1 comments/ 11835 views/ 2 favorites The Black Cloud Ch. 01 By: MesterSkygge --- Introduction --- It ought to be every man's dream to share a small boat with a woman blessed the beauty and grace of a goddess, to be alone with her, to have both of us naked in the light of an early summer morning. It ought to send fire down my nerves and set my blood boiling to look at the slender, golden body of a young woman with large, firm breasts and smooth, sleek skin. It ought to make me lose all sense of time and place when those large, black, slanted eyes made connection with my own. But since this woman had tried to attack me thrice during the preceding night, when what her eyes showed was nothing but contempt and hate, then one can understand that I was not feeling neither amorous nor comfortable. Take into account that I had not eaten nor drunk anything since last afternoon, and that I was sweaty and tired from rowing the boat, and you have my current situation. === The woman was my prisoner. That is, she was not really a true woman at all. She was a siren, of a race of she-demons that used their sugary sweet curse-song to lure sailors to their death. Yesterday she and her flock of sirens had caused the death of the crew and passengers of the good ship Lady of Eastborne. They had been smashed to death against a reef along with the ship, or they had drowned, or the sirens had mated with them until they died from fatigue while under the spell of the curse-song. Only one man had survived, only one had been unaffected by the singing. Me. Ward of Deepwoods, passenger on my way from Eastborne to Gnarlstraits. I had recently been dubbed and made a Gray Knight. On my way to my first assignment, a post at the House of the Knights, I had been eager to see the world, to experience life outside the Academy. Right now I felt I had seen enough and experience enough, as I looked at the siren I had captured. I used my new, shining sword had cut off her long, black hair and so quell her powers of Wind. The now savaged head of the woman was only thing that marred her otherwise perfect appearance. Then I had forced her to travel with me in this, the only surviving lifeboat of the Lady of Eastborne. I tried not to focus on her beauty. I planned to bring her to justice for what she and the others had done. But right now it did not seem very likely. We had no food, no fresh water, and no direction to go. We would probably die out here on the calm ocean, and in her frustration she had tried to kill me during the night. But now, with the sun rising she merely looked at me with hate in her eyes. --- Rowing on the Sea of Seven Perils. --- I broke the prolonged eye contact with the siren and let my gaze wander all over the scene around me instead. It was ocean, ocean everywhere, no land, no ships, no anything in sight. The green sea with its yellow tints was strangely calm. Only a few lazy waves made the little boat rock gently from side to side. This part of the World Ocean was known as the dreaded Sea of Seven Perils, the one place in the East-West trading routes where the ships had to sail out of sight of the shore and so be at the complete mercy of the Sea. So far it had been disappointingly stingy with its infamous perils. There was neither much harsh Weather nor treacherous Reefs, just calm, green sea. There was the peril of the Siren, of course, but the one I had with me was not very strong and posed not immediate danger to me. I had proved immune, or almost immune, to their curse-song. Why, I did not know. So, in lack of other perils, we were in danger from dying of thirst. I would almost relish the appearance of a Wyrm, a peril that would at least entail dying with my boots on and a weapon in my hand. I looked down at my sword lying at the bottom of the boat. I had no boots do die with, the sword was the only possession I had left in the world, that and its scabbard and belt. I had lost everything. I was not sure why the Antlered One had put me in this plight after he had saved me from the sirens, but I knew now that I would not be able to take my post at the House in Gnarlstraits for a long, long time, yet. If ever. With a grunt I pulled at the oars. I was not sure why I kept rowing. There was nowhere to go, and I had no idea whether I held to a straight course or not, as I had never been to sea before. The only result was that I exhausted myself, and that I was very conscious of the drops of sweat I was producing by my labor. Sweating was my stubborn, stupid attempt to pretend that I did not care that the siren looked so divinely beautiful as she did, that I did not care to appear handsome to her. She was one of those responsible for the death of the crew and passengers of the Lady of Eastborne, she was my prisoner, and so she would damn well stand having me stink from my effort. The fact that my manhood would become as hard as a steel pole from time to time when I looked at her did not change that, no matter how embarrassing it felt. === I looked back at her where she sat in the aft seat of the small vessel. She was still staring angrily at me, using her hands to cover part of her nakedness. One hand was held over her breasts, the other hung between her legs. As my shaft began thickening and rising yet again, unbidden, I decided to try to speak to her. I could not hide my desire, so I thought to distract her from it instead. Thinking about it, I realized that we had been in this boat now for an entire night, and we had not exchanged a single word. I did not even know if she could speak at all! "My name is Ward, Ward of Deepwoods. What is your name?" I said in the tongue of Eastborne, my native language. She