The girl reached up to stroke the swollen abdomen of the creature hanging directly above her. The bulbous sack trembled at her touch, and suddenly a steaming jet of liquid sprayed out from an orifice. It spattered over the girl's naked chest, in looping, dribbling strands of thick golden syrup.
Tanys drew back a step in horror as the girl continued to stroke the body of the creature, covering her breasts in honey, letting it run down her belly into the silvery hair between her legs. The creature's body convulsed with a final spurt and hung like an empty sack. A long strand of syrup dangled from its tail to the girl's lips as she leaned in to taste it.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, the girl's smoldering gaze turned to Tanys once more. "I hope you're very hungry." she said.
Tanys's body trembled, though whether from hunger or the fear of what the girl demanded she do, she could not tell. She took a step toward the honey-covered girl.
"Come now," the girl chided, her eyes hardening, "have you no manners?"
"I'm sorry Daima," Tanys said, "I don't understand."
"You don't want to get your new dress all smudgy, do you?"
Tanys's cheeks flushed red. She hesitated for a moment before slipping her dress off over her head. Her breasts tingled, bouncing free of the tight silk. She cringed as the underside of one of the honey ants hanging above her brushed against the knuckles of her right hand.
She folded the dress against her chest and looked around for a place to set it down.
"Just drop it!" the girl said.
Tanys let it fall to the wriggling floor and walked slowly toward the girl, their eyes locked in a silent struggle for dominance. The girl raised her hand, stopping Tanys only a step away.
"You forgot to thank me," the girl said.
Tanys breathed three slow breaths before answering. "Thank you, Daima."
"For?"
"For sparing me."
"And?"
"... and for feeding me," Tanys whispered.
The girl smiled again, stiffening her back to present her sticky breasts to Tanys. "You may eat now."
Tanys sighed softly, the needs of her body overcoming her shame. She placed her hands on the girl's slight shoulders and leaned close. Tanys pressed her lips to the girl's mouth, kissing away the sweetness there. The girl moaned as Tanys's tongue moved to the hollow of her throat.
Tanys licked along the girl's collarbone her mouth filled with the taste of honey. For a moment, she remembered its source and gagged at the mental image of the thick syrup dripping from the bloated tail of an insect. She forced herself to think of bees in sun-bright fields of wildflowers as her lips fell to the girl's trembling breast.
The Daima shivered with pleasure as Tanys took the delicate bud of her nipple between her lips and sucked. The girl pressed her body closer, digging her fingernails into Tanys's shoulders as the raven-haired warrior suckled her like a hungry calf.
Tanys's hands moved to the girl's round buttocks, squeezing them hard, pulling them apart and pressing them together again. Her fingers followed the creases down to the dark cleft between her thighs, probing softly.
Tanys gasped for breath, leaving the Daima's left breast glistening and clean. Her lips parted wide, and then fell upon the girl's right breast like a she-wolf on a plump rabbit.
The Daima cried out as Tanys's teeth scraped across her pallid breast, tugging and biting at the sweet flesh. She did not pull away but threw back her head and let out a shuddering groan, dragging her nails over the taught muscles of Tanys's back.
Tanys dropped to her knees, puling the girl's body to her. Tanys's tongue pressed against the girl's navel, searching it for traces of the golden food. It's sweetness surged in her blood now like the heat of drugged wine, and she followed its trail downward still.
The Daima's body thrashed as Tanys dug her nails into the girl's rump, her sex pinned against Tanys's hungry mouth. The Daima's legs flexed. She stood on her toes, her back arched, her fingers buried in Tanys's raven hair.
A new taste filled Tanys's mouth, the last traces of honey now gone, replaced by the sweet wetness of the Daima's passion. Tanys did not pull away. She knew what the girl expected, and she wanted it too. It had been so long since she had touched or had been touched this way. In this moment, all thoughts of escape surrendered to the immediacy of this primal need.
Tanys pushed her tongue between the petals of the Daima's sex, her lips sucking and mouthing silent worship upon the secret flesh. The Daima writhed and tugged at Tanys's thick black hair, pulling her face away that she might look down at Tanys, a lust-drunk glaze in her eyes. Then she pressed Tanys's lips once again between her legs and surrendered herself to Tanys's devouring mouth.
