The House of Flame Lilies Ch. 07

The orange light eddied over files of low benches, draped with cream, woollen blankets with more of the distinctive bright embroidery she'd glimpsed on Vasile's waistcoat. White reams with stitched flowers adorned the beams and two small, modest altars, which were topped with paintings of the humble Christ, blackened by the smoke from more tallow candles in clay candelabras. She wondered briefly which of them Cristian had hidden under to hear what he'd told her. She looked a little longer at the pretty patterns bringing spring into the hall. Sparrow had made the embroideries brightening his own home, had the boy made anything here? The walls were painted with parades of saints and stories, the warm colour of the wood staining them gold. They were fading, as if they were spectral processions returning to the other side. The mournful, lopsided figures emerged in amber orbs as the flame passed them, then distorted and were engulfed again in darkness as she moved on. Round, empty eyes followed her listlessly.

Sandu crept through the space with her senses sharp as arrows. Something was here. Vasile and his lament for the church. Petru and his uncertain piety. If something had begun, it had begun here.Think. If there was anything to be found in a public space, it would have to be somewhere private to the people. Somewhere they wouldn't look.

The copper light spilled over a white-clothed pulpit, small and square with a floral cross embroidered on the front. It had no steps leading up to it. Here, the priest spoke at the same level as his congregation. Except for one thing, one difference between them. A priest could read the Bible. Who else here could say that? Her eyes narrowed on the lectern. She strode over to it, weaving around the benches and coming to stand in the pulpit as if about to sermonise. The Bible lay on the wooden stand, quiet as a sleeping baby. But Sandu itched. She put the candle on the pulpit and the swell of light pooled around the simple, leather-bound book. She dipped her face into the pool and opened it. The text was printed neatly, unembellished save for the first letter of each book, which was a little bolder and seraphed. It was nothing like the gilded, ink-drenched volumes in Skarpo. She turned a few pages. A shadow peeled away on a grey etching across one page of Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount.

Her heart stopped.

Christ's face had been scratched out. Violently. The page was thin and creased where a sharp edge had brutally scraped away his face and left a hollow blotch of white scoring, the pages beneath dented. Sandu pressed her lips hard together and flicked hurriedly through more pages, their musty scent fluttering up her nose. Another image, Christ on the cross. Again his face had been obliterated, leaving his body an anonymous corpse, hanging against a wan, colourless sky. She turned again, faster. The wedding at Cana. Christ faceless. The barrel of once-water wine had been disfigured, daubed over in charcoal. It was now the body of a young woman, ripped open from her breasts to her cunt, her blood pouring from her mangled body and into the cups of the delighted guests. Sandu's stomach lurched. She flicked frantically. It was every picture. Faceless Christ fed the five thousand with the fish changed to bloody hearts. Faceless Christ received the kiss from Judas whose teeth protruded long from his leer and sank into the throat of the Redeemer. Faceless Christ cradled a lamb warped into a black, Satanic goat with a clownish, maniacal grin. Faceless Christ served the last supper to faceless disciples and the food was covered in locusts. Faceless Christ offered his feet to Mary Magdalene to wash and her black hair was lengthened into snaring rope that bound His ankles as she extended a forked tongue. Sandu's chest constricted. Her mouth went dry. She dashed the pages over and over, recoiling from each new mutilated image, the charcoal dust from the graffiti smearing over the words of the Gospels like soot. She heaved for breath, searching faster still, head reeling with the jittering zoetrope of visions. They looked done in a frenzy, heavy-handed and spiked and mawkish, wide, black eyes gawping up at her like triumphant demons gambolling out of the pit. She could almost hear their deranged laughter, smell the sulphur. Her heart pounded. The pages seemed to fly open on their own, hurling the monstrosities at her with vicious glee. She slammed her hand onto the book to still it.

Her eyes went wide.

The final image in the deformed Bible shone darkly in the demonic light of the candle. The Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, cradling the cherub Christ-child in her loving arms as the clouds parted around her and the sun shone from her halo and angels soared at her sides. Once. For it was Mary no more. Staring back at Sandu, with her eyes blazing ruby in the candlelight, was a woman in flowing black with long, black hair that turned to flame. The soft, white clouds morphed into a wreath of choking smoke, the charcoal stains thick on the page, as if the vandal had gone over and over the image in a fever. The angels transformed into flocking ravens, beaks like axe blades. The light of the sun was blocked by the cold grin of a crescent moon. And in her grasping, clawed embrace, the holy baby suckled on her bared breast, biting into the nipple with spiked fangs and glugging blood that flowed from her wax-dead body.

