The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3

by Maxim Jakubowski

  The Alchemist stalked back into his workroom towing a rolling table. He dropped his Magikal Artes bag down on the counter then dropped his Grimoire on the rolling table. He flipped open the huge silver buckled and leather-bound book. Thumbing painstakingly through the parchment pages he stopped on a particular page and peered at his list of alchemical sigils. Carefully he chose the magical symbol he intended to use on her.

  She leaned against the padded bench, waiting. Critically he eyed her. He could make out every rib. Her hipbones obscenely jutted out over her pubic bone.

  “Turn around,” he said. She turned obediently. Every vertebra down her curved spine was clearly defined. There at the top of her ass, where the swell of her buttocks began, was the perfect place. Now he needed to check her chakras, the individual energy centers of her body, to see what type of repairs she needed most and what would heal itself with only a little prodding.

  “I’m going to touch your skin, so don’t freak out on me,” he said softly, reassuringly.

  “Oh, OK,” she said, barely breathing. Her shoulders visibly tensed. He could just picture her with her eyes closed, biting her lip, ready to endure his touch. He stepped behind her and lifted his palms. His fingertips brushed the top of her head then skated down, barely disturbing her hair.

  Hmm, intelligent, he thought to himself as the energy of her mind curled like warm mist under his probe. His fingers travelled lower to her throat. Strong currents curled under his fingers spiking with unused talent and true power, informing him of her past training and shadows of former glory. “Did you sing?” he asked gently.

  “Yeah, I sang in school. I was, um,” her voice broke and shattered. She hitched a breath. “I had a scholarship to the School of the Arts for um, mezzo soprano.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Um, opera singing, you know?”

  “What happened?” he found himself asking as his fingers traced the ridges of her spine. He stopped at a point between her shoulder blades over where her heart was located. The energy around her heart was thin and very weak. There was a jagged hole in her heart energy that looked like someone had ripped a piece of it out.

  Ah, broken heart, he thought with a flash of returning anger. Some ass ruined her. His own heart began pounding with a stuttered and almost broken rhythm, as though a portion were missing from his own heart.

  “There was this guy that I met,” she said. “He told me he loved me.” She sniffed but didn’t cry.

  “Let me guess,” he said, growing more pissed off by the second, “this asshole told you everything you wanted to hear then left you high and dry after a couple of months.” The Alchemist slid his hand around in a circle and noted that she had actually been in love. The asshole had used that love as a tool to hold her long enough to feed off of her like a psychic vampire.

  “I moved in with him and everything.” She was shaking. “One day, I came home and he told me to get out.” A single silver tear escaped her eye. “He’d moved this other girl in with him.” A hand fluttered up and wiped at her eye.

  “I see,” he mumbled. There was heavy scarring in the power centre of her heart where the asshole had been emotionally abusing her for months. He could tell that she had tried to heal it.

  “He told me he didn’t know what he ever saw in me.” She squeezed both eyes shut and took a deep breath. “He told me he never wanted to see me again.”

  “And you didn’t have any place to go,” he supplied. His fingers slid down to the cradle of her hips where her personal shields and spirit normally sat. What the hell? he thought, wincing from the screaming spiritual pain she was suffering.

  There it was, a gaping, festering hole where all her confidence and self-worth; her soul, was supposed to be. He could practically make out the individual bite marks where she was being spiritually eaten alive. It sat right under the area where he wanted to mark the tattoo. Apparently his instincts had known where to look before he did.

  The Alchemist could see several fresh bites out of her soul, some as new as the past day or so, but some of the bite marks were much older and grey with scarring. There was barely enough of her soul left to keep her from slitting her own wrists.

  “I was in school at the time. I didn’t have a job,” she sighed and took a deep breath, getting a grip on herself. “And I couldn’t go home.”

  “Why not?” he asked. Then a twisted and nasty feeling drifted from her very last and bottom chakra. The boyfriend had nearly finished the job, but the boyfriend couldn’t have been around long enough to cause this amount of damage. Some of the nastier, heavier scars were years old. It looked as though someone had been feeding on her soul for decades.

