by Slay (epub)
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Watching my victims’ orgasms as they died, makes me not want to be intimate with anyone. However, having friends balances me and makes my life worth living. Maybe I can think about giving pleasure in a more healthy way in the future, but not right now.
Asi’s Horror and Delight
Sumiko Saulson
The Impundulu and the Witch
“I don’t think a mere vampire can best the God of Nightmares,” Asi sighed, furrowing well-manicured eyebrows over piercing yellow eyes fringed by a charcoal-smudge of eyelashes. Currently in his humanoid form, the South African vampire was of the bloodsucker type known as impundulu. The impundulu or lightning bird was a vampiric familiar, a shapeshifter who often appeared as a blood-drinking bird. Ari, in humanoid form, appeared as a comely young man in his mid-twenties. In truth he was more than five hundred and twenty. Jet black curls hung over his bare, honey-tinged chocolate shoulders. A velvet smile sweetly twisted his hot cocoa lips. Asi was hungry… always hungry. Both in humanoid and avian form, the vampire was hauntingly beautiful, and his bloodlust never satisfied.
“This is not a contest of might, nor of wit and will,” Ozymora, Asi’s mistress and mortal bond, purred. “It is a contest the sort of which my lovely Asi could most readily win. Asi, whose eyes melt both hearts and loins? Asi, whose gentle touch seduces, whose sharp teeth cut, and blooded mouth does greedily suckle. You whose alluring features and succulent aroma bring delight to your victims even as you, tempting Asi, bleed them dry. You would compete for the heart of Phobetor, God of Nightmares, and perhaps if that is won, gain keys to his Kingdom.
“Gods are not easily deceived,” Asi protested. “You ask me to compete when you know I may lose. A vampire is no God! This will end in my destruction, foolhardy mortal. Even so, Asi must do Ozymora’s biding.”
“Fear not, Asi! I am well informed on these matters. As for you, but listen, and learn,” Ozymora said. She, a young African witch, was curled up on a burgundy satin settee, with an illustrated book of Grecian lore in her hands. Each of her long coffee fingers was tipped by a sharply filed nail coated in rhinestone studded cherry-wine polish. She pointed to a jet black bird, eyes like burning coals, a blood-red tuft spilling from the crest of its head. “Like you, he is a shape shifter,” she said.
“Perhaps I can drink him dry in his avian form?” Asi queried, rolling his head up against Ozymora’s neck thirstily, nuzzling at the nape, begging for her blood. “I could become a lightning bird, hrmmm? Crack open his little raven neck like the top on a soda can.” An irritated Ozymora brushed Asi away impatiently.
“Pay attention, Asi!” Ozymora bade, pointing to the woodcut image of a tall, handsome Afro-Grecian man with a crimson cloud of curls and blazing orange tiger-eyes. A wide, deep nose and heavy brows gave him an intensely brooding appearance. Emotion clouded his temperamental brow, a petulant scowl upon his lips. From his broad shoulders rose two wings, feathered like angels, but as dark as deepest night. His name was Phobetor, and he was the God of Nightmares.
“Feast your eyes, changeling!” Ozymora called out.
“Asi like…,” the vampire familiar cooed, licking his luscious lips. “If you wanted me to claim this lovely one as my lover, I don’t think I could decline. But how would I protect myself from his darker sides?” He alit upon a cushion at her feet, attentively taking instruction.
“In most of his many forms, Phobetor is easily identified by dark red hair, yellow-orange to ruby eyes, and black fur or skin. Like many of the oldest of immortals, he has grown lonely,” Ozymora explained.
“It seems a contest of wit and will to me,” he observed. “It is your will to outwit him, using all of my charms, which are so well known to you, my love.” Impish and disobedient, he smirked at the ire in her eyes.
“He does love young men, as do most of the Greek gods, Afro-Greek or otherwise,” she assured him. “Yes. And he is lonely and seeking an immortal companion. I heard only good will comes to whosoever gains his favor. And what is good for Asi is also good for his mistress.”
“What is good for Asi is good for Ozymora, and I have been good, so good!” Asi pouted impatiently, “And I shall be better still, so much better, once I feed…” He rubbed his soft silky slate curls against her hand impatiently, and she tousled his hair and scratched his scalp like a cat.
