The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

Young Pines ‘The Dream Of The Fisherman’s Wife’

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR PART ONE The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 1 The Werewolf of London - The Argument Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnus Mermaid and Octopus The Joy of Sex Friday Selkie This Machine Haiku 1

PART TWO The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 2 The Werewolf of London - The Laboratory Oly Faun Gravity Untitled Tree Lady Milk Wolf Haiku 2

PART THREE The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 3 The Werewolf of London - From the Notebook of Doctor Glendon The True Folly of Icarus Idduns Vahalla Play Thing Morning Surgery at the Fairyland STD Clinic Haiku 3

PART FOUR The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 4 The Werewolf of London - Metamorphosis Zeus Skeleton Under My Skin

1.

Satan Boob Wings Dreamless Incubbucs In the Ages of the Earth Haiku 4

PART FIVE The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 5 The Werewolf of London - Oh, Dr Glendon...

Feverish Light Mermaid and Diver The Joy of Sex 2 Dining Room 16 Erotic Rumpelstiltskin Haiku 5

PART SIX The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 6 The Werewolf of London - The Testimony of Mrs Moncaster Untitled Leo The Cyclops Wolf and Maid Centaur The Call Girl of Cthulhu

PART SEVEN The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Part 7 The Werewolf of London - The End Edmund Meets the White Witch Mermaid and Seaman The Joy of Sex 3 Thiassi’s Prey Three Headed Maid

APPENDIX 2.

3.

A Note from the Editor the grey morning hits you in the eye

comes and goes like days. a witch keeps you working her stick

a centaur galloping strong in a forest

your cybertrail of breadcrumbs eaten

raises his spear at the metallic faun chattering

by griffins with flashing eyes,

fur, just curling outward from your collar. the telephone calls

your incremental rise drowned out by the sound of

to hear the waves of fires and battles

sirens. instead still your self. in quiet-

the tolling of a great bell who says look-

love every beast. fantastical in being

we have it here. all of animals in

they love you too. your wreath of nutmegs,

love. don’t gate it in. when it all moves around you

the circle of stones within you-

swim down to yourself and knife the oyster.

the dreams such as you have never had

as you power up and down, the screen

quite so excellent.

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5.

PART ONE ‘the Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife’ Marin lay back breathing- she was a reef of beautiful colours, an underwater city. The Fisherman was stroking her, his prize catch, as he fell to sleep. He would be up with first light, to the shingle where his boat The Mermaid’s Comb waited. Out into the open wide water with his nets and songs, singing of spirits and birds with pearls in their beaks.

She watched his eyelids close, soft as two oyster shells. Her heart slowed and she heard the rush of the sea on the stones, its fingers digging into the beach as a man about to fall from a great height.

Slowly she felt sleep winding its way around her and somehow into her- like a tide. She let herself be dragged into the darkness toward a world where men and animals made love, and everything was stories.

6.

The Argument But remember this Dr Glendun, the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.

-Dr Yogami (Werewolf of London, 1935)

On conquering the heights of that stark peak, in search of the precious mariphasa flower that only blooms during the moonlit hours, I was attacked by some carpet-faced freak.

And though I found my treasure, so unique, I wondered, if at home, you dreamt of lovers, old flames with supernormal carnal powers: in their stark heat would your resolve prove weak?

It wasn’t the pallid moon that caused the change but that old flame whose name slipped from your tongue the last time we reciprocated lust.

And now blood trickles down the city’s drains, your petals bloomed before my fangs had sprung: the beast seeks to destroy what it loves most.

7.

Lucy meets Mr.Tumnus She took a step further in - then two or three steps always expecting to feel wood against the tips of her trembling fingers. But she could not feel it.

Lucy, forced herself in further, pushing the soft folds of the coats aside. Stooping down to feel with her hand she did not meet the hard, smooth floor of the wardrobe as she expected, but instead something soft and cold. This is very odd, she thought.

Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and body was no longer soft fur but something hard, rough and prickly. Just like branches of trees, thought Lucy. And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold and soft was falling on her.

A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet...her whole body quivering. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree trunks she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out.

She began to walk forward, through the wood towards the other light. As she stood staring, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood, she suddenly heard the heavy crunch of footsteps coming toward her. And soon after, a very big, strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post.

He was much taller than Lucy and he carried over his head an umbrella, white with snow. From the waist upwards he was like a man, but his legs were shaped like a goats (the hair on them was glossy black) and instead of feet he had goats hooves. She suddenly felt as if she could not breathe- her heart felt as if it would jump out of her mouth and she felt the snow even more keenly on her reddening skin.

His skin was dark and rough, he had a sinewy body like the trunk of a tree, and out of the hair on his head stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead. He was a Faun. And when he saw Lucy he stopped in surprise and looked her up and down slowly, the tip of his tongue just showing.

‘Hello daughter of Eve’ said the Faun, sounding as if his throat was tightening. He watched her like she was about to run.

‘Hello’, said Lucy.

‘You’re what they call a girl’? said the Faun.

‘Of course I’m a girl’, said Lucy.

‘You are in fact Human’?

‘Of course I’m human’, said Lucy.

‘I see’ he said, slowly, in a kind of dream ‘My name is Tumnus. How would it be if you came and had tea with me”?

Lucy could hear his breathing in the silent woods, low and shallow as an animal. The snow fell on his naked chest, lighting him up. There was something of the nativity about him.

‘Its only just round the corner’, said the Faun, ‘there’ll be a roaring fire- and hot wine’.

He was so still, just looking at her- but she noticed his fingers fiddling with themselves, like he was trying to untie them.

‘Well, its very kind of you’, said Lucy watching his eyes run slowly from her mouth to her neckline. ‘But I shan’t be able to stay long’.

A strange ancient smile flickered across his face. ‘Well then, If you will take my arm’, said Tumnus, ‘I shall be able to hold the umbrella over both of us.

That’s the way’.

And so Lucy found herself walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature, his arm firm on hers. He smelled of dark wet earth and mahogany and all other manner of secret things, he was intoxicating- a vital part of the forest and this strange new world she found herself in. He bent down and whispered in her ear, his breath all over her.

They had not gone far before they came to a place where the ground became rough and there were rocks all about and little hills up and little hills down.

At the bottom of one small valley the Faun turned suddenly aside as if he were going to walk straight into an unusually large rock, but at the last moment Lucy found he was leading her into the entrance of a cave. As soon as they were inside she found herself blinking in the light of a wood fire. Then he stooped and took a flaming piece of wood out of the fire with a neat little pair of tongs, and lit a lamp. ‘Now we shan’t be long’, he said, and started covering the floor in the strangest furs that Lucy had ever seen.

Tumnus handed her a goblet of something warm and red, and as Lucy lay down and made herself comfortable he began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of the forest. He told of the midnight dances and how the Nymphs who lived in the wells and the Dryads who lived in the trees came out to make love with the Fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk-white stag who would give you kisses if you caught him; about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarves in deep wet mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green and old Silenus on his fat donkey would come to visit them, and sometimes Bacchus himself, and then the streams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itself up to fucking for weeks on end.

8.

‘His kissing tasted like cloves, hot and malty. She felt her body react, like violence’

9.

Tumnus handed her a goblet of something warm and red, and as Lucy lay down and made herself comfortable he began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of the forest. He told of the midnight dances and how the Nymphs who lived in the wells and the Dryads who lived in the trees came out to make love with the Fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk-white stag who would give you kisses if you caught him; about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarves in deep wet mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green and old Silenus on his fat donkey would come to visit them, and sometimes Bacchus himself, and then the streams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itself up to fucking for weeks on end. ‘Not that it isn’t always winter now’, he added gloomily. Then to cheer himself up he took out from its case on the dresser a strange little flute that looked as if it were made of ivory and began to play. And the tune he played made Lucy sink deeper into the fur and she felt so hot by the fire that almost without knowing what she was doing she was unfastening her dress and undergarments and stretching out naked by the fire.

Tumnus put down his flute and moved across to her, his eyes on hers, her human form. He stroked her hair and touched her lips, so different from hisher skin orange in the firelight. She was a woman, and smooth and bare as the snow. His hand moved to her neck, grasping her like he might break her up. She watched his old sad face, his tongue that came to her mouth and into her, opening her up. His kissing tasted like cloves, hot and malty. She felt her body react, like violence- her flesh suddenly cold in the dark warm cave, willing him to move further into her.

The Faun put his leg between hers, the fur strange, and pushed his hard body firm onto her, til she was burning again. Lucy’s hands travelled over the woodland of him, his strange animal heart and cock.

His hands rubbed her nipples and dropped his mouth to them, sucking hard until they hurt, running his tongue over and in between her breasts, circling the whole of her, and down further to her cunt which was wet and alive. He licked and sucked her there like a sea to a cove and she pushed his head into her, his whole mouth holding her and willing her to open and take him inside of her. She was becoming a tree, roots deep into the floor of his cave, twisting downward into the darkness, past treasure that shone in the soil like stars, fossils knocked aside and smashed as she lifted her arms above her head and wrapped her fingers in fur and pulled it tight.

When he entered her she felt it in her stomach and wondered how she had ever been without him inside her, like two parts of a machine that click and start to work and she turned and pushed him further into her with her legs around his trunk- his hooves scuffing the floor like a bull about to charge a matador. He was looking her straight into the eye, and she felt she could see the whole of narnia in them, the festivals and fires of spring, and felt as if outside the snow was bound to be melting, as if the world were one big thaw- dripping into a river of sweat.

He had her hair in his hands like a rein, and then they covered her face, his fingers pushing into her mouth, fucking it slowly. They tasted of berries or pine, of twine, they were right at the back of her throat and she could barely breathe- and for a moment she didn’t care if she suffocated, she just wanted to be filled up by him- his hands, cock, tongue- all inside her trying to pull her out of herself, to get to her solitude and rinse it out.

His hips quickened and she felt the burning in her cunt building until she was bucking against him willing him to kill her properly, his hands on her throat and pressing. With a cry he threw himself against her and she exploded and for a moment was not Lucy, or anyone- just a blinding white streak of love, and everything else was ridiculous. She felt his come pouring into her followed by a stillness that was so quiet she swore she could hear the snow falling outside.

After a while, with him heavy on top of her she whispered ‘Tumnus - Im so sorry- but really, I must go home. I only meant to stay for a few minutes’.

‘It’s no good now, you know’, rasped the Faun.

‘No good?’ said Lucy, pushing him off her. ‘What do you mean? I’ve got to go home at once. The others will be wondering what has happened to me.

Why are you shaking your head?’

‘Because I’m such a bad Faun, Daughter of Eve’.

‘I don’t think you’re a bad Faun at all’, said Lucy. ‘I think you’re a wonderful Faun. You’re the nicest Faun Ive ever met’.

‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew’, replied Tumnus. ‘No, Im a bad Faun. I don’t suppose there ever was a worse Faun since the beginning of the world’.

‘But what have you done?’ asked Lucy.

‘I’ve taken service under the White Witch. I’m in the pay of the White Witch you see’ ‘The White Witch? Who is she?’

