by Dani Stowe
Kumiko
The warm slick sliver of a firm, wet tongue glides up my inner thigh and it finds my heated slit. I don’t care whose tongue it is as long as it’s a man’s. I try to conjure my dream man—hot, hard, ripped, until I hear a tapping at the window.
Dumb bird.
Since the day I arrived, this dumb seagull has been tap, tap, tapping and waking me up every morning to bring me back to reality. But I’m not going to let the feathered freak alarm me this morning because I’m exhausted after yesterday and staying up so late last night.
At some point during the night, Shelley and Henry left. It was scary being in the beach house alone in the dark. Shelley’s deceased aunt Cora Morae’s property is isolated from the rest of the town along the beach. There is little noise out here except the sound of waves curling on the wet sand. Most people might find that sound to be a soft symphony of lullabies, but not me. I don’t like being alone next to the ocean. Even before I knew of all this mysticism, I knew there were things hidden within the deep that have no business coming on land.
Except for Henry. I do feel better when he’s in the house at night. I’m not sure how effective he would be at fighting off an attacker if ever one should intrude, but the guy or merman or whatever he is, is a good one. I’ll give him that.
He can’t speak, but the way he moves his hands when he speaks with them is rather passionate. And I hate to admit I can’t stand the way he uses his hands to handle Shelley so passionately as well.
Every time I catch him groping her it’s like he’s never touched her before, soaking in the sensations of her body with his hands like he’s waited centuries to feel her, stroke her, and caress her. And he bites her. He bites her all the time to get her attention and she likes it. I hate it. It makes me jealous.
I caught them once having sex. Henry had his face buried between Shelley’s thighs and her body was twitching like crazy as she yanked at his hair while he continued to roll his head around with a force so soft yet firm at the same time it was like watching waves, rolling and lapping repeatedly onshore.
I hate them. I hate watching the two of them together, but every time I think of what I saw—my BFF getting fucked by Henry’s face, I admittedly get horny.
I know it’s morning, though I’m half asleep, I’m thinking of that moment I caught them and so I’m hot, which also makes me feel lonely.
Ugh. I hate feeling like this so I try to imagine someone is with me—a man, big and strong, scruffy and tan. And passionate, like Henry, maybe. But different. A different kind of man. The most different kind of man I’ve ever known.
My finger hooks under my panty and finds my clitoris and I imagine Orphelius. He is stroking me with his tongue, eating me. I think of the rest of him and it puts me off, so I remind myself this is my imagination and I can imagine Orphelius in any way I want.
I imagine him with legs.
I also imagine him looking up at me with his emerald green eyes as he laps at the small hard peak between my folds. I envision his hand reaching up to my breast, squeezing and massaging it as he rolls his tongue. I grab my tit and squeeze it as I rub more firmly on my clit.
I visualize Orphelius climbing on top of me. The weight of him—heavy. And the feel of him—warm. My sex swells. I rub faster and my arm is beginning to get sore.
Now I desperately wish Orphelius really was here and I didn’t have to do this myself. More importantly, I wish he could enter me. I wish he could fill me—big and hard while he continued to lap at my clit. But that’s not possible unless...
I put the thought out of mind. Orphelius would probably be the only thing on earth that could fuck me and lap at me at the same time, but I’m not fucking a bunch of tentacles.
So, I imagine Orphelius with an ass—smooth and firm in my grip. I dream of his thick, muscular, hairy thighs and calves and his ass and legs working in unison like a machine to thrust the huge phallic member of his manhood in and out of me. I bite my lip and I want to come.
But more than an orgasm, I want Orphelius. I want him inside me. At this moment, I want Orphelius to fuck me and invade me and then I feel an unexpected rub at my inner thigh that is not me! I open my eyes as my body clamps tight at what’s happening.
I’m about to be invaded! I suddenly feel nauseous. This is not what I want!
My hands push forward at the body that is settling on me and I see a face.
“Bradley!” I yell. “What are you doing? Get off!”
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he says as he grips my wrists together. “I don’t normally like girls like you. You’re so different and wrong. But when I saw you touching yourself and I licked your thigh and then you opened your legs for me?” He shakes his head as he lifts my pajama dress over my breasts. “Fuck girl, I want you.”
“Bradley,” I say calmly, trying to pull my PJs down with hands bound together in his grasp, “there’s been some miscommunication. I don’t know how you got in here, but I want you to get off.”
Bradley pauses. “Get off? The door was open. Your cunt was wide open. You knew I was coming today.”
I try to move my knees to put them between the two of us while jerking my arms in an attempt to break my hands free of his grip. He clamps my wrists harder and pushes them straight into the mattress above my head.
“Bradley, I’m serious,” I say. “You’re hurting me.” I try to wiggle and squeeze my legs shut despite the fact I know I can’t because he’s between them.
