Gargoyle

But the hour was growing too late to continue my explorations. As much as I wanted to stay, I knew I would have to start my flight back if I were to reach the rooftop before sunup. So, with one last look around, I took to the air once more and made the flight home.

The next evening I told Dianne of my adventure, but not of any of the secrets I hoped to find intact. She expressed an interest in seeing my former home, so we made our plans. It proved relatively simple. Every year, the priest made a journey around the country, preaching to the masses who could not come to the church. That time was very near. The church would be closed for the time the priest was away, so no one would miss Dianne if she were to be absent during this time. In fact, it was the custom of the caretakers over the years to take a holiday during the priest's absence.

The evening of the day the priest departed, she was ready, her things packed into a bag she had made that I could strap to my back, out of the way of my wings. We set off and arrived at the ruins shortly after midnight. Before we landed, I pointed out the various outlines and described the castle as it had been. Dianne had a little trouble seeing the outlines, even with the moon overhead, though. We set up a camp of sorts and talked for a while, till she became sleepy. She curled up in a blanket next to the fire and went to sleep, while I prowled the hummocks of earth, looking, studying, placing things in my mind. I was still awake the next morning when she awoke. After 500 years of immobility, I found that I needed almost no sleep for days on end.

After a small breakfast, I showed Dianne around the site of my former home, explaining how it had looked so long ago. I dug in several places; my bestial form suited to the labor with no need of tools. I unearthed some of the building stones of the various rooms on the pretext of showing her the way the castle had been constructed. It had been my family's home for over a hundred years when I was born and had been the prime example of the building arts of the day, when built. Now it was little more than earth covered stones, but I knew there were things still there that the plunderers of the wars had never found. What I was really doing as I dug was finding the landmarks for myself, so I could find those things.

The days and nights passed and we became more and more familiar with each other. I would bathe away the dirt of my diggings in a nearby stream, and we used the original spring that had supplied the castle for drinking water. I was able to hunt and kill a deer for fresh meat. My wings, talon-like fingers, and immense strength were more than a match for the animals of the surrounding forest. Then came the fateful evening.

Chapter Eleven

Dianne and I had both bathed in the stream while on our trip, but never together. But, as I have said, we had become more familiar, more intimate, with each other. So when, at the end of a long day, she followed me to the stream, I at first thought nothing of it. But when I had removed my leather breeks and turned around to discover her also naked, walking into the water, my mind whirled as my penis instantly hardened to a fully erect position. Perhaps to save myself embarrassment, I launched myself into the stream with wings spread, gliding over her head and splashing into the chill water of our deep bathing pool.

The resulting huge splash inundated Dianne, who shrieked with surprise and delight. As I surfaced she pounced on my back and ducked me under again. Laughing, we play-wrestled for a long while, me being careful to contain my great strength so as to not injure her. She finally tired and laughing, she said, "I give up! You win!" She stood smiling, no more than inches from me, and I watched as the playful look on her face changed slowly to one of budding desire.

I was thinking that perhaps this was all just my own wishful imagination when she closed the small gap between us, wrapped her arms around my neck, pulled my face down to hers and Kissed me with an intensity that was borne of passion. Taken aback, I nonetheless returned her Kiss as best I could with my bestial facial features. When at last it ended, I leaned back and, looking down into her beautiful eyes, said, "Dianne, I love you. You saved me from my life of imprisonment, but I have loved you for all the years I have known you. But I am a beast; look at me! How can you feel anything but revulsion and pity for me?"

"I see only the man that you are, darling," she answered, "I see the real you, and the way you look has become wonderful to me. I have come to love your form, so wonderfully graceful in its movements. And I know that I want you. I want you to make love to me, to hold me, caress me, to take me and make me yours."

My poor heart melted to her words. I swept her up in my arms and strode to shallower water, then launched us into the air, carrying her to our camp. I landed and laid her gently on the "sleeping bag" that she used as a bed. Her hands were all over me, caressing and stroking my body, even as mine were doing the same to her. I moved slowly down her body, kissing and licking with my serpent-like, long, forked gargoyle's tongue. At her breasts, I tried to encircle each with it; an impossible task, given the size of those heavenly orbs. My tongue would reach little more than half way around either of them. I sucked on her nipples, drawing them erect, to then be entwined by my tongue. Her gasps and moans of delight were all I needed to know how much pleasure I was giving her.

Continuing on down her body, I flicked at her soft-hard belly and navel with my tongue, coming at last to rest between her thighs. My eyes attested to the arousal of her body. Her womanhood was swollen, open and very wet. I kissed her pouting nether lips and sent my tongue slithering deep into her body to taste her nectar. Dianne cried out in sheer ecstasy, her hands pushing my head closer to her body, her legs wrapping themselves around my head. As I again and again licked deep within her, her orgasm swept over her with all the ferocity of a storm. She cried out, thrusting herself into my thirsty mouth, impaling her vagina on my serpent's tongue. Finally, momentarily spent, she collapsed beneath me, breathing heavily.

Then she raised her head and smiled down at me. "My turn now, Alain," she said. She pulled herself from beneath me and pushed my willing body over onto my back, then slowly made love to my body with her mouth. She kissed and licked her way down my chest, pausing to flick at my nipples, causing me to lurch and twitch at the exquisite sensation, before continuing down, across my stomach and finally to my male member.

Taking it lovingly in her hands she said, "What a wonderful cock!" and lowered her head to encircle it with her lips. She slid down its length, bobbing her head and swirling her tongue around my shaft before lifting her head from it and licking down the underside of my shaft till she was licking my testicles. Looking up into my eyes, she paused long enough to say, "What beautiful balls!" before drawing first one, then the other into her mouth to suck on them, her eyes locked on mine all the while.

