulder. Oyan only looked, afraid to say anything as Mokonyi inched slowly closer until their breasts found their own gentle fit between them. "I am one who has always had the luck to be able to make a friend easily, so I have never put much on it." She smiled and sighed as she continued, "But I have never known one such as you, Oyan. Such things you say to me – wild and fanciful things to my ears – and then you take my hand and lead me away so that you can begin to make those things happen!" She pulled them even closer together then and she kissed Oyan's lips very softly for a moment. "I still do not really know if I am ready to lie with you in the night as a lover, but Oyan, I do know that I now wish to try to sleep against my friend who has made my life feel better in a single day only to walk beside her. Come," she smiled, "Hold me to at least begin. I want to kiss you." Oyan said nothing. She only placed her arms around Mokonyi's neck and kissed her for a few moments. But it changed between them in under a minute. Oyan groaned and sighed as Mokonyi's soft and gentle kisses just took her away. It was better than she'd ever hoped that it even might be. Mokonyi seemed to grow hungry somehow, and her kisses went everywhere, each one worth gold to someone such as Oyan. "Beauty," she gasped, trying for a little breath, "Oh, you sweet girl, where did you learn to kiss this way?" Mokonyi rose up to sit on her hip, looking down at Oyan and feeling herself being taken as well. Oyan had her own brand of beauty and here in this dark place, her ebony skin seemed to shine and almost glow for only her. "Is it important to you that you know this?" Mokonyi smiled, looking every bit as mischievous at the pack of young boys in her village earlier. Oyan nodded, "I have never felt kisses like yours in my life." "Have you ever done this with another girl?" Mokonyi asked, tilting her head a little coquettishly. Oyan only shook her head and felt a little ashamed for it for some reason. But Mokonyi wasn't having any of that and she made it clear as she leaned in to kiss Oyan again until she gasped once more, "They grow better each moment!" Mokonyi almost beamed with pride to have been able to please Oyan so well with only her kisses. "My sister and I are not from the village where you saw me," the lighter-skinned girl whispered, "we come from the next Surma village to the north along the same river. At the time, there were almost no men to be seen in the daytime. They all spent their nights guarding the cattle. My sister and I grew a little desperate for almost anyone's touch that summer and the heat at night only made our longing worse. It began as a light-hearted joke from me that with no men around, a girl's life was awful, and with no prospect of any good fucking in the near future, soon the women would be reduced to fucking each other. I didn't mean to say it in quite that way, but it was so hot that you would sweat only lying on a mat outside in the darkness since there was not even a hint of a night breeze, and I guess that the words just came out of me like that. We looked at each other for a long minute, I would say, and then my sister jumped up and pulled me to my feet with her. Before I could even ask, she held her fingers to my lips and told me to be still. We stood there together for long enough to be sure that no one had heard us and then she pulled me by my hand into her hut. Neither of us knew what we were doing or even what we could do, but it had gotten to a point where anything was better than aching for something which would never come to us that night, so we taught each other what felt good and we learned as well. She and I left a few weeks later to seek for men at the village where you first saw me. I learned from her, Oyan; how to kiss in the way that you seem to like. I learned that from her and much more. Kisses like the ones I give to you are not for any man. Men always like it their own way. I do not mind it if I am in the mood, but there is not any way to say the quiet things that are passed by quiet girl-kisses quite easily." She nodded, "This night, I am tired from all of the walking. I want to be here where I am with you. I want to taste your sweet kisses in the darkness. I hope that the next night, I will be a little more brave for you. I do not know everything, Oyan, but I want to be with you. I want to try with you," she smiled as she reached to place her hand over Oyan's breast. "I can already say that you kiss better than my sister. I love your kisses because you make them as much like my own as you can. Something like that means much to me. " Oyan smiled and nodded, also meaning her agreement that they just rest, but it didn't work out that way and it had little to do with intent on either one's part. Mokonyi was very passive as Oyan's soft kisses began in return, but she found to her slight amazement that those kisses roused her and she didn't really know how to handle the way that she began to feel. She kept asking herself if it was wrong and though she thought that she had an answer to it, she soon felt herself thinking about how good it was to only trade kisses with Oyan. What could be wrong in doing this? "What are you doing to me?" she asked, and it brought her Oyan's soft and quiet laughter. "I do not know, Mokonyi. I really do not know. But I know that I do not wish to stop now, do you?" Mokonyi chuckled in the darkness and Oyan felt her shake her head a little bit, "If you truly care for me, then please do not stop now." The kisses went on and before long; both women were a little amazed to find themselves even more out of breath, though they were happy. Mokonyi felt it as her friend moved to lie on her with her thigh up against her mound. "And now?" she asked, "What will you do to me now?" Oyan shrugged, "I still do not know, but I am hopeful to try something which might give you happiness if it works." She began to slowly rub herself against Mokonyi, who told her that it was good and to please not stop. Oyan said nothing in reply, hoping that her heart wouldn't burst with the feelings that she felt there in her chest. She lowered her head and began to kiss and suck at Mokonyi's breast and in minutes, Mokonyi held Oyan tightly and whimpered as she came. "Do not , ..." she gasped and groaned softly as she pulled Oyan's hips again and again very slowly, "do not stop even now, Oyan. I hold the finest ass in my hands now. I have been looking at it as much as I could all day and to feel it in my hands, ... ah, I love this with you." "Fine," the darker girl sighed in feigned exhaustion, "I will go on until you tell me that it is enough for the moment." She lifted her head a little higher and kissed Mokonyi very slowly, trying to be as wet about it as she could, and the result was their soft moans into each other's mouths for a long time until Oyan found her voice once more. "Then it will be your turn, sweet Mokonyi. I almost cannot wait to feel what you will do to me." "But, ..." Mokonyi whispered, "I do not know what to do, not really any more than I have done! Well, ... perhaps a little." "Oh, I don't care," Oyan chuckled, "I had no plan for what I did. I only thought of how good it feels to rub against something with that part of me. Why not try to roll me over and do the same thing, but try to rub against my leg at the same time?" She reached to hold Mokonyi's face, "This is so good for me, I do not think that there is anything that we could do wrong for each other." "Ohh, I must think of something for my Oyan," Mokonyi grumbled to herself before she pushed for a moment and rolled Oyan over. "We probably cannot do very much wrong," she giggled very quietly, "but give me a moment to find the right place and then try to move your hips against mine. I will rub my leg against you and also try to rub myself against your thigh. It sounds complicated, but ... my heart sings right now, Oyan. It feels so good not to feel dead anymore. Do you like my idea?" "A wonderful idea, and you can take as long as you need, now that you have named me as yours," Oyan smiled up as she reached for Mokonyi's bottom, "I love this with you too, Mokonyi. I hope that we never stop." "It is already my hope that we never even sleep apart," Mokonyi moaned into Oyan's ear. "It is not the same as with a man, but I do not care. It is even better in many ways." "And I will keep my promise to you," Oyan's whisper came to Mokonyi's ear as she dragged her lips there. "I am ashamed then," the lighter one sighed, "I have forgotten your promise to me, whatever it was. I only know that I feel so much for you even now, so I make my apology for forgetting." "Shh, sweet girl," Oyan sighed and Mokonyi swore that she heard the smile in Oyan's voice, "It was nothing so important. I promised not to snore in your ear, that was all." "You can snore if it is not too loud,"Mokonyi sighed back, "I cannot promise that it will not happen, but I have heard it said that I snore myself." Oyan lifted her head up to stare at Mokonyi, "Really?" Mokonyi didn't know how to respond, but she nodded a little guiltily, "Yes." She felt a little of Oyan's strength then as she felt the most pleasant and reassuring hug, "Then you must snore as softly as you can for me, Mokonyi. My husband was never loud, but he often snored softly in my ear. I loved to hear it if it was not loud. I always slept best when he did that. Try to do that for me if you can, and you will already have me building my love for you higher." There was a comforting almost-silence between them after that. By some unspoken agreement, they held each other while one's fingers toyed slowly and gently with the other's labia in a wonderful little exchange which went back and forth between them. Sighs and kisses were the measure and commodity traded between them in the darkness for a long while. "I must apologize to you this time," Oyan said very quietly, "I do not know everything about Abi, but I do know some things. I have wanted this with you for so long and, ... Well, Abi is one who can be bargained with, Mokonyi. He is very powerful and he can make things happen." Mokonyi placed her wet fingers against Oyan's lips and she licked them and Oyan's lips for a moment, "Shh, Oyan. I know what you would say. Only, ... only tell me if it happened." Oyan shook her head, "No, it did not happen. But I asked for it. I asked for his help to pull your heart to mine. But Abi is wise as well as strong and powerful. He told me that if it was really needed, then he could help, but he steered me away from the notion. He said that I should have faith in myself with you. He did not think that his help was needed. I am sorry." The last sentence sounded a little rough to Mokonyi's ears and so she rolled onto her side and she hugged Oyan tightly, shushing her before she could begin to cry out of her guilt. She pulled them closer together and she wrapped her leg over Oyan's hip to pull her as well. "My beautiful Oyan," she whispered, "the Surma have always been a very poor group of people. I have been as poor as the rest of my tribe for all of my life, yet I have always known that I have some beauty. Even as a little girl I knew this and I used it to charm anyone that I could. I learned from my ability. One thing that I learned from it was when it was the wrong thing to do and another thing was the knowledge that it was not working when it wasn't." Mokonyi ran her hand over Oyan's very short hair and she looked into that worried face in front of her in the darkness. After a moment, she kissed those sweet lips and smiled softly. "I knew that you had no help as you spoke to me by the river. I knew that your heart was singing it's own true song to me inside of your words. They might have sounded poorly in your own ears, but I knew it for what it was, my sweet friend, and it did not sound poorly to me at all. I have heard the song many times in my life when someone tries to tell me of their love for me in so many other words to hide the meaning. I also know the difference between wanting me for no real reason, wanting me for all of the wrong reasons, and wanting me because one wants to really love me. Mostly, I am unaffected by all of it – more so since my husband died. I was also someone who felt as though she was dead but walking. But I have never heard the truth in anyone's soft words to me as I heard it in the quiet talk of another woman as she wanted to show me a way out of my trap. I heard the words Oyan, just as I felt your nipple laid against mine so very carefully in your hidden way. That is a large part of why I am here. I heard your heart's song in the words, and that is why I finally chose to walk with my hand in the hand of another girl for once in my life. I knew at once that you do not lie." She kissed Oyan again for a moment as softly as she could and then she drew her head back a bit to smile. "Abi must be wise. He knew that you could hold my heart by only being yourself. He must also know that I would know it as soon as you opened your mouth if what I heard was not from the heart underneath these lovely tits." She stretched for a moment, groaning in pleasure as she tightened her own powerful grip on her new lover. "So I wish to hear no sad apology from you over what did not happen anyway. It is now my hope that you and I make a love between us which lasts. That is what I really want with you. I just did not have the way to say it to you until now." She smiled in a way which reminded Oyan of the impish little smiles on the faces of the young boys back at Mokonyi's village and Oyan's heart threatened to tear loose in her chest. "Hold me, Oyan. Hold me so that our breastbones touch together and we can feel our hearts beating. You have won your girl." She kissed Oyan as she felt the pull of her embrace and saw the hope in those eyes. "And I have won mine." Their embrace was slow to start, but it became almost desperate after a minute as two hearts found each other and gave themselves away in it. Oyan and Mokonyi held onto each other as though their lives depended on it and though neither of them noticed it right away and it was not desired, they each squeezed a few silent tears from their closed eyes. Just to know, ... just to hold on and feel this. It was worth everything. After a time, Mokonyi pulled back and looked down with a soft smile as she whispered, "I think that it is time to show you something else that I learned at my sister's hands. Well, ... not her hands, exactly." She sat up and leaned over Oyan. "See my eyes, Oyan. Watch them and I will show as much as I can." Oyan didn't understand what was meant, but she looked into Mokonyi's soft eyes as she eased herself back a little more and lowered her head to kiss and suckle the darkest nipples that she'd ever