Tales from a Lewd Fantasy World – Tale 3 – The Summoner and the Summoned

When I wake up, there’s only yearning.

A heat that demands to grow, a cold that begs to be kept at bay, a void that needs to be filled.

Without time, without boundaries, without shape.

Perfect thirst, flawless hunger.

Yearning.

And then I hear a name, and there’s something else.

The endless void’s still there, but… now there’s something growing around it.

Shape.

For the first time after the name came, I feel shape.

And with it comes structure, something around which new things can grow like flowers blooming after a forest blaze. And I know. I know words, and concepts, and images. I know the meaning of words beyond a single, devastatingly focused purpose that still lies at the core of my being, a being that is only defined by its desires, its needs.

That is what I am: need. Need to be filled and to fill, to touch and be touched.

I… remember touch, as one may remember a fading dream. But the dream is from another me, one that went to sleep and faded into yearning as the void consumed him.

He’s a remnant. An echo.

And echoes die.

But I am me; I am the shape growing around the never-ending void, the perfect thirst and flawless hunger.

I am… Thradne.

My name.

And someone just called me.

So I follow it. The call. The name written upon the ever-singing winds of magic. The flaring will of the one whose spirit wants me to reach them.

And with every step, with every heartbeat of the world below and above, my shape grows, and my self forms around it.

I am a demon. A Bastard of Sin, the souls who wear flesh call me, because my father was Lust, and, as I coalesce amid a circle written with white chalk upon smooth granite, I let myself become.

It’s not something I want, but… I am just now starting to understand the difference between want and need.

Which means the summoning isn’t complete. That I’m still too much of a spirit, free from the shackles of shifting identity, the burden of choice, the fear of change.

Part of me resents her for ending this flawless state, resents the short woman reading from an old tome as her purple robes sway in a breeze that is only visible to eyes such as mine, her silver-framed, half-moon glasses glint, and the… gnome?

I taste her spirit as it reaches out to me, and I note the hint of buried treasure waiting to be found, the dark of a cave full of mystery and possibility, and the crystal waiting to shimmer beneath the roots of an old tree.

Yes, her flesh is human, but spirit-touched, molded by what her ancestors once intimately dealt with. And so she thinks herself from another race when all humans are the same. All elves, dwarves, drow, and demon-descended, all of them playing this little game, this charade of dissimilarity and separation when the truth is that it’s only caprice and circumstance that have shaped them as they currently are.

But, then again, that’s what humanity always suffers from: chance, change, and the caprice of those above them.

Ah, that spark of bitterness. I just became aware that I was supposed to miss it.

How bizarre it is, to be born to a legacy of the selves that came before. To remember what never truly was. Because I’m Thradne, a minor demon of Lust, one of those who remained spirit even as so many of my brothers and sisters were born to mothers of flesh and blood and spread through this world, seeding it with their own spawn.

But Father is Lust, and so, his children spread through all realms, and my brethren can be man or woman, but also beast and even… a tree?

Father, as ever, I’m ashamed of being your son.

Oh, shame? That’s a new one. An interesting one. It implies a set of values, of morals and aesthetics. It’s always a delight to discover it, and I think I find pleasure in inflicting it on my summoners.

Going by the rush of flesh-tinged memories, plenty of them enjoyed it as well.

And now I’m complete, clad in the memories that other Thradnes engraved upon the fabric of the world through their passage, the memories the world keeps for me. But that’s just a part of me being here.

The other?

“Yes! I knew I could do it!” the short-haired gnome with unevenly cut violet locks shakes a triumphant fist, the tome in her hand closing with a loud noise as if she needed something to clap at her victory as her glasses vibrate with the enthusiastic motion.

I can feel the migraine setting in.

Because what completes the summoning is not only the world itself letting me be clad in the history of my previous selves, but the soul of the summoner, the link that is established between us through the rite.

The part of her that is similar enough to my own soul that we echo, that we touch more intimately than many lovers.

And through this touch comes her power, through her power, my substance, through my substance, identity.

That’s the true reason this Thradne will never again step on this world: I’m born anew through the shape of my summoner, through who she is at the moment she calls upon me.

And mortals… are ever-changing.

“May I have the name of the one who called for me?” I ask her, noting the elaborate tailcoat suit I’m wearing, the black, glimmering fabric with golden trimming, the white gloves with arcane symbols, and the way my right hand so naturally rises to my chest as I half bow to her in a show of courteous deference that isn’t deep enough to become submissive.

Ah. It seems my summoner has some… refined tastes.

