Ellen Datlow - Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

The elevator had gold inside, not solid this time, but not bad: gold-plated.

When he alighted, and rang the gold-plated bell, her intercom came on.

“Is that you, honey?”

Ryder’s voice was low and sweet—and dangerous.

Wolf said, “I guess not.”

“Oh,” said Granny’s intercom. “Then what?”

“Rose—sent me up.”

“Rose did? Do I know a Rose?”

“She says she’s your granddaughter.”

“Oh, that Rose. Okay.”

The jet-black shining door opened wide, and showed him an enormous reception area, with black and white marble underfoot and on the walls, golded mirrors, a skylight set with milky glass shot by red jewels that threw down rosy blood-drops all over everything. There were no other furnishings, and just two engraved glass doors, opening somewhere else, presently closed. You couldn’t see through the engraving, not properly. But inside it looked fairly impressive.

He had been let straight in and he hadn’t yet seen Granny, in case he had to back off nicely if he didn’t care for her. But then, anyway, the elevator was a private one and this was the penthouse suite, so it would be kind of unlikely he had taken the wrong route, or made any mistake at all.

Just then the glass doors were pushed decisively open.

And there stood—Granny.

“What a wonderful voice you have,” said Granny. “Trained, yes?”

“I was an actor.”

“Not anymore? No more acting?”

“Not on a stage.”

She grinned. She had perfect teem, the teeth the best sort of predator would have. Which was about right. She definitely did exude the aura of a lioness. Even a lion. Almost as tall as Wolf, in her high-heeled slippers, and with a mane of gleaming platinum-to-silver hair, she wore otherwise a completely transparent robe, tied tight to her tightly muscular waist by a thin rope of Carrier gold. She was muscular all over, the way a dancer is, and maybe she was a dancer. On the muscles had been smoothed a satin padding of flesh, and over that a lightly tanned skin like honey. Her breasts were heavy, but edible. The urge to weigh them in the hands was overwhelming. And she had done just what they did in books, gilded her nipples. Under her round and muscular belly, which gave a little ripple even as his eyes irresistibly went there, a sort of little wave to him, her bush was of the same metallic effect as her mane.

She gave a kind of kick with one long, long, long leg. That was like a horse. But no, she was simply kicking out of the way a champagne cork lying on the mosaic—it was a mosaic—floor.

“My birthday party,” she explained. “They drank and drank. They all brought me presents, so I couldn’t turn them out. Would you like to finish the Dom Perignon? A couple of bottles still half full, I think, and I don’t drink alcohol on weekdays. It would be a kindness.”

“I guess I can force myself.”

“Then come on in.”

She turned and moved away. Her bottom was a stimulating sight. Yes, a dancer must be it—perhaps with a giant snake, winding and coiling about her amber body, caressing, slipping, its incredible muscles matched by her own.

The room was about two blocks big, with carpets on the walls that might have come from ancient Persia, and a single statue in bronze, of a girl holding up a dish, and in the dish lavish fruit: oranges, peaches, grapes—the proper stuff of an epic lust scene.

Had Rose already called up? She must have told Granny that she would like this present. Or why else had Granny come to the door clad fit to wake the dead?

She was returning with a large, sparkling crystal goblet about a foot long, somewhat the way he was feeling in a particular part of himself right now, and full of bubbling silvery-golden something.

“Wolf—that’s right, is it?”

Rose had called.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My name is Ryder. I don’t look a day over forty-three, and I’m not.”

She deserved an accolade, though she probably received them always. “You don’t look more than thirty-three to me.” She didn’t, or not by very much. And though she had expression lines by her mouth, which was large and marvelously shaped and had the faintest gilded glisten on it, and by her eyes, which were as dark as his own and also gilded—they were of the variety of line that made you want to deepen them through laughter, and through loud cries that had nothing to do with sorrow or dismay.

“The trouble is,” said Ryder, putting her hand lightly on his shoulder, huge eye to eye with him, her slight, clean breath just blowing over his lips, scented by silk, musk, and savannah, “I didn’t know about you when I took the two herbal tablets. They’re terrific. They make you sleep for six hours. It’s been a tiring day. I calculate I have about forty minutes before those pills work. Do you think we could find something to kill forty minutes?”

Interestingly, her personal bathroom was even bigger man the two-block sitting room. And in the midst of its Grecian glacier of tiles and friezes, its ten-and twenty-foot, emerald colored plants that thrived on heat and steam, lay a very special Jacuzzi of ink-black marble.

“I love to get wet,” said Ryder. Then she added, “Do you mind short hair?” And drew off the mane, just as she had discarded her transparent robe and golden tie. Her own hair was also silver, a thick short fur over her head leading into a serpentine coil along her neck. This way, she looked more cat-like, more chancy even than before.

She stepped down into the tub, and lay along a marble ledge just under the water. There were a pair of black marble nymphs here, too, naked and glowing. Ryder lifted her arms and wrapped her hands loosely around their hips.

“Come in.”

So far, the water moved only gently, and through the little liquid thrills, her breasts, lifted by her arms, golden nipples glinting, bobbed and trembled as the water came and went. The way the water ran, he noticed, the nipples were getting particular attention. That must feel good, and obviously the ledge had been arranged for exactly this position and this treatment.

He took off his clothes, and Ryder watched him through half-lidded eyes. He could see she was pleased with him, very pleased. She wriggled her legs as he descended into the pool, and a spray of delicate cool-warm drops hit the surface of his chest and thighs, sprinkling like diamonds his already enormous erection.

“You’re a little ahead of yourself there,” she said.

He laughed.

The water was at a clever temperature, warmed enough to be comfortable but cool enough to brace. He eased onto the ledge beside her, and bent to her mouth. They kissed, tongues entwining like the serpent dance he had visualized, while his left hand and the water played over and over her big cushiony breasts, and her hard little nipples eagerly nosed after his fingers, wanting to be tickled. She made a deep luxurious moaning sound, again and again into his mouth.

When he lifted his head, a soft flush was on her face, making her look younger than ever. She pulled him over and on top of her, his penis lying delightfully trapped between their bellies, quivering uncontrollably with its own life.

Ryder polished his back with her hands, and slid them into the groove between his buttocks. She, too, began to play, while the water lapped with its own caress, creating a melting fire that trickled ever more strongly through into his loins, and until she had drawn out of him in turn a murmur of tortured pleasure. But he was now so hard that pleasure was stealing close to pain. He eased himself away from her.

“Step back off the ledge, but stay close,” she whispered. “Kneel facing me, where the groove is. Trust me, you’ll like it there. The water does something—special. Custom built.” He did what she said, and as he knelt on the smooth marble between her legs, she glided them up onto his shoulders, and her hands clasped firmly on the black stone nymphs. The speed and direction of the water intensified at once. It became insistent, skillful. It was probing at him in exactly the most apt of places, bubbling around and around his balls, and stroking, fierce, rhythmic, at his stem, while at the hugely engorged tip of him there began a ceaseless, miraculous suction, like that of the most amazing and cunning and unavoidable mouth in the world.