looked at me with the kind of disgust the prettiest girls will give the ugliest boys when they are stupid enough to ask them to dance. But it was clear from her scornful eyes that she had not understood me, it was just my attempt at communication that she spurned. "My name is Ward, Ward of Deepwoods. What is your name?" I said in Falconlandish. The city that took the name of the hunting bird was a powerful influence on lands on the shores of many seas. Once more the big, black eyes glinted with derision, and her full lips curled up in a dismissive snarl. But there was no sign of her catching the meaning my words, and I was beginning to run out of languages. As a Gray Knight I had been taught more than the art of warfare, but I was no scholar. "My name is Wa-" I began in yet another tongue. "You speak like the gull: loud, annoying, and pure gibberish," she said in Marine. Of course, that strange language of the sea. Sailors would speak it among themselves, in one of many various dialects spread across the entire World Ocean. But those dialects were only shadows of the true Marine language. Only the creatures of the sea, it was said, spoke it in its pure form. It was language of power, containing the raw forces of mighty storms and tidal waves and whirlpools, and I realized that the curse-song of the sirens must contain some secret words from this language, words that had driven the men of the Lady of Eastborne mad. "You look like a gull as well. Vacant eyes and open mouth," she added scornfully as I was thinking about this. My mouth was indeed open, I realized. Not just because I was surprised that she could speak, or even that she was intelligent enough to make scathing jokes at my expense. No, I was struck by the beauty of her voice. When the sirens had sung earlier, I had compared their song to that of honey poured on silk. That quality remained in her speaking voice as well. So when she spoke it was as if the loveliest Princess, the youngest, most beautiful daughter of some legendary King of the world, had opened her mouth. Even her derision had a touch of elegance and smoothness in it, and the sound of it made me want to pull her to me and make love to her. "You speak tongue call Marine?" I replied finally, haltingly. I had only learned a smattering of the language from sailors that would came ashore in Eastborne when I was a Squire there. "And you don't, evidently," she replied, and I think I caught a hint of a smirk on her face. I grunted, and pulled irritably at the oars. I was being outsmarted by my prisoner. She was half a head lower than me, at my mercy, and she was smirking at me! "Call me Ward," I tried again. "Call you what?" "What?" "Call me Ward. Call you-" She snorted, and yawned prettily. Even her dismissal was done with an otherworldly elegance. "Me Ward," I said, pointing at me. "You?" I pointed at her.. "Ah, I see," she gloated. "When you try to communicate at a level that befits your limited faculties, then I manage to understand you. Good, good. Your name is, I take it, Ward. I am a Sister of the Wind, and we do not need what you call names. We know who we are." She spoke rapidly, and I did not understand much of what she said. But that she was insulting me I gathered. "What you call!?" I replied threateningly. She sighed theatrically and spoke slowly, her mouth making exaggerated movements. "You Ward. Me no name. Me no call nothing." All right, so she had no name. "Me you call Siren," I said. "No, Sirens are what others call us. I am a Sister of the Wind." "Me Ward, you Siren". "Look," she sighed, passing her hand through her ravaged hair, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. "I. do. not. have. a. name." "Siren." "Now listen, Guano-for-brains, I told you I-" she began. I pulled the oars into the boat and slammed my fist down on the railing. "Me Ward, you Siren," I repeated loudly. "You nice or I this," I added, pointing at my sword-belt. I was fed up with being treated like some unthinking savage. "Yes...." she purred, "Look at the pretty thing. Very nice thing it is, indeed." === Luckily the siren, or should I say 'Siren', was very light, weighing just over half of what a normal woman her size ought to. If not, then the boat would certainly have capsized when she struggled against my hands as I pulled her towards me. It was a brief fight and soon she lay across my knees on her belly, her hands and legs flailing wildly, trying to kick and scratch me. I hefted a good grip on the sword-belt with my right fist and let the sword and scabbard drop back onto the bottom of the boat. It was a broad, heavy, black leather belt, and I lifted it high above my head. My father had used his belt on me when I was a boy, and my Instructors at the Academy at Eastborne had caned me for my misdemeanors when I was Squire, and I had never been on the giving end of punishments before. But now my hunger and thirst had made me irritable, and the siren's attitude was certainly not helping. "Eww!" she yelled when the belt hit her bottom, and she thrashed about, trying to break free, her big breasts bounding against the outside of my thigh. But my left hand was holding her firmly in place. "Eww! That hurt, you bastard," she yelled when the second blow came. I was putting some of my strength into this, but far from everything I had. Still, the leather made red marks where it hit her smooth skin. "Eww! Stop that, you creep!" "No! No! No!" "Eww! Stop, you sick idiot!" "Ouch! No more! No!" "Eww! Please, no more! Please..." I stopped the blows for a second, as emotion threatened to make me dizzy. For some strange reason giving her this punishment had made me, well, much, much harder