Dreaming of Sin Ch. 12

Synopsis: This is the ninth chapter of an ongoing story. While I recommend reading from the beginning, here is a brief synopsis for those who want to jump right in or need a reminder where we left off: Saliah is a nearly all powerful demoness who feeds off moral corruption, and who had the majority of her powers unwillingly locked away inside an urn. Jack came across the urn by chance and instantly became Saliah's focus. She feeds off him with the ultimate goal of having him free her from the urn's grip. But after centuries alone, Saliah has begun to enjoy Jack's company and decided to be honest with him about what she was and see if they could trust one another. Jack's agreed and told Saliah about a friend of his Emily, and her girlfriend Amy, as he would like a friend a confidant. Emily and Amy will be joining Jack and Saliah for dinner.

Chapter 12 - The Dinner Party

"Wow..." Amy said stepping through the threshold to Jack's mansion. Emily was wide eyed beside her. There was an irony to how little changed over time. Centuries ago, Emily would still have been relying on her youth and natural beauty instead of ornamentation. The simple satin dress she wore was of the modern age but even in Emily's ancestral Korea, fitted, simple, clothes had always been in style. Amy, in contrast, marked herself as a counterculture rebel. Saliah had seen the type worshiping imagined gods, with imagined ceremonies, who's only real effect would be the frustration of the people around her. Which was to say, she was a 'punk rock California girl'. Amy had blonde hair in an asymmetric cut and wore a black denim skirt and a punk band t-shirt.

"It's good to finally meet you," Jack said to Amy, stepping forward and shaking her hand.

"Which bank did you rob?" Emily asked, finally finding words. Saliah shifted her weight, that was all it took, and every eye clicked over to her - as they should. She could hear Jack's heart thundering away in his chest, his anxiety smelled divine. He really was taking a leap of faith introducing her to Emily. Many men in the past had taken similar leaps for her, all had found themselves dashed upon rocks for having done so.

Could this be one of Jack's ideal women? Beautiful? Without question. Unobtainable? Emily's girlfriend made that clear. But coveted? She watched his relationship with Emily play out in her memories. Jack seemed to truly like her, but was the feeling romantic? She could only see Emily's rememberings and those were colored by the girl's opinions, priorities, and attention.

Emily's thoughts in the opposite direction were rather insulting to her Jack. Emily didn't believe he had found a beauty like Saliah.

Saliah's outfit was tasteful, understated, Jack's taste for office-slutty having informed her choice of a tight jacket with low cut blouse followed by a pencil skirt. She was, so far as Emily was concerned, obviously out of Jack's league. A flicker of molten rage glowed in Saliah's chest, but she was supposed to at least give the woman a chance.

Amy on the other hand was captivated. Saliah couldn't blame her. So few, regardless of how happily monogamous they were, could resist Saliah's pull. But Amy had the look of trouble about her. How easy it would be for her to give Jack everything he truly wanted. How hard it would be to keep her word.

"No banks. He simply had the good fortune to meet, and impress, me," Saliah said and offered Emily her hand. "Saliah."

Emily shook the hand offered, and Amy moved in a second later to do the same, "and you're an insanely wealthy supermodel who has a taste for history nerds who work at reference libraries?" Amy asked.

Even if she couldn't have read Amy's mind, the verbal maneuver was so obvious. A compliment for Saliah with a jab at her partner, all meant so light-heartedly. Kings, Sheiks, and Emperors had marched caravans of gold, spices, and art to lay at her feet in less obvious attempts at flirtation.

She bared her teeth in a smile that Jack might one day come to recognize, "I'm a demoness," she said and stepped forward, touching the side of Amy's face softly with the back of her hand, three of her nails just barely grazing against Amy's jaw line. "He's taken a big step, trusting me to meet the two of you, and the condition was I not use my powers on you. I'm supposed to be a considerate hostess. But if you dare insult Jack in my presence again, I'll be sipping your life blood instead of the lovely merlot I've prepared."

"The fuck," Amy pulled a step back. Emily moved over to her side, both backing towards door they had entered through. A door that burst into flames before the women managed a third backwards step towards it. Both screamed and jumped away from the fire, and the flames vanished. Amy and Emily froze in place, neither forward or back seemed safe and they held each other, looking at Saliah with wild eyes.

