Kiss of Death (Modern Erotic Classics)

by Valentina Cilescu

  The High Priestess began the preparations for the Great Rite, casting the circle in which two worlds would meet: the world of men and the world of the gods and spirits. The sacred broom was used to sweep the area, whilst an invocation was chanted. Then the High Priestess took a dagger and used it to draw the circle, cleansing it with spring water and salt, and consecrating it to the mother-goddess. The attendant witches began to invoke the divine force, chanting:

  ‘Bagahi laca bachahe

  Lamac cahi achabahe

  Karrelyos . . .’

  ‘She is cleansing the circle so that it may be filled with our energies,’ whispered Mara to Hunt, who was feeling distinctly uneasy. ‘The ceremony will soon begin. See: she has placed the broomstick at the edge of the circle, to make a doorway through which we shall pass.’

  The chant began again:

  ‘Eko, eko Arazak

  Eko, eko Zamilak

  Eko, eko Cernunnos

  Eko, eko Aradia . . .’

  Two witches – one male, one female – approached Mara and Hunt, and led them into the middle of the circle. They carried small earthenware pots containing some kind of aromatic ointment, which they proceeded to rub all over the bride and bridegroom’s bodies – the female witch attending to Hunt, the male to Mara.

  The very act of massage was in itself erotic, and Hunt felt his member uncoiling, rising, thrusting upwards; but it was more than just the feeling of a cool female hand rubbing ointment into his body – it was something in the ointment itself. As it was smoothed on to his skin, he felt a strange sensation – half-burning, half-numbing; a warmth that spread right through his skin, his flesh, deep down to the bones beneath.

  Mara, too, was feeling the sensual warmth, as it spread to her nipples, her belly, her clitoris. The male witch was a skilful masseur, with a gentle but firm touch and bold, bold fingers. He had no qualms about massaging her most intimate places, and his fingers probed into the cleft of her backside, slid across her stiffening nipples, and down over her belly to her groin, rubbing the ointment right inside her vulva. It was the most exquisite sensation, like fire and ice mingled.

  A bell was rung, and the High Priestess knelt before Penny, reciting the words of the fivefold kiss and touching each part of her body in turn:

  ‘Blessed be thy feet that have brought thee in these ways.

  Blessed be thy knees that shall kneel at the sacred altar.

  Blessed be thy womb without which we would not be.

  Blessed be thy breasts formed in beauty and strength.

  Blessed be thy lips that shall utter the sacred names.’

  She then knelt down before Hunt and repeated the ritual, paying particular attention to his wildly rearing prick.

  She then took up a whip with silken thongs and scourged the two postulants lightly over their entire bodies.

  ‘You must now speak the words of joining,’ instructed the High Priestess, binding their right hands together with a silken cord.

  Hunt turned to Mara and spoke the words he had been taught:

  ‘Will you now pass through the veil and the gates of night and day? Will you be at one with me, who am both death and life? Will you kneel before me and worship me?’

  Mara responded with a kiss, and replied:

  ‘I am light and thou the darkness, I am darkness and thou the light, and there must be no separation between us. Will you love me beyond all things and be the instrument of my desire? Will you love the darkness that is within thee and open your arms to it? Will you flee not from shadows and the fears, but embrace them and so make yourself whole?’

  ‘I will.’

  Mara then knelt before him, and Hunt laid down the sword of mastery between her parted thighs: the symbol of their joining.

  This was the signal for great rejoicing, and the witches drew nearer out of the shadows, bearing lighted candles and offerings of fruit and flowers. They rubbed more of the sweet-smelling ointment into their flesh, and Hunt’s head began to swim as the hallucinations began.

  The witches drew them to their feet, swaying slightly from the drugged ointment.

  ‘Jump the broomstick!’ cried the witches in chorus. And they helped the two postulants to step over the broom laid as a gate to the magic circle.

