Shadow Play
Out of step with time, but in beat with the music blaring in an 80s goth club, a princely Outer God finds the spark of magic he needs in a couple sending him looks from across the dancefloor.
M/F/M
own business, the business of the Dreamlands and the Outer Gods to be precise, when I was somehow snatched from my liminal space and grounded to the human plane. A small setback, one I had known to expect in some way, as it was time for all manner of upheaval and trials according to the Book of Knowing. In the fraction of a second I was there, I heard gasps and chants of humans, robotic and devoid of feelings, which scratched hard at the part of me that loved music and melody in all things. I thought a few people must have gotten lucky in their spellwork and summoned me.
I was wrong. Something else had helped those humans, because power blasted into me before I could fully comprehend what was happening. It ripped my being in two and cast most of me aside to flail in time, while trapping the beast in me with all my power in some black, looming belltower. It was the black church, the beginning of an ending I knew one day would come. I reached for my magic and the Book of Knowing, but both were lost to me. For a time, at least.
Next thing I knew, I was clutching a human head in my hands. It was my head, or at least the head attached to my usual human form. I felt the throb I always felt whenever I stuffed my multi-dimensional being-ness into a person suit. Being flung into the aches and limits of flesh was always disorienting, more so here and now, whenever and wherever now was, not having chosen to do so. They had split me, and a part of myself was trapped across time, though my awakening senses told me not much physical distance—no, a few miles in a straight line between me and the black church. From the taste of the air, the time I could roll on my tongue, I was two or more decades away. A large block of life for a human. A blink for me, and yet too long by my reckoning. Patience may be hailed as a virtue, but I never was, never would be, a virtuous being. I needed to get back, or forward as it were, and I needed to do so soon.
My body ached in the way human forms often do, a dull background pain few people care to notice until it roars for attention. It was a jarring feeling, for sure, one I never quite got the hang of after all these millennia. Here and now, however, the faint physical echo of magical blows, ripping spirit and flesh, compounded the physical effects of suddenly again being embodied. I had been tossed out by someone, left with only enough power to put myself in my old human form but not enough to get back, or do much of anything. Only one old and powerful—an Outer God like me—could have performed such a trick, though even an Outer God would have needed help, planning, and a lot of luck to pull this one off. As it were, I was off with time and needed to get back on track or risk the permanent separation of my being. I could be permanently severed, separated from my inherent power indefinitely, if I did not rejoin.
Not all was lost, however. I was still a master of night and sorcery. I knew my magics and could wield them well in human form. All I needed was a spark to get back to where I could find the right help. From past readings of the Book, I knew I needed to get to Randy, so she could find the black church and free the part of me trapped in the bell tower at that particular interdimensional intersection. I needed to become fully me again before I was irrevocably lost. Although a terrifying prospect, it still made me smile. I liked a challenge, and I so looked forward to meeting my sweet, shadowy Miranda in the future.
Realizing I had stood far too long focusing solely in my mind, unseeing in a literal sense, I opened my eyes to the world around me. Yes, Columbus. Same scent, same feel, same general look, yet newer than the Columbus I needed to roam. Newer by a few decades at least. I stood on a sidewalk at the mouth of an alley along a side street. The streetlights and buzz of vehicles ahead told me I was close to a busy section of town, even as I stood on a cusp, an inbetween space, the spatial reality where I inevitably found myself when traveling to the human plane. The broken sidewalk led ahead to squat brick business fronts along a bustling thoroughfare. Behind me were dark walks and lonely row houses and the faint sounds of drunken nighttime revelries. The sweat of lust, both waiting and fulfilled, sweetened the air enough to tell me I was where the young gathered. Close to the university, perhaps.
My sire may be the Blind Idiot King, the ruler of the Outer Gods, but I was no idiot, and not blind. Beings in and out of and even across time called me many things: Nyarlathotep, Crawling Chaos, Prince of the Dreamlands, The Messenger of Azathoth, The Last. None called me stupid. I knew where I was, the general outline of what had happened, and what I needed to do to undo it all and move forward. The questions were: who split me and thrust me into the past, and why did they do such a thing? There was an empty space where the Book of Knowing once lay, always within my grasp, no matter the dimension. A hole gapped, squat and heavy, where black chaos once churned and writhed. Not good. Not good at all, especially as I knew the only being who could help was decades away, flitting in and out of shadows on her own.
Without my full power, without access to a knowledge of all things past and present, I was nearly as blind as my father—nearly being the operative word. I still had a few tricks. Shaking my head and my arms, stretching into my human skin, I looked down at myself. Yes, the Egyptian— the shadowed pharaoh reborn, over and over again, to lead with music and chaos and dreams and shadows. My bronze skin flexed and glistened with a soft dew of sweat pulled from my flesh by the humid night air. My long limbs and hands were thin but corded with muscle, deceptively powerful in this form. I ran long, strong fingers through thick hair. I knew my hair and my eyes would match, both the color of gleaming night. It was a form that could cause suspicion and alarm, depending on where and when I was in the human world. Now, though, I was unconcerned with such. I could not remain in this time long if I wished to remain wholly who I was.