And a propensity for cutely blushing as she finally takes in my slender frame, dark, silky, combed back mane, and… slitted golden eyes? Well, I suppose those are common enough.

“You’re… a tall fella, aren’t you?” she asks in a bit of startled realization as she lowers her glasses to look me up and down. And, yes, gnomes are quite short, but her head barely reaches my waist, so I suppose the current me is tall enough.

“I’m assured height isn’t an issue while lying down, Mistress,” I tell her without even a hint of the teasing tone that I take great pains to hide.

Huh. It looks like I now have a sense of humor.

And a preference for staring at cute, young women with wide eyes and bright blushes.

Common enough, I suppose.

“Mi-mistress?!”she not quite protests as her amethyst eyes focus on me, and she takes half a step back suddenly enough that I have to restrain myself from staring at her… generouscurves.

Oh, it’s called a ‘shortstack,’ now? It’s a marvel how language changes with every century.

“If I may not have your name, at least I shall have your title,” I tell her, eyes lidded in feline appraisal as I feel my fangs lengthen just a tiny bit while my newest body completely settles into the proper mix between the Thradnes that came before and my summoner’s wants and expectations. There’s always a slight mismatch as rumor and legend fade or embellish some details.

Not to mention… preferences.

It looks like my summoner may have a thing for size. Ridiculous as that is, given her own body.

“Ah… I mean, I’m not—wait, is that a true name thing?” she asks, suddenly suspicious.

As well she may be. This restraining circle is amateurish to almost offensive levels. Surprising, after how clear her call was.

“I’m afraid there’s a misunderstanding regarding that notion. But, so you may trust my answer, may you care to command me to be truthful to you, Mistress?”

“Uh… Well, I guess…” she trails off before looking at the book she still holds, the leather-bound tome comically large in her hand, and then she pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and browses it quickly before reaching the right passage. “Wait, this looks kind of… unpleasant. Are you sure you’re fine with me—”

“If it shall earn your trust, it’s not too onerous a process to undergo,” I tell her with a barely reassuring tone.

She hesitates, looking from me to the book and back again as she worries at her lip with cute, roundish, pearly teeth.

Ah. Right.

Yearning.

“I mean, if you’re sure…” She takes a deep breath, eyes closed behind the half lenses as she takes a deep, steadying breath that gathers the winds of magic around her with ease most would envy. And then her eyes open, and a kaleidoscope of amethyst glimmers. “You who heeded my call, you who came to me, you who stand in my circle,” she pauses, letting the triple address settle around me, further defining me. “You are the one who answers; I am the one who asks,” now, it’s our relationship that becomes and steadies, “and the world is our witness.” And here comes power. Not hers. Hers is just the flare, the signal for the world itself to rush in to enforce laws that were never worded. Not quite. “By the compact between flesh and spirit, my voice be heard. By the treaty between mortal and endless, my orders be obeyed. By the triple binding, my will be done,” she finishes, her voice not quite shouting, even as it reverberates in this cave-like basement of solid rock molded by, I presume, her connection to the earth and the spirits that granted it to her.

She pauses now, eyes once again closed as sweat drops that glimmer in trembling candlelight bead her brow, as her ample chest slowly pushes purple cloth up and down with deep, steadying breaths as she tries to regain what strength she just expended.

Then a slight, unsure smile blooms on her up till now uncharacteristically solemn face (I knowmy summoner, even if just that much), and, once again, amethyst eyes open beneath uneven, violet bangs as she looks up at me over glimmering half-lenses.

“Oh, boy, I could feelthat working. It’s just like… like the world clicked, you know? Well, duh, of course you know, but still, it’s quite a thing to feel, when you’re the one that clicks, or it clicks through you, or you tell it to click, and it listens... It’s weird, is what I’m saying,” she enthusiastically rambles on until she notices my barely raised, expectant eyebrow, and she, yet again, blushes. “Right, right, I guess that means I get to tell you to do things, so… Be truthful to me, demon!”

“Very well, Mistress: I find you utterly ravishing, and I desperately crave to tear off your unflattering robes, gaze upon your naked body, and fill up your holes until you’re a sweating, tearful mess unable to feel anything other than sheer ecstasy as you shiver and rattle your askew glasses,” I tell her, perfectly truthful and obedient.

I barely manage to suppress my twitching smile.

And, when she blushes to the tip of her roundish ears as her eyes widen and her breath catches, it takes quite a bit of effort to keep my impassible mien. But, really, I feel it’s well-expended energy.

It looks like this particular me likes to tease beautiful, cute, short women. It’s a trait I can live with.

