Shadow Girl (20 page)

‘“I thought you were older,” I said.

‘“Cut the chitchat,” Merlin replied. “Why are you here?”

‘“I have come to ask a favour, O Great Merlin.”

‘“I knew that,” he said. “I've had a vision.”

‘“Then forgive me for asking you why you are asking me why I'm here, O Great Merlin, for you must surely know this, on account of your vision.”

‘His eyes took on a mean expression, he turned crimson and I thought his ears were going to pop off.

‘“But we can skip my silly question,” I added hastily. “It was badly phrased anyway.”

‘I explained what I wanted. He said he was happy to oblige but there were a few caveats. I had to set him free. I had to give him Morvarc'h. I had to reform my ways. I had to become his right-hand maid. I had to swear never to ask him to teach me magic. And I had to give him a daily back massage. He was a tough negotiator, but so was I. I got him to drop the mandatory massage. I was quite proud of myself for that. A girl has to assert herself. Of course, he would not change me back before I freed him. I expected that. But I still had no idea how to set him loose. He said he did.

‘“Tonight, when the new moon has plunged the sky into gloom, ride Morvarc'h as high as you can, and higher still, till your fish tail goes all frosty. Till you can peep over the walls of my misty prison. It is open at the top, and much wider too. You can fly into it and then come down for me. Piece of cake.”

‘He seemed quite chirpy now and even winked at me. So I did as he told me. Come darkness, I rose on my noble steed until the air was thin and I could hardly breathe. But finally, I crested over the mist. And then started on a swoop. That's when things went pear-shaped. All sorts of shapes, in fact. As I dropped from the stars, Morvarc'h was caught in a draught and started spinning, faster and faster. It felt like being sucked down a giant whirlpool. I freaked out but couldn't do zip. We were plummeting so fast. Last thing I remember is Merlin's beaming face just before we hit him. He was holding something. A triskele maybe. There was a flash and stars everywhere, and more spinning and mad whirling. And then I passed out. When I woke up, I was on a beach in Mauritius with Merlin by my side. And Morvarc'h was trotting happily in the surf.'

‘And I too, the author of the spell, was dragged into this mess,' adds Viviane. ‘I went out with a
zap
and woke up in two places at once. Under a rock in a cove near Vannes. And, it appears, on the other side of the globe. Out there, unknown to me, I now had, you might say, a perfect
splitting
image.'

She smooths out a crinkle in her tunic.

‘Ah yes, small detail. We were not just scattered across the globe. We all ended up in the twenty-first century.'

‘Time travelling is unpredictable,' explains Jenny. ‘It happens once in a while, when a hex is broken without following due procedure.'

A time jump
, thinks Sandra. She journeyed through time. Or was flung rather. She contemplates the notion shakily, for she is sizzling, poised on that tea man's tongue.

‘As for why you and I split,' says Viviane, ‘when neither Merlin nor Jenny did — or even Morvarc'h — I've puzzled over that one. But there is only one possible answer, which has to do with my ghostly form in Merlin's prison. Being there and yet not there. Inside and yet out. Like a half presence. Or a double one, depending on your perspective. And that would also account for the differences between us.'

‘The differences?'

‘Your amnesia for one thing. I think you're a projection of my ghostly form, the one that was left inside the tower, and therefore linked more tenuously to my memories and powers.'

‘I'm a projectional? Of a ghostee?' muses Sandra, gratitude instantly flooding her. She knew it. She is unreal. A fantasy. A lustful form to be moulded by other wills.

‘Makes perfect sense. Remember that every full moon, I would be with Merlin for a night of unbridled fun. Well then, I can only suppose my phantom became a receptacle for all this torrid energy. This is why there is so much need in you. So much lust. Why you cannot help yourself. And why you're so easy to subdue.'

She looks deeply into Sandra's eyes.

‘Which reminds me.'

