Phaze Fantasies, Vol. VI

by Jude Mason, Yvette Hines, Jessie Verino

  Turning his face, he brushed his lips across the palm of her hand. “Kelli, you're confusing sex with emotion."

  Pulling her hand back, her voice laced with pain, she said, “Will, I'm not some teenage girl lost in false images of puppy love and infatuation."

  "How do you know for sure, Kelli ... that it's love?” Shooting off his desk, he moved to the center of the room.

  "Over the last month, I've pieced my life back together. For me. I found a job that I love and an apartment in Asheville. I've resumed horseback riding and a lot of other things that I've wanted to do for myself, but was too worried about if Brett and his mom would approve or if it would fit into their plans for me.” Her voice sounded thick and gritted, as if she were holding back tears.

  She'd been here and he hadn't even known. Glancing at her, he noticed she stepped out of her shoes. “And?"

  One button of her blazer came undone. Then the second and third followed. When she parted it, Will saw that her breasts were bare underneath, and his dick received instant messages from his brain. The jacket dropped soundlessly from her arms to the floor.

  "And, Will, every moment of everyday I thought about all the things you made me feel.” Reaching over to one hip, she unzipped her skirt. “I remembered all your words of encouragement and your confidence that I should never have to give up the work I love.” She pushed it down her legs. “The way you touched me and held me at night."

  Two things he noticed simultaneously, her bare pussy lips and the chain around her waist. His chain. “Kelli.” Her name slipped from his lips in adoration.

  Stepping out of the skirt at her ankles, she crossed the carpeted floor until she was a few feet away from him and lowered herself to her knees. “I didn't come to Asheville that day looking for love, but I found it.” Her hands went behind her back. “I found you.” Tears spilled down her face. “The first time you kissed me by my car, my world shifted and I felt complete."

  "Sweetheart,” he whispered, his heart was swelling so much with each of her words that he could barely breathe.

  She spread her knees wide and continued, “Will, you told me to return the chain when I wanted to. Did you mean that?” Her voice quivered.

  The thought that she had done all of this just to give him his chain back made his heart ache with the thought of losing her, but he answered truthfully. He would never hold her if she didn't want to stay. “Yes."

  "Then I'm now returning it ... the only stipulation is that you have to take it back with me inside of it. Or not at all,” she whispered.

  Staring down at her, he asked, “For how long, Kelli? A week ... maybe two this time?"

  She shook her head. “As long as you want me."

  He dropped to his knees before her. “That's for life, sweetheart. I love you. I've always loved you.” Placing his hands on her hips, he brushed his thumbs across the chain that marked her as his. “Do you think you can plan your perfect wedding in six months?"

  "Oh, yes, Will.” A broad smile graced her lips.

  "Good, then let me lock the door and I'll show you a little of what the honeymoon will entail.” He quickly turned the lock and began stripping out of his clothes.

  "Can we go back to the cabin for our honeymoon?” Her eyes caressed his skin as she watched him reveal his body to her.

  "And every year after that,” he confirmed as he strolled toward her, bare and ready for the woman who held his heart. Placing kisses along her collarbone, he said, “By the way, are you busy Sunday, I think I need a date?"

  "I might be open to you performing a little volunteer work in exchange for my time,” she whispered coyly.

  "Let's see how well I can convince you,” he said, moments before his hand soundly met her ass cheek.

  Kelli moaned in anticipation of his persuasive methods.

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  Precious Things by Augusta Li

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  Also by Augusta Li

  Celeste

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  For T., who is Leannan to my Rin.

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  Chapter One

  Leaf's home, unlike those surrounding it, lived. It sat at the crest of a hill, overlooking the corrugated metal dwellings of the rest of the city-state of Alexandria. Stone stairs, flanked with cinnamon ferns, wound up the knoll, across the emerald lawn that contrasted sharply with the bare dust or cracked asphalt patches below. Hundreds of years ago, before the third Great War and the subsequent plagues had ended the Golden Age, the red brick structure and its grounds had served as some sort of a temple and school. Sons and daughters of a forgotten god had filled the rooms and stretched languidly across the grass. Sometimes, especially when he'd been left alone for a long time, Leaf thought he could hear their phantom laughter. From the corners of his eyes he saw them standing in front of the arched front entrance: girls in pleated skirts clutching books to their chests, boys, at the threshold of manhood, slinging bags over their shoulders.