  Hunt swayed on unsteady feet, now in the grip of a lust so powerful that it had changed his very identity. He was no longer simply Mr Andreas Hunt. He had become his own penis: nothing more of him existed. He lived for his penis, that proud, masterly staff which sprang godlike from his loins, full of the essence of life. It seemed to grow to immense proportions, throbbing with the insistent beat of his heart, quickening, rushing, impelling him towards the only goal it knew or desired or understood: Mara’s delectable cunt.

  Mara felt elated, hypersensitive; feeling every nerve-ending in her body tingling and singing with life. She needed sex: needed Hunt’s big, insistent penis inside her belly, toiling away within her, rubbing against her throbbing clitoris and bringing her to glorious orgasm. She reached out and touched Hunt’s penis, hungry for its smooth hardness within her, taking her to ecstasy and beyond. It twitched appreciatively in her hand, and Hunt knelt down, eager to have her right there and then.

  The High Priestess walked forward and laid her hands upon their heads:

  ‘It is now time for you to perform the Great Rite,’ she intoned. ‘Brothers and sisters, decree: shall they perform it in token, or in true?’

  ‘In true, in true!’ came the great cry. ‘Let their loins be joined now, in our midst!’

  Lying together on the dew-spangled grass, Hunt and Mara needed no further instructions. Their naked bodies were already entwined, glistening and fragrant with sweet ointments and the sweat of fast-growing lust.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ cried the witches, drawing nearer the two and running their lascivious hands over the two bodies. ‘Enter her, enter her now!’

  Responding well to such enthusiastic encouragement, Hunt searched out Mara’s cunt and, with a great cry of pleasure, slipped into her. It felt exactly as if he were thrusting his entire body into hers, as though the whole world consisted only of prick and cunt and balls and clitty, of sticky spunk and slippery cunt-juice. His testicles felt huge, like great seed-pods, ripening, maturing, hardening, almost ready to burst. He reached out and felt for her clitoris: it, too, was a ripening fruit, a bud about to blossom. He could feel its hardness pulsating under his fingertip, and – feeling his own crisis drawing near – he pressed a little harder, to hasten Mara’s climax.

  He brought her off at just the moment that he felt the base of his prick grow still heavier with the coming outrush of spunk, jetting along his shaft like quicksilver, leaping out into the warm haven of Mara’s cunt in long, luxurious waves of incredible pleasure.

  They cried out their pleasure and lay panting together on the ground.

  Hunt felt a hand upon his shoulder, and looked up into the face of the High Priestess.

  ‘Now comes the celebration,’ she told him. ‘Now our brothers and sisters shall celebrate your joining in our traditional way.’

  Hunt looked puzzled.

  ‘She means that we may now all enjoy each other’s bodies,’ explained Mara. ‘It is the way with our coven. Any man who desires me may have me, and any woman may claim your favours. The ointment will ensure that you are able to come as many times as you want to.’

  Hunt was not sure he liked the idea of Mara being screwed by every man who desired her . . . but then again, he looked around at the sisters and had to admit there were one or two he wouldn’t kick out of bed. That nice brunette with the pert little bum; and the blowsy redhead with the huge knockers.

  Two women were tugging at his arm, one surely no more than eighteen years old, with perfect white skin and nice tits, and the other a middle-aged woman – not great-looking admittedly, past her best, but still well worth screwing, with her big soft body.

  ‘Patience, girls – one at a time!’ he joked. But that wasn’t what they had
in mind. The younger girl knelt down behind him and began to thrust her tongue into his arsehole, whilst the older woman – almost certainly her mother – knelt in front and set to work on his penis with her skilful lips and tongue. It was an irresistible combination of sensations, so mind-blowing that he scarcely noticed a fat, elderly man leading Mara off into the trees.

  Mara lay down on the soft bracken and gave herself up to the old man’s lust. Normally she would have been repulsed by this toothless old man, with his fat, pendulous belly and spindly legs. He was drooling with excitement as he began to paw at her perfect breasts and belly. There were so many folds of flesh about his waist that his prick was almost hidden from sight, only its dribbling tip poking out from underneath the fleshy curtain.

  ‘Sweet flesh . . .’ he wheezed, running his odious fat paws across her breasts, tweaking her nipples and relishing her slight grimaces of pain. ‘And you’re mine to enjoy. Let’s see what you taste like, little princess . . .’