First, however, I needed a power transfer to help me fold time and space to reach her, get to the black church I had glimpsed for a second before some ritual took my powers from me. The black church where the chaos in me was now made flesh, flesh that could be manipulated and used against my will.
I moved toward light and sound, both a kaleidoscope of color I could see, feel, and taste in my new old body. I glided, a mass of swirling robes and striped nemes, all throwing off a multitude of colors in the low light of midwestern night as if a prism were spun into pristine fabric. The look was most assuredly out of place in this era and region. I stepped far enough to see a battered street sign. I was on the corner of N. High and W. Blake. My guess was correct then, close to the university and where I will meet Randy in years to come. Not yet, but a savory bit to look forward to when I traveled forward in time.
Sliding around the corner of a brick building, I saw a group of darkly dressed men and women stomping out finished cigarettes before they dipped down low to enter a shadowed archway. Then I heard it, a driving beat, a reverb, discord matched with dark melodies and deep, droning voices. The music was mesmerizing. I stepped forward to join them, to see what I could find to help me, and collided with a pale, looming young man in leathers.
“Fuck.” He gasped, reeling from the quick impact against my rigid form. I looked human, felt human when I wished, but I was harder and tougher. All that power and time and being packed tight into skin made a denser mass than the average human body.
Fast as an electric spark, I pushed him back around the dark corner. My hand to his throat, I dangled him a few feet off the ground. He clawed at my hand, kicked and thumped, but it was no use. “When am I?”
“Columbus. Old North,” he said with a hoarse whisper.
I pulled him away from the wall and slammed him back in quick succession. I did not wish to cause damage, merely gain his attention and focus. “I know where I am. I need to know when I am.”
“Saturday. August eighth.”
“Year?”
“1987.” He wheezed, slowing his frantic attempts at release.
“Very well.” Eyeing him dangling there, I noted he was around my height. My size, also, if I gave myself just a little more mass from the air around us. Yes, his clothes would do nicely.
“Dream,” I commanded, dropping sleep on the frightened man, who slumped immediately. I gave him a peaceful slumber. It was enough for me to steal his clothing. I did not need to leave him with nightmares.
I dragged him to the alleyway, giving him at least some semblance of shelter. I left his underwear, billowy white shirt, and wallet with him, though I took a few bills. I had no currency, and where I was headed, I imagined I might need it. I slipped into the worn leather pants, jacket, and boots. The clothes, dark cover with the occasional chrome zipper and buckle twinkling in the muted flashes of light from the busy road, molded easily to my bronze skin. Shaking my inky hair out, I willed it to grow a bit in the front, enough to stick out at angles from the top of my head and flop down over my brow, a style similar to one the sleeping man wore. I knew I looked better, even without a mirror in sight. All part of my human form, my royal appeal, though my court resting outside this place was often the province of human nightmares.
Shaking into my new leathers, I pulled the front of my jacket out so it stretched snug across my back. My chest peeked out of the open zipper, but that would not do. I situated the lapel farther apart, exposing more of my rippling chest, my tight abs, the ghost of hair trailing from my navel downward. When I felt it enough to tease and tempt in equal measure, I strode back around the corner to the underground club thumping bass into the night air. At the bottom of the alcove steps was a sturdy metal door, windowless, painted to resemble the entrance to an old cemetery crypt. A simple black-and-white sign hung above, giving the name of the venue in bold block letters: Dark Shadows. I chuckled. Fitting I found myself here and now. No one stood at the entrance as they did in some human bars, so I flung the crypt door open with little effort, a dark shadow entering his namesake.
The thrum of electric bass immediately pounded into my chest and pulled me forward, my steps quickening to match the tempo. The drum followed a slow, steady beat, sensuous and dark, as the electric guitar wailed in mournful notes and the synthesizer echoed back eerie chords. A deep voice, so low the words were nearly unintelligible, dripped down to call and tempt. The combined sounds became discordant at points, yet remained dark and lingering, crawling across my senses, bringing my heartbeat up and down. Music was a lure, a balm, and a tool. This music, the darkness and drama of it, resonated with me in a deep place. It snagged my focus for long minutes before I pulled myself back to my task. I pushed through the physical and mental allure of the beat to take in my surroundings beyond the hypnotic sounds crashing into my very being.
