by Violet Blue
“I want to stay here,” Cecily said, eyeing the ravens. Five of them circled.
“I won’t let you,” her tormentor said, tearing her from the arms of her playmate. He forced her fingers around the spiky iron key and dragged her to the door across the stage, the one that lead to pain.
A plain, utilitarian room, where six ravens circled, cawing. Cecily shrank back. In the center of the room stood the bed, four poster, empty of covers, only rough rope ties on the posts. He dragged her to it, threw her down faceup, grabbed her arms and legs and tied her. Struggling did no good. He was stronger. He was impossibly faster.
“Please!” Cecily begged her tormentor as the fire inside her grew again. This had been one of the dark dreams. This had been the hidden shameful fantasy. This had been the want, the need, the desire. The question. Could she?
And now, this was the reality.
He held a cane: slim, black, long. Held it for her to see, laughed as she watched when he brought it down slowly and dipped it into her cunt. Her juices coated it. Her clit throbbed, aching for touch. Her cunt pulsed at the tip of the cane.
He laughed, and lifted the cane, and brought it down across her nipples.
Cecily screamed in pain as sting became burn.
And burn became pleasure.
And pleasure became pain again. He struck her thighs, her breasts, her mons. He laughed as she cried, and laughed as she squirmed, and laughed when he pushed the cane between her legs, and let her ride it until she screamed again, this time coming.
He left her there, tied spread-eagled, sweating and shaking, crying a little, until the pain and pleasure both ebbed and then he unknotted the ropes and let her stand.
She wasn’t dressed this time. She didn’t care. There was only one key left, a black one shaped like a raven’s wing. She carried it with her across the room, stumbling a little, making little cries of want and fear. She stopped at the black barred door of heavy wooden timbers, iron marking the shape of a raven across it.
One key led to the spell that would transform raven to human, and now she might find boyfriend, friend, mentor, confidant, playmate, tormentor and lover.
Seven ravens flew in over her head. The room looked like her parents’ living room in the house she had grown up in, the house next door to her father’s best friend’s house where he’d lived with his wife and daughter. But once, he’d said, he’d had more children. Seven sons? Or only one?
The key would fit the front door that led to the porch where her father had stood when he cursed his best friend’s children. When she turned it, the door opened to snow and darkness. Here she would find the spell.
She didn’t know what the spell was. Didn’t know what she was supposed to find.
But her father had cursed them.
Cecily blessed them.
“Blessed be.”
There was a ruffle of feather behind her at the entrance to the house. Cecily turned slowly to see the seven dark haired men standing in the doorway. One would be her lover.
The seventh stepped forward and held out his hand.
Cecily reached for him and one after another the seven fell into a line, each so hard on the heels of the one before him they seemed to be tumbling together like dominos, not knocking into each other but falling inside each other, these raven-haired men who looked so alike.
Cecily’s father’s best friend had said he had more children, not how many more. She held her breath, childish and wanting the boyfriend, friend, mentor, confidant, playmate, tormentor and lover.
He stood before her, one man, dark hair, pale skin. He held his hand out to her and there was no door to go through, no key to unlock secrets, turn curses. They were together, and the curse was breaking.
There was one man, one father’s best friend’s son.
“Are you the one I’ve been waiting for?” she asked. The question sounded naïve to her own ears, but what could she do other than ask?
The raven-haired man pulled her close, his embrace a combination of need and want, request and demand. He held her as if she were precious and with a fierce roughness that sent her heart racing.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
Cecily frowned. “There were seven,” Cecily said, uncertain if she felt afraid or greedy or hopeful.
“Friend, boyfriend, mentor, confidant, playmate, tormentor, lover. What use is a husband who is not all those things?”
Cecily tilted her head and studied him. The night passing behind them seemed a dream, but she remembered it clearly. “Seven ravens,” she said. “Seven sons, seven keys.”
“Seven aspects,” he corrected.
They were alone in the house, all seven rooms to themselves.
“Let me show you,” her friend said. He took her hand and led her to the bedroom, and there his kiss trapped her mouth under his, hot and intimate as the boyfriend held her, stroking her hair, whispering to her.
