In the Garden of Sin (31 page)

“You’re actually comfortable, squished in there like that?” Lili asked.

He nodded, laid his head down with a deep, somnolent sigh, and closed his eyes.

“Even when he’s not invisible, he’s invisible,” Elle said as she started unlacing her bodice.

Like the rest of Darius’s ancient Semitic race, he was doomed to not only absorb the desires of any human he touched, but to then be compelled to make those desires a reality. In the process, he came to crave what that human craved, to be whatever he or she wanted him to be, to change in ways that he often despised, until such time as the human’s longing was satisfied and he was released from his obligation. So maddening was this virtual enslavement that Darius took great pains to avoid accidental contact with human beings. When people were around, he usually either made himself invisible or adopted one of his two favorite personas, that of a cat or a blue rock thrush.

Lili put the books back on the pile and set about detaching Elle’s overskirt. “So anyway, Blaine says this Anthony Prazak is a regular in the New York fetish clubs. They call him Tony Prozac.”

“Of course they do.”

Clipping Elle’s overskirt to a hanger in the robing alcove, Lili said, “He’s got a gorgeous, six-foot dominatrix girlfriend called Mistress G who scares the hell out of everyone. Blaine told me there’s a rumor she’s a transsexual, and then right after that, he said she looks kind of like me.”

“What?”
Elle said through an incredulous chuckle.

“’Cause she has long black hair and ‘Cleopatra eyes,’ he said. Oh, and ‘tits like grapefruit halves, only bigger.’”

“Is she here?”

“We would have noticed someone like that, don’t you think?”

“Hey, you know who else didn’t come?” Elle asked. “That master-slave duo we hooked up with in New York last week.”

“Nicky and Doug, right…” Lili shrugged. “They might show up yet. It’s only the first day.”

“So, Prazak introduced himself to you?” Elle asked as she hung up her bodice. “By his real name, not Lord whatever?”

“Yeah, he asked if he could take me to dinner in Clermont-Ferrand tonight, just the two of us.”

“A
date?
. In the middle of a BDSM orgy?”

“I know, right?”

“He should be getting with the subs, not romancing the other doms,” Elle said testily.

“Lighten up, love. I turned him down.”

“Was he cool with that?”

“He asked me if tomorrow night would be better. I told him I was in a relationship with Elic.” If it wasn’t for that, she actually might have been tempted. Despite the semicreepy staring thing, Prazak was smart, cultivated, and well spoken. Dinner with him could have been a refreshing break from the D and D experience. As enlivening as it was to have her pick of beautiful, acquiescent sex partners, playing dress-up could get a little old.

“See?” Lili said. “No need to feel threatened. He knows I’m unavailable.”

“It’s just… I don’t know.” Elle scowled as she pulled her chemise over her head. “He’s so good-looking, with those dimples…”

“They’re just creases.”

“And he’s blond. You have a thing for blonds.”

“I have a thing for
this
blond,” Lili said, twirling a lock of
Elle’s honey-colored hair around her finger. “Besides, he’s just a tad intense, no?”

“Yeah, but intense can be hot. You’ve said so yourself.”

“Now,
that’s
hot,” Lili said, taking in the spectacularly naked Elle head to toe. She was every man’s centerfold fantasy: tall, curvy, and stunning, with skin so creamy, it looked air-brushed. “You are the sexiest female here, hands down.”

“I think that honor belongs to you,
mins Ástgurdís
, especially in this.” Elle glided a hand down the bodice of Lili’s beautiful blue gown, which had a wide, gold-laced opening in front, exposing a swath of bare skin that included the inner and upper slopes of her breasts. The gown was actually on loan from Elle, being part of the vintage clothing collection she had been amassing for the past seven or eight centuries.

“This was Hannah Vitturi’s, you know,” Elle said as she slid her fingertips through the lacing and under the boned satin to stroke Lili’s right nipple. “Or rather, it’s a copy of one of the gowns her dressmaker designed for her. I loved it so much, I had to have one just like it.”

Elle’s teasing caress rekindled Lili’s arousal almost instantly. She moaned and pressed her hand to Elle’s, encouraging a firmer touch.