  Dusk was the most felicitous time for spirits. As the setting sun gilded the foliage, the ghosts danced on the springy moss between the great trees. Leaf perceived them as smoky shapes, as if white vapor had been channeled into a human-shaped mold. They seemed to favor the copse of birches behind the building, and each night flitted and wove in and out of the alabaster trunks. Their presence didn't frighten Leaf. He knew all too well of the things waiting beyond the grounds of the school, eager to hurt him. The child-ghosts, though, dispersed into the sapphire sky like frightened doves at the young man's approach. The chain-link fence that surrounded the haunted sanctuary, topped with razor wire, deterred most everything else.

  As an added precaution Leaf's Master, Leannan, had invented a way to electrify the barrier. Times were dangerous, ever since a faction of the militia had overthrown the rest of the army in a bloody revolt. As he did each evening when he was alone, Leaf poured corn oil from plastic jugs into the generator his Master had built. The rattling machine would provide luxuries very few possessed: music from shiny silver disks, hot water, light and security. After his trembling hands had lifted the last jug of viscous, yellow fluid and sent it gurgling down the chute of the generator, Leaf prepared to walk the property's perimeter and check the fence for breaches, as his Master had instructed him to do.

  While the spirits didn't scare Leaf, almost everything else did. He hated to walk alone through the darkness, hurrying from one pool of bluish light to the next, clutching a rapier he didn't really know how to use. It felt as though things, men mostly, waited in every patch of shadow or behind every clump of bracken to snag Leaf's ankle or seize his waist. Strange sounds reached Leaf from the hovels of the settlement below: eerie howls, the shouts of drunken confrontations, the keening of people being victimized in ways Leaf understood all too well, little explosions, and the rapid fire of ancient weapons restored to deadly use.

  Each noise, whether a scream from the city or the snap of a twig, made Leaf jump. Oftentimes he dropped the glass lantern he carried. It fell to its side in the dew-slick grass, the candles within sputtering out. Chill wind whipped Leaf's pumpkin-shell hair into his mouth and stung his cream-colored skin. As Leaf crouched, shaking hands fumbling with the matches, he longed for the return of his Master. No one would dare to touch Leaf with his Master beside him. No one would even dare to consider it.

  But Leannan was still away on some secret errand. It fell to Leaf to protect his Master's home and guard his Master's most precious possession: himself. Terror-stricken though he was, Leaf edged the property three times, stopping only when he was certain everything was in order. How disappointed Master would be if he returned to find his beloved home vandalized or his favorite amusement damaged. Leaf couldn't bear the idea of failing the Master he loved.

  After securing the property's boundaries, Leaf retreated inside the school's thick stone walls. Despite the partition of brick standing between him and the dangers of the night, the ele
ctric barricade, and the other, imperceptible protections Master had cast, he didn't feel safe until he checked each of the many rooms for trespassers. He began with the East Wing. It contained rooms unused by Leaf and his Master, rooms which had once been used for teaching. Most stood empty except for slate boards hung on the walls. Overturned desks and chairs littered a few. The windows had broken out of many of the classrooms, allowing them to fill with brittle leaves, broken branches, and cobwebs. With so little furniture for a potential thief or rapist to hide behind, Leaf was able to lift his lantern above his head and simply scan the space before being satisfied. It pleased him to leave this part of the house, which radiated sadness for a world long ago destroyed.

  The West Wing, long ago dormitories, held Leannan's things. Leaf's Master possessed so many ancient and modern treasures that only about a quarter of the fifty rooms stood vacant. The weaponry, art, armor, clothing, jewelry, books, and dishes had been categorized in a way that escaped Leaf, possibly, he thought, by the historical periods in which they'd been made. It took Leaf hours to check behind every velvet chair, carved wardrobe, splattered canvas, and chest of silverware, but he didn't mind because he could touch and be with the things his Master loved. To caress an embroidered pillow, lift a crystal vase, or gaze at a faded picture of a mermaid combing her hair, made Leaf feel closer to Leannan. Like Leaf, these sculptures and boots and appliances had been fortunate, because Leannan favored and would protect them. They would be honored, from time to time, with his approving gaze or the touch of his fingers. Unlike the fire-haired young man, the scrolls and beads and silver mirrors would remain eternally beautiful, a comfort to Leaf's Master long after Leaf's body lost the ability to please him. It made Leaf happy that his Master wouldn't be left entirely alone when Leaf was gone.