She smiled again, this time nothing but warmth in the curl of her lips. "I've told hundreds of people what I truly am, and it is seldom an easy conversation. Please, you're both our guests, free to leave whenever you like. That nothing more than the theatrics necessary to prove to you that I am, truly, a demoness."

They both began to tremble, the usual response to confronting reality.

"Jack... why?" Emily asked.

"My dear," Saliah answered for him, poor Jack would have no idea how to navigate this conversation. "You are Jack's friend, and he wanted to take you into his confidence. You're both our guests tonight, and we very much intend for you to fully enjoy the experience. Neither I, nor Jack, has any desire to harm you in any way."

"As long as we don't make you angry," Amy said.

Saliah laughed. "Controlling my anger has never been a skill I cultivated. But, if you try not to slight Jack, I'll practice my patience. Fair?"

"The things..." Jack said, and Saliah snapped a finger, "yes... Let's start the night on a better footing, shall we?

From the end of the marble hall that was the mansion's entranceway, three women entered. Two pushed a steel frame the size of a door. Industrial roller wheels made a hiss as they traveled over the marble floor. The steel frame was covered with plate metal on one side, but as they began to rotate it, the opposite side came into view. On that side was a sheet of glass showing the contents of the frame, a section of brick wall cut from the side of a building. It must have weighed a ton, the frame's wheels made it possible to move, slowly. A spray painted girl, holding a red balloon was stenciled onto the wall.

"Amy," Saliah said. "I understand you're a fan of Banksy, so I got you an original."

Amy's mouth opened and she detached herself from Emily's grip, taking a step closer to the art, leaning in to inspect it. She'd seen a Persian peasant do the same with a mountain of gold. No matter how terrified, no matter how dangerous, wealth always had a draw on some hearts.

The last servant carried a silver tray with three envelopes. She approached Emily. "And Emily, Jack tells me you're a fashionista, and had noticed my handiwork with his suit. Versace, Gucci, and Prada, I've taken the liberty of arranging a dress for you from each of them. I'm eager to see what you think of their haute couture services in comparison to each other." Emily's hand trembled as she picked up the three envelopes, each with an embossed appointment card.

"What's the catch?" Amy asked. "You don't just give people a fortune. What's the catch?"

Saliah turned her head to Jack, "you see dear? Once people know you're a demoness you can't even be nice to them without them thinking you're after their souls." And she turned back to the women. "No catch. No strings. No evil twists. Emily is important to Jack, Jack is important to me. I knew tonight would be, uneasy at first, and these are meant to, set the evening off on the right foot."

"Wow..." Amy said, her eyes pivoting from the envelopes in Emily's hands, to the Banksy, to the reception room, to Jack, to Saliah, and then through the entire cycle again.

"This is one of the better reactions I've gotten," Saliah said to the shocked silence of the room. "Please, think of tonight as if you were in an alien land and simply accept that it will be an experience unlike any you've ever had, or will ever have again."

Natasha, and Kerri, walked into the room. Both women held silver trays at waist height, two wine glasses with a ruby liquid on each tray. They both wore four inch heels, matching back microskirts that barely extended below the curve of their hips, and black, tight, jacket tops that almost matched Saliah's but for the fact that without blouse or bra they could have stepped out of a strip club.

The guests were offered wine first, both accepted, and Jack and Saliah took the other glasses.

"To new friends," Saliah toasted.

"Oh god," Emily groaned the words out, her eyes rolling back in her head as she swallowed a sip of the wine.

"One of the better bottles ever made," Saliah said. It was a beautiful bottle. She could look at the liquid and see the decades that went into maintaining the vines it sprung from, the centuries of tradition and perfection in how it was made, a drop of the life of all who had made it possible. That was what made wine so special to all other drinks, within it was life.

Emily let her eyes close and took another, slower, deeper, sip. Then let out a lungful of air with the slow release of tasting the sublime. "Is this what you were asking me about? With the monkey's paw twisted wishes?" she asked Jack.

He nodded.

"Our relationship has evolved since then," Saliah explained. "Besides, Jack, when did I ever really trick you?"

"Vanessa," he said to her with an amused spring in his voice, and she felt herself calming, it was nice that there was no resentment in the words.

Saliah waved a hand at him, "oh she was nothing.

"Who's Vanessa?" Amy asked.

"Jack's first slave," Saliah answered. Emily and Amy both stopped at that.

