Night Under the Black Scales

Note: In this story I use italics to put emphasis on certain words or highlight internal monologue.

Note: English is not my first language so I hope there aren't many stylistic or grammatical errors. All feedback is appreciated.

This story follows „Wishing Upon a Green Star" but is self contained and can be read on its own. I recommend checking the tags beforehand.

Life was easier when you had a pretty face. It didn't matter whether you were highborn noble or a simple ragged wanderer when the entire room turned to stare upon your entrance. You could pick up women, strike better deals or even talk yourself out of trouble if you could muster a shiny-enough smile. Some people just had better luck then others in this way.

Kalver wasn't often the most handsome looking man in the room, but ever since his face got the makeover it was due at his birth, his own life just seemed a shade brighter. People tended to be more willing to pay him for a job, more apologetic when something went awry, more keen to start a conversation. But the most glaring difference must have been his luck with women.

Kalver´s previously non-existent romantic life had suddenly bloomed into proportions he would never have guessed before -- which honestly meant it was about average. As if he was trying to catch-up on his wasted youth (though he was only in his twenties) he traveled the world, meeting new people, seeing great cities and sleeping in someone else´s bed every other week. But as time went on and every lover he took seemed to bring less excitement than the one before, it was becoming increasingly clear to him that his encounter with the Goddess also had a significant downside.

It would appear he had gained a fetish. And one exceptionally hard to fulfill at that.

It was a month ago that Kalver had visited the House of the Scarlet Rose. Though the tales spoken about the place didn't paint a good enough picture of the truth and he enjoyed his stay greatly, he was still leaving with his head down. You knew it was bad when the best and weirdest brothel in history could not satisfy your needs. Despite that, the women there were astonishing (and the giantess especially was worth every penny), which unfortunately meant he had spent there most of his savings that night.

The rain was picking up as he rushed into the little cave and dumped the small stack of firewood wrapped in his cloak. His clothes were slightly sodden, but that would be the least of their problems if they couldn't keep the fire burning during the night.

"That enough?" his client asked, finishing the meat they had just cooked on the fire an hour ago.

"Should be," he said. "There weren't many dry sticks left but we only need to keep the fire until morning"

They were in the middle of nowhere, more than a week of travel from the nearest town of Cassandra. His client needed to urgently get to the western coasts and for... personal reasons they couldn't use horses. Every carriage heading there was slow and they had to go around the mountain in the way so the best course of action was to take the shortcut through. Kalver just so happened to be the only one present who knew his way around and he needed to make money. Desperately.

He ditched his wet coat, spread it out so it would dry faster and started taking off his boots. They had blankets for sleeping so it wouldn't be a problem to get through the night in the cold cave. Better than the cold rain at least.

"You seem quite the survivalist," his client spoke again as she threw the bones of the turkey he had shot for them to the fire.

"I had spent some time in the wild."

"Alone?" she asked and coiled up closer to the fire.

"Yes, that's usually how it goes in the wild. You´re left alone to your own resources."

For a moment she looked like she wanted to say more, but then she looked into the fire instead, quiet. Meanwhile, Kalver got rid of every unnecessary damp piece of clothing and settled down on the blanket, feet towards the flames. There seemed to be tension in the air, so he decided to break the uneasy silence instead.

"You never told me why you need to travel to the western coasts so badly." Mainly because he never asked. He respected his clients´ privacy, but he figured they reached the point where this fell under the casual chit-chat.

"It´sss... personal."

So he was wrong. He shook his head. "I´m not pressing. Just thought I could ease the mood a little."

Talassea shifted closer to the fire again. Cold-blooded as she was, nights up here in the mountains were tough on her. They essentially ended up pressed against each other as they slept, no room for privacy or sentiment in the wilds. Client´s safety was the only thing that mattered in the end. He could always charge her extra if he thought her requirements were unpleasant to him. He wouldn't.

She sighed and looked away before continuing: "It´s the dark lamias´ mating season."

That certainly did not help get rid of the awkwardness between them. He regretted his question.