She mumbles something inaudible and Sandra feels the thin thread of her restraining spell snapping. Feels her wet swell pressing on her with full voluptuous force.

Viviane's hand rises to her own bare shoulder and begins to stroke it lightly.

‘I will tell you why I brought you here. I'm sure you're dying to find out.'

Without reason, Sandra's own skin, on her shoulder, has started to sparkle with pleasure, spreading goose bumps all the way down to her elbow.

‘I'm not quite myself without you. I knew something was wrong when I tried to retrieve Excalibur from its watery home. It would not respond to my call. A most unfortunate state of affairs. Can you imagine how damaging to my self-esteem it would be to be called, say, the Swordless Lady of the Lake? Or Lady Ex-Excalibur?'

Her hand has moved down from her shoulder, past her elbow, and a playful finger is busy flirting with the sensitive skin just above the wrist. Mirroring the move, the blissful tingling on Sandra's skin has shifted to the soft part of her forearm.

‘But there is another reason why it irks me not to have command of the sword. I need it to get my show properly on the road. To activate an artefact of mine, waiting in Paris for a wake-up call. The viral effect is all very well, but it'll still take forever if I have to rely purely on my local task force. So I thought of a way of speeding things up.'

She smiles suggestively.

‘I can tell you've seen an image of it. And experienced its rousing effects. Believe me, it took quite a complicated hex to remodel the Eiffel Tower and infuse it with a dark, powerful erotic flux. I was quite proud of myself for that.'

She untucks her legs from under her and, still stroking her own forearm, settles back on the couch with her thighs ajar. Her lips move without speaking. The lights in the chamber dim further and the sultry notes of R&B music begin to swirl around the room.

The sparkling on Sandra's skin has amplified, numbing her whole arm and neck..

‘Once the Paris nude comes alive,' resumes Viviane, ‘every full-grown woman within a fifty-kilometre radius will be turned into a busy she-wolf. Within hours, the whole city will be mine. And the beauty of it all is, the effect will radiate across ancient earth lines to other centres around the world. My nude will wake up carved beauties in museums in Rome, Moscow, Mumbai and Beijing, and they too will spread the good flux.' There are naughty flames in her eyes. ‘A soft, implacable revolution.'

Her hand glides under her tunic and she begins a slow, sensual rotation around her belly button.

Sandra's breathing has spiralled. Her beast is pulsing madly. Christ, she needs those invisible fingers to go faster. To come closer. To end her misery. She shakes her head, rolls her hips in desperate pleas.

‘So you see,' croons Viviane, thriving on the sight of Sandra losing grip. ‘No world control without an active nude, no active nude without Excalibur and no Excalibur without me being whole again. A very simple equation. But don't worry, it will be painless. At least nothing that you won't enjoy. I'm sorry, darling, but I need your body. Which technically is my body. I need all that wonderful lust of yours.'

Abandoning her belly, she slips her fingers beneath the skimpy triangle of her thong.

‘It's all part of my plan. It's not just Excalibur I want. I have to seduce Merlin. Bring him back to heel. Squeeze him hollow. Except this time it's not his magic I'm after. It's his soul.'

She bites her lip.

‘Now didn't that just sound good? Not his magic, but his soul. I should be a professional speech writer.' She pushes down her thong and massages more frankly.

‘It's a pretty good plan, when you think about it. The sword will provide the vector and the range, and Merlin must supply his precious life force.'

She inserts two fingers deep inside herself.

‘Oooh . . . Shhhugar and spice and all things nice, I forgot how good it feels to do it to yourself. That's the trouble,' she rasps, ‘when you've got too many hot beefies on tap. No more me-time. You don't mind if I keep going while we're talking, do you?'

Sandra doesn't have a shred of objection. And to show this she erupts in a boisterous moan with her first throbbing squirts.

‘Beautiful,' purrs Viviane, while still kneading herself. ‘Jenny has been an excellent tutor. You're gushing like a fountain. Exactly . . . oooh . . . exactly what I need.'

