Dreaming of Sin Ch. 03

Chapter 3 - Secrets and Lies

Saliah had seen better stables. Jack's apartment wasn't fit for one of the Khan's horses, much less a person. She almost felt sorry for herself that she would have to spend time in the dimly lit, dank, cheap, sad, rental apartment.

There was an irony to it, in a way. She had spent centuries living in stone castles with floors that were swept, and scrubbed, constantly yet never clean. Castles that lacked electricity, running water, heating or air conditioning (not that Jack's apartment had the latter). The amount of human effort needed to get her a goblet of water was best measured in days.

Servants had to be educated on basic hygiene for months. Wells had to be dug - not by Saliah of course, but by others over the course of unending weeks, because the rivers were nothing but communal toilets and baths for all humanity. Then special copper boilers were cast. Lead, a common component in most cookware of the age, prohibited. Finally hours upon hours to cut endless cords of wood needed to bring the water to a boil for long enough to be clean. And even then water only came in one temperature: boring. Of course she could use her powers to manifest a goblet of water into existence. But if she started down that road it would be an endless task and bother. Not to mention a horrific waste of power, though that thought hadn't occurred to her at the time. Had centuries in waiting made her stingy?

In Jack's apartment a glass of cool water could be had with the twist of a knob. Yet the water smelled of chemicals, it tasted of something deep and foul, and the entire wall vibrated whenever the water flowed. She would have preferred the well.

There was something exquisite about sleeping on a pile of silk pillows and knowing that they were the softest, smoothest, the most luxurious in the world. And there was something pathetic about sleeping on a stained, squealing, mattress with threadbare sheets. Objectively the perfectly flat and consistent surface might have been better than the pile of silk pillows she had enjoyed with the Khan, but it did not feel that way.

Even the noises were cheap and depressing. In the middle of an army camp the Khan's tent was never silent. Yet the loudest noises were in the far distance, for a hundred yards in every direction no one had dared to raise their voice for fear of disturbing Saliah. Within ten yards of the tent the servants crept instead of walked.

The sound of Jack's neighbor's radio might have been softer than the sound of iron being hammered into swords at the camp's forge, but it was far more noxious, it sounded of a cheapness, of humanity packed closely together because of its unimportance.

Setting this to rights would be a priority. But for the moment there were several priorities.

She smiled to herself as she clicked through Jack's computer. She had played her part well, "oh Jack, while you're out I've head of an entertainment on the computer. You Too? Your Tool? Oh yes, YouTube. Would you show me how to use it?" She'd tortured him for a minute pretending not to understand the difference between play and skip, until she was satisfied he thought she had the computer skills of a septuagenarian.

Once he had gone, it had only taken fifteen minutes to find his porn folder.

Bad sex is defined as two partners, each with their own likes, attempting to use the other in service of their individual goals. It's a dinner where one person wants spaghetti, the other wants cereal, and neither will compromise so one fills a bowl with spaghetti and then the other drowns it in cold milk.

Good sex involves harmony. Both people working towards a common goal.

Great sex requires understanding. Knowing not just what your partner likes, but also why, and playing into their desires in ways they never expressed, perhaps never even thought of.

At some point Jack might trust her enough to tell her what he really enjoyed. Until then... she licked her lips as she scrolled through pictures, and videos. Nipples hardened through the white silk of her dress, and she brought a finger between her legs, stroking herself absent-mindedly as she planned. The gentle tingles of pleasure the action brought helped her think.

On the computer screen women in collars sat kneeling. Large breasted women smiled into the camera as a penis slipped between their breasts. Cum drenched faces forced their eyes open as other women licked them clean.

After centuries of terrible luck, she had finally found some good. This was the next best thing to reading Jack's mind.

Arousal washed over her and Saliah steadied herself with a slow breath of the apartment's dank air. The temptation to rush had already gotten the better of her once. Impatience was a luxury she couldn't afford.

