It was happening again. With a silent cry of pain, Hunt felt his spirit wrenched free of its prison. When consciousness came, it was with a dazzle of bright lights and a riot of sound and smell.
He was in the Great Hall, watching an orgy being acted out. The hall had been decorated to resemble a North African bazaar, in the centre of which was a large wooden raised platform on which young women dressed as slave-girls were standing, half-naked and linked together with heavy chains. They looked afraid, terrified even. Hunt couldn’t tell if they were really scared, or just great actresses. Sitting at the foot of the platform, men were shouting out sums of money. They were drinking a thick, syrupy liquid with a heavy scent, and seemed excited – drugged.
A slave-market: Winterbourne’s exclusive clientele were bidding for the favours of the girls on the dais. One was being unchained and flung roughly into the arms of her purchaser, an elderly man with a pot-belly who immediately threw the girl to the ground and pulled out a surprisingly hard, enthusiastic penis. Forcing apart the girl’s legs, he took no account of her struggles and cries of protest, and flung himself upon her, ramming his hardness into her right up to the hilt. The girl’s cries of anguish seemed genuine . . .
Sickened, Andreas turned away and found he was looking down at a pair of hands. Nice, well-formed hands, tanned and smooth-skinned. And a pair of legs and feet. And a bulge in the front of his trousers which must be an erection. He could feel the spreading warmth in his loins.
He could feel!
But they were not his loins. And this was not his body. Suddenly, he felt a tide of nausea overwhelm him as he realised the overwhelming evil of the body his spirit was inhabiting, smelt the stench of its age-old corruption.
The shock of his revulsion was sufficient to break the link between body and spirit, and Hunt felt himself spinning back, spiralling into the vortex which led inexorably back to the darkness of his captivity.
Oh my God, he thought, as the darkness closed over him once again. What evil is this that surrounds me? And what evil have I abandoned Mara to?
Not surprisingly, when Mara and Heimdal asked to see the Chief Curator of the British Library, he was officially ‘in a meeting’. But his secretary could not hold out long in the face of Heimdal’s animal magnetism. While he amused her – and himself – by getting his hand up her skirt and giving her a good shagging across the desk, Mara took full advantage of the diversion to push open the door to the Curator’s office and slip inside.
She shut the door behind her as quietly as she could. The Curator was sitting in a swivelling leather armchair beside the window, a small table carrying books, a portable telephone and an intercom at his elbow. He was miles away, engrossed in a report, and Mara was able to get quite a good look at him before he noticed her.
He was a surprisingly youthful man – early forties, perhaps. A real careerist, no doubt of it. Tall, slim, tanned (lots of ski-ing holidays at the taxpayers’ expense?) and with a shock of sandy brown hair. A second or two after Mara entered the room, he glanced up – half in anger, half in surprise.
‘Who the . . .?’ He reached for the intercom to buzz his secretary.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ interjected Mara. ‘She’s . . . otherwise engaged at the moment. Look, all I want is a quick word. Won’t you listen?’
The Curator sighed, laid the report on top of the pile of books, and settled back into his executive leather armchair, legs comfortably crossed, fingers interlaced and hands resting on his knee.
‘You’d better get on with it, young lady,’ he said, ‘and thank your lucky stars you’re such a good-looking woman. I don’t interrupt a morning’s work for just anyone, you know.’
‘I’m looking for some . . . stolen property. I have reason to believe it may be here. A crystal dagger with a silver hilt. It was stolen from my family a little while ago.’
‘My dear girl, what possible use could I find for a silver dagger?’ The mocking grey eyes stared back into hers and she could feel his desire. It was filling her, swelling into her like a poison gas, choking her.
He wanted her, wanted her; and for some reason all her psychic senses told her that she must resist him, for he was evil. Something told her that he had designs on more than just her body . . .
‘Is there something wrong?’
Mara did not reply. For, out of the corner of her eye, she had seen it. The dagger was on the other side of the room, lying on the desk, its crystal brilliance half-concealed by a pile of opened letters.