  Leannan and Leaf lived in the central section of the school-made-house. This wing stretched out of the back of the structure at the center, making the building resemble, in Leaf's imagination, a male body reclining on its side, the member long and erect. It contained a former dining hall, with a great fireplace, flagged stone floors and arched windows edged in amber glass. Though Leannan had left most of the long wooden tables and benches in place, he and Leaf never ate in the hall. Standing beneath the vaulted ceiling made Leaf feel tiny and quite alone. Echoes of long-lost conversation and laughter, the clang of forks on plates, reverberated.

  Another room, once a sort of common area for the students to relax, felt cozier. The fire Leaf had built before venturing out to the spirit-sprinkled lawn still crackled behind the screen. A marble statue of a vanished goddess holding a lamb stood beside the hearth. She'd been beautiful, but Leannan detested the many idols around the school, and had broken off her arms, chipped away her lips and nose, and painted black x's over her eyes and heart. Master's sumptuous green velvet sofas encircled the blaze. A sculpture he adored, a rounded stone carved with spirals, sat on the carpet. He'd also left some of his ancient magazines on an end table. Leaf stretched out beside the warmth and read about the people of the past, of the Golden Age. They seemed to have been pre-occupied with dressing themselves, painting their faces, and eating rich foods while trying to keep their bodies thin. From the pictures, Leaf discerned that there had been many more women in the past, and that they lived without the fear of capture or assault. None even carried weapons.

  After reading until drowsiness crowded out loneliness and nerves, Leaf bathed in the round stone tub in the kitchen, so he'd be clean and pleasant if Leannan returned in the night. He could've taken the violet sleeping draught his Master had concocted, but it would leave him defenseless. So he applied to his nails a lacquer his Master had chosen: terracotta flecked with gold shavings. He untangled his marigold locks with a silver comb, shaved and oiled his legs, and replaced the expensive jewelry his Master had purchased for him. From a ring in each of his nipples delicate gold chains dangled down. At the end of each chain hung a jade leaf so intricately carved it looked freshly plucked and miniaturized. Matching decoration swayed from his earlobes and brushed his shoulders. A gold horseshoe twisted through the skin above his navel, an emerald bead the size of a pea at each end.

  More emeralds, each valuable enough to feed a man for a year, twisted onto the ends of a barbell through the loose skin where the base of Leaf's cock met his scrotum. Leaf lifted his penis and tugged the spear of gold, stretching the skin and remembering when his Master had inserted it into his flesh. Leannan, his eyes pale sea foam green that day, had crouched in front of Leaf and called him beautiful. His lily-petal lips had brushed Leaf's stomach from Leaf's belly button to the triangle of fire-colored hair below. Leaf's heart had swelled and tears that had nothing to do with pain sparkled down his speckled cheeks. Leannan had let Leaf touch his hair, as a reward for patiently enduring the piercing.

  This thought and more, all the memories of his Master's love, both stung and comforted Leaf as he lay on the mint-satin sheets of Leannan's huge round bed. All around him, dagger-shaped windows glowed aubergine with the coming of morning. An old winged deity, holding a flaming sword and stepping on the head of a serpent, looked out from an ornate gold frame. The figure might have been disconcerting, if Leannan hadn't smeared cerulean paint over his vengeful face and castrated him, symbolically, with a red crescent. Leaf's last conscious thought before plummeted into sleep was that his Master could keep him safe even from the gods.