‘She that makes it always winter. Always winter and never spring- think of that!’

‘How awful!’ said Lucy. ‘But what does she pay you for?’

‘That’s the worst of it’, said Tumnus. ‘I’m a kidnapper for her. Look at me, human. Would you believe that I’m the sort of Faun to meet a beautiful girl in the wood, pretend to be friendly with it, have my way with it, all for the sake of trapping it and handing it over to the White Witch’?

‘No’, said Lucy. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t do anything of the sort’.

‘Oh... but I have’, said the Faun, smiling.

10.

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Friday That damp mattresswe're pressed like apple cider, the stench of basalt undoes me as I slide the crooked door shut: Stale Asgard! The weather is at best mild, Nothing to do so I'll play with hooves until Odin crashes in again, supremacy and steel.

Traipsing mud on the carpet

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14.

This Machine This Machine. We call it the WITCHES ARM and it will BEWITCH. Right there- into you like Gnarly Sorcery go CROTCHLESS for this For HIM or HER its opening Elbow end is perfect for ENTERING Deeply into, like an illicit AFFAIR. The soft tissue is FULLY MACHINE WASHABLE and the WIPE Technology allows you to

PLEASURE yourself again & again with 6 speed settings- it’s DIABOLICAL. It will Drum it into you wild as a wet Windy night WORK it In the fingers are FULLY BENDABLE go

For the PEACE SIGN for DUAL DELIGHT or try a simple BIRD or FIST it’s Yourcall, either way you will Experience SERIOUS PLEASURE And RIPPLES of ecstasy all along Your SKIN CASE

For only 6 GOLD PIECES and the CAUL FROM A BABY’S FACE this REALISTIC ONE OF AKIND WITCHES ARM CAN BE YOURS

DO NOT ACCEPT IMMITATIONS

15.

o how near we grow! two pine trees nearly touching-

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PART TWO Marin tossed and turned. Everything was bright and open as a mouth. A faun ran across her sleeping chest leaving hoof marks in her skin and an octopus clamped onto her like a hand. She moaned softly as the dreaming pulled her up on her feet- she was walking out from her room and naked toward the sea, hand-white against the night.

Into the sea- the water cold on her red skin. She was turning to fish, her body flipping and threshing. Scales crept up her, she was holograph. Her lips hit the water and she found she could breathe, her breasts splitting to gills. She burnt a path in the water like a bird, swimming faster than ever, darting into the forest of weed and debris. All around was the roaring, bubbles escaping from her- she knew not where she was going...

18.

The Laboratory

 The flower's yet to bloom, its white petals clenched tight within the hard, brown bud.

I reposition the moon lamp, bark instructions to my assistant—in matters such as this I only trust myself and idiot lackeys who can only confess to fat, stupid wives and fellow inebriates down the ale house.

Beyond the bolted steel door, wisdom festers within leather-bound jackets on polished shelves and in the gardens outside, the pitchers, flytraps and lobster pots spread their green limbs while digesting their scuttling prey.

An auto-mobile engine cuts out on the gravel driveway.

The howling of wolves from the Regents Park Zoo echoes through the grand, but empty vestibule where the deep red carpet rides the curve of the stairs to the perfumed unease of the bedroom.

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23.

Gravity I was having an affair with goat woman.

It wasn’t what my friends wanted.

It wasn’t what my wife wanted.

It wasn’t even what I wanted.

But there was no way to disguise it.

People looked at me and smelt goat.

We were talking about being a giant and the bodily functions challenge. turned

And today, the conversation to stealing steaks from Asda.

24.

* Being a student at the Dryad school, I get plenty of opportunity to meet men. One of my favourite places is the Woodland Union mushroom outlet.

The tea is cheap and the place is always packed to the treetops with fit young Druids, Warlocks and Centaurs. Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase. I was out with my sister, Haruki- we’d been drinking mushroom tea for quite a while and were beginning to see the sky dip in and out of itself. I was in need of some kissing so we picked out some men and went our separate ways. The bloke I went for was smoking a hookah with a couple of brothers. He was a fine brown Centaur, hard and muscly from the waist up, with four strong legs. After a few choice declarations we were kissing on a sofa in the corner, His hooves were all over me after just a couple of minutes. I only had a tiny dress made from cobwebs and dead leaves on, and he easily inched his hoof up the inside of my thigh.

I opened my wisps slightly and his hoof crept toward my growth ring. He winnied with satisfaction to find firstly that I had no undergarments on and secondly that my budlet was covered in dew. I clambered onto him and straddled him. Anyone looking probably got a great view of my roots. It must have been like a live wood-core show! After a while of him rubbing against me I came, the mushroom tea making colours shoot out of me into his mouth, and all around the spinney.

I rose from his lap and pulling down my skirt to cover myself, took him by the spear. I led him across the glade, past the tearooms and into the tree house. There was a bit of a queue in the ladies and I hesitated, but he bundled me into the nearest men’s. Pressing me up against the door, he locked it with one hoof and yanked my dress up over my head with the other. I was naked and he began kissing me and tangling himself all up in me. After a while he swivelled me round and told me to bend over. Keen to oblige I knelt on a stump and thrust my backside up at him. Wasting no time, he knelt down behind me, buried his face into my magical lake and went to work with his tongue. I creaked with pleasure, my cheek pressed against the cold hard wood.

He lapped at me and reached underneath me to play with my tea leaf. I came to another shuddering gust- all up in my leaves and hair, my sap leaking out onto his chin. Then he used his hooves to spread my furrows wide. He burrowed his tongue into me, probing and darting it around. Then he put his two front legs up on my shoulders and I knew he was going to enter my hollow. Slowly he worked himself into me and I disappeared into the wind, my branches blown this way and that as he pushed into me and snipped away at me with his secateurs. I was like one large hand, fingers all up in the air and waving into him like a hot mirage.

I squirmed as I felt the hot sticky seed fill me then scatter out like sycamore helicopters all over the woodland. I never even found out that Centaur’s name- we just kissed and said tioradh!

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Milk Wolf milk wolf travels away all full of hands and touchings his paws wet with the anticipation of bodies and itching to lift the red riding hoods up bite down on what’s under them and push himself into them now further to escape the grey silences of himself his hands flit over buttons and fastenings he’s undoing and undoing until every last thing is untiedanatomized and positively dreamy until all his woodiness is flesh and every ending is tick ticking over nicely like a million tiny bonfires only then will he stand on his hindlegs look at his pocket watch talk of houses that must be blown down and all the things he must forget put on his shoes wash off the blood the cold and twisted woods outside have shadows in them that could be anything

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losing her lover she resembles winter trees bare without kisses

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PART THREE The Fisherman awoke and was immediately aware of an absence. ‘Marin!’ He called.

And out onto the sand. ‘Marin!’ Where was she? Each morning she would bring him his coffee and rum, a bowl of seeds. She was gone. He laced his boots and checked the Almanac. It was often said that on a full moon the ocean became haunted and would steal your woman and turn her to fish.

Perhaps he was in some kind of dream. He had a shot of rum and lit his pipe. ‘Marin!’

And somehow she heard him, through sleep- he was calling out for her in his sleep. But she was too far gone, on her way toward the centre of all the seas, being pulled without choice further onward, her eyes and throat full of salt.

32.

From the Notebook of Doctor Glendon “The Venezuelan Saracenia is perhaps more evolved than its well known relatives. Rather than producing a sweet, sugary syrup at the bottom of its honey trap—it instead cultivates colonies of bacteria in order to give off the pungent aroma of rotting flesh. This stench proves irresistible to the local strain of digger wasp who choose to lay their eggs in rotting carcasses.

“You may know of the hammer plants whose flower tips look like female bees in order to entice worker drones. As soon as the bee lands upon the lure, they are latched onto and bashed into the flower head repeatedly. This helps to coat the creatures furry head with pollen before they are sent off to propagate the plant. However, the Sumatran Hammer has taken a different route. Once it grabs hold of the bee it slams it against the hardened shell of the seed pod, bashing the poor creature’s brains out. The corpse is then dropped directly into the ground to be pulled under by the plants tentacle-like roots. American botanists were quick to nickname it the Tequila Slammer.

“Eduard Monet may have painted the water lilly many times in his senior years, but he would not have taken such succour from the Georgian Deep Throat Water Lilly. Its everyday appearance is innocuous enough, unsuspecting frogs like to plant themselves onto it to call for a mate. Little do these feckless amphibians know that the carnivorous mechanism is triggered by the frequency their mating croak. A circular orifice opens up beneath them and down they go, to be pulled into a bloated pocket at the bottom of the river to be digested within a lethargic tangle of their fellow failed suitors.

“Many botanists scoff at the merest mention of the Venus Monkey Trap. Many think it to be an hallucination of delirious jungle travellers that have eaten too many fermented figs. Reportedly, it entices the local black-capped capuchins with an array of brightly coloured berries. But it is the trap itself that lures the poor monkeys to their end. Be it an aroma from the trap, or a narcotic effect of its berries, when the quarry are close enough they are inexorably drawn to the open jaws, and seem to be pleasurably stimulated before, during and after the trap slams shut. The victim is then slowly broken down by the acidic droplets that form on the trap’s hair triggers. The indigenous tribes call it the best and the worst way to die and it is said that the trap can also work on other primates. Many tribesman have been found dead for many weeks, their heads jammed inside the closed trap, and those that have been found sooner could be heard groaning with pleasure, despite having had their eyes, noses and lips thoroughly dissolved by the slow-working acids.”

33.

the True Folly of Icarus "Go now, quickly son," Daedalus said, "make your escape from Crete, and do it before the sun reaches its peak."

Icarus did not want to leave his father, but he knew he must.

He pulled his mask into place, inhaled deeply and moved his arms, measuring the weight of the wings that his father had cleverly formed upon him from feathers and wax. The wind was strong, and he could feel the air captured beneath the multitude of feathers. "I am ready," he assured his father.

"If anything goes wrong and you have to land in Crete, speak to no one, and keep your mask on. People will fear you and they will not stand in your way."

His father embraced him and then urged him on again.

Icarus ran into the wind, moving his arms as he did so. For a moment he thought it futile, then the air was trapped beneath his wings and his feet lifted from the ground. Gulping air, he moved his arms again, shocked at how powerful the wings were in harnessing the wind, and how easily he could ride on the breeze and direct his passage with a subtle change in the angle of his arms.

The experience was dazzling, and his spirit roared as he soared high above the spot where his father stood. "It is true, I can fly!"

"Fly to your freedom, son," his father shouted after him.

With one last wave in farewell, Icarus turned and headed off along the cliffs. Dipping and swooping, he flew above the rugged coastline, following it until he knew it was a good place to cross the sea to Sicily, where he would find safe haven.

As he made his way he marvelled at how different the landscape looked from high above, and it intrigued him to see it so.

Later in his journey, just as he was about to head further out to sea and in the direction of Sicily, he caught sight of movement amongst a cluster of trees that were heavy with blossom. Two young nymphs were cavorting together down there, and beautiful they were too, one dark haired, one fairer. Fascinated, he watched a moment, hovering low on the air currents, as the darker haired woman untied her chiton at each shoulder and let the thin woollen shift slide down over her torso.

