Dreaming of Sin Ch. 04

Note to readers: This is the fourth chapter in an ongoing story. Chapter 1 is a prologue to the main events to establish the demoness Saliah's back story. Chapter 2 is the introduction to the main character Jack, and how he becomes entwined with Saliah. Chapter 3 is the start of their journey together. I would strongly suggest beginning with Chapter 1 if you have not already done so.

Chapter 4 - Quid Pro Quo

"You fucking pervert!" Jackie's screeches made the thin walls resonate with their noise rather than echo. "After all this! You were just fucking waiting, weren't you? You sick fucker, you knew I wouldn't say yes to that, so you made sure you had your fucking fun first!"

Saliah wondered what Jackie would focus on. Humans were so entertaining in their one track minds. She could rage at Jack, pull on her clothes, try to clean the dried semen from her face, or use her phone to call a car. She tried to do all four at once, as humans will, and managed none of them effectively. The sting of her screams were almost comical from a woman with one breast out of its bra, and a porn shoot's worth of cum on her face. The phone in her hand stopped her from getting her clothes on. A wet towel dripped onto what clothes she had managed to arrange.

Of course, Jack looked mortified. Even Temüjin had told himself that his tens of thousands of "wives" would eventually thank him for giving them strong sons, for sparing their lives, for saving them from being slaves to even more sadistic men. But he was very careful to never ask them about their thoughts on that logic, he never even said it aloud to her.

"I hope you fucking die, you perverted bastard!" Jackie slammed the apartment's cheap door behind her, finally.

There were leaf's of paper with more color, "Jack, come here," she said, gently, waving for him to join her on the couch. On the television a wolf stalked an elk through a winter forest. Life would be so much simpler if she fed off guilt. But not even the ghouls that consumed despair would touch guilt. It was a cheap emotion, endless in its supply, and thus worthless. A massive lungful of guilt escaped from Jack as he fell onto the couch beside her.

"What would you like me to do about Jackie?" she asked.

"What can you do? I mean... fuck. I'm such an asshole."

"I can do anything you want Jack. I can have her back here in ten seconds pleading with you for another chance, desperate to do anything you want, with her ability to say no, or even to think of refusing you, permanently erased from her mind. I could have her come back here as a mindless automaton, a doll that follows any order given. I could have her suddenly realize that she loves you. Or that she can't lose her looks and has to try again. Would you like her on her knees apologizing for this morning?"

"Just... leave her alone, ok? We've done enough to her already," he said, head drooping and eyes not seeing.

"You see that elk?" Saliah asked, the screen showed it all. The snow red with blood as the wolves tore the animal apart, flesh stretching and ripping. "What was the point of its life? All the foraging for food it did, all the years it avoided slower, less clever predators, it all brought it to this moment to be a meal for those wolves."

"I'm not a wolf," Jack said. Temüjin would have despised how soft men had become. No man would have denied being a wolf in his empire. A smile played across Saliah's lips as she imagined the murderous fights that would have erupted had one of her honor guard accused another of 'not being a wolf'. Those words would have ended a life as surely as the sun rose.

"You can't even fathom what you are Jack. You have what, perhaps fifty years of real life between childhood and invalidity to actually live. I've had books, masterpieces, that waited longer for me to read them than that. I saw the pyramids being built, then crumbling. In Jackie's entire existence nothing as unique and interesting happened to her as meeting you. Whatever flickering moments in which she is part of your story will be the greatest lasting contribution to the universe she ever makes, or could ever hope to make."

Jack inhaled to say something then stopped himself, a wave of white-hot rage flashed through her that she would never know what, instead he said, "I just feel guilty. She didn't deserve... that..."

What she wouldn't have given to be able to see into his mind. Without subtle tricks, she was left with only the blunt, and slid off the couch, moving onto her knees and slipping between Jack's legs. Her large breasts, held snugly in a black spaghetti strap top, rested on his lap. She could feel him through the thin fabric of his pajama pants. And he could feel her, every pulse of his heart confirmed it.