“Oh yeah, girl, fight me a little. That’s gonna make you tight. I never thought I’d want a girl like you wrapped tight on me. My tight little Cookie.”
“Bradley!” I scream and I feel like I’m really struggling now. I should just be able to push him off, but he has me pinned.
I don’t know why I feel so weak in this position. I don’t know why he won’t stop. Does he not hear me?
I knee him in the rib. “Bradley!” I shout once more, my voice so loud it hurts my ears. I feel a hard smack to the side of my head.
“Ow,” I blurt. The fucker just hit me!
“Shut up!” he yells.
Nobody tells me to shut up! I manage to knee him hard in the chest. He lets go of my hands and I smack him.
I feel another harder punch behind the opposite ear.
The first one was shocking, but this one really hurt. I can’t believe it. My eyes are wet as I start crying. What’s wrong with me? A part of me wants to scream, though for some reason I can’t. It’s like the air has been knocked out of my body.
All at once, there’s a throbbing ache in my head. My brain feels like it’s been mashed and for the first time since I can remember, I’m scared. I’m really scared. I feel more inclined to do as Bradley says and just shut up. My head is pounding and my ears are ringing. I don’t want him to hit me again because...I hurt.
Bradley puts my arms over my head where I let them lay. He gets up on his knees while gripping and lifting my legs and then my ass to yank off my underwear. “That’s more like it,” he says.
Bradley touches me and my body jerks. He puts his fingers in his mouth, which I’m sure he’s wetting them so he can wet me because I’m not remotely turned on. In fact, I want to run and cry, but I also want to beat him.
I’m infuriated, except I’m not just mad at him—Shelley left me here. I wish Henry were here or better yet, I wish Orphelius were here. I was more afraid of Orphelius than this joker, yet I don’t believe for a second Orphelius would ever hurt me like this. In fact, if I had at least tried to be a friend to Orphelius and not behaved so apathetically and let those tentacles rescue me, this might not be happening right now.
As Bradley positions himself to enter me, he groans with frustration. “What the fuck is that?”
“Huh?” I mumble although I don’t think I should’ve even made a peep.
“The fucking birds. They keep fucking tapping.”
I look to the window and my only real friend in the world, the dumb bird, is ther
e but it’s not alone. There are other birds, a swarm of birds, and they are behaving most peculiarly. Seagulls are taking turns to tap hard at the window with their beaks. I’m surprised so many have gathered. I hadn’t noticed them over the past few minutes.
Bradley hunches over me. He kisses my neck and it makes me cringe, making my head throb harder as tears roll down my face. I keep my focus on my feathered friend who begins to tap much louder now.
“Fuck!” cries Bradley and he yells, “I can’t fucking focus with all that racket going on!”
I use the opportunity while Bradley’s distracted to attempt an escape by trying to twist and yank my lower half free of the brute.
Bradley grabs me by the throat and I’m choking. “Don’t move unless I fucking tell you to,” he curses. Bradley’s face is red and a vein on his forehead looks like it’s going to burst, but his grip on my neck is what has me worried. I feel like he’s going to pop my head right off my body.
“Br...brad...ley,” I choke as his hips lean heavily between my thighs. The head of his erection is ready to invade me but I don’t even care because I can’t breathe! I claw at his arm and start kicking wildly. “Bra...ad—”
Thump!
Bradley loosens his grip and I’m panting.
Thump! Thump!
“The fuck?” asks Bradley and we both turn to see a huge seagull dive head-on into the window.
Blood splatters across the glass and we are both in shock. Another bird bangs into the window, falling, and leaving a few random feathers to stick.
“What in the hell are they doing?” Bradley stares in their direction. He leans off me as more seagulls begin to smash-dive straight into the pane.
The brute gets off the bed and I use the opportunity to pull my pajama dress down. Bradley notices and grabs me by the jaw before pushing my head back into the pillow.
“Hey, we’re not done,” he demands and I yank at his arm until I feel like we are arm wrestling, but we stop when we hear a startling crack.
Bradley and I let go of one another to look at the window. Seagulls are dive bombing into the glass, killing themselves. Bradley let’s out a sickening, gagging sound that matches my feelings of disgust, as blood and feathers begin to collect on the opposite side of the window forcing the crack to spread wider like a web being strewn across the glass pane.
I swallow. Beyond the muck of avian innards glued to the glass is a whirlwind of birds. They are flying about in every direction and there are so many of them that the flapping of wings starts to produce the sound of what could be a tornado outside. The screech of their caws becomes a terrorizing chorus.
One screech stands out as it echoes through the house. A bird has gotten in. A seagull comes flying through the bedroom door from the hall and attacks Bradley.
He cusses, waving his arms frantically and all I can do is lean back into the corner of the bed to curl myself up and watch the disturbing onslaught.
My pulse is racing as Bradley grabs a hold of the bird, but before he can throw it, more birds are on him.
