“The Offering”
by Jennifer Williams

“Fuck,” I whisper.

His magic sings across my skin as my eager cunt pushes on empty air. My body is pulled taut, bound in iron round my neck, wrists, and ankles. Not that I need it. I’m exactly where I want to be. The room is dark and I imagine it is cool. I can see the shadow of damp stone walls surrounding us and I smell the must of neglect and decay.

He stands before me, tall and lithe and stern as always. His long dark hair is parted to one side and his eyes almost glow in the faint light. The light. Oh, that light. The manifestation of his power. I see it swirling all around him, an extension of who he is. It glows red against the black of his jacket and makes the white of his collar flash like a warning.

I gasp when I feel his intention slide between my legs, ghosting along my spectral sex. Spectral isn’t the right word though. I exist. Just not in the same realm. No. I am tucked away, saved especially for nights like this. Nights when he needs me, when he needs what we have to fight the monsters of the world. The real monsters, not the kind he thinks he is. He tells himself it isn’t a violation of his vows so long as we don’t actually touch.

A bitter laugh brews deep within me but is quickly squelched as I feel him probe at my entrance. His energy pulses, a phantasmagorical mockery of the tongue that once used to lave me into oblivion. My desire drips like cut fruit, spilling onto the cement floor. It hisses as it crosses the barrier between my world and his. Stark evidence that we could touch, if he let us. But his sanctimonious ass would never allow such a transgression.

Even now I can smell the blood on him. He’s punished himself in advance of this sin. Reparations for what is to come. I reach out my own energy. I can’t touch him the way he can me but I can sense things, smell things, sometimes even taste. And sure enough his back is marred with fresh welts, bloody and pulsing with pain. He calls it Discipline. I call it Kinky.

“Mara,” he scolds, lips tight in concentration. His arms tense and I am enraptured by the expanse of exposed skin from his pushed up sleeves. His muscles flex beneath the straps of his knife sheathe and I moan thinking about how those strong arms used to feel roughhousing me into submission.

He uses this opportunity to enter me and I gasp audibly. The sound echoes around the small room and I sense more than see his eyes slip closed, momentarily drinking the sensation in. But then they open, and he is looking at me with fire, with a hunger that only I can satisfy. His magic flares and he fills me, pushing me to my limits, stretching me more than my mortal form could ever take.

“Fuck”, I whisper again. I am sweating and slick all over and I throw my head back as I relish the feeling of being filled by him. It’s not the same as our true flesh mingling. It’s better and worse and wrapped in the game of this push and pull we play.

“Father,” I whisper. That’s not his name, of course. But it does the trick. My binds tighten and his anger flares across my skin, white hot and sharp like his knives. He begins to fuck me in earnest, his pace unrelenting and I take his punishment gladly. I am keening in the darkness, muscles stretched and back arched.

The magic between us is building, that unique amalgam of energies that got us where we are today. Him in his world, and I, cast into this one. It fills the room, threatening to burst forth. Which, of course, is the point. When we are done he will drink his fill, and replenished, take his leave until the next time he has need of me.

“Aidan.” That’s his true name. I’m not sure if I’ve said it or thought it. All that I am is coiled deep and thrumming between my legs and low in my belly. Nothing else exists. Not the stars in the sky. Not the air that he breathes. Not these four walls that contain us. Only the feel of him, bruising and rough, ushering me to the precipice of a shattering orgasm.

“Yes,” I hear him whisper.

My eyes open, lust—gorged slits in the darkness. His breath is coming hard and fast as he watches me with his own hooded eyes. His skin is slick and sweat—beaded and I long to taste him. His eyes slip closed and my gaze lowers to his belt. Sometimes I miss that most of all. The way he would wrap it around my neck as he took me from behind.

“Stop.” I hear him dimly, like the faint cry of an animal in the nighttime you aren’t sure is real.

My attention is locked on the shadow of his cock straining against his tight leather pants. Those are new. I long to run my tongue along that bulge, to taste the earthiness of the leather and to feel its softness against my skin. I remember the taste of him in my mouth, and the way he would twitch when my teeth grazed him…

“Stop!”

All at once his magic is on me, fiercer than I’ve ever felt it before. I am struck blind by both his anger and his lust. He is everywhere and nowhere. His phantom mouth upon my own, his teeth biting possession into my skin, his fingers clawing at my hips as he angles me just so. He fucks me to the precipice of my orgasm, exerting control once again.

I am trembling and senseless when he gives the command.

“Now.” His voice is low and strained but still, I hear the whisper that follows. Some long unused language only he knows and I am undone with those words. My orgasm erupts and I scream as it quakes the room. I am only dimly aware of the light that fills the space. My light. My life force that he takes into himself and uses to fight a war no one knows about. A gift I would gladly give in the flesh, but one he will not allow.

After, I am crying. Because it isn’t enough. Because I want all of him. Not this charade that we play. I want to run my hands through his hair while I sit in his lap. I want to feel him slip inside of me on a lazy Sunday morning when sleep still grips my slowly waking form. I want to kiss the palms of his hands and make an offering of myself to him, a prayer bound in the promise of love and flesh.

“You know we can’t.” I feel his pity wash over me and I resent him for it. I don’t want his pity. I want him to get over his fucking self and release me from this prison so that we can be together.

He turns to go, takes a step, but then looks back over his shoulder.

“I’m… sorry.” he says. He can’t even bring himself to look directly at me. Instead his gaze falls to the floor a few feet away from my prone body. I give him the finger anyway, too spent to say anything yet.

Already the connection is dissipating. His world begins to flicker as he ascends the steps that lead him away from me. As the edges of the room blur I am hit with one final sensation. The scent of cool, crisp autumn air as it rushes round his newly revitalized form, slapping him with renewed purpose.

He will hunt tonight. And it will be good. And that is why we do this.

–

Jennifer Williams is an author and editor in New England. Her work has appeared in various anthologies as well as online. She is an active member of the New England Horror Writers and does editorial work for Circlet Press. This is her first piece of fiction published with Circlet Press. You can find her on Twitter at JenWritesStuff
or on Instagram at jenwritesstuff