seen. Mokonyi had seen many, but few if any were this lovely shade to her eyes. Oyan seemed to need to stretch back and Mokonyi allowed it though she never stopped or even really changed her pace at all. Her wet kisses left saliva which ran down in the darkness and tickled Oyan in the sweetest way. Oyan watched everything and Mokonyi's eyes never left hers as she trailed her kisses all the long way down, over the hard, ridged abdomen and across the flat of her girl's belly until at last she paused and she still kept her eyes locked on Oyan's. Mokonyi laid more of her soft kisses on the sodden lips there between the long and shapely legs of her lover while Oyan writhed and moaned softly. She stopped then; still looking, still maintaining her lock. Oyan wondered what would happen next. She'd never had much hope to have anyone do what Mokonyi looked to be readying them both for and her heart was in her throat, wishing, wanting, and most of all needing. "So good to learn the taste of my woman," Mokonyi smiled very wetly as she gently took hold of Oyan's flanks and held them so that there was little movement possible, "At last, I come to what I have had in my mind for all of this day. I did not think that it would happen, Oyan." She nodded once and grinned, "But I really have wanted this so much." She lowered her head and licked softly, preparing to increase the pressure on Oyan's clitoris very soon, still watching, and then there was something of a moment to it for them both. When she felt the moment end, Mokonyi lowered her head further and ran her tongue in as deeply as she could. She almost lost sight of Oyan's face due to the angle, but by then it didn't matter much anyway. Oyan's eyes were closed and her hips were already off the mat as she reached for Mokonyi's head and groaned so very softly. --------------------------------------- In the morning, Oyan felt a wonderful warmth near her lower belly. It took her a moment to know that it was Mokonyi's breathing. She listened and began to smile. Her beautiful Mokonyi, the finest woman that she'd ever seen was snoring softly. Her smile grew wider in spite of herself and her attempts to keep it from growing into a grin. But it did anyway and she reached very carefully to softly caress Mokonyi's ear. As the snoring stopped, Oyan chuckled softly and Mokonyi asked. "Nothing, Mokonyi. I only laugh because you were supposed to snore in my ear, and you have missed by a little." Mokonyi shifted just a little very carefully and settled again after leaving a kiss on the inside of Oyan's thigh, "I will try to get closer tonight if I can. Tell me when you need to get up and make water." It happened a few minutes later and Mokonyi moved to let Oyan up. But once she was standing, Oyan didn't feel all that much urgency to it and she watched as Mokonyi stood up as well. There was no stopping the way that Oyan's heart swelled in her at that moment. She stepped in front of Mokonyi and kissed her good morning, but she didn't move after that. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 11 "Is something wrong?" Mokonyi asked and Oyan shook her head, but she still did not move. She glanced behind Mokonyi and saw her pack lying where she'd left it on a pile of clothing which had been set aside for the colder months. "Can you hold your water for a few minutes?" she asked. "I guess," Mokonyi nodded, wondering what was up and trying to listen for anything untoward from outside. All that she heard were the early morning birds chittering. Oyan smiled and she kissed Mokonyi again for a moment before she gently pushed back until Mokonyi was half-sitting on the pack and the clothing. She sank to her knees then and looked up, "I wish to learn the taste of my woman," she said, "And I promise to learn this as quickly as I can for her." Mokonyi wanted to say that it was alright and that it could wait, but she saw plainly that it couldn't and that Oyan wanted her now. Deciding that this was a tendency which she really liked about her girlfriend, Mokonyi made a silent promise to never refuse her if it was at all possible. She sighed and reached for her lover's head as Oyan began. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 12 This chapter brings some of the crew together. It also brings a lot of startling surprises to Oyan and Mokonyi. Abi has always had a suspicion that humans and a completely different sort of being might just be able to fall in together rather easily. Until a year ago, he'd never really tested his theory, and now he has a hope that he's correct out of a need for the outcome. He also has a hope that they all might work well together. No one in this chapter knows it yet, not even Abi, but there is a test coming and I give a hint of the beginnings of that happening many miles away. 0_o ***** Abi gazed out at the savannah land around them. Not even seven in the morning and the temperature was climbing so fast that you could almost watch it's rise by staring at a thermometer for only a little while and actually see the indicator move. It just took a little patience. He stepped into the area where Tozama and T'maz worked in response to their quiet call. "T'maz has something," Tozama said, "You should know." "Does it concern our new friends?" he asked, but the pair shook their heads. "Men fighting," Tozama replied, "Far from here but they move this way slowly." She accessed some stored images from a Russian intelligence satellite and showed him. Abi chuckled in pleased surprise, "How Tozama?" The hellion smiled to herself shyly as she worked at clarifying what was on-screen, "We have been here for a little while, my lord. I have seen what my brother watches in the sky and we spoke of it once we knew what they were. The signals are sent continuously and it is only a matter of a newer type of encryption. Four days of the time here with little to occupy me." She smiled at his pleased expression, "I have always liked puzzles." "These ones are losing," T'maz said, indicating one group with his cursor, "To me, it is the discovery of one side by the other and there was no time to prepare or leave. A long way away from here. These ones will likely all die long before they get to the border of the next land though they draw near it. They are on foot and are chased by others in vehicles. The land slows the pursuit and favors the runners. Also those ones cause damage, though I have not seen how it is done since this feed is not real time but only updates at intervals. It does not concern us, my lord. We only thought to tell you." Abi nodded as he looked at the image and waited for the next updated one. When he saw it, he smiled. He didn't know anything about the reasons or the players. To him, it was only overhead shots of another bush war. He concurred with the assessment of the technicians. It didn't concern them and one group would likely kill off the other at some point. But for all of that and losing as they were, the runners were making the chase costly. He normally wouldn't have the thoughts that he was suddenly entertaining, but for something that pretty Tozama had said. Four days had been boring sitting here waiting. He wondered what might happen if he sent the runners a little ... unlooked for help. As he thanked the pair and walked away, Abi remembered something from over a year before. It concerned a stowaway. ----- He hadn't been there in a long time, but he had the thought when he wanted to dispose of a troublesome spy who worked for him sometimes. The results were always fairly quick in coming back once he'd asked of the things that he'd wished to know, but for some stupid reason, that spy would also tell others of what he'd wanted if they asked. It was not the sort of thing that he desired and he mentioned it to the spy once, but it hadn't changed anything, so ... Rather than just kill the one, he decided to take him to a world where he'd be desperately busy with just the problems of remaining alive for a time. If he survived, he might have learned then to keep his mouth shut. Abi had made the drop-off but as he prepared to leave, he learned that something had crawled inside one of the forward gear wells. Normally, the retraction of the gear would have killed whatever was there, since there wasn't a lot of room to spare in the wells, but there was the possibility of damage, so he shut down again and went for a walk. That was how he came to meet the blood cat in the first place. They weren't numerous at all on that world, but they were there. He wasn't surprised that one had come sniffing around, but he was a little astounded that one would creep up to hide in the gear well since it was something a little out of their known behavior patterns. They'd looked at each other for a short time and then once Abi had determined the thought patterns in that skull and found sentient thoughts where he hadn't expected any, he just asked. After the strange introductions, Abi had pointed out that once they were up, the gear would be retracted and the cat would be killed. "Why did you do this?" he asked, "Is there a reason?" The cat took a little time to organize his thoughts and said that he had come originally to hide in the case that something like food presented itself. But after a little thought, he decided that he wanted to leave and that the large thing must go elsewhere in it's travels. He didn't know where, but it had to be better than where he was. "I am not as large as any others that I see," he said, "I have grown tired of always having to run and hide, or stalking my food and having others come to rob me of my meals. There is no possibility at all of mating. I have travelled all of my life searching and have given that hope up as a lost one. After that, I hoped only to live, but I come slowly to see that it can only end in my death, so ... I climbed up to hide and hope for something else." "How much bloodthirst do you have?" Abi asked, knowing that it was a very changeable quality from one individual to the next. "Not much, I would say, "the cat replied with a shrug. "I can live on either all blood, but it is as I have said; I do not get enough that way, so I have also learned to eat other things to get by." Abi nodded and thought about it for a moment. Blood cats were supreme stealth artists. They were vampiric, but it wasn't the same sort of vampirism that occurred elsewhere. Blood cats were living things; warm-blooded mammalians which had some demonic tendencies. They had the same thirst for blood as the vampire bat on Earth. It was just a warm liquid form of food to them and nothing more. They had the appearance of a very short-furred panther, though a little more lithe and gangly, tending more toward the cheetah. They were capable of quicker movements than the fastest alley cat in a fighting or hunting situation - far, far faster than any large hunting feline living on Earth. They could smell the blood of their prey across long distances, left no scent behind and could be very efficient predators, from what this one seemed to indicate. What showed their divergence from the felines of Earth at the present time was their need for blood and the two long teeth which hunting cats had lost eons ago on Earth. The other notable divergence was the presences of articulated digits in their paws and the presence of the dew claw a lot nearer to the rest so that it could act like a thumb. Those digits were proportionately shorter than they'd be on an ape, but it took them out of the range of regular felids and the trait had been evolved to interact with their world since they had the minds for it. "I can offer you a home, perhaps," Abi said, "but I would want service from you for it." The cat's eyes opened wide as he learned of the place and it's surroundings over the next moments. "There is game there to be hunted if you can manage your predations with a little thought. Also, there is a slight ... problem to me there that you might help with." Xhoso -for that was his name gave it some thought after learning just what the problem was. "Do you wish for me to kill that one?" He asked. "Perhaps," Abi nodded, "but it might go better to try to bring that one in so that I might see what can be done. I have little love or even use for one like that normally, but I might find uses if I put my mind to it. What is your answer?" ------ Magda was a little perplexed. As she roamed the hills and mountain valleys in search of sustenance, she slowly came to realize that it was looking like she had some competition in the area. Humans were sparse here and the going was a little tough to be able to scratch enough to get by as it was. Her only saving grace was that she could usually get enough for her by her ability to drain only a little from a host and leave them sleeping. They never remembered what had happened to them, but it was a little tiring to have to 'meet' someone for the first time as far as they knew over and over. She didn't mind that so much, but lately, she was finding her hosts to be a lot more cautious and wary. They knew that something was hunting them. They didn't know who or what it was, but as Magda found them, many wore bandages here or there, most often around their throats. When she asked about it, she got little more than worried looks and quick, nervous exits. "Wampyrshi," an old woman with no bandages yet said to her one evening. "You had better find a safe place after full dark, girl. Go home. Lock your door and your windows if you can and lock the room where you sleep." The crone looked around a little nervously, even though it was not long after sundown and not fully dark yet, "When I was a girl, my grandmother told me that a wampyr cannot enter unless he or she is invited. To do that, they use guile and cunning, often placing their victims under some hypnotising spell. From what I have heard hereabouts, the one doesn't ask anything. No one who has been bled knows anything of what happened. And worse," she said with her eyes wide in a little warning, "The one takes from the cattle also. Ohh, he must be a tricky one, for he never kills. He only feeds." The talk had been informative to Magda, but it had also raised her hunger to a palpable thing in her. As she'd stood listening with her head lowered to look at her bare feet as though frightened so that the woman wouldn't see the hunger in her slowly paling eyes, she remembered that this old girl lived alone in her little cottage. "I have no home anymore," she said in a quiet and trembling voice, "My father died a fortnight ago and I could not pay the landlord. He threw me out." She began to wring her hands in worry, "Where am I to go and hide?" The old woman grabbed her hand, "Come with me, girl. I would not want to see you harmed. You can stay with me in my home this night. It