Sandu clutched her throat as it closed in horror and gaped into the face of Hell.

*

Sparrow lifted his eyes from Vestalia's lap and gazed into the face of Heaven. "Tell me what you need. Give me an instruction."

She looked down at him, petting his hair, like he was a lamb in the lap of Mary. "I need to know that you trust me," she replied levelly.

There was a smouldering sincerity in her eyes. Sparrow could feel it pressing on him, hot and urgent, burning away his old expectations, calling his courage. He set his jaw and nodded, holding her bright gaze. She smiled softly. She brushed his shoulder in a gentle signal to lean out of her lap. He obeyed. There was a quiet thrill to knowing her intent from something so subtle, a pride. He knelt straight-backed, attentive, ears pricked. She swept from the armchair in a sapphire swirl, the ripples of her dress turning her to a flowing river. Her diamond necklace sparkled in hypnotic, hot white flashes on his retinas, drawing his eye to the graceful bow of her collar bone. She walked silently to a drawer, long, adorned fingers picking through it. She returned with a black, satin sash laid across her pale palms. She stood over him, towering like a waterfall.

Her canines glinted bloody in the hearth light. "I'm going to blindfold you, Passer. And I'm going to tie your wrists and ankles."

Sparrow's heart hiccupped and started to race.

"You won't be able to get away and you won't be able to see. You will be entirely at my mercy."

He prickled between his thighs and across the back of his neck. He swallowed, lip quivering, staring like a hare into her plaster cast face.

"Your task is only to accept this. You will kneel bound in the darkness and you will not question me, you will not ask what is happening or what is about to happen. You will not make a single sound of fear. You will not flinch. You will not pull away. You will believe entirely that I want only your pleasure. You will believe entirely that you are safe in vulnerability."

Honey flowed in Sparrow's veins, even as his pulse cantered. His cheeks flushed.

"If something feels uncomfortable and you need to shift, you may say 'Bless' and I will pause. But you are not to use that word out of fear. You are not to use it because you think cruelty is coming or because you think I intend to give you more than you can take. You will expect pleasure from this. You will not doubt me."

Her eyes bore into Sparrow's, red as the centre of the earth. There was a howling inside him, the echo of the wild flight, the animal call to be led. He let her commands nestle in his muscles, felt them claim his body, preparing him to prove himself. His cock rose. His shoulders rolled. He sucked his lip and folded into a deep bow on his knees to the floor. He smelled seasoned wood and fresh silk. His nose kissed the rug. He kissed the hem of her skirts. He knelt back up to meet her eye. He nodded.

She stepped behind him and the black satin fell over his eyes. Darkness cloaked him. He was cast adrift with nothing to direct him but the lapping of her fresh, funerary scent. He took a deep breath.

"Undress," she murmured.

He fought not to clumsily throw his clothes away, drawing Cyrus' too-big, heavy garments from his body and dropping them blindly at his side. The hearth warmth ran tingling tongues over his bare skin. He could feel his balls tight as his cock pointed up to her. He shuffled his knees in the carpet to spread his legs. Vulnerability, she'd said. He swallowed and pushed his shoulders back to open his chest, his heart. He raised his face to show his throat.

He heard her fall still. Then the whisper of silk as she bent to him, subtle iron on her breath. She stroked his hair off his neck, tickling. She paused again. He held himself rigid, waiting. Velvet lips pressed to his wound. Sharp pleasure needled his skin, rippling over his throat and shoulder and down his back. He gasped and let his head loll. Her tongue sneaked from her teeth, tasting the last essence of his flavour. She licked over the sore bite and the pleasure spread like swarming wasps, needling his nipples and stomach and ass and scalp. He let out a reedy moan, hands fidgeting on his knees.

She withdrew. He heard her lips smack. "You're a fast healer, Little One. I'm pleased."

The pleasure lingered on his wound, thickening his tongue. "Th...Thank you, Mis... Mistress."

"That's good, Passer. Keep thanking me. Thank me because you believe I only give you goodness."

"Thank you, Mistress."

