by Mara Kelly
He and Shillah stood up at once. The Caracolii stopped in a semicircle facing them, and placed their candles on pillars. Laro and Sabinia came toward them.
"Ilion and Shillah of Paila," said Laro's deep voice. "You are come to Caracolii of Marah. You have shared the dance with us, shared our meals, but more is required for the fluid unity of the Caracolii. Do you, Ilion, join us of your own free will, and choose to dedicate your life to the glory of Deia?"
"I do," said Ilion automatically; it was the same ritual question he had answered countless times during his training. To his right, he heard Sabinia's soft voice asking the same question of his sister, and his sister's affirmative reply.
And then, to his shock, he felt Laro's hands moving over him, lifting the robe. A moment later, he stood naked before the Caracolii; a glance to his right showed him that his sister did as well. Through the haze in his brain, he noticed a few of the female Caracolii eyeing him lasciviously.
"Do not fear," said Sabinia's soothing voice. "What we do tonight is but the wish of the goddess, who wishes all her children to find unity. It is not by chance that Caracolii of Marah are joined as one in the dance. We live and breathe and move as one in every part of our lives. We know each other's bodies as well as we know our own. In the weeks to come, you will each share the bed of every dancer here. But tonight we will welcome you, and show you the joy of the goddess in its purest form."
It took Ilion a moment to realize Sabinia had finished speaking. He looked over and saw her wrapping his sister in a soft embrace, her lips on Shillah's. His mouth went dry as he saw how Shillah acquiesced to the touch, how her skin shimmered in the candlelight. Sabinia pushed Shillah back onto the platform and removed her own robe, revealing golden brown skin and two perfectly rounded breasts. Ilion's breath caught in his throat as Sabinia bent over Shillah and took one of her nipples into her mouth; Shillah arched her back and cried out, and a shiver went around the dancers watching, as if they too felt the intimate touch.
And then Sabinia slid down to kiss the place between Shillah's legs, and Ilion could not tear his eyes away, though he felt his own erection swelling painfully against his leg. He tried to remind himself that he was watching his sister, but that thought only made him more aroused. Shillah, he realized, had known the intimate touch of a woman before. The way she rocked her hips against Sabinia's face, the way she closed her eyes in ecstasy spoke of experience.
Ilion gradually became aware of someone stroking his back, of stronger hands moving along his arms, and then he closed his eyes in a jolt of pleasure as a warm, wet mouth closed over his cock. He heard the heavy breathing of the Caracolii watching, and wrenched his eyes open to see Laro kneeling before him. The man looked up at him and smiled, then took Ilion's entire length in his mouth, swirling his tongue ceaselessly. Ilion thought he might pass out.
As if they had read his thoughts, other hands guided him backward toward the platform. The mouth on his cock disappeared, and then he was on his back, staring up at the high ceiling that disappeared into flickering shadow, and it was replaced by another. He was vaguely aware of the warm, musky scent of men surrounding him, coupled with a sweeter, more distant scent he couldn't name. Strong hands stroked his arms, his chest; a mouth sealed itself over his, and he tasted temple wine. Faces blurred in his vision as his body quickened to the succession of hands and mouths moving over his most sensitive parts.
He turned his head toward his sister. He couldn't see her through the forest of bodies surrounding him. He could only make out moving female shapes—the flash of a breast here, a white leg there. But he heard her, clear and strong through the wine-haze of his own pleasure, moaning and rasping as the women of the temple pleasured her. He heard her gasp, and Ilion could no longer hold back—he came hard, into the mouth of whichever dancer had his lips wrapped around him.
* * *
The candlelight swirled around Shillah as she shivered out the last of her orgasm. She moaned and rocked against the lips of the woman between her legs—Carmenda, she realized vaguely, opening her eyes.
This was nothing like the timid explorations back in the girls' dormitory back in Paila. Soft hands stroked her all over, and Shillah felt warm and safe. She sighed and started to sit up, but the hands pushed her backward, gentle but firm, and another woman lowered her head to lap at the soft place between her legs. Carmenda moved to take one nipple in her mouth, then planted her mouth on Shillah's in a languid kiss.