“Not that truthful!” she finally says, the tome yet again abruptly closed as she points at me in embarrassed panic.

“Oh? I am afraid I don’t understand, Mistress—”

“Thea! Just call me Thea!”

“Are you sure? I have yet to explain the significance of true names,” I tell her.

And she freezes, her pointing arm almost vibrating at the sudden stillness as her face blanches.

Ah. I may have gone slightly too far in my teasing. How terrible. This ignoble demon feels awfully guilty about it.

“You—you did that on purpose—” she accuses, finally managing to take a cautious step back.

“Relax, Mistress. As I said before, that notion is no more than a misunderstanding. While it is accurate to say that true names hold power over their bearer, those are no mere trivial combinations of sounds. It’s something far more… essential.”

She quirks an eyebrow in what I’m perfectly certain is the kind of curiosity she never bothers to restrain, even if she usually disguises it as something tamer.

“So, names aren’t sounds? But they still grant power, so they need to be unique—that’s why they are true names, after all. Damn, I never managed to study this thing, most teachers just said it was useless, and the others told me to focus on my alchemy—which is just bullshit, you know? I mean, what kind of an alchemist would be satisfied with not knowing something? We’re trying to get to the very essence of—ah. Sorry. College memories always make me kinda mad. So, true names, you were saying?” she finally asks after working herself up far too much for it to be healthy.

Well, she didsummon a demon of Lust. I suppose it’s not far-fetched to think she may have some stress to work through.

It’s that, or the fact that, due to the clear advantage Father has in siring progeny, we are the most numerous and easily summoned kind of demon. Which is an issue that tends to compound upon itself.

For obvious reasons.

Ah, she’s looking at me expectantly over those half-moon glasses of hers. Cute. I mean, maybe she’s not the only one with a propensity to go off on a tangent.

“Yes, of course. What I think most mages never quite realize, due to their summoning simpler intellects that won’t be much use as guides and teachers—even if far less threatening than demons such as myself—is that what one calls a true name is… a soul.”

She blinks, then her eyes narrow in a brief burst of concentration that I would dearly love to interrupt by surrounding her waist with my thin, long fingers, lifting her up and—oh. Right.

Yearning.

I wonder if I’ll lose control of myself? It doesn’t always happen.

“Wait, I called you by your name, and you came. If what makes the summoning work is the true name, and Thradne’s just a nice sound, that means I reached your soul? But how would I—”

“By being polite, Mistress. We exchange names when we meet,” I interject before the rant goes on too long, because it’s quite easy for me to know her.

After all…

“You—you know my soul?!”she asks, yet again panicked.

Yes. That.

So I smile down at her. Not quite reassuring, and not quite predatory, just the perfect blending of the two to make her bite her lip as her shapely thighs press against one another beneath purple robes that aren’t as concealing to the practiced eye.

Knowing her instinctively also helps.

“I do. I know not your history, your past, but I do know you. I know the errant, dazzling, unfocused intellect, I know the thirst for knowledge, I know the hunger for novelty.” I lean down, my face pressing down against the very edge of the summoning circle keeping me contained and under her contract as I bend so far down that my eyes level with hers, prideful gold against scrutinizing amethyst. “And I know the yearning to be touched, to be filled, to be taken,” I tell her, breathing out the last word with a purr that comes too naturally to my throat.

Her lips are open, her breathing ragged.

She stumbles back.

And the edge of her robe smudges the chalk as she goes over the line of the second circle, the one she’s been standing in, the scaffold that keeps the swirling winds of magic enforcing her will on this place, turning it into a hallway between realms.

Well, it did all that before she broke it.

So I lunge.

Faster than any mortal that isn’t channeling mana to the point of strain, I dive for her, for Mistress, for Thea. For the woman who called me, cladded me in new flesh fitting her desires. For the gnome I yearn for.

I tear the robes off, purple wool falling to gray granite in tatters, and then I touch her bare skin, and she shivers.

My gloves are part of me, as is my suit. I’ve been naked in front of her since I formed in here, and so my spirit’s flesh is unimpeded in the intimate contact as I do grasp her waist before lifting her up, her panicked eyes meeting mine over lowered lenses as her mouth further opens in silent vocalization of the kind of pleasure she’s never felt before as I let part of my being take root in hers, as I pull at her lust and bring it up to her skin, to rippling goose flesh, stiffening nipples and reddening sex.

She pants, gasps.

And I kiss her.