Dusky-skinned and lusciously feminine in her figure, she captured his attention completely, making him forget his task and his fragile state of being, so high above the ground on makeshift wings. Then she moved closer to her companion and kissed her, and Icarus grew hard with longing.

He glanced back over his shoulder. He was a long way from the place where his father had launched him into freedom, perhaps far enough to be safe.

His father had, however, urged him to stop for nothing and to fly to Sicily—or for as long as his wings lasted—but would it really hurt to land for a few moments to observe the two women?

His experience with the fairer sex was far too limited, and his curiosity immense. If his escape plan was ill fated, he might be glad that he'd dallied a while to observe such a delight, for he could think on it during the lonely nights. The dilemma raged on in his thoughts, but when he caught sight of what the two women did to one another next, his reason was lost. He drew his wings lower and began his descent into the woodland. *** The heat haze shimmered, but beneath the shade of the trees it was pleasant. Melete, naked and eager, urged Aglaia to undress too. Aglaia stood by the tree trunk and eyed Melete's naked form. Melete's nipples knotted as desire coursed through her. Aglaia's gaze on her always did that.

Aglaia's beautiful face was flushed with arousal. A legion of callow youths had already sworn their hearts to her, offering her tender words of poetry, their loins vital with desire. It was Melete to whom she came most often though, and an eager lover she was.

"I have longed for you today," Melete said. "Let me see you."

Aglaia lifted her skirts as far as her waist, slowly revealing her slender thighs and her intimate flesh to her lover.

Melete looked at her bare slit, where a drop of dew already glistened between the delicate folds of skin there. "You are already wet."

Aglaia nodded eagerly.

Melete brushed a fallen blossom from Aglaia's hair, unhitched her metal girdle then released her linen peplos from its catchments at her shoulder.

Aglaia's breasts jutted out as she cast her girdle and robe aside, uptilted nipples the colour of wine. The mound of flesh at the juncture of Aglaia's thighs was as rounded and firm as a ripe peach. Melete's mouth ached to bite the flesh, to suck on it so that her lover would squirm and beg.

Once undressed, Melete pushed her against the tree and kissed Aglaia's mouth to quiet her moans while she plundered her womanly flesh with eager fingers. Aglaia's juices flowed rapidly and she shuddered and moaned, her graceful body supine in submission. Melete stroked and stroked, until she found her fingers delicately crushed and her hand completely drenched as Aglaia peaked.

"Oh, it feels so good," Aglaia whispered. "Too good. If the gods were to see us‌should we not be ashamed of our lust?"

Melete smiled at her question. Aglaia was so candid and ripe, yet so unworldly. Melete was only a year or so older but she had indulged in many pleasures of the flesh. Chuckling, she lowered her head to suck at the firm berries of Aglaia's nipples, distracting her with actions instead of words.

An ebbing breeze suddenly came from somewhere beyond and wafted the scent of flowers back and forth over Aglaia's body. The sensation felt strange to Melete and her pulse tripped. There was a faint noise in the air, growing louder. Aglaia grew still. Melete lifted her head in response to Aglaia's sudden tension, as she did she noticed a stray white feather floating down beside them. A shadow fell over them. Aglaia's eyes widened, a strangled cry escaping her when she looked beyond her lover's shoulder.

"The gods saw us - they have sent a messenger to punish us," Aglaia stated.

Melete let go her hold and rolled back, turning to see what had frightened her friend so. As she did she gasped and clutched at Aglaia. The shadow had been made by a great winged creature, a huge bird with the body of a man and a masked face, who had apparently swooped down upon them. The two women clung together as they watched the creature landing. His wings moved slower, the draft from them slowly ebbing away as his flight ended. His eyes were bright behind his mask, his chest rising and falling from his exertions.

Even in the grip of her fright Melete was becoming aware that the creature was interested in them, as they were in each other, for he looked at them with hungry, eager eyes. "I do not think that he has come down to us in anger."

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35.

The creature nodded at her words, his wind ruffled hair falling forward as he did so. He drew his winged arms across his bare chest and bowed his head before them, indicating that they should not be afraid.

Melete was fast becoming intrigued. What manner of creature was he? That he could change his physical form indicated that he must be of the gods.

He was strong and well built, handsome and desirable to any lusty maiden. As well as that, the thin fabric belted around his hips could not disguise the arousal in his loins. His manhood stood erect and vigorous, jutting proudly towards them beneath the cloth. Melete's pulse quickened. Perhaps he had seen them from the heavens and had taken human form in order to come down and join them. She had heard stories of such happenings.

"I think he has come to us for pleasure, not punishment." She nodded down towards the tumescent bulge below his belted waist.

Aglaia looked and gasped. "He is desirous of us?"

"Yes, he is desirous of us...a god has come to pleasure you, Aglaia, are you ready to receive such an honour?"

Aglaia looked at the creature and her cheeks flushed.

"Let us see you," Melete said to him, eager to pursue this new adventure.

The god-man creature undid his belt, dropping the thin material aside to reveal the stout, long bough of his shaft. The two women moved as one, both turning towards him in anticipation. The creature's phallus twitched with eagerness when the full beauty of their feminine bodies was displayed to him.

"You wish to share yourself with us?" Melete asked.

He nodded, rapidly.

Somewhere at the back of her mind she wondered why he seemed so shy and why he was waiting for them to direct him. Then it occurred to her that his wings restricted him somewhat, so she beckoned with her hand, pointing to a large flattish rock. As he followed her lead, he drew his wings in around him. He sat down on the rock and she noticed how very hampered he was, in fact—by both wings and the engorged member that now looked positively stretched beyond its own capacity, it was so very large.

"Sire, we are made breathless and desperate by the sight of your proud phallus. It is so beautiful and hard a thing that we both wish to be closer to it."

The man-god creature moaned loudly as if in frustration and collapsed back onto the rock, his winged arms spread out on either side of him, his eyes closed in submission.

Melete glanced at Aglaia, whose eyebrows lifted in question.

"What now?" Aglaia whispered.

"He is ours." Melete responded. She snatched at Aglaia's hand, drawing her in. "You go first, are you ready?"

Aglaia trembled then nodded.

"Mount him, as you would a stallion," Melete instructed.

The creature moaned loudly again. The sound was fretful and anguished. Beneath his mask his eyes closed then opened again rapidly, focusing on the two women as they decided what to do with him. Aglaia kneeled astride his hips, then moved his erect phallus and pointed it to her centre.

Melete observed, and grew increasingly aroused. It made her want to rub herself until she too could have a ride. The crown was so large that Aglaia had to ease it in slowly, and her juices ran down the shaft, easing its passage. Once she had it fully inside her, Aglaia cried aloud, her hips moving more vigorously as she gained the measure of the beast she had mounted. There was much thrusting and grinding and Aglaia looked almost ready to collapse with pleasure.

Then the man-god grunted and his hips jerked. Aglaia let out a yowl, her body shuddering with release. Melete was entranced at the sight of her friend being pleasured by this strange creature.

"He truly was sent to us from the heavens," Aglaia whispered in awe as she rose to her feet, her hand cupping her mound. "I have been touched by a god."

Melete looked down at him, curious as to whether he would be up to the task of pleasuring her too. He was a man-god, if anyone could he could. But his breath was ragged, his eyes barely open. Melete smiled. A god in human form he may be, but apparently he was as susceptible to their womanly charms as any mortal man. Perhaps she could help him along, though.

He moaned with approval when she dropped to her knees and stroked his broad chest. Curious and eager, her fingers roved over his hard belly and then down to his groin. Her fingers settled on him and stirred. The power of his phallus growing beneath her fingers made her evermore aware of her own need. She wanted to feel that inside her and she was a willing slave to her lust. She bent down and kissed the swollen head of his rod and then tasted him. The tang of his essence was mixed with a more familiar flavour—that of her female lover.

The man-god was quickly rigid and ready once more. When he moaned with pleasure she reached for the sap-filled orbs that rested against his thigh, heavy and potent still. She felt the movement of them as they tightened against her hand and she sucked gently at the end of his shaft. The sense of urgency she felt drove her on. He was more than ready to be mounted again, so she climbed onto him and groaned as his sturdy erection stretched and filled her.

It felt so good that she rode up and down it vigorously, thrusting her hips at an angle in order to have it stroke her most responsive places. Each time the head of his mighty shaft pressed against her deep inside, intense pleasure bloomed in the pit of her belly.

Meanwhile Aglaia stood by, lips parted and eyes wide as she watched. Melete pulled on her own nipples to increase her pleasure, revelling in the gaze of both the man-god and the female audience. It made her wild. She moaned loudly and squeezed his shaft with her inner flesh.

Behind his mask the man-god's eyes begged her for his second release. The swell and throb of his pulsating rod was so intense that her tender flesh began to palpate and clench. Her release was upon her. At her centre, her flesh rippled around his shaft, her juices flooding as she hit her peak.

By the gods, yes!" she cried, when she felt him tighten and reach beneath her, her tender places awash with the magnitude of his release. ***

36.

It took Icarus some moments to level after his second spending. When he did he realised the nymphs were on their feet and whispering to each other.

They had grown curious and their discussion revealed they were about to lift off his mask. His father had warned him not to be discovered, and he realised he must make haste back to the task from which he had been lured by the sight of the two nymphs cavorting on the rocks below—his departure from this land. As much as he hated to leave them he rose to his feet awkwardly. Bowing to each of them in turn, he lifted his hand in farewell.

"Farewell, man-god," the darker haired nymph called out.

Icarus smiled and preened as he hastened away from them. They thought him a man-god. That gave power to his stride.

Charging through the trees, he headed for the clearing. Once there he manipulated his wings, lifted from the ground, then spiralled upwards into the sky, his wings flapping vigorously. He soared and soared, his body vibrant with ecstasy, his loins still palpating from the glorious lovemaking he'd experienced.

When he glanced back he saw the two nymphs below, as beautiful as two young goddesses, and yet staring up at him in awe, waving, and still he soared higher, carried on their admiration. The rushing of his blood alone felt strong enough to fuel his flight and it was as if the heat inside his body was glowing all around him.

And so Icarus soared on, magnificent and potent against the expanse of crystalline-blue sky. He noticed that his bronzed arms shone with luminescence, and his wings were barely visible with the strength of the light flooding through them, making them all but transparent. His head burned, as if a crown of sunlight had been placed upon him, and he bellowed his pleasure aloud, bathing his sated body in the heat.

So filled with ecstasy was he that it took him a while to notice the droplets of wax that sizzled and dripped from his wings, and it was too late that he saw the stray feathers that floated down, one or two of which now bore evidence of the intense heat where they had been singed by the sun.

Too late he realised his fate, but he could not regret his dalliance, for the pleasure he'd been given still reigned within him, and when Icarus plunged to his death in the sea, he was still suffused with pleasure—his mind, body and soul consumed with the passions that the nymphs had shared with him in the woods.