Sandra is shaking and hiccupping, her eyes two slits, her face a glossy pink. Her demon has gone manic.. It has clamped its wet lips on the ghost fingers and is sucking and pulling, hell-bent on another feast.

‘Oooh yessss,' enthuses Viviane with a seraphic look on her face. ‘I need your lustful little body. I need to draw the goodness out of my too cocky, too powerful lover.' She nibbles on her own lip again. ‘And then release the flow. Activate my nude.'

Sandra has closed her eyes. Someone has bent her backwards, collapsed her on the couch and there is a mouth on her nipple — Jenny's perhaps — vamping her devoutly. She has lost focus, like each time before. Nosedived into her pit of dizzying pleasure. She is arced like a G-spot dildo, her head between cushions, her legs tucked under her. Her captive arms behind her twitching in their straps.

‘Your will is gone already. Your demon is unstoppable. Before dawn, I will take possession of your vacant mind. It was always meant to be like that. You were only ever a ghost, a shadow of myself.'

Viviane's fingers go deeper and harder.

‘There is nothing you can do. Nothing at all. For you are nothing. Nothing but a fantasy. Nothing but a shadow girl,' sings Viviane, before once more chewing on her lip in a spurt of pleasure.

Sandra has ruptured into another grainy, twisted moan. Harsh, animalistic. Half-muffled by the cushion she is straining against.

Yes, she knows. She knows she is a toy. A semblance to be swelled by foreign wills. To be bloated by urges too dark, too horribly delectable to be ignored. She is nothing. A transparency to be filled. To be drained. To be enjoyed to the last drop. A wet, luscious nonentity. So totally malleable. No backbone. No fibre.

And she is loving it. Grovelling in her debasement. Yes, more, she has to have more. More pleasures without end. More whoring. More delicious defiling. Keep going, she begs, keep soiling and spoiling. Ravish me, bloat me, unhinge me.

Her backflipped body is surging in tight waves, her face burning with irrepressible lust.

Lips on her nipples, playing the devil's game. Hands on her hips, her thighs, forcing her wider apart, caressing her, ordering her, shaping her to their will. The ghost fingers are hard at work. Ransacking her lushness. Milking her, leeching her.

She convulses, bursting with overflow.

The intruders lose all restraint. Raid her without mercy. They pin her back to the edge — to her groaning and her bucking. Her mind has vaporised like drizzle in a blaze.

She cannot stop the heaving, the mad writhing. She cannot stop those fingers leeching. Deep in her, leeching. The lips on her breasts, leeching. And the beast, always the beast, heaving, gorging.

Hollowing her soul.

And again her mind blows. And again she erupts in a jumble of erratic yelps.

The couch between her knees, the floor beside the couch, are soaked with her spills.

‘We came together!' Viviane's cheeks are tinted by her own afterglow. ‘Only on your last outburst, of course. Did you like it?'

Eyes closed, face and body drenched in sweat, Sandra groans her acquiescence. She is a blur. A mist.

‘Do you want more?'

‘
Oui
. . .
Oui
. . .' she implores. Her demon is begging hard.

‘We could stop now. And leave you here.'

Something panics in her. Something weak and spineless that should have been her mind.

‘
Non, par pitié
,' she gasps, in a strange, altered voice. ‘
Ne partez pas
. Don't go none. I'll do anything. Anything.' Her hips roll on to confirm her readiness.

Jenny's voice dances above her.

‘I think she could do with a long hard kiss. And a shave, to prepare her for your men.'

Sandra hardly notices her legs being untucked from under her. Hardly registers when she is reclined against the backrest of the couch. She does not have the strength to open her eyes. But it does not matter for a blindfold is tied around her head. She moans like an animal. She would like to touch herself, relieve this crazy ache.

Then someone straddles her, Jenny perhaps, though she is not sure and does not care. Someone whose fingers are toying with her breasts, taking liberties with her nipples. Pinching them to keep her on the edge. Milking them for more of her overspill.

