The Phallus of Osiris

by Valentina Cilescu

  She began to masturbate Heimdal with slow, regular movements. At the same time, she felt another hand – not Heimdal’s – creeping slowly across her thigh and searching beneath her short Lycra skirt for her intimate furrow. She glanced up in alarm, to see the grimy, lined face of a man who had sat down in the seat next to her. Her heart sank. She recognised him instantly as the tramp who had been wanking himself off outside the cinema. As soon as she turned to look at him, she got the full benefit of the all-encompassing stench which travelled with him, and almost gagged as he grinned at her, lascivious and unashamed.

  She tried to close her thighs but Heimdal stopped her.

  ‘No. Let him do whatever he wishes,’ he said, with authority. ‘It will empower the ritual.’

  In an agony of shame and humiliation, Mara submitted herself to the tramp’s lewd caresses. His calloused hands ran up her legs, into the hot moistness of her inner thighs; and she felt the quiver of excitement run through him as he realised that she was wearing no panties.

  ‘Sexy little slut,’ rasped the tramp, clutching at her fanny so suddenly that Mara gave an involuntary gasp of discomfort. ‘I’ll plough your furrow for you.’

  Silently he got to his feet and eased himself, with difficulty, in front of Mara so that he was facing her with his back to the seat in front. His filthy, evil-smelling body loomed over her like some malodorous demon and, in a moment of utter horror, Mara realised what he was going to do to her.

  Still clutching Heimdal’s prick, Mara felt the tramp’s hand on the back of her head, forcing her forwards so that her lips were almost brushing the front of his greasy trousers. Fumbling in his haste, the tramp unfastened his flies and out sprang a lively prick, hard and serviceable, but as filthy and unappetising as the rest of him. It was obvious what he intended her to do.

  ‘Suck him off, Mara,’ hissed Heimdal. She realised instinctively that it was a command.

  Almost tearful with revulsion, Mara parted her lips a little and – before she had time to resist – felt the tramp’s foul hardness enter her mouth. Nausea almost choked her but bravely she sucked at the filthy flesh, knowing that never again would she forget the terrible taste, the foulness of his smell.

  He thrust into her greedily, and quickly defiled her throat with a tide of salty semen which he forced her to swallow. Then he withdrew and Mara thought he would leave her alone. But instead he returned to the contemplation of her cunt, sinking back onto his seat and thrusting grimy fingers up into her most intimate parts.

  To her shame, his rough caresses awakened her lust, and she began to wank Heimdal harder and harder as she felt her own orgasm approaching.

  The warm tide of Heimdal’s spunk, gushing out all over her fingers, sparked off her climax, sending her cunt into spasms of guilty pleasure which sent her juices cascading all over the tramp’s filthy fingers.

  Her stifled moans of desire must have disturbed the row of workmen in front, for they left off gazing at the naked nun who was sucking off a supremely well-endowed priest in a confessional, and turned round, craning their heads to see what was going on behind them.

  They were delighted by the scene which met their eyes: a slender, pretty young woman, her gorgeous fat tits bursting out of her blouse, was being masturbated by a filthy tramp, whilst some blond guy in tight leather trousers was creaming himself all over her hand.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ remarked one of the workmen. ‘So this is a live sex show, is it? Can we all join in?’

  Mara’s head reeled. What was happening to her? Why were the three men getting up out of their seats and coming towards her? What were they going to do to her? She stared at them, wide-eyed with terror, too bewildered to cry out.

  Silently, without any of the other cinemagoers noticing, the three men dragged Mara out of her seat and into the cramped space behind the back row, where – in times gone by – the usherettes would have stood to watch the show. In their place, Heimdal sat and watched, wanking himself gently and making a magical sign with the fingers of his left hand. The crystal ring encircling the base of his shaft seemed to glow a delicate phosphorescent green.

  A hand was clamped firmly over Mara’s mouth and she could hardly breathe, let alone cry out. Dark shapes were looming over her as she lay on the sloping floor, the lusty nuns still disporting themselves on the massive cinema screen in front of her. She tried to struggle, but it was no use. The first of the workmen had already unzipped his overalls and was lying on top of her, his colleagues holding her legs apart so that he could enter her without difficulty.