A sadness-tinged tale it is, but such an amorous and ecstatic death is a special thing, and has been prayed for by leagues of mankind, both before Icarus and ever since. That, and the ability to fly.

37.

Vahalla This isn't Vahalla!

It's your bedroom.

38.

39.

40.

Morning Surgery At The Fantasyland STD Clinic

A girl sits with her legs apart All itchy-groined and threadbare Name coined after her skin-flicks Not the colour of her headwear.

The doctor gives it to her straight: ‘Now then, Miss Riding Hood, Your test results came back today…

Afraid they’re not too good.’

She sinks to ever baser depths To satisfy the cameras.

(Her porn career began to wane After One Night At Grandma’s) An unprotected spit-roasting From two enormous dragons; A gangbang with some hobbits Where she licked their Bilbo Baggins ‘Oooh! What big tentacles you have!’

She’s giggled to Cthulu’s wiggling mass.

‘All the better to screw you with, m’dear – Beginning with your ass!’

Sucking off satyrs and gobbling goblins While greased-up pixies work her minge – Movies so blue They make Bluebeard cringe.

The doctor glances at her notes And thinks he’d like to bang her.

Too bad his penis when erect’s The same size as a Clanger.

‘Yes… your ATM with Satan’s Left a nasty yeast infection.

Best rub the problem area With a senior priest’s erection.’

Cos sex has come To Make-Believe And everybody’s at it With bleeding loins Receding groins And pubes all grey and matted.

Pandora’s opened up her box, Aladdin’s put his lad in, The mage has turned to coprophage The bard’s had the paladin.

Yes, fucking’s the new questing It’s made everyone a cynic And they come to worship daily At the FSTD Clinic.

Godzilla’s engorged gonads Caused a fatal train derailment.

Rip Van Winkel Has a painful penis ailment.

They say he gave up sleeping Cos it ate up vital wanking time Then tore his foreskin getting blowjobs Off the Bride of Frankenstein.

A mummy king awaits a cure For cursed acidic semen.

Two dryads converse dryly On the cons of fucking treemen: It’s no joke When your bloke Gets literal wood – Freezing winters Tweezing splinters Out your clitoral hood.

41.

Yeah, cos in the clinic waiting room They don’t care who’s fellating whom Or if you ride upon a broom And suffer from a prolapsed womb.

And in the clinic’s bleach-drenched halls The stench of fear seeps through the walls And wenches’ tears form waterfalls As stricken lords unclench their balls.

The Wolfman has crabs.

The Crabman has molluscs.

Peter Pan’s found these weird Downy hairs on his bollocks.

One client’s a giant, His dick like a totem; He’s sick of the family Of mice in his scrotum.

An imp in a gimp mask Cannot cross his legs – The stench from his trenchcoat Is like rotten eggs.

The air thrums with fairies Half-dead from cystitis.

An oversexed troll’s crotch Is dripping with sprite pus.

A hermit has herpes.

A harpy has thrush.

There’s a zombie with genitals Turning to mush.

There are hellspawn and shellborn And snaggle-toothed freaks.

There’s a knight with a lance Jammed between his arse cheeks.

There’s a sentient todger A singing vagina (She’s sleeping around Hoping someone ‘ll sign her) There are elf kings and gelflings And rotten-crotched ghouls There are dogmen and boghens And wisecracking mules.

There’s a scent Of hopeless apathy Beneath the funk of leather Cos when fucking came to Make-Believe The magic left forever.

42.

43.

you have disappeared turned to the white foam of once the pines creak, crying

44.

45.

PART FOUR If the sea were a woman’s skirts, underneath was bare apart from fishnets, jewels and dead men. As she swam Marin remembered the tales of the sirens who would sing men under the sea. All around her now she saw these corpses, nestled on the bed, some half ravaged, some just bones. There seemed to be more as she went onward, and shipwrecks- its rigging waving upward like seaweed. Bones and bones half hidden by mud and sand, a torso, a mast.

All drowned by the promise of kissing and breasts. And she felt she knew now where she was going- toward the place where any living thing could make love with any living thing, and once it were made would became permanent, as a dream.

46.

Metamorphosis The transformation is no cross-fade paralysis nor bone crunching latex undulations, it is no different within to the last choice you made though you always knew which way it would go and the choice was notahing more than pantomime, a necessary ritual, the having it out with oneself was really the masonic handshake, a changing of the guard to let one self fade and the other step forward to take the wheel, for the stuck up botanist, a clumped up knot of convention and regret to give way for the widow's-peaked predator, a slight pronouncement of the fingernail and fang, the tux still fits and the caps still gleam.

The wolf does not wake, snarling within a trashed basement, his clothes ripped to shreds, no, he calmly slips on his coat and cap, he keeps within the shadows and treads lightly.

He shall kill tonight.

47.

48.

51.

Skeleton Under My Skin I sit in the back room of an empty candlelit Soho restaurant. An elderly Italian man plays the piano as I sit at a table for two with the skeleton of a Mermaid. She is wearing a blonde wig that gives her the look of a dead Pamela Anderson. On her face is the same expression that all skulls possess, surprised to be dead. Her lower half lies under the square table, a fish stripped of its scales and meat. It is a stereotypical fish skeleton, apart from the fact that she has covered it with PVA glue and sprinkled it with gold glitter. Twinkling in the dull light of the tablecloth canop, it is a sky under there and we are eating from the floor of Heaven.

I watch mesmorised at the Rioja falls down her once throat, the trickle splattering her ribs briefly disappearing behind her loose fitting emerald corset until it puddles on the cushion of her seat. Lifting two golfball sized tomatoes to her eye sockets she she screws them into place. Bursting as she does so, red plasma coated seed tears slowly slide down the white of what used to be her cheeks. The green stars of the vine connectors sit in place of her pupils, I am aroused by this and that was her aim.

Her skeletal tail plays footsy with me under the censor of the table. It moves up my leg scraping at my shins with my shoelaces caught in it's racer spoke like points. I feel the blood begin to soak into my Jeans and take a deep breath. This is why we are in a relationship. Nobody else has this.

Taking a lipstick from her handbag she removes the gold cap with difficulty, struggling to grip the metal with her bone fingers. Eventually taking it to her teeth she bites it and removes it. The clink of her sound gives me goosebumps and makes me realise how quiet flesh covered humans are compared to skeletons. When a living person picks up a glass it is almost silent. When a skeleton does it there is a substantial amount of sound. She twists the lipstick slowly arousing the dog and paints the bone around her mouth red. No lips to stick. She takes the lipstick lid and drops it on the floor on purpose. It hits the carpet like a bullet shell in a big budget action movie. A single skeletal finger rises to her mouth, "Oops" she whispers in an accent that you develop when you have spent some time in heaven.

Bending down to the floor to retrieve the lid she disappears under the table, the sound of the ocean fills my ears as she undoes my flies. There is no tongue' only teeth. No moisture only dust. I focus on the flame of a candle on top of the piano and try not to look at the couple on the table to my right. They have been talking about Council Tax for the last hour. I listen to their concerns as the yellow teeth of the skeleton of the mermaid bring me to climax. With my hands gripped onto the corners of the table I thrust and shoot my life into her death. Her tomato eyes drop out of their sockets and into my groin, punctured and used.

52.

Satan Satan, don’t ask the stringless milkman for string, don’t ride on the baggage train, don’t upend the cereal boxes.

Satan, don’t scare the plants. It’s time to up your game.

Satan, be careful with that stick please. You might not have someone’s eye out like that.

Satan, where’s your sedition?

Satan, don’t do as your told.

Make me proud, don’t make me proud.

What’s the point?

Do as you’re told.

What’s the point?

There isn’t any.

Well, I might as well be good then.

You will not. You will be what I want.

53.

54.

55.

56.

Dreamless They say we cannot recall details without flaws, that Casablanca is a classic for what it is not. I hold shades of your flame in the casement of my heart, but as for particulars— they will not stay. In spite of the ire that I bear you, there's love here, too.

I look in to make sure that you are sleeping.

I hum a web of haunted lullabies: fractured, flawed enough for beauty. They'll remember me, and you through dreamless, half-slitted eyes will remember, too.

57.

58.

In the Ages of the Earth

Part I “Along the way is a fine antique of a Split-Pea Soup Restaurant and you must stop there and eat a bowl of split-pea soup,” the Wise Old Elder had said to Strong Young Ricky. Ricky had kicked at the earth and toyed with his car keys in the pocket of his blue jeans with one hand and fiddled with the hilt of his short sword with the other hand.

Part II At the Split-Pea Soup Restaurant they had indeed set a fine-looking bowl of split-pea soup in front of Strong Young Ricky. But Ricky was concerned that the White and Evil Fishbelly, slippery aboard his Pallid Horse, might have passed this way, and threatened the Split-Pea Soup Chef into poisoning Ricky’s split-pea soup if Ricky were to also come along. Which he had. Strong Young Ricky stared into the soup. Perhaps the Wise Old Elder had sent Strong Young Ricky to the Split-Pea Soup Restaurant due on some other purpose. And so perhaps Ricky wasn’t meant to eat the split-pea soup and was supposed to instead discover wisdom at not eating the split-pea soup. Anyway, Ricky was strong and needed meat for upkeep.

Ricky pushed the soup bowl aside and went looking for the true purpose behind his being at the Split-Pea Soup Restaurant.

Part III And so it was that four days journey from the Split-Pea Soup Restaurant Strong Young Ricky and The Snickering Gnome, who had picked up with Ricky from being a dishwasher in the Split-Pea Soup Restaurant’s kitchen, these two reached the shores of the Summer Ocean, and began to wait for a sailboat that never came.

They parked Ricky’s car in the seafront parking lot. It was raining outside but tranquil and warm in the car. The Snickering Gnome snickered, briefly: “Heh heh heh.” Strong Young Ricky looked around the parking lot, empty except for seagulls, and wished to spot some troll or bugbear he could dispatch.

Part IV Strong Young Ricky was lethargic. He’d seen the Great Gray Ungilded Cloud of Sadness pass across the sky at twilight two days before. Now Ricky was glum. Sitting in his car at yet another beach. Waiting for another impossible task to be presented to him. Only the day before The Snickering Gnome had snickered twice at the strike of noon (“Heh heh heh, heh heh heh.”), then simply climbed out of the car and walked off down the beach never to be seen again, making Ricky wonder if some things meant nothing.

Strong Young Ricky fell into a nap. In a dream he knocked around on a woodland path with a wedding party of sparrows. The sparrows were all trying to get Ricky to sing a little love song to the bride sparrow and the groom sparrow but Ricky refused even though even his voice was strong.

He blinked awake and found a Lily-Feathered Seagull had landed on the hood of his car. Strong Young Ricky, feeling friskier due on his nap, wondered if perhaps his dream had been a cue for him to try communicating with this Lily-Feathered Seagull. Ricky rolled down his window and stuck out his head.

“Hiyo, there, bird,” said Strong Young Ricky.

“Hiyo,” the bird responded.

“What have you come to tell me?” Ricky asked.