She side-eyed him, probably gauging his reaction. "Go on. I see your curiosity. Ask away," she said in that odd south-east accent of hers. CH instead of K, problems with R, drawn out S and C... "I´m not normally this uneasy, you know? It's not like us to be shy."

"Ehm... soooo, is that like a once-a-year occasion?"

"Essentialy," she said. "The heat cycles do not match up with everyone. But the tradition says there´s a Fertility festival held in the late spring in Dorissa-Tessara. Children are banned from entering the temple during this time. There are dances, performers, ceremonies... people go there to socialize and then inevitably..."

Kalver stared mouth agape.

"Not in the public!" Talassea hissed. "But everybody knows what it is about. It is not a place known for modesty."

He let that hang in the air while he struggled not to say anything stupid. "Aaah, so that explains why you're in a rush. I wouldn't want to miss my one time in a year." Mainly, he thought, because he had been missing out on it for much longer. He didn't want to go back.

She nodded. "The festival should start in about a week and last a month. But most celebrations happen in the first two weeks. That's when most people have their cycles." She shifted around before she continued. She seemed distressed. "It's not like we can only do it once a year, could be whenever we feel like it. But the heat is unbearable. Weeks of constant urge and we´re not even fertile for most of it! Luckily."

"Well, a few more days and we´ll be halfway. We should make it in two weeks at worst if no complications arise. Ehm... I take it you're also part of this majority? If we´re lucky you might make it till your... cycle... starts."

"Too late for that," she said. "It started two days ago."

More awkwardness ensued.

"I... how long does it last? We could still make it if we sleep a few hours less. Or perhaps we could take the mountain range path instead of canyon..."

"It lasts three weeks for me usually. Anywhere from two weeks to a month. I wasted too much time trying to find a caravan on the last minute, but everyone said it's over a month's journey. Everyone willing to take a lamia anyway. I cannot ride a horse, so a guide through the mountains was my last chance. I should have made plans sooner."

"So, pardon my prying, but if it's so unbearable, why bother trying to reach Dorissa-Tessara? I understand that the real thing must have some charm to it, but we´re not exactly traveling in the safest conditions here. If it's so unbearable can't you find a partner elsewhere? Or if you're not into other races aren't there any other lamias stuck out in the east? Ones that did not travel for the occasion?"

"Yesss. The married ones," she responded somberly. "And it's not that I´m not into other races either. Trust me, a lamia in heat doesn't differentiate. It's just... What do you know about dark lamias´ mating?"

"Nothing really," Kalver admitted. "I assumed it would be like with all other races."

"Well, it's not." She pulled her tail under her blanket and curled up tightly into a ball. "It's weird. And rough. And long. And I can't imagine anyone else agreeing to it."

"I think you're underestimating some people´s kinks. I've been to this one place..."

"I know what I am talking about. I have tried. Once. I have never felt so awkward and ashamed and so... vulnerable! I have never seen someone so repulsed!"

Kalver was silent for a moment, contemplating. He thought back to his own first time with the Green Goddess and he had to laugh. Internally.

"I've seen weirder."

Talassea gave him a look through her long, jet hair. He crossed his arms.

After a while she relented. She sat silent for a minute, then she wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders, her front exposed to the fire.

"Did you know we have three breasts?"

Kalver lifted his eyebrows. He glanced to her tight tunic, and to the clear outline of two round shapes underneath it. "No you don't."

She gave him a brief victorious smile, before it quickly vanished again.

"I´m traveling with you for over a week, I think I would have noticed. To be honest, I´m kind of surprised you have them at all, given all the snake parts and such."

"Of course I do. I am not a naga."

Ah, so that's the difference!

"The other one is... it has a different purpose. It´s somewhere else."

Now he was interested. "A breast not meant for feeding babies?"

"Precisely. It is meant to feed our lovers." Another raised eyebrow. "The intercourse is... it´s long. It lasts for hours, sometimes the whole day. Or more, on rare occasions. Point is, no one could last that long, not without nutrition. And since the male is largely immobile, it is also the only way."

"Immobile? I know dark lamias are constrictors but I have never thought about its bondage applications."

"That's not it. During the mating... the man inserts himself completely into the woman."

