First
came the flames. Then, the screams. Each cry was distinct to Kyle’s
ears—the men’s hoarse yells, the women’s shrieks, the
inarticulate wails from the infants. He couldn’t see them, not yet.
Sooty smoke billowed up, hiding the plummeting bodies, making his
eyes sting. Orange tongues of fire pierced the black cloud. The cries
grew louder as the heat intensified.
He
took a big swig of cheap vodka. The bottle was already half empty.
His head spun and he knew he couldn’t stand, but the awful screams
still rang in his mind.
Please,
he thought. No more. I can’t take any more. Let me pass out
soon. He drank again, his gut churning as the raw liquid splashed
into his empty stomach.
He
tried to focus on the present—the rough stone pressing against his
back, the chill wind biting through his ragged jacket, the faint
smell of urine that filled the passageway under the highway. Useless.
The sensations of the real world seemed thin and frail, powerless to
overcome the horrible scenes in his head.
Every
time, it got worse. It took more alcohol to remove him to that state
of blissful oblivion. I’m adapting, just like any drunk. Before
long, I’ll need a whole bottle to drown out the visions.
Eventually, it will kill me. The thought was a relief.
The
spells came more frequently these days, and not just during his
waking hours. Nightmares stalked him, full of bloody flesh and torn
limbs, searing fire or icy floods. He’d claw his way back to
consciousness, howling like an animal, trying to escape. He’d been
kicked out of every shelter in the city. He upset the other residents
too much.
He
could always go back to the hospital. Thorazine didn’t completely
smother the visions, but it deadened the emotional impact. He could
sit for hours, watching disasters play themselves out on the screen
of his mind, and not care.
It
worked for a while, but then he always ended up signing himself out
again. As painful as consciousness was, it was better than the
half-life of being drugged. At least, that was what he told himself,
on the good days when his curse was in remission. The staff looked
relieved when he left. Even the professionals had trouble dealing
with his ‘hallucinations’.
“Hey,
gimme a drink, will ya?” A voice cut through the screams echoing in
his head. The grizzled man lying next to him on the sidewalk smelt
like long-unwashed socks. “Come on, please? Us bums got to stick
together.”
Kyle
handed him the bottle. His hand shook. “Sure, help yourself.”
The
old timer took a deep swallow, then grinned at him. “Thanks, kid.”
The
flames flared up, hiding the man’s pock-marked face and gap-toothed
smile. A woman’s cry rang out, full of terror. “No, please, no
more…” Kyle muttered, closing his eyes. The hungry fire continued
to dance behind his eyelids, mocking his attempt at escape. He groped
for the bottle.
Aside
from the ravening monster I felt inside me when I was anorexic, which
I’ve talked about in another post, I’m pretty fortunate. I don’t
seem to have any personal demons, at least nothing beyond the normal
fears that come with being human. That’s not necessarily true of my
characters, though, as illustrated by the excerpt above from my M/M
erotic romance Necessary
Madness.
In
Kyle’s case, his “demon” is an uncontrolled ability to see the
future. His raw visions show him only disasters, terrible happenings
he cannot prevent. The effects of his paranormal talent are scarcely
distinguishable from schizophrenia. He has become a miserable
outcast, cynical and suspicious. Even love, the solution to all
dilemmas in romance, can hardly save him.
Sometimes
my demons are actual supernatural beings. And they can be
overwhelmingly seductive. Here, for instance, is a snippet from my
story “Fourth World”, from
the collection of the
same title.
I
turn to see Jeremy’s hand wandering up her silk-clad thigh. I’m
surprised by his daring. Back at school he was always the shy one in
our crowd. I was the one who took the initiative.
His
eyes are closed, his lips parted. His trousers rise up from his groin
in an imposing peak. Mai cups his bulk and squeezes. Jeremy groans.
His hand slips under her skirt.
Jealousy
sizzles through me. A red mist clouds my vision. “Never mind,”
says Mai, her hand on my thigh, her lips fastening on mine.
Her
kiss claims me. I try to take control, to thrust my tongue between
her ripe lips, but she playfully forces me back, then plunders my
mouth with her own. She tastes sweet but strange, the fruity remnants
of her wine not quite hiding a metallic element. My cock surges,
painful and eager, trapped in my tight briefs.
Blinded
by the fall of her hair around my face, I grope for her breast. Her
flesh is firm and elastic under my fingers. Her nipple juts through
flimsy barrier of her dress. I circle it with my thumb and she moans
into my mouth. I pinch the delightful nub and she bites my lip, hard
enough to draw blood. I want to protest, to push her away, but she’s
far stronger than I expect. Her kiss becomes more heated, more
desperate. My pierced lip throbs. Something’s not right, I
think, but then her hand settles on my cock and all thought vanishes.
Her
fingers skitter across the distorted fabric of my trousers, testing
my hardness. She settles her palm over my swollen bulk, squeezing in
time with her sucking kisses. I feel the tightening heaviness that
tells me I’m going to come. I take a deep breath, trying to gain
some control. Her scent floods my nostrils. The need for release
overwhelms me. The first spurt of come pulses halfway up my shaft,
but then she removes her hand. The urge subsides, becomes just
bearable. Her lips graze my earlobe. “Not yet, darling. Save that
for me.”
****
Yes,
as you might have guessed, Mai is a vampire—but as Harry and Jeremy
discover, she’s the type who likes to play with her food.
The
most intriguing demons, though, are the ones inextricably embedded in
my characters’ nature. In “Fire”, my protagonist has a fire
fetish which compels him to commit arson.