“Hiyo,” said the seagull.

“Why have you come?” asked Strong Young Ricky.

“Hiyo,” the bird said.

Part V The better half of an hour passed. Much as Strong Young Ricky tried, he couldn’t get the Lily-Feathered Seagull to say more than ‘hiyo’. BUT! In the course of going over and over the beginning of a conversation with the seagull Ricky also attempted to start his car, and found he’d left the headlights on, and that his battery was dead. SO! Fruitlessly trying to get the bird to divulge some knowledge or insight or task at least was a way for Ricky to pass the time until a storm came, and the Lily-Feathered Seagull flew away, and lightning started striking. Then Strong Young Ricky loosed a canticle incantation he’d once learned from the Wise Old Elder: "Fear-a, fear-a, fear-a cloud Never love-a, never love-a, never love-a cloud Help-a me cloud, help-a me cloud, help-a, help-a, help-a me cloud!!!" and a bolt of lightning struck his car, shocking it back to life.

59.

Part VI This must be writ of stars, this one, this leap back in history, this story of Edwina the Grand.

She was good about spinning on her tiptoes even if she was rotund, muscular, and of the weight of 500 stone. She was called Grand because she was of a royal family in a garden kingdom in the ages. With her clatterbox carriage she relentlessly chased but never killed many elk in the royal fields. She relentlessly chased but never killed many deer in the royal forest.

One day on the Great Western Road Edwina was pushing her carriage along because her horse had died of weariness five minutes previous. She passed, while pushing, a strong young man working a scythe in a field of wheat. His shirt was off and his torso was like a lot of easy monster worms writhing just under the surface of a shiny new earth. The sight of the strong young man made the bells in Edwina ring.

The strong young man looked up to Edwina and flashed an able grin. She stopped pushing the carriage and asked him his name.

“Ricky,” he said.

“You’re strong and young, eh?”

“Yes,” said Ricky.

“Would you push my carriage?”

And there was Strong Young Ricky’s moment of ascension. In the near future he would go from field hand to Knight of the Seventeenth Order.

Part VII There was a pair of burly black jeans in the general store window.

“Oh, those are fine,” thought Strong Young Ricky.

Part VIII Wearing the jeans and reaching the end of Shingleglottenclacklabbeymindle Street, Ricky heard a child cry for help from the forest surrounding the town. He pulled his short sword from its scabbard and dashed in the cry’s direction.

Part IX Strong Young Ricky ran and ran in the forest, but he could never come to the source of the child’s cry. Finally, miles and hills and a little later than those, Ricky got a bit out of breath, and he paused in a clearing for a break.

His new jeans had been nicely worn in by the run.

Ricky looked around and thought that maaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyybe the cry of the child was just meant as a lure, to lure him into the forest so he could be ambushed.

As if cued by this thought, an unsettling hunting horn sounded. Strong Young Ricky turned to face eleven hobgoblins and thirteen kobolds coming through the trees, savage creatures hefting surprisingly well-made battle-axes and surprisingly well-polished maces and surprisingly well-chained morning stars, but also the hobgoblins' and kobolds' skins were boiling and they were coughing and spitting and they were stumbling noisily into the clearing in their clumsy chain mail and so there were these large hints at the hobgoblins' and kobolds’ general lack of dexterity and weak constitutions. Strong Young Ricky raised his short sword. He would, he thought, easily destroy these hobgoblins and kobolds for bringing him so deep into the woods, and for such a flimsy ambush, and he would, he thought, easily destroy these hobgoblins and kobolds for the unforgivable transgression of making a child cry.

60.

61.

62.

so nearly morning of the most beautiful daydusk tells us otherwise

63.

PART FIVE Waiting for Marin was our lady of love, made of pearls and clouded glass. Her name was Amphitrite and she spread in the water like ink. On the shores, her palace glowed like a bonfire, for inside all animals and half-animals and magical people made love, day in day out to stoke the fire in all the stars. Fauns fucked mermaids fucked centaurs. A man kissed a merman. Love was on everyone’s lips and people lay back on fur or swam in fountains- fruit grew from every wall, apples and plums hanging low and heavy, the kingdom of Yep. Girls danced naked and noone knew of time- all was wine and eating. As Marin drew closer she wept for her simple life on the shore, her strong husband and the mended nets, but she knew that tonight, in this dream, she was to be free of all care, of the pain she felt on the rocks as she searched for driftwood and the gutting of fish. She saw our lady from afar and watched her raise one pale hand into the wind. ‘Marin’, she mouthed, ‘we have been wanting you’.

64.

Oh, Dr Glendon...

Oh Dr Glendon, what a big nose you have!

All the better to sniff you out my dear halfway across the town, among the pungent noise of the public houses, the overrunning sewers, the spitting gas lamps and spewed pollen from the heaths and botanical gardens, a secret part of you spills into the updraught, a slim, trickling rivulet that finds me transformed and oh so hungry. . .

Oh Doctor Glendon, what big ears you have!

All the better to hear your footsteps quicken when you hear me howl, not quite running, not quite sure that you are being hunted but quick enough to get you from the alley towards the bustle of the well-lit thoroughfare. . .

Oh Doctor Glendon, what big eyes you have!

All the better for calculating the pouncing distance and finally, the curve of your shadow, soon to collide with mine. . .

Oh Doctor Glendon, what big paws you have!

All the better for pinning you down, like some precious specimen, to the grimy cobbles. . .

Oh Doctor Glendon, what big teeth you have!

All the better for sinking into you perfumed neck, the deepest, longest kiss you'll ever had to taste the star-born iron within you blood and drink you dry. . .

Oh Dr Glendon, what a bright, bright red, yet curiously small cock you have!

Shut the fuck up.

65.

66.

Feverish Light When Claire first saw the new custodian stacking chairs outside the teacher’s lounge, she froze in the line of colleagues filing down the school hall.

“Claire?” Augusta called.

He passed them, his body angled slightly forward in the effort of pushing the stack of chairs, left arm slightly higher than the right, and from this angle, his hands were the only exposure of his earthy brown skin. His shoulder blades jutted slightly, creating a dip into belted black pants that road easy.

Lithe how he strode away. Like a dolphin cutting slick through crisp, blue waves.

Claire had to close her mouth that hung open with the urge to bite.

“The Chair’s memo. Did you get it, Claire?”

“Hmmm?”

“Claire.”

The cart’s rattling quieted. It seemed they were all halted in the middle of the hall. Claire kept her eyes on Augusta. “The memo? Yes. I already messaged her about it.”

Augusta stepped closer. Her five-six height shouldn’t have seemed overpowering. Claire was only an inch shorter, but she felt thin and pale, evaporating into the hall’s silence behind her. Were his hands running over the metal that twisted to form each chair, straightening the collapsing rows? No, there wasn’t even the sound of metal scraping metal. What was he doing behind her?

“You don’t look well,” Augusta said. “Flushed.”

“Jeremy has a fever,” Claire said. Yes, that was it. Her son had been home with a fever the past two days. Raised temperatures made the ordinary surreal.

Augusta stepped back. “Oh.” She stole another two feet away into the germ-free zone. Claire glanced at Sabina with her glorious black hair shadowing her tiny frame. Sabina stared down the hallway. Sabina saw what he was doing. And then Augusta’s gaze softened, peering past Claire.

Claire wanted to turn to look, but Clayton interrupted, releasing their three held breaths. “Well, I need a strong coffee before that meeting.”

As their feet followed Clayton’s lead, Claire cast a furtive glance behind her. The custodian faced them now, resting back on the cart as if at leisure, arms folded across his chest, legs crossed.

What god was this that stole into their college?

She turned away. His face couldn’t really have been that beautiful, could it? The shadows in the hall had deceived her, like the sun flashing from the high windows, the trees swaying and knocking. From that distance, she’d never have been able to see the burning heat of those eyes. His eyes: warm brown, gold-flecked, framed in dark lashes and defined by black brows, black to match the earth’s deepest obsidian, the earth’s belly rising up with one wish, to be night-free, to wing over the earth, a crow casting shadow to cool the burning sands, beating heat to warm the ice deserts.

It made no sense.

She had to jog to catch up to her colleagues. She was hot and cold at once. Yes, feverish. Tomorrow, she’d take two Tylenol and then greet the new employee and offer him pastry from the morning fare. It’d be nothing.

Gods didn’t come down from heaven, except in literature. Besides, it wasn’t hallowed light that he evoked. It was earthy depths.

Claire watched her son flip his spring jacket over his shoulder as he spotted her car in line at the school. He was five years old and had the mannerisms of his father, though his father had left to live elsewhere. She ducked and waved to him, inching forward with the rest of the parents relieved to spot their children.

As he signaled the teacher on duty, the jacket twirled on his finger. She wanted to forget Kevin. She wished Jeremy would lose all resemblance. Clicking open the backdoor, he tossed his backpack inside. The door slammed with a hollow echo.

“Mrs. Cameron read a story today about Apollo.”

Claire handed a juice box back to Jeremy and watched him in the rearview mirror. His hair was getting long, brushing over his eyes.

“He has this great chariot with fire, and he rides across the sky.” Jeremy’s arms flung out like fire whipping by. “It’s supposed to be the sun,” he said then, with practicality, arms down, hand secure on the juice box.

“A chariot across the sky sounds like glorious fun,” she said.

“Well, it’s kind of his job.” He sipped, the box suctioning in. Claire leaned forward to check traffic, waiting to merge onto the rural route home. “He’s the god of light,” Jeremy continued. “And he has dolphins and crows. Or he turns into … I don’t know. I liked the fire.”

A silver-grey Camaro whipped around the curve just as she was about to merge forward. It streamed by, glinting in the low spring sun. A dolphin.

“I think I read your mind today, Jeremy,” Claire laughed, following the slippery dolphin car. “I thought of dolphins.” And crows, she realized. Odd coincidences. Life was funny that way.

Fumbling her briefcase and the box of pastries, Claire struggled against the tight hydraulic pull of the university’s main hall entrance. It was seven a.m., the sky a thin blue in the chill morning.

“Here, let me.” A slender brown hand streamed in, long fingers catching the door handle. The passage eased open, and Claire followed warm olive skin as it disappeared into a white sleeve, then traced up the sweatshirt’s soft billows, to find the face to thank.

It was the custodian from yesterday. Yet not him.

Behind him, the slant of morning sun drifted over mown grass, silver with frost, but here, in the doorway, black chiffon spilled over coppery heat. He was silkscreen encasing fire. The thank-you knotted in her throat.

It was him, but he was dressed in soft, pale jeans, the school’s logo pressed across his chest. A book bag hung from his left shoulder. This was a student.

“I thought …” Claire began. What could she say to him? He stood there with a white smile, holding open the door. Claire passed through, but when she turned back, he was already trotting down the stairs, light in the frosty morning. She watched as he hit the cleanly swept sidewalk heading toward the science buildings. He held his back straight, head up, confident in motion, in destination. An ambling stride that yet had purpose.

Of course, it couldn’t be the same man.