Again and again they brought her to climax, not letting her stop to rest or catch her breath, or turn toward the sounds of pleasure emanating from her brother. Once she caught a glimpse of him, eyes closed in ecstasy with a male dance latched onto his cock, and the sight sent her into spasms of ecstasy.
Shillah lost count of her orgasms—they came, wave on wave, relentless, and she was powerless against the tide.
She was vaguely aware of a chime ringing somewhere far away, and then the warm hands were gone. Shillah looked around, confused, and saw her brother doing the same. She no longer tried to hide the curiosity with which she stared at the erection between his legs; Ilion, like she, had been abandoned in the heat of pleasure.
Then Laro stepped toward her, eyeing her hungrily. Shillah let her eyes drift downward, and saw how much pleasuring her brother had aroused him. She was vaguely aware that the other Caracolii had resumed their semicircle, and she felt their burning eyes on her as Laro ran his fingers over her lips and down to her breasts, pausing to pinch one nipple in a commanding way that made her gasp. She heard a sigh go around the room. Laro's fingers moved slowly over her stomach, and Shillah was immobilized with pleasure as he found the dripping place between her thighs and inserted one finger into her. She stared up at the Caracola leader, the candlelight flickering over the lean, sculpted muscles of his arms and chest.
A low moan to her left made her look over, and she saw Sabinia hovering above Ilion, sliding herself onto his engorged member ever so slowly. Ilion rocked against her and reached for her breasts; at that same moment, Laro squeezed Shillah's breast, and she was filled with a powerful ache unlike any she had ever known. She rocked against Laro's hand, little begging gasps escaping her throat. Laro bent and kissed her full on the lips, then he removed his finger and knelt above her. He gripped her hips and entered her slowly. Shillah writhed against him, eyes dropping shut, and he moved against her like a skilled dancer drawing out a long, slow ribbon.
And then he was gone, and Shillah choked back a frustrated sob. She heard an echo of it, and realized that her brother must be experiencing the same thing, but then a moment later, there was no room for such thoughts. Another dancer had entered her, and she rocked to his new rhythm, rising on the tide of Ilion's panting beside her, and her own breathing heavy in her ears. She was vaguely aware of the other men of the Caracola surrounding her, reaching out to stroke her breasts and legs with touches more firm, more wanting than the soft hands of the women had been. Again and again there were new bodies above her, moving inside her, and Shillah learned to adjust her movements to each new partner as in the dance. She came again and again, heard the satisfied grunts and moans of the men again and again.
She looked to her left, and saw Ilion, with Carmenda moving above him. She reached out and found his hand, clutching it sharply as a shattering orgasm overtook her, and she heard her brother's ecstatic cries blend with her own.
* * *
"Are you nervous?" Ilion asked, as he and Shillah stood outside the temple before their first official performance with the Caracolii of Marah.
She smiled at him, and let her hand drift down to touch his thigh just a moment longer than one outside the Caracolii would have thought appropriate. "Not at all," she said. "I know every dancer here as well as I know myself."
"As do I," said Ilion, smiling to himself. "As do I."
Choice
In his seventeen years, Tobias had never seen a sight so terrifying as the house of the sorceress Marica when the constable's carriage emerge
d from the woods. He clutched at his meager bundle of clothing and turned pleading eyes on the man driving the carriage.
"It's no good, lad," said the constable, not unsympathetically. "The magistrate's decision is final. And it's only two months. You'll be fine."
Tobias swallowed hard. Two months in the employ of the sorceress, doing her dark bidding…he'd heard rumors all his life of the dark magic that flowed from her sprawling home in the woods, but he'd never dreamed he would have to live in that house and serve Marica herself. He heartily regretted the two deer he'd shot on her land last autumn, and regretted even more that he'd been caught. Marica was the wealthiest landowner for miles, and she had demanded retribution. But even the county magistrate had looked pityingly on Tobias as he had pronounced his verdict.