“You could lie down right here,” Elle suggested in a low, provocative voice as she guided Lili toward the recliner that had been stripped of its plastic. “I’ll take your clit in my mouth and suck it the way you like, and I’ll take my time, so when you do come, it’ll be explosive. And then I’ll lick you with my fingers deep inside you—”

“Not with Darius right there,” Lili whispered. It was one thing for the reclusive djinn to observe their public sex with humans, another to pleasure each other with him sleeping— or trying to sleep—virtually underneath them.

“I forgot about him,” Elle said.

“Later,” Lili said, “when you’re back to yourself. Maybe tonight, when we’re in bed and don’t have to deal with all this D and D nonsense. Your fingers will be longer and thicker then, anyway, and rougher. I love the way they feel inside me.”

“You’ve sold me. Meanwhile…” Stepping away from Lili, Elle sat on the edge of the uncovered recliner and took a deep breath. “If you don’t want to see this, sweetheart, turn around now.”

Lili did turn around. It made her queasy to witness The Change, whether it was male to female or “the return ticket,” as Elic called it, back to his primary male form. Basically, it was about two minutes of physical metamorphosis, with organs rearranging themselves, bones and muscles and skin changing size, and a profound shift in body chemistry. Although Elle and Elic were the same individual, with the same mind, the same memories, the same long blond hair and aquamarine eyes, the hormones that governed their sexual responses were entirely different.

Lili heard Elle whisper an incantation in the proto-Germanic
dönsk tunga
of ancient Norway. A few seconds later, there came a grunt of pain, followed by deep, rhythmic breathing, like that of a woman in labor. Part of the reason Lili hated to watch The Change was because it was frankly sickening, seeing a body roiling within its skin. But mostly she couldn’t bear the sight of her beloved’s face contorted in pain and nausea during the transmutation.

Finally, she heard a deep, masculine sigh and turned to find Elic sitting hunched over on the recliner with his hands gripping the arms, his hair a golden curtain over his face. Lili went over and kissed his head, saying, “Welcome back,
Khababu.”

Elic heaved himself to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on the recliner as he reached down to make sure his genitals were intact and unchanged.

Lili smiled to herself. It was always the first thing he did upon reassuming his male form, an unthinking reflex.

He was a little hard, as he always was after having captured human semen, because of the pressure it exerted inside him until he was able to release it into a woman—only a human woman. Racially, Elic was what they’d called in his homeland an
álfr
, but he was also the type of incubus known as a dusios. Any Follet could be born a dusios; it was a random, if rare, genetic mutation among nonhumans.

The biological imperative of a dusios was reproduction— ironic, since dusii were inherently sterile. They “reproduced,” in a manner, by transferring sperm from a fit, healthy, intelligent human man—
a gabru
in Lili’s native Akkadian tongue— to an equally exceptional woman, or
arkhutu
. This was accomplished by taking a female form to tap the
gabru’s
seed, then reverting to the male to inject it into the chosen
arkhutu
. During The Change from succubus to incubus, the
gabru’s
DNA was subtly altered so as to absorb certain nonhuman characteristics. As a result, if the recipient
arkhutu
became pregnant—a strong possibility, since sex with a dusios triggered ovulation—her offspring would possess what humans referred to as extrasensory gifts.

Mother Nature was a clever bitch. Not only were dusii, like other incubi, unable to masturbate, they were almost always incapable of having sex with other Follets. In order to ensure that they transferred their supercharged human seed to humans, the only way they could relieve their relentless lust was through vaginal intercourse with a human female. They couldn’t climax any other way. A dusios couldn’t even penetrate a nonhuman. If he attempted to, the blood would drain from his erection, rendering it flaccid. This was how Elic first realized Lili was a Follet, back in 1749.

“So, is Blaine a
gabru
or just a plaything?” Lili asked. Like
her, Elic was insatiably horny; it was the lot of any incubus or succubus. He would fuck pretty much any willing human, regardless of their genetic worthiness, and he often adopted a female form simply because the occasion seemed to suit it. However, when he considered the man whose seed he had obtained to be a
gabru
, he took pains to pass that seed on to the right kind of woman. If no
arkhutu
was available, he’d even been known to use condoms rather than gift an undeserving woman with such precious DNA.

Grabbing the longest pair of footman’s hose, Elic sat down and started gathering up one of the legs. “Despite the dickish personality, he’s a
gabru
, all right. Archer did his homework. The guy’s got an IQ of 142, and he’s a triathlete to boot.”