than before. I actually enjoyed thrashing her! She could not have avoided noticing the head of my manhood pressed against the belly of her squirming body. "No speak, no move," I breathed. "Yes, yes!" she gasped. "Yes, I will- Eww!" "-" was all she said after the next blow, her body as limp as possible despite the pain. "Good," I said, putting down the belt and touching her red, sore bottom. The skin was still smooth, but felt very warm to the touch. I caressed it slowly, thoughtfully. Giving her this pain had given me pleasure, but mostly I had relished that she had obeyed me. Strange. When my lingering fingers were inadvertently drawn towards the sacred space between her thighs, I wrenched both them and my thoughts away from sex. Lifting the belt once again, I said in a commanding voice: "Me what?" "W-Ward," she replied, her body still, her head turned and her eyes on the hand holding the belt. "You what?" "Siren," she said, defeated. "Me gull?" This felt good! "No." "Me bastard?" "No." "Good. I teach, you learn now?" "Yes." I let her go. === We did not speak to each other again for the rest of the morning. I was back to rowing once more and Siren was kneeling before me, finding it too painful to sit on the seat with her thrashed buttocks. The look she gave me was not friendly, but now there was something else mingled with her anger. Not fear, but what could quite possibly be respect. The sun approached its zenith. Its heat beat on my brow and burned my naked flesh and drove my thirst to yet new heights, when she suddenly spoke once again. "Gull!" "Call me what!?" I said in anger, looking for where I had put the sword-belt. "No," she said quickly, though not fearfully. "No, Ward. There is a gull flying over there. Behind you." I turned my head. Yes, there was a black speck on the sky straight ahead. "And?" "Birds do not stray too far from land," she said patiently, as if to a child. Evidently I would need to use my belt again some time in the not too distant future. "Land?" I said, realization dawning. Smiling, I began rowing harder again. Land! We might even survive this misadventure! "That's right!" She smiled as well, the first smile I had ever seen on her face. "We are saved! And then you can go back to your people and me to mine. Of course, I need to wait until my hair grows out before I can glide on the Winds once more, thank you very much!, but if I must I must." "What?" "When we reach land," she said slowly, "you go one way, I go the other." "No." "No? Didn't you understand what I just sa-" "No. You are mine. I go way and you go same way." I really wished I spoke the language better, this baby talk was frustrating. "Why?" she said incredulously. "Why in the world would you want that?" "You kill men. You evil." Yes, that was it. She was an evil siren, not a goddess, and I had bring her to justice. Strange that I kept forgetting that. It was unforgivable for a Gray Knight to forget such a thing. "Kill men?" She furrowed her brows. "Oh, you mean the men from the ship? We did what we always do, we invite them to make love to us, and then we mate with them. And then, yes, their purpose is done. We lay them to rest in the sea." "You kill!" I shouted, getting angry thinking about the men who had died of exhaustion after the curse-song had made them make love beyond their strength. "Well yes, but..." she began, then fell silent as she thought about this for a moment. "Well, you see Ward..." Silence. Her face, her entire naked, kneeling body, seemed absorbed in considering the new line of thought that now had opened to her. "Isn't mating what men do?" she said at last. "Yes," I lied, virgin as I was, "and more. But no mate to die." "All the men I have ever seen, humans I mean, have come to mate and... to die?" He words came haltingly. "Can men mate and live? Like we do, we Sisters of the Wind? We sirens, I mean." "Yes." I answered, not knowing what to believe. Had Siren, who clearly was intelligent, not understood this simple fact? "Mate and live," she mumbled. Then she gingerly put out her hand to touch my flaccid member. "It is soft." I gasped ever so slightly as her slender fingers touched my manhood in several places, prodding it like a delicate bird. Oh, by all the Gods there are and will eve be! No woman had ever touched me like this before! Ever! Swallowing I kept on rowing the boat. "All the other Rods of Pleasure have always been hard. Oh!" she drew breath, "it's growing! Oh look! Now it is hard! Hard and very, very big." I blushed at the compliment, but her tone was not seductive in any way. She was still thinking hard. "What made it so hard, Ward?" "You." "But I am not singing? What do you mean?" As she spoke she let her fingers slide up and down the shaft, like a female minstrel would delicately strum her harp. Her obliviousness to that fact that she was making me burn with lust was just like pouring oil on the fire. "You," I groaned, closing my eyes, pulling at the oars. "You hand, you face, you speak, you all." "Me? But I am not singing as I said," she mumbled, tickling my balls. "What is it with me that makes it hard?" "Song is in you," I tried. "You are like song." "My body is like the song?" she wondered as she stroked the head of my manhood, drawing yet another growl from my lips. This was just like one of the unreal dreams of lust I had dreamed for years come true! A goddess was touching me, doing thing to me! "Yes! Body and mind! Eyes and speak and smile!" "And I can mate with you forever and you will not die?" She made a circle with her fingers and moved them up and down the shaft. "No..." I moaned. "Mate, rest. Mate, rest. Mate, rest. And eat, drink, sleep." "I see," she