has been a long time since I had anyone to prattle at." As they walked, Magda thought about things. She'd been a vampire for over a century now. Her childhood had been a sad one, for she'd never been a pretty girl. Her family home had many things, though from her point of view, it had never held any love for her. What it had the most of was abuse for her. There had never been any shortage of that. Her metamorphosis had come in the form of the salvation that a handsome young man offered her one night. She'd run away from home not long before, determined that when her eighteenth birthday found her, she'd be on her own. When it did come, she'd been starving. That evening, she'd seen the man and made her offer for a little money to buy herself some food. He'd made a counter offer, laying out a bargain to her and spelling it out clearly after listening to her sad tale. It would require her gentle death at his hands, but she'd gain beauty from it and live forever. It wasn't until she'd risen as a vampire herself that she realized that he hadn't offered her even so much as his companionship afterwards. She was alone and never saw him again. Her appearance changed as was promised and she was a lot more comely then, but she'd remained short and much thinner now. Her appearance took on the form of a pretty waif - which helped in her ability to beguile the living easily most times. But the thinning had taken most of her bosom from her as well as most of the swell of her hips. Because of her life and that one night, Magda trusted no one. Unlike some of her kind, she didn't have a human keeper to look after her. She remained alone. The old woman took her to her home and began to work on an evening meal for them at once. That presented Magda with a problem. The very few times that she'd tried to eat normal food again had made her ill. Her stomach was rumbling it's need to her and the sounds just made the old crone work at feeding her sooner, knowing the way that hunger felt. Magda knew kindness when she saw it and she didn't want to harm her benefactor. What she really wished for was that she could just sit the kind-hearted old girl down and tell her. She was almost certain that with luck and a little love - if she played her cards right - she might gain someone who would take care of her, just as she'd protect the elderly woman for as long as she had left to live. Magda did her best, but the woman grew fearful and began to clutch at her own chest in response to the pain that she now felt from her weak and aged heart. At the same time, Magda was almost doubled over in agony from having a living human this close to her after not feeding for over a week. The woman fell down and Magda saw that she had only a little time left. She knelt beside the old woman and said, "You would have been kind to me; giving me your food and a place to sleep. I know this. I also feel how much you hurt right now. Please, I cannot make you better ... But I can ease your passing so that there is no pain. I must feed soon and you are dying. If it is because of me, then I am sorry." She leaned a little lower, using the power of her gaze to calm her victim, "Close your eyes, old mother. If there is a heaven, I am sure that your new cottage there will be a good one, with many sweet flowers growing all around for you to enjoy." ------ For perhaps the first time, Magda felt guilt over what she'd done. Not for taking the woman's life; that had been only her own need overlooked for too long out of circumstance. What bothered her was that she'd caused the heart attack with her attempt to speak her plain words as gently as she could when she'd asked to be allowed to stay. Even as she fed, she wept crimson tears for what she'd done. The one-room cottage was dark inside, the only light coming from the small fire in the hearth. The stew smelled good to Magda because of the memories that it brought forth. She'd have likely tried to eat a little of it, just to taste something like that once more, but her gut was full then. Also for the first time, Magda decided that the remains of her meal would not lie here looking as obscene as they did now. She searched a little and found a spade. Opening the door, she took up the spade and with a little care; she lifted the old body and carried it out into the vegetable garden. She laid the woman down as gently as she could and began to dig, her dark tears falling as she worked. ------ Xhoso saw it as he approached. He'd been thinking of the old woman over the last few nights, but more than her, he'd been thinking about the cow in the stable first. He stole over to get to the outbuilding as silently as death, keeping a watchful eye on the one digging as he went. ----- The place where Magda was digging was the softest-looking ground in the garden. She guessed that whatever little crop that small section had held, the elderly woman had harvested it and turned the ground to prepare it for something else. Magda's luck that this would go fairly quickly and it did, but just as she was finished covering the shallow grave over, she noticed a dark shape out near the small stable. Whatever it was, it moved silently and the single thin cow there remained sleeping. Magda stuck the spade into the earth so that it remained standing and she began to creep over. Xhoso knew it at once and pulled back from where he was just about to choose his spot and moment. He knew that whoever this was knew that he was there. That ruled out most of the others around here, he'd come to learn in the little while that he'd been here. Without a moon or a lantern, most people couldn't make out their own feet at night. He waited and watched her come in. It might have seemed a little funny to some; that long moment where they'd looked at each other in the darkness. Magda only stood there while Xhoso drew back to get to his feet. They stood looking at each other for over five minutes, neither one moving - with the cow sleeping deeply in between them. He raised one foreleg slowly and she stared as she watched his palm come up in an effort to get her to remain where she was. He stepped slowly toward her and she backed away just as carefully until they were outside, standing in the darkness there and looking at each other for a long time. He'd seen the humans hereabouts. After getting to know some of the demons who lived in the abbey, what he saw outside was a lot plainer, calmer, a little worried over keeping themselves fed and alive perhaps, and most certainly not as fearsome to look at. There had been a very few incidents as Xhoso had tried to make his way about in the abbey keep; a few demons a little too up on themselves. But that had been only a very few moments to him where he'd had to show the reasons why he ought to have been left alone. It had been an investment that he'd almost been able to predict and afterwards, the others had left him alone for the most part. What lived outside the walls was ... well, a little more like cattle to him in some respects, but overall, they were a lot more pleasant to look at certainly. He could regard them as a source of nourishment perhaps. But some of them ... Some of them were beautiful to him in some ways. Not one of them like this one. Not by a long, long road. He tried to speak to her in a way that he hoped would calm her and he watched her eyes widen in wonder. She tilted her head to listen, though she didn't understand a thing, other than the feeling. She whispered to him and he felt the soft sound of it in his breast and wondered for a moment just who was calming whom. He moved closer as she would allow in her caution. She watched as he opened his mouth, careful not to draw back his lips. He only let his lower jaw ease down slowly. To anyone who might have been watching, it might have been seen as a look of wonder on his feline face - and they would have been not far wrong. Magda saw it and opened her mouth as well. She was even more careful, allowing her fangs to extend fully, but doing her very best not to seem threatening in any way, since she'd sensed that they were trying to show something about themselves to each other. It ended in her small and very soft smile. He was the most beautiful creature that she'd ever seen and when he returned the smile ... He stood before her in a moment, only a foot or so away, his gaze fixed and narrowed down to the red tears from her pale eyes. He took a moment more to regard her and then he moved his head forward very slowly and once he was close enough to smell the blood on her breath, he whispered to her very softly and she closed her eyes, feeling it inside of her heart. He was very gentle about it and she held herself perfectly still as he licked her crimson tears away, taking great care as he licked lower down to take the drops which still hung from her chin. His face and tongue felt so warm to her. Magda reached up very slowly as it went on, feeling the roughness of his tongue, but only in a way that told her that it was there. The feeling of it was exquisite to her; so soft and caring, so gentle and loving in a very real sense to her. She touched the sides of his face and he groaned softly to feel her small fingers in his warm fur. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 12 When he drew back, Magda held on, but only a little and she kissed him. They found soft smiles for each other after that until Magda had a thought that he hadn't fed yet. She pointed to the stable behind him, trying to tell him to go and feed. Instead, Xhoso put his head on her shoulder and sniffed toward the cottage. She wondered about that for a moment, but then she just held him to her; her thin arms around his neck and her cheek against his. That short, not quite bristly fur felt so good to her hands. She led him after that with soft words for him as they walked to the old building together. He sniffed the stew and Magda understood then that he could live on other things besides only blood. She found a large bowl and ladled it out of the pot for him, setting the bowl onto the table after thinking that he was too large to eat comfortably from the level of the floor. She was wrong, but to Xhoso it felt like an honor that she was showing him. She cautioned him about it being hot and he understood the intent if not the words and he sat before her with what she had come to understand was his pleased smile. She found some bread and brought it to him as well and he watched as she tore large pieces off to dip into the stew and then offer to him. He could have taken the bread from her fingers once he understood her intent, but he knew somehow that she'd feed him and so he allowed it. By the time that the last of the bread was gone, he looked at her and then at the table. There was a spoon there and guessing it's purpose, he took it up and held it out to her. Magda wanted to shake her head, wanting him to see that she couldn't eat it. She began a pantomime of eating the stew and then retching. When she looked up, she saw his humor and so with a shrug, she tasted the stew, savoring the memory of eating such things back when they were just something that she could eat easily. She struggled with it, mindful that she now had a full belly of blood and not wanting to lose it, but at last, she took a bit of potato and an almost tiny piece of beef and worked it between the molars in her mouth which had gone unneeded for so long. She told herself that it was not poison; it was just something that her bloodthirst usually wouldn't allow her to eat. One small mouthful shouldn't cause catatonic shock after all. She thought back to times when she'd eaten things which she shouldn't have as a girl - and the time that a fly had flown straight into her open mouth and she'd swallowed in shock came to mind. She definitely hadn't liked that, but it hadn't killed her. She felt slightly nauseous, but it passed soon enough. Magda looked at him again as he ate the rest from the bowl. His body was something to behold. She'd always liked cats, not that she'd been allowed or have one as a child. This was the same - though very different at the same time. She didn't know how just yet, but Magda felt certain that they could communicate somehow. She just wondered at herself over the thoughts which came to her mind. There was a sense of power to him and also incredible warmth as well. She reached out and touched his fur, knowing that he knew that she was doing it, but allowing her this as he ate. He looked so ... sensual in a very real way somehow and ... and though he hadn't indicated it in any way other than what she took as his hopeful smile, Magda knew somehow that he liked her and there was the feeling of friendliness there for her. She didn't even want to think about the last time that she'd had a friend. Her hand ran over his shoulder and back and after a moment, she watched as her hand ran farther on to his lean and muscular flanks. It almost caused her to shiver as just the tips of her fingers grazed his furry scrotum. She'd never noticed cold for so long, but with the heat that she felt coming from his body, she now wanted to feel that so much. She looked down at herself and saw the blood on her dress. She only needed a moment to think about it and then it was over her head and off at the same time that she knelt down next to him. She felt better the instant that she threw it away. Looking at him, she wanted to feel that fur against her and so she waited for him to finish eating a moment later and when he looked at her, she saw his smile and pointed at the bed. Their options for communication were still limited, but she pointed toward herself and spoke her name to him until he understood that it was how she was called. When she pointed toward him and looked in a questioning way, he got it immediately and told her his name. When they smiled to each other, he watched as Magda walked to the bed and waited for him. This had been something that she'd never really had a chance at - other than when her male relatives had used her and the one night with the one who'd turned her, but she wanted it now. A hundred years alone, she thought. Why not? She hardly knew him, but what exactly was there to save herself for and she'd loved his kiss and ... well for the first time, she wanted to do this for herself and not to buy food or stave off a beating. She got into the bed and he managed to get in after her, as large as he was without stepping on her and Magda hung onto him tightly as they kissed. The feeling of his pawed hand when it ran over her body and found her almost nonexistent breast ... What he had was a bit of a mystery to her at first. It could be coaxed out of it's sheath easily enough, but once out in the open, Magda was at a bit of a loss. What stood out from him was of a good