  They fucked her in turn, as though she were an inflatable doll, her juicy orifices just there for the taking. And on more than one occasion, to her immense humiliation, they succeeded in bringing her to orgasm.

  As the last of the workmen poured his seed into her cunt, Heimdal stood over her and let his semen spurt out in giant gobbets, all over her face.

  As the last droplet of semen fell, the pictures on the screen changed dramatically and a howl of protest ran around the auditorium. The garish pictures of naked monks and nuns gave way to black and white footage of a tall man in a trilby, boarding an aeroplane. As he reached the top of the steps, he turned to wave to a small crowd of dignitaries below, and Mara saw his face.

  ‘Andreas . . .!’ she gasped, struggling to sit up.

  A voice rose above the general hubbub of discontent:

  ‘Mr Anthony LeMaitre, the new British Ambassador to Cairo, left today for Egypt . . .’

  The scene faded. Mara blinked up at the screen, where once again the two nuns were taking it in turns to fuck with Father Abbot. The images were gone and yet the scene remained fresh and unmistakable in Mara’s mind. That had been the body of Andreas Hunt – the eyes empty of Andreas’s humour, true – but Andreas’s body, nonetheless.

  Mara struggled to her feet, abandoned now by the three workmen who had returned to their seats to watch the film. Heimdal helped her to button up her blouse.

  ‘Cairo, then?’

  Mara nodded. What other alternative could there be?

  Mara packed her bags quickly and joined Heimdal at the airport. At least by travelling with him, she automatically rid herself of any lingering worries about money. Heimdal had enough to charter a whole squadron of aeroplanes.

  As they got off the airport bus and prepared to climb the steps to the plane, Mara felt a sudden twinge of pain in her head, as though something – or someone – were stabbing a needle into her brain. She put her hand to her head and paused for a moment, but the pain did not return.

  ‘Are you all right?’ demanded Heimdal, taking her by the arm.

  Mara nodded and began to climb the steps.

  Once on the plane they sat together in the first-class cabin and Heimdal was more than usually attentive. Mara felt the pain again, so she closed her eyes to escape the noise and light.

  The pain subsided to a dull ache and was replaced by the very distant sound of a voice in terrible torment. A voice she knew only too well.

  ‘Mara! Mara! No, no, no! Danger! Can’t you see? I’m here . . . come to me Mara . . .’

  Mara listened intently, trying to decipher the meaning of what Andreas was trying to tell her. He was alive. He was afraid. That much she knew.

  ‘I don’t understand, Andreas,’ she telepathed to him. ‘Try to explain.’

  One word only came in reply:

  ‘Danger.’

  ‘I know there’s danger, Andreas. I’m being careful. Heimdal is helping me. I’ll be all right, don’t worry.’

  ‘DANGER. Come back to me. Winterbourne.’

  Mara sighed inwardly. If Andreas’s soul really was trapped in the underworld and could only communicate with the outside world through Winterbourne, perhaps he didn’t understand that she must find his body in order to free him.

  ‘I’m doing this for you. For us. Coming back to Winterbourne won’t help you.’

  ‘Danger . . .’

  The same word, repeated over and over aga
in. Hysteria? Maybe. Andreas must be terrified in the dark world of lost souls and disembodied spirits. It was ironic, really, that he should be trapped by something he didn’t even believe in. Or was he really trying to warn her of some danger she didn’t even know of?

  She tried to make a last attempt to contact Andreas, but the link was broken. His voice faded away into silence in her head, and she sat for a while, very still, wondering what to make of it all and what she ought to tell Heimdal.

  A voice broke through into her thoughts.

  ‘Are you OK, Mara? You’re very quiet.’

  She opened her eyes and looked into Heimdal’s resolutely solicitous face.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replied, with a little smile which belied her inner turmoil. She thought for a moment and then added: ‘I’ve just got a bit of a headache.’

  ‘Let me examine the talisman,’ said Heimdal. ‘It has been a long time since it was consecrated and empowered, and I’m worried that its power may need to be renewed and refreshed.’

  Rather reluctantly, Mara allowed him to slip the crystal talisman over her head. He turned it over and over in his hand, examining it minutely and intoning quiet words in an unfamiliar tongue. Finally, he held it like a pendulum, over a piece of paper, and watched as it revolved slowly until its tip pointed towards the black sector of the circle.

  ‘Its power is almost spent,’ he concluded. If it is to allow us both continued protection we must renew its power now. If we leave it any longer, it will be too late and the talisman will be useless.’

  ‘But how do we renew it?’

  ‘Through sexual energy, as before. We must have sex.’ Mara looked at him, aghast.

  ‘What – here, on this plane?’

  Heimdal patted her hand reassuringly. He really was enjoying playing the benevolent uncle to her gullible child.

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death, my dear Mara. Yours, Andreas’s . . .’

  But not mine, he thought, with a warm glow of satisfaction. Death is an unknown country to the Master’s blessed disciples.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ll do anything,’ replied Mara, realising the seriousness of the situation. ‘Just tell me what to do.’

  The pain of sight was almost more acute than the pain of utter darkness.

  Since the moment when he had shot the security guard and watched Mara run away from him, perhaps lost for ever, Andreas had felt a gradual change come over him. It was almost as though the taking of that one, unremarkable life had returned to him a little of his own . . . or someone else’s. He didn’t like to think about it too much. There are some people whose lives you’d rather not have a bit of, however small.

  Andreas thought back over the transformation. It puzzled him, and he didn’t like that. Things he didn’t understand always freaked him out – that was what Mara always said. He tried to think about it logically.

  Gradually, over hours or days – it was difficult to tell, for in his dark prison he had little sense of time passing – Andreas had felt the power of certain extraordinary senses being absorbed into him, like water trickled slyly into a pile of sand.

  The periods of bodily possession were growing longer. The dark man with the lame leg – Delgado, they called him – seemed to be a particularly good subject. His unpleasant little mind simply opened like a flower to Andreas’s more substantial soul, and he had found himself returning to that same body, again and again.

  Even whilst he was trapped and helpless within his crystal prison, Andreas found that he was beginning to acquire strange powers – perhaps powers that were inherent in the prison itself, or which he had inherited from . . . whom, exactly? A . . . former occupant?

  From time to time, he would find himself floating, disembodied, in the cellars at Winterbourne – able to see and hear and smell even though he had no physical existence. It was the oddest feeling and not particularly pleasant at that.

  He had looked down many times upon the dusty granite lid of the sarcophagus, knowing it to be the place of his imprisonment, and wondering with a kind of dark fascination what he would find if he were able to see through the unyielding stone. And then one time he had looked at the bricked-up wall of the cellar and to his astonishment it had begun to liquefy, to swirl and flow and clarify like butter in a pan. Good God, it was impossible! He could see through to the other side!

  This weird experience – or was it just an illusion? – had lasted only moments; but something within told him that he might be able to develop the power, perhaps use it one day to escape . . .

  And then there was the gift of sight.

  The gift? Andreas wished he could manage a hollow laugh. It was a curse, no more and no less, to be able to see what Mara was doing, and to know that she was being led horribly astray. He knew now that his own body had been stolen from him by the one they called the Master; and in fleeting astral journeys he had seen Mara move ever-closer to a confrontation with the Master himself.

  He did not quite understand why the Master wished to lure Mara to Egypt but once a journalist, always a journalist. He had a nose for danger. Andreas had the inescapable feeling that Mara was being lured to her doom.

  He had spoken to her and she had heard him. He was sure of it. So why wouldn’t she listen?

  There was something phony about that man Heimdal. Something horribly cold and unfeeling and insincere. And now she was fucking with him again – fucking because of cruel lies and deceptions.

  Helpless but horribly aware, Andreas lay locked within the cold embrace of the Master’s discarded body, forced to watch Mara move ever-closer to the centre of the Master’s evil web.

  At the back of the first-class section, opposite two mercifully empty seats, Mara and Heimdal were fucking.

  Mara hardly dared move, for fear that someone would realise what they were doing. She was astride Heimdal’s lap, his prick disappearing into her cunt, its tip nudging against the crystal talisman which Heimdal had carefully lodged against the neck of her womb. She was grateful for the long skirts of her dress, which fell in discreet folds about their legs – but there would surely be no doubt of what they were up to if anyone should happen to pass.

  ‘Any drinks?’ asked the stewardess, walking towards them down the central gangway.

  ‘Oh God!’ gasped Mara. ‘Let me get off – she’ll see us!’

  ‘It’s all right – don’t panic, Mara.’ Heimdal held her fast on his lap and called out to the stewardess, who was only a few seats away now, ‘Nothing for us, thanks – my girlfriend’s not feeling too well. Could you leave us quietly for a little while?’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ The stewardess frowned solicitously.

  ‘No, no. She’ll be fine. I know just what to do to relieve her pain,’ replied Heimdal, pinching Mara’s nipples so hard that she gave an involuntary gasp of discomfort.

  Mara’s heart pounded as the stewardess at last made her way back up the aisle with her jingling trolley of drinks.

  They fucked very slowly, very carefully. The hard edges of the talisman cut into the soft flesh of Mara’s cunt, and tears escaped from underneath her closed eyelids and ran silently down her cheeks. She dared not cry out.

  And yet her pain was also pleasure. For Heimdal’s finger was on her clitoris and his hardness filled her, stretched her, excited her in ways unimaginable to anyone who has not fucked in the face of danger.

  Heimdal rubbed Mara’s clitty and pinched her nipple between fingertip and thumb, knowing that it must cost her dear not to make a sound. Feeling her cunt quivering with the first spasms of her pleasure, he allowed the anticipation of his own climax to swell his balls and stiffen his shaft. He poured his frothing semen into her with a satisfied grunt, his arms tightly clasped underneath her to stop her falling forwards in her moment of passion.

  Moments later, when they were sitting side by side in their seats once again, zipped and buttoned and apparently quite respectable, the stewardess returned.

  ‘Everything all right now
, sir? Madam?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied Heimdal with a satisfied grin, casting a quick glance across at Mara who was sitting with eyes closed beside him. ‘Everything is going to be just fine now.’

  17: Luxor

  They awoke to the shrill cries of street-vendors and the warmth of the early-morning sunlight filtering in through the shutters. Cairo awoke early.

  Mara opened her eyes and blinked, forgetting for a moment where she was. Egypt. Egypt? She glanced around her. It didn’t look much like Egypt. The room was disappointingly Western, with all the usual five-star luxuries – the television set and the complimentary shower-gel. But Heimdal hated slumming it now that he’d made it to the big time.

  They showered, ate breakfast and took a taxi to the Egyptian Museum. It felt more like a holiday than a life-or-death quest.

  They spent the morning mingling with a party of embarrassingly enthusiastic Americans and gazing dutifully at the treasures of Tutankhamun, then went back for lunch at the hotel. Heimdal kept frustratingly quiet and in the end Mara could stand it no longer:

  ‘Heimdal, we’ve got to do something, and we’ve got to do it soon. How are we going to find Andreas – or should I call him Anthony LeMaitre now? Do we just turn up at the British Embassy and ask to see him?’

  Heimdal shook his head and smiled, a little patronisingly, thought Mara.

  ‘Not much point in doing that,’ he replied. ‘At best, we’d get to see some underling and that would be it – we’d get no further. Even my name has little influence here. No, my dear, tonight you’re going to have dinner with the cultural attaché.’

  Mara gaped at him, and he patted her hand reassuringly.

  ‘It’s all arranged, don’t you worry. By a great stroke of good fortune, it appears that the cultural attaché is something of a connoisseur when it comes to beautiful women. He is also a rather influential man. If he arranges a meeting for us with Mr LeMaitre, the Ambassador is unlikely to question his judgement.