“Very well,” she trilled, offering her wrist to the hungry creature. Asi sunk in his two sharp canines and began to feed. Ozymora stroked her naked servant’s bare back with her free hand, chanting incantations until his form began to tremble. Well-formed arms outstretched from either of Asi’s shoulders sprouted a quick series of shiny gunmetal gray feathers. His toes extended into talons and then curled below bent knee. His flat, upturned nose extended into a bright, sharp beak. Soon, all that remained to identify him were his bright yellow eyes, surrounded by charcoal feathers. He continued to feed from his beak as his bird-form shrank.
When he was no larger than a peacock, Ozymora lifted Asi and placed him upon a perch inside his gilded metal cage. The firebird was legendary among the Zulu, Pondo, and Xhosa tribes. Many were the names for this magnificent creature… hewane, izulu, inyoni yezulu, and of course, impundulu. The bird of prey was predominately black metallic in plumage. The dark, iridescent feathers were complemented by a tuft of white chest features and band of white on the neck and to the rear of the skull. Its beak, talons, tail and remaining head feathers were the color of the blood he craved.
Ozymora locked Asi away for the night, lovingly tossing a green silk scarf over his prison. From within the emerald tent he sang mournful songs of unrequited love and desperately craved blood until dawn broke.
The Obsidian Throne
Long, lean and leggy, Phobetor, he of languid stride and licorice skin, prowled across the floor for hours in his throne room. When he wasn’t pacing, he sat brooding and inconsolable on his obsidian throne, moody amber eyes burning deep into the soul of every enchanted guest who appeared before him in court.
“Come in,” he commanded, his thunderous baritone filling the basalt cavern he called home.
The first of the evening’s guests entered, prostrating himself desperately before the obsidian throne, much to Phoebetor’s amusement. It was a very young and scrawny male faun, perhaps twenty-two with a faceful of spotty and pathetic beard undergrowth dotting its pimply face. Snickering, Phobetor walked over to the little goatman and idly kicked it before putting a large foot at the center of its lower back, pinning it to the ground.
“A faun?” Phobetor sneered, staring down at its little furry hindquarters, smirking sadistically at the nervously ticking of its goat-tail as the trembling creature lay face down, kissing the floor. “The call was for members of the undying clans. Fauns are well-known to be mortal!”
“Pan is no mortal faun, Pan is a God!” the horned man-child cried out unconvincingly from the floor, his strained nutmeg cheeks flushing burgundy. Phobetor, Greco-Roman God of Nightmares, who was unusually cranky about his long and frequently traumatic love life this time of year, was short on patience. Spring was upon the raven-skinned immortal, filling him with longing and lust. The fear of the horned goat-boy both aroused and amused the bored and often cruel immortal.
Phobetor cackled intensely, staring down at him. “Which Pan might that be? Peter Pan?”
The actual Pan, God of the Wild, was a robust and muscular creature with a decorous beard of lovely dark curls, but there was a definite resemblance between Pan and the undersized impostor under Phobetor’s foot. Like Phobetor, Pan was a fertility god and as such had many offspring, of which this whelp upstart was undoubtedly one.
“Pan, God of the Wild, of Sheep and Shepherds, Mountains and Nature,” the muffled voice whispered from the floor…
“I know Pan, and you are no Pan!” Phobetor shouted, aggressively twisting his foot into the goatman’s hip bone. He stifled a laugh as the faun’s agitated tail responded by lifting up to release a series of little brown turd p
ellets onto the floor. Phobetor jerked his foot to avoid the faun manure, accidentally releasing the victim. The goat man quickly leapt from the floor and righted himself and casually brushed himself off, struggling to regain composure.
“I meant… that Pan sent me,” the faun youth asserted with a wink and a shrug. “He is my grandsire, and I have inherited his good looks. Indeed, I have inherited his immortality as well!” The goat-man stared lecherously at Phobetor’s round hindquarters, looking more like his grandsire than ever.
Phobetor was fetching in all ways with his fiery eyes and lionesque mane of blood-red wavy hair, sensuous plum lips and sexy baritone. But, when he wasn’t too angry and tormented to reflect upon it, he was also hauntingly lonely. These preposterous love games distracted him from the void within.