So that was it. The priceless crystal dagger that held the soul of her lover was being used as a common or garden letter opener. No doubt this was the Master’s idea of a good joke. But how to get the dagger, how to take it away? She must have it . . .
She realised that the Curator was staring at her, his watery grey eyes boring into the side of her face, scanning the undulations of her body beneath her thin sweater. The pale glimmer of afternoon sunlight filtering through the blinds turned his sandy-coloured hair into a misty halo about his head, so that it seemed as though he were truly on fire for her.
And his desire was burning her now, consuming her, so that, like slowly melting glass, she was losing the memory of her shape, her identity, her mission.
Mara rose to her feet and walked across the room to the Curator. Every step was leaden and unwilling, yet she knew deep down, for her instincts told her, that she must use her body – use it to barter for the soul of her lover as she would use any other coinage.
She stopped a few feet away from the Curator: she would go no further. He must make the next move, the ultimate move. She would not submit to him so easily. Standing there before him, she took hold of the welt of her sweater and pulled it up over her head, revealing the glorious twin swells of her naked breasts. It was an act both of challenge and of submission. Come and have me if you dare: and the winner takes all.
‘Lovely . . .’ breathed the Curator and Mara was reminded of the seductive hiss of a cobra, about to mesmerise and fell its prey. ‘Come to me, my lovely one . . .’
Fighting the urge to let her mind sink into the oblivion of submission, Mara unfastened the button on her skirt, and let it fall in bright swathes about her feet. As usual she wore no panties, and the Curator drew in his breath sharply at the sight of her glossy black triangle of curls.
Kicking off her shoes, Mara stood naked before him, watching and waiting for her moment. The Curator seemed to sense that it was his turn to respond, and he rose slowly to his feet, sliding down the knot on his painted silk tie. He peeled off his jacket and tossed it carelessly over the back of the chair, then began to unbutton his shirt. His chest was broad, sun-tanned and covered in a thick carpet of sandy hair, and Mara found herself longing to sink her fingers into it, twisting and turning them until they were held fast, like . . .
Like a drowned corpse, held fast by long tendrils of water weed . . .
Like a mummified body, suffocated and imprisoned by its bindings . . .
What – or who – was putting such macabre thoughts into her head? For a brief moment, she recalled the faded memory of a dream; a dream of a girl within a coffin, bound up like a mummy yet still alive and silently screaming . . .
And then it was gone again, like a breath of frost in July, leaving only the desire, the desire to fuck. The real reason why she had come here was receding into the back of her mind; now, she was here only to fuck, and to defeat the will of this man who was so eager to possess her.
He had taken off his shoes and socks and his hands were on his belt-buckle now, unfastening it, sliding the belt out of the loops and letting it fall to the ground. Now the button at the waistband; the zip, sliding down like a sigh of desire; and he was stepping out of his trousers, out of his underpants.
He stood naked before her and Mara heard her own desire echoing around her head, as though someone . . . something . . . was putting her feelings into words:
‘Got to fuck you; got to feel your cock in my cunt; got to make y
ou shoot your load . . .’
He had a good body: tall and slender, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His taut belly led down to a crop of sandy-brown curls, surrounding a fine, thick penis which was already arcing upwards like a bow, straining for release. His testicles were large and pendulous, and she began to breathe more quickly with the thought of how much semen must be gathering in their fleshy sac, how much white, foaming delight just waiting to pump into her . . .
The Curator held out his arms to her, in the promise of a lover’s embrace, and whispered:
‘Come to me . . .’
Although her body cried out for her to obey him, Mara raised her hands to her own breasts and began to toy with her nipples, teasing them into ever-greater wakefulness, and sliding her cool palms over the softly swelling flesh of her bosom. She knew that the Curator must see, and be infuriated by, the pleasure which she was giving herself. So she pulled up a chair and sat down on it, facing the Curator, drawing her legs wide apart.