said, her hand closed around me, biting her lips. "That does make sense. I guess I just never thought about it like that. I never knew they did not have to die." She released my manhood and sat up straight, making her large, firm breasts protrude towards me, her big, black eyes looking at nothing. Then, slowly, the tears came. But when they came, they fell for what seemed like hours as she covered her face with her hands and sobbed. I could do nothing but row the boat, my manhood had thankfully gone limp again as she started crying. I rowed the boat towards the dark mass that I now could see as I turned my head. My tongue was getting swollen, and the dreadful thirst fought with sympathy for Siren for priority in my mind as we slowly approached land. My name was Ward of Deepwoods, and I was a Gray Knight. I was sworn to fight for good, show prudence, and amongst other things be gentle in all my dealings with the fair sex. Letting an innocent, I now understood, young woman like this fondle me and then destroy her with the realization of what she had been party to, was not in accordance with what I had been taught. Not to mention thrashing her with my belt... === "Siren," I said finally, as evening approached. She was still weeping, and I felt I had to snap her out of it. She looked up, blinking her eyes, seeing the shore only a mile or so away. There was anguish on her divine features. "No cry no more," I said. She nodded mutely. "You row," I said, pulling the oars into the boat. "I, I cannot row, Ward," she said. "You row or this," I pointed at the belt. "Move then," she said between clenched teeth, getting angry at my not-so-courteous behavior. When she sat down after we have laboriously switched places, trying not to show me that her buttocks were still smarting, she threw me dark looks and put the oars into the water. I felt like a true bastard, but my clever ruse had worked it seemed. Her mind was now set on being angry with me, instead being terrorized by the horrors of her past. After a few failed attempts, losing one oar at one time, she managed to find a decent rhythm, despite her not being very strong. "Why do I need to row when the current takes us towards land?" she asked, exasperated. "What?" I replied stupidly. "Current is water moving, Ward. The current brings us towards land. I have never known a current could be this strong," she said, taking gulps of air as she fought with the heavy oars. I couldn't recognize a current if I had been drowned in it, but I believe she was right. I seemed we were moving faster than what her largely ineffective strokes should account for. Looking up at the coast we were approaching I noticed a cloud hanging above it, the only cloud visible on the clear, blue sky. Something about this did not seem right at all, but I was too thirsty and too fascinated by Siren to think about that. The Black Cloud Ch. 01 "I teach, you learn," I said to her as she groaned under the strain of rowing, and her black eyes shot lighting at me. The she actually smiled, and nodded towards the belt. "This I will toss into the ocean soon enough, you brute!" With one hand trailing in the warm sea water, I leaned back on my seat with a self-satisfied grin. Then I slapped the inside of my thigh with the flat of my hand, making a loud noise. "Other I use hand!" "Your balls bounced when you did that," she giggled. "As did your Rod of Pleasure. It is small and limp!" I shrugged, trying to hide my embarrassment, looking over at land and what seemed to be crags and even some sort of vegetation. That meant water and food. It had to! And the ominous, dark cloud? Well, I would not mind some rain right now. "I like it when the Rod is big and hard. I have never met a man before unless he was hard. Is there no song in my body and mind anymore?" I decided to forget the shore for now as my blood started pumping. Our eyes met, and I could see that she was beginning to understand what I had meant when I said she had song in her. The big, black, soulful eyes had challenge in them, the challenge a woman will give a man when she likes him. "I knew it!" she laughed as she looked down between my legs. "I managed to make a song without singing! Hah!" === Two minutes later we had switched places again. I was rowing hard, and she was kneeling, her right hand encircling my manhood. She was much better at this that she was at rowing. Much, much better. "I learn, you row," she giggled, looking up at me with big, innocent eyes. I grunted and pulled hard at the oars. It was all right, I did not feel fooled. I had not intended for her to row much with her slender arms anyway. Already she had worked so hard her muscles would feel it bad tomorrow morning. Now, as I focused on the pleasure she gave me instead of my exhaustion, we would come ashore all the quicker. No woman had ever done anything like this to me before, and now it made me bitterly regret the strong discipline of the Academy that had kept me away from such pleasures for years. "This is almost as fun as mating," Siren laughed, the old veteran. "It pulses and twitches when I touch it. Like this!" I gasped in pleasure. Somehow being shipwrecked did not see so bad after all. "Yes! And what if I do... this?" "Aaah!" My toes curled in delight. "Let's see if I can count all the way to twenty. One. Two. Three..." I had never known it was possible for so light caresses to cause so much pleasure, much more pleasure than any fantasy ever had give me. She was barely touching me, her fingers and palms stroking my sack, my shaft, and my head. "Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight..." Now she increased the speed at which she touched