size, she guessed, and she liked that - and the sheer heat that she felt coming to her from it when she caressed it. But there were the little spines at the base of it, soft little bristles which she could move in a gentle way to make him groan in pleasure. She only hoped that they wouldn't hurt her if he decided to bury that bone in her as deep as he could make it go. He held still for her, not wanting anything to ruin this as Magda moved herself to where she approximated that she had to be and lifted her leg over him. She reached for that hot thing of his, blessing the fact that she now knew that he was a living thing and not like her. She worried over it a little when she looked at it from his point of view, but the room was warm and she'd been here a while, so she knew that she wasn't like ice to him. It felt so good in her hand and it was even better when she traced the tip of it along her furrow - so long unused, but now needing this more than anything. Oh, the incredible heat that she felt as it slipped inside of her. She was on her side but Magda moaned as the warmth radiated inside of her and she threw her head back feeling something like what she remembered as happiness. Xhoso did the very best thing that he could have then and kissed her throat. So warm .. so fucking almost hot that she felt like melting. Cold had never bothered her, it was true. But she now had a far better opinion of hot as a sensation. He moved only a little; fearful of hurting her in any way and not knowing if he was too long for her. It turned out that as felids go, blood cats were better endowed than their earthly counterparts by a good margin, but he was not too long for her like this. He held her a little tightly, and Magda didn't mind it a bit. She knew that it was only natural for any male of any kind to want to hold the female during coitus, especially at the end. She knew why too, but in his arms, she felt alive. The bristles reached her not long afterward and Magda came to know another thing about this male. She'd never really had very many partners where she hadn't been doing her best to try to forget the whole experience afterwards. This - with Xhoso - was amazing and every time that his soft little bristles hit her lips down there ... Magda cried out again and again. She wasn't coming, not just yet, but he was taking her there in no uncertain terms. She had a thought that maybe his kind were possessive of their females and then she had another thought right afterwards. She hoped with all of her heart that he was really as kind as he seemed and if so, she really wanted to be the female that he was possessive over if it meant a whole lot of this. She came hard - very hard, surprisingly so - for a girl who had never had something this nice in her before. When she'd finished calling out his name in her urgent need and settled down to allow him the blissful fuck that she felt, his bristles wouldn't allow it. They felt a little hurtful for a moment since she was sensitive now, but for what he'd done for her, she thought that she could handle it. But his efforts just took her away again a moment later and she was back to howling out his name once more. She guessed that she was more than halfway to her second release when his came and in that moment when he pressed forward, holding her tightly to be sure to pass his hot seed to her, those soft bristles - those heavenly little spines set in a ring around the base of his shaft ... Magda screamed in just a little pain and it drove her to a lot of joy. She tensed as he filled her, feeling what came to her in his quick, hot pulses. He hung on and ground those spines into her, spreading her even more until the darkness came to her mind. She didn't know how long she'd been lost in the dark, but when she regained consciousness, she found that he'd rolled her over onto her back and was still humping gently as he bent that large head over her to really worship her little breasts. Magda had no choice in it then. She held his head and sighed to him, telling him that he was wonderful. Xhoso didn't understand the words, but he stopped for a moment, knowing that something rather important and heartfelt had been said and he kissed her lips very softly and told her his version of the same thing before he looked down and nuzzled her nipples again. They talked for a time, neither one understanding more than the feeling of the words but that didn't really matter to them. Magda slid down and urged Xhoso to keep talking while she suckled him. She'd never really though about a male's balls until now but his were a little like elongated peaches, so warm and furry soft in her hands that she loved holding them as she listened and worked him, not knowing if she was doing it well for him until he filled her mouth with a soft groan. That was when Magda moved to get out of the bed. Xhoso wondered about it until he saw that she knelt before the side of the bed on the floor and he followed her. Magda shivered to feel his nose against her down there, but his tongue made it's appearance just after that and she was back to being in bliss as he eased down to the floor and licked her. She had a hope that he'd understand what she wanted and he wasn't long in making her wish a reality. She felt him enter her and this time, it was all pure power. He held her in a different way this time and she'd almost wanted to cry when she felt one of his strong arms reach around to hold her. With his head next to hers when he leaned down a little, she found herself in a place where she really wanted to be with him and she turned her head to kiss his cheek. Magda cried out so often that her vocal chords failed her utterly after a time. But he didn't stop banging her for a moment until that instant when she felt his arms tighten around her even more and those wonderful little nubs took her the rest of the way. This time had been for Xhoso, she told herself. She didn't know about the mating habits of his kind, but she had a thought that it must go something like this and Xhoso was very happy not to disappoint her either. As the sky began to lighten only a little - just enough to warn Magda that she had to make her way to the deserted barn where she slept under a couple of loose floorboards. Xhoso got up and led her to the door. She'd had a hope that she might take him to her barn, but he almost climbed the wall to pull a cloak from a hook there. He offered it to her and she put it on with a curious look. Out on the garden, he pointed down and then quickly drew a stick-figure of himself. Pointing to himself once, he then drew her as a stick-girl there on his back. As she wondered about it, he held up one thick, padded finger and pointed to Magda. He pointed to himself then and held up two fingers. After that, he put those two fingers into the dirt and drew a long double line. Magda got it and climbed up on him easily, though she was worried that he might not know that she couldn't bear sunlight on her skin for more than a few seconds. They were gone then, Xhoxo carrying her as though she weighed nothing and very quickly to a huge sort of castle. He stood before the gates and howled. To Magda's amazement, the gates drew apart and they walked inside. He took her into the first large building that she saw and moments later, they were before a large demon as Magda slid down from Xhoso's back to stand next to him nervously. ------ Abi remembered it well. Magda's eyes had gone huge when he'd begun to talk to her and ask her if she might learn to get by on less blood if it meant that she'd work for him with the male that she'd charmed so well. "I do not know if I have charmed him, "she said, "I only tried to please us both as I could." Abi smiled then and waved his hand. Pointing to Xhoso, he said only, "Tell her then, since I make it so, Tell her and then we must hurry to find her a place to rest out of the light of the day, for she cannot abide it." Xhoso turned to Magda and smiled shyly, but he did manage to tell her that he wanted her near him if she had no trouble with it. Magda agreed quickly with a laugh and told Abi that she would do her best. As the memory faded in Abi's mind, he made a mental note to wake them for an early meal in their dark cabin just as dusk was deepening. He had indeed found uses for them now and then and he'd already bought out Magda's bounty. It had cost him next to nothing, but as far as he was concerned, now that he'd learned everything about her life and seeing them together often, her sentence in 'hell' had already begun. She was living in her way with the blood cat who loved nothing more than to possess her. He knew who possessed the blood cat's heart just as the felid did. ------ Out in the grasslands. "I have done this now more than fifteen times," Mokonyi sighed as she worked to field-strip and re-assemble her rifle, laying the pieces down carefully on the clean cloth between her open legs, "Surely it is enough now, no? If nothing else, this gift to me must already know that I love it for the number of times that I have caressed every single part. If it were a man, my fingers would be sticky by now, though I like the scent of that better than this." "This is to teach your hands to do this in the dark and all alone," Oyan said, "This is not like the thing which we both carry, the little thing which gives us pleasure and also gives life. What you learn of now cannot give life. It can only take it. But in the doing of that, if it must be, it might keep two women alive to go on together. I know that it is hard to learn, so do it only this time and then I will tie a cloth over your beautiful eyes. Do it without seeing what your hands do only twice, and it is enough for one day." Mokonyi leaned over against Oyan with a smile which exaggerated her weary look, "Alright. I will do as you say, but this big spring is a monster to hold in place while I twist in the little plug." "Never forget about the spring and the plug or the rod behind it," Oyan nodded sagely as she set the blindfold over Mokonyi's face, "Because if your fingers slip then, that spring will throw that very important little plug and the rod very far away from you and we will spend the rest of the day on our knees searching for where they landed." As Mokonyi worked, Oyan looked around, feeling as though they were being watched. It took her some time to put it together, but after a while, she saw dark shapes sliding through the trees a good distance away from where they sat. Her mind automatically tried to connect those shapes to the ones which were known in her memory of the sorts of large predators which she'd known were here all of her life and she failed to make a connection utterly. Either her eyes were failing her or there was something out there which she'd never seen before. Mokonyi completed the first blindfolded run successfully, but Oyan stopped her from doing it again. "Make sure that you have tightened the plug Mokonyi, and then put the box with the bullets in. Pull back the handle and then set the safety as I showed you. I think that we should leave here." "What is wrong?" The other woman asked as she pulled off the blindfold and Oyan shook her head slowly while pointing behind herself subtly. "I do not know, but I have seen things far out from where we sit and they look to be watching us. I do not recognize even one of the shapes which I have seen." Mokonyi nodded and looked around a little herself, though not in an obvious way. After a minute, she nodded, "I see one at least, but I do not know what it is, other than it is large. But it is not a lion and hyenas are not really shaped like that either." What she was looking at moved then and she remarked that whatever it was, it didn't really move in exactly the way that she'd expected it to as well. They stood up slowly, grabbing their packs and they walked in the direction which Oyan knew would take them to where Abi told her to go. As they walked, one or the other would look back carefully now and then and what was seen was that they were being followed, but at a respectful distance and behind cover as much as was possible. When whatever was out there had to leave cover to cross open ground, they looked more like shadows made of dark liquid. Their pursuers never closed the gap at all and so the women never walked any faster, hoping that they wouldn't need to and seeking to conserve their strength, though they spoke to each other, discussing things and making a rough plan for later if they found that they had to make a stand. But it never happened. After a little over an hour, they crested a low rise and saw something large out there which shimmered thinly in a pale sort of way as though it was not really there. It was only as they drew near to it that they saw it really take shape, though they didn't know what it was, exactly. It turned out not to matter at all, because as they got within about fifty feet of the thing, it seemed to turn dark and solid to their eyes and two doors opened in the side, with Abi stepping out into the sunshine from the smaller one of them with a wide smile as he welcomed them. Mokonyi tried not to stare, but she'd never seen anyone like this before. "Well I like the sound of his voice," she whispered as they approached, "I have never seen a man who was quite that size." "He is the friend that I spoke of," Oyan replied with a smile, "I do not know exactly, but he is not really a man of any kind which I have seen. Wait until you hear him laugh. It is a sound like no other, and it makes me feel that nothing could be wrong when he is near." Abi stepped farther out and he bowed low to them, "Welcome, my riders. Wait only a moment for the other guards to arrive." "Other guards?" Mokonyi asked and Abi smiled wider and pointed to the shapes which were now trotting toward them at a pace which told the two women that if it had been their intent, then the pursuers could have overtaken them without effort. The creatures were even larger than they'd guessed and their four-footed strides were a little otherworldly to see as they came, looking as though the creatures could cover ground when they loped along at a relaxed pace which could eat miles or kilometers with ease. Oyan wondered how fast they could go if they had a need to abandon their loping and really run. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 12 "Of course," Abi laughed and Mokonyi felt herself smiling just from the sound, hearing that Oyan had been right. "I would not risk anything happening to you before you even got here, so I sent my houndish friends to watch over you and guide you if you became lost somehow." Oyan looked at the large things and shook her head, "Those are no hounds of any sort that I have ever seen, Abi." "I as well," Mokonyi said, hearing the beat of the heavy paws as they came nearer. "This is not where they come from," Abi said, "and they do not run here, unless I am here as well. But they are not uncommon in some places where I come from." Mokonyi wanted to ask just where it was that Abi had originated, but they found themselves in the midst of the group of six of the things the next instant as Abi continued. "It's probably a good thing that you and they were never close enough together for you to have seen their eyes. They were only looking for you to make certain that you were coming and not in any trouble. But it is said that this kind has a way with their eyes. The legend goes that they can immobilize what they chase with a look." He chuckled, "Of course, I have also heard the same thing said about human women having much the same ability, so perhaps it was they who might have been in danger. Once you come to know them as you work with them, you will find other things out about them to cause you to admire them as they help you. They cannot often be seen, unless they wish to be. They can run for days before they tire, and if they are close enough to know that their quarry is before them - miles away, really - they are relentless because they take the hunt personally. To have their love is to know the true meaning of the word, and to your enemies, they are lightning-quick death. Well, unless that is not what you wish, of course. So yes, they are not like hounds in many ways, for hounds are only pale imitations of these hopeful new friends of yours." Roughly, what they were looking at might be said to be related to dogs in a way, since their overall appearance seemed to suggest it, but there were details, little things and features which went a long way toward gainsaying the notion, such as, ... well, such as the height of their massive shoulders being only inches less that the those of a slightly small horse, taller than a zebra's by a good deal. The women stared as they saw the differences. For one thing, since neither of them could get past the obvious, all of them were far, far, larger than man-sized in length and for another, their heads looked to be, ... well, if one thought of a dog's head, and a huge one at that, the heads of these things looked a little wide and angular and also compressed vertically to a degree. Their rear feet looked something like a canine's in many respects other than size, but their front ones ... There were pads there and yet there also seemed to be fingers and claws and this plainly took them away from the notion of dogs of any sort. The creatures looked pleased and relaxed to be back where they belonged, though strangely not in the way that a dog might at returning to his or her master, and they didn't look to be weary in the least. They paced around for a few minutes to allow their breathing to return to whatever was normal for them and in the doing of that, the two women felt and heard the blasts of hot air which escaped the animals whenever they exhaled. There were other details however which manifested themselves clearly from the outset. They weren't like dogs in any way, since any dogs in that sort of situation would now try at least a time or two to sniff and smell the newcomers, as the women must have been to them. It didn't happen even once and there was none of the silly and slightly embarrassing way that a dog might have of trying to sniff a woman - especially one which wore as little as these two did. Other than a hot blast of breath against a calf or a thigh as one walked past a little near the humans, there was nothing like that whatsoever. Something else which caught the eye of the two women besides the overall size of the creatures - which still astounded them - was that three of them were obviously male and even as what they were, the bollocks of the animals were remarkable in their size and the way that they jiggled as they were held tightly against the bodies until after the cooling-down period seemed to have passed. After that, their sacs hung down more to where the women expected them to be held, and as that happened, the other detail of their maleness made itself evident with their thick sheaths also relaxing to hang a little more loosely. The females looked at first to be slightly smaller versions of the males, though after the first bit of confusion as the creatures passed by and around them, the women began to notice details there as well. All of these animals had fairly uniform fur over their bodies which was a rather short length of say, an inch and a half in the longest places. They all had manes, though there seemed to be differences between the sexes. On the males, that mane blended into almost a mantle which covered them over their shoulders and blended into the rest of the fur to disappear about the middle of the back and at the points where their forelimbs left their elbows. Other than that, there was longer hair over the head. The females had much less of this mantle, though it was there in the same place. It was only less pronounced. The chief difference was in the long and silky hair which grew from their heads. Mokonyi and Oyan thought that the feature was nice to see, though they said nothing of it to each other and they could both see that, though it was long, it was also a little matted to a degree. At first, the chests looked to be a little deeper proportionately, but depending on how the females stood or walked, the hint of a parting line from a little cleavage could be seen and Oyan quietly remarked to Mokonyi that she thought that she could just see that there were breasts there, though nothing hung down at all. The females were smaller and more slender overall, and there were thin waists and hips to be seen which caused the two humans to stand in a little awe of these females. It was not hard to see beauty in these animals, no matter which gender one happened to be looking at. One male looked to be larger and a little older, and there was a female who was a little like that as well. Mokonyi wondered if they were a pair or something like that, but their demeanor toward each other whenever they passed each other ruled that idea out in no uncertain terms for the female made no sound other than her breathing, but she curled her lips slightly every time to reveal her teeth for a moment as they passed each other. It became clear then that there was no affection from her toward that one male. After that, they noticed that none of the other five seemed to like that one male either, all of them stepping aside if they saw him approaching them. The four smaller ones appeared to be a bit younger and they looked to be a little nervous near the large male. The larger female plainly looked to feel nothing more toward him other than her loathing. The final detail caused both Oyan and Mokonyi to spin around in astonishment and that was when the large male stepped over to actually speak to Abi in low and gruff tones. At first, the women understood nothing which was said, but after a moment, what they heard was the animal reporting on where they'd found their charges and what had transpired since then. "They can speak!" Oyan exclaimed and it earned her a rather curious look from a couple of the creatures as though they wondered what was remarkable in it. Abi asked if it had appeared that the women were afraid in any way and the leader shook his head once and replied that no, they'd seen nothing more than preparedness and sensed no fear, other than a sense of caution once they knew that they were being paced. Abi's wide and pleased smile at them all said quite a bit. The really odd thing only came to the women over a little time and it seemed to be a thing which went against the more usual sense of caution that would have prevailed at meeting something so ... So slightly otherworldly in a sense. The more that the women looked, the more they found a want in themselves to like the creatures from staring at their dark but lustrous short coats and the now-obvious friendly and bemused intelligence there behind those yellow eyes. Only the leader kept his distance from them and they sensed little friendliness there, though there was no enmity either. Two of the animals separated themselves from the group and stepped over slowly, but with no appearance of any intended threat and they bowed their heads for a moment before they looked over in a rather friendly way. After a moment, it was clear that while the coal black one of them seemed to be a little shy, the other, lighter one made up for it with a slightly roguish manner and bearing. "We are Ushandi," he rogue said, "I cannot say more without my lord's consent, but that is the name for what we are. Our names are strange to your way of speaking, so the nearest that I think that we can come is to say that I am Kiriel and this is my brother, Noli." Noli bowed his head a second time and said, "We are to serve you when you are needed." The remark brought some curious looks from the two humans until Abi held up his hand and with a word, the four other creatures stepped into the other door, the pair of younger females looking back with what might have been a little bit of reluctance. The women stared for a moment at what stood there looking out at them. There was a different sort of creature there, large as well, and much more heavily built though not quite as long as the others, looking almost stocky in comparison to the Ushandi. To their eyes, it looked much more like a dog, though they'd never seen one like it. There was a smallish person sitting on the beast's shoulders with pale whitish skin and long black hair which covered her front. She was the size of perhaps an eleven year-old human girl, though when the breeze blew some of her hair, they saw her breasts. She was more naked that they were - and the young white man standing on the other side of the wide door was another surprise, though not a severe one. He looked at them curiously through a pair of aviator sunglasses, obviously sweating up a storm in the coveralls which he wore unzipped almost all of the way down in the heat to display the sheen of sweat covering his chest. The 'girl' smiled at them and waved in a shy, but friendly way, though the teeth that they saw didn't look human at all. She and the thing she sat on seemed to have been waiting for the rest of the Ushandi to step inside. Once that had happened, the women gaped as they saw two large creatures step to the doorway, a male and a female who had dark skin and looked very muscular - impossibly so for humans. There were horns on their heads and they stood on hooves. The pair looked at the women with interest for a moment and nodded once each before looking outward over the landscape. They made no sound as they stepped out, each cradling what looked to be a heavy machine gun as they walked off, looking watchful. The women stared as they saw tails and noted that the pair also wore nothing more on them but a belt of pouches. Oyan and Mokonyi stood staring, not having even a word to say as they watched. They looked at each other only once and would have laughed to see their open mouths, but they didn't. When the large ones reached the overhang of the trees, another pair of Ushandi - or so it seemed - glided back. This pair looked very different. There were minor differences in the features, but overall, it was their slightly greater size, heavier coats, different coloring and intent expressions which set them apart. They slipped right past the women with barely a sideward glance and bounded into the open door. The two women barely had time to recognize that one was female and the other was a male. The door began to close, but the way that the 'girl' looked to be trying hard to seem friendly caused Mokonyi to wave back briefly and as the door lowered shut, she heard a thin-sounding giggle. "What are - " "Some of my crew," Abi smiled, "I don't do everything alone. The large one inside is a hell hound. The smaller one who sat on him is an imp. She is to repair things, and she is one of his lovers. He has four for him; a pair of consorts and besides the imp there, there is another female and he tells me often that she and the imp are his wives. The others, they repair things also and are a pair between them. As we stand here, they now walk and keep watch. The young man you saw repairs anything mechanical with his partner and together, they are also what are called loadmasters when anything of size must be loaded or unloaded. There are a few others here with me, including another of them as human as you. You will meet them all in a little time. Since you have come to work with them here, I'm sure that you might make a few friends among them such as you have never had, though the hell hound stays mostly silent. We all should talk," Abi said as he gestured for them to step in though the doorway which he stood next to. "I should explain a few things," he smiled, "but first, I will bring you water for you have managed the last hour to travel quickly at the hottest time of the day. Come inside - out of the sun at least." They waited where he indicated, the four of them, and it felt a bit odd to the women to be speaking in a conversational way with the two creatures, but after a moment or two of awkwardness, they all relaxed a little before Abi returned. He handed Oyan and Mokonyi two chilled bottles each. "What I have in my mind is that each of my riders takes one Ushandi as her working partner. You have already learned that you can speak between you, so please if you would, remove the cap of one bottle so that our friends here may drink as well. They do not need you to hold the bottles for them. Only remove the top and hand it to them. Their hands are not suited for small tasks when they stand and the bottles will lose some water if one of them grasps one because the plastic is thin." Oyan looked at Kiriel, who looked back for a moment before she saw that Mokonyi already had the cap of Noli's bottle off and that she'd handed it to him. He sat holding the bottle carefully and drinking. Oyan got on with it then and she could swear that Kiriel smiled at her. "How is it that we can understand each other?" Oyan asked, "I noticed it when we met, Abi. You and I are from far apart in how we began, yet, ..." "Words and languages are nothing more than ways to send thoughts," Abi said, "I must tell you that I have many talents, and one of them is this way to make the thoughts pass more easily. As what you will be for me, you will soon find that your thoughts are all that are really needed to command or suggest where you need or would like the Ushadi who are to work with you to go. They also do not need to speak to you directly if, shall we say, one of them sees someone which you search for, but who