  He ran sausage fingers up the inside of her thighs, pinching the delicate flesh and enjoying her evident discomfort. But she was clearly excited, too, by this fat old man with dirty fingernails who was poking and prodding at her most intimate places.

  With some difficulty, because of his corpulence, the man knelt between her thighs and began to lap noisily at her cunt. In spite of her natural revulsion, Mara found herself responding instinctively to the contact of his greedy, rasping tongue. His saliva mingled with her abundant cunt-juices, and she almost came as his tongue darted into her wet tunnel like a lizard’s darting after its prey.

  Breathing heavily, he hauled himself off her cunt and crawled on top of her until he was right above her, looking down into her pretty face. She could smell his breathing: the sickly-sweet scent of decay, mingled with the heavy scent of her own cunt, and to her surprise the smell did not repel, but excited her, though he was all but suffocating her with the weight of his great flabby belly.

  Without further preliminaries, his hand fumbled for his cock and stuffed it clumsily and rather roughly into her wet crack. She gave a sigh of perverse pleasure as he began to screw her. His breath came with difficulty, rasping out of his half-open mouth, the saliva dribbling disgustingly from the corners and down his unshaven chin.

  ‘Fuck me . . .’ she breathed, too far gone to care who or where or why, and only knowing that she must have an orgasm or go mad with frustration.

  A final thrust did the trick, as he shot his load of spunk into her and ground against her clitoris, triggering off her own orgasm.

  For a second or two, she lay with eyes closed, beneath him. When she opened them, it was with a low cry of terror. For she was looking up into the face, not of the disgusting old priest, but of the man who had called himself The Master. His eyes were burning into her soul, and there was an unspeakably cruel twist to the corners of his mouth as he smiled and said:

  ‘Soon, very soon, I shall have you, little slut.’

  And with those words, the image of the Master’s face seemed to dissolve away, restoring the face of the priest who had screwed her and still lay on top of her, crushing her with his fat, malodorous body. And as she gazed up at him, his face changed yet again: this time twisting into an expression half-terror, half-pain.

  Beads of sweat were standing out on his greasy forehead, and he clutched suddenly at his chest as he gave a rasping cry and fell, unconscious and unmoving, on top of her terrified body.

  Her screams brought the others to the scene within seconds, but it was too late: The unwonted exertion must have brought on a heart attack.

  So why could Mara still hear the mocking laughter echoing all around her in the darkness?

  14: London

  Things had settled down a little since that day, two weeks ago, when Mara had been so upset by the old man’s heart attack. For several days she had been unable to sleep or eat and Hunt knew there was more to it than she was admitting to. But now she seemed to have put it all behind her, and he was greatly relieved to see her taking an interest in life again. She had even started work again, offering Tarot readings and palmistry to the bored housewives of suburbia.

  Hunt, meanwhile, was feeling pretty good. The editor seemed to have relented somewhat and had recognised that his talents were wasted writing space-fillers that no-one would read. He had put Hunt on to a lead about a possible call-girl scandal in Whitehall, and he was delighted. This would provide him with the perfect platform from which to launch his second wave of discreet investigations into the fascinating Sir Anthony Cheviot.

  He made repeated attempts to contact Anastasia Dubois, but there was no reply at her apartment and no-one at the club had any recollection of her. In fact, she seemed to have done a pretty effective disappearing act, just when he needed her to dish some more dirt on Cheviot. Without a glamorous witness or a talkative victim, his front-page exclusive was just pie in the sky.

  The phone call came around midday, just as he was about to knock off for a cheese sandwich and a liquid lunch in the local pub. The voice was female, breathy, seductive:

  ‘Andreas Hunt?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Just listen. Don’t say anything. I think I’m being watched. I was there, I saw it . . . the Knightsbridge murder . . . it was so horrible . . .’