me, but the fingers were still just as light. I could feel my orgasm building up. My heart hammered: A woman was going to make me come! This woman! This goddess of beauty and grace! "Nine. Ten. Eleven." Faster and faster went her hand. Harder and harder were the strokes of the oars. Now, now, now! "Tweeelve!" she squealed jubilantly, closing both hands around my shaft and jerking me to an orgasm so strong that it made me drop both oars and just arch my back and roar out in pleasure. I had thought to play it cool, to control myself like I was a man of experience, but instead I was swept away by a short, yet infinite, wave of ecstasy. Losing the oars didn't matter. Her funny, little joke, if joke it was, was to time my release to the exact moment when we would reach the shore. And just as I leaned back in pleasure I could hear and feel sand against the bottom of the boat. We were saved. Siren merely giggled and said in her honey-and-silk voice: "Can you get it back up again right now? I want to mate on the shore where there's space!" END OF CHAPTER 1 I was encourage to write this after some nice feedback for my story "My Siren". I have you have enjoyed this as well. I am still looking for an editor/beta reader, so if you are interested, please don't hesitate to contact me! The Black Cloud Ch. 02 --- Chapter 2: Attempted escape, and punishment --- I gasped air. Water. Fresh water! I plunged my head back into the blessed, muddy, warm liquid and just drank. I was alive, I would survive! Water! Finally I sat up and looked around me, laughing for the first time in what seemed like years, my full belly wobbling as I did so, dirty water flowing down my face. The little stream I was lying face down in was just two feet across, but it had been more than enough for me to drink to overflowing. The stream was running in a small sandy, stony ditch that led down to the sea. The color of the rock was a pleasant, light brown, and the landscape was dominated by wide flats with the occasional towering crag or low hill. The only vegetation to speak of were clusters of thorny bushes here and there, and some ancient olive trees spread across the flats, their asymmetric trunks and dark green and white-gray leaves only augmented the feeling of being in a quiet, desert land. The coast we had landed on was one long, inwardly curving beach of coarse sand, slighter lighter than the rest of the landscape. From the sea the ground sloped slowly upwards toward some higher, steeper hills. A small distance above those hills loomed the dark cloud, creating a shady region that covered most of the interior of the land, except for a belt of sunlight here at the shore, some hundred yards wide. I had a feeling we were on a an island created by a fiery volcano, such as I had read about. Only there was no mountain cone of impossible height, nor flames and molten rock being spat out. There was just the great, black cloud billowing outwards over the hills, dark and ominous. Was this a fire-peak just waiting to erupt? I shuddered. I did not like being trapped on an island like this. It was probably uninhabited as the Sea of Seven Perils were known for being largely unmapped, and mainly populated by monsters such as sirens. Not that it was any chance of me seeing her as some dreadful, evil monster ever again. Her heartfelt remorse at what she had been part of had touched me as, I had to admit, her skillful hands. I found myself thinking it would actually be pleasant to have her around me. She could help me explore the island and the mysterious cloud, find shelter, and, most importantly now, food. And maybe we could do what she had suggested. Make love. Oh Gods, yes! Make love with a true goddess. I turned around to face her, and found out she was not there. There was no sign of her anywhere on the open beach, and there were no tracks following mine to the little stream. I squinted. There was no-one over at the small boat, which was lying on the beach by the sea a little while away. Hadn't she come along to drink? She had got to be thirsty as well. That was at least what I had firmly thought, when she had made her little joke about mating as we had reached the island. I had all but ignored her, jumped out of the boat, scanned the area fervently, having eyes only for any sign of fresh water. When I had seen the ditch I had run over here as fast as I could, crying for her to follow me. Had someone taken her instead? === I walked back to the boat, eying the dark cloud suspiciously, and solved the mystery at once. Footprints, of small feet made by a light person, were leading in the opposite direction of where I had run to find water. The forefoot, I noticed, always having dug deeper into the sand and soil. Siren had run away from me. She had run in the direction the current was going. I could now clearly see the water flowing along the coast, the waves not obeying the light breeze at all. Demon-currents and sleeping volcanoes, what a place! I stood staring at the prints for a few minutes before I reached a decision. Siren ought to be let free to run. Clearly, in my eyes at least, she had absolved herself from her past misdeeds by her remorse. Also, I had no hold upon her. I had taken her from the islet that was her home and brought her on this hopeless journey, and she had repaid me by giving me the first, true sexual experience of my life. I ought to have done what any decent, true Gray Knight was honor-bound to do: Let her be free to run, shrug, and concentrate on my directing own life, seeking a way of the island and take up my post at the frontier town of Gnarlstraits. I didn't. I think it was the feeling that had consumed me as she