  He dropped his hand lower to investigate. There appeared to be major blackened areas that looked like burn-marks on her lowest chakra, where sexual energy was generated. Rape, he thought. These burns are caused by hate sex. Shit, he swore to himself.

  “I had stuff at home and I wanted out. That’s why I went with this guy in the first place.”

  “Gotcha,” he said aloud. She couldn’t go home because a violent and abusive family member was waiting there.

  I can still fix her, he thought. She isn’t completely gone yet, but she’s close. Too close. This job is going to be a bitch, but I can do it.

  The Alchemist placed his hands on her naked shoulders. She tensed. Her aura and energy was so low, there was a chill to her skin. Softly, gently, he rubbed. He projected calm and safety from his thoughts directly through his palms into her body. Gradually she relaxed under his hands.

  “I got a deal for you,” the Alchemist said, and then he lied. “There’s this design I’ve been working on, one of my pieces of art like what’s on the walls. I wanna put it on you.”

  “Wow, really?” She looked around at his exotic and brilliant paintings. “Sure! That’d be way cool,” she said softly.

  “I wanna put it right here,” he whispered against the cup of her ear and placed his palm on the base of her spine. He leaned forward and pressed his chest lightly against her spine, sharing skin, sharing body heat. Their spirits touched and entwined, sharing energy and sharing desire.

  He felt the sexual energy stirring in her and shoved a bit more of his power into her, feeding her essence, her soul, directly from his. Her head came up and she shuddered under his touch but not with fear. A soft breathy moan escaped her lips.

  He took his other hand and placed it on her stomach then slid his fingers up between her breasts, over her heart. He watched as her nipples hardened at the tips of the soft undernourished mounds. He could feel as excitement coiled low in her belly, sparking an answering fire in him through their spiritual link. He felt himself growing harder. The Alchemist took his hands away.

  She dropped her head with an expelled breath as though released from a spell. Timidly, she looked back at him.

  He locked eyes with her then peeled out of his shirt, exposing his flat stomach, muscular shoulders and the titanium rings that pierced both of his nipples. Swirls of brilliant colour and splashes of stark black marked his skin from his throat down. Esoteric sigils and glyphs, mythical beasts, flowers and flames in every shade swirled and twisted around his muscular torso and banded his arms.

  He toed out of his boots, then his hands went to the button of his jeans. Her eyes dropped to where his urgency was manifestly evident and pressing against the imprisoning denim.

  Watching her reactions, he unzipped and skinnied out of his snug jeans. His erection lunged out and up, full and brooding. It was tattooed with a dark red serpent.

  She hissed in surprise then her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips. Apparently, he thought, she likes what she’s seeing. Her breasts rose as she took a deep, fascinated breath. A delicate flush pinked her skin and her eyes dilated.

  “Turn around and lay on your belly across the bench,” he said, his voice husky with growing passion. “Put your hands over the edge and hold on to the leather strap there.” She took a last look at him then silently obeyed.

/>   The Alchemist went to his Magikal Artes bag and spread the necessary tools and some temporary inkwells out on the small rolling table. He laid the huge Grimoire spell book in the middle. Sealed and sterile needles were placed next to the shining chrome of a filigreed tattoo gun.

  Over on the counter he lit a red pillar candle and scattered incense over a hot coal in an ornate silver chafing dish. Thick white smoke filled the room with the scent of exotic resins. He set a CD in the CD-player and hit “repeat all” then “scramble”. The entire shop vibrated with brooding instrumental music.

  He pulled the rolling table with his equipment over to where she lay across the bench. Carefully he pulled from his Magikal Artes bag several ornate glass bottles with the special inks from his personal collection. The recipes for his inks were hard-won and the ingredients very difficult to come by. Some of the inks glowed through the smoked glass. With steady hands he set to filling his temporary wells with brilliants.

