The Prison of the Angels

by Janine Ashbless

  “Open your legs.” His eyes are black with lechery, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it from his faintly mocking smile. When I set my thighs a few inches apart he dips a hand between them. My depilated skin is so sensitive that I whimper at the gentlest of caresses.

  He finds it; the secret well of my wetness, already overflowing as he parts the tender folds. He slicks a fingertip and circles it over my clit, looking straight into my eyes to savor my involuntary response—the darkening of my eyes, the intake of breath between my parted lips, the mute plea he can read in my face.

  I’m so turned on that I could melt into a puddle, like the wicked witch I am.

  Again with his finger. My hips quiver.

  Oh God, he could make me come here. If he keeps doing that. Here. In front of all these men. Touching me. Like. This.

  “Please,” I breathe, but the very act of begging ensures that it is already too late and I’m tumbling over into my shameful, shuddering climax. And everyone is watching.

  I nearly fall against him, my legs are so weak.

  “I will buy her,” Azazel announces. He withdraws his hand and holds his fingers up briefly to demonstrate the glisten of my juices to everyone watching. His other hand tosses out a pouch which smacks onto the dais, scattering silver coins which Father Velimir crouches to pick up. I don’t need to count them to know that there are thirty pieces.

  From around his waist Azazel unfurls the leather leash, and the three thongs at the end wrap themselves about the ring of my collar to secure my compliance. I cannot run now, even if I had the strength. He owns me.

  “Hands down.” Then he adds with a shark grin, “I have something I want to show you.” He tugs the leash to make it clear he wants me down from the dais, and I obey, shrinking into his shadow and pressing up close to him, seeking shelter from the men around us.

  “Walk ahead,” he orders, indicating the direction with a tilt of his head. That’s sadistic. As I lead the way through the throng, that long leather rope hangs down between my jeweled breasts and disappears between my bare thighs back toward his hand. It rubs against my sex with every tentative step. And they’re all watching, angry and disappointed. Watching me walk naked between them, my head bowed meekly but my clit thrilling to every brush of the leather.

  “Therefore thus sayeth the Lord God,” is Father Velimir’s parting shot; “Because thou hast forgotten Me, and cast Me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms!”

  They don’t follow us, though—that is a mercy. The crowd thins as we approach the chapel wall and the doorway there. There’s a wide spiral staircase leading upward that I’m sure doesn’t exist at all in the real Sistine Chapel.

  “Hands and knees,” says Azazel, cruel enjoyment audible in his voice. “All the way to the top.”

  It’s another layer of humiliation. I drop to hands and knees on the bare stone steps, and begin the ascent. It’s not uncomfortable, but it feels horribly vulnerable, as my shaved sex is now only too visible between my legs. Azazel stalks behind me, a few steps down—he is admiring the view, I assume. I can’t help but be provocative at that angle, and every so often he flicks a loop of the leash across one of my ass-cheeks with a snap—not particularly harshly, just to see my flesh bounce. Or he uses the stiff, knotted end of the leather to tap and nudge my unprotected split. That doesn’t make me climb faster, despite the implied threat. I want to push back against his intrusion.

  The spiral stair loops and loops, until it’s obvious we’re climbing a turret. I smell fresh air—and suddenly we’re at the top.

  It’s sunset, and we’re not in Rome anymore. We’re on a tower high up in the mountains, so high that there is only air around us. There’s no roof and barely any walls, only some ruined arches that might have been windows once. In the middle of the floor is a high bed with a heavy wooden footboard and a red cover. All around overhead are suspended mirrors, hanging from nothing at all—big Vatican-style mirrors with nasty, gilt Rococo frames.

  “There,” says Azazel.

  Egan is sitting at the end of the bed, his head tilted back as he stares into a mirror. But when we appear at the top of the stairs he turns his face to us, aghast.

  He’s naked and his hands are tied behind his back.