“Hold that please!” someone shouted. A woman carrying a warping cardboard box puffed up the stairs, eyes expectant on Claire in the doorway. She seemed to be in such a hurry. What was all this rush? Claire wanted to drop the briefcase and follow the direction of the waves, the ease of a flight pattern already established.

The woman had to squeeze past, the box scraping her arm, before Claire realized she hadn’t moved from the doorway. Rooted. Abandoning the pastry box on the slatted bench, she headed toward the science buildings.

“You missed class,” Sabina whispered, handing Claire a Styrofoam cup that steamed with fresh coffee. She didn’t mention that there were no morning pastries though it was Claire’s designated day, among the five of them.

She nodded but kept her eyes down, breathing the rich smell of coffee bean, almond and vanilla. She wanted to examine the full length of this man, sniff her way up his calves, behind his knees, taste his inner thigh.

67.

“You missed class,” Sabina whispered, handing Claire a Styrofoam cup that steamed with fresh coffee. She didn’t mention that there were no morning pastries though it was Claire’s designated day, among the five of them.

She nodded but kept her eyes down, breathing the rich smell of coffee bean, almond and vanilla. She wanted to examine the full length of this man, sniff her way up his calves, behind his knees, taste his inner thigh.

“Are you okay?” Sabina asked.

“I was sick. In the bathroom. I’ll e-mail the students.” She’d been traipsing the science building halls, peering into classrooms. He’d been nowhere to be found.

“Natalie missed second hour, and she’s not answering my message.” Though Claire had suggested she was sick, Sabina didn’t shy away like Augusta had.

The slick mahogany walls of the university ran down Claire’s back, and Sabina’s flowing black hair brushed Claire’s arm. She smelled like summer fields, the spice of wildflowers.

It was hot in the room.

“Is there something going on I should know about?” Sabina smiled and winked.

Claire laughed and eyed the gaggle of professors in their jackets and sweaters, all men she knew and liked but who looked cartoonish standing there.

“New male on campus,” she said.

Sabina raised her brow and flung back her hair. She sipped her coffee, eyeing Claire over the cup.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Claire set down her cup. She couldn’t make it the rest of the day. She needed fresh air. “I use ‘male’ loosely. I’m thinking a god has come down from the heavens. I think we should all beware.”

In the elementary school courtyard, the flag fluttered and snapped against the blue sky. Claire waited on the bench outside for the bell to ring. Twenty minutes. But the wind made the fifty-degree day feel colder. So much for fresh air; it wasn’t relieving the rush of blood inflaming her pelvis, making her feel like all channels to her uterus were engorged, muscular, grasping.

Stranger than her fierce desire was that her mind somehow allowed this male duplication—custodian, student. It couldn’t be the same person, yet she was accepting—wanting--it to be. He was too beautiful to be anything but singular.

At another brisk breeze, the flagpole rattled and Claire gave up. She rang the buzzer to be let inside. She’d wait in the office if need be. Security was tight these days.

“Hello, Ms. Sorel,” the intercom answered. They could see her from the window. Waving, Claire caught the door as it buzzed. Heat wrapped her immediately, the foyer bright with yellow tile and ivory walls covered in crayon drawings: Poseidon riding a dolphin, Artemis with her arrows, a chariot blazing fire across an indigo sky.

The secretary peeked her head out. “You can go on down to Jeremy’s room. They’re watching a movie.”

Ah, yes, she’d forgotten. More mythology. She glanced back at the Apollo drawing: the man on campus hadn’t been fair and blonde, yet he’d felt like fire.

And like quenching water: Apollo slicing through blue oceans, slick, thick, and hard entering the wet canals. It was quiet in the hall; she could almost hear lead scratching across paper. And then she heard whispers.

Claire paused, pretending to view the third-grade posters. Not whispers, they were moans coming from across the hall. Opaque grey light emitted from an empty classroom. She walked up quietly. Another whisper, and a gasp, the intake that came with penetration. She knew it. She felt it. Him, his goldbrown eyes hazing, his full satin lips parted, dipping toward a kiss, his heart pulsing stronger.

With a deep breath, Claire adopted a casual stride, feigning a casual glance inside. She stopped. He had a woman up against the whiteboard, her skirt raised, nylons dangling off one leg. Those satin brown hands gripped her thighs, boosting her up. His black hair fluttered, lower lip swollen, drooped in abandonment. He wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled, dress pants, something a teacher would wear. Ms. Callico wiggled, struggling to draw him closer.

Claire felt the same urge grip her, her stomach contracting.

He turned. She stood there staring, and his full lips open a warm white smile. Then he resumed his thrusting.

The bell shrilled, echoing through the building. Claire’s heart crashed. And she hurried away. Hurried to the security of Jeremy’s class, his book bag, his small coat. His face in that customary, concentrated smile.

While Jeremy configured the new chunky puzzles of fire engines and steamboats, Claire sifted through his photocopies of mythological gods and heroes.

The Apollo Belvedere statue was said to be the consummation of male beauty, depicting the god in nimble masculinity, as if floating, manifesting as an epiphany in all his radiance. Claire clicked open her browser and typed in the search. Of course, it wasn’t really possible. There was some explanation for these look-alikes. The insane acceptance she’d felt earlier diminished with every moment she spent with Jeremy. Her son was practical reality. The sexual being manifesting and disappearing in her world was not.

Apollo. Where would she see him next? Was he wandering the earth in search of the love he could never have? Cupid’s golden arrow pierced Apollo’s heart, with his eyes fixed on the nymph Daphne, destined to love her forever. But in vengeance Cupid struck Daphne with an arrow made of lead--to hate, to despise this lover who could do nothing but pursue her. Pursue a love who begged to be cast back into earth, who asked to be turned into bark and leaf rather than feel Apollo’s caress. Daphne transformed to a laurel tree to escape Apollo’s love.

Claire closed the laptop. Sympathy was not what she needed. He did not look like a forlorn, wandering man; he looked like a man in the heat of exploration.

“Time for bed, kiddo,” she said.

Jeremy shook his head absently. He had five pieces spread rainbow-like over the puzzle. He looked like Kevin, lost in blueprints, nodding that slow way that meant he didn’t hear what she said, didn’t care.

She hovered, watching his mind fix the pieces before his hand reached for them. Apollo’s hands would be fine and meticulous, delicate enough to strum a lyre, this god of music, dexterous, capable. Why did the god of light manifest in this form that tasted like dusk, like furred black trees against the blue whisper of sky, yet smelled too of sunlight, of clay baked into brick, worker bodies layering, stroking, browned in the sun, and hot.

“Bed, Jeremy,” she whispered. She needed her own bed. She needed the darkness. If only he could manifest in her private room, in the dark where she could tell him, Come.

The next morning Claire passed by the teacher’s lounge in determined destination to nowhere. She was hunting for him. Who would he be today? And was she going crazy?

Ten forty-five. She had to get to class, and he was nowhere to be found.

What if she walked in the room and he was there at a desk? Could she teach class without planting her hand on his chest, pushing him back in the chair? Could she teach without straddling him, saying this is what you’re here for, isn’t it?

The students waited in rows. His face not among them.

68.

Apollo had a lover named Coronis. In a fit of jealousy at her betrayal, he’d killed Coronis with his son still in her womb. This god of light and poetry and prophecy, who spoke only the truth, who at the age of four saved his own mother from the relentless pursuit of the Python, killed a mother and nearly his own son.

He had clear vision. And what could potentially muddy the vision fell off to periphery, or death. The white raven was cast to black on bearing the message of his love’s betrayal. Yet he banished the night in his chariot of sun.

The man who haunted her was a paradox. He wore the raven’s black feathers and sun in his eyes. Claire tucked Jeremy in bed and pulled a comforter from the chair to rest herself on his bedroom floor. How did you stop a god from taking what fulfilled his vision?

She woke to Jeremy’s bare feet tapping on her arm. “Why’d you sleep in my room?”

Because she’d been dreaming. Sultry dreams brought on by the lingering fever. Her chest was shiny with sweat. “Sorry, kiddo. I dozed off listening to your breathing.”

They ate breakfast in front of the sliding glass door leading to the courtyard. Fog blurred the slick black trunks of the oak trees, and cast gauze over the row of spindly bushes.

“What’s he doing?” Jeremy asked, milk drizzling down his chin as the cereal spoon hovered. Grabbing a napkin, Claire dabbed at his chin. Her son’s gaze was focused over Claire’s shoulder, to the left of the courtyard. She didn’t want to look.

Instead, she scooped up his bowl. “C’mon, we’ll be late.”

“What’s he doing with the branches of that tree?”

Jeremy took her hand and shook it. This was too close to home. She didn’t have a chance. How did one combat a god on his quest?

“Jeremy,” she pleaded.

Her son smiled. “It’s a crown, Mom. He twisted the branches into a crown.”

The laurel crown that marked his eternal love for Daphne. Claire pulled the drawstring, and the curtains rattled closed.

The police officer who stopped her at the rural route outside Jeremy’s school was kind enough to give her a warning. She rarely speeded, but now amid the traffic of students and the faculty casting hand-waves she sped through the halls with barely an acknowledgement. Why had the officer looked at her that way? Almost with sympathy. She’d felt marked. Were they all staring? Did she wear a star on her forehead? Would he place the laurel crown on her head, a temporary stop on his quest for Daphne?

The security officer standing with one hand on Sabina’s classroom door didn’t have to turn. No one had hair that silken black. If ink rained over the earth, it would wash colorless beside the rain that drifted over him. His shoulders were plateaus that could house life securely, that dipped gracefully to his torso’s narrowing landscape. Students bumped past her. She stood as if swept into a gorge, the river rushing down her throat.

“Claire, you missed the morning meeting!” Augusta’s voice was hard and bright through the shadows sweeping by her. Her breath was almond coffee; her hand comforting heat at Claire’s elbow. But Claire couldn’t take her eyes from him, from his body turning, a paper limp in his left hand, his head down, eyes … his eyes … Claire grabbed the elbow poking at her side. His eyes flooding her.

“Hon, are you still sick?” Now and then Augusta tapped into her maternal side, and it was what Claire needed to pass this security guard who betrayed the duty of his costume. Who had looked at her that way, with that dare.

“Yes,” she said. A clammy chill pricked up her face; heat flushed her chest. Augusta led her past Sabina’s room, past his relentless and marked stare. “I can’t …” She had to go home. “It’s the fever.”

Augusta patted her hand. “I’ve just the thing. Dayquil. You’ll be fiddle-fit in no time.” Claire’s heart clattered and crashed, erratic and aching. She wanted to be the rain over him. To drape along his body. She wanted his eyes to lead, to take, give her home.

Past him, down the hall, she turned back. Save me, she wanted to say. Follow.

Tucked in her office with two Dayquils and a cup of tea, Claire thanked Augusta and put her head down on the cushioned pile of papers. She’d e-mail her students and cancel class. But this couldn’t keep happening. Could a fever cause this delirium, these mirages?

The phone startled her upright. It glared white against the charcoal light from the window. “Claire Sorel,” she said.