Her bare, round breasts flatten against my chest, as marvelously soft as I thought they would be, and her scent fills me for a moment before it’s swallowed by the void at the core of me. She smells like the dark earth of a midnight forest, and I get the urge to drag her there just so that her screams of pleasure can fill the night.

It’s a pity we won’t have the time for it.

So I’ll make the best of what we have.

Her tender lips, pressed against mine, bring a thrill of pleasure that races up my back before it explodes behind my eyelids as my lust for her redoubles. Her writhing body in my grasp, her hands on my chest, her muffled moans on my ears… She’s just delectable. A woman worthy of all my yearning being focused on her and her alone.

It takes me quite a bit of effort to pull back, and, this time, there’s a part of me that’s not entirely convinced it was worth it to expend so much energy.

“You are beautiful,” I tell her, my voice rough as I lean back in and lick up her neck, my tongue thinning before entering her ear canal and making her squirm yet again, her breasts rubbing in erratic circles against me with every undulating motion of my wet flesh against her sensitive insides.

“I—you are just saying that…” she almost protests, her opposing arms not fighting me as hard as a moment ago.

“I am. I also being entirely truthful, Thea, even if you aren’t commanding me anymore. You see, I find very little reason to lie when the truth can be just as devastating—such as the truth of knowing just how much a part of you is enjoying this, just how much you wanted me to be a man tall enough and strong enough to completely dominate you, to engulf you between my arms until you were left helpless to do anything other than just take all the pleasure a demon born of the court of Lust can inflict on you,” I whisper, purring in places, my tone rising and falling like lapping waves upon a beach before I catch her dangling earlobe between my canines and bite and pull until a splash of warm arousal seeps through the fibers of my tailcoat.

A tailcoat that is my flesh and skin.

And that can taste her.

“I—I… I won’t give in, demon! You’ll have to ravage me, to take me and force me to submit to you!”

Yet again, I force myself to stop kissing a part of her in a pattern that’s already grown tiresome, because I’m loathe to part from her even if just for a second.

At least, while she’s still awake and coherent.

So I look straight into her eyes, unimpeded by half-moon glasses with a silver frame.

“Is that another command, my Mistress?” I ask her.

And the blush reaching the upper part of her heaving breasts is, even if not the answer she may have intended to give me, one that I’m pleased to get.

So I lift her up in effortless and smooth motion as I kiss down her neck and briefly linger to suck at the hollow of her throat. And then I lick over her salty skin, gathering beaded sweat as if it was precious nectar upon my yet again human tongue.

And then I reach her breasts, and I kiss around them, their enticing weight rubbing against my cheek as she writhes yet again, the rubbing of her thighs more than apparent as her knees shift against my lower body, and I let a bit more of my essence dribble into her through our touching bodies.

And she’s yet again wracked by yearning, one intense enough that she throws her head back and moans in aching emptiness begging to be filled.

This time, it takes everything I have not to answer her wordless plea. Not to spin her around, her back against my chest, her legs parted, her sex gaping before I—damn it. I’m supposed to be teasing her, not myself.

So I proceed to do so.

My sleeves unravel into threads too thick to have been woven into them that then spiral around one another until throbbing, waving, black, glimmering tendrils studded with beating veins of gold emerge from between my shoulder blades. My arms are now covered in pristine, white silk, and hers…

Hers are covered by spiraling black tendrils that keep her aloft as my freed hands roam her sides and back with feather-soft touches that make her moan and shake her head as the branches of my own soul keep teasing hers, keep calling out any and all repressed desires she holds in her heart, any yearnings, no matter how dark or shameful.

Shame. Such an interesting thing to feel.

“You are enjoying this,” I tell her before licking up between her breasts in an uninterrupted motion that takes me up to stare at her eyes yet again in front of mine, her glasses barely hanging over the very tip of her round nose. “You delight in the idea of a man strong enough to not just take, but force you to enjoy it. You’ve dreamed about me doing this to you since you first read about me in that tome of yours. You touched yourself at night, moaning my name as your fingers delved in warm, wet yearning, desperate for me to hear your laments and appear in front of you, taken to this world just by the strength of your unfulfilled desires.”

Her eyes are wide, her pupils so big there’s barely any hint of glimmering amethyst to be found.

And her lips part.

And I kiss her.

Her lips are yielding, her arms squirming to the side against my hold as her body rubs against mine. And her tongue comes out to meet mine.

And she tastes… Oh, she tastes sinfully divine.

There’s loneliness. An unfulfilled need for companionship hidden just below her enthusiasm for the pleasures of an inquisitive mind. There’s passion, the same that she devotes toward her studies and that she laments so few appreciate when she inflicts it on other subjects. And there’s curiosity.