"I don't want you to feel like this," she said, and moved her breasts, gently grinding them against him as he hardened. "Let me take care of you, guilt free, after all, this was supposed to be our date and I never got to show you how much I enjoy your company."

She didn't wait for a reply, instead freeing him and lifting her top just enough so that she could slide him between her breasts. It took only a moment to do, and any thought Jack might have had of declining was squeezed away by her breasts as she bounced them in his lap slowly, feeling his pleasure rising.

"You made me a bit jealous, fucking Jackie like a stallion," she purred as he used her breasts to squeeze his dick, the head popping from between her cleavage with each stroke. "I meant her to be a gift you could enjoy completely, sate your revenge and lust at once. But I understand what you're saying. She wronged you, but... Would it have been better if she was a terrible person? Someone who had escaped punishment? Someone who deserved to have terrible things happen to her?"

Jack liked that, imagining Jackie as some kind of criminal who had escaped justice. Whatever he did to her fair recompense. It wasn't exactly his best logic but sandwiched between the best breasts he had ever seen, he wasn't in much of a position for logic and let himself be carried with the fantasy.

"What if I found you someone like that?" Saliah asked, Jack's pounding pulse guiding her pace. "Someone deeply evil, someone who'd gotten away with it, someone who deserved it?" she asked.

He needed to cum. It wasn't that he wanted it, or was close to it, he needed it. "Fuck, that's hot... Someone hot too," he said.

"Of course. The hottest, worst, woman there is. All yours," she watched his eyes close. His head fall back, he was trying to focus. Perfect.

"One condition. You let me make her into your slave."

"Oh FUCK! Yes! Fuck!" Cum pulsed up nearly a foot into the air as he gasped. Saliah, trying to make a good impression, waited until his orgasm ended, until the last twitch of his dick between her breasts had subsided, and before Jack could say anything, before he could parse out the difference between conversation and orgasm, Saliah vanished. She had some shopping to do.

"Oh, fuck!" Jack said as he realized what he'd said.

"Oh, fuck!" he said again, seeing the mess that covered his pants, the couch, and floor.

__________________________________

She always enjoyed shopping. There was a simple pleasure in having a specific covetous desire to sate and setting out with a plan to satisfy it.

It would have been easier to lie, though that was a tautology. But every lie she told Jack was a risk, and risks required justifications. And here there was no justification save impatience and laziness. Lies were not needed because of the single most universal truth of human civilizations: wealth is not allocated based on morality, usually the opposite.

When shopping for real estate it's true what they say, location, location, location. Saliah started with a neighborhood. Almost a hundred mansions arrayed in an undulating line that followed the river. She walked the sidewalk, drawing interested glances from men publicly masturbating by proxy, soapy cloths stroking the length of their powerful, phallic, sports cars. She was out of place, high heels and black cocktail dresses did not often stroll sidewalks. But one had to walk the land to know it.

Each one of the mansions was undoubtedly more luxurious than anything her Khan had ever possessed. Each designed by an architect who had spent a lifetime learning his trade. Each with running water, central heating and cooling, inground pools and hot tubs, and jacuzzi baths ready at a moment's notice. Each with refrigerators stocked with foods from around the world and always in season. And yet they were all laughably inferior. Her Khan's tent had been a palace to which all power for thousands upon thousands of miles in every direction flowed. One could not even set foot in the royal city without invitation by the Khan. These homes stopped a hundred feet from their front doors. Luxury without power. Absurd. No wonder they all demanded approval and attention, her Khan would not have been caught dead cleaning his own stallions, no matter how magnificent.

But in ignorance came opportunity. Jack would be impressed once by luxury, and then impressed again by power - when the time for that came.

Another thing that seems independent of wealth: taste. Saliah didn't bother with the gaudy houses. After Jack's apartment, she was done with compromising. The first house to catch her eye had a Victorian styling. There was restraint in that and, more importantly, it had a wide lot, the neighbors set further away than other homes on the street. Privacy would have its uses.

An iron gate barred access from the street. It was an absurd device, even one of her honor guard would have been able to force his way through it, a child would have been able to climb it. She pushed it open as she walked, as though it had not been locked, and knocked at the house's door.