  He set everything in place on the table then raised his head, closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts. Latin words rolled from his lips in a guttural whisper. He opened his eyes and stepped directly behind her. She turned her head to look – she seemed to be panting in fright.

  “Look at the wall in front of you, not at me, Angel.”

  She turned away. When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she jumped. He moved his palms in slow, relaxing circles down her back, petting her. He caressed her soft surprisingly delicate skin as he would stroke a cat to calm it. Her breathing slowed and deepened as she relaxed under his touch.

  “I need to shave the area I’m going to be working, so don’t freak, and don’t jump, OK?” She nodded and he reached for an antique, ivory handled, straight razor that sat next to his book. He brushed the base of her spine with the palm of his hand then lightly used the razor with quick deft strokes to clean her skin. He wiped the fine hairs from the blade on a clean rag then closed the blade and put it back on the table.

  Moving carefully so he wouldn’t alarm her, he leaned over and into her, pressing his thighs and his fierce erection against the softness of her buttocks.

  She widened her stance, opening her thighs and her soft vulnerable flesh to the coming invasion.

  “Now comes the fun part,” he murmured to her. “I need you to hold very, very still. Don’t move, no matter what. Got it?” He shifted his cock under her and against the soft curls of her mound.

  “Uh, huh,” she sighed and her body tensed under him.

  He pressed his palm to her lower back then gently slid the fingers of his other hand down her spine to the seam of her buttocks then in and further down. Deeper his fingers slithered, past and over the tight rose of her anus until he touched intimate curls then damp pouting flesh. He moved his fingertips, nestling between the damp folds to dip gently into the opening of her well, touching moisture. She stiffened and a hiss escaped her lips.

  “Just breathe, Angel, breathe deep,” he whispered. He felt her take a deep breath. He speared her slowly with his fingers. She took another breath and he moved his fingers rhythmically within her.

  “That feels good,” she sighed then moaned but held her body still. He felt the muscles of her body relax around his hand, then a warm wetness slicked his palm.

  “Good girl,” he said softly. He pulled his fingers from her and raised them to his lips. Sucking them into his mouth, he tasted the sweetness of her honey. Generously using his tongue, he wet his fingers then wiped the saliva on his hand over the crown of his cock then down his shaft.

  He angled his serpent cock up, nosing himself closer to his fingers and her waiting pussy. With the blunt head of his red tattooed snake, he nudged her entrance. He rubbed against her, easing between her folds. Then he stopped and waited.

  “Are you ready, Angel?” the Alchemist asked softly. She took a deep steadying breath then another. He felt her body relax around him. She nodded.

  He shoved, burrowing into her damp heat. Oh, God, she’s so damn tight, he thought.

  She whimpered then moaned as he filled and stretched her slick, hot flesh. Her damp sheath gripped him tightly. She suddenly undulated, voluptuously rolling her spine with pleasure as she worked to get him deeper into her body.

  He groaned. Unconsciously he pulled back then slid in deeper, pressing his hips against the soft fullness of her ass.

  Control, damn it! Control! he reminded himself. He wanted nothing more than to take her hard and fast then spill into her. But that would defeat the purpose. The spell required restraint. To do this right, he had to hold his passion right on the edge of coming until he was done with the tattoo. Once the art was finished, he had to bring her to orgasm at the same moment as his climax to trigger and bind the spell.

  “Close your legs, Angel,” he panted. “I need you to hold me in while I work.” She pulled her thighs together, clamping down even tighter on his lodged flesh. He hissed with the sensation then took a deep breath.

  “Good girl.” He took another deep steadying breath. His hardness throbbed in her hot grip. “Okay, I’m gonna coat the area where the tattoo’s gonna be with some petroleum jelly to lube the needles.” Dipping two fingers in the slick jelly, he slathered the base of her spine with a light coating. Replacing the jar, he readied his inkwells then reached for his tattoo gun.

  “Okay, Angel, here we go.” Buzzing from the gun hummed under the throbbing music pouring from the speakers.