Lips brushing hers. Soft, luscious lips. Then a gentle nibble. Her demon quakes in delight and she soughs like the wind rushing through sun-dried reeds. But the tongue is teasing her, flicking at her pulp. She rises to the bait, her throat thrumming hard. And whimpers in relief when at last her tormentor insinuates itself in her.

The tongue is fragrant and exquisitely mischievous. She hangs on its succulence for as long as she can. Then the kiss deepens, uncoiling like a snake. She groans then sobs in surrender when someone busies themselves between her legs. Playing tricks with her. Teasing, twirling, rubbing against her clit, massaging her to new heights of distraction.

She hardly feels the razor's dance. Hardly feels its sweet sharpness, cleaning her, baring her for her sacrifice.

All she cares about are those fingers in her folds and the tongue in her throat, and the hands again, playing their perverse, compelling ballet. Her legs are being spread, and she hardly feels that too. Just the caress of oil over her smooth pussy. Smooth, sleek, bloated with desire. Bloated like her covetous beast.

Each touch is sweet torture and there is a raw edge to her moans.

The tongue withdraws, leaving her lost. Robbed of her addiction.

A voice in her ear, husky, mocking.

‘You can never get enough, can you? Such a shame Viviane will claim you for herself, for you would make a perfect bitch for me. You would love that, wouldn't you? To be my bitch. My precious sub. Trailing me from dawn to dusk, ready to get down and dirty when I ask.'

Sandra strains against her bonds as fingers she cannot see pursue their games.

‘Wouldn't you?' insists the voice in her ear.

‘
Oui
. . .
Oui
. . .' she moans. She is boiling, and dying for a brainspin fuck. For a thousand of those. A bitch. A horny little tramp. That's what she is, yes, oh God yes.

As before, the words burn through her like live embers and as before, she quakes and shudders, drunk with gratitude.

‘It would be such fun,' continues the voice. ‘We'd go back to your office for old times' sake, and I'd close the door and tie you to your plush executive chair — remember that one? — facedown, with your buns sticking up. Strap your wrists and your knees in sweet knots. Then put a gag in your mouth and a crop to your arse. Your perfectly contoured arse. I would make it smart, I would make it glow. And I would spread it and lick it and I would make you moan like a harem slave. And you would beg like never before. You would beg for more till you had no breath. And when you had no breath, I would slowly, oh so slowly, ease in the handle of my crop. And keep easing, and keep teasing, always deeper, till you could take it no more and your insides slam-banged.'

The words trickle into Sandra's ear. She bucks without warning, jerking her head against the couch. Shatters with another hollow groan. With another liquid fest.

She lies there panting.

Panting, pulsing.

She cannot think anymore. Her thoughts have gone, reduced to flying ashes by the fire in her. Just sensations now, tearing through her. Of throbbing flesh, ravishing tongues. Of heaving bodies drenched in lust.

Something hard and musky is offered to her lips and she sucks with all her greed, with all her need. She is a starving mouth, a gorgeous nonentity. And she must suck. She must suck on that cock to squeeze it dry. Drain it of all its goodness. She pumps on and on for her beast wants it, her beast needs it. Nothing else matters, nothing. Just that thing in her mouth and the kneading on her breasts and the hand fisting her forever. Fisting, splitting her with pleasure until she comes again, shuddering, squirting, choking on that power she must soak up.

And the fisting won't stop, it's driving her insane, and she groans as she sucks but she won't let go, she won't let go her feed. And then the thing erupts, erupts in her throat and she gags on the gush but she swallows that too.

And the fist has gone but it does not matter, for other hands are spreading her and other cocks are goading her and she swallows those too, she swallows those too like a perfect glutton, without a thought or a scruple for she has none left, none, just sensations tearing through her. Of throbbing bliss. Of heaving bodies drenched in lust. Of musk filling and flushing her.