  ‘You mean . . . the call-girl who was bitten on the thigh and bled to death?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Don’t talk; we don’t have much time. Listen: I was in the flat with her. We . . . you know . . . worked together, saw clients together. Some of them like to have two women together. Anyhow, he turned up, this guy, and I knew who he was straight away. It was that MP with the weird white streak in his hair, I don’t know his name . . .’

  ‘Meredith Parry-Evans?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, the Welsh guy. Anyhow, he seemed OK at first. Asked to be tied down and whipped, and then he wanted me to suck him off while Sonja sat on his face. It was OK, straightforward, I could feel him coming and I think he had Sonja excited, too. I could hear her breathing hard and I guessed she was about to come, and I was pleased for her . . . that doesn’t happen much with clients, mostly it’s just hard work.

  ‘At any rate, he shoots off in my mouth and I give him a good long suck so as to make it last . . . and all of a sudden, he goes raving bonkers: starts thrashing about and shouting. Thrashes about so much, he breaks the leather straps we’d used to tie him down – he must have been incredibly strong, but he didn’t look it.

  ‘And before she has a chance to get out of his way, the bastard goes and sinks his frigging teeth into her groin, God, it was awful. He must have hit an artery. The mess – blood everywhere. And the way she screamed and screamed and then suddenly went quiet. It was all so quick, there was nothing I could do, I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was spurting all over the place. It only took a minute or two, and she went all pale and still. I knew she was dead.’

  The girl’s voice trembled, and she began to sob uncontrollably. Damn, thought Hunt. Won’t get much sense out of her if she goes on like this. Got to calm her down. Get more details . . .

  ‘Look, love, don’t upset yourself,’ he said, trying hard to sound sympathetic instead of impatient. This could be the big one . . . ‘Come on now, take a deep breath and try and tell me what happened next.’

  The sobbing went on for a while, and then the girl seemed to calm down a little and began again:

  ‘I was so busy trying to do something for poor Sonja, I never thought to watch out for him – he looked like he was unconscious, laid out cold on the bed. I thought it’d be OK. Anyhow, next thing I know, he’s coming towards me with a mad look in his eyes, and he’s baring his teeth and . . . oh my God, there’s blood dripping down his face and it’s all over his chest; it’s like something out of a horror movie . . .’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I hit him with the first thing I could lay my hands on . . . it was a marble statuette I think . . . and that threw him off balance for a moment. And then I jus
t ran and ran. All I had on was a waspie corset and high heels, and I had to take off the shoes so I could run. I wanted to get help, but at that time of night there was no-one around, it was four a.m. Eventually I got to my friend’s flat and she let me in. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it since.

  ‘And there’s something else you ought to know. I rang the hospital to find out if they’d let me see the body, and . . . it’s disappeared. Gone. My God, what’s happened to her . . .?’

  ‘Look, tell me your name and where you are. We need to get together and talk.’ His pencil was poised over the shorthand pad, waiting with bated breath for the vital details. Come on, come on.

  ‘My name is . . . oh no! No, please, please don’t . . .’

  ‘What’s the matter – what’s happening?’

  ‘I . . .!’ The girl’s voice rose to a hysterical scream, which tailed off into a horrible hoarse groan, and then silence. Nothing but the dialling tone, insolently purring in Hunt’s horrified ear.

  Who was the girl? Where was she calling from? And how could he find out? She had sounded as if she was beyond help, but he had to try to trace her somehow. He had to think fast.

  Feverishly, he scanned the previous week’s papers, and found the story about the Knightsbridge murder. He didn’t know why he hadn’t paid more attention to it before, though there wasn’t a great deal of detail. Apparently the victim was a high-class call-girl called Sonja Kerensky, who shared a flat with a friend called Teresa Monk, who also shared much of her work. Together, the girls specialised in ‘threesomes’ for wealthy clients. They didn’t come cheap: it was rumoured the girls were pulling down £1,000 plus a night. Now Sonja was dead – in gruesome circumstances – and Teresa had vanished without trace. Intriguingly, the fact that Sonja had died from a vicious human bite was conspicuous by its absence. According to the newspaper article, she had been the victim of ‘a violent attack, possibly by an intruder’ – and that was all.