  14

  TO HIM ASCRIBE ALL SIN

  Look what I found,” Azazel says, using the collar to haul me bodily to my feet and march me across the flagstones. As we come the foot of the bed I can see why Egan doesn’t leap up to face us. There’s a ring bolted to the oaken footboard of the bed and he’s tethered to that by his genitals. Leather thongs loop around his scrotum and are knotted about the base of his tumescent cock. Azazel laughs under his breath. “You’ve an impressively filthy imagination, Milja.”

  I want desperately to deny that this is my doing, but I can’t. I furnish my own dreams. The men downstairs—their judgment and their condemnation—are all my doing. I brought them here. They were what I deserved. What I wanted. So is this room.

  And I’ve never seen Egan look so conflicted. Half-a-dozen emotions are fighting it out in his face, but rage and shame are currently tied for victory. “Milja!”

  “Oh Egan…”

  A jerk on the leash orders me to my knees again, and as I sink down and clutch at Azazel’s leg I realize that he’s lost his only garment somewhere along the line and he’s proudly naked. His cock is on a level with my face; not truly erect yet, but a fat curve of self-satisfaction. Egan doesn’t know where to look.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper to him.

  “Don’t be.” Azazel stokes the top of my head like I’m his favorite house-bitch. “He has thoroughly enjoyed watching you.”

  That’s when I see that the mirrors don’t reflect the room. Or not all of them. Some show footage of me in the chapel, walking through my leering audience, the sassy shake of my jewelry makes me look like I’m taunting them even as shame flames in my skin. Others show the footage of Azazel stripping and groping me in public; one shows a fine shot of my ass, framed by the glittering black diamond webwork, wiggling from side to side as I crawl up the tower stairs. Mirror-eyes linger on the inappropriate peek of my nipples, on my burning cheeks and parted lips, on the dusky tear-drop of my sex and the sheen of moisture painting my inner thighs. It’s like I’ve been followed by dozens of hidden cameras—only I know that in this dream cameras aren’t necessary.

  I’m mortified, but I’m not so surprised now by that first evidence of Egan’s shameful arousal.

  “You gave her up to me, remember!” he rasps.

  “But she came back,” Azazel answers. “She sold herself back to me. She’s my slave now, to do with as I wish.” He touches my cheek and I lean in to kiss the proof of his mastery while hot waves of shame flow over my skin from head to core. “But if you don’t like that,” he adds, “stand up and fight me for her.”

  Egan can’t, of course. Jacob might have wrestled the Angel of the Lord back in Genesis, but if Egan tries to stand here he’ll castrate himself, so he can’t stir an inch from the end of the bed. I find myself staring even as my lips pay homage to Azazel’s hot flesh. Egan can’t bring his hands from behind his back, and he can’t stand, and he can’t hide the fact that he’s far from flaccid. His thighs and his upper lip shine with sweat.

  “Fuck you,” he snarls.

  Azazel laughs. “I think she’d enjoy watching me fuck you,” he says, and I only hope he’s not aware of the things knotting in my belly at those words. “Maybe later. Right now… She’s mine, you understand. Mine first and forever.”

  “No other God before me—check,” sneers Egan, with a breathtaking instinct for exactly the wrong thing to say to Azazel. The demon is upon him before I can blink, hand around his throat, pushing him backward until his spine arches, naked body almost touching naked body.

  “You might regret baiting me,” he hisses.

  “Catholic, remember?” Egan manages to rasp through his constricted throat. “I pretty
much regret everything I’ve done my entire life.”

  “Funny. Funny guy. Is it his sense of humor that you fell for, Milja?” Azazel glances over at me, but something he sees in my expression seems to give him pause. He releases Egan as roughly as he seized him and stalks away. “You have a cruel streak, leaving him bereft of any satisfaction like that. Give him a kiss, my little harlot.”

  I crawl the couple of yards to Egan and look up from between his thighs. My hands part his scarred knees. He’s staring at me like I’m going to kill him, and his shoulders are shaking with strain.

  He’s so beautiful.

  I bestow my whole-hearted kiss upon his frustration and he arches his spine, the breath trapped in his chest. The taste of him is salty and eager.

  “You can leave, Egan,” I murmur fiercely, lifting my lips a fraction. “Just wake up.”

  His eyes widen but his erection jerks, seeking my mouth.