Overwhelming curiosity, the kind that leads one to look for hidden treasures in dark places.

And she imagined me clad in dark clothes.

So I take more of it. More of that curiosity, that passion, and that loneliness her soul pours out at me.

And I answer in kind.

Through our tangled, dancing tongues, I pour in her more of the heat that demands to grow, the cold that begs to be kept at bay, and the void that needs to be filled.

The warmth of her sex grows, coming off her in waves of arousal and passion, and her lips tightly close around my tongue as she sucks on it, swallowing my own flavor as her head moves back and forth, pulling on me in a clear imitation of what she wanted me to do to her with something other than my tongue.

My pants unravel much as my sleeves did, and a new set of tendrils sprout from my lower back, right over the spot where the spine sinks into solid bone.

And her legs are then encased in warm, throbbing, dark flesh that pulses with my need for her as they climb up, higher and higher, taking in the traces of wet desire shining on her inner thighs.

She lets go of my tongue, her eyes wild even as she keeps staring at me over askew glasses that look as enticing as I imagined, her mouth open in a silent ‘o,’ her limbs trembling inside the tight grasp that I carefully direct so there’s never too much weight on any part of her, so that her skin isn’t marred by unsightly bruising.

She truly is beautiful.

And then I freeze.

The world snaps, the winds of magic stir, and I’m yet again bound by the compact engraved upon a circle I thought destroyed.

It takes her a moment for her to stop gaping at me in raw, naked desire, and then she just blinks in confusion before she looks down and to her right, her glasses almost falling entirely.

And then she starts swearing.

“For fuck’s sake! I can’t believe I screwed up the timing so badly! Shit! Shit! Cuntsucking fuuuuuck!”

I blink rapidly. That much, at least, I can still do.

“It’s a basic reaction! So much acetone to dissolve a layer of wax! Then the pre-inked runes react to the air and oxidize into being in a mana-rich environment! Basic! Elementary! Chemistry!” That last word, she exclaims as if it was another expletive. For reasons that I think would be obvious to me if I wasn’t so flabbergasted. “And you were being just perfect! Fuck, I’m dripping! Do you know how long it’s been since a man made me drip?! But noooo, I just had to screw up a fucking redox equation! And cockblock myself!”

With some effort, I manage to stop blinking at the obviously angry woman.

“Mistress… would you like me to play along even if your safety measures have already sprung?”

She sulks and pouts at me. Adorably.

“It’s… just not the same, you know? There was a bit of danger, before, that maybe you would fuck my brain into a puddle and leave me nothing more than a willing hole for you to repeatedly fill to the brim before the circle was renewed… Now I can just tell you to stop, and you will have to!”

With some effort, I resist the urge to berate the achingly beautiful woman for the sheer stupidity and audacity of her risky ploy, and then I temptingly, slowly, lean forward to once again whisper in her ear.

“Mistress… have you ever heard what a safeword is?” I ask her.

The way she turns to curiously look at me over her glasses rather than shiver in my grasp is answer enough that no, she hasn’t.

“Very well, I shall… instruct you.” And now there’s that shiver. Good. I was afraid the mood was entirely gone. “A safeword is an agreed term that people engaging in… let’s say riskylovemaking set beforehand. Once uttered, everything stops right away, no questions asked, no hesitancy or reticent, lingering touches. Everything stops.”

She tilts her head to the side, and I want to pet her violet hair.

“And if I don’t say it?” she asks the obvious question.

“Then…” I lean forward yet again, as close as I can get without touching her, because the circle stops me from doing so, and only the clause against hurting her has stopped me from suddenly dropping her—and only my quickly depleting will has stopped me from gently lowering her down. “Then, no matter how much you beg, how much you plead, I won’t stop, Mistress. I will fuck you until your unfeeling legs dangle from your limp body. I’ll fill you up, over and over, making you scream my name until your throat bleeds. I’ll bring you to the edge of mind-shattering ecstasy and back again until the only thing your fractured mind will be able to dream of will be my member spearing you open and my golden eyes holding you down.”

Her throat bobs up and down, renewed beads of sweat on her skin, her irises once more shrunk into narrow bands of color over silver and crystal.

And she nods.

“The safeword, Mistress.”

“… College,” she says with more shame than what she’s shown me up till now. But one that I don’t enjoy.

“No. That won’t do,” I tell her as I lick my dry lips. “Only I get to hurt you.”

And she smiles at that, and I could do many things a demon isn’t supposed to just for more of that smile.