"You own a slave?" Emily asked, the moral qualms punctuating each word of the question.

"Slaves," Saliah answered. "Though that's a topic I'm sure Jack wants to seek your guidance on."

Amy's eyes went to Kerri and Natasha, a cunning girl. Amy traced their curves, drank in the two beauties as she sipped her wine without tasting it. Emily would likely have been outraged, if she'd had the free brain cells to pay attention to her girlfriend's gaze.

"You seriously expect me to just... what... have dinner and chat about Jack enslaving women like it was buying a suit from a racist designer?" Emily asked.

A smile turned the corner of Saliah's lips, "Genghis Khan was the greatest warrior to ever live, and when he invaded China, his army swept the land bare. Millions were slaughtered in their path. Why? Because there was no value in farms, or farmers. My Khan valued horses, and horses feed on grass. I convinced him to enslave those peasants. Instead of death, uncountable millions lived their lives and simply paid their taxes to a new master. You would give up the chance to be the confidant of history's newest power simply because you can't speak rationally on topics of moral importance?"

"Darling," Jack said and set a cool hand on her wrist. Relationships. With a flicker of power Saliah could have had Emily offering up Amy as a slave, if only she could read Jack's mind, know how exactly to please him beyond what he was prepared to simply tell her.

Perhaps have Amy claim that they want a child? Jack would likely believe that. But that they would want him to be the man to do the honors? That an orgy would be their chosen method? And it would mean lying to Jack. She breathed out a lungful of kiln-hot air that rippled the light in front of her.

"What is it, exactly, that a demoness does?" Emily asked, and Amy finally managed to pull her eyes off Kerri, eager to hear that answer.

"Come," Saliah said, turning, and waving the party to follow, "let's sit down before conversation gets too deep, feet get tired, and dinner loses its freshness."

She led the way into the mansion's palatial dining room. The fireplace held a happily snapping fire. A dozen candelabras bathed the room in a soft glow. The room's mahogany walls both drank in the light and radiated its warmth back. On the table a half a dozen bottles of wine were standing open, each was barnacled with dust. But every eye but Saliah's went to the centerpiece. A woman, naked and spread eagle was laying on the table, her face was impassive, though beautiful. A delicate nose and red hair gave her the look of the sublime. A banquet of sushi used her nude body as its plate.

"Since everyone here is an aficionado of the female form, I thought I might offer something worth remembering as a place setting," Saliah said and sat down at the place setting's left foot. Jack moved to Saliah's right, sitting at the large, soft, breast. The woman to be eaten off of was at least a double D, and a natural one at that.

Emily hesitated, Amy didn't.

A gentle chuckle escaped Saliah's lips, like the sound of breaking glass, "Don't worry Emily, this girl has been paid to do this, no magic or force beyond the power of remuneration. And she is as clean as the fallen snow."

Emily took her seat as well.

"You wanted to know what a demoness does," Saliah started, and took a tiny sip of wine. "I tempt. I look into the human soul and find ways to let your deepest desires free. You spend your lives imposing order onto yourselves and the world, bottling up your desires and dreams, for endless foolish reasons. When they come out of you there is a release of energy, like steam escaping a tank, and that nourishes me."

As Saliah talked, Kerri moved to Amy's right. She knelt down onto the floor beside Amy, her feet slipping under Amy's chair, her back to Amy's legs, and with a smooth wave of her arms through her hair, Kerri arched her back, tilted her head backwards, and laid the length of her hair over Amy's lap like a napkin. Her head tilted back so far that Amy could see her eyes. Natasha mirrored the motion with Emily.

"Morality isn't meaningless," Emily said, her face flushing, her back arching off her chair and hands rising up to near shoulder height to avoid touching Natasha. Amy, by contrast, ran her left hand along the mane of hair in her lap, then picked up her chopsticks and selected up a piece of Toro sushi that had been covering the nipple of the place setting.

"The girls kneeling at your side. They are slaves, and for tonight they will do anything you tell them to. The girl laying on the table is here voluntarily in return for money. Which is more moral to you?"

"The girl on the table, there's nothing wrong with... not sex work, but whatever this is... So long as she agreed to it." Emily answered.

"It is sex work. You may toy with her body, poke and prod, lick and suck if you like. It has all been paid for and agree to," Saliah explained. Then went on. "What do you do to people without money? Do you feed them? Do you clothe them? Do you house them? Do you care for them when they are sick? Do you invite them in to partake of the joys the world has to offer?"