  “He won’t go,” Azazel chuckles. “He’s not going to leave you here all on your own with the big bad wolf. Not when you’re about to get the fucking you truly deserve. He’ll want to watch that.”

  Egan’s groan threatens to break my heart. My white knight cannot save me from this. He has only one choice: he stays and watches, or he leaves.

  I’ve offered an escape but no, he doesn’t take it, and I swirl my tongue around the tip of his cock in apology.

  And is Azazel right, I wonder? Is Egan bound by his own worst instincts, as much as by those cruel restraints? Do you want to watch? Is that it? Do you want to see me being ravished? Which will you cherish more—the sight or your own righteous rage?

  With a hiss the leash detaches itself from my collar and falls to the floor. Azazel flicks the tip stingingly across my ass. “On the bed now.”

  I bow my head so I can’t see the pleading in Egan’s eyes as I withdraw, and I slip to the side and mount the high, hard mattress. The tapestry drape feels silky under my hands and thighs. The night is a wet sigh between my open legs.

  “Hands and knees,” Azazel orders, walking around to survey his property.

  I roll onto all fours and lay my face against Egan’s shoulder from behind. I can smell the sweat of his anguish. He can’t look at me directly from here, can’t twist to follow the action. But it’s all visible in the tilted mirrors around and above us; Azazel kneeling up behind me; the black diamonds sparkling as they hang from my breasts; even a merciless close-up between my splayed thighs of my hairless porn-star pussy as his fingers search me out.

  “Oh how wet you are, little harlot. See? My scarlet woman.”

  Oh yes yes yes. The hot darkness rises in me, fogging my mind. Feeling takes over from thinking.

  Egan’s head tilts back, searching out the mirrors above. He can’t not watch. Not even when Azazel pushes into me. Every thick, dark, glorious inch of him.

  I cry out. This is the first time I’ve seen this too. How can it be possible? I can hardly believe that there is room for such a bulk; his girth looks likely to split me in two. But I can take it, as I’ve taken it before. Yes, this hard; yes, this deep. Azazel’s invasion is unhurried and ruthless. I dig one hand into Egan’s arm, gasping and keening against my master’s thrusts. I’m bracing myself against Egan’s strong back, using his strength and his intransigence. I bite the nape of his neck to stop myself crying for mercy.

  This is wrong this is wrong I am such a whore…

  And I’m so aroused that I come right then upon the length impaling me, muffling my cries on Egan’s shoulder. My nails score ragged lines on his skin and he groans out loud. Feeling my spasms, Azazel quickens and unloads too, with a grunt of triumph.

  Then he plunders me a second time just to make sure, hard and fast this time, the first ejaculate spurting out with every thrust to fleck his clenched balls. Egan’s wrists are roped with crimson silk; I tangle my fingers in his own, moaning incoherently as my need swells again like some impossible monster that grows bigger the more it is battered. “Yes yes yes,” I hiss. “Oh please. Oh please.”

  But my demon lover is not so kind to me this time around. He pulls out of me to finish off all over my pussy and back—and oh that gush is one hell of a sight: up against my glistening and wide-open sex and over my parted cheeks, and running in dollops down between them into the puckered rose of my ass.

  “Ahhh,” says Egan.

  But I’m left seething and bereft of my release.

  Azazel dismounts the bed and walks around to face us both. He cradles his own erection, stroking it. As if he needs that, I think. Sweat is dripping off his balls onto the stones, but the ire still burns in his black eyes.

  “Are you not satisfied, my sweet little harlot?” he says with a nasty grin. He knows I’m not.

  I shake my head, mute. Egan has his eyes closed for the moment and is swearing—or maybe praying—under his breath.

  “You need to sit on his face, Milja,” Azazel says, and a quake runs through my whole body. “I think he’d like that. You can see just how much he enjoyed watching me fuck you.”

  “Oh God,” groans Egan.

  Azazel’s grin is slow and soft and cruel. “I think he’d like that a lot. Lie down, little priest.”

  “Don’t do this to him,” I whisper. “Please.”

  “Any way I want, remember?” He’s recalling my words on the stone over the lake. “Do what you’re told.”