The bar was cavernous—not in size, but in appearance. The dark walls were marked with painted scenes mimicking roughly hewn rocks and slabs, giving the appearance of the inside of a mausoleum. The shape of the space, a long straight vantage from door to back wall, helped the illusion along, creating a rectangular enclosure with little in the way. A dimly lit bar took up most of the right wall, the only place where seats were available. A few patrons, dark lumps with flashes of pale makeup, hunched over drinks dotting the dark gleaming wood top, while two large men in nondescript black shirts and pants served and observed from behind the bar. The bulk of the patrons congregated in the empty space directly in front of a large stage on the left wall of the room. There was no band. Instead, a willowy DJ stooped behind two turntables, large headphones looped around their pale neck, head bobbing to a different beat than the one pounding in the room as they bent over to drop the needle on the next song to play before the one currently spinning finished.
The people in the space moved and bunched their bodies, gyrating with a slow rhythm around the darkened room, their sweat clinging to their hair and head and arms and backs. Flashes of flesh shifted in and out of the dim light. Hands and hips spun in slow hypnotic circles to match the music. The smell of alcohol and sex drenched the air, enough for me to take a lungful. I barked out a laugh at the sense of ache and anticipation it caused, something only the human body allowed me to feel. Desire, lust, pleasure, pain. My human form gave me access to these sensations. My body grew taut and tingled in the best possible way. I took deep breaths, savoring the experience, realizing how I missed them when I was not embodied.
However, of equal importance to me was the fact these feelings had the potential to create power, a power I could harness if I remained focused. I forced myself away from the mass for a few moments to gather my thoughts. I found an empty stool at the back edge of the bar and signaled the person serving. In a blink, a whiskey on ice dripped condensation in front of me. I swirled the glass, pushed out the noise and smell and general distraction, and thought through my predicament.
I needed power. Mine was sadly lacking in most areas. I could perform tasks simple to me: bring on sleep, dip into shadows, the usual tricks of my trade in the human plane. I could not call on deeper powers, the magics that allowed me to move in time when necessary. That part of me, along with the Book, was missing. Sweet Randy would help, I knew as much from my own dimensional travels and past questions asked of the Book of Knowing, but she was a child in this time, untried and vulnerable, so I could not go to her here. Forward momentum was required, a step through the fourth dimension so as to land in the proper time, even as I now stood in the approximate place. Such would be an easy feat with all my power at my disposal but difficult here and now, when I was hobbled somehow by another force who had taken much from me.
I needed to find my beast and the Book of Knowing, get back my godly magics and my knowledge of time. I could maintain my human form easily, but every moment without being whole separated me more and more from who I was, the will and place I held. It threatened to leave me human, alive only so long as I could sustain this fragile form, a fate any Outer God shuddered to consider. I loved my fleshy bits manifested for brief periods and had a good time when human. However, I did not wish to remain one, especially when I had an Outer God to hunt down and hurt for trying to use and destroy me.
I required a power outside of myself to provide the initial spark, to fill me enough to press what I had left of myself forward. Ritual and exchange, a sacrifice of some type would do. I smiled, thinking of the little deaths I could pull from others for my purpose. The twisting bodies of this space, the heat and lust, provided a source, if I could find the right energy to tap.
The whiskey gave a pleasant burn down my throat, but my lips wanted more than this drink, wanted to latch and suck and coax for power and pleasure. I eyed my surroundings for a few minutes before I noticed them whispering together, throwing furtive looks my way: a man and woman, both pale, though the woman’s color was clearly due to makeup too light for her olive skin. Both were clad in black and dripping silver. The woman’s long, naturally dark hair spilled over her shoulders in a riot of curls. She wore a black tank top with a deep V, a black skirt stretched tight over full, round hips, and fishnets drawn taut and leading down into thick black motorcycle boots. The man was a foot taller than the petite woman and loomed over her in a way that spoke of observance and care rather than dominance or menace. He wore simple, effective garb: snug black jeans, a tight, bright-white T-shirt, and a stiff black denim jacket with a mishmash of black logo patches, some splattered with pops of red here and there. He appeared cool and aloof, except when he leaned into her. His shoulder-length black-dyed hair trailed down her chest as he whispered words that made her flush and twist and cast glances my way.
They spoke of me in whispers I could hear even through the mesh of noise. Talked of pleasure. They debated what they considered forbidden acts, in the way certain humans in this time and place considered many desires taboo. Others cast eyes my way in hopes of being noticed. None were brave enough to step forward, not even the couple, not even when I nodded their way and met their hungry gazes.
I understood. Even without my full powers, shadows clung to me in ways humans found disconcerting, and there was always an air of unrightness about my form because my skin was something both less and more. Something created rather than born. Yet here were people brave enough to sense the danger and still take my hand, experiencing pleasure with this slightly-off form. On this evening, I hoped it would be the couple. Those two were the ones whose pounding hearts pulled at me, their energies mingled in a way that was too tempting to ignore. Their power was ripe, bendable to my will, so they would do nicely. Give me a flair of power and quench the growing desire beating a drum across my skin.
I downed the rest of my whiskey in a large, deep pull and eased toward the pair, letting my limbs stretch and flex, exposing my chest and abs more so the sprinkling of dim light caught on the dark hair trailing down my midriff and running into the black leather slung low across my hips. I knew my bronze flesh flashed as I stalked toward them to the beat of the music, a beat I let seep back in as I closed in on the hungry pair in my sights.