Silk brushed his feet. She knelt behind him, her hair dusting his back. He leaned back a little, smiling hopefully. She chuckled and kissed his cheek. He beamed, full of moonlight. She reached around him and took his forearms and guided them behind him. Something stroked the delicate veins on the inside of his wrist. The hairs rose chillingly on his body. Rope. A fine, smooth rope slithered around his wrists and coiled, tighter, tighter. It snaked to his ankles and wrapped them too, the cord between the twin loops taut across the small of his back. He was bound in kneeling, trussed like a caught rabbit. If he tried to stand, tried to run, the ropes would hold him fast. His heart began to pound.

"I can hear you," Vestalia cooed in the deep blackness. "I can hear your heart beating. I can hear that you're nervous."

Sparrow shuddered guiltily. "I'm sorry, Mistress."

Her lips padded along the line of his shoulders, left to right, trickling sensation down his back. "No, my treasure, don't be. It takes time. You aren't struggling against the rope, even though you're scared." She kissed his hair and ran her fingertips through it, turning his body to a shuffling deck of cards. "I'm proud of you."

Sparrow moaned. He whined like a puppy and rocked into her kisses, his spine rippling.

She kissed his ear, her voice winding into it. "You look like such a delicate thing, but you are so full of blood, Carissime." Her hands cupped his ribs and ran to his chest, caressing just under his nipples. "You run hot with blood, so hot. I can hear it coursing in you, liquid sunshine." Her hands slipped down to his abs and played on the tensed ridges as he contained wild shivering, wriggling and humming under the touch of her fingers and voice. "It makes you so tempting. It makes it so difficult to spend my time doing anything other than playing with you." She ran her tongue along his pumping jugular. "You're so deeply satisfying, Carissime."

"Oh... I want to be that for you."

Her hands travelled to his cock and wrapped it in a firm grip. Sparrow started and gasped at the jolt of hot pleasure, the ropes tugging sharply. She nipped his ear and began to work him. Her touch was an exhilarating mixture of caring and brutal. Hard, rapid pumps sent kicks of overwhelming want through him, purging him of breath, the sudden shock of violent stimulation whipped his pulse to a frenzy. He panted and wheezed, chewing his lips sore to stop himself from wailing like a shot hawk. His body, quietened by Sorin, whirled into a craze. He turned blisteringly hot, his pleasure soaring too fast to the zenith. He wanted to cry out for her to stop, that he was afraid she would rip his climax from him in a matter of savage moments and cut their ceremony too early. But she had told him not to speak in fear. She knew his body. She trusted him to take as he trusted her to give.

He bit even harder on his petal lip, wrenched the rope taut, and tensed his legs to pine. Just as a warning throb went up his cock, her fingers loosened and turned to satin. She eased her motions into a soft, slow massage, fingertips skating the ridge up his shaft and teasing the edge of his head. She cuddled behind him, letting him go limp in the cushion of her thick torso and the embrace of her strong arms. She held him close and poured her gentle touch over his thrumming, aching cock. The sharp need turned sweet. His head spun dreamily. He dropped his head back and swallowed as he realised with burning cheeks that he was almost drooling into her hair. She rocked him from the rapids to a mellow, surging spring of pleasure. He let out a dreamy drone of desire. She nipped his ear and fastened her grip and sped again. The heat flared as easily as it had ebbed. He went rigid and whined and took her brutality, the pulses in his legs, his abdomen, his ass, his balls, in the grazing of the rope as he strained uselessly to double over and shield himself. Again she brought him to the brink, then balmed him with tender touches, smearing the wetness on his tip over him so her hands moved smooth and sculpting.

He wished desperately that he could see. His cock must be hard and dark as hawthorn. So full of blood, she'd said. He could feel that now, the resounding pulsing of blood in his cock, the rest of his body almost drained, every pinpoint of focus fixated on the undoing cycles of tortuous and tender pleasure. He nestled into her hair and her fat, sweat gumming his back to her breasts. He moaned and whimpered and begged babbling for it to never end. She made that feel peculiarly possible. There was something so blissful in how she controlled the flow of his pleasure. Of course she could make it last forever. Of course she was not subject to the whims of the body. The body was her medium. She wasn't giving him pleasure. She was creating it out of him. He was a deep well filled with endless desire and she was drawing it to the surface to drink.

Drink.

Her teeth grazed his throat.