Emily's arms went down, somewhat deflating, but not done. "There are social programs. It isn't perfect, but it's to give people an incentive to... work..."

Saliah smiled like a viper, "exactly. Work: or starve, freeze, bleed, suffer. Yet if I had simply threatened this girl with any of those things to get her onto the table, you'd object. Your entire society has been created to silently make those threats writ large. What if this girl's father were sick, dying, and I offered to save his life if she did this? What if a doctor offered to save his life for a million dollars? One you praise, one you condemn."

Amy picked up a piece of Sushi from the breast of the girl bare handed, the girl said nothing, and after Amy put the morsel into her mouth she moved her fingers, a grain of rice stuck to them, down to Kerri's lips. Without a word Kerri opened her mouth and gently sucked Amy's fingers. The grain of rice gone, her fingers remained, Kerri's tongue slowly massaging them.

"What would you do to tempt me - if you were going to," Amy asked. Emily shot her a venomous look.

"You don't want to know that," Jack interjected. "Saliah doesn't play nice."

"Why?" Amy asked. "I'm not embarrassed by sex."

"Because when I told you that I actually knew, understood, your deepest, darkest, desires you'd want to know the price. You'd bargain, beg, and spend the rest of your life wondering how you could convince me to give it to you. I'd destroy you with a single idea," Saliah said.

"Would you behave!" Emily snapped at Amy, and Amy rolled her eyes.

"Ok, do Emily then," Amy said.

"What?" Emily snapped.

"Look... Don't I know all your secrets and fantasies?" Amy asked her. Emily nodded, slowly, and Amy went on, "you're basically incorruptible. Aren't you curious?"

Jack swallowed a mouthful of wine and cut in. "Really, this isn't a game you want to play with Saliah."

Emily thought about that. "But it is the game she's playing with you, and I need to understand how that feels if I'm going to help you."

A pop from Amy's right broke the conversation, everyone turning to the source of the noise. Kerri's jacket top had burst open, her breasts swollen to the size of melons. Amy's face was burning bright red, "they just... grew..." she stuttered.

"The more you touch her nipples, the bigger they get," Saliah explained.

"Were you feeling her up?!" Emily barked. Her eyes burning at her girlfriend.

"Reunification of Korea," Saliah said. Emily's head twisted back and forth, an inch at a time, half way from Amy, to Saliah. Saliah's words had hurled themselves into the gears of her brain.

"I'd offer you the reunification of Korea as a temptation," Saliah said. She wondered how Jack would react to that. Would he see it as using her powers, or would he be more interested in the result?

"What are you talking about?" Emily asked, her attention now completely fixed on Saliah. Mortals, you could tell them your powers, but they so rarely bothered to really use their imaginations about what could be done with them. Jack said nothing. Perhaps his interests were not as platonic as he claimed.

"It was going to be the first country I helped Jack rule. It would work, perhaps even better, as a temptation for you, given the ethnic connection."

Kerri had turned her head to face Amy, and Amy's right arm had moved over the woman's face, blocking Emily from seeing Kerri's open mouth, or the tongue that has snaked out and under Amy's black skirt.

"You mean to tell me you can snap your fingers and reunify Korea?" Emily asked.

"Snap my fingers? No. Take over the minds of Kim Jong Un and a handful of top generals so they negotiate reunification and give up power? Yes. Such a foolish way to govern, fewer than a dozen people would be all it takes to unravel the country. I'd been hoping to convince Jack to take power himself, but for you, a simple reunification treaty would be ample reward.

Amy's eyes were glassy, her breathing faster and shallow, but Emily's attention was on nothing but Saliah.

"And what, if I become Jack's slave, you'll do it?" she scoffed.

Saliah reached forward and ran a single finger along the exposed slit of the girl laying on the table, then sucked the finger into her mouth tasting the juices.

"Taste her," Saliah ordered, her eyes locked onto Emily's. Hesitation, resistance, and then Emily looked away and to the girl, her eyes guiding her hand to her sex. She ran a single, manicured, finger along the girl's length.

"Inside her," Saliah instructed, and Emily only hesitated a heartbeat before pushing the finger into the girl. She withdrew it and sucked it into her mouth.

"Mmm," Emily quietly subvocalized, and her eyes opened wider realizing what she'd done.