The girl’s breath hitched when I stopped myself inches from their bodies, a sound so soft it would be inaudible to anyone else in the dark pulse of this place, so lush it made my awareness prickle and preen all at once. The man raked his eyes across my front, want clear in his look and stance.
“Ny,” I said, by way of an introduction. I dipped my head low to the man before I snatched the hand of the woman. The pulse of her heartbeat skittered rapid-fire across her wrist as I bent to kiss her hand. Her breath locked, then whooshed out in a soft wave when she remembered to breathe. The feel of her hand, the whisper and sweet smell of her hot breath, all sent tingles through my body. The shiver of want I felt rivaled the burn of the whiskey I had downed moments before. She was voiceless for a beat, until I smirked. “And you are?”
“Oh, sorry. Circe.” Her eyes fluttered, nerves and excitement causing tendrils of energy to flair bright around her, an intoxicating sight for someone who could see it. She looked up at her companion, a clear signal she wanted him to actively enter the exchange.
I turned toward him myself, head cocked in silent question, and he met my gaze with his own assessing look. It lasted only a handful of seconds, yet it was still surprising. Most humans cannot hold the look of dream and chaos for long, even when it was contained in flesh. I was still made of night and sorcery and dreams, a thing among them but not of them. Many people felt unnerved by encounters with me. But it was always so much fun when I discovered those who did not mind being unnerved a bit, much like this couple on this evening. He held my eyes, even pushed back with his gaze. His will and courage sent a thrill down my spine, as did the wave of desire I smelled from the sweat glistening on his pale skin. I had not noticed until I was close to him that he had light eyes, icy in a way that was somehow both incongruent with and perfectly attuned to the dark surroundings.
“Gabriel,” he finally answered.
I could sense the lie; those were not their actual names. I knew the infamous beings who originally went by such names, beings similar to me in some ways even if from different times and places when they inhabited the human realm. Those names fit these humans loosely, waiting to be filled, maybe never being filled fully, given what the originators were. The two humans chose dark names for a reason, to try on a new skin of their own. Maybe they were personas for this space, or maybe shields from me. I would not pry. Who was I to call out a human for making their own name, setting their own being? It did not matter what others wished to be.
I cut my eyes back toward Circe, and a blush crept up her smooth skin, slightly obscured by the pale makeup that muted the darker tone peeking around the edges of her hairline and beneath those fishnets.
“Never seen you here before,” she blurted, grasping at casual conversation.
“So sure?” I bit back, grinning.
“Positive,” Gabriel mumbled, his voice hard as gravel.
“True. I am new to this place,” I answered, shrugging. “You?”
“Oh, no. We’re regulars. Come to Dark Shadows all the time, right, babe?” Circe chirped.
Gabriel simply nodded and kept up a cool demeanor, though I could feel and smell his eagerness, his curiosity. He couldn’t fool the Master of Night with such a feeble deception.
The pulse of the music pounded to the rhythm of my need and desire. I had no wish to drag out the potential. Looking between the two, I said a single word before brushing closely between them, rubbing leather to leather: “Dance.” It was both command and invitation, one they followed eagerly.
I did not look behind me as I closed in on the crowd of writhing bodies grouped around the stage. I twisted my neck, closed my eyes, homed in on the music I could hear and feel. Let it drive my muscles. In seconds, I felt the pair push up close from behind, moving together. I turned to see Circe encircled in Gabriel’s arms, rolling her hips in time against his own, throwing her hands to stretch up and clasp them around his neck, pulling his head down toward her. He leaned over her, sweat and hunger all over his face, and whispered more tantalizing words in her ear as he traced the outer edge with his tongue. She shivered and took long, deep pulls of air. His words, his boldness in a crowded place, were part of the allure for them both, even if they had the veneer of privacy in the noise. They did not know I could hear every word he uttered through the throng and thump.
“Do you want a stranger to touch you? Watch me touch you?” he asked her, taking a quick nip of her ear as he did. She nodded but said nothing, her eyes closed to take in the music, the beat, and his words.
“Do you want Ny to touch you? Put his hands and lips on you? Tease your breasts? Fuck you with that pretty mouth? His cock?” More nods, a gasp of breath at the thought.
“Will you watch as I touch him, take his mouth and cock too?”
When she nodded again, pressed harder into his groin with her lush, full ass, Gabriel dipped down to take her flesh in his mouth, his hunger overriding everything else. He sucked at the skin where her neck and shoulder met with deep pulls, enough to leave a visible mark, one I could see even in the darkness, wet and glistening when he pulled back up and looked at me with needy eyes.
