The Phallus of Osiris

by Valentina Cilescu

  He was completely naked, his middle-aged body surprisingly lithe and fit for its age. His straining muscles bulged and glistened with sweat as the delicious pain of his torment permeated every nerve and fibre of his being. The contours of his face, unseen behind the leather mask, were as unimportant as his identity: here, in the chamber of the Rising Sun, all men became the faceless, nameless hosts of overwhelming pain and desire.

  The Master saw with approval that McNulty was fully appreciating the personal attention which he was receiving: for his not-insubstantial cock was satisfyingly hard and dancing jerkily beneath his belly, whilst his bollocks were as firm and round as two ripe plums in a velvet bag.

  Since all forms of lust were equally appealing to the Master, and all depravities to be welcomed, he gazed upon the professor’s nakedness and allowed his mind to wander – experiencing in his thoughts the exquisitely novel pleasure of standing behind his victim, taking out his cock and buggering him – whilst the unfortunate professor could do nothing but gaze before him and moan his feeble protest. To amuse himself he casually projected this thought into McNulty’s mind and, in a lightning reflex, the professor began to writhe about in his bonds, as though trying desperately to escape the unseen tormentor he imagined looming up behind him.

  The Master smiled and signed to Anastasia to wank him harder: he was so enjoying these moments of leisure and relaxation. This new body was proving to be most satisfactory. It was wonderful to know once again all the sensations of fucking and wanking and buggering and being sucked off; and he had built up a great hunger – a fifty-year hunger – which he knew would take the whole of eternity to satisfy. More than eternity, perhaps. Sex was his food, his drink, his life-energy – the more he surrounded himself with it, the stronger he would become. And so, with each successive orgasm savoured or shared or observed or felt, he would take another step closer to his ultimate and inevitable triumph.

  Soon, all power will be mine, he exulted. And the thought made the spunk seethe in his balls.

  Just as he had planned, once the foolish and easily influenced professor’s attentions were fully taken up with trying to escape the imagined threat from the Master, the two geishas peeled off their robes and mounted their own surprise attack upon him, thrashing his naked flesh with bundles of springy birch twigs.

  The assault came upon McNulty as a complete and terrifying surprise, and he cried out in pain as the twigs bit into the soft flesh of his belly and buttocks.

  Excellent, mused the Master, his own fingers closing tightly around Anastasia’s as he felt his crisis approaching. Make him suffer, make his flesh bleed: his spunk will flow more freely if his blood flows first.

  Indeed, the professor’s prick grew ever-stiffer with each successive stroke of the birch twigs. His flesh grew redder and great weals began to appear on his belly, buttocks and legs. Sometimes the twigs were manipulated with exceptional skill so that they fell upon the tender flesh of his bollocks, causing him to shriek with the pain of his punishment. But, try as he might, he could not disguise the mounting pleasure in his loins.

  Judging the moment with expert skill, the two geishas left off beating their victim and set to work on pleasuring him in gentler ways, first massaging him with soothing oils – paying the greatest attention to his loins – and then applying their butterfly-soft fingers and tongues to his mortified flesh. How he groaned as tiny fingers probed his arse and a wily tongue wound itself about his spunk-filled bollocks.

  The girls finished off their victim with as fine a display of fellatio as the Master could remember seeing: taking turns to engulf the professor’s hardness in their eager throats. They prolonged the torment for as long as they could but the professor was already in a paroxysm of pleasure from which there was only one way out. He came in a flood of spunk and with cries of pleasure which soon turned to a very different blend of agony and ecstasy as he felt the sharp little teeth piercing his flesh, and the warm, delicious blood spurting out . . .

  With a grunt of satisfaction, the Master at last allowed himself to climax, watching the semen gush out all over Anastasia’s hand and breasts with a fascination born of so many long years of deprivation.

  Another recruit to the cause.

  Turning away from the mirror, the Master left the geishas to sort out what to do with the inert body now hanging apparently lifelessly from the bamboo trellis – a dead spider entrapped in its own silken web . . .

  He projected his thoughts with relaxed and consummate ease and Delgado was by his side in a moment.