Cecily let her head fall back, let him hold her as he tugged at her clothes, laughing when he tangled her in her T-shirt and bra. Her boyfriend kissed her neck and bit her ears and whispered what he wanted to do to her.
Cecily felt molten, wet and wild; her hands stroked him through his jeans. His cock was hard and familiar. She wanted him, now, and she willingly complied when her mentor told her what he wanted.
“Down on your knees, don’t use your hands.” He freed himself from the button-fly jeans, his cock rigid, straining toward her. She opened her lips, let him press between them. He was salty and silky in her mouth, huge and forceful and Cecily gave herself over to instruction, to his hands that pressed her head against him, to his words, low and throaty, telling her to take it deep. She hollowed her cheeks, sucked and let her tongue play, and when he came, filling her mouth, she swallowed and gasped and let her confidant pull her to her feet.
“That’s what you like, isn’t it?” he asked. “Being controlled? Nothing left up to you? Nothing you could do about it? Tell me.”
She leaned close to him, tumbling them both down to the huge arctic bed, all white jersey sheets and white microfiber blankets, white as the snow that filled the world on her birthday.
“I want it,” she said. “I want all of it. I want everything. I want to do everything. I want to be told.”
“Everything?” her playmate asked, and pulled her on top of him, hands exploring, teasing feathery fingertip touches along the insides of her hip bones and along her lips, down into her wet folds. He pulled her up to straddle him, the two of them sideways on the enormous white bed, and slid deep inside her.
Cecily gasped, her eyes closing.
“Do you like this?” her playmate asked, fingertips brushing down the slope of her breasts.
She nodded, inarticulate.
“Do you like this?” her tormentor asked, his fingers tightening, tweaking, pulling, stretching her nipples until she made another sound, of pain and want.
“Tell me.” He bit her breast. “Tell me.” An open-handed slap across her ass as she rode him.
“Tell me.” As the two of them came together, Cecily and her lover, in the arctic bed as the snow fell outside the house, the curse lifted.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Valerie Alexander (valeriealexander.org) lives in Arizona. Her work has previously been published in Best of Best Women’s Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica and other anthologies.
Dani Bauter spends her days working as a marketing and events coordinator at an independent bookstore. She has had book reviews published in Elle Magazine and stories published in Viscera edited by Cara Bruce and Book Lovers: Sexy Stories from Under the Covers edited by Shawna Kenney.
Laila Blake (lailablake.com) is an author, linguist and translator. She writes character-driven love stories; blogs about writing, feminism and society; and cofounded the small publishing venture Lilt Literary.
Evey Brett is a writer of erotica and paranormal romance. She has a degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and has attended t
he Lambda Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT voices. She lives in Southern Arizona with two cats, a snake and her Lipizzan mare, Carrma.
Rachel Kramer Bussel (rachelkramerbussel.com) is the editor of Please, Sir; Yes, Sir; He’s on Top; Cheeky Spanking Stories; Spanked; Bottoms Up; Anything for You: Erotica for Kinky Couples; Twice the Pleasure: Bisexual Women’s Erotica; Baby Got Back: Anal Erotica; Best Bondage Erotica 2011, 2012, 2013 and many other erotica anthologies.
One day, Sue Lenèe Cix, strapped for cash, found a side job as an erotic ghostwriter. She foregrounds communication and consent, bisexuality, thought, metaphor, and character-driven sexploration. She is currently at work on a short story collection centered around bisexuality and the ocean, and an erotic science fiction novel.
Beatrix Ellroy is a book hound with a love of words, the dirtier the better. She’s a recent entrant into the world of erotica writing. Previous work has included everything from articles about computer games to literary fiction to academic journal articles, but erotica is her passion and her weakness.
Tamsin Flowers (tamsinflowers.com) loves to write light-hearted erotica, often with a twist in the tail/tale and a sense of fun. Her stories have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies for publishers including Cleis Press, Xcite Books, House of Erotica and Go Deeper Press. She has now graduated to novellas and a novel.