Tanys pulled the girl closer, sitting back on her haunches to let the girl straddle her face. Tanys's hips jumped involuntarily as she felt something brush against her backside. She looked back in instinctive fear to see one of the ants crawl across the bare sole of her foot.
The Daima giggled. "You're still afraid of my little pets?"
"Should I not fear them?" Tanys shuddered.
"You are right to fear their wrath, should any harm befall me," the girl said, "but, I have asked them to be gentle with you, and they will obey."
Tanys forced a tense, "Thank you," and shut her eyes against the sight of the swarming insects that covered the floor.
The girl stepped away. Tanys watched her straighten her hair and lick traces of honey from the back of her fingers.
"You have pleased me, slave," the Daima said.
"Thank you," Tanys said.
"I'm hungry myself now, let's go and find some solid food."
Tanys nodded and started to get to her feet. She froze at the stern look on the Daima's face.
"May I rise, Daima?" Tanys asked.
The girl smiled. "You may rise."
****
In the days ahead, Tanys learned the layout of the five rooms she had been allowed to enter in the Daima's quarters. Two more doorways remained forbidden to her. One of them seemed to be a storage area of sorts from which the Daima would emerge from time to time with jars and bottles full of pungent oils and elixirs which the girl used in her strange experiments. The other door, Tanys was certain, led to the central delve.
Tanys had tried opening both of them in the rare moments when the Daima left her alone in the apartment, but had no luck with either. The doors were nothing more than gray slabs of polished stone with no handles of any sort. The slid open with a low rumble at the Daima’s touch, but showed no such obedience to Tanys’s hand.
Tanys had tried reaching out to the mental link she shared with the tiger Ghodn. She had once thought that she felt a flutter of recognition, but the cat's mind slipped from her grasp. She told herself that it was only because of the distance between them or some sort of magical interference. She would not let herself believe that her friends were dead.
Tanys had no concept of day or night in the underground delve of the ghasts. She named the long hours of toil and degradation at the Daima's hands to be her days. Her nights were spent in the Daima's bed or in the small, bare cell where she was sent to sleep at the end of the love-play.
On the fifth such day, the Daima returned from a brief absence beyond the outer door. The girl carried a large wooden box, her eyes full of anticipation.
Tanys looked up from scrubbing the stains of the previous day's experiments from the worktable. "Good day, Daima," she said.
"A good day indeed," the girl answered with a grin. She dropped the heavy box onto the table with a solid thunk. Scratching noises sounded from within the box.
Tanys stepped away, still cautious not to step on any of the creatures that scuttled beneath her feet. She straightened her stained leather apron, which, apart from an old pair of gloves, was the only clothing the Daima allowed her to wear while cleaning. The thin, tattered leather stretch tightly across her chest, barely covering her there, but the apron had saved her skin on more than one occasion f
rom the caustic spills so common in the Daima's laboratory.
"I'll need your help, Tanys," she said. The girl had come to call her by name whenever distracted. She only called her slave when she meant to demean her.
"Yes, Daima?"
"Inside this box, you will find a wild vorgul," the Daima said. "They have proven highly resistant to the paralytic toxins injected by my warrior ants."
"What do you want me to do?" Tanys asked.
The Daima smiled, a hint of uncertainty in her eyes. "I want you to hold it down for me while I try something new.
Tanys nodded, flinching a bit at the fervent scrabbling of claws and splintering wood coming from inside the box.
"All right then," the Daima said, "you get started subduing the beast, and I'll be right back." The slender girl turned and walked out of the room.
Tanys furrowed her brow, her gloved hands hesitating over the lid of the wooden box. She swallowed her fear and grasped the lid with one hand, reaching for the latch with the other.
The box sprung open the moment the latch disengaged. A creature resembling a small badger flew from the box directly at Tanys’s face. She caught it mid-jump, jerking her head back. Still the beast’s foreclaw raked parallel lines of red across her cheek.