I took the half step of space between us and ran one long, lean finger down the exposed underside of Circe’s arm. I felt her shudder, saw the flesh bubble with goose bumps, heard the sharp inhale from prettily spread, full lips. I came closer, leaning in myself, grinding in time as the loud, dark chords beat in the air around us. One song bled into another, and we remained locked in our dance. We moved together as one, until our smell mingled, until Circe was a wet, writhing mass and Gabriel’s polar gaze roved with open desire over the planes of my face.
My hands stroked up and down Circe’s voluptuous torso, feeling the warmth and heat, and I imagined what it would be like to take the flesh in my teeth and give a gentle tug, not enough to bruise but still mark for a time. Circe danced with closed eyes, a being fully in her body, ready and willing to feel it all as she moved between Gabriel and me. When Gabriel’s hand met my own on Circe’s sides, I looked at him, watched him watch us both pet and slightly pull at her together. He clasped me in his palm, a brief squeeze of strong fingers with worn calluses, before he moved through my arms, around to the soft swell of Circe’s stomach, and rested his hands between me and her as we continued to dance. The hair on his knuckles was a silky scratch against my abdomen. I wanted to feel him more firmly, but he did not give me more. We stayed in this state, stroking and imagining, anticipation heightening our want and need, until I whispered into Circe’s ear, Gabriel hovering close enough to hear, “Let us leave.”
Gabriel’s hand spasmed, rubbing briefly against the slick flesh of my abdomen, a sure sign of his agreement. Circe nodded, her hooded eyes looking nearly drunk in their desire. “My place is close,” she said, pulling free from her companion’s grip. She grabbed both our hands and led the way, out of Dark Shadows, into the muggy August air, pulling us behind her.
Circe’s small home was a few blocks from the club, nestled in the top-right corner of a rundown foursquare converted into cheap apartments. The house was not old, especially not by my own standards, but it was firmly rooted in its place, a sturdy shelter for the more transitory of humans. I could say the same of her personal belongings. There was little furniture. A four-person table, a small couch, a cabinet with a rickety dial television with glossy wood paneling, and a round black rug with white threads interwoven in a wave pattern on the outer edges made up the open living room area. Next to it, a small galley kitchen butted against a cramped, darkened hallway where, I presumed, the bathroom and bedroom lay beyond.
The furnishing was sparse but solid. Each piece appeared thoughtfully chosen and arranged for function and comfort in the small space. Beyond the rug, the only thing notable was a series of four staggered photographs along one wall. The pictures, matted in large glossy black frames, were macabre black-and-white scenes of headstones strewn with dried flowers. They were posed images used to invoke the dark character Circe wanted to project. The composition was an essence of ambiguity, dark and light, life and death implied with old stone and withered flowers. I skirted the couch to move closer to one image, nearly pressing my face to the glass containing it. The angle of the shot gave both the flowers and stone long, sharp shadows that streaked across the picture, creating dimension and contrast I wanted to explore up close.
Circe, with a nervous laugh, said, “Those are old. Like, a few years? Took them for a photography class in college.”
“They are arresting,” I said. “Impressive work. Truly.”
She smiled broadly at the compliment, and Gabriel grabbed her hand. I saw the soft squeeze he gave, the look in his eyes as he nodded at her. His stony face eased slightly when he looked upon her. There was care there. Affection, at the very least. An excellent boon for what I needed to achieve this night.
I slid onto the far end of the couch, eyed Circe with a sly grin, and patted the cushion beside me. “Please. Sit.” It was her home, yet I took the lead.
She moved to sit beside me, not close enough to touch but close enough I could feel the heat radiating off her sun-kissed skin. She fidgeted for a moment, attempting to get comfortable. It was not nerves or uncertainty. Well, not quite. She wanted what she wanted, but there was something in humans that sometimes made them question what they want—a part stopping them from reaching for what some might call their more primal urges. It was a battle between want and expectations. In my experience, give a human time and space, and that want will always win out. I smiled at her, leaning to throw an arm along the back of the couch and angling slightly in toward her, giving her room while also opening myself up so she had a clear view of my chest as I pulled my shoulders wider to spread the opening of the leather jacket.
“Drinks?” Gabriel asked, looking from Circe to me with heat pouring from those frosty eyes.
I flashed a straight, white smile, one that I knew could be disconcerting to some humans, as my teeth gleamed and appeared just a touch too sharp to be fully human, but not to these two. They reveled in such. A shiver of pleasure coursed through Circe at the sight, and Gabriel swallowed hard before nodding and heading to the kitchen.
He returned with three beers, cold to the touch and already dripping condensation.
“Sorry,” Circe muttered. “My air conditioning…”
“No need to apologize. Heat is no issue for me,” I said with a sly grin thrown her way.