A woman answered. "I noticed your gate was broken," Saliah said with a smile and turned away. Plastic surgery was horrific. That humans could fool themselves into thinking it attractive was beyond her. Though she supposed it had saved the woman, destroying what she had hoped to enhance.

The second and third homes went much the same way. An old woman answered the second door, and a woman who would barely have been a bronze woman answered the third.

But patience is always rewarded. The fourth house was just right.

_____________________________________

There were several good reasons for Jack to stop at Professor Amanda Carpenter's office. First, she had texted him and asked him to come in and see her. Second, it was on the way to the address Saliah had asked him to come to. She had named a time, telling him that she had some preparations to make before his arrival. But lastly, he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts any longer than he had to be.

The 'Jackie Incident' was almost too painful to think about. He'd been horny, and maybe, maybe, she had deserved to have some kind of trick played on her. But not what had happened. She had said yes, he hadn't forced her to do anything, but it was all a trap. In a twisted way though Saliah had even kept her word. She'd goaded Jack into taking things too far and Jackie stormed off - as she should have. Heads Saliah wins, tails Jackie loses.

He'd just been too horny, too worked up, to do the right thing. And she had been so beautiful. They had both been. He'd read something once. Where he couldn't remember, nor the exact words, but the sum was that life was a story and good people could do bad things, but it was all about the ending.

"You look tired," Amanda said as he entered her office. It was just as pristine as it had been when he was a student.

"Yesterday was a bit insane," he said. "So, what's up?" he fell into one of her guest chairs and she sat down behind the desk, crossing long legs under a pencil skirt.

"Well two things. First of all, I don't think that you, or anyone else, faked the urn."

"Well, good to be believed. What convinced you?"

"Poetry," Amanda said with a sparkle in her eyes. "From what I can tell so far, the carvings are written in poetic phrases with rhymes and symmetry and flow. It's one thing for you to look up the Babylonian word for fire, it's something else entirely to know that it rhymes with the Mongol word for dog and to incorporate that into a poem. There are, maybe, a dozen people in the world who could have done this, it would have taken them years, and they all could have forged much simpler things with much less risk."

Jack exhaled, at least he had an ally. "So, what does it say?"

"I still don't know that. I've got a half a dozen phrases translated, but like I said, it is a poetic form. It would be like trying to figure out what a song is about because you know one or two lines. If I said 'some like it hot to a fever pitch', and 'but she's got something new,' would you even know the song, let alone what it's about?"

"What was the second thing?"

"I know the whom. The urn holds someone called Saliah. Her name's repeated again and again in different languages. And there's a title, or perhaps its part of her name. This is a bit trickier. The most appropriate translation is probably 'corruptor', or 'temptress,' but literally 'devourer of sins,' or 'eater of wrongs'."

Jack felt the floor drop out from under him. One part of his brain, a small, social part, the part that would feel embarrassment if he threw up on Amanda's desk, saw the look of pleasure on her face morph into concern as the color drained from his face and he slumped down into the chair.

But the rest of him was falling, falling, falling. He was already caught up in her trap. She was already feeding off him. She already had shown him that he would do things he knew he shouldn't.

But he hadn't known... What? That she was getting off on their adventures as much as he was? That she had her own agenda? That what he had done was wrong? He'd known all of that - and yet he hadn't been able to resist Jackie.

"Jack? Jack?!" Amanda's voice rose into shock as he stumbled out of her office. He was lucky he made it back to his car without being hit as he wandered through city traffic dead to the world.

__________________________________

"Your destination is on the right," his cell phone said from the passenger seat of Jack's car. He'd turned the volume up slightly higher than he might have liked so that he could hear over its off-balance engine, and rattling door panels. The car though wasn't the only impediment to Jack's hearing. Mansion, after mansion, after mansion, each grander than the last.

"That place??" he asked himself, his eyes like saucers at the sight of a building more befitting the English countryside than a residential sub-division. It didn't have towers, but was four stories tall, white brick, and every window arched up into a peak, the glass custom made. It was a house for guests and entertaining more than family.