Tanys cursed as the creature twisted in her gloved hands, almost breaking her grip. She pulled it to her chest, struggling to maintain her hold as its claws ripped the skin of her forearms. The vorgul rolled its head around and sank its teeth into the leather-covered bulge of Tanys’s right breast.
She screamed and tried to shove it away, but it held on tightly, its small, pointed teeth puncturing the leather and breaking her skin beneath. It snarled wildly and shook its head from side to side with such violence that Tanys feared it would come away with a piece of her.
She shifted her grip and got one hand around its throat and began to choke the beast. The Daima might be displeased if she killed it, but the throbbing pain in her breast demanded quick action.
“Hold it still!” the Daima cried out, rushing back into the room. The girl carried something pale and wriggling in her hands. She stepped up beside Tanys and reached over to place the writhing grub-like thing in her hands onto the back of the vorgul’s neck.
Tanys whimpered in pain as the vorgul gnawed her captive breast, but held him as tightly as she could, watching in disgusted fascination as the white grub thing burrowed through the vorgul’s thick fur.
“I can’t…” Tanys gasped as the vorgul tugged hard on its mouthful of teat.
“Just a moment longer,” the Daima whispered, “I hope this works.”
Tanys sagged against the table, trying to work a gloved thumb into the crook of the vorgul’s jaw. She groaned at the sight of her blood on the creature’s mouth.
Suddenly, the vorgul’s jaws went slack. Tanys pulled it free and tossed it onto the table. She staggered away, clutching her torn breast.
“It’s working!” the Daima cried.
On the table, the vorgul’s spine arched as red flecked foam bubbled from its mouth. Its long claws scratched the table, growing weaker by the moment.
Tanys watched as the creature went slack. It lay still for a moment then weakly rose again, its sturdy legs spread in a broad stance.
“Be careful,” Tanys said through clenched teeth, “He may spring again.”
“No,” the Daima said, smiling, “he’s going to be a good boy now.”
"Don’t," Tanys said as the Daima reached out her hand to the creature on the table, but the vorgul only nuzzled the girl's fingers. It's small pink tongue darted out to lick her hand. Of the white grub that the Daima had placed on the creature's back, only the undulating tail of it protruded from the fur of its neck.
"Roll over," the Daima commanded, and the vorgul fell to its side, exposing the pale fur of its belly.
Tanys groaned as a fresh wave of pain throbbed in her wounded breast.
"You're hurt!" the Daima said.
"Yes, I am!" Tanys hissed.
"Come with me," the girl said, taking Tanys by the arm and guiding her toward the locked storage room door.
Tanys focused her thoughts. She had never caught a glimpse inside that room before. She followed obediently as the Daima led her.
The girl placed the palm of her hand in the center of the stone door. It pulled away from her hand, receding into its frame a half inch before sliding open to the left into the wall.
What lay beyond was more than a simple storeroom. The circular chamber was easily as large as all the other rooms of the apartment combined. Shelves and tables sagged under the weight of hundreds of jars and bottles, but the large column in the center of the room drew Tanys's gaze. It rose from a steaming pool of fluid at its base, up to the domed ceiling, where fleshy tendrils spread out from its core. It seemed to be alive, writhing and pulsing with scores of creatures, fused together in some nightmarish resinous mass.
Tanys gasped pulling back from the horror beyond the threshold.
"Don't be afraid," the Daima whispered, "It is time for you to see this. It will help you."
Tanys fought back her loathing and followed the Daima inside.
The Daima pulled Tanys across the floor to stand before the column of living flesh. All manner of fur and shell and skin hung, twisted and fused together with thick, amber resin, still alive and dripping with moisture. Cream-colored worker ants swarmed over the throbbing mass, tending the needs of each creature imprisoned within.
Tanys cried out in horror, her hand covering her mouth when she saw the pale body of a woman, half encased in the resin wall. The prisoner's eyes stared, glazed and unseeing, but her lips moved slowly as if she murmured in her sleep. Her skin glistened, a translucent white through which the living veins beneath could be seen to pulse with the slow beat of the prisoner's heart.