“Then… Safeword. My safeword is ‘safeword,’” she says with a glint of mischief at her head-scratching decision.

I roll my eyes and sigh, and her grin widens.

“Then command me, Mistress. Command me to take you and of you until I hear you say… safeword.” I get the feeling she enjoys robbing me of the proper gravitas. I shall have to discipline her for it.

Still, despite the grin, she still bashfully looks away, her cheeks reddening prettily beneath short, violet tresses before she continues in a shy tone:

“Thradne… as your summoner, I command you to do whatever you want to my helpless body until I say ‘safeword.’”

Stupid. Stupid and reckless.

Because I could just gag her.

But that isn’t a concern, because I’ve been keeping my own yearning at bay just because I could lean on the strength of my bindings. But now that Thea has given me leave to unleash my lust on her…

“Ah!” she yells as my tendrils flex and her body is pressed against me, my arms around her, my fingers clawing at her soft back.

And my naked member pressing up at her wet, warm, welcoming lips.

Her eyes shoot open, and she leans back to look at me, askew glasses dangerously close to falling off her round, button nose.

“You… you’re quite… thick.”

“And you’re about to feel all of me,” I answer, my voice barely understandable through the primal growl.

And then I push her down, slowly yet inexorably spreading her open around me.

She gasps at the passage of me, at every pulsing vein, at my throbbing hardness and searing heat. Her mouth gapes wordlessly as my liquid coating seeps into her clenching walls, carrying with them as much lust as I feel for her tight body wrapped around me.

I slow down, just a bit, jut enough to make her feel as if me going inside her will turn into an eternity of her sex being plunged, of new parts of her being discovered and taken, and then I let twin tendrils on her shoulders unfurl into thin, black, gleaming threads that slither across her shoulders, crawl up the sides of her neck, and circle her ears before diving inside them with all the speed and sinuous motion that I deny her with my cock.

Her eyes roll back, and her jaw hangs open, slack.

So I open my own mouth and split my tongue.

One half quickly grows engorged, almost as big as the original whole. The other half narrows and snakes into her mouth to coil around her tongue, to wrap and squeeze as it slides over wet, sensitive muscle, so I fuck her mouth with about half the speed I do her ears, an enticing mid-point to the tortuous, deliberately slow movement of her body being lowered around me.

This time, I don’t have to spend any energy resisting my urge to take her fully. Because that’s precisely what I’m doing.

Well… not entirely, now that I think of it.

Because… there’s a difference between spirit and soul. Spirit is what was called anima long ago, the vital principle, that which differentiates what moves from what lies still. The difference between life and death.

The soul… that’s different.

That’s… intimate.

And hers and mine are as tightly entangled as my mouth around hers, as her sex around mine. We’ve been touching one another since she called out my name, my true name, and woke me from the place of pure being without the distraction of jarring awareness. Since she called Thradne to once more walk upon the world.

But… We’ve just touched.

I’ve yet to be inside her.

“I am going to do something to you nobody else will ever do,” I tell her, maneuvering the words around my protruding second tongue and enunciating them clearly and loudly enough for her to hear despite the wet sliding inside her ears.

Her eyelids flicker as she takes far too long to process what I just told her, but she manages to regain just enough focus to look back at me.

Then she experimentally tries to move her tongue, and I let her, my own, thin, deft one, just going along with every experimental motion as she doesn’t quite process the danger she’s still in, how easily I could keep her from speaking her… ‘safeword.’

Ugh. She needs to work on her sense of humor.

“What... what are you going to do that is even more than—fucking Hell, this feels so godsdamn good—”

“I know,” I say as I lean forward and down, my chin touching my chest as I look straight into glassy eyes peering up at me over dangling glasses that serve no purpose. “But do you know what will feel even more intense?” I ask her, briefly extending my first tongue to lick around her pouty lips.

“Wha—what?”

“When I fuck your soul,” I tell her.

And her eyes widen, and she’s about to say something in her panic.

But then the tendrils digging into her soft thighs drag her down all the way, my tip knocking at the entrance to her womb as my second tongue tightens around her own and the tendrils inside her ears bulge outward, pressing down on the whole sensitive canal with wet heat.

She shakes as much as my hold on her lets her, the climax that had been slowly building up suddenly crashing around her so violently she bites down on my tongue hard enough even I notice it.

And then, just as I feel her drifting away, as her eyes unfocus further… I thrust.

With my soul.

With all the yearning I feel for her, with the part of me that always begs to fill and be filled, I thrust even as my hips do the same, and my hands grasp her round backside, my gloves unfurling up her back to gently support her in her throes even as my fingers just dig into soft, yielding flesh.