"That's how it always works though, isn't it?"

"No. The male. Inserts. Literally."

For a while, Kalver was thinking silently, then his breath stopped as realization dawned.

Talassea turned away, facing the flames again. "See? I told you."

Kalver realized his eyes were probably the size of apples and quickly responded, failing to produce a coherent sentence: "No, I just..." He measured her size as calculations ran through his mind. "How?!"

"Female dark lamias are larger than other lamias, but the males are about the same. Like a human with lower body of a great snake. They are also significantly shorter in length and leaner than other lamias."

"It still doesn't make much sense. The amount of... everything needed to even make something like that possible is just... How would you accommodate a whole person and then..."

Talassea faced him again, that gloomy, tired look stronger than before. She seemed to be contemplating something before finally she let her blanket slide from her. She grabbed the edge of her long, red tunic and lifted it up, exposing herself to him.

"Disproportionate" didn't even begin to cover it. Her pink, swollen sex began around where a human´s should, but it was enormous. The vertical slit was easily as long as Kalver´s forearm and ran down below her hips, where her meter-wide serpent body started.

He just stared. He looked up to her face wanting to say something, ask her what was this supposed to mean, but he saw that look in her eyes again. That gloomy, ashamed, indescribable look, but this time its meaning seemed clear as day: Desperation.

"I... I didn't know it was that bad," Kalver murmured.

"It´s not normally this..." Talassea struggled, looking for the right word, "noticeable. The heat, it takes a toll." She let her tunic fall back down again and leaned onto her thick tail, trying to get closer to his eye level. It didn't work. "How long have you been alone, Kalver?"

"What?" Kalver spat.

"This mountain. No one knows any paths through here. No one ever goes here! How long have you been hiding out here?"

She was right of course: no one went into the mountain. Not that there was any particular reason not to, there just wasn't any reason to go. It was barren, a dead end. Nothing of value to find here. For most.

"I'm not hiding anywhere. I've spent some time out of civilization before, that's all."

"That's never all," she said. "There is always a reason. What have you been hiding from?"

"Nothing! Not anymore. It's just... things were a little complicated for me for some time. I'm fine now. Or rather, people are now fine with me, I guess."

She looked saddened. Only he couldn't tell whether it was because she pitied him, or that she didn't hear what she wanted to. She turned away.

"I am sorry, I shouldn't have pried. I just... hoped."

It clicked to him after a moment and he realized his mistake. Kalver shuffled over to sit by her and looked into her eyes. She was half lying down against her own tail and he still had to look up. Her "human" half far outmatched any human he ever saw. It looked more like a half-giant´s upper body stuck to a colossal snake tail. If she had legs instead, she would have been three meters tall at least.

"Talassea," he whispered. She peeked at him through the veil of her raven colored mane, her gleaming, brown-red eyes betraying a spark of deep, uncontrolled lust. He stood on his knees to reach her face and she let him pull her into a kiss. She almost didn't let him go, her long, forked tongue arresting his own in a grip matching that of her coils, her arms firmly around his shoulders. She lowered him down onto his blanket again, slowly, leaning above him while they kissed. He felt her two, watermelon-sized breasts press him down against the ground, trapping him in her embrace better than her tail ever could.

She let go in the end and he stared at her enthralling face, curtains of her hair obscuring everything beyond her. Pearls of perspiration sparkled on her forehead, her hyperventilation rhythmically increasing and lowering the pressure of her bust.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked. "Do you know what you're getting into?"

"Yes," he blurted out confidently. She didn't need to be told twice.

She pulled him upright and enveloped him in her coils as she went about removing her tunic. He laid back against her smooth, hard, onyx scales and she pulled it off in one smooth motion, revealing she wore nothing underneath. Her giant breasts bounced hypnotizingly, her large, black nipples drawing his attention like a magnet. Her deep brown skin was darkening towards her back, her arms and shoulders as black as her scales. Only the pink swelling of her sex stood out against her midnight body.