"Isn't she beautiful?" the Daima said, releasing Tanys's arm. She approached the living column and reached up to stroke the captive woman's face.
The blind victim moaned at the touch, and Tanys staggered back from the awful sight. Tanys's bare hip bumped against a cluttered worktable, upsetting a stack of books upon it. She looked down to see the tumbled pile of books, and the pommels of two black daggers protruding from beneath them. Tanys recognized them instantly as her own.
She looked back to the Daima. The ghast mistress was watching Tanys with a crazed gleam in her eyes.
"You remind me of her," the Daima said, looking again at the woman in the wall.
Tanys forced a smile. “Thank you,” she said.
“Take that off,” the Daima said, pointing at Tanys’s torn leather apron.
“What are you going to do?” Tanys asked.
The Daima smiled. “Don’t be such a child,” she said, “Do as I say.”
Tanys reached back to untie the cords that bound the apron around her waist. Her fingertips brushed the pommel of one of her daggers, and she shifted her hips to better obscure the Daima’s view of the table behind her.
Tanys winced as she peeled the bloody apron from her injured breast. She dropped the apron to the floor and cupped her breast in her hands. A large purple bruise spread across the creamy flesh just above her nipple, and blood ebbed from the tiny puncture marks where the vorgul’s teeth had pierced the leather.
“Don’t worry,” the Daima said, “Lysette will make it better.”
“Who?” Tanys asked.
“Lysette,” the Daima said, indicating the woman trapped in the resin.
“How can she do anything?” Tanys said.
The Daima laughed. “You’ll see,” she said.
The Daima turned again to face the woman in the wall. “I need your help, Lysette,” she said, “Someone is hurt.” The trapped woman flinched and moaned as the Daima’s hand touched her naked left breast.
“It’s all right, Lysette,” the Daima whispered, “It’s me.”
The Daima’s fingertips circled the dark flesh of the girl’s nipple, caressing it to hardness. She leaned
across the steaming pool, spreading her legs for balance and bracing her hands on the resin to either side of Lysette’s chest. The Daima pressed her mouth over Lysette’s breast and suckled her.
Lysette gasped and then bit her lip, whimpering, as the ghast woman drank from her body. Tanys watched in horror as a bead of clear fluid formed on the nipple of Lysette’s other breast and dribbled down her abdomen to where the girl’s hips disappeared into the resinous wall.
At last, the Daima pushed away from the wall, thanking the trapped girl within by gently brushing a damp strand of hair from her down-turned face. The Daima turned to cross the floor toward Tanys, her mouth full and the hint of a smile on her tight lips.
Tanys leaned back against the table, her skin crawling with revulsion as pale worker ants swarmed over Lysette’s chest to collect the drops of clear liquid that ran in little rivulets from her swollen nipples.
The Daima stood before Tanys and softly pried Tanys’s fingers from her injured breast. The ghast woman leaned forward, holding her lips just above the wound, parting them slightly to let some of the clear milk she held in her mouth dribble out onto Tanys’s breast.
Tanys jumped as the liquid hissed and bubbled, numbing the torn, bruised skin where the vorgul had savaged her. She cried out as the Daima placed her lips over the wound and pressed her tongue against the teeth marks. Suddenly, the pain stopped, replaced by a warm tingling sensation.
“What is this?” Tanys gasped.
The Daima mumbled a giggle, her mouth full of Tanys’s breast. She lingered there for a while, licking clean all traces of the bloody wound. At last, she gave Tanys’s nipple a playful tug between her teeth and lifted her lips to Tanys’s neck. “I’m the only one allowed to eat you, my sweet,” she whispered, planting a soft kiss against her captive’s trembling skin.
"This is wrong!" Tanys said, shaking her head, "This whole place is a nightmare!"
"No," the Daima whispered, kissing her again, "this is my dream. This is my dream, and you are part of it now... you will always be a part of it." The ghast woman mouthed softly at Tanys's throat, kissing and licking her while her hands moved over Tanys's body, squeezing and raking Tanys's skin with her fingernails.
The Isle of Torment Page 4