  * * * *

  When voices woke Leaf late the next afternoon, he fastened his pea-colored sarong across his hipbones. Alone with his Master, Leaf had no use for garments. Today, however, he heard at least one other person. Confused, he stumbled sleepily from the octagonal bedchamber and to the edge of the sitting room. Two heads rose above the back of the sofa: one covered in messy, matted black spikes held back by thick goggles, the other blanketed in hair so radiant and smooth that it looked like a flawless piece of silk. Leaf's heart leapt at the shining tresses he knew so well, ivory with the faintest hint of rose today, like the blush of dawn illuminating a white lotus.

  The other head bewildered Leaf almost to the point of panic. Since he'd come to live at the abandoned school, he and Leannan had been the only living souls to venture within it. Leaf didn't know how his Master would want him to act in front of a guest. He considered creeping back to the bed and hiding beneath the sheets; neither his Master nor the stranger had noticed his presence yet. But curiosity compelled him forward, and he came around the couch to stand with his back to the fire.

  Leannan looked as he always did in those ways in which his appearance was consistent: surreally smooth skin that glowed subtly white like moonlit mist, a lean, graceful body, slender oval face, pointed chin and eyes a bit too large. His legs and fingers stretched longer than those of most men, and he was far more beautiful. Today his eyes looked like orbs of rose quartz with shimmering veins of amethyst. He wore the tight bodysuit he always donned for work. It glimmered dully, like moist blacktop, when he shifted his torso, but wrinkled no where, and his sword belt lay across his lap. His pointy-toed boots still stretched to his knees, as Leaf had not yet been asked to remove them.

  The stranger was a man around Leaf's age, but with a worldliness and wisdom about him that Leaf might never cultivate. Until now, Leaf had never seen a man compete with his Master for beauty. The stranger's amber skin and obsidian, almond-shaped eyes couldn't have been more different from Leannan's pale, mutable countenance, but he was nearly as lovely. His clothing practically matched Leannan's, except that he wore a breastplate of what looked like hard plastic or black rubber. A symbol resembling an abstracted, five-petaled flower was embossed at the center. The same material made up his knee and elbow guards, as well as the five-inch soles of his boots. Over his armor he wore a long coat with a high collar that could be snapped together to conceal his face. Only his black eyes would show over the vinyl edge.

  Leaf stood, palms against the outsides of his thighs, waiting, hoping to be instructed. The strange man rose and approached him, stopping thr
ee feet away. Like a cat, he moved with all the outward appearance of leisure and disinterest, while being instinctively ready to strike. Two swords, unlike any Leaf had seen in his Master's collection, hung beside his right hip.

  Left-handed, Leaf noted.

  "Ah, kirei da!" he said, his eyes moving over Leaf's body. “What a pretty plaything you have, Leannan."

  Leannan grinned. “Can you believe I found him? He's just like the lads I'd carry off under the hills of Connacht, all those years ago."

  "Better!” The stranger took a small step nearer Leaf. His hand rose to Leaf's cheek and stopped, close enough to Leaf's skin that Leaf could smell tarnished metal, but not touching. Then he looked over his shoulder to where Leannan sat on the couch. Not until Leannan nodded did the stranger trace the line of Leaf's jaw or rub a strand of Leaf's hair between his thumb and finger.

  Leaf sighed with relief. If this stranger, this new, beautiful man, deferred to Master's authority, then everything would be fine. But why didn't it bother Leannan that the stranger's calloused hands explored Leaf's slender chest and graceful torso, all of the things that belonged only to his Master? Blushing, eyes downcast as he'd been taught, Leaf endured the groping until the stranger's gold fingers grazed his cock.

  "Enough,” Leannan said. Master never raised his voice, neither in excitement nor anger. The icy formality with which Leannan spoke stopped the stranger's hand as effectively as a blow, though it didn't wash the mischievous grin from the man's full lips.

  Master, a generous man, often took gifts or beverages to the homes of friends or business associates when he called. Leannan selected a glossy-paged book picturing women in skimpy, bright attire, a tin of dried fruit or a jug of dark beer to share. Those acquaintances lucky enough to have a wife or female slave might receive a glass bracelet or bright scarf. Other things, though, rare wines of ruby and topaz, hand-wrought tiaras of intricate, knotted copper, and tiny ink drawings of androgynous boys, Leannan guarded fiercely and would allow no others to see or touch. Leaf beamed at being included among the latter group of possessions.