Saliah stood at the end of the driveway. The front gate, an iron and ornate affair, was open and Jack turned in, his car coming to a stop in front of a five car garage built into the east wing of the structure. Jack was happy with the small bit of luck he did have as he twisted the keys in the ignition and the engine more died than shut off. Saliah would believe his excuse of car troubles for his late arrival.

She moved over, her body swaying like the silk slip of a dress she wore, and she climbed into the passenger seat. "Before we go in, I have a gift for you," she said and handed him a long, wooden, box. It was like something a millionaire would keep a half dozen Rolexes in and Jack was just surprised he hadn't seen her holding it when she walked across the car, though in fairness when Saliah walked wearing a dress no one could watch what was in her hands.

He tilted the lid open. Inside five rings sat in a line. Each had a simple gold band and a bright jewel the size of an almond. Each jewel was a different color; an opaque white, a crystal green, a royal blue, a vivid purple, and a crimson red.

"They're beautiful," Jack said, he had never been one for jewelry on men and certainly nothing so loud. But they were probably priceless.

"Oh, my dear Jack, had I wanted something to please your eyes I would have talked to you about them. These are functional, not aesthetic. Last night you and I struck our first bargain, and to commemorate that, I wanted you to have something special. Before I told you that you were the most powerful man in the world, well it's time you got a taste of that power. These five rings are enchanted. With the exception of the red ring, I won't know if you use them anymore than I would know if you used a tap or a stove. They all work the same way, you simply press the jewel against the bare skin of another person. Only the briefest of touches is needed." She put her finger onto the first ring, the opaque white stone that looked very much like a shaped pearl.

"This ring has a truth charm. For one full day its subject will answer any question you ask of them with total honesty unaware they are doing so. This ring..." she said, moving her finger to the next stone, it's green depths seemed to sway like the canopy of a forest, "will erase the memory of its subject. Touch them and 23 hours after they are touched, the memory of the previous 24 hours will vanish from their mind like a dream."

She didn't seem to be at all concerned, or affected, by touching the stones. Though perhaps she was doing that on purpose to make a point, and set her finger on the blue stone. "This one increases arousal. I'll let you see for yourself just how dramatic it is. And this one..." she touched the purple stone, "will put the person it touches into an unwakeable sleep for a full day."

The only ring left was the last one, the crimson stone. "And this one... It will summon me. Take care in how you use it. I won't know whether there is an emergency and I do not intend to take any chances with your safety."

Jack looked over the rings slowly. She was toying with him, tempting him. It was a good temptation. What would she do if he didn't use the rings? What would she want him to do now? He wished he had more time to have thought this all through.

"I can use these on... anyone?" he asked, trying to let a bit of awe into his voice.

"Anyone at all. An actress, a whore, a woman jogging down the street," she said.

A cold tingle ran down his spine. His porn collection. Actresses, hookers, cute girls in yoga pants and sports bras. She'd seen what he liked, thought about it, and wanted him to know that he could have his fantasies.

"But..." she said softly. "If I might make one suggestion. Every man has at least a few women in their minds who are special. I'd like to know who yours are Jack. I'd like to know everything you've imagined with them. I'd like to help you make that come true exactly the way you want. No compromises, no half-measures limited by the rules of these rings, I want you to have your dreams."

The wave of hormones released from that was like lowering his brain into a vat of warm chemicals, and she could see it on him, he was sure of it. "Other than the red stone, I won't know what you do with these. So, I won't know to be disappointed if you want a... spoiler..." she said and kissed his ear, sending an electric surge through every pleasure point in his body.

"Now... I put some time into this and want to show you just how much fun we can have together," she said and got out of the car, her nipples firm and pressed against the silk of her dress.

When they reached the mansion's entrance, a twelve foot tall set of double doors that was wide enough for two horses to ride abreast through, Saliah stopped, looped her delicate arm through Jack's and whispered into his ear, "I want you to remember this moment. My promise to you, by the time this year is out I'll find you a proper palace that will put the same awe into you then as what you are about to feel now," she said, and without touching them, the doors swung open.