lay across my knees and I thrashed her, that decided it for me. It was not just giving the physical pain, though seeing her squirm was exciting enough. No, it was how empowering it had been to bend her to my will. To force her to accept that my way was the only way. I wanted to feel that feeling again! I wanted to hunt her down and thrash her with my belt until she begged me to let her be a good, good girl! As in a fever I attached my sheathed sword to the belt and clasped it around my belly. Then I set off, following the tracks of the run-away Siren, my hunger for the moment forgotten, the black cloud just a wisp of smoke to me, my manhood pointing straight up - eager to catch up with the woman. === It was, in the end, all too easy. She had evidently no concept of how to hide from a pursuer, and she, a creature partly of the Element of Water, had stayed near the ocean. I would have hidden in the hills where the darkness of the looming cloud and the hard soil might have daunted the searching eyes of someone following me. But she left tracks all across the wet sand, her soaked feet creating beautiful footprints every time she passed over any of the few, low headlands along the way. So, it was merely a question of time. And since I was following a small woman who was not very strong, who was used to have the power of her magical hair to help propel her forwards, it did not take very long before I caught up with her. I had just climbed another headland to see yet one more beach when I noticed her now walking along on the sand, her left foot limping slightly. The sword-belt was chafing my naked skin, the sand and small stones slightly smarting and burning the soles of my feet, but I grinned and jumped down onto the sand, running towards her as fast as I could. She must have heard me, for she became startled and turned around to face me. To her credit she did not attempt to run anymore: She was smart enough to know when the game was up. "Listen Ward, I-" she began when I came closer, holding her hands up. "You!" I shouted. "Ward, I did not really mean-" "You bad!" "Don't take off your belt! Please!" "You, you run!" "Yes, I ran! I want to get back to my home, my people." There was anguish all over her lovely features, and her big, slanted eyes were full of fear. Fear of me. "I swear I won't sing to call me to me ever again! I know it was wrong, Ward, and-" "For run," I growled, shaking the sword-belt and cursing myself for not being better at speaking the language, "ten of this!" "Ten!? No, Ward, please! You hurt me with that damned belt!" "Hands on feet!" "W-What?" "Hands!" I went over to her, grabbed her right hand, "on!" and pushed her back forwards with the other, "feet!" making her bend over. "You want me to take it like this? Curse you, Ward! Curse you!" "You move, again," I said. My tone was aggressive, manly, dominant, but inside I felt a strange mixture of lust and triumph. I got to teach her once more! Yes! She would soon plead for mercy! "What do you mean?" "You move, I use this again. Then ten and one. You move again, ten and two." "Oh by the powers of Wind!" she groaned, her legs shaking a little as she stood in that uncomfortable position. "By power of me," I said tersely. Then I raised the belt and flailed her buttocks with it, putting my strength behind the blow. The leather made a wonderful cracking sound on her tight skin, and she yelped loudly in pain. But she did not break away from her stance. "Call one!" I ordered, high on lust and power. "What? What do you mean? Oh. One!" Slowly she counted out the strokes as I delivered them on her bottom, creating a sense of macabre rhythm. Crack! "Eww! Two!" Crack! "Eww! Three!" After number six, when a drop of blood was released, she did beg me for mercy. "You no call. Six again," I replied, and to her horror gave her the sixth stroke a second time. === When she finally cried out "T-Ten!" and was allowed to fall forwards onto the sand, weeping and gingerly touching her bloody buttocks, the euphoria of power drained away from me. What had I done? Had I damaged her permanently? Would she carry scars? Would she look at me with anything but hate from now on? I crouched down beside her and touched her shoulder. She savagely hit my hand away and growled. I persisted by stroking her roughly cut hair and in the end she allowed me that, too tired and anguished to fight. "I hate you Ward! I will kill you. You are evil!" she managed to say after a while. "You run," I mumbled bashfully. "Of course I ran! You captured me! You thrashed me! You did not want to mate me! What is it to you if I run?" "You no run. You are mine." I stood up. "What!? Yours? Like a pretty shell at the shore that you can take with you? Who decides that?" "Me." "Oh yes? With what authority do you do that?" "Me." "Hah! Show me your authority." I tossed the belt on the sand beside her face. She saw and smelled the blood on the leather, and her eyes become ever darker as she hissed up at me: "You filth!" "You run, I use belt. Me Aut...," I stumbled over the word. "Me authority. You run again?" I picked up the belt. "No, Ward. No, I will not run again," she sighed, closing her eyes. I sat down at her side again, struggling with how to express myself. I knew exactly what I felt, knew exactly what I wanted. "Siren. You are mine." "As long as you can catch me and hurt me, yes," she muttered. "If you no run, if you be good, no belt. I be good. If not, I use belt. You no like belt, so must you be good." "Yes, I can understand that, thank you!" "Good is... Do what I call." "You want me to do what you tell me?" "Yes, do what I tell. That is you be good." "Wonderful!" She slammed her