  Humbled, I scoot to the side. It’s my hands, not Azazel’s, that press Egan so that he falls over backward; he’s got no leverage to resist of course, but it doesn’t feel like he’s even trying. He’s still tethered, so he cannot move any higher on the bed and his spine is arched over his hands. His chest is deep and his stomach is hard and his erection would not shame an angel. I stare at him with such wild hunger that it feels like my belly is full of lava. I stroke him and feel him throb against my hand. His face is twisted. I want to save him from the agony of his arousal, but it thrills me to my core to see him like this.

  What am I doing? This is evil. This is beyond cruel.

  He’s beautiful. I want him. Now. Like this.

  Before I can think better of it, I swoop down and kiss his lips tenderly. As if I can kiss away all the anguish and the twisted complications between us, as if a kiss can undo knots of misuse and betrayal.

  His lips don’t want to let mine go.

  “Please,” I whisper. Please forgive me, Egan.

  “Mount.” Azazel’s hard hand claps my ass, making me gasp. The command is implacable, and I cling to that certainty. He is ordering me to do exactly what I want; to ignore my conscience and to take what I desire. So I move to straddle Egan’s head, braced above his torso, facing his legs. I don’t look up at the mirrors now because I know what he’s seeing and I don’t dare see it myself. I’m looking down at his engorged cock instead, and the clear, viscid drip strung from it to his stomach. His cock is so aroused that it’s weeping.

  Azazel always did have a keen instinct for these things.

  “Eat her,” the fallen angel orders, louder. “Make her scream.”

  I feel Egan’s tongue on my clit and it’s so exactly what I need that I can’t help myself. I sink down on his mouth. All my misgivings are in shreds now before the howling tempest of my lust. I might smother him, I think, but that only feeds my black appetite and encourages me to grind down harder. It’s not as if he’s unenthusiastic, anyway; he sucks me greedily. My brain spits out Bible verses: Take, eat; this is my body. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.

  Egan looks good enough to eat too, but with my arms braced and my knees splayed wide as I can make them, I’m too intent on what’s going on between my legs to take advantage. The magma in my core is gathering to eruption. I’m going to come, I think, fucking his face. While Azazel watches.

  I am a harlot. Father Velimir was right. I’m nothing but wet pussy and spread ass and the aching need to be filled. I’m the Scarlet Woman; a fornicating slut; the Whore of Babylon. I understand suddenly that lust is a roaring am
oral fire, and that given the right burner it will feed on any fuel at all.

  My guilt. Egan’s helpless humiliation.

  I lift my gaze to meet Azazel’s black eyes.

  Azazel’s jealousy.

  It’s like he’s been waiting for my acknowledgment. He steps in close and gathers a fistful of my hair in a tight grip, taking control of my head. He knows the effect that inevitably has on me. With his other hand he grasps Egan, who utters a muffled grunt and nearly pulls his arms out of his sockets in his spasm of protest. With firm, easy motions, my dark angel jacks that captive flesh, and at the same time he forces my head down over it. I open my mouth to the inevitable, submitting to an invasion of my lips and mouth and throat that nearly chokes me. It’s too much; the fire in me heaves into a huge detonation, and now Egan is erupting too so that I am burning and drowning all at the same time, both thrusting and being thrust into, ravisher and ravished in an ouroboros of orgasmic flame.

  Azazel pulls my head back before I’m done swallowing and I gasp wildly. Then he lets me go. I slither off Egan’s torso and right to the edge of the bed, fleeing I-don’t-know-what. When my knees hit the floor I cling to the top edge of the coverlet like I’m a spy peeking over a wall. My heart hammers like it’s trying to break my ribs.

  Egan’s got his eyes screwed shut, his head flung back, his throat stretched taut. Azazel looks down critically at his victim and slaps his still-pulsing cock hard enough to swing it.

  “Again,” he says. “Harder.”

  Somehow, Egan’s flesh stiffens obediently. That’s when I see the deadly little tethers snap and writhe loose from the bed. They stay knotted around his cock and balls like bizarre Christmas streamers, but at least he is free from the iron ring.