And she is flipped like a doll and lowered on one more cock, and one more still, and she engulfs those too in her mindless rapture, to squeeze them and milk them and drain them to the lees. And she loves them to death and sobs for more and rolls and rocks and groans and bucks. And there are fingers deep inside, lubing her, imploding her, and she loves this too, this is crazy, this is insane, and she twangs and she squirts and crashes out in ecstasy.

But she wants more and always more and she rocks on like a beast and she grunts on like a beast for her mind has splintered and her face is a blaze. And her mouth is gagging and her belly too, and her arse, her arse is brimming to the rim. And she fractures with pleasure and there is come everywhere, on her face and down her legs and on her breasts and inside her. Inside her, outside her, swelling her and bloating her, oiling her and soiling her.

And then again her brain shatters.

And then again her body bursts.

And her blindfold has fallen off but her eyes do not see, for the pleasure has seared her.

And her mind is a waste.

And the beast has vanquished.

She is a pulse, a need.

An urge.

In a chair by the couch, Viviane is watching, glass of wine in hand, smug smile on her lips. She has been watching for the best part of two hours, with Jenny by her side. Watching as her men have been fanning Sandra's lust. Bloating her demon. Hollowing her mind. Three of her best in full thrust. Three with rippling abs and pecs of steel. Three to take her on the couch, to lick her on the floor, to doggy rock her and triple ruck her. With her arse facing up, with her knees to her ears, with her tits in two mouths and her mouth deep in suck.

She has been watching, and waiting. Waiting for the signs. Waiting for the red-hot fire in the eyes. For the feral gushing and bestial groans of pleasure. For the swelling of the breasts and ripening of sex scents.

Finally, with a satisfied toss of her glossy blonde hair, she rises to her feet.

‘Enough,' she commands.

The rippling abs stop rippling and the thrusting hips stop thrusting. Her boys are obedient and do not question. They disentangle themselves from Sandra and fall to the side.

‘I believe she is ready.'

Sprawled on a thick skin with a wolf head, Sandra is moaning feebly. Viviane steps over to her, kneels by her side and caresses her shaved pussy. It is drenched in sweat and the marks of lust. Then she spreads Sandra's lips between finger and thumb, and inspects her with a devotion worthy of a physician.

She smiles, for Sandra's engorged folds have blossomed like a rose.

‘A final check, if you don't mind. This should take no time at all.'

She inserts two fingers into Sandra, who bucks off the floor with a whimper of delight.

‘Oh my,' gasps Viviane, clearly surprised. ‘I knew . . . I knew what to expect but this . . . this is so strong.'

Her fingers are still inside and unwilling to leave. They slip in a little further, as if something had latched onto them and was drawing them in. Soon, most of her hand is gone and she is quaking with pleasure.

‘Oh fff . . . fudgepot!' she exclaims, bursting into a sudden orgasm.

She closes her eyes and seems to have withdrawn somewhere. Then she pulls out and breaks into a roguish grin.

‘My God, this is better than I thought. Dear Sandra, or should I say dear me, if my men weren't already hexed, I believe you would have made mincemeat of them.'

Her supine half is in no fit state to reply. She is in her final throes.

‘Well then, let's close this ego gap.'

Viviane straddles Sandra, mumbles some abstruse terms and a draught blows out the candles in the room.

‘A kiss. A kiss is all I ask.'

There is silence, and then the faint sound of moaning — liquid, almost silky, like distant leaves rustling in a breeze. Something begins to glow in the dark. Begins to rise. Something resembling a woman's ghostly form. The silhouette turns to bright dust, which hovers in midair, then starts spinning in slow motion. A low hum, barely audible. The vapour spirals down and vanishes, sucked into nothingness. Or an unseen hole. Or parted lips maybe.

The candles flick back to life and the gloom recedes in the chamber of the Prison Gate.

Only Sandra lies on the floor.

Sandra, and an abandoned blue tunic.