is not in your sight. The Ushandi only needs to have the thought sent and you hear it in your mind. The whole group can work silently then." "How are we to work together?" Mokonyi asked, "They run so much faster that we can." Noli stood next to her and looked almost across into her eyes as they all heard his thoughts to them, "You may ride us," he said, "Hold us with your knees and we will never let you fall. You might also learn to use those sticks that you carry as you ride." Mokonyi was looking into his eyes as he spoke and she found herself liking him for his want to help. Something shifted for them both in the next instant and she reached around his thick neck to stroke him under one long ear because she really had no choice in it. There was no guile or spell at work here, it was just something which seemed to pull them together. Oyan saw it and looked at Kiriel. They were both lost in the same thing the next instant and she reached for Kiriel's neck just as Mokonyi had. "I see that you have all chosen," Abi smiled, "I did not know that it would happen, but I take it as a good sign. If none of you are especially hungry now, why not go back outside and spend time together?" It would have sounded like an absurd thing to suggest to perhaps anyone who was not at a kennel and thinking of buying a dog. To the four of them, it only made sense and they stepped outside and walked together for a while, lost in conversation and wanting to learn about each other. The odd thing was that the humans couldn't seem to take themselves very far from the Ushandi and it went both ways, with the large creatures seeming to want to lean against the women very carefully as they strolled. "We have not seen many of your kind of humans here," Kiriel remarked, "and we have never gotten this close to any, but you both are good to look at for us. I am very surprised." "I don't even care about the surprise," Noli laughed, "I just like to look at them." Oyan laughed that infectious laugh of hers and she grinned, "I am smitten right through. I have never seen such handsome ones as you are, both of you." "Please excuse me, I must make water," Mokonyi said after a moment, "I have had to go for so long while we were walking, but I did not dare then. The water has filled me past my limit, I think. I will come back, I only wish to find a place. There, under that tree looks good to me." She began to walk off in the direction of a copse of trees. "How is that done?" Kiriel asked, "We have seen Ushandi females do this, so is it done like that, then?" "I do not know," Mokonyi said as she looked around at the ground, "I guess that it would be. Why? Is it a special thing to you or something like that?" "No," Noli shrugged, "we are only curious." Mokonyi sighed, needing to go badly by then, "Well come and see, if you must know. It is too late for me to care much anymore." She squatted then and began. The others stayed where they were, Kiriel seeing that the act for human females was almost exactly the equivalent of what Ushandi females did. But Mokonyi looked up after a moment at Noli, who had moved to stand not very far from her and was looking off in another direction. "Please do not tell me that you are here because you like watching what you see," she said, "Why must you stand so close?" "I do not know, really," he said, "It has nothing to do with you making water. I - I wish to be near you," he said a little ashamedly. "Fine," she said with as little of the slight annoyance that she felt as possible, "But I may stand close to you when you do this, so that you know how silly I feel now." She was a little surprised to see him nod, though he didn't say anything. She was even more surprised when he moved over to a nearby tree and began to do the same thing. "Not fair, Noli," she said as she finished and stood up, making almost a point of it to step closer to him. He looked a little mortified, so she stood directly in front of him, almost face to face, since he was so large, "I understand, I think," she smiled a little, "though it makes no sense to me at all." Noli looked perplexed and a little helpless over it when he admitted that he couldn't understand it at all either and that the thought of staying near her at such a time - other than to assure himself of her safety seemed ludicrous and yet somehow important. "We feel that you are close to each other's hearts," Kiriel said, to move the topic away, "it makes me happy and I think that we can work together better for it." Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 12 The statement surprised Oyan and Mokonyi, and Kiriel immediately tried unsuccessfully to retract the remark, but Mokonyi only nodded and said the obvious. "Oyan and I try to love between us. It only began last night, but I feel so much for her so quickly and I am very happy today." Oyan nodded, "We need each other. Well, I already know that I need Mokonyi. She makes me feel so good only to be near her. But how did you come to see this?" "We can sense many things," Noli said, "As we watched when you walked here and even before, we knew this, all of the Ushandi. It is easy to see for us. You could not hide it from our eyes if you wanted to." He looked at Kiriel for a second, "We like it, since we are, ... " He faded out in embarrassment then, but Kiriel nodded to them, "My brother is shy to say it, but I am not, not to you. Noli and I are the same between us. We love each other. Where we come from, only the largest and strongest males can mate with a female. The males grow large and strong in our line, but we are all slow to finish it as we come into our own. My brother and I were the slowest of our brother and sisters to grow, though we near the end of it soon. We were the smallest when we were born and our brother got much more milk that we could ever get. Though we are princes there, it buys us nothing but hurt and pain if we try to find Ushandi females." "I do not understand that," Oyan said, "I can see that my friend sees you as I do. Such handsome males as we have never seen. I find myself thinking and wondering what it would be like to try to kiss you, you are that good to look at and talk with, neh, Mokonyi?" Mokonyi laughed a little and nodded, "It is another thing I cannot understand. I am with Oyan," she said to the others. "I love to kiss her, and yet,-" Mokonyi's eyes widened as Noli stole a lightning-fast kiss. As she was about to react and complain, she saw a shy and hopeful look returned to her and she wondered then over how it seemed to melt her a little more to him. In an instant, her indignation had vanished, just over the way that he looked at her. He reminded her of the young boys in her village, only older and very much larger, and yet, he carried the same slightly wistful look about him which made it very hard for her to maintain her gently-scolding demeanor. "You should not do that," she chided quietly, "Women - that is, females from anywhere here, seldom wish to be kissed like that. Most won't like it." "So it was not a good kiss for you?" Noli asked in a surprisingly sincere and slightly disappointed tone. "Oh, it was," Mokonyi nodded, seeming oblivious that she'd just been kissed by the large beast, "There was nothing wrong with it, though it was too fast to even really know much about, it is just that, ... " She looked down for a moment as she walked and then she looked up with that mischievous air about her. She looked at Noli, who was listening very closely, trying to learn what he might do better, "Just that what? I know that my mouth is too large for yours and that I have so many teeth. I wanted to kiss you, not fright - Mmmmph!" He felt his limbs weaken as he stood in blissful surprise while Mokonyi held his thick neck with her arms wrapped around it and her hands holding his great head as she pressed her lips against his and planted one of her best there. She pulled away after a moment with a soft laugh at his slightly dazed expression and she nodded, "THAT, Noli, ... That is the way to kiss a girl, when she is in the mood." He blinked as Kiriel grinned and Oyan chuckled. "What is a girl?" he asked. "A name for a female who is not old," Mokonyi smiled, "Mostly it is used when we are small, but we still use it after that. Oyan and I are women, but we still think of ourselves as girls even so, don't we, Oyan?" Oyan didn't reply right away, since she had chosen that moment to kiss Kiriel, who was even more surprised and dazed-looking afterwards. "Oh yes," she grinned a second later as she wiped her wet lips with the back of her hand, "it is so." "Are we even supposed to do that?" Mokonyi asked, "I mean, I loved kissing Noli. It took me to the same place as your kisses do, Oyan, but by a very different road somehow." She looked at Noli, "You will not grow sick from my kiss, will you? I would hate myself for it." Noli thought for a moment and he shook his head, "Lord Abidon gave us something to protect us from things here. If you feel anything at all, you might feel a little dizzy for a moment and then it will pass. That is what he told us." Kiriel nodded, "He said that any kind of life here which touched our ... well, our juices, I guess, would be unharmed, but that some might feel strange for a moment." "Well I feel strange now, Noli," Mokonyi laughed, "I feel like asking my large friend for a ride. And that is strange for me. My uncle had an ox who was so gentle and he gave all of the children in our village rides on him. But whenever it was my turn, I screamed and cried in terror. No one could make me get on." She giggled a little, "But now I want to ask you if I might learn to ride on you. I think that really, what I need to learn is that I will not fall. Can I try?" Noli nodded smiling, and Mokonyi was on his back in a flash, jumping up to squirm and wriggle up onto him because of the unfamiliarity of climbing onto a beast that large and laughing out loud as he began to walk with her so that she could get the feel of it. "Do I sit in the right place?" she asked him, and he looked back and nodded, "Yes, that is the perfect place if I go slowly. Hold me with your knees, and do not forget." Mokonyi was quiet for a little while and then she chuckled, "Oh, Noli. This is the perfect place. You are truly a prince for making me feel this good with your shoulders as you walk." "You should move back a little when I run so that you are not pounded too badly," he said. "Ha!" she laughed, "Maybe I like to be pounded. Try for me Noli, and we will see." Oyan stared as she stood with Kiriel while they watched. Noli tried a gentle run and the others laughed at Mokonyi's wide eyes. When he slowed and turned around, Mokonyi was a little breathless as she said, "Maybe a little too much pounding. I will need to get used to this. And I think that I see why you said to move back then." Oyan jumped and swung up onto Kiriel's back as though she'd been doing it forever. "I think my uncle had the same ox, but I was the one who had to be pulled off at the end." It was Mokonyi's turn with Noli to laugh as Kiriel slowed down from his run. Oyan nodded her agreement, but she was smiling as she rode up to them, "Too much pounding, but, ... " "But what?" Noli asked, "We will need to learn the best ways to carry you as we go. Say what you think Oyan, so that we might know a little better." Oyan grinned for a moment and failed as she tried to hide it. "Alright, if you carry me like that very often, ... well, I think I love you, Kiriel." ------- The four of them settled down after that and actually tried to work things out so that they could learn to work together. Oyan and Mokonyi found the way to ride slowly in only a few minutes. It wasn't like riding an ox or a donkey. There was a motion required of them. They figured that out in only minutes. To ride an Ushandi without the motion would leave them feeling worn-out and hurting in only a little time. Riding an Ushandi was not a passive thing. To do it best, they discovered that they had to work their bodies slightly with each stride or step that the creatures took. Neither of them knew it, but it was still somewhat like riding a horse in a way, though the motion required was much more pronounced and to an observer, it looked almost erotic if they were going slowly. They had to push forward with their hips. It took the harshness out of it and it allowed them to keep their upper bodies more still. The benefits became clear when they rode slowly over a ridge and saw a large herd of Thompson gazelles before them grazing in a little bowl-shaped valley. Kiriel stopped and looked for a moment. "Move back on me a little, so that I can carry you as I run and hold me tightly with your knees so that I know that I still have you. The tighter that you hold, the better I can turn and not fear to lose you." Oyan and Mokonyi took the advice in moments. "There are some of those large cats hunting them," Noli said quietly, lifting his left foreleg to point to a stand of tall grass where, after only a moment, they could see the pride of lions move to disperse and take up their positions for the sprint. "Should we only stand and watch?" Kiriel asked, "We do not know the way that things go here." "The game which we all see are called gazelles. They are very good to eat if they are skinned and cooked," Mokonyi whispered. "Then we eat well tonight and the cats can go hungry," Kiriel smiled, "Hang on." They rode down the slope a little slowly to get nearer, but at one point, it was all that the gazelles could stand, since they already knew about the lions. They bolted and the Ushandi shot forward. The ground and the scenery to the sides took on an almost-blurred look to the women, but they didn't fall off, and even better, they lost their fear of it completely. They passed the herd between them and the shocked lions and swung to come around. The gazelles tried to peel around as well, almost in panic at being overtaken so quickly and easily. Oyan's rifle barked first, followed by Mokonyi's. They hadn't really expected to actually hit anything, though they tried their best and aimed at gazelles who'd stopped short, almost in shock. Three of the animals fell and the Ushandi gave up the magical hold which they seemed to exert on the herd, which ran off as though their tails were on fire, over the rise and out of sight. "Did you do something to make them hesitate?" Oyan asked as they loped to where two of the gazelles had fallen. "No, not much, though we might have if they were harder to chase. A clear look into our eyes - even over some distance, can often make our prey stand and quail." There was a shout from where the third gazelle had fallen and they looked over. The lions were moving in to steal a kill. Noli's deep snarl changed their minds without a fight and the