As Papa began to rise, however, some subconscious reaction caused Ardyce to turn toward them just as a light flashed out across the smoke-filled room and captured Earl’s white face in a rictus of fury. As she saw him sitting there in a dark suit, one gloved fist raised to his cheek, her pale features lost their flush of pink color and her green eyes flickered away. Speaking to the man sitting next to her, an old queen that Earl vaguely recognized, the two of them stood quickly and began to move across the room away from the group of four.
Papa hesitated, looking backwards toward his boss who gestured irritably for him to sit down. At the same moment, the singing stopped and, as Earl glanced across toward the stage, he saw the black singer staring at him, large eyes bulging with anger and disdain. So surprised was Earl to be looked at in this way, with contempt the like of which he had never experienced before, for a few vital seconds he was unable to respond or even speak as though the air had been knocked from him. Before he could recover, Orfeo had stormed from the stage and disappeared into the shadows.
“Shall we follow him?” It was Snake who spoke.
Earl shook his head very slowly. He could not say why, but he still felt strangely shaken. “No,” he said at last. “No, not yet. Tomorrow, though... tomorrow we’ll pay her a visit.” Once more he struck the table with his fist and, now that Ardyce had left, no longer bothered to temper the violence in his voice. “And if he ever looks at me again—ever!—that boy will wish he had never been born with eyes in his head.”
Chapter Two
Lying in her bed, Ardyce let her head rest upon the pillow as her mind filled with a glorious music the sound of which was matched only by the remembered sights of the young, powerful man who had sung to her that evening.
The night was warm and humid, moisture clinging to the air and condensing as droplets upon Ardyce’s naked body. Rather than dispel the cloying embrace of nature, however, she had instead opened the window of her bedroom and lay upon the surface of her bed, gently stroking her moist skin as she recalled the pleasures of Apollo’s. If she turned her head toward the open window, she could see a full moon shining brightly in the blue-black sky.
Xanadu itself lay to the east of New Orleans, past the old village of Michoud, nestled between Lake Marseille and the Blind Lagoon. There had been a sugar plantation here in former times, at that time the main source of Dubois wealth that had contributed to the large stone and iron house that had been constructed on this spot, although then the house had passed under another name. It had been her grandfather, rich from his investments in industry, who had rebuilt and extended the Dubois mansion, renaming it Xanadu.
And here Ardyce had lived virtually alone since her parents had died in a car crash when she was seventeen. Often she wondered how different her life would have been had they survived that crash, almost half a lifetime ago for her. There had been a guardian at first, but he had been venal and perverse, betraying the trust that her parents had foolishly placed in him: lust for Dubois money had not been enough for him but it had only been when he had desired the long, pale limbs and copper hair of the young Ardyce girl that she had stabbed him and banished him. He had not dared go to the authorities: few who crossed one of the Dubois clan could hope to do so and prosper.
From then on, for a time she had become feral and wild. Xanadu rang to the discordant noise of orgiastic parties and frequently the young woman, radiant and almost unearthly in her beauty, would stalk the city in search of new pleasures, new desires. Men had come and gone, the occasional women too, but now it never ceased to amaze her how few of them had left a trace in her memory.
There had been Earl, of course. Her skin shuddered with a moment of revulsion at the thought of him—a revulsion that had not yet entirely mastered the desire for all that he represented. Her body felt cold at the memory of Earl, strong and cruel, and she turned her head away from the moon which was as white as his skin.
She retreated to the security of thoughts of Baptiste, the only friend who had survived those crazy days because, as she had quickly come to realize, he had been her only true friend. In his own way, the queen of New Orleans could be as perverse and decadent as her, but his Epicurean pastimes also extended to pleasures of the mind so that he had expanded her education in many different ways. The fact that he was also the only man who had never tried to fuck her (metaphorically as well as more literally) counted for a great deal.
And yet... and yet she needed to be fucked—at least physically. She wanted it more than she could possibly explain. How long had it been? To her surprise, she could not remember. What she did know that there was only one who intrigued her enough to stir her from this state of self-enforced celibacy, but would he come? That was the most important question. How could he not, she wondered, when he sought to seduce her so passionately through his songs, when her own eyes conveyed messages of desire a thousand times more potent than any words? (Not that this had prevented her from using backup communication in the form of a letter sent via Baptiste.)
She was gently stroking her belly with one hand, her fingers moving past her navel and to her mons pubis while the fingers of the other softly pressed beneath her breast and traced along one nipple, all the time looking toward the bright circle of the moon. When she heard the sound of a sole guitar beneath her window, she smiled to herself, her nostrils flaring with lust and amusement.
As that rich, baritone voice began to float up to her window, she luxuriated in the melody of his song, her hand dipping further down her body as her legs opened like the banks of the Mississippi.
“Moon, my moon, O virgin lover,” she heard drifting among chords that shifted from major to minor, “your stealthy beams descend to prick love’s lock.” She let out a sigh as fingers discovered her own lock and stealthily entered under cover of night.
“Wrapped with night’s thick cover
you through the open windows sneak
to steal the treasures in my bed,
the joys that stain your fingers red.