  ‘Master?’

  ‘I have been monitoring the witch, Mara Fleming,’ replied the Master. ‘She now believes she has the key to her lover’s death and salvation. Poor, foolish little slut – so talented, and yet so easily misled.’

  ‘What would you have me do, Master?’

  ‘Soon she will be setting out on a quest – a quest of discovery. Ensure that things are not made too . . . difficult for Miss Fleming.’

  ‘It shall be done’.

  ‘Oh yes . . . and I’d like you to arrange for a certain Mr Jürgen Kaas to receive a little visit . . .’

  ‘What do we do now? We must do something,’ pleaded Mara, gripping Heimdal’s hand very tightly.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mara,’ replied the seer, stroking her hair as one might stroke a fretful child’s, to pacify it. ‘The vision has convinced me that Andreas Hunt’s soul is now imprisoned in the crystal dagger. What we must now do is locate the dagger’s current whereabouts. One thing is certain: its master will have hidden it well, for he will be anxious to foil any attempt to reunite the soul of Andreas Hunt with his body.’

  ‘And how . . .?’

  ‘We must perform another ceremony, now, before the energies of our coupling are dissipated. First, you must describe the dagger to me in as much detail as you can. Every last detail of the inscription, the shape of the dagger – everything. I shall then make an effigy of it in wood, and we shall use it in our ceremony. If all goes well, the crystal will tell me where you can find the dagger.’

  The details of the dagger were etched for ever in Mara’s mind: the silver hilt, adorned with hieroglyphs; the wicked, slender blade cut from a single perfect crystal. Only now, whenever her thoughts turned to the dagger, she saw it with its cruel blade sullied with the blood of Andreas Hunt.

  Heimdal worked quickly, fashioning as faithful an image of the dagger as he could from wood said to be taken from the World Tree. It was an imperfect representation: rough-hewn and inelegant, in sharp contrast to the evil beauty of the crystal dagger. But it was the best they could hope for.

  ‘It will serve,’ decreed Heimdal. ‘Now, please lie down upon the floor, part your thighs and draw up your knees . . . yes, exactly like that. I shall speak a spell of location, devised to show the magician the hiding-place of a lost item. Then we shall proceed to the sexual ritual.’

  He spoke the words of the incantation; and it seemed to Mara that the world began to spin, that the light in the room became dimmer and that everything around her began to blur, to sink out of focus, until at last she hardly knew who or where she was. Her strength ebbed away, to be replaced by the insistent throb of irresistible desire . . .

  Heimdal was kneeling between her feet now, feeling deftly for her clitoris with his left hand whilst, with his right, he masturbated his penis, his movements machinelike and efficient. Dizzy and disorientated, Mara felt that her identity had almost disappeared. Now she was little more than a dully throbbing clitoris, a body of desire that was, and yet was not, herself; and when her orgasm came, despite its raw power, it felt as though she was no more than an observer, privileged to share in the sensations enjoyed by some other woman who was almost exactly like her.

  As he wanked himself to orgasm, Heimdal ensured that the warm droplets of semen fell onto the blade of the wooden knife, inundating it and spreading the love-juice with his fingers so that the entire surface glistened. Then he took hold of the rough-hewn dagger and inserted it,
gently, into Mara’s cunt, which was now dripping with moisture. He thrust it in and out of her, so that the blade was well covered with her juices, and then took it out and reversed it, to ensure that the hilt was also moistened.

  Removing the dagger from Mara’s cunt, Heimdal rose unsteadily to his feet and walked slowly to the table on which stood a crystal ball. Carefully, he gripped the dagger in both hands and held it before him at arms’ length, lowering the tip until it rested on the top of the crystal globe.

  ‘Azarte!’ he cried, and at once an immensely bright mist of light filled the room, like a fluorescent fog. Through it, Mara could just perceive the massive, shadowy figure of Heimdal, the point of the dagger now in his left hand and the hilt in the right, with its blade laid flat across the top of the crystal globe.