“Back to the maiden name already?” Kevin had always joked that she’d seize her real name back at first opportunity. But she’d always imagined the three of them as one.

“You took what was ours with each step away.”

“Ah, yes, all the attention I didn’t give you.”

This was how it went. He didn’t wrap his arms around her when she cried; he listened halfway, to what he wanted to hear. He had a vision of who she was and how she fit and what didn’t fit fell into his periphery.

“You … “ She stopped. “Jeremy’s studying mythology. Did he tell you?”

“That’s why I’m calling. I’d like him to sleepover tonight and take him to the museum tomorrow.”

The phone was slippery in her hand. “Tonight?” Jeremy, her security, her sanity. Maybe this wasn’t even Kevin, she thought. “Yes, he’d love it.” The small feet that tapped on her arm, the drizzle of milk. She’d be alone; she wasn’t ready for misplaced laurels. She couldn’t mend the fabric of Apollo’s vision unthreading.

“Of course, I’ll drop him off on the way home.”

Could you reason yourself out of unrelenting desire?

Claire sat at in a green plastic chair on the small slab of concrete outside her sliding glass door. What would this god bring to her? What did her body’s rapid pulse want from him?

The sun’s fire weakened along the horizon and the high skies drew the universe close.

He came casually: a tenant carrying empty flowerpots across the courtyard. He strode agile across the short spring grass, his soft, pale jeans riding him like water. His white pullover shirt fit the straight lines of his shoulders, his lean and slender chest, and an accent of sky-blue sleeves made his skin appear darker, igniting a flame that flickered through her body.

When he turned to her, Claire stood.

Then she opened the patio door, stepped in, and let the curtains blow through the entry.

In her bedroom, she struck a match and lit three candles at the bedside. He was light. He was truth. He could only do what was right.

He stood in the doorway, a silhouette of the heavens.

“I don’t know why …” She stopped as his smile tingled in her throat. Like seizing the high clouds and nestling in safety, his smile was assurance. And under the black canopy of his hair, the dusk of his forehead, his black brows and lashes, his eyes were morning sun.

Then he stepped forward and the smile vanished. Her legs bumped the bed. His shirt was taut across his chest, this human body struggling with a god’s breath, and his eyes slid over her, searching.

“Daphne’s not in me, not …” Claire began.

He raised a hand for silence. Within this god of light was also the god who killed. There was no stopping him from his pursuit of what was meant to be his. With slow curiosity, he absorbed her, his gaze pathing up her body, and then focused on her lips. She grabbed the bedpost, aching to slip past him, aching to slide over him. Then he pulled her to him. Grasping his shirt, she clenched soft cotton in her fingers and held on to keep her legs steady.

“Apollo,” she whispered. Soft lips pressed to hers, lips sculpted from heaven’s silk. Her eyes closed. His tongue flickered, spiked by the wine of gods.

69.

“Apollo,” she whispered. Soft lips pressed to hers, lips sculpted from heaven’s silk. Her eyes closed. His tongue flickered, spiked by the wine of gods.

He lay her on the bed.

In his black hair, her fingers stroked heaven’s pools, and on his cheekbone, shining gold in the candlelight, she licked the fruit of sun.

Such beauty flooding over her ached with a strange need, both to take and to give. He pushed against her, and she opened. How did you ease a god? she thought. She kissed his knitted brow, the eyelids that fell closed as he moaned.

But when she reached to caress his face, his eyes opened with a glint of amusement. There was nothing she could give that he could possibly need. This was desire alone.

He stretched his neck back, that glimmer quickly shadowed by passion as he fingered her ribs, grabbed her hips. And this need was mutual. “Apollo,” she moaned, yanking up his shirt to meld into skin.

The room whirled, a pulsing in her ears as he slid open zippers, his insistent breath like the ocean coming again and again. She met the rhythm, drank his strange dark fire, his unabashed lustful pursuit. He was governor of himself. There was nothing he needed from her but her own self-governance, to take what she wanted.

Kicking off her jeans, she slid up the bed. He stripped off his shirt and like a shield sprung bright, his chest covered her face. She kissed skin that burst with Apollo’s light.

His entry sent a gasp through her body, and a guttural moan. Her legs wrapped him and, grabbing his neck, she drew him in. As his thrust shocked her body, the new green of spring tingled up her throat, fertile earth crumbled in her pelvis, roots fingered through fiery nerves.

How had this god cheated Cupid in his game of love and loss? Desire wasn’t limited by a single arrow, not in this god of paradoxical beauty. Light within dark, mystery within truth. He’d let no trickster’s arrow stop him.

He carried her, suspended, rocking into her like an ocean breaking. Bottles clattered on her dresser, covers slid to the floor. She arched to fit his body, skin heating skin, raw nerves aching for relief. He was seeding, and she couldn’t let go.

Before his final thrust, he looked down at her. “Let them go.”

And he poured into her; their bodies tumbled at the release. Locked under his weight, pillowed on the bed, she let her body shudder to its closure. Then she ran her hand through his hair, and savored his breath hot on her shoulder.

“I’m to have your child?” she said.

His face came up with a daring smirk. “It’s what you wanted.” He was up on one elbow, those sunlit eyes sliding over the body he’d entered and left.

“She’ll be different. Yours.”

A gasp caught in her throat. “I love Jeremy.”

“But this one’s yours.”

She studied the strange warmth in his difficult eyes. “You are a dark whirl of fire. Night’s flame. What did you want?” Claire said.

His smile broke to a laugh, natural, like a man’s. Sun sprayed her small, dark room, the candles one by one extinguished.

And he said, “I don’t want. I am.”

Then rising off her, he slid on his shirt. A dolphin, she thought again, slick with natural grace. And he shook back his head, the crow’s wing feathering his brow.

She rose to her elbows. “Did I … did I call you?”

Those summer-sun eyes squinted with his broad and genuine smile. Then they darkened, that dare again, that penetrating challenge. “I don’t know. Do gods come to your beckoning?”

How dare she think such a thing. This, the god who mastered Cupid’s arrow, slave to no one’s will but his own.

“She’ll be like me,” he said. “Your daughter, Apolonia.”

Claire expected him to vanish, like a god, to fade and evaporate before her eyes. But he walked out the door in his confident stride, the soft jeans rippling with his natural rhythm, and the evening bowed in deference.

She left the patio door open, the breeze sifting through the apartment. Kevin would come and scold her for leaving doors unlocked; he’d warn about the gutters filled with leaves and the careless scattering of bank statements. And Jeremy’s Apollo pictures would be filed at the back of the folder, behind the math tables and graphs.

Claire smiled and stretched full length on the bed. Her body was taut with energy, and she basked in the pleasure of a body fulfilled. A body ready for life. A new vision of her own, set on the easy of course of letting herself be.

70.

71.

72.

73.

Dining Room 16 I thought of you eating on your own, seeing you eat your favourite dish, broiled mermaid.

Under the gaze of a walrus concierge I'd dare you to eat the eyes.

74.

75.

76.

Rumpelstiltskin The best ones are the desperate kind And she was in a right old fix Back bent with sobs, head inclined, I thought I could have this Lick the curve of her neck With my little black tongue Fiddle with her buttons til theyre all undone Unwrap her rosebuds from her dress Pummel and pinch her little breasts So I made her my offer Took her necklace and ring Knowing that by the third day I'd have her quim I spun straw into gold As she cried by the door Thinking I'll bend her over And have her on the floor But when the time came And I.made her my offer She seemed unsurprised At what I proffered Took me in her heart shaped lips Groaned and licked sucked me rough and deep Saliva dribbling down her cheeks She bent over just as I planned arched up her glistening slit So I shoved it in and flicked her clit And as she shudderingly came Three times she said my name ruplestiltskin, ruplestilyskin, rupledtiltskin, Opened her eyes with a grin The ground rent And I unspent Was swallowed whole Heard her giggle and whisper "now, how do I get that gold?"

77.

78.

79.

where have you gone to? a breath-drawn heart on the pane now left in your place

80.

81.

PART SIX Marin entered onto land and found her legs were once again hers. She stumbled across to the palace and was met by a Minotaur. He opened her up straight away and was inside her before she even knew it. She was in rapture, spinning against him and willing him further in. She came and fell backward, his seed upon her like a waterfall, and as she lay there a centaur came to lick her clean. She smiled up at him in a haze of love and he kissed her breasts and took them in his mouth, soft as pebbles.

Flower girls came to scatter petals on her naked body, and to kiss her feet. The centaur moved down further to kiss her cunt and caused her to flip like the fish she once was. She knew then that she was lost to the dream. ‘Marin!’ she heard her husband shout as the centaur once again opened her up and tipped himself inside her, all of him deep into her like the corpse of a man.

82.

The Testimony of Mrs Moncaster “They’re always high and mighty, well bred and long-wordy, the ones that pay up a week in advance— but you don’t know the real man ‘til you’ve took a nip of gin and seen him framed by the keyhole.

“And I thought I’d seen it all, the bank manager’s hairy arse up and down on Boozy Beryl; the Super-intendant dolled up as the Princess of Wales. . .

“But when I heard howling from the garret upstairs and crouched down to grab me an eyeful. . .

“The whole bloody bottle went and slipped from me grip, me poor giddy heart never had such a shock since me wedding night. . .”

83.

* Charming and I were camping on the outskirts of the kingdom, when a young dashing cat, Puss, pitched his tent next to ours. As campers do we got chatting. Puss asked us for directions to the local beauty spot, a secluded magical lake set all around by tall pine trees. He told us he wanted to go there to clean his boots. As lovers of skinny-dipping we were actually on our way there ourselves so we gave him a lift. I thought about how much it would turn me on to seduce and corrupt a talking cat. Maybe I could show him something of my world.

I found a nice shingled area next to the water and lay down to catch some sun in my little hands. Charming busied himself with his mirror, while Puss and I got out of our clothes. I wore only a blue ribbon and sat on a mat opposite the cat. I asked Charming to oil me and dance over me with his tongue.

Puss kept looking up from where he was polishing his boots, pulling the duster back and forth over the silver buckles. I asked if we were disturbing him and he mewed that he’d never seen a naked princess before. I asked him if he’d like to join us and he leaped over straight away and lay on my lap, his fur warm on my thighs. He was purring and at first I thought he might fall asleep, the sun being so hot and the day so clement, but then he started rubbing me, winding around me like a blue Russian breeze.

I lay back and let the cat walk on me. Charming’s mouth was all on me and in the oil, my nipples like two pillaged diamonds. Pirates, the two animals pulled out jewel after jewel until I was rippling like the surface of the lake. Sunlight poured off me and I screwed myself into the shingle with its braille that tripped across me.

Somewhere in the distance I could hear the sound of church bells and as I tipped my head back to listen, a jolt shot through me like a blast from a wand- my whole body alive with electricity. I levitated to the tops of the pines, their peaks around me like green fire. They fused into the blueness, arrows for gods, and as I passed beyond them all around me I could hear birds gossiping about the naked princess in the sky. And then gradually, I drifted down, snow slow and still again- coming round to see the cat, smiling and licking his paws and face.

84.

85.

86.