Gabriel hovered above us, gripping his unopened beer, until Circe motioned for him to sit beside her. She drifted closer to me as she did. Before he sat, Gabriel placed his bottle on a stand by the arm of the couch where a record player sat. He flipped a switch, and the needle skidded to life, a second of slow distortion jumping out of small speakers on each side of the couch before driving, dulcet tones similar to those blared in the club filled the room. I closed my eyes for a moment, lost again to the beat, moving my head as I felt the music flow through the space, calling to that eternal thing in my being that always wanted to rejoice in a rhythm, a melody, a dance. I was a musician, a lover of all tunes, to the core of whatever made me what I was, and this music resonated in deep, dark corners.
On a sigh I whispered, “I do love these sounds.”
“Aren’t they great? I love The Cult, but they did great things when they were Death Cult too.” Circe smiled over at Gabriel, who nodded with her in agreement.
I sensed Gabriel’s arm before I felt it, slowly mirroring my own, coming up and over the couch back, wrapping around Circe, resting its heat and weight along my own. I opened my eyes and smiled at Gabriel. We sat like this, gently swaying to music, softly leaning into and onto one another on the small couch, getting the feel of one another together in our bones.
Circe, the war in herself long decided in our favor, reached for my hand and placed it firmly on the fishnet-clad leg exposed by the hitching of her tight skirt. It was plump and pleasant, something to squeeze and feast upon in the most decadent of ways. I caressed her, digging in slightly to gauge her reaction, and the feel and sight of my fingers pushing into her supple flesh sent a spark straight to my cock. She sucked in a shaky breath as a smile ghosted across her face, clearly enjoying the touch as well.
Gabriel mimicked my actions on her other side, taking her in his strong, work-rough hand. He started with a soft, sweet touch, hinting at their comfort and intimacy again. It turned more demanding as he watched the direction of my stroke on Circe. Her eyes closed. Her breath came in sharp pants. The position she held between us became less rigid, more eased, as she leaned farther into the couch and dropped her head on our arms entwined behind her.
I watched, feeling that tug of pleasure in human flesh in my acquired skin, as Gabriel touched Circe higher and higher, his hand edging under the black fabric straining across her open thighs. Her skirt was so tight, I could clearly see the direction and outline of his hand as he swiped closer and closer to her core. When his fingers dipped farther, touching her mound, she sucked in a hard breath and held it. Gabriel took in her anticipation and held it by a thread for soft beats while looking directly at me. He slid in even more, flicking his fingers in a way that wrenched a deep moan from her. He quickly pulled his hand free on a grunt and pushed her skirt up higher, up to her waist. Her fishnets were thigh highs, fastened with lace bands along the tops of her lush legs, giving way to a short stretch of bare skin leading up to slinky black panties. The black fabric was dampened in one area, a small dark spot gleaming in the low light as her wetness seeped through the place where Gabriel had touched her.
My head spun for a moment, the anticipation of power and sex churning in my consciousness, driving out other thoughts. The energy that had wafted off the two humans in the club jumped in large waves now, crashing around the empty space of the room. Desire and lust converged into a force invisible to most humans, a shimmering pulse I could barely see glittering in the air around the couch and pushing farther and farther outward to fill the empty places it could reach.
Energy does not die; it merely transforms. That basic rule of all universes holds true with sexual energy too. It ebbs and flows, outward and inward, pulsing and moving to a beat all its own until it explodes. I needed an explosion to happen, though I would control the fallout, take in all the energy to use as I willed instead of allowing it to seep out into the night to fill other places, other people. It was the kindest and most pleasurable way to acquire energy in the human plane, one I did love to engage in whenever I was here. However, it was still a process. Intention and concentration were required to make this night, these acts, work for more than our mutual pleasure.
I shrugged off my jacket to expose my torso to the humid night air, to give me breath and space within my fleshly confines. I removed my hand from Circe’s plump thigh, no mean feat, and ran it over the rigid column now straining against the zipper of my leather pants. I leaned back against the arm of the couch, giving my partners space as well, and waved a hand in front of me, a silent command to continue.
Gabriel’s eyes darkened as he bent his head, dipping it down quickly to run his tongue over her thigh, following the course his hand once took, tasting Circe’s flesh, then nipping at her underwear. He stopped there, taking an audible breath as if scenting her, and both moaned in unison. It sent electricity up my spine, the sex and connection and desire leaking from the pair, floating out into the room in a pulse that mirrored the dark beats of the hypnotic record still spinning beside us. Exactly what I needed.
Circe blinked in my direction, her honey-brown eyes alight with the same electricity running through the atmosphere. “Ny,” she purred, reaching a hand to my chest and running it slowly down from my sternum to the waist of my pants, teasing the shining silver button there. I hissed and grabbed her distracting hand. Her touch caused a skittering echo of electric lust to jolt through my body. Placing a gentle kiss on her palm, I splayed it across my stomach where it could linger and tease without being too much of a distraction before I told her, “Wait. Let me watch first.”