Silently, and smiling like an angel of destruction, Mara pulled apart her cunt-lips and began to masturbate herself. Not too hard, not too fast; for she didn’t want to come too quickly. She wanted the Curator to get the full benefit of the show she was staging just for him.
She returned his burning gaze boldly, though inwardly she trembled at the power she sensed within him: a power so dark that it seemed as though she were looking into some vast black abyss which she dared not enter, and yet from which she had not the will to draw back. All her psychic senses told her that the evil she sensed within him must be part of some other, much greater, evil.
She knew that she must fear him, must beware of his seductive voice, his sensual lips, his hard, purple-tipped penis which would slide oh so beautifully into her well-oiled cunt . . .
Summoning up all her courage, Mara continued to gaze back at the Curator, all the while rubbing and displaying herself ever more lasciviously.
Look, she seemed to say, take a look at these hot, wet delights which I am offering to you if only you will submit to me. See: here is my clitoris. Is it not beautiful? Is it not bigger and more magnificent than any other clitoris you have ever seen? Why, it is fully three-quarters of an inch long – can you see? I am sliding away its little pink hood so that you can get a better view.
Would you not like to take this little rosebud into your mouth, moisten it, and feel it throbbing on your tongue? I am rubbing it now – see how much pleasure I am giving myself; if you were rubbing it, could you give me more pleasure? Why should I submit to you when I am so self-sufficient in pleasure?
See: now I am opening up my arse-cheeks and grinding my naked, intimate flesh against the fabric of the chair. How good its roughness feels upon the sensitive flesh of my arse. Oh, if only you could see how my tight little arsehole is opening and closing like the mouth of some greedy starfish. It is longing, yearning to be filled. Could you fill it, more expertly and more pleasurably than I can fill it with my finger?
And here is my vagina: isn’t that a cold, clinical word for something so hot and wet and willing? Here: I am pulling apart my cunt-lips so that you can see a little of the way into my hot, wet hole. It’s dark and juicy in there – running with rivulets of moisture, like some magical cave; see – I’m sliding my finger in and out of it. Can you hear the delicious squelch it makes?
And now I’m taking my finger out so that you can see the wetness glistening on it. And putting my finger to my lips, so that I can see, taste, smell the fragrant wetness which I and I alone have produced. Tell me: could you truly give me more pleasure than this?
So effective were the words she spoke silently, within her own mind, that she felt the sudden onrush of the orgasm which she had sought to delay. Unable to prevent it, she rubbed harder still at her clitoris and great waves of pleasure crashed over her. Love-juices trickled out of her and moistened the rough fabric of the chair.
As she closed her eyes in orgasm, the Curator could resist her no longer. When she reopened them, he was before her, towering over her and brandishing his stiff cock like some deadly weapon.
For all his aggression Mara knew that she had won the first round of their contest. He had come to her, she had not submitted to him.
She opened her lips willingly to accept the tribute of his stiff, yearning flesh. His cock throbbed with pent-up spunk, and yet it felt surprisingly cool – like sucking the cock of some obscene marble statue. She cradled his balls in her hands, marvelling at the way they tensed at her touch in readiness for the spurt of love-juice which would bring ecstasy and the renewal of desire.
He thrust into her eagerly, holding her breasts, teasing her nipples with his long, cool fingers. Her cunt grew wetter and wetter as she sucked him, pulsating with yearning to be filled up and satisfied.
She felt his shaft grow stiffer still and then a flood of semen gushed out into her mouth, half-choking her in its profusion. She swallowed it willingly but with a tinge of regret – believing that he would not now be capable of fucking her.
But, to her amazement, the Curator’s recuperative powers were unusual in the extreme. His body was in a curious way like some sophisticated mechanism, some perfect, perpetual-motion machine dedicated only to sex. For, within a couple of moments, his penis was ready and willing once again – if anything, it seemed even stiffer and more eager than before.
With surprising strength, the Curator slipped his arms under Mara’s backside and hoisted her waist high, so that her legs wrapped themselves behind his back and his stiff penis slid comfortably into her wet cunt.