These
days, I can't even strike a match without getting hard.
It
was better than I could have imagined. Pure joy. After years of
borrowing other people's fires, I had my own. There were no sirens,
no spectators, no official types keeping an awkward eye on me. Just
me and the night and the dancing, piercing flames. I lay down in the
scrubby grass with my fly wide open and watched greedily as the blaze
devoured the feast I had laid before it.
By
the time the building had become a charred pile of debris, I was
gorged and sated. I called in sick that morning.
After
that, second-hand conflagrations couldn't satisfy me. I have to have
my own. I try to space them out, keep at least six to eight weeks
between them. It's tough, but I don't want anyone to get suspicious.
The
first few weeks after a session, I have plenty of memories to keep me
going. I can close my eyes and recall every detail, the intricate
shapes of the flames, the taste of smoke in my lungs, the searing,
intimate caress of the heat on my privates.
I
remember the sequence in which the barn or the shed or the deserted
fishing cabin collapsed. Sometimes the whole structure explodes, or
caves in on itself. Other times, one wall will totter and fall
gently, leaving the others standing as though buoyed up by the hot
gases, until at last they simply melt away, crumbling to glowing ash.
It is always fascinating, thrilling, enough to push me over the edge.
Sometimes,
I imagine that I'm inside, during those final moments when the fire
declares victory. I lie on the my back, feeling the sparks rain down
on my naked flesh, struggling to breathe as the fire sucks up all the
oxygen. I know that it sounds a bit twisted, but I come the hardest
when I think about the fire consuming me, taking me into itself.
Anyway,
after a while, the memories aren't enough. I start to dream of fire.
I wake up soaked with sweat, with a hard-on that I can work for hours
without finding any real relief. I begin to get irritable, less
polite, less persuasive. My work begins to suffer.
That's
when I know it's time. It takes me a few days to prepare, and then
finally, I have what I need.
****
Sexual
desire can be a personal demon, perhaps the hardest of all to fight.
Here’s a bit from my tentacle erotica tale, “Fleshpot”, also
part of my dark paranormal erotica collection Fourth World.
* * *
Cass
was right. It's a disease. She was right to cut the ties, when she
found me in the garden shed with sweet Susan the baby sitter, in
flagrante. I offer no excuse.
It
doesn't feel like a disease, though, when I'm in the throes, my
senses drenched in the seashore scent of my latest conquest. It feels
like I'm on the edge of a revelation, like this is the fuck I've been
seeking all my life, the one that will make everything clear, new,
beautiful and real. When I burrow into that mysterious place between
her thighs, I'm not just looking for pleasure. I'm seeking some kind
of truth, or at least that's how it seems, like this is the time that
I'll break through that barrier. I catch tantalizing glimpses of
brilliance, just out of reach, shining like the grail in some
celibate knight's vision. That's me, on a quest for the ultimate
knowledge. Except of course, I'm not celibate.
When
the papers came from her lawyer, my transgressions sucked dry by
legal language ("extramarital liaisons"), my kids stolen by
some judge's whim, I took off. My business— electronics OEM—can
always provide an excuse for a trip to Asia. My meetings in Bangkok
consumed a day and a half. Since then I've been here in this sleazy
coastal resort town two hours from the capital.
I've
done it all, in the past two weeks, tried everything. The lithe Thai
beauties who twine like snakes around the poles in all the bars and
clubs along the walking street. The buxom, pushy Russian girls, with
their milky complexions and succulent nipples, ripe to the point of
bursting, eager to empty both my cock and my wallet. The lady boys,
as slender and graceful as their sisters, even more feminine, in
fact, the prick erupting from their hairless, perfumed loins as much
a shock to them as to me. I've sampled the exotica on sale here, the
dwarfs and the cripples, the grossly obese young woman who nearly
smothered me in her lush, unutterably soft flesh. I've been whipped
and returned the favor. So far I've managed to resist the fifteen
year old boys, but just last night a youth of terrifying beauty who
claimed to be nineteen drained me in the men's room of one of the
a-go-go places. An acrid mixture of urine and camphor stung my
nostrils as I pumped my cum into his agile mouth. And in that
transcendent instant, as always, I felt myself on the verge of
understanding.
At
the moment, I'm taking a break from throbbing music and naked skin of
the indoor clubs. I perch on a bar stool at the edge of the pavement,
watching the parade of tourists and touts ambling by.
I'm
tired. The twins I fucked earlier, in a red-lit, window-less room
above one of the bars, exhausted me with their convincing enthusiasm
for my body. Nee and Nu were indistinguishable, two toffee-skinned
tarts who claimed to be eighteen but might have been anywhere from
fourteen to thirty. One sat on my face, the other on my cock. Nee (or
was it Nu?) made short work of my hard-on. I exploded into the condom
with just a few minutes of massage by her muscular pussy. Nu, though
(or maybe Nee?), humored me, letting me lick her bare twat and
breathe her low-tide scent for as long as I wanted—until I hardened
again, earning laughter and admiration from my two playmates.
****
Maybe
the medieval Christians were right. Lust is a demon, one that can
consume you body and soul. In the case of my nameless protagonist in
“Fleshpot”, he pays off his demon with his life—but willingly.
"La
Luxure dans l'art roman" by Bougnat87 -
Own
work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons
When
does desire become demonic? A fruitful question indeed, for those of
us who write erotica.
By
the way, except for Rule 34, all the books mentioned in this
post are available for only 99 cents until the end of October, as
part of my Month of Magic promotion.