  The Alchemist began to chant. He spoke softly but clearly in an antique language. He placed the palm of his other hand on her back, over her heart. His voice rose and fell rhythmically, hypnotically in time with the instrumental music. He concentrated, forcing calm through his spell directly into her heart. She relaxed under his hand, taking deeper and deeper breaths until he felt her slip into a light trance.

  Chanting over and over, he touched the needles to her naked and vulnerable skin. They pierced her fragile flesh and still he chanted.

  Agonizingly slow, he pulled his heavy cock out of her moist sheath then slid back in.

  His hands moved steadily and calmly as he vibrated the needles in elegant curves. A soft rag swiped excess ink and blood droplets from her skin as he worked. His mantra shifted in intent and purpose as he began carving and reshaping her soul through his enchantments.

  He slid in and then out of her still body. Her honey drooled down his shaft to dribble down his balls.

  She breathed steadily, right on the edge of true sleep. A light sweat formed on her skin as her semi-conscious body reacted to the droning pain of the needles and the slow fuck.

  The music pulsed as his voice droned on. In and out he fucked. Sweat formed on his brow. The sigil on the small of her back took shape then colour as he changed needles and shifted inks. His heart pounded in his ears in time with the music and his chanting. He wove subtleties and variations into the spell he drew in permanent ink on the canvas of her skin.

  His calves and ass muscles ached from pushing. His balls felt knotted and tight as he kept control as he thrust, fucking consistently enough to stay hard but not enough to come.

  Focused and relentless, he worked, seeking to repair the damage and put her soul back together. The sigil took form in a riotous blaze of colour and purpose under his hands.

  Then the drawing was complete. He snapped off the gun and placed it on the open book. Now, to finish it and set the spell, he thought. His chant shifted in tone and purpose.

  The girl’s breathing began to change as she rose up from her sleepy trance. She awakened fully with a breathless groan of rising passion. She pushed up from the bench and back onto his cock.

  He slid his hands around her to cup her breasts. He squeezed gently, then tightened his grip. He tugged lightly on her hard nipples.

  She undulated as she rocked her hips and fucked him back. Her body shuddered around him as waves of pleasure began to shove her toward climax.

  He slid a hand down to cup her heat. His fingers delved to where their bodies joined and he tou
ched her. Lightly he stroked and a moan escaped from her lips. She was very, very close. He pushed into her body harder and faster, increasing the tempo. His breath panted the words of the spell.

  And still he chanted. He felt the tightening in his balls and the warm roll in his depths that warned of imminent climax. He wet his fingers in his mouth, tasting her passion, her excitement. Then he slid his hand back under her and delicately fluttered his wet fingers against her tender, swollen bud.

  Magical power snaked up her body then roared to life as her orgasm consumed her. She moaned as her body hungrily clenched around his flesh lodged within her, pulling, sucking. He stiffened impossibly hard in her slick, pulsing sheath.

  He finished the chant with a shout.

  His soul alchemically and intimately locked with hers. He felt his body seized by her brutal pleasure and imprisoned as she forced him to share her ecstasy. Release ripped through him as wave after wave of frenzied rapture slammed back and forth between them and through them. Together they screamed.

  “Angel, I want you to deliver this letter to a friend of mine. She’ll give you a job and can probably find you a place to crash too.” The Alchemist scribbled on a piece of fine parchment then folded it. Peeking below his lashes, he noticed that her aura was much brighter now.

  Still naked and sweating from his labours, he sat on the rolling stool and leaned on the counter heavily. He heated the stick of violet sealing wax in the candle flame then let the melted wax spatter on the folds of the delicate paper. He picked up a silver stamp and pressed his shop logo, which just happened to be his Alchemical seal, into the soft wax. Scribbling some more, he addressed it.

  “It’s so beautiful,” the delicate girl said as she gazed at her new tattoo with a hand mirror. Her smile was blinding. She glanced at him then took the folded parchment from his fingers. “This is the stripper joint down the block,” she said frowning. “I’m getting a job as a stripper?”