_______________________________________

"This is remarkable," Amanda Carpenter almost glowed as she held Jack's phone, zooming in on the urn's carvings. She pulled her flowing, chestnut, hair back behind her head, pulling a hairband off her wrist and tying it without seeming to think about the motion. Her large eyes matched her hair and glistened with excitement and she tapped the screen with one finger, "you see this character? That's ancient Sumerian and this one," she tapped the character beside it, "this I don't recognize but you can almost taste the influences of Hebrew on it."

"Can you tell what it says?" Jack asked, leaning close enough that the woman's perfume warmed his mind. Professor Carpenter could have been a model had she wanted to. There was nothing overtly sexy about her pencil skirt and jacket, but it was superbly tailored and for some women that was enough.

She exhaled slowly and set the phone down on the desk of her immaculate office. No stacks of papers waited to be graded, no boxes of artifacts begged to be categorized. Even her own collection of true antiques was kept to a minimum, a handful of coins carefully displayed on the wall opposite one of the best views on campus.

"What grade did you get in my class Jack?" she asked, her elbows resting on the surface of her table, gentle hands interlocking their fingers almost to surround the phone.

"B+," Jack said, a note of question in his voice. It had been a while and he wasn't sure why it mattered.

"And where, exactly, did you find this?" There was a sharpness in her soft features, an inquisitive flame that Jack hadn't seen on her before.

"An estate sale in New York. I like to go to stuff like that. I saw the urn, noticed it wasn't oxidized, and thought those carvings had to be hand done, so for fifty bucks it seemed like a good roll of the dice on it being gold."

"Are you in any way related to the seller, their family, anyone else involved. Not just related by blood, but old friends, coworkers, any kind of connection at all?"

"No... Why though?"

"Will you give me their contact information and let me call them and speak with them, confirm the purchase, confirm how long they have known the urn was in their family?" she asked.

"Sure, but why?" Jack asked, again, and Amanda raised a finger, her nails painted a muted red that matched her lips.

"Because the world of antiquities is filled with frauds. A B+ former history student might just think he was smart enough to pull off an interesting forgery," she said and watched. Jack felt like he was on a police show and the detective had just dropped a murder photo in front of him wanting to see how he reacted.

"Honestly, I just need help with the translation," he said, letting her words sink in. "Tell you what. If you help me with the translation, I'll promise not to sell it, ever. When I die, the urn can go to the university and spend a few hundred years tucked away in some basement until they have the technology to figure out if I faked it?"

Amanda's eyes relaxed, slightly. "You promise me you're not wasting my time?"

"I promise, I'm not wasting your time."

"I'd like to actually see it. Where is it?" Amanda asked. Chest swelling with a slightly excited breath in a very distracting manner.

Jack took a few seconds before answering, he couldn't well tell her the truth about what happened, she wouldn't believe him. But the answer didn't make any sense otherwise. "Just after I bought it, something happened that scared me. So I got a safe deposit box for it. I can't get into the details, but that's why I came to you. I'm worried I've gotten myself tangled up in something."

Amanda laughed, her voice like music. "Jack, you had me going! But come on, some mysterious danger and translating an ancient urn will help? Do you really think an Indiana Jones plot line is going to convince me of anything other than you're making this all up?"

"Oh not like that!" Jack had exactly the amount of time it would take between denying, and finishing inhaling to talk, to figure out some kind of plausible story. "If the carvings are real then this could be solid gold. I think someone knew what it was and they want it back from me before I can figure out what its really worth. Not some kind of ancient order of the urn, just a mobbed up friend of the dead guy looking to melt this down."

_____________________________________

The bus ride home was faster than he remembered it being when he'd attended classes on campus. Something about not having to do it twice a day, every day, or perhaps just being able to avoid the rush-hour crowds. Though it might also have simply been anticipation for when Amanda, Professor Carpenter, could get to the translation.

When the door to his apartment squealed open it was the smell that hit him, the rush of sizzling butter and searing steak. Saliah stood, waiting, at the door. Her white robes from the night before replaced with a black evening gown that looked somehow familiar, long black gloves covering her arms from elbows to finger tips. "Welcome home Jack," she said gently. "There were no problems at the bank?" She asked and offered him her hand.