I keep my eyes open, devouring every second, every flash of sensation and emotion going through her rounded, gentle, mischievous features. I take all of her in, the scent of dark earth, the taste of curiosity and flitting genius, the hardness of nipples pressing right below my chest.

And… And I reach her.

In that moment where she’s overcome, where her whole world is nothing but me being inside and around her, holding her up, not letting even the world steal anything of her from me, even if it is her naked weight on bare granite, in that moment where I am all she knows…

She opens herself up to me, knowingly or not.

And I find her own void. Her own need to fill and be filled.

And I thrust into it.

The winds of magic howl around us, stirred by whatever it is I’m doing for the first time in this life and any other.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even know what.

But she reacts. Not only her body, not just her mind or spirit, but… her magic.

It reacts to me, leashed as it is to her soul, and thrusts back, following the same path I did, one made of whispered words before the break of dawn, of tender caresses upon a sleeping face, of dreams that long not to fade beneath the harsh light of the sun.

It follows that path and reaches me. Because there’s a void at my core that longs to be filled, and I wouldn’t even dream of stopping her.

Not… her.

Her?

Ah. How trite. How ridiculously maudlin of me.

Her soul touches my void, and we recognize one another.

Because she was spurned. She lost it all. She bet on her hard work and genius letting her prosper in the College, one of the harshest places in the whole world, only for that very same genius to get her in trouble when she couldn’t stay away from what she was told not to meddle with.

Ridiculous. An alchemist should always be a seeker.

And she knows that, because it’s engraved on her very soul.

The soul that called to me, that helped me become what I momentarily am.

Because Father was Lust.

But Mother was a meek, tender spirit. A minor one.

One of loneliness, of yearning.

And we echo. That tiny spark of us that is mirrored, that is twinned in both of us, growing and shining as it’s finally allowed to touch something that understands, that cares.

That accepts.

My own eyelids flutter as mind, body, spirit, and soul sing around me about the young, bright woman I’m holding aloft.

And then I force myself to focus and look down on amethysts glimmering with wonder.

She’s still shivering in the aftermath of her whole body seizing up around me, of her sex being spread just to the point before pleasure became pain, of her tongue and ears being teased by me with as much care as I can inhumanly devote to her.

Her arms and legs strain against her bindings. Not to recoil, but to wrap even tighter around me.

I allow it.

And then, sluggishly, with difficulty, her tongue barely able to move the feather-light weight of mine, she speaks.

“How… How could someone like you be called a demon?” she says.

And an all too human part of this body pounds against my ribs in a frantic rush of emotion.

And I fuck her.

“Wha—wait! Thradne, wait!”

I don’t. She hasn’t said ‘safeword,’ after all.

“Damn it, you ridiculously handsome man, stop bouncing me up and down!”

I tighten my hold on her backside, and she closes her eyes and moans. Strained, almost against her will.

She doesn’t even notice her glasses finally falling off.

And I keep dragging her up and down.

“I want to talk! I want to talk with you!” she almost begs.

I look into eyes going up and down below me, her whole body rubbing around and against mine, and I let my shirt unfold entirely, not even gathering it into thick tendrils, just letting the fine thread of silk wrap around her body, squeeze around her round breasts to make them more firmly rub against me, encasing her back and neck until nothing, nothing but me touches her bare, sweat-beaded, skin.

And I keep thrusting, harder and harder, faster and faster, only my tight hold on her flesh preventing her generous curves from bouncing all over the place at a speed that may even feel painful for her.

She clenches her teeth, taking a wet, sibilant hiss of air at the sheer intensity of the waves of sensation I keep crashing through her.

I lean down and dislocate my neck, elongating it like a snake before my lips yet again touch hers as her chin pushes into my chest.

A spark of somethingflows between us, and her hands dig in my back as if trying to get a hold. Of her fading senses, of her drifting mind.

Of me.

I wish she could.

But she can’t, so I’ll just fulfill my contract. I’ll give her as much ecstasy as she can take, and then fade away, returning to my hungry void and letting the world hold the memories of this one lucky self of mine, hoping the next one will be around long enough to find them, to discover this singular moment in all our shared lives.

I… I hope the next me will appreciate it. This perfect, flawless moment of happiness and fulfillment.

As for me? I’ll be long gone.

So I can indulge myself in taking even more of her salty, earthy sweat through the part of my skin that is gleaming, silk-like fabric, in listening to more of her sweet, muffled moans and the clapping of our flesh.