Mara could not suppress a little cry of pleasure as she felt his hardness entering her, filling her up and pressing deliciously against the neck of her womb. Her cunt tightened possessively around the invader, welcoming it in and unwilling to let it escape.
‘I’m going to fuck you till you cry out for mercy,’ hissed a quiet voice in her ear. ‘I have you now and there is no escape . . .’
For a moment, Mara saw that it was true: that she had foolishly allowed herself to become this strange, evil man’s prisoner in spite of her better judgement; that she had deluded herself that, in making him come to her, she had exerted some power over him.
He held her fast now. There was no point in struggling. And, what’s more, she had lost all desire to resist him. All she wanted to do was submit to the tightness of his embrace, the hardness of his delectable prick. Thoughts of her own damnation – and Andreas’s – had slipped far away, pushed back into the furthest recesses of her mind, she knew not how or why. Some superior force was at work, manipulating her mind, playing games with her desire, making her its victim.
Its willing victim.
He fucked her, bouncing her up and down on his prick as though she weighed no more than a tiny child. And she cried out as loudly as she dared for the pleasure and pain of his possession. A second and a third time he brought her to orgasm and – as his semen pumped into her and she almost fainted away with the power of her fourth climax – she hardly noticed the way the Curator was nuzzling into the crook of her neck, as though looking for some special place . . .
No! cried a voice inside the Curator’s head. You shall not bite the witch Mara. Not yet, not yet. Have I not forbidden it? She has other uses. Let her go, I command you! Let the white witch go free or you shall feel the burning agony of my wrath. You are my creation and only I can destroy you . . .
For a moment the Curator seemed to hesitate, but then he shook off the power of the voice within him and bent once again to Mara’s throat, teeth bared in a parody of a smile.
At that moment he lost consciousness – felled by a blow to the back of the head from a marble statuette which Heimdal had picked up from a plinth by the door. He collapsed into a crumpled heap on the carpet, Mara half-beneath him.
‘What . . .?’ Mara was dazed and weeping as Heimdal picked her up and checked that she had come to no harm.
‘He was trying to bite you! That madman was trying to bite your neck!’ He
imdal was incredulous. ‘Are you all right?’
Mara nodded, leaning on Heimdal as he took off his jacket and slung it around her shoulders, regretfully veiling the twin delights of her magnificent bosom. He really had the hots for her today . . .
‘The dagger: I saw it,’ exclaimed Mara, returning to her senses. ‘It’s over there, on the desk. What happened to me, Jürgen? What’s happening to my life?’
But Heimdal could not answer. He picked up the dagger and thrust it into his belt.
‘Hurry up and get dressed,’ he said. ‘There’s no time to lose.’
5: Reunion
Andreas was dreaming. Dreaming of Mara – of fucking her as he had fucked her so many times on their big, soft bed. Or on the warm, sandy beach, with a gentle breeze playing on their naked bodies. He remembered with anguish the glorious warmth of her well-lubricated cunt; the way she had loved to take his yearning hardness into her mouth and tease him to ecstasy with the very tip of her lascivious tongue. The thrilling tightness of her willing arse . . .
But the dream was changing. Where was Mara? Don’t run away . . . There – there she was, still naked and walking towards him. She was smiling at him and her arms were outstretched in welcome.
‘Come to me, come to me, my darling; and fuck me . . .’
Oh yes, breathed Andreas within the agonised prison of his mind. Let me join with you and fuck your beautiful body.
And she was yet closer now, still smiling, still stretching out her arms to him. Soon she would be close enough for him to touch her, hold her, fuck her.
As she reached him, he stretched out his hand to touch her. But his hand passed straight through her as though she – or he – were no more than an insubstantial phantom. And Mara carried on walking, still smiling, still holding out her arms to someone.
In the agony of his dream, Andreas turned to see where she was going and saw that she was walking towards another man. A man who stood in the distance, waiting for her and smiling – but not so far distant that Andreas could not make out his features.
The Phallus of Osiris Page 9