87.

The Cyclops I am safe from the Cyclops indoors.

His bony fingers can’t reach me.

And when I turn out the light, even then, my sleep is pure and modern.

88.

89.

90.

91.

92.

The Call Girl of Cthulhu 3am Saturday and I’m just about ready to call it a fuckin’ night. I done a Bachelour party in Brooklyn, a four way on fifth, and a coupla boozy Wall Street guys on the way home – my coochie was as sore as a beat on Texan mule! I’m about to throw myself onto the pillow, when I get the call from Miss Caprice, my handler at the agency.

“One last job a’ da night, sweet cheeks,” she drawls (just lovin’ my obvious tiredness!).

“John, name a’ ‘Cthulhu’ out in‘ da sunken city of R’lyeh’. An he’s payin’ f ’da woiks, so getcha self lookin’ real spruce, y’hear?”

Fuck it right? One last John, two hundred notes, let’s get it on. Little did I know, I was in for the righteous fuckin’ of my life!

So an hour later, I was steppin’ out of a cab in R’lyeh. Now, I worked some freaky fuckin’ places in my time, (you don’t wanna see the south Bronx north of midnight believe me) but this joint was fully outta sight. There’s towers made a’ goat corpses, buncha limbs floatin’ around, a loada dyin’ stars sobbin’ for mercy…it’s the pits!

I knock on the door of cthulhu’s bleak fuckin’ cave and he answers, tall as the Empire State; covered in tentacles, gristle and slits; and wailin’ cavernously with what sounds like kinda like the most profound pain of all times, and it’s speakin’ from right inside my goddamn skull. I can’t tell what the hell this guy’s moanin’ about, but sounds like he wants to fuck – and now. Underwater as I am, I’m straightaway wet as a fuckin’ lake!

An’ get this; he don’t even ask my name, or take my coat or nothin’. He just grabs my legs with two of his fetid claws, hoists me alltheway upside-down, then fires his cold scaly self right into me – and letmetellya, he had the biggest, greyest, stinkiest split phalluses you ever seen!

Well, I’m instantly cumin; like a corn-fed Utah virgin, Cthulhu’s disgustin’ death-cock is pushin’ all my insides out right through my face-holes - my eyes, ears and mouth are quite literally squirtin’ with me meat. An’ I’m flailin’ and vibratin’ so hard that I think my pussy may just explode!

As I feel the last sad dregs of my life-force ebbin’ away, as my mind is bein’ pulled inot somethin’ ancient, unholy and abysmal, I rub what’s left of my tits an’ watch through my unblinkin’ retinas as Cthulhu slices the skin from offa my stomach an’ lashes three of his countless limbs into my womb. My screams choked with moss, he then fills my precisely desecrated innards full of antique blackened blood, this guy had some moves!

Suddenly my ears are filled with the nauseating sounds of a choir of blinded, sub-human children, discordantly wailin’ in utter despair for what feels like some kinda unnatural eternity. You can say whatcha like about sub-space deities, but Cthulhu most certainly knew his ‘love-craft’!

Next, Cthulhu bends his abhorrent moulderin’ visage down towards me and squirts a loada harrowing gas into what’s left of my face, sendin’ my consciousness into spasms of philosophical fuckin’ revulsion. But right then, as if a goddamn subway train has hit me, I totally fuckin’ get it; I’ve been reborn as a disease at a theological level, and my insidious agony will blight the brightest worlds. I’ve been reborn as a disease at a theological level, and my insidious agony will blight the brightest worlds. I’ve been reborn as a disease at a theological level, and my insidious agony will blight the brightest.

93.

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95.

PART SEVEN And in a way this went on for days- she was fucked in every way, and stroked and kissed and loved. And in return she loved them all back, with her hands and mouth and every way she could- she tasted every one of them and every time they came, the sky filled with light. And she lay in pleasure, and dripping with it all, exhausted until one day she faintly remembered that she belonged to one man, and she knew she must find her way back to him.

Marin opened her mouth to call his name, and out fell grapes and diamonds- she was no longer a woman but a fruit bowl. And she looked among the peaches trying to find her way out, trying to find her husband. And before long a faun came and knocked her over, her fruit spilled all out into the sea and bobbing back toward her hut on the shore. In his sleep the fisherman reached over the side of the Mermaid’s Comb, fingers splayed out and grappling. ‘Come... on’ he willed himself as he tried to reach the peach, and it spun as his fingertips just touched it.

And as he woke he found his hand upon his wife’s breast, holding it soft as a pine cone. ‘Marin’, he whispered ‘I have found you’.

96.

The End When the dying wolfman began to speak, to thank the Chief of Police for the bullet to apologise to his wife and wish her happiness then breathed his last, upside down on the stairs— she already knew it was her husband, she'd seen that expression, the gaping mouth, that carnivore glare in the last thrusting minute each time he shot his useless seed in her and how the next word he said was always, “Sorry. . .”

And now her childhood sweetheart is flying her to America, she watches the gleaming ripples of the sea below, feels the engine's power through the trembling cockpit.

Her thoughts seem so weightless but she knows that soon she'll get to see the other side, for wolves don't ooze charm in drawing rooms, nor do they guide you hand in hand, up the stairs. . . the wolf appears in the bedroom as if he has climbed through the window and slipped into the lover's skin, only this time she's also going to crouch on all fours bare her shining white teeth and howl.

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Edmund Meets the White Witch Edmund looked round him again and decided he did not much like this place, and had almost made up his mind to go home, when he heard, very far off in the wood, the sound of bells. He listened and the sound came nearer and nearer and at last there swept into sight a sledge drawn by two reindeer.

The reindeer were about the size of Shetland ponies and their hair was so white that even the snow hardly looked white compared with them; their branching horns were gilded and shone like something on fire when the sunrise caught them. Their harness was of scarlet leather and covered with bells.

On the sledge sat a voluptuous lady, plumper than any woman that Edmund had ever seen. She was covered in white fur, slit low on the chest and she held a long straight golden wand in her right hand. Her face was white - not merely pale, but white like snow or paper or icing-sugar, except for her very red mouth.

‘Stop!’ said the Lady, and the reindeer pulled up so sharp that they almost sat down. Then they recovered themselves and stood champing their bits and blowing. In the frosty air the breath coming out of their nostrils looked like smoke.

‘And what, pray, are you?’ said the Lady, looking hard at Edmund.

‘My names Edmund’, said Edmund. He did not like the way she looked at him.

‘The Lady frowned, Is that how you address a Queen?’ she asked, looking sterner than ever.

‘I beg your pardon, your Majesty, I didn’t know’, said Edmund.

‘Not know the Queen of Narnia?’ cried she. ‘Ha! You shall know us better hereafter. But I repeat- what are you?’

Edmund stood still, saying nothing. He was too confused by this time to understand what the question meant.

‘I see you’re an idiot, whatever else you may be’, said the Queen. ‘Answer me, once and for all, or I shall lose my patience. Are you Human?’

‘Yes, your Majesty’, said Edmund.

This seemed to change something. She looked him up and down slowly and her eyes fixed on his groin.

‘My poor man, she said in quite a different voice, ‘how cold you look! Come and sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my mantle round you and we will talk’.

Edmund stepped on to the sledge and sat at her feet, and she put a fold of her fur mantle round him and tucked it well in.

‘Perhaps you’d like to kiss my feet’ said the Queen. ‘Should you like that?’

‘Yes please, your Majesty’, said Edmund. He took her small white foot from her shoe, which looked as if it were made of glass, and put it to his mouth.

It was cold on his lips and he moved them up and down it to make it warm. After a while of this he took the toes on his tongue and sucked each one like a pebble. The Queen moaned softly.

‘And what would you like best to eat Human?’ She whispered ‘Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty’, said Edmund.

The Queen let her furs open slightly and moved her legs apart. Edmund kneeled in front of her and started lapping softly. Each taste was sweet and light to the very centre and he had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.

While he was eating the Queen kept asking him questions- like did he have a brother and what did he look like? At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with ones mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat.

Finally, the Queen threw back her head and opened her mouth, a strangled cry leaving her lips as she pushed his head and tongue further into her. Then she pushed him away and sat slumped over the back of her seat, breathing white plumes out into the cold air.

Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves. But she did not offer him any more.

Instead, she said to him, ‘Son of Adam, I should so much like to meet your brother. Will you bring him to see me?’

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‘Ill try’, said Edmund, still looking at the empty box.

‘Because, if you did come again - bringing him with you of course - Id be able to give you some more Turkish Delight. I cant do it now, the magic will only work once. In my own house it would be another matter’.

She let her pale breasts tumble out from the fur and held one in each hand, cupping them up and slowly circling the nipples with her thumbs.

‘Why cant we go to your house now?’ said Edmund, thinking that if he didn’t do something soon he might explode.

‘It is a lovely place, my house’, said the Queen. ‘I am sure you would like it. You could eat Turkish Delight as much as you like, and what’s more, I would touch and kiss you all day long; you are much the cleverest and handsomest young man I’ve ever met. I think I would like to make you the Prince - some day, when you bring your brother to visit me’.

‘Why not now?’ said Edmund. His face had become very red and his mouth and fingers were sticky.

‘Oh, but if I took you there now’, said she, ‘I shouldn’t see your brother. I very much want to know your brother. You are to be the Prince and - later on - maybe the King; that is understood. But your brother might be of use to me also’.

One of her hands had crept under the fur and was rubbing very slowly, her breath becoming laboured as she looked at him with wild eyes.

‘There’s nothing special about him’, said Edmund, shrilly ‘and, anyway, I could always bring him some other time’.

‘Ah, but once you were in my house’, said the Queen, ‘you might forget all about him. You would be enjoying yourself so much that you wouldn’t want the bother of going to fetch them. No. You must go back to your own country now and come to me another day, with him, you understand. It is no good coming without him.’

She was sliding her fingers hard into herself now and Edmund put his hands in his trousers but she gave him such a look that he stopped straight away.

‘But I don’t even know the way back to my own country’, pleaded Edmund.

‘That’s easy, answered the Queen. ‘Do you see that lamp?’ She pointed with one glistening finger and Edmund turned and saw the same lamp-post under which Lucy had met the Faun. ‘Straight on, beyond that, is the way to the World of Men. And now look the other way’- here she pointed in the opposite direction - ‘and tell me if you can see two big hills rising above the trees’.

‘I think I can’, said Edmund.

‘Well, my house is between those two hills. So next time you come you have only to find the lamp-post and look for those two hills and walk through the wood till you reach my house. But remember - you must bring your brother with you. I might have to be very angry with you if you came alone’.

‘I’ll do my best’, said Edmund, breathing heavily.

‘And, by the way’, said the Queen, ‘you needn’t tell him about me. It would be fun to keep it a secret between us two, wouldn’t it? Make it a surprise for him’. She put her fingers back where they had been and had soon brought herself off again.

‘Please, please’, said Edmund suddenly, ‘please couldn’t I have just try one more piece of Turkish Delight?’

‘No, no’, said the Queen, sucking the juice from her fingers and smiling- ‘