"Oh... No..." Jack said, her grip soft, her hand small in his as she led him into his own apartment, to his own dinner table. It was covered with candles, she must have bought them, or magicked them into existence he supposed. A silver plate waited for him, a crystal wine glass filled with a deep crimson liquid beside what was the biggest steak he had ever seen.

Of course she was asking. He had been gone for six hours on an errand that ought to have taken two. "I wanted to go to the downtown branch, better vaults," he lied. Saliah had told him that he needed to keep the urn safe. Having it translated was his idea and something she didn't need to know so far as he was concerned. Never turn down a magical genie who gets you blowjobs and limos, but at least read the instruction manual that comes with her.

"Good," she said gently and pulled back his chair for him. He sat and took a sip of the wine. Then another, was it wine? He had never had wine that tasted like this. It was deep, dry, dozens of flavors saturated it and played across his tongue.

Saliah smiled and sat across from him. "That," she said as her eyes flickered to the glass, "is THE best wine in the world. Lafite 1868."

"18? 68?" Jack said back. "How? I mean this must have cost a fortune." The realization didn't stop him from taking another sip.

"I conjured it. Sadly, had a bottle actually been saved it would have turned to vinegar by now. But I thought it was time to tell you a bit about my powers, let you know about me, and hopefully learn a bit about you," she gave him a coy smile. "Think of this like a first date... The difference is that I'm not a regular woman and you don't know, you can't know, what will impress me, offend me, interest me, or annoy me. So please, just be yourself, be honest, and if you and I don't get along let's have it happen because of who we really are, not because of trying to pretend to be someone else."

Jack took a bite of the steak more to buy himself a few moments to think than... It exploded in his mouth. Butter, juices, a cascade of flavors and salts and seasonings that said without any hesitation or question that this was the best thing he had ever put in his mouth.

"Yes, it is good isn't it," she said and eased back into her chair, breasts slowly rising and falling with her breath.

"Conjuring objects like gold, diamonds, steak, are easy. Creating semi-animate objects is much harder. Conjuring life is impossible," she explained.

"Semi-animate objects?' Jack asked.

"A slave girl for example. Not really alive, but able to follow simple instructions. A simple robot of flesh if you will."

"Like the brunette?" Jack asked.

"Ah... I see why you would think that. She had more soul in what she did than the creatures I'm talking about. But she wasn't that far off. She was made with my second kind of power. And there's something very important you need to know..." Saliah inhaled, picking her words carefully.

"I owe you an apology. I broke your trust and deceived you. I was worried you would hold back or say no, and it was important to me that I learned quickly whether we had a chance of working." She let her eyes drop, her lips tightening ever so slightly in feigned regret.

"What did you do?" Jack asked, concern infected his voice.

"I pretended not to know how to use a computer, I wanted to see what your sexual tastes were and thought you wouldn't tell me the whole truth if I asked."

Jack felt his face flush, "you snooped through my computer..." he said slowly, piecing the words together.

"I did. And, if you're worried, I was happy with everything I saw. Everything. The important thing though is why I did it. My second power is that I can read, and manipulate, minds. Just not yours. The bond we share blocks my power from working on you. I also cannot lie to you. Half-truths, yes. Tricks, yes. But every sentence I say to you cannot be technically, factually, incorrect."

A noise, somewhere between an exhalation and whimper came out of the depths of Jack's lungs. "So you're a nearly all powerful magical being and I'm a poor mortal man. And... the question is whether we make a good couple?"

Saliah laughed, teeth reflecting candle light, eyes sparkling, "may I tell you a secret about life? No one judges us in the way we judge ourselves. You humans have built up this world full of hierarchies and rules, but if I sent you back in time and let you pick between spending your time with a roman emperor, a pope, or Helen of Troy, tell me you wouldn't be more interested in her beauty than Constantine's ego. Why is the man with the most seashells, or pelts, or horses, more interesting than the one who wrote the first poem, or dreamt of exploration? Every man has a passion Jack. I look around you and I don't see a passion for food, or drink, or smoke, or even money. I see a passion for sex. Which happens to be my passion as well."