I wanted her and him. Most definitely. And I would have them. I would taste them on my tongue and feel the slick slide of their bodies against mine. As anticipation grew, so did the waves of lust in the room. A storm of energy now raged in the tiny apartment, a pressing thing that shook the very air and made the world feel hazy. I needed to siphon and store this power when it erupted. I could not do that if I was lost in the rolling clouds myself.
Circe nodded, and I noticed Gabriel stopped his ministrations, waiting to see my reaction. I looked over at him, remembering his words from the club, the games he whispered to Circe as she danced in his arms. I could give him that and more, once the first swell of magic was captured. Then I would jump in the fray. I commanded in my strong human baritone, “Give me a show.”
A growl ripped up Gabriel’s throat. He flipped his own jacket and shirt off and threw them into the center of the room. In a flash, he was on his knees before Circe, gripping her hips in his large hands, tugging them down to the edge of the couch. When she was situated on the precipice, he molded one hand to a dimpled thigh and used the other hand to shove her panties to the side before burying his face fully in her crotch. Circe cried out and jerked to and fro as if struck by lightning before she eased back down in a slumping posture. She kept her hand on my abs. Gabriel loosened his grip on her hip and inched forward, meeting her hand on my body. Together, they rubbed across my abdomen as Gabriel feasted.
I could not clearly see what his mouth was doing to Circe, but her increasing moans and shaking body told me enough. She edged closer to orgasm, and Gabriel chased it along with her, bearing down on her clit, removing the hand at her panties and sliding it into the wet heat of her pussy. He pumped in and out, mouthed her, and watched as she writhed beneath his touch. A soft hum rose in the air. It was Gabriel, a mixed sound of hunger, appreciation, and arousal he sent vibrating through her as he licked and sucked and wrung pleasure from her body.
I took in her every quiver from my perch against the arm of the couch, her breath sharp pants ricocheting across the room telling me the explosion was imminent. Her back arched, her eyes closed tight. She was about to find release, about to let out all that delicious energy. I bent quickly to lock my lips on hers.
Her orgasm was a bolt that zapped through me, my will and intention wrestling it down into the well of my being, using it to fill my empty spaces with crackling electricity, the sparks of power needed to move through time. It was a small spark in the larger scheme of magic and energy, yet a good foundation in the moment. An appetizer in a way.
I sucked at her straining voice and breath. Even with my eyes closed I could see it, a kaleidoscope of colors, a prism like my robes, human essence and flesh made into waves of color and light. The power shook Circe, rammed into my mouth, and barreled down my throat before I wrangled it and stuffed it into a manageable form for later use. This required a few words gasped and a sectioning of my mental capacity as storage, a neat trick I had learned long ago from a Greek sorceress. Human bodies used so little of their brains to function, I had much room to maneuver and compartmentalize. Circe, an unknowing conduit to the sexual energy that had risen around us, sucked in the energy from the air, fed on it, then released the charge back out in waves I easily took into my body.
Humans often misunderstood sex magic. It did not take much ritual or preparation. Simple knowledge, intention, and canny timing were all one needed to siphon energy during sex. An orgasm was a focused expulsion of energy from the body that produced it. Self-induced worked. Partner-induced, particularly with a partner who knew and appreciated a particular body, was even better. And this, an orgasm induced in a new, exciting way at the hands of a caring partner? It was the purest, richest form of magic people can access together on this plane of existence. A few extra words and anyone could harness and store that energy, enough to fuel simple needs. Multiply that by people and number of orgasms, and a handy little store of power could come from a night of sex, one hopefully hearty enough to send me forward in time before the night was over.
After I bound the swell of sex magic to myself, I deepened my kiss, prompted both by the pleasure in Circe’s mouth and the buzz of power crackling inside me. I paused at her tasty mouth to look down as she shook from the force of her spent orgasm, her body a land of tiny earthquakes. A lull swiftly followed, then her eyes jolted open and stared, unfocused, up at the ceiling. Gabriel sat on his hind legs, a satisfied smile on his wet, pink lips, and heat in his cold-colored eyes. I grinned in anticipation. I wanted to chase her tremors with my tongue, but I paused, shaking my head to clear my thoughts. No. Not yet. Could not slip into that desire quite yet. First, a quick test of the energy.
I focused my intention, my being, and closed my eyes to find my connection to the fourth dimension, the plane of time which crossed worlds, pulling the string of past-present-future slightly. I did not have enough power to physically jump forward, but my projection could slip free, find the time and space where I wished to be, where I needed to be to connect with myself and Randy. Light and mass swirled and bent, moving another small part of me forward in time, propelling it with a whoosh and a spark. Then I saw her dancing.
Randy moved with a tall, bearded man, sliding against his hard body as they rocked together to music from the past–a soulful beat very different from the driving, dark music licking my skin in Circe’s apartment. I stared, captivated by the visual of her: long, dark hair skimming the swell of her breasts, a peek of plump flesh at the V of her shirt and the fall of her red pleated skirt, her mouth a moistened and full maroon bow against pale skin, and her eyes closed as her body moved against her partner. And the shadows. They hovered around her, clung to her, moving along with her, a force she exuded without even trying. The sight of her corresponded with the hidden memory of her touch and taste. A taste I would not fully comprehend until I jumped to the future. It made my mouth water and my cock twitch in anticipation.