  He was peering down, deep into the heart of the crystal, and seemed to be in incredible pain for his entire body was trembling and cries of repressed agony escaped like the distant hiss of steam from between his clenched teeth.

  ‘I . . . I see it!’ he cried and fell to his knees on the floor, the wooden dagger discarded by his side and his head cradled in his hands.

  At once the mist began to fade, and Mara felt the dizziness and weariness subside. Struggling to her feet, she staggered over to where Heimdal half-sat, half-lay, still shaking his head as though trying to rid himself of a lingering bad dream. She laid a trembling hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Are you all right?’ gasped Mara, seeing the rivulets of mingled blood and sweat coursing down his brow.

  He nodded.

  ‘I saw it, Mara; I know where the dagger is now.’

  She gripped his hand tightly and stared deep into his eyes:

  ‘Tell me, Heimdal. Now. Tell me where it is.’

  There was a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

  ‘I know this is going to sound ridiculous, Mara; but the dagger is somewhere in the British Museum!’

  The door of the penthouse flat swung open and a smartly dressed young woman ushered them inside. The Master noted that she had extremely fine legs and a promising bosom, and felt the beginnings of a surge of interest in his loins. She looked at him with large, baby-blue eyes and smiled.

  I won’t forget you, thought the Master. You’d be a real asset to any organisation . . .

  ‘I’m Sir Charles’s private secretary, Madeleine Gorton,’ she explained. ‘Follow me, please. He’s expecting you.’

  She led them down a corridor lined with Manets, Seurats and a couple of Berthe Morisots. All originals, of course. Sir Charles Forton didn’t have to worry where the money was coming from. His main worry was working out what to spend it all on.

  Art and politics were his main hobbies and Sir Charles was reputed to be the single largest contributor to Tory Party funds. An extremely influential man, mused the Master. About time I took steps to improve our acquaintance. He stole a glance at Anastasia Dubois, walking silently by his side, her face a mask of sensual innocence.

  Sir Charles was working in his book-lined office, gold-plated fountain pen hovering over a pile of letters for signature. He glanced up as his secretary ushered the visitors in, dismissing her with a cursory nod.

  A few moments passed whilst Sir Charles finished signing the letters. Evidently, he didn’t intend leaving the Master in any doubt as to who was boss. The Master and his companions waited in patient silence, broken only by the steady ticking of an eighteenth-century grandfather clock.

  At last Forton put down his pen, folded his arms, and looked the Master up and down. His steady gaze presented not so much a welcome as a direct physical challenge.

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Mr LeMaitre: I’m a very busy man. I don’t have time for con-men and charlatans, nor for time-wasters. You said you had something to show me – something that would be to my advantage. I’m warning you: it had better be good.’

  Oh, it is, thought the Master, smiling to himself. It’s so good, it’s going to change your whole life . . .

  He stepped back to reveal Anastasia, who peeled back the sides of her sable coat to reveal that she was gloriously naked underneath.

  Sir Charles’s jaw dropped. All the juices that he had thought long dried-up began to flow at the sight of such delectable young flesh; and he felt an irresistible stirring in his loins that made him forget for a moment just who and where he was. His hand strayed, absent-mindedly, to the unexpected bulge in the front of his hand-sewn trousers.

  ‘Sir Charles,’ continued the Master, ‘I’d like you to meet Miss Anastasia Dubois. She’d like to show you a few things which I’m sure will interest you.’

  Half-hypnotised already by the Master’s commanding gaze, Sir Charles submitted eagerly to the cool, manicured hand slipping incautiously down inside his silk boxer-shorts. My God, he thought, I’m interested already.

  As she took down his pants and teased and sucked and fucked him, there on his own office floor, Sir Charles surrendered to her with all the unquestioning wonderment of an infatuated boy – though he was fleetingly curious why she seemed so intent on planting passionate kisses on the pulsing flesh of his proffered throat.

  Mara and Heimdal had spent an entire, and completely fruitless, morning wandering around the British Museum. Nothing. Nowhere could they find any trace of the crystal dagger. Had they ever really expected to?

  Only as they entered the Egyptian galleries did Heimdal begin to sense the trail once again.