“He has a thousand or more grandwhelp like you, nary a one eternal. He would never send the likes of you, who pretend to be him or even akin to him. Furthermore, I smell your mortality upon you, temporal flesh creature! Flee now, before I dismember you, impostor!” Phobetor shouted.
The sound of galloping hooves clomping noisily against the polished black marble floor muted the terrified squeals of the faun as he scampered out of the basalt cavern, leaving a trail of poop on the floor behind him. “Next!” Phobetor called out impatiently as his enchanted golems cleaned up the mess on the floor.
The Witches’ Gift
Into his antechamber glided a statuesque young Zulu witch, her lustrous black curls complimented by a crown braid and a Grecian updo. She wore a flowing emerald gown under an embroidered jacket. Inset within the jacket were panels arranged as a tapestry, each depicting a different scene with the witch and her lover. The lover was a beautiful young Zulu soldier. In the first scene, the graceful man carried a shield and weapons and wore a hooded cloak of feathers. In the next, he began his transformation into a life-sized bird while drinking blood from her wrist. In the final, she sat him upon a perch in a cage.
“My name is Ozymora. I am from umGungundlovu, home of my ancestor the famed Dingane,” the woman bragged.
“A fine pedigree,” Phobetor grumbled. “You are mortal, nonetheless. I seek no dying flesh vessel with which one such as you may bind her lover to her memory once she passes, with nothing but unbearable eternal heartache.”
“Phobetor was immortal, but sad, for all of his lovers and children had been mortal for millennia after the angry Hawaiian Volcano Goddess cursed him. Only recently had she lifted this curse,” the impudent young witch chanted, removing the tapestry and walking forward and to one side, to reveal a tall and domed shape behind her.
“Pele once cursed Phobetor, for he had offended her…” the witch Ozymora continued the incantation, as Phobetor the God of Nightmares and Human-Animal Hybrids gazed in absorption. “His loneliness, unabated since his mortal beloved Maribelle died, shall at last be sated, for his new friend the witch Ozymora brings to him a consort of unparalleled beauty and grace, a magical creature of the rarest sort.”
Ozymora snapped her fingers, and in a dazzling pool of light, her tapestry began to disintegrate. Balls of beautiful gilded aura arose from the pool, alit above and disappeared, until a cage was revealed. Within it, sat a finely formed young vampire of Zulu origin, with bizarre yellow animal’s eyes, glowing and nocturnal with no whites, like a panther. The God of Nightmares smiled.
“A lovely creature to match your own beauty,” Ozymora flattered. “For the impundulu is a vampire of such rare and incomparable beauty that all would be seduced thereby.”
“An impundulu serves only one master,” Phobetor intoned, his commanding vibrato setting the glass beads adorning Asi’s cage and Ozymora’s bejeweled headdress and skirts to trembling. Phobetor lovely and perfect being that he was, stood well over six-foot-five and was perfectly formed. That was when he didn’t use his preternatural powers to elevate himself to well over seven feet, like a cobra extending its hood, as he now did.
Ozymora’s eyes widened in fear, but even at his most terrifying, he was majestic beyond compare and hot as hell, and for the first time, a weakness overcame her with regards to her lust for Phobetor and an unfamiliar wanting.
“His name is Asi,” Ozymora informed him. “Unbound as he is, he shall become only yours. You will be his master and liege!”
Phobetor laughed. “You can’t fool me, mortal! That creature is bound to you. You are the witch it must serve, that is why it doesn’t devour you! Hungry, starving little impundulu Asi. Let’s bring in some snacks for our beautiful guest, so he may be well fed before I greet him.”
“Indeed,” Ozymora nodded, the very picture of sagacity. “And then I will free him, and he shall be really and truly yours”
“Do you swear an oath to free him?” Phobetor asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Indeed, I do!” she lied, clapping her hands together. “I will sever our bond, and he will be ever so loyal to you.”
“Very well,” Phobetor smiled. “With such joy I do receive your generous gift. And in return, I swear I shall give you immortality.”
“Indeed!” Ozymora cried greedily. “With all gratitude I accept, Lord Phobetor!”