He moaned raggedly and flung his head to stretch his neck for her. Let her drain him, as long as the waves of bliss kept submerging him. The darkness felt infinite. He stopped stumbling through it and began to swim, headlong in blindness and touch.

She relinquished him without piercing and swept away. The absence was like being plunged into snow. He gulped for air and coughed out a nonsensical plea for her to return, instinctively starting after her, but yanked still by his bonds. He shuffled on his knees, the carpet rubbing his skin, straining to hear or smell her, to know where she was. Was she still in the room? Was she still in the country? She felt agonisingly far away. Distance made no sense in the darkness. He flew into a panic, heart hammering, the tingle left in his cock like the fizz of gunpowder. Should he call out for her? Was that the same as showing fear? Trust. She told him to trust her. He had to prove he trusted her. He trusted her not to leave him blind and bound on the floor. He trusted her to care for him in his vulnerability. He took a steadying breath and grounded himself in the crackle of the hearth. His heart slowed.

"Good Boy, Carissime." Her voice soaked him in wine. "I can hear you calming yourself. Well done."

Sparrow nodded. "Yes, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress."

In a rustle of skirts and a waft of charred petals, she returned to his side. His blood rushed towards her. She kissed his cheek. She kissed the tip of his nose. He opened his mouth to meet hers. She nipped his lip and pulled back. Something cool and sharp pricked his shoulder.

"Mis..." He began to ask what it was.

"Yes, Passer?"

"N-nothing."

She kissed his jaw. The pricking was like a set of needles, a row of fine teeth all denting his flesh. A comb? The teeth pressed and dragged down his back, sensation running into his muscles and pinching his core. He groaned thickly and shuddered. The groan soared into a gasp as she slid to straddle his lap. Her skirts frothed over his sensitive skin. He drooped to bury his face in her neck. Her hair cascaded over him and drowned him in perfume. He huffed in and shuddered in relief. She rested her cheek on his head and petted his hair. She began to draw the comb down his back in slow, rhythmic strokes. The teeth dragged on his warm skin and drenched him in fierce tingling. It spread like sunburn across him and made him squirm, chafing his nipples against the silk of her dress. He whimpered and hummed, the sounds coming muffled as he sucked greedily on her neck, pressing as close to her as his bonds would allow.

She sighed and he felt it roll down her throat against his lips. He drove his tongue into the motion, tasting her skin. She drove the comb deeper. The tingle turned to a scratch, flickers of hot friction singeing his flesh, making him buck and twitch. He twisted beneath her, tethered by the ropes, pinned by her weight, forced down as the claws of the comb made him want to spring up. Bolts of tension seized his waist. His back felt covered in burning fuses. He yelped and nibbled on her neck, like a kitten with catnip, restless and mewing. Vestalia chuckled and kissed his hair. She danced the comb across his shoulders and around his neck and down his arms. She scored his thighs and slipped it between them to prick his nipples, scraping over and over the wickedly sensitive points as Sparrow's chest bounced hurriedly with desperate panting. He lifted his head instinctively to look imploringly into her eyes, but darkness hit him in a fresh wave of confusion. He grumbled and flexed and wriggled, trying to extinguish the spitting fires in his pores. He pouted at her, probably in the wrong direction. He flushed. The lapping heat from the hearth lost its comfort and started to bite. It was almost acidic, his skin was so viciously sensitised.

"Do you still trust me, Sparrow?" There was a testing edge to her lilting voice.

Sparrow nodded hastily, shivering. He felt like a beehive. His nipples were raw, his back was still rolling with tingling even after she spared it.

"That's good," she purred. "Hold onto it. Do you promise me?"

His pulse thudded. "I promise, Mistress."

She kissed him. He moaned feverishly and flung himself into it, a siren island in a foaming sea of darkness and effervescent sensation. She made a deep, triumphant sound in her throat. Sparrow gulped it down. He kissed her with all the fervour of his bound body, thrust everything he had into it. He madly wanted to clutch her with his hands, to squeeze her and pleasure her and feel the contours of her. Restrained, he had only his mouth, so he delved into her kiss. She returned it wilfully, cupping his face and grinding on him. His cock stiffened again, silk tickling the tip, her scent making his mouth water. The tingling from the comb softened, leaving his skin alive and his blood scorching.

And then his flesh was scorching too.