Ellen Datlow - Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

He held his patron in his lap. The fine hair got in their way, but he drew it gently back, disclosing one scarlet earlobe. Bliss pulled it, stroked it, raised his sharp teeth to it. The other ear was pierced by a small gold hoop, which could be drawn through the ear around and around in a tiny point of pleasure.

“I feel dizzy,” his patron said, fingers clenched. “I feel crazy!”

“Yes.” The hands kept up their stroking. “That’s what it’s supposed to feel like.”

The gloves were torn off; one hand reached under the cloak again.

“Together,” Bliss said, reaching after it, and was not pushed away.

Their fingers met in the moist hot darkness, where there was no man’s treasure at all. For a moment they clung there together.

“Do it!” she said fiercely. “I want you to!”

She pulled at his hand and at her clothes at the same time.

“Sweet mistress.” He leaned into her, stilling her hands. “I can do better than that.” With practiced hands he unlaced the breeches. “You will go virgin to your marriage bed, and still be satisfied here.”

At last he uncovered the fair triangle, damp with sweat and heat. “A treasure for a prince,” he said earnestly.

“Don’t be impertinent,” she snapped, or tried to: to her dismay it came out langorous, flirtatious.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, and slid his finger down.

She had been ready for a long time. He felt her stiffen.

“Not yet!”

He stopped. “Not yet,” she gasped, “not so soon, I don’t want it over too soon—”

“My dear mistress,” he toyed with her delicate folds, “with me, it is never over too soon.”

He ran his face along the sides of her coat, her ruched-up cloak, down to the soft skin of her naked belly. His lips were warm on her skin. His fingers stroked her arms, her legs, methodically, gently, with a soothing rhythm that said that all was well, all would be well, if she would trust her body and its needs to him, and just as she was beginning to be a little soothed, his mouth moved down to somewhere altogether new.

She cried out in awe. Nothing so living and warm had ever touched her there. His tongue darted like a fish amongst the coral shoals of her flesh, coral waving like fans in the deep sea waves of her pleasure. She could feel him straining with passion, could hardly believe anyone wanted her this way, wanted to do this with her, rocking her up and down, inside and out, somewhere beyond sight and sound.

She had always had to control and tease herself; now there was nothing to control, feeling him slipping long and luxurious there were nothing larger, nothing less slick and supple of a man’s might go…

She let the world come apart.

He was hard with excitement, but he channeled it all into her pleasure, his skill burning for her. She was bucking her hips without knowing it, riding him, being ridden by her own strong desire, as hard for him to keep control of as a yearling, he relentlessly working to keep her pleasure coming in waves until she shook with it. And still he drove her, and the pleasure drove her, until she was writhing and pummeling him and crying her way to stillness.

She lay at last at peace, sprawled across the taut-muscled, naked man. With his thumb he stroked her side.

“Thank you,” she gasped eventually, feeling something must be said under the circumstances. “I didn’t know—that is, I usually like the look of men who are a bit more, ah, more heavily-built.”

“Next time, you must ask for what you want.”

She said, still nervously needing to explain, “I am too young to marry. They tell me. I must be ‘finished’ first, whatever that means. But every man I see—the soldiers, my dancing master, even the baker’s boy…”

“I know.” He drew a mass of her hair through his hands. “You will enjoy Carlin. He knows as well as I what to do for a lady of quality.” She turned her bright eyes on him, and he laughed softly. “Did you think you were the only one, here at the House of Heart’s Desire?”

Born among the great, she recognized authority when she heard it. “Are you…?” she asked.

“I am. And your ladyship’s servant, for as long as you require it. Return to us whenever you wish. You are as safe here as in your nurse’s arms. You will go to your noble husband as virgin as the day you were born.”

“If I can wait that long,” she muttered rebelliously.

“If you find that you cannot, there are ways to repair it—but you wouldn’t like them, they hurt. And should a mistake call a new soul down from heaven… there are many ladies who have found their way here to send it back.”

She smiled and drew her hand down his spine. “I will invite you to dance at my wedding.”

“And I will come,” he answered, kissing her hand, “though it be beyond the farthest sea.”

He added, “Your time is not quite up,” although it was; and he took her in his arms and kissed her mouth as sweetly as a young boy would do who knew nothing of the many uses of the tongue.

“Now,” said Eyas, “I shall summon a very dependable servant of mine named Hannah, who will help you wash all the sweat and moisture off you. She will particularly enjoy washing your hair—which, I’m afraid, has become tangled and rather sticky.”

Ellen Kushner writes:

It’s an all-too common experience, that I’m sure most of my fellows in this volume are familiar with. “What do you write?” someone asks me, at a party, say; and when I answer, “Fantasy,” they give me what is meant to pass for a sophisticated leer.

Well, now I’ve finally done it. There is no magic in this short story, but a great deal of fantasy.

Actually, this story, editor Terri Windling, and I go back a long way together. When we were in our twenties, living on New York’s lawless Upper West Side and looking for assured income, we came up with the idea of marketing a series of erotic novels set in a generic fantasy-style city, centered around an exotic brothel called The House of Nine Doors. We did the fun part first: figuring out who all the continuing characters would be—and then got down to the distasteful chores of plotting and writing sample chapters. The core of this story was one of those.

Our proposed series was packed with sexually ambiguous people, lots of tortured longing, devious machinations, twisted desires and sublimated passion: just like everything else on the market these days. Back then, our radical vision would have sold like hotcakes. So I would just like to formally and publicly say, to all the pusillanimous editors who brainlessly turned it down: You’re Jerks!

Oooh. That felt good.

SIX POMEGRANATE SEEDS, AS red as rubies, lie on a golden plate. They glow with crimson fire in the candlelight. My lord bids me eat. I can feel his hands upon my shoulders. I can feel his breath hot upon my neck. I eat the first fruit, and as I taste, my lord tastes the skin of my throat, where the scent of flowers still lingers.

In the world above, the daylight fades. The wind blows cold among the trees.

The second seed is eaten, and my lord kneels at my feet. His hands reach for my breasts, and through the fabric of my gown I feel his caress, first soft, then hard. I watch my nipples rise and strain against the thin gold silk. He takes a small knife from the table and, holding it delicately, cuts through the neckline of my dress. The fabric tears, parting from white flesh, and falls away.

In the world above, as night draws close, the grasses turn in the wind. Flowers bend. Petals fall.

My nipples are the color of crimson seeds. The third seed is upon my lips as my lord suckles at my breasts, tracing circles of fire with his tongue. They ripen like fruit beneath his kisses.