pride left almost as quickly as the gazelles. "What now?" Noli asked as he looked down at the weakly struggling animal. Mokonyi slid off and she drew her knife. "Now you stand and keep watch so that we are not surprised again. I will do the work here now." He watched as she quickly killed and began to butcher the gazelle before he looked around to heed her advice. His eye fell on Oyan, who was doing the same thing to one of the other kills. "What could come to try to steal from us now?" "Those cats are called lions," she said, "They hunt often, though mostly, they drive away others who have killed something to eat, and those animals must then go hungry. But there are other creatures here, hyenas, we call them. They hunt for themselves at night mostly, but they also hunt in the daytime. They are large and strong and very wild. If there are enough in their packs, then they will steal food from lions. It depends on numbers and hunger. Watch for hunched shoulders coming toward us in the grass. I am almost done here. Then we must go so that I can help Oyan, since she killed two." She sat for a moment and smiled up, "That is the first time that I have used my rifle. And I was able to get us food, Noli. I feel a little proud of myself for it." "I feel very proud of you then," he said as he swung his head back toward her, "We can hunt and feed us four, Kiriel and I, but it would not go as neatly as what I see you do here. My girl has killed so that we can eat," he smiled in a joking way and rubbed his chin against the top of her head as she worked. It made her laugh a little as she struggled for a moment to keep her balance and not fall over from it. Oyan was still working on the first carcass as Mokonyi rode up, "You are done already?" The gutted body lying draped across Noli's back in front of Mokonyi was all the answer which was needed. "Can I have a little of your help with it?" Mokonyi nodded as she slid from the Ushandi's back. She amazed Oyan by finishing the second one before Oyan was done with the first. "How can you do this so quickly?" "Well, I am hungry," Mokonyi smiled as she rubbed her bloody hands with some grass, "Also, I learned to hunt from my father. Doing this is the messy part of it, but it is still a part of hunting. Do you need help to finish?" "No," Oyan said, shaking her head, "I was a little lost to begin and I had a struggle, but I am done now." "The next time," Mokonyi nodded, "I will help you first so that I can show you the easiest way." ------ Abi was very surprised and pleased at what they brought. "That will go well in the meal which I was planning, but the most meat must go to the riders and their Ushandis for the skill and the work of it. I will prepare it for you and the rest can eat without this fine meat." "No," Mokonyi said, shaking her head, "Oyan can have my share so that there is more for our boys as they are larger and need more. But I wish for some to go as well to the others, so that they know that we are not greedy. We are all to work together, Abi. That means that in some ways, I, ... I think that we must be as a pack, no?" She looked at the others to see what they thought. The other three nodded, though Oyan protested that she would share whatever there was for her with Mokonyi, "I will not eat at all if Mokonyi gets nothing. These gazelles are not large. It is their breed to be this size. We only took three as we could. The meat should go to all as far as it might reach when shared." Abi nodded, glad to see that these four were thinking in this way. "The girls will be happy for something like this. They wish to be with you all. My problem is with the third male, Shanok. He begins to make me weary of him, for he is selfish and stupid with what he sees as his rightful due for nothing." He took the gazelles and laid them over his cutting table in the galley. "I will skin and prepare these the rest of the way. You four need to wash off the dust and the blood that you wear." He smiled in a slightly soft way and said, Take your, ... take your boys to your quarters. It is the last cabin down the hall before you get to the machine rooms. I have given you the largest room so that you can find the best way to sleep there. Also, that room has the largest shower. These two can do much to carry you and even keep you alive and unhurt. But they do not have things such as cascades and showers where they come from. The best that they can get are pools of cold water to bathe in, so something like a shower will not let them wash themselves very well." He sighed with a shrug, "This thing which we are in is made to move on land, in water, and in the air. Because of that, it cannot have large pools of water to spill and run everywhere. There are three cabins with wide showers where the Ushandi can go to wash themselves, but yours is the largest and the shower is wider. Help them by washing them and you will make them very happy with you." He chuckled as he looked at them all, "Though I can see that they are already there. Leave the rest of the meal to me." "Abi," Oyan said, remembering something, "You have said nothing of the other two. They looked like Ushandi to me also, thought they were different somehow. What of them?" Abi nodded, seeing that he had forgotten. He shook his head to himself, "I do you and them an unkindness by forgetting. They are ... special cases, you might say. The Ushandi are a little odd to humans if you were to study their culture, for that is what it is. It is a kingdom, but the people have a brutal tendency in them all - which they recognize in themselves - so as far as they can in many ways, they take it into account. They have a form of currency and many have occupations. All of it is laid over the framework of a powerful predator which is what they still are. They live in walled cities. The others which you saw are the reasons for those walls. You were correct. They are Ushandi also, but they are a kind which has only the barest culture other than hunting and killing. They live in the thick forest lands near the edges of the polar ice fields on their world. They are accustomed to surviving in either climate. Do not speak of them as Ushandis among the others here when the Arundi are present. The Ushandi have long rejected the connection. They are called Arundi and have taken the name to wear proudly. They excel at hunting, surpassing even their townfolk cousins in ability since the life of each one depends on it. Today, they were the vanguard in their search to find you and once you were found, they ranged out at the edges of both you and the others as another ring of protection. You saw the Ushandi, but I do not think that you had a clue about the Arundi. Those two have sad stories between them. They can speak but choose to very seldom. They know that they must live here with Ushandi and they feel no hatred for them. Still, it takes time for them to feel welcome. Most of the Ushandi here would welcome them and know that the Arundi must come to this themselves, but there is one Ushandi who always seeks in his foolish way to goad that pair, thinking that all of the Ushandi would join in. But he is wrong, as he is in many things, I see." "Then let them have a share," Oyan said, "It will be little more than a few scraps to ones like them, but I wish to say hello in my way." Mokonyi nodded her agreement and the Ushandi said that they wouldn't mind. "There will come a day when we will have to see more of the things that we share than our differences," Kiriel said, "Let today be the start of the beginning, is my hope." "Spoken like a true prince, "Noli grinned, "Though I fail to see where it came from, since I am your brother and have seen it seldom." They found their way to their cabin with no trouble, but they stared at the stainless steel shower stall for a moment. Four men could shower in there at once, if they were careful to share the nozzle. "I know, Oyan smiled, "it is this large so that one of us can be here washing one of them, if they need help at it." The Ushandis were a little embarrassed over it, but they got past it as each one had their turn. Kiriel stood out of the way, smiling as he watched Oyan shower, using the bar of soap which she saw. When she was done, she looked around and found large half-gallon plastic bottles on the floor against the wall, and with the cap off one of them, it took only a moment for her to see that it was to be used to wash her large friend, who stood the test as stoically as he could. "Oh, do not be that way," she smiled at him, "I will do my best to make you clean, Kiriel. I learned to trust you as you ran. Trust me now." He nodded with a shrug as she began. "It is not so bad," he said, "if this is the price which I must pay to be able to watch your body as I did. I really do enjoy it, you know." "Saucy boy," she smiled as she pulled his face toward her, "Stand still now while I wash your head. Close your eyes and do not open them even once until I tell you or this will sting your eyes." He groaned in pleasure and the shower room seemed to shake a little from the reverberations. "What was that?" Mokonyi asked through the door, "It shook the room in here." "Nothing," Oyan laughed, "it is the sound they make when they are pleased, I guess. I only wash his head, but I see that he likes it so." She worked her fingertips into the fur on his head and he did it again. As she worked and reached to be sure that she also cleaned his ears, she leaned forward and Kiriel felt her breast against his lips, so he began to nuzzle there very gently. Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 12 "You are such a sweet boy," she smiled in pleasure, "It feels very nice." He said nothing, worried over the taste of the soap until she rinsed his head for him. He looked up into her eyes as he continued and she smiled at him, "I have trouble with what I should be for you," she said softly, "Sometimes, I feel as though I ought to mother you a little, and yet, at other times ..." He raised his head, smiling, "We are of age, Noli and I," he said, "I know only that I like to be near you very much, Oyan." "And I like this with you," she smiled, "so let us have this time to be what we will be then." She began to work the suds into the rest of his coat and she was amazed at the amount of dirt which came out, so she guessed that there was truth to what Abi had said; that the Ushandi were at a bit of a loss in the shower. She hummed to herself as she knelt to wash his deep chest and his 'armpits' or whatever they were "Stand still and lift your tail for me," she scolded as Kiriel flinched, "I will do you no harm, but your little hole here will be clean, one way or the other, and if I must be a mother again for the task, then ..." "I will be still," he said quietly, "You said nothing before it and I was surprised." As she worked, it made her smile to herself to hear the soft way that he moaned. She leaned over his hips to ask and he admitted that he liked what she was doing. "I cannot do more with this soap. It will surely sting if I press in here now," she said as she reached to rinse the soap away, "and I wish to make it feel good for you." "You - you do this for me because I like it?" he asked and she nodded, looking up at him as she licked her fingers to wet them. "Of course. We are already friends enough for this, I hope. I must take care of you, Kiriel. So? Why can I not make you a little happier as I do it?" It was a bit of a moment for Oyan once she began. She stood with one arm and hand holding one of his flanks and the way that he stood rigidly still; quivering slightly as she slid her fingers in and out for a few minutes made her smile and feel a little proud to be able to do it for him. She wasn't sure what to do about his male parts a little later on, so she only washed them gently and she didn't spare the warm water for the rinse. She smiled to herself as she admired the way that it felt in her hands. He asked her about how dirty his scrotum was, since she needed so much time to clean it for him. It caused Oyan to laugh. "It was not very dirty from what I could tell, at least not any dirtier than the rest of you. I like the way that you smell now, and I will want to keep you this clean if I am able. I am only a dirty woman, Kiriel. I liked to hold what you have there. It feels so good in my hands, since I really need both hands to do it for you. I am a little glad that you cannot see when I do that. I must look stupid with a big grin from my fun." She reached to shut off the water. "Come, you are clean now. We need to get out so that Noli and Mokonyi can have enough warm water for their turn." But while Oyan worked to rub as much water out of Kiriel's coat as she could so that she might save a towel or two in drying him, Mokonyi and Noli were already beginning their turn. He sat on his haunches and she stood before him in his arms as they shared long and wet kisses. When she heard the water stop, Mokonyi pulled back a bit and smiled. "Try to make what I see there before my belly go down at least a little, Noli. We can play a little more in the water together, I hope. This here with you changes nothing for me about my girl Oyan, but I like this with you very much." "It changes nothing for me about Kiriel, either," he smiled, "but how are we to do this later, Mokonyi? Would it make you feel strange to see two males loving? If it does not happen tonight, then it will the next for certain and I wish to know." She shook her head with a smile. "I see nothing strange, Noli. What we do with our lovers is natural. It is my little hope to be able to watch our boys together. Something like that would make me happy to learn about and watch since I have never seen something like that. I will not care if you both watch Oyan and I. I think that it would even make me a little proud to let you see it." She smirked, "I will even work very hard to keep her so busy that she does not have the time to notice you as you watch." As the door opened a few minutes later and Oyan walked out with Kiriel, Mokonyi reached for her arm and leaned in close to whisper to her, "Oyan, I wish to say that I love you so much, but I must admit that I have been kissing Noli while you were gone. Is it alright? What are your thoughts? Have I done wrong?" Oyan chuckled, "My thoughts? Mokonyi, I know that I have your love. Will we still lie together when we sleep?" Mokonyi nodded emphatically, meaning it. Oyan smiled warmly, "Then kiss Noli all that you want, as long as I can have you in my arms to kiss later. My thoughts?" She blew past her lips and chuckled, "More joy for a pair of lucky girls, I think. Try to hurry with the washing. I do not know how much warm water that you might get. I tried to hurry for you, but I lost some time washing