A scream escapes my throat with the shattering of glass from the window but my voice is muted by the swift wind being created by masses of wings and feathers of birds that are now flying in.
Seagulls are swirling into the room. The huge feathered creatures are everywhere, but mostly on Bradley and he is shrieking—his arms becoming exhausted from defending himself against the feathered fury.
Bradley runs out of the hall as birds keep coming through the window to chase him. He runs about the house bloodied as beaks and wings and bird feet attack him. They are clawing, pecking, and scraping at his eyes, his ears, everything!
I hear the clamor of car keys as Bradley grab them and bolts out the door then down the front steps to his car. He is still screaming when I hear the car door shut. He curses between shrieks and yelps as he starts up the engine to take off. As he goes, most of the birds also disperse and as quickly as the chaos rolled in, a calm takes over.
I sit on the bed for a few minutes, hugging myself, and watching a few remaining seagulls poke about the house until they finally make their exit. White and gray feathers float about and I take a breath. My face feels sticky and damp and I wipe my upper lip of beaded sweat, also smearing a tiny downy feather that sticks to my hand.
The space between my thighs tingles like it’s happy to have been saved from assault, but at a cost to my poor head, which is pulsating from adrenaline and after being hit.
I regret what happened. I feel dirty and ashamed, but I also feel something else. It’s dread mixed with a teensy bit of curiosity and, I hate to say it, hope.
I swing my legs over the side of Shelley’s bed and force myself towards the open window now framed with shards of sharp broken glass. The ocean calls to me with crashes of waves but I don’t look at it right away. Instead, I peek at the ground.
A mass grave of bloodied seagulls with broken necks and disfigured wings lay piled outside beneath the window frame. I let my eyes wander past the death heap and further towards the sand on the beach and finally over the water. I can make out a human head before it slips beneath the ocean’s surface and I hear a tapping from behind me. I turn to see my regular feathered friend perched on the vanity.
I walk over to the vanity to sit down next to my fowl friend and look at my inflamed face in the mirror. I feel behind my ears and on each side there is a tender lump where Bradley struck me.
I look at the seagull and sigh. “So, Orphelius can control you, can he?”
The seagull screeches.
“Did he leave you behind to keep an eye on me?”
The bird cocks its head, blinks, and screeches again.
“Are you content with the power Orphelius has over you or do you often try to resist him?”
Another screech bellows and the big bird nestles down seemingly content atop the vanity.
“Yeah,” I say leaning back into the chair. “It’s getting harder for me to resist him as well.”
Chapter 9
Orphelius
That fucking witch!
“This is not right,” I say to myself as I descend to the ocean floor. “That sea witch and I made a deal that Kumiko would come back to me, but this was not how it was supposed to happen. Kumiko is still being beaten. She’s still being bruised and I swear upon the gods that if my lover should fall dead in my arms again, I’ll have that witch swallowed whole to be digested slowly within the big belly of a whale. Better yet, I’ll bleed her and hang her by a rope above a hundred hungry sharks so she can watch the kind of frenzy she creates before I cut the rope to watch her get torn limb from limb.”
“That’s rather grotesque even for you, isn’t it Orphelius?”
A rippling wave moves swiftly past my face.
“Fuck off, nymph,” I tell the small feminine creature as I move sluggishly along the ocean bottom using all eight of my massive tentacles.
She swims back into view. “Don’t be upset, Orphelius. None of us like it when you’re upset. Dealing with your sadness for centuries is hard enough for us to bare as it is.”
I study the nymph for a minute. She is not much bigger than my human hand and I put out my palm. She flicks her long blonde hair back with her tiny blue hands and then grips my fingers to pull herself up and settle in my palm. Her top half looks human except she is completely blue in color, which makes her difficult to be seen, especially by humans. Her bottom looks much like a lady’s poufy velvet skirt that gathers at the end, as it was tied together by what looks like soft delicate silver leaves, which she uses as a propeller to swim speedily.
“Forgive me,” I say. I forget I can project my feelings and not just my demands into the creatures I command. “Where is the witch now?” I ask the nymph because nymphs know everything. They are better at gossip than aristocratic human women.
“Mmm, she’s around,” replies the nymph, wrapping her arms around my middle finger to caress it.
“Why is the witch avoiding me? I�
�ve been seeking her out.”
“You know why, Orphelius,” she smirks.
I pinch the nymph’s face between two fingers of the opposite hand. “No, I don’t.”
“Because she warned you about this. The witch warned you this might happen. Bringing the dead to life is a finicky trick of magic. You made a deal with no guarantee that deal would ever come to fruition, but you still killed for it.”
“I’ve killed many things.”
“But the dragon,” she snickers, “we all know you regret killing it. I can see it on your face. It was the last of its kind and you sacrificed it for the sake of a lover that might’ve never returned.”
“She did return.”