The constable stopped the carriage in front of the wide front doors of the house, and Tobias climbed down. The constable whipped the horses again almost before Tobias's feet had touched the ground, and Tobias stood watching the carriage's retreat, feeling utterly deserted.
The doors behind him opened, and an old woman emerged. "The trespasser, eh?" she said in a creaky voice. "Well, don't just stand there dawdling, come in. I assume you know how to sweep and scrub. If not, you'll learn mighty fast." She grabbed his arm in a talon-like grip and hustled him into the dark entryway. Tobias looked around, surprised to see the hall decorated with tapestries and lamps, like any ordinary country manor.
The old woman hurried him down the hall and through another door. In the distance, he heard a man's shout, and he started. The old woman turned and eyed him keenly. "The mistress is working," she said. "We don't disturb the mistress when she is working. In fact, you'd do well to stay out of the mistress' way altogether. She has no love for trespassers."
Tobias did his best to follow that advice over the next few days, and found it wasn't difficult. The old woman—he never did learn her name, as she didn't offer it, and he didn't ask—told him what to do and when, and he scrubbed floors, chopped wood, and polished urns until his fingers ached. Each night he lay on the little cot he'd been given in the corner of the kitchen, mentally counting down the days until his release and imagining the soft lips and chaste arms of his sweetheart Cilla, back in the village. Occasionally, when the old woman's soft snoring drifted from her cot at the other end of the room, he allowed his hand to find its way between his legs, and he imagined Cilla pressed against him, doing things she would never dare do in reality.
The first two weeks passed more quickly than he ever would have guessed; far from being terrifying, the sorceress' house actually began to bore him. He still had not seen Marica in person, though he often heard the muttering of male voices and the cries and moans from her workroom. The old woman often instructed him to tidy up the room when the sorceress had finished her work, and Tobias was fascinated with the rows of colored bottles and phials on the shelves, the smooth white walls that gave little hint of what sorts of things the sorceress did with her victims there.
Tobias knew well the rumors—the men who visited Marica were not unlike himself. They too owed the wealthy sorceress debts, and had agreed to repay them...how, he didn't quite understand. But he began to realize how lucky he was that the sorceress had taken his case to the magistrate instead of exacting whatever price she took from the visitors.
And what visitors they were. Tobias had seen the constable's carriage hitched outside under the trees more than once, had caught glimpses of some of the most respectable men in the village as the old woman had led them toward the mistress's workroom.
Three weeks into his servitude, on a bright, sunny day, the old woman instructed Tobias to sweep out the mistress' workroom. He went at once, dreading being shut into that windowless room. Shards of glass littered the floor where a phial had broken; Tobias carefully swept it into his dustpan along with the swirling dust.
His eyes were drawn to the rows of bottles in their locked cases along the walls. He wondered exactly what Marica made in those bottles, though he thought, from village gossip, that he could guess. After all, the villagers supposedly went to her in secret for everything from love potions to formulas to curse their enemies.
The cases lined two walls of the room; the third and fourth were smooth and unbroken, and had a strange, ominous feel. The floor was tiled in a sea green design, but Tobias did not know the meaning of the swirls and pictures there. A broad wooden table stood at the center of the room. Ordinarily it stood as bare as the walls, but today a single, round green bottle sat on it. Tobias looked quickly toward the door, then walked over and lifted the bottle curiously. Another glance at the door, and then he removed the stopper, cautiously inhaling the sweet, heady scent that drifted from it.
"Do my potions intrigue you?" said a low voice behind him.
Tobias whirled around, cringing as the bottle splashed its contents onto his tunic. The sorceress stood in the doorway, regarding him with an amused expression, the red ringlets of her hair framing her face and spilling down her shoulders.
"I'm...I'm sorry...I was...just cleaning," he stammered. Realizing he was still gripping the bottle, he set it down on the table and shoved the stopper back in.
Marica arched one thin eyebrow. "I see," she said. She swept across the room toward him, her green velvet gown trailing across the tiles, and stopped when she stood beside him. Tobias's heart pounded. He could not meet her eyes.