She leaned over him, beckoning him into another intense kiss. What she didn't account for was that Kalver´s brain had pretty much short-circuited at this point and like a true gentleman, he went straight for her boobs. It seemed to do the trick. Talassea bent over backwards upon the unexpected stimulus on her hypersensitive nipples as a hungry mouth latched on one, a greedy hand on another. They were far bigger than that of an ordinary human, easily as big as grapes, large areolas about the size of Kalver´s fist. For him it meant more area to explore and stimulate as he went about sucking it between his teeth, tongue flicking over the hard knob in rapid up-and-down motions. Given their sheer size, he half expected milk to come rushing out of them, but to his dismay, that didn't turn out to be the case. Not that he would let that discourage him from his efforts.

Meanwhile, his right hand played with her other breast, squeezing it as he could, the hard feeling of her erect nipple pressing against his palm. He placed his other hand on her hip, keeping her close as she swayed with his face submerged in her overabundant, soft fleshy pillows. Kalver then switched his attention to her other nipple as well, pinching and twisting it gently, listening to her moans echo in the gloomy, fire-lit cave. He felt her long tongue trace across his forehead, her wide hand caressing the back of his head and pressing him tighter to her.

They broke off in the end and simply stared at each other, their breaths fast and shallow, tying to keep up with their hearts´ beat. Outside it was dark already, the wind whipping the tree branches, raindrops hammering their tune against the rock.

And for miles around there was nobody but them.

Talassea broken the trance first and started tearing Kalver´s clothing. He quickly undid the buttons on his shirt before she could rip them off and she pulled him out of his trousers and underwear. He could feel her smooth scales sliding all over his body as she held him in her embrace. His rock-hard erection somehow became wedged between the coils of her tail as she slithered around him, feeling him over like she was measuring him, testing his muscles, his build. He became increasingly aware of her grinding motions and unable to stay motionless, he started thrusting between them, slowly. Dipping in and out of her grip, stimulating his rod with her body, he felt her soft flesh give way underneath the surface of glistening, hard scales.

She gradually unwrapped him as she twisted around him like a corkscrew, elevating his manhood to her face level in the process. She licked her lips, eyeing it like he was a prey to be swallowed. In a way he was.

She teased his tip with her tongue, flicking it like a snake on a prowl. He wandered whether she was tasting him or rather smelling him with it. Whatever it was, it seemed to send an ecstatic shiver down her spine, all fifteen meters of it, across the coils around his legs and to the tip of her tail. She was squeezing her eyes shut and when she opened them she had the hungry gaze of a predator in them, her vertical pupils fixed on his penis.

She took it in her mouth suddenly, engulfing it whole like a snake swallowing it´s pray. Her inhumanly large head and mouth meant she could take all of him in at once while barely reaching her throat, because there was no way it had anything to do with his at least more than average length. At all!

He would have freaked out, had she not explained to him that only red and green lamias were venomous, the brown, golden and dark ones being constrictors. Of course, that would mean she could crush him like an overripe strawberry if she chose to but she hasn't so far shown any interest in doing so. He would have trusted her with his life (and in a way he was doing just that) and he barely knew her for more than a week. Traveling together reliant on each other leaves no room for doubt, no matter who is paying.

She encircled her tongue around his member, trapping it in a tight embrace as she began to suck. Her lips were sealed completely and her suction far stronger than he ever experienced with human, or many inhuman women, leaving his dick in a state of near vacuum. All remaining blood left his brain and came rushing down towards his groin, magnifying the pleasure he was receiving. The tongue didn't stay motionless either. Talassea was moving it up and down his shaft, alternately applying and releasing pressure by flexing its muscles. She was effectively masturbating him inside of her mouth without even using her hands.

Speaking of hands, she had hugged her oversized arms around his waist, pressing her face deeper into his crotch as if attempting to take him into her throat. A seemingly futile effort but it didn't prove fruitless in the end after she opened her mouth wider and took his balls into it as well. She used the tips of her tongue to massage them and lick them all over, squeezing them with its coils encircled around them. Kalver was so breathless he almost didn't notice his tip bump into a wall in the back of her throat. It didn't seem to make her flinch. Should have figured snakes wouldn't have a gag reflex.