fist into the sand. "Just great." "I be..." I fought for the right word, "I be captain. You be sailor. I tell, you do." "Yes, very nice. You are the master, I am the slave. Very well. Don't smile at me like that, Ward! You think this is funny?" "Me master, you slave," I said, savoring the words. I knew their meaning, and while the Gray Knights were vehemently opposed to slavery of any kind I could not help relishing the sound of the word. My slave. "Yes, I got that!" "Now I done teach, and you learn? You learn all now, be good now?" "Yes, master Ward. Oh dear. What a marvelous life there seems to be ahead of me!" "Mar-Marvelous?" I did not know the word. "I am being ironic, Ward. Irony. It's something that you idio- Argh! Never mind. I mean, I just think my life will be very bad from now on, with being a slave and given a taste of the belt whenever I step out of line and all." She wore a brave face, but misery shone through the cracks. I understood most of what she said. "No, no!" I interjected hastily. "No?" "Siren... Siren, I be good." "Yes, of course," she chortled, "I am all ready to believe that!" "No, I be good. Yes. You be good slave, you be... Smile. You smile." "Smile? I will be a happy slave?" her big, black eyes stared incredulously at me, her mouth wide open. "Yes!" I gave her a huge grin. She didn't reply, she certainly did not grin back. She just began weeping bitterly. As I sat there, patting her head, I realized that this would take time. Lots of time. I hoped she would be good, I really did. But I knew that while I had no wish to thrash my slave again, I would do it with zeal if I had to. === The sun was burning, the wind was hardly blowing, and I began to feel thirsty again as I sat beside Siren and comforted her with soothing noises and by stroking her short hair. She was so beautiful, so incredibly lovely. Slowly her crying abated, and finally she turned her head around, looking at me. "You do not seem evil, Ward," she said, her big, black eyes strangely penetrating. "I do not know what to make of you. Well, I do not know what to make of humans in general, and men in particular. The ones that we sang for never spoke, and were always ready to mate. Are you a typical man?" I did not understand all of what she said, and just nodded sagely to encourage her to like me. Or just not hate me as much. "Then I just hope it will be more mating than thrashing in store for me when I meet your people. You think so, Ward?" Again I nodded. Rather mate that thrash yes, very good. "I hope the other men I will make love to will look like you!" "What?" I said, finally realizing what she meant. "No, no!" "What did I say?" she said hastily, pulling away and grimacing in pain. Her butt really had to hurt. "Mate other men? No! No! Mate me only!" "Huh? What do you mean? I'm sorry. I can't mate with other men? We were always sharing the men between us when-" "No!" I felt my face redden, and I was suddenly furious. She was mine! "Mate me only! If mate others, hundred with belt! Hundred and hundred and hundred!" She looked at me with an open mouth, her black, slanted eyes expressing confusion and fear mixed up. Then, slowly, I could see how she realized what was going inside my mind. Her eyes glinted mischievously and her mouth turned into a dazzling smile. "Of course..." she giggled. "I am your possession!" "Posse-what?" "I am your thing." I nodded, my breath quickening. "I... I am Ward's thing," she said and actually looked embarrassed, but then her sly expression returned. "If you stop thrashing me, then I will mate you. If not then, well..." "If no mate, many belt," I replied, not knowing if that was a threat I was prepared to go through with. Her smile disappeared, and she looked down on the sand. She truly seemed a goddess where she lay, her golden skin glowing in the sun, her supernaturally female curves so close to me, so close... "Ward. I will make love to you, in fact I want to touch you right now! And I will stay with you and talk more with you, even though you are a barbarian and cannot speak many words. Most of the time you seem like a good man, and I understand that you were angry at me for what I and the sisters, I mean us sirens, did to the men. And I know that my tongue is sharp at times, my sisters agreed with you there. But I promise I will be nice. But, Ward... Please, Ward. Please no more belt?" I considered this for a minute as I studied her black eyes and perfect face, the pleading look she gave me. Yes, I wanted to feel her touching me again, and I wanted to get to know her and be friends with her. But, she was mine! She was my slave. Oh by the Antlered One and all other Gods, she was my slave! "If good, no belt," I said slowly. "If bad, then belt. I master, you slave." She nodded, looked away, and sighed. "Then I guess I can't promise you anything. But, Ward, I need to touch you." "N-Need?" I squealed. "Of course. I have always mated men, that is what I do. When I am with you, I always think about making love." The look she gave me was dead earnest, in fact she looked a little desperate. "When you captured me I wanted to make love, in the boat I wanted to make love, and now I want to make love. Even when you are being mean to me. You look so good, and you are a man, and well, I just need to." I was unable to do anything but mumble dumbly. She was a siren, not a human woman. Did that mean she wanted sex all the time? "Please, come here, Ward?" she said and patted the sand in front of her head. "I cannot move, because for some reason my buttocks hurt," she added with a touch of venom in her voice, "as if some monster had mistreated me." "..." I begun, feeling my manhood swell. I