"If you are so curious," she said in a low, mellifluous voice, "go on and drink it."
Tobias began to shake. He opened his mouth to protest, but only a feeble squeak came out. Marica reached out and gripped his chin, forcing him to look at her, and he was powerless to resist her eyes—they were deep and yellowish, like a cat's. With her other hand, she reached out and removed the stopper from the bottle, then held it out to him. Tobias took it and drank, unable to do otherwise.
He knew at once what it was. Marica surely gave her victims something to make them submissive, before she did...whatever it was she did to them. He knew, from the warmth that spread through his body and from the way he was unable to look away from her face, that she had made him docile and meek.
Marica snatched the bottle from his fingers and laughed. "Now get out," she said. "I have work to do."
Tobias hurried to the door, powerless to resist her wishes. He hurried down the corridor, ignoring the sounds of the old woman leading in the sorceress' most recent victim, and collapsed in a quiet corner. His breath came heavily, and his skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. His face seemed to burn where Marica had touched him.
Tobias huddled himself into a ball as he heard the old woman go past, and then wondered, wildly, what to do next. Surely he had to escape now, before the sorceress' potion affected him more deeply…but before he even realized what he was doing, he found himself creeping back toward the room from which a man's low moans now issued.
To his surprise, Tobias saw that the door stood slightly ajar. He crept to it and peered through, fascinated and horrified at what he might see.
A man stood in the center of the room, entirely naked and chained to floor and ceiling with bonds Tobias had never seen in the room before. It took a moment for Tobias to recognize the man as the magistrate. He stood with his eyes closed, and he moaned as the sorceress stood behind him, flogging him with a cane.
At first Tobias thought the man's moans were sounds of distress, but then he saw the flesh rising between the man's legs, and felt a corresponding tingle in his own trousers. The sorceress nearly purred as she cut the cane across the man's buttocks, again and again.
The sorceress tossed the cane aside, and the magistrate let out a sound of disappointment. But the sorceress didn't even seem to notice as she strode around to stand in front of him and gripped his engorged member. Nodding as if satisfied, she waved her hands and said something in a language Tobias didn't understand, and the magistrate ascended into the air, his arm bonds shortening and his leg bonds lengthening until he hung with his member at exactly the level
of the sorceress' lips.
Tobias reached out to steady himself against the doorframe as he watched Marica take the magistrate into her mouth. The magistrate moaned loudly. Tobias ran his hand over the bulge in his trousers and watched the sorceress, her hair gleaming in the lamplight, her long nails digging into the magistrate's hips.
Tobias slipped his hand inside his trousers and stroked his own heated flesh, imagining Cilla's lips on him as he had so often before, imagining the powerful mouth of the sorceress moving over him. And then he ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth, imagining the salty taste of cock.
A low, surprised sound escaped him, and he froze.
"Tobias," said the sorceress. He opened his eyes and saw her looking toward the door. She seemed amused rather than annoyed, however. This did not comfort him.
She regarded him thoughtfully. "Come here."
He went, powerless to do anything else, even to retie his trousers. Marica pointed at the magistrate, whose eyes were still closed in ecstasy and who seemed completely unaware of Tobias's presence. Marica stood behind Tobias and pushed his face toward the man's crotch. Tobias took the hard member in his mouth, part of him deeply aware that his enjoyment of it could only come from the potion the sorceress had given him. Another part didn't care, only wanted to keep sucking.
And then he felt Marica drawing his trousers down, felt her warm, wet mouth on his cock, and all thoughts ceased. She moved her tongue over his length again and again, and his moans were stifled by the cock in his mouth.
The magistrate let out a deep moan, and Marica suddenly stood and pushed Tobias out of the way. His legs were so weak that he fell to the floor, and he watched dazedly as Marica pumped the magistrate's cock with her hand, catching his essence in a vial.
She stoppered the vial, then waved her hand and the magistrate was lowered to the floor, his bonds falling away. Marica threw him a pile of clothes. "Now get out," she said, "until next month's rent is due."