Jack said nothing as Saliah rose, her body warmed the air from across the table and she walked towards him. Her left hand found the back of his neck, electric shocks of pleasure coursed along his spine with every scratch of her nails on his neck. Her right hand dropped into his lap without hesitation, and he was in her hand a second later.

Stroking him gently, slowly, his mind flooded with wave after wave of pleasure with each stroke of her hand.

"I got you a present," she whispered into his ear, her lips brushing the side of the ear lobe, her words were hot and moist. Had she pushed, even slightly, he would have cum right then. Instead, she backed off. Just enough to let the fog of pleasure clear.

Saliah's hand on the back of his neck felt the way the muscles of his neck twitched, tensed, and relaxed. Her hand around his manhood felt the pulse of his heart, his rigidity tensing, and waning, and she balanced, holding him on the edge, slowing down her strokes as she let her words bring him near climax instead.

"I brought you the ticket girl from the train. I made a deal with her to enhance her beauty in return for her pleasuring you tonight," she said, feeling his body tense under her, Jack tried to thrust up with his hips, desperate for another half an ounce of pleasure to push him over the edge, but Saliah knew it was coming and tracked his thrust with her hand.

"She's in the bedroom, wearing her uniform, her mission to get you to say that you forgive her. She'll do anything for you to agree Jack. Anything," she whispered into his ear, having to take her hand off his throbbing, engorged, penis completely or he would have cum right there.

"What...." Jack's heart was beating too quickly to truly let him speak. His body more explosive than solid mass. "... if I don't? Forgive her I mean."

Saliah smiled, "so much the better if you can ask her to do something that she refuses. A deal's a deal and you'll save me keeping my end if you can get her to refuse you something."

If Jack had the moral constitution to turn her offer down, he'd lost it with the first dozen strokes of her hand. He made his way to the bedroom with an erect eagerness. Saliah leaned back on Jack's stained couch, her hand squeezing her breast, a finger buried insider herself, and gasped as wave after wave of power flowed into her from the bedroom. She could hear the sucking, slapping, groaning sounds of sex. But it was the corruption, a deep electric wave of power that pushed her into her own orgasms. There had been a time when putting an entire city to the sword had barely given her one shuddering wave of pleasure. After hundreds of years of deprivation her nerves had become sensitized. What little power came from a single woman's deception and use felt like the richest meal she'd ever had.

___________________________

What a man her Khan had been. She had been so furious, and then so scared, that for centuries she couldn't admit it even to herself. But she finally felt like she was back to her old self, and could give credit where due. Yes, her powers were still obscenely, dangerously, maddeningly low. But they were finally building again. And whether she was days, or weeks, or months, or years, or even decades away from getting the Eye back, its return was now inevitable. And so, she could finally step back and appreciate the man, her Khan.

To think that he had come so close to defeating her. An ant that had nearly killed an elephant. She drifted through the ether more at peace than she could remember being. A good meal, and centuries of worry finally lifting, conspired together to relax her to an indecent degree.

She hardly even heard the fight start. Though perhaps that was a lie. More Saliah simply did not want to return from her blissful rest. The slight disturbance almost irrelevant compared to the blanket of pleasure she was wrapped in. But truly perfect moments are nature's most delicate creations, and the tiny buzz of discord was enough to ruin it.

"I did everything though," the ticket agent's voice carried though the paper thin apartment's walls.

The living room pitch black, Saliah walked easily to the bedroom. What was it about the middle of the night that made men wake for second helpings?

Jack looked embarrassed for a moment as their eyes caught. He was standing at the side of the bed, nude, thrusting into the ticket agent, her legs over his shoulders. Moonlight cut a square of pure silver light on the bed, illuminating the room. But the smell of sex was thick and dark in the air.

Saliah couldn't help but take a moment to admire both their work. The ticket agent, Jackie, had woken up the previous morning a slightly frumpy twenty-five year old dreaming of her high school days. Beauty was one of life's most expensive commodities and Jackie had thought it free. She'd neglected her diet, skin care, exercise, and indulged in drinking into the evenings. The result was that a girl who had been stunning had turned into a woman who was merely pretty and filled with regrets.