wanted to be touched, but I also had to consider our desperate situation. "Siren. Where we are? I no know. Why is current?" I made a movement with my hands to indicate the water's unusual behavior. "What this?" I pointed at the looming, always swelling dark cloud. "And... Me hungry, me thirsty. You want eat? Drink?" She shook her head slowly, averting her eyes from me. Oh no! Did she take this as another snub? "You no drink boat, you no drink here? You want drink?" I certainly knew I needed something soon after my run to catch up with her. "I drank just a few days ago, and had some food as well. I don't need anything, except to touch you," she said calmly. "But I agree that I do not like the look of this place. Somehow it does not feel right, Ward. That strange cloud should not be up there, and the current is all wrong." I nodded. She had last drunk a few days ago? A few days? If so, then sirens were strange creatures indeed. "Come. We see," I grunted. "You walk?" "No," she smiled serenely. "Someone decided to thrash me until I cried. I cannot even move from pain! Still, my master knows best. Of course, he cannot even speak properly, but he know best. He will have to carry me, but he surely, surely knows best." I laughed. I put my chin to the hot sand and laughed like a madman. She called me master, even if she was mocking me, and she was joking. I laughed as I began to fall in love. === Finally I mastered myself and gingerly picked her up in my arms, making her sob in anguish in the process. Soon she was hanging on my lower arms, buttocks up, and I tried to walk as steadily as I could. Thank the Antlered One that she was so light! I continued walking in the direction she had been fleeing, following the strong current. It was time to get to the bottom of, or rather around, this island. We could never leave it if the current would always be pulling us back. "What is this thing?" Despite having to be carried and having her skin pulled at now and then it seemed as if Siren was in a very cheerful mood. She was lifting and looking at my leather sheath, in which I kept my weapon. "Sword," I replied. That it had been forged by the Master Smith at the Academy especially for me, given to me at my dubbing, and that I was expected keep it with me at all times was too hard for me to express with my poor grasp at Marine. "It is long," she giggled, "and hard. And dangerous to a poor siren!" I laughed nervously. "And so," she added, "is this!" I squealed as her right hand grabbed my sack. She squirmed a little in my arms, and soon I could see her eyes were intently staring at my private parts while her hand was slowly coaxing it into a standing position. "Ward?" she asked. "Yes," I groaned, for at that instant the rising head made contact with her large breasts which were hanging down between my arms. "Ward..." There was the unmistakable sound of pouting in her angelic voice. "If I am to make love to no man but you..." I grunted angrily. "...then you must promise to make love to me many times every day, whenever I want to..." Her fingers made a circle of pleasure which moved up and down my shaft, simulating that activity which I had never experienced. I wanted to shout "Yes!" but bit my lips and managed to croak out "I want, we mate." "But Ward..." she sulked, letting go of me. "I need this. Bad." "I call when mate. I master, you slave." "You won't even promise me this little thing?" her fingertips tickled me seductively. "I master!" I shouted. "Are you sure?" said the voice of honey on silk, and Siren began to sing softly. It was the curse-song of the sirens, the sound of which made a man's blood boil and made his brain think of only one thing. But she was not part of the choir of sirens. She was alone, and so the spell only served to make me gasp and sweat. The Black Cloud Ch. 02 "Yes," I said between gritted teeth. She was challenging me, she was questioning her place as a slave beneath me! I would not let her win, but oh!, how I wanted her! I was almost unaware that as we walked the ground seemed to become more fertile, with green grass and different kinds of trees now dominating the landscape. I was completely unaware the current was growing ever stronger, heading towards some yet unknown goal. In the end she gave up the singing, and her hand which had been teasing me extensively was reduced to lovingly caressing my manhood. Still, it did not improve matters much, I was so needy that I could not walk upright. Instead I crouched over, making her breasts brush against my head again and again. "You are so stubborn, Ward," she complained. "Capture and thrashings and being denied. Can't I have a say in anything?" "Only if I tell." "But I don't want to be your slave, Ward." Strangely, it did not seem much of a denial when she pouted like that. "Me master, you slave." "I must obey?" "Yes." "You will not thrash me if I am good? You will make love to me only when you want to?" "Yes." "Then," she sighed theatrically, "I must be good and make you want to love me." And with that her hand did something to me, an intensely deep stroking of my shaft, an embracing of my head with her breasts. I was taken utterly by surprise. There was nothing I could do but bend my shaking knees as she brought me from excited to release in a matter of heartbeats. She giggled as thick drops of white was sprayed across the sand in front of us. I groaned and panted while she laughed gleefully and cheered me on. "More! Longer! Go! Go!" As I bent my head to kiss her neck she asked me in a strangely tender whisper: "Was I good, Ward? Are you pleased?" I did not reply, just laughed nervously and continued to kiss her. END OF CHAPTER 2