Randy was sweet shadow made flesh, special in her very own way, close to me but not—something both old and new, which I sensed but did not know or have the ability to name. Someone I could not wait to meet, someone I barely remembered meeting in the future but could not reach from my physical present. Soon, though. Soon. I smiled at her enjoyment, at the ripple of tension in the man’s bare forearms as they banded across her torso. She had her back to him, swaying her ass against his crotch, heat creeping up to put a blush on her cheeks. Oh, how I wished I could be there physically, even as I knew the pleasure I would enjoy in Circe’s arms, at Gabriel’s touch. But they were not her, this being who would one day make me feel in interesting and infuriating ways I would never expect.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes and took a sharp breath. She stared right into my projected form, as if she could see me there in front of her. It should not be possible. My body back in time, I was only a fraction of consciousness hovering. Yet she saw me there as if I had somehow manifested. I smiled at the recognition, and I whispered, out of body, a voice with no source, “Soon enough, sweetling.”
She started, rigid and alert in another’s embrace. I left when I saw the flash of panic in her eyes. No need to give her more fear. She would face much fear in her time. But I was happy to offer her a tease of myself, a memory she could flash to when I was able to cross her path in the flesh.
My being reconnected after hurtling itself back through the decades of time. I blinked back into the exact moment when I had left. Circe, head loose, turned to look at me. She blindly reached for me as Gabriel stood, grabbed her face, and kissed her deeply. I rose up, coming to my knees on the couch, now reaching out for more: more pleasure, more magic, more power. I would wring every orgasm I could from these two, from myself, and use it to get where I needed to be. Back to the black church of the future. Back to her sweet skin.
It was no hardship to spend the remainder of this night with these humans. Gabriel pulled free from Circe, and I moved in quickly. As I palmed Gabriel’s face in my hands, hungrily clashing with his lips, lips which tasted of him and Circe and hot desire crackling across flesh, I savored the moment. He moaned down my throat, meeting my tongue with his own. Our mouths nipped and sucked. Circe moved closer and used her hands to explore both our naked torsos, then grabbed my cock through my pants and gave a squeeze. Exquisite agony, the ache of desire mixed with a shadow of pain, ripped across my physical being, digging itself into all of me. This human flesh had so many enjoyments, so many advantages. It was well worth the constraints in times like this.
When I shifted back, looking from Gabriel to Circe, she reached her hand up to stroke my face.
“You look like a pharaoh or something,” she whispered.
“People often say this,” I replied. No need to frighten her with the fact that I was, at one point in time. “I am a prince of sorts,” I said with a smirk.
“A dark prince of pleasure,” Gabriel replied, moving up to lean hard on Circe, pin her body between his and my own.
“A prince of dreams and chaos,” I said with a joking tone, though it was the absolute truth. I reached for Gabriel, guided his head down along with my own, so we each took in one of Circe’s breasts, sucking and squeezing and licking in tandem.
“Wait. Wait.” Circe gasped and I froze immediately, then pushed off her body. Gabriel did the same. She smiled slyly at us and, with a bit of a wobble, rose from the couch, looming over the two of us left in her wake.
“Come,” she commanded, and we both followed her. “Let’s move to the bed. I want to see what this royal rod can do.”
She slid a hand down my tight leather pants somehow, giving me a long stroke before pulling free to lick her palm. I sucked in a harsh breath at her touch and nodded. Words escaped me. The scent of sex and desire was almost cloying, a thick haze re-forming in the room so quickly even these humans might recognize and respond to the pulse of it surrounding them. Circe turned to lead us down the dark hall, and I did not hesitate. There were things I must accomplish, actions that must be taken, beings to find and hold to account. Not now, however. There was time for such in the future I was returning to.
Time was relative for me, after all. I had been there when all had been dark, swirling chaos, though there was little to remember of then. It had been said I was The Last, the one who would see it all end. Possibly cause the end. I had yet to experience that time, and the Book of Knowing had not revealed those answers, so I could not rightly say. Time had always been fluid for me, nebulous and ever evolving, mixing what I knew with what I had yet to learn. Through this intersecting flow of time, I never witnessed a definitive stopping point. Maybe all would end in nothingness. Maybe time would stretch for ever and ever. I may be able to move through time and space, unlike most beings, but I did not control time or what may pass. Nothing in the universes I knew could do such a thing. No one had or knew such power. However, I did know one thing for certain about time: when it was spent in pleasure, it was to be savored. Always.
Sonya Lawson writes steamy and non-steamy fantasy with sassy, smart heroines and swoon-worthy love interests, all with a twist of classic lit thrown in for good measure.