“Hence your clumsiness with the grog, in the hope that he’d feel the need to ‘teach you a little lesson.’”

“You got it.” Elic stood to tug the hose up and tighten the waist cord around his narrow hips. His cock, although not erect, was distended enough to look pretty darned impressive under that flimsy codpiece. It would remain that way until he emptied his brimming vesicles through sex with a superior human female. It shouldn’t take long for him to find one who was not only willing but raring to go. With that angelic face, long blond hair, and super-tall, shredded bod—not to mention the currently supersized package—Elic looked as if he’d just stepped down off Mount Olympus.

“Who’s the lucky
arkhutu
?” Lili asked as he started sorting through the boots for his size-fifteens.

“Alison Southway. Archer pointed her out to me when she arrived this morning.”

“Which one is she?”

Sitting down to pull on the boots, he said, “She’s one of the Americans. Petite, mid-thirties, shortish brunette hair, big hazel eyes—but you probably haven’t seen her. She’s been
mostly hiding out since she got here. She’s not really into the scene, the whole BDSM thing.”

“Then what’s she doing here? Why did Archer invite her?”

“He wasn’t going to,” Elic said as he got up and headed over to the rack of shirts. “He told me he’d issued an invitation to someone named Cordelia Meath. She’s a Washington, D.C., socialite who dabbles in the scene. Cordelia asked if she could have another card of entrée for her friend Allie, who raises thoroughbred horses and is gorgeous and smart and—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Adjusting the drape of the shirtsleeves, Elic said, “At first Archer refused, but then Cordelia told him Alison was a three-time divorcée who doesn’t want to rush into another marriage or even a relationship, but who does want a child, very badly. Cordelia thought it would be a great idea for her to come here, shop around for a guy whose genes look like they’d be worth passing on, and get herself knocked up with no names exchanged and no strings attached.”

“And of course, Archer immediately thought of you.”

“For which I’m very grateful. It’s been too long since I’ve had an
arhkutu.”

“Now you just have to convince Alison that you’ve got the DNA she’s been searching for all her life.”

“It’s a done deal,” he said as he shrugged on the jerkin and buttoned it halfway. “When I was serving lunch—this was before I changed into Elle—I made it a point to hover around her and Cordelia. I heard her say this whole thing was a mistake, the public sex was freaking her out, and she wished she was back in Virginia on her horse farm. So I told her that I couldn’t help overhearing and that I would be happy to escort her to our stable and help her pick out a horse to ride so that she’ll have a way to pass the time while she’s here.”

“Why, what a thoughtful footman you are,
Khababu.”

All the D and D participants knew that this was Elic’s home; he might be dressed as a footman and expected to obey the doms, but his duties as a host came first. It was his and Lili’s responsibility to greet their guests and officiate over the week’s activities. Inigo pitched in when he felt like it, but that wasn’t often. Duty was a foreign concept to satyrs, who were biologically programmed to devote themselves to the single-minded pursuit of pleasure, period. By the standards of humans and even a lot of Follets, his self-indulgence and refusal to take anything seriously might be offputting, but by satyric standards, he was an exemplar of his race.

“Alison’s meeting me in the stable in about—” Elic glanced at the mantel clock as he rummaged through an accessory bin “—ten minutes.” He gave Lili his most seductive smile. “You could come with me.”

“You don’t think a woman like that might balk at a ménage à trois?” Lili asked.

With little gust of laughter, he said, “Since when do we have a hard time talking people into a ménage?”

Elic filled out that outfit like no other man there. His torso being as lengthy as his limbs, there were no shirts or jerkins quite long enough for him, leaving a narrow band of drum-tight abdomen visible above the low-slung hose. And as roomy as the shirt was, his shoulders still stretched its seams. There wasn’t a woman here, Lili knew, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to untie that codpiece and have her way with the godlike footman.

Lili considered Elic’s invitation for a second, then looked away and shook her head. “I think I’ll pass this time.”

She’d had enough of watching him fuck other people for one day. It wasn’t jealousy; his voracious incubitic sex drive was no different than hers, its appeasement no less vital to his well-being. It was knowing that, as much as she loved him, she
couldn’t have all of him. That connection between love and lovemaking that humans took for granted didn’t exist for Lili and Elic, and it never would.