Lana Fox (lanafox.com) is cofounder of Go Deeper Press and she co-runs the indie publishing service Here Booky Booky. Fox is the author of the novel Confessions of a Kinky Divorcée and has appeared in many erotic collections, including Best Women’s Erotica, Alison’s Wonderland, Best Bondage Erotica and Dream Lover.
Ariel Graham is a Reno native who is happiest surrounded by sagebrush and sunshine. She shares her home with her husband and a pack of felines. Ariel’s work has appeared in Best Lesbian Romance; Please, Sir and Please, Ma’am and in online magazines like Oysters & Chocolate and Clean Sheets.
Lydia Hill is published in the erotic romance anthologies Words of Lust, My First Threesome and Slave for Love.
Malin James’s (malinjames.com) erotica has appeared in anthologies from Cleis Press, Xcite Books and Burning Book Press, including Best Men’s Erotica 2014, The Mammoth Book of Urban Erotic Confessions and the bestselling The Big Book of Orgasms: 69 Sexy Stories. She is currently working on her first erotic novel.
Gwendolyn Kansen is a writer and art student in New York City who has written for Thought Catalog, The Frisky, Erotic Review Magazine and Flurt. She once ran a sex humor site on the People of Walmart network, but now finds vulnerable stories about the sex lives of outsiders more interesting.
Annabeth Leong (annabetherotica.com) has written erotica for more than forty anthologies, including Best Bondage Erotica 2013 and 2014 and Best Erotic Romance 2014. She has written a number of erotic novels for Ellora’s Cave and Breathless Press. Her most recent novel, Untouched, is published by Sweetmeats Press. She lives in Providence, RI.
JT Louder writes queer porn under a male pseudonym (Jacob Louder) and really hopes you like it. Find more of their work at godeeperpress.com.
Award-winning erotica writer Giselle Renarde is a queer Canadian, avid volunteer, contributor to more than one hundred short-story anthologies and author of numerous electronic and print books, including Anonymous, Nanny State and My Mistress’ Thighs. Ms. Renarde lives across from a park with two bilingual cats who sleep on her head.
Alison Tyler (alisontyler.blogspot.com) is the editor of fifty anthologies for Cleis Press, including Twisted and The Big Book of Bondage. Her novellas have been published by Harlequin, Go Deeper Press and Pretty Things Press. Dark Secret Love, her meta-novel, recently won the Gold Ippy Award for Erotica.
Rachel Woe is a writer/artist who probably watched too many R-rated movies as a youngster. A longtime lover of erotic fiction, she used to bring Story of O and The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy to school, folded inside brown paper covers. She is a University of Vermont graduate residing in New England.
A B O U T T H E E D I T O R
Ms. Violet Blue (@violetblue, tinynibbles.com) is an investigative tech reporter at CNET, Zero Day, ZDNet, and CBS News, as well as an award-winning sex author and columnist, making her the foremost expert in the field of sex and technology. She travels to hacker conferences and hacker gatherings around the world to cover hacking, cybercrime and personal privacy violations in countries such as Malaysia, Germany, Morocco, China, the Dominican Republic, the United States and Serbia. In 2012, Blue presented “Hackers as a High-Risk Population,” bringing harm reduction to the featured stage for CCC’s twenty-ninth hacker conference in Hamburg. She is an Advisor to Without My Consent, a Member of the Internet Press Guild, a Member of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and is an Editor on the Board for Routledge’s Porn Studies Journal.
Blue has appeared on CNN and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and is regularly interviewed, quoted and featured in a variety of publications that includes ABC News and the Wall Street Journal. She has authored and edited award-winning, bestselling books in eight translations—one is excerpted on Oprah Winfrey’s website—and has been a sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She has been at the center of many Internet scandals, including Google’s “nymwars” and Libya’s web domain censorship and seizures. Forbes calls her “omnipresent on the web” and named her a Forbes Web Celeb. She has given keynote talks at such conferences as ETech, LeWeb, and the Forbes Brand Leadership Conference, she received a standing ovation at Seattle’s Gnomedex, and she has given two Tech Talks at Google.