The Golem Three
“Bring in the humans,” he called out to his golem. The three creatures, one of basalt, one of black marble, and the other obsidian, emerged as formations of rock humanoid creatures from his floor, throne and cavern walls. They lumbered in unison towards the hall to the rear of his chamber room. The Basalt Golem wandered to the storeroom and reemerged with a bare-breasted maiden whose long hair was bound at one side in a single braid tossed over its shoulder. The Basalt Golem pressed her against the wall and performed magic that made the wall around her wrists and ankles melt and extend. The extruded particles encircled the ankles and wrists, restraining her.
Asi’s mouth began to water. Phobetor and Ozymora turned in unison to observe the creature’s drooling.
“Does your new liege tempt and torture you?” Phobetor taunted Asi. “Soon, you will learn to delight in my cruel ways, to enjoy the longing that wells deep within you, waiting to be released. To feed only after you have lusted and been driven mad by desire.”
Ozymora found herself responding to Phobetor’s baritone with an unquenchable desire of her own. Heat rose to her flushed cheeks, and a trickle of sweat tracked down her mouth like a forgotten tear.
“Watch and feel the heat rise in your loins and the bloodlust in your heart!” Phobetor sang, his voice reverberating from the walls, smooth and hypnotic. For a moment, Ozymora thought he was speaking to her, but then she watched as he strode to Asi’s cage and freed the clasp, releasing the vampire.
The Basalt Golem removed a gag from between the maiden’s lips so her screams could be heard, then it disappeared into the wall.
Asi approached, prowling like a jungle cat, his dark wings half-risen from his muscular arms. Glowing yellow eyes enchanted the girl, and soon her mouth lay open, slack, drooling onto the cloth gag that now sat around her chin.
“What is your name, my pretty?” Asi asked, sliding sharpened teeth into the side of her neck to release small trickles of blood. A drug-like stupor overcame the human victim, and she smiled gently as she mumbled, “Laitenya.”
“Laitenya is the wife of a mortal named Prolince. Bring him also, so that they may partake in the horror and delight of one another’s departure,” Phobetor ordered gruffly. The Black Marble Golem withdrew to the back and retuned with a bound, gagged and muscular man. As Laitenya had been bound to the wall, so was Prolince to the floor. Again, the gag was removed, and the Golem returned to the ground.
Laitenya and Prolince
This time, instead of screaming, the unbound human began to profess love for his mate. Confused, the hungry Asi paused and turned to give a pleading look to first Ozymora and then Phobetor. “But they are so in love… must we?” he asked.
“Our love will be born from these noble acts of sacrifice,” Phobetor confided. “It is no accident that they are paired. Paired
in true love, they will reincarnate as a destined pair of loves only to find each other in their next lives, as Maribelle and I surely must. Only when you give in to your truest and most forbidden desire will you and I belong to one another forever, as these two do, immortal one.”
“And you?” Asi asked Ozymora.
“Perhaps Phobetor should add a substantial sum of money to my gift of immortality,” she suggested, her natural greedy acquisitiveness overcoming her caution.
“Yes…” Phobetor agreed, his dark, deep voice sending rich shudders through her body as her lust for the god and for his wealth combined into a compulsion. “To you, I will grant a castle, and within it, a chamber filled with gold. Until you sit on your own throne, you may sit on mine. Go and occupy it now.” Smiling, Ozymora swirled her emerald and lime skirts in delight as she ascended and then lit upon the obsidian throne.
“Very well,” Asi said, stroking the flesh of the enchanted human couple to make them yielding and compliant. Rows of tiny, sharp teeth bit both of the humans in tender spots, delighting them, but leaving them wounded and bleeding. Tiny droplets of blood appeared like sweat from the tears and bruises pooled in navels and other indentations. Asi licked them up with his crimson tongue. He latched on to ears and nose, lip and breast, sucking until the blood was drained, leaving them pallid and listless.
“Now you will reincarnate together into your new world, your just reward,” Phobetor somberly informed Laitenya and Prolince as they stared deeply into one another’s eyes. “Have it done now, Asi.”
“Yeeesssss,” Ozymora crooned, mesmerized.
And so, Asi transformed… a bird, as large as a human. Long feathered arms dragged on the ground, their ends curled into talons. Two more talons replaced its feet. A long, very sharp and pointed beak dug into Laitenya’s chest, plucking out her heart. Quickly, so that the lovers together would part, Asi dropped to his knees, and with his hard beak pierced flesh and bone, only to scoop out from beneath muscle, Prolince’s still beating heart.