And the contact of our souls.

The void that yearns to fill and be filled finally meeting its gentle mirror.

I push up against her womb, and even that is yielding, accepting of me, her sex clenching around me every time I do.

Her lips press around my tongues, sucking on them, trying to get as much of me inside her as she can.

Her heels dig against me, spurring me on.

And her hands… they keep trying to hold me.

And that’s what does it for me, the last overwhelming sensation I can stand.

Her hands on my back, trying to hold onto me.

I roar inside her mouth, the sound rippling through her body as I let all of her lust burst out at the same time as I come inside her, filling her with seed that didn’t exist before I stepped into this world.

And, despite the bindings of my compact, I let myself… just enjoy it.

My eyes close as sensation overwhelms even me, as I make the yearning turn to momentary satisfaction in a way that’s contrary to my very nature.

But my soul is touching hers, and I can feel it when she comes undone, when her ecstasy overwhelms her yet again, but even more than before. And so I can copy it. I can copy what her spirit does as her soul beats and communicates the sensation that’s reached her very self.

And so I have my own manufactured spirit ripple in the same way, tearing my mind to shreds of flickering pleasure and satisfaction, riding along a river that seems to carry her away and ever higher as exhaustion makes her whole body limp in my grasp and I discover I’m kneeling on bare granite, holding her against my chest, cradling her even as threads and tendrils fall limply around me and only the most human parts of my body remain coherent enough for me to hug her, to embrace her against me, to rock back and forth as I kiss her violet hair mindlessly, just letting the impulse to look for tenderness and acceptance take over one last time.

I am… I think I am the first one to carry my name to feel… satisfied.

And, for a brief moment, not empty.

Of course, as I feel the sheer wave of tired joy surge in her and around the path where our souls tangle, I also feel the world snap.

Because the compact’s fulfilled. And I need no longer remain here.

Memories of the previous me are the first to fade as the world takes back what it spent to keep me here. The winds of magic lose speed and become a serene, soothing breeze against my unraveling spirit, and I smile in peace.

It was a short time. But it was also an… unforgettable one.

Even if I’ll have to rely on the world to make it so it remains so.

So I lie down, Thea still between my arms, still struggling to regain her ability to move or even speak, and I close my eyes as I feel the soothing cold of granite on my back and the warmth on my chest lulling me to a sleep I’ll never wake from.

Then she struggles and pushes herself up, my arms limp around her before they fall aside.

And she slaps me.

“I told you I wanted to talk with you!” she screams in my face, pulling me up by the half-formed collar of my shirt.

And then the frantic alchemist whose spirit sings of the discovery of shining treasure in dark places dashes away from me even as I weakly try to lift my arms and keep her by my side.

***

“So… he’s a new employee?” the nosy woman from the Adventurer’s Guild asks, peering at my backside as she leans so far over the counter it’s hard to act as if I’m just working on the shelves behind it, unaware of her lecherous gaze.

“He’s my familiar,” Thea grumbles.

“Really? I thought familiars were supposed to be… you know, cute animals? I’ve seen plenty of cats and ferrets, but—”

“Familiar. Mine. If you try to have sex with him, Martha, I’ll hear every single one of your whorish moans.”

I don’t have the pleasure to see the scene as I keep pretending I don’t notice anything while studiously dusting off the traveling alchemy kits, but the sudden, prolonged silence makes me smirk.

“You are nasty,” Martha finally says.

“And you’re getting on my last nerve. Buy, or get out,” Thea replies.

Martha chuckles, and I hear the indignant yelp of someone short and cute having her hair ruffled.

It’s… a sound I’ve come to appreciate.

“Fine, fine, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” Martha says, and then some steps clack on the wooden floor before the bell of the door to Thea’s shop signals the departing customer.

“Finally, I thought she would never leave,” my Mistress grumbles. “And you! I bet you’re happy about all the gaping customers that keep undressing you with their eyes—”

“I don’t understand, Mistress. I thought you knew I’m always naked?” I tell her, looking back over my shoulder with an inquiring eyebrow.

And she blushes, and stammers, and pretends to get angry.

And she doesn’t notice the unfurled, black tendril of gleaming fabric with throbbing, golden veins until I manage to thrust it up beneath her short skirt and between her plump legs, making her jump up and yelp in undignified surprise as her new pair of glasses go askew in that way I always stare at.

Then she throws pouches of herbs at my head as I laugh at her flustered face.

But she doesn’t even try to remove my writhing tendril from between her legs.

And I feel the yearning void at the core of my being yet again become… Not empty.