  ‘It has to be here,’ he hissed, pressing his fingertips against the glass case and feeling the vibrations of a distant power. ‘I can sense its presence. The dagger is definitely somewhere in this building. Its power is overwhelming, intense, incredible . . .’

  ‘Can you sense nothing else, beyond the fact that the dagger is nearby?’ Mara pressed her fingers to the glass but, although she felt the distant echo of a faraway power, she could not tap into the pulsing artery of its central energy source. For the first time, she felt truly in awe of Heimdal’s powers.

  ‘Only . . . only the fact that there seems to be a lot of . . . paper nearby, a lot of knowledge, all gathered together. Books?’ He turned to Mara quizzically, hoping for enlightenment.

  The realisation hit Mara so suddenly that she almost laughed.

  ‘Paper, knowledge gathered together in one place, books . . . don’t you see? It’s obvious. This building doesn’t just contain the British Museum. It houses the British Library, too!’

  Oh God, thought Heimdal, watching her running out of the Egyptian Room, her bum wobbles delightfully when she runs. I wish we could just go home and have a good fuck . . .

  ‘But what would a crystal dagger be doing in a library?’ he protested, striding faster to keep up with Mara, who was already racing before him through the echoing corridors.

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ she panted, turning and grinning at him. ‘But I’m going to find out!’

  Andreas was beginning to realise that something very odd indeed had happened to him. He wasn’t properly dead, he wasn’t unconscious and, as far as he could tell, he wasn’t dreaming. The things that were happening to him couldn’t have been conjured up by his own mind. After all, his editor always said he had no imagination. So what the bloody hell was going on?

  His encounter with the rat had not been the end of his strange experiences: in fact, it had been the beginning. Since then he had felt his spirit float free of its place of captivity several times, and each time he had experienced brief periods of lucidity when he had been fully conscious of his surroundings and able to see what was going on as though he were some sort of peripatetic spirit.

  Am I a ghost, then? Good God, man – pull yourself together. You don’t even believe in ghosts. Mara’s always telling you you’re an irredeemable old sceptic.

  Mara.

  He pulled himself together as best he could and tried to think about it all logically. There was one encouraging factor, at least. During his brief periods of consciousness and sight, he had recognised where he was. T
he cellars, the Great Hall, the bizarre theme bedrooms with their erotic paraphernalia and their gorgeous whores . . .

  He was at Winterbourne. Somehow – and God knows, it was beyond him to understand how – his spirit was able, from time to time and for periods of perhaps a few minutes at most, to witness the events within Winterbourne Hall. And he couldn’t help noticing that these periods were getting longer. He was developing some sort of ability to control them, to resist the terrible force which dragged him back to the dark helplessness of his imprisonment.

  The weird thing was, it was almost as if sexual activity acted as a magnet for his spirit, for each of the experiences he had had so far involved watching people having sex. The last time it had happened he had found himself looking at two people in the Outer Space room at Winterbourne. He recognised the room as one of those he had searched through in his quest for Mara, that fateful night at the Hall. It was fitted out like a space capsule, with two soft leather seats and lots of flashing coloured lights.

  One of the people was someone he half-recognised – a TV personality, yeah, that was it. The other was a big blonde girl, tall and busty and dressed in a silver space suit. Her statuesque, Nordic figure looked damn good in all that skin-tight silver lamé. And those tantalising little zips, strategically placed over her titties, her cunt, her arse . . .

  If Hunt had been capable of it, he would have developed a huge hard-on. Instead, he had to watch – apparently completely unseen – as the TV personality sat in one of the reclining seats and got himself well and truly fucked by the big blonde in the space-suit. Out of this world . . .

  And then, just as the guy was spurting into her, Hunt had seen her lunge for his neck, as though to sink her teeth into it . . .

  At that moment, he had felt himself dragged back into darkness, to mull over what he had seen. All he could do was watch, listen, try to understand. Maybe something of what he learned would turn out to be of help to him. Or to Mara. He wished he knew what had happened to Mara. He had to do something to help her . . .