between his flanks. It is my guess that Noli likes that too." She left Mokonyi with a kiss on her cheek and walked away, chuckling, "And since you have started it, I will try for Kiriel's kisses too." ----- Mokonyi stopped washing herself and looked over at Noli's happy face for a moment, "What makes you smile so?" "The differences between us and how I love to see that body as you do anything," he grinned, "Stand still or move in any way, and I can look nowhere else. I love to look at Ushandi girls. This is the same to me." "I need to find a washing cloth," Mokonyi grumbled quietly. "I will put this soap on it and then I will push it into your ear far enough so that it comes out of the other one. I think that if I take one end in each hand and pull each way a few times, I can clean your mind in little time." He looked a little sad at the remark and it made her laugh and reach to hug him, "Do not mind it when I mumble to myself. I like your body just as much, Noli." She washed him as quickly as she could, mindful of what Oyan had said about the hot water, but she made a point of working slower when she came to the same things that Oyan had slowed over, though she was not as shy with it. She had him stand and slid under to sit and wash what hung beneath his hard belly, soaping it and keeping her hands slick until she worked it into hardening for her. She rinsed the soap off and sat for a moment to admire it. "Very nice, Noli," she grinned, "I find something else to fall in love with you over, not only the sweet pounding as I ride." Noli was surprised that she didn't declare the job done and let go. Instead, she spit on her hands and kept working it and he thrilled at the way that it felt. They'd said nothing of it, but Noli and Kiriel often used their hands to please each other. What Mokonyi was doing for him now felt so good, mostly because her hands were smaller and far more smooth against his sensitive skin. He moaned very softly, though he was trying to be silent. But he really couldn't be, not with something as nice as that going on. Mokonyi was a little lost in it as well. She'd never held something quite like this and it appealed to her in much the same slightly strange way as the rest of him did. She sat looking at it in her hands as they slid over it and kneaded it very gently. At last, she shook her head to clear it and she had to clear her throat to speak, very surprised at how she felt right then. Mokonyi's voice was rather quiet in the hissing of the shower, but she sounded rough and it came out of her as more of a lust-filled croak at that moment. "Am I doing well for you, Noli?" She felt it as his head came back and lowered to press against the side of hers. "Yes," he hissed softly in that deep and slightly gruff voice of his. Normally, it was a lot smoother, but she guessed that this was as much of a moment for him as it was for her. The way that he sounded to her caused her to take one of her hands away so that she could slide her bottom forward a little more and use it on herself as she leaned against the wall. "We cannot do this for much longer," she groaned to him softly, "I am afraid that soon we will have only cold water. I am sad over it, too. You make me feel so nice with you like this. I am trying to help myself with one hand. I hope that it is alright. I - I seem to need it right now." He groaned his agreement in a quiet way, and after thinking a moment, Mokonyi made her decision. Noli gasped as he felt her pull the end of him toward her face. She leaned her head against the lowest of his ribs and she opened her mouth to lick him. It felt so good to her and she needed only a moment after that. Their relationship changed a little more as she opened her mouth as wide as she could to take as much of him in as possible. The walls of the shower stall shook and trembled with his groan. Oyan laughed and Kiriel smiled. ------- Far forward of where they were, Abi grinned to himself as he finished washing the skinned meat and took up his cleaver to cut it up for the frying pan to braze it. As what he was, he knew what was going on back there and it pleased him. His Ushandi needed riders who could also offer leadership to them as a group. His riders needed honest and pure-hearted males to help their hearts mend better as they cared for them. The way that he knew the women could help with the inclusion of the young females made this whole thing perfect in the group which it would yield to him and he was happy for it. The thought crossed his mind that the males' semen would have an effect on the women and change them slightly, but mostly it would protect them, since it would also cause them to be a little more demonlike. That would give them the unconscious ability to shift away from the corporeal world to a degree if they were attacked in it. The net effect would be that they were in both worlds partially and almost invulnerable in this one. They hadn't known of him then, but he was nearby when they'd been grieving, each one. He remembered the nights when each of them wept bitterly over their fallen husbands and asked for death to take them away as an end to their suffering. That had been all the invitation that he'd needed. He had his reasons, but he also felt their pain. This way, they could be happy again. To his mind, it was better than the other side's response which wasn't even pity. It was nothing but silence. ------- Mokonyi hung on as best she could while Noli's shaft pumped his hot seed into her mouth. Every contraction from him caused him to groan again and he sounded like a water buffalo female in season. It made her groan herself, loving the heat of it as she swallowed and lost most of it, since there was so much from him. But she didn't choke and she didn't sputter and she felt a lot of quiet pride in herself as she swallowed again and again, wondering how much would come to her, loving the taste of him, and relishing the feel of what ran down from her breasts and over her belly. She'd never felt anything like this in her life. Mokonyi cherished her memories of her husband very dearly and she knew that she always would, but as virile as he'd been, the beast who stood over her could put him to shame somehow. And he hadn't even fucked her. Mokonyi moaned and bucked her hips the little bit that she could as she came too. What had pushed her over the edge was the feeling of his semen as it slid down over her. It found her hand and was worked into her by her fevered fingers because she hadn't seen it. It wasn't very hot by that point, but it was still warm enough for her to feel the difference and she instantly knew what it was. Her whole vulva tingled deliciously and she'd have cried out if her mouth hadn't been full right then. As it was, she could only moan loudly for him, needing him to know that she'd found some joy in this as well. When he was done, she took it away from her mouth, though she kept stroking him gently as she sat with her head leaning against him. She opened her eyes, feeling a little of the oddness which they'd spoken of, she guessed, though it wasn't bad and it passed quickly. She didn't even feel dizzy. She sat feeling happy as she watched the last drops ooze out. The very last drop seemed to hang there at the tip of him and before it could stretch itself to fall and escape, Mokonyi smirked a tiny bit and she licked it away with her sense of woman's pride. She moved back to get to her feet then and he looked at her very fondly. It made her feel even better to see that in his face and to hear it in his voice as he thanked her quietly. Mokonyi nodded with a soft smile, but she held up her palm, saying nothing for the moment. She was still worried over how much hot water might be left, so she soaped her hands and washed her face and front as quickly as she could before there was only cold water left to them. "This is wrong to me," she grumbled again, "to wash this from me as you watch. I would wear this for you, but we will be with the rest to eat soon, so it must come off." He said nothing, so she looked up at him and smiled, "You give so much, Noli. I would feel no shame to wear it if it was only us four. It shows that I am enough to please my large boy. That gives a girl some pride, you know." He smiled then, and it felt like sunshine to Mokonyi. "I think that it must have changed you in some way, Mokonyi. The way that you speak makes you sound like one of the females back where we come from. They are not shy to show if they have been mated back there." "Maybe it has," she smiled, "I have never felt this way about it before, but I do like it very much." They both felt it as the water began to cool, so she turned it off and stepped over to stand against him as he held her to him with one huge forearm. They stood like that for a short time while she kissed him as softly as she could. "My gift to you, Noli," she sighed as his kisses ran over her face and under her jaw, "I liked doing it for you very much too." -------- Many miles away, there was a small group of men who were thankful for the passing of the evening. They yearned for the full blackness of the oncoming night, knowing that it was their luck for there to be no moon tonight. It would make things a little more difficult for them, but it would also impede the ones who pursued them and had now for more than half a day. By this, Kobeh knew that this was serious - far more so than the remnants of his squad knew save only one. And he wouldn't tell the rest, fearing that it would cause them to give up and wait for capture. He knew what that would lead to in every single case, and the death at the end of it would come as a welcomed arrival by that time, likely days later. Zealots were all the same he thought - even the ones on his side, though thankfully, those ones had either been weeded out early on or been killed before now by their stupidity. What he'd enjoyed for at least a little while had been the command of professional soldiers like himself. But they were getting to the short strokes now. What he knew was that they were already across the border and out of South Sudan. This land which they ran for their lives across was already Ethiopia. He knew that there were some officers back there behind him. By now, somebody must have had a look at a map. Yet still they came on, grinding across the flatbush in their vehicles with at least one truck full of troops following behind. Kobeh wasn't even sure that it was only one truckload, though he hoped that it was. They'd killed at least three trucks with their rockets. Just another reason why they were being chased until they dropped. Kobeh had left the poverty of his village behind him years ago and after a time, he joined one of the loosely organized armies of freedom fighters. The way that he'd seen it at the time, South Sudan would one day seek for it's independence. He wasn't driven by nationalistic fervor like a lot of them were. He was just an aging soldier in a young man's game and he looked forward to the day when all of the bush wars were over with so that he might have a place to sleep other than wherever he was when it grew dark. He knew now that it had been a foolish hope. Independence had come to the new nation, but in all of the time since, there had only been infighting - though now it was an internal struggle by principals who had gathered armies of followers to their standards. If one believed the propaganda, his side was winning. The trouble was that they all said that. He only knew what his eyes told him. Out here, they were past losing what had begun as a skirmish that he wanted no part of. He now wanted to go home. Out here, all that was left of four platoons of battle-hardened veterans was six men, counting their sergeant, Kobeh. It had begun with a firefight and they were outnumbered more than two to one. Out here, far from contact with their own leaders and having had their radio shot up along with the man who had carried it, they were fucked. He'd tried to lead them to rougher ground, wanting to impede things. But every time that he and his men had scrambled over and through the rocks, when he'd looked back through his binoculars, the trucks had disgorged men who had to run after them while the vehicles ground their way around looking for a way across. He'd left a volunteer behind in a hiding spot armed with an RPG, but though they'd seen the smoke of something being hit afterward, they'd also heard the gunfire and the man had not returned to them. Kobeh just hoped that the sacrifice had bought them one less truckful of troops. He was down to himself, two corporals and three men. He had no doubt that by dawn; he'd have an even smaller command. Two of the men had the looks on their faces which spoke of their thoughts to run off by themselves. He'd seen that look before and those two had been wearing the expression for the past two hours now. The third man was a young trooper and he was tiring badly. The realist in Kobeh already had an inkling that he'd either run off as well or worse, believe what his own body was telling him, that it was at the end of it's ability. Kobeh knew that whenever a man felt like this, it was really only the last marker on the way to the last quarter of his reserves, but it wasn't the end; it was more like a low-fuel warning in a vehicle and little more. You just had to force them past that and they were good for a few more hours which was what he hoped was all that they'd need. His first corporal was the silent one. He was tougher than nails, but you never heard a boast out of him. He could do anything that Kobeh asked of him, other than stand up and make a speech. Kobeh was proud of Kamiq. He'd been only a thin and easily startled young man when he'd come to Kobeh, but he was far from that now, and he was the perfect soldier, though he was still hard to speak with, tending to drift down to silence unless he was actively engaged in a conversation. Everything that Kamiq was, he'd had to fight for. When he was a rail-thin recruit thrown into a pit full of lions, Kobeh had been forced to intercede several times because though Kamiq had been beaten, he refused to give up and take whatever stupid form of punishment his tormenters had decided to administer. He kept getting up, kept wiping the blood from his face and then wading right back into the fight which he'd caused by silently standing up for himself. Kobeh remembered having to pull Kamiq out of the brawl and stand him aside against a wall while he kicked the shit out the troublemakers a few times. Kamiq had said little, other than his quiet thanks, and his statement that he hadn't begun anything. Kobeh had nodded, knowing how it felt and he tried as he could to give the young man a few days of lighter duty while he healed up.