I finally could wait no longer. Sensing this, Dianne stopped her tender ministrations, raised her head and said, "Now make love to me, Alain." She moved up to lay beside me and I brought myself over her beautiful body, pausing to look once again at her perfection before lowering my hips and pressing my cock to her entrance. Her legs wrapped around my waist and I slowly slid into her as her legs urged me on, our eyes locked to each others'. Her eyes widened with my invasion of her body, her hips arching to meet me. A groan, almost a growl escaped my lips as I finally was buried completely inside her. Her eyes closed in pleasure, a sigh came from her mouth. Then she opened her eyes again to gaze lovingly into my own as we began moving in perfect counterpoint in the centuries-old dance of love and fulfillment.

After a time we rolled over, still joined, and she straddled me to slide up and down my length. A few moments later I raised myself into an almost sitting position to once more lick and suckle her breasts while she rode me. Dianne again wrapped her legs around me as we moved together, her arms encircling my head, then she raised my head, wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled my lips to hers. As we kissed, her tongue slid into my mouth to dance with mine. My arms held her close as we continued our mating love.

Without consciously thinking about what I was doing, I got my legs under me and stood with her holding me in her arms and legs, her womanhood impaled on my shaft. Then, pulling her more tightly to me, I launched us into the air! Every beat of my wings served a twofold purpose; each wing stroke drove us higher into the air even as it caused my cock to plunge into her, over and over. Dianne was swept up on the wings of another orgasm just as she was swept into the heavens by my wings. Finally, I leveled off at what was probably over 500 feet above the earth and set my wings into a glide.

As I hunched my hips to drive into her warm wetness, each stroke would cause us to first slip downward, then curve back up to stall and begin again. This time as Dianne's passion built I felt my own building with hers, until finally we climaxed together, my balls pumping my seed into her as her vagina pulsed as if to draw everything I had to give further into her womb.

I barely recovered from the most intense orgasm of my long life in time to land safely, holding my darling Dianne to me as my cock began to soften. As I had paid no attention to the direction of our mating flight, I now looked around to find we were over a mile from my former home, in a small clearing. I laid Dianne onto the soft grasses of the small meadow and we both felt my penis soften and slip from her body. I had just started to move off her, my intention to lay beside her, when the pain hit me.

Chapter Twelve

I fell heavily beside Dianne as waves of pain swept over me, causing me to curl into a fetal position in my agony. I could barely hear her voice as she cried, "Alain, what is it?" Then, "Oh my God, you're changing!" At once I knew it to be true. Dianne had given herself so willingly to me, and my five century curse was broken. I could feel my body changing as I was finally transmuted back to human form. Then the change was complete and the pain was gone. My body relaxed from its tightly curled position and I slipped into unconsciousness.

As I slept, Leanna came to me in a vision. She was not as I had last seen her, but rather in the full bloom of her womanhood and power. "Hello Alain," she said as of old, "I implanted this message deep within your mind for the day your curse might be broken. In my last years I found I no longer hated you for what you had done to me. But my powers were waning fast and I could not free you. The Dark Ones resisted me on that part, but I was able to leave you a gift. You will be able to change back and forth from gargoyle to human at will from now on. There will be no more pain, for that was the last of my original curse, to make you suffer one last time. You may experience some mild discomfort, but nothing approaching pain when you shape-shift between forms. Believe me, this is no trick. I have found that even as I hated you for shaming me in front of the village, I still loved you. I will make you suffer no longer. Certain of my powers I give you as well." A smile came to her ghostly face. "But to tease you one last time, out of the memory of the love that might have been, you will have to discover just what abilities you now possess." Leanna's form began to fade as she said, "Goodbye Alain. May you live long and know the love and happiness I always wanted for us." Then she was gone and I awoke.

I opened my eyes to find Dianne's face above me, her features shifting to show relief. I smiled up at her as she stroked my cheek and said, "Hello my love. Do you think you can still love me now that I am no longer able to fly you wherever you wish to go?"

The absurdity of my question caused Dianne to collapse onto my now human chest in a fit of laughter. When she at last regained control of her emotions, we arose and started walking, hand in hand, naked, back to our camp.

Epilogue

In the days that followed, I learned to shift forms. While in my gargoyle body, I used its strength and abilities to dig out the flags of my parents' chambers and lift long unmoved stones that covered the treasures hidden there. The bulk of my Father's wealth had never been found. It was Dianne who hit upon the fact that not only were the money and jewels valuable for their own sake, but the coins were antiquities in very rare good condition. This made each coin, gold or silver, worth hundreds of times what they had been when I had lived in the castle. We moved discreetly. The first of my new wealth was used to purchase a modern identity for me. We sold off the coins slowly, over the continent and in America. I gave Dianne my Mother's jewelry. She wore it when we were married in the church where I had spent so many centuries, where I had first met the child Dianne who was to become the center of my universe.

As to Leanna's parting gift of her powers, I found I could "lean" on a person's mind and carefully bend his will to my own. I used the power judiciously to help persuade people when creating my new identity as a long-lost heir to my family's lands. The fortune that came from selling some of my vast coin "collection" paid to rebuild my castle and to modernize it. We live there today with our two children; our son and daughter. And sometimes late at night, or when the children are away at school or visiting their friends, Dianne and I fly together, her wonderful body carried tenderly through the skies by the huge gargoyle that is me.

Finis