“Moon, my moon, recline by my side,
entrance me with your silver eye,
allure me with your season’s tide,
forsake this night your darkened sky.
Your smoky myrrh smolders my womb
and promises warmth, moon, my moon.”
The silence of Xanadu and the surrounding countryside was disturbed only by the sound of Orfeo’s guitar and his velvet voice—and inside by the faint gasps and moans of Ardyce as she pleasured herself in the large bed, its antique wooden frame creaking slightly as she moved her lissome limbs across the feather mattress. The white sheets were silver in the moonlight but for the darker stain that appeared between her thighs.
The music had stopped, and Ardyce—her hands still positioned on her flesh which seemed to her eyes to glow very faintly in the night air, as though phosphorescent with its own lust—strained to hear any further sound. Her moans transformed into a groan of disappointment as she wondered if he had gone already, if this was merely a prelude to more bitter failures.
She did not know how long she lay like this, her head raised slightly from the pillow, the muscles of her neck and shoulders strained with tension. Before her head could fall backwards, however, she caught another sound, a rustle beneath her window.
Then he appeared at the open frame, his head and shoulders silhouetted as a darker shadow against the blue-black sky, blocking the faint stars that shone in their constellations. For a second she felt fear: what was she doing? Why on earth was she letting a complete stranger come to her like this? But he was not a stranger. Though she may only have heard his song for the first time barely a month before, she felt that in those words were lifetimes of recognition, and in her fear was a desire.
She did not lift herself up from the bed but instead let her head sink back into the downy softness of the pillow, allowing it to embrace her as a premonition of harder embraces to come. His strong arms pulled him up onto the sill of her window and the panes
of glass flashed with light from the sky as they swung back and forth. She had not moved her eyes from his face and body as he climbed up, and now she was able to dimly perceive details: a flash of pearl from eyes and teeth, a faint ripple of cotton as his shirt moved across his muscled body. As his leg descended to the floor of her bedroom she realized that her own hand still lay between her thighs and, for a second, she was convulsed with a pleasure that made her hips buck upwards.
His guitar had been strapped to his back and, when he stood by the window—fully in her chamber now—he removed the instrument and laid it beside the sill. His smile was clear, his teeth illuminated by starlight and silver.
“Your song,” she said. “It was beautiful.”
“It was your song,” he told her. With a slight shock, she realized that this was the first time that she had heard him speak: when talking, his voice was as deep as when he sang and it rolled through her body with a thrill. “Your words. I was simply the vessel for them. When I sang, it was your voice singing through me.”
“And are you the moon?”
He nodded at this, and for a moment she glanced across his shoulder toward the bright disc in the sky.
“But it’s silvery white, and you’re so dark.”
His grin broadened and, as he moved slowly toward the bed, he placed his hands on the edge of his shirt, lifting it above his head with one swift motion so that she could truly appreciate his dark skin, his muscles moving across his chest and arms, the flat tessellations of his stomach. She almost whimpered at the sight of him and wondered how she appeared to him, naked and pale on the bed, her legs spread a little, her breasts swelling and nipples as flushed and pink as her cheeks, mouth parted slightly as she breathed.
“When I descend to earth, so I drop my silver cloak and assume my proper shape.” As he spoke he knelt on the bed, close to her now. She let one hand move toward him, gripping the edge of his jeans, the fabric so coarse and thick compared to his sweet, sweet words. The wetness between her thighs was becoming almost unendurable.
“And what is... your proper shape?” She almost couldn’t speak, her breathing choking in her throat as a climax began to rise inside her.
“A black ram, come to tup this white ewe.” His eyes glittered fiercely as he bent toward her, and she could smell the musk of his body, a perfume as bold and rich as his voice, invisibly caressing her as he placed his lips softly on her neck. That single touch made her cum, a soft ripple between her legs which she squeezed together about her fingers, holding in the sensations of sweetest ecstasy.
He did not rush her, and as her other hand moved from her breasts to his neck, holding him tightly to her, he simply let his lips drink up her scent, his nostrils breathing her in as his mouth kissed and caressed her neck. And when that orgasm, brief and delicate, subsided it was she who became greedy, her mouth wet as she opened her lips, sucking his tongue into her, biting it less than gently and grabbing him with both hands, feeling the warm perspiration of his body as she pulled him onto her.
Her legs were open and she was breathing heavily as he kissed her again and again, pressing his mouth like the softest bruises on her lips, her neck, her shoulders, lifting himself up so that he could dip his head down to her breasts. The pale skin of her bosom looked so tender, so fragile in his strong, black fingers. When he kissed her nipples, taking first one and then the other in his mouth, gently holding them between his teeth and flicking his tongue across them, she felt herself flowering in desperation, unable to stop herself striking him across his back with her small fists.
“Fuck me,” she moaned. “Please... fuck me.”
His face tilted up toward her and his smile flashed silver, his eyes wide and white as glowing pearl set with blackest jet. He said nothing, however, but simply lifted his body up, almost making her scream in despair.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she said, kicking out at him as he pulled backwards, lashing out with her legs. “Fuck me!”
As she tried to strike him, careless now as to whether she hurt him, he easily caught her delicate ankles. For a moment she felt a pressure that was almost painful as his hands wrapped around bone and skin, then he yanked her legs apart and, more gently now, placed her feet across his shoulders.
He moved those shoulders down so that her legs folded back upon themselves, her thighs tensing like pistons and the toes of her feet stretching in anticipation. Reaching forward with both her hands, she took hold of his short, thick locks between her fingers, digging her nails into his scalp, forcing him down toward the luscious prize that awaited him—though never was Orfeo more willingly forced toward his desire.
As his lips came into contact with her, she began to moan and once more convulsions bucked through her hips. His own hands gripped her waist as tightly as she held onto him, and if he had kissed her so softly on her mouth above he was less merciful this time with that down below. Instead he pushed his tongue deeply into her, licking up her wetness, savoring her salty sweetness, burying his face into her and entering her so deeply that she almost screamed, her bellow at last becoming a deep and desperate groan.
Now that he had demonstrated how easily he could command her, how helpless she was beneath him, he moved more softly on her, taking the bud of her clitoris into his mouth and suckling it so that tingles rippled through her mons veneris and the pit of her stomach. Her cries became staccato gasps, a syncopation more erotic than any drum beat that had slid across the harmonies of his songs earlier that night. In response to this music, she closed her thighs even more tightly about his head, almost suffocating him as she lifted her buttocks from the sheets, allowing him once more to finger and lick her more deeply.
His lips were slick with her and she flooded him, releasing all her desires with an energy she had never known before. Only one hand gripped him now, the other flailing along the bed, clawing at the sheets as she ground herself into his face, gasping while he took her. At last her climax subsided and, as her thighs softened and parted, he pulled away. She could see her own juices glistening on his mouth and chin as he pulled himself up, and his smile was wild, his eyes flashing as he looked down at her.
And when his hands moved down to his trousers and began to unbuckle them, when she saw what was contained behind the fabric, she began to tremble uncontrollably.
“Oh god,” she whispered. “Oh, please, dear god... have mercy.”
Letting the fabric slide across his muscular buttocks and lowering himself forward so that he was arched between her open legs, the heavy weight of his length levitating softly across her mound, he brought his mouth close to her face and said in a low, deep voice: “No. No mercy.”
She lifted her hand at this, threw it around his neck and dragged his mouth onto hers. She could smell her own perfume, primal and redolent, on his lips, tasted herself on his tongue as she sucked him into her. With her other hand she reached between her legs, felt the hot, thick surge of blood as she squeezed his cock with her fingers, drew him toward her.
“Oh god, oh gods!” she moaned repeatedly as he began to penetrate her—a simple, pagan blasphemy, a hymn to spirits who had lived in the swamps and rivers of Louisiana long before any man had ventured there. She felt herself stretching, splitting almost, as the girth of him nailed her to the bed, helpless, and his strong, powerful arms pinned her down. She could no longer fight even had she so desired.
He raised himself up on his arms, glaring down at her with eyes full of lust. His hips bucked and swayed, buttocks rising and falling as he plowed into her. At first an inch, and then another entered her. Her thighs convulsed at this and she thought she could take no more—but more there was. He was relentless, unforgiving, knowing only that she needed and deserved more pleasure yet than he had given her: he would show her no mercy because mercy was not what she needed that night.
At last he was completely inside her and Ardyce groaned loudly, her hands grappling across the broad swathes of his back, pulling him closer to her as her legs slid across his
buttocks and his thighs, locking him in a tight embrace that refused to let him go. She could feel the neck of her womb swelling around the tip of him, and had it not been for the river between her legs she would have been unable to accommodate him inside her. This time, however, all her pain became pleasure and she gripped him strongly as he moved rhythmically, each thrust causing another gasp, her eyes screwed up tightly as she moved closer toward her orgasm.
He said nothing, but she could feel the intensity of his body as he controlled himself, refusing to allow his own climax to rise too quickly while he mastered her body. Sweat formed on his face and across his shoulders in the hot, humid air, drops of it falling like liquor into her mouth and across her neck. Her own body was slick with perspiration as she relentlessly clawed his back, crying out as she came again and again.
But even this was nothing when she felt that huge cock twitching and growing inside her, making her eyes open even wider as she couldn’t believe that such a thing was possible. The length of him seemed to ripple and pulse while flashes of light passed before her eyes. Her ears were full of a terrible roaring, as though a storm was raging inside her head, and finally she screamed, unable to take any more as he filled her with his own joys.
She lost count of her own orgasms that night, of the number of times he mounted her, took her pitilessly, reveling in her whimpers and cries for a mercy that she never desired. When sleep came at last, she sank down beside him and finally found a blissful benevolence in the dark. She only wakened when the sun had risen high above the fields, marshes and waters of the Blind Lagoon.
Orfeo and his guitar were gone.
Chapter Three
When Baptiste came to visit her, Ardyce was sitting in her orangery enjoying the sunlight as it shone through the glass panes over her head. She was dressed in an embroidered silk ao dai, the yellow jacket pulled negligently across her chest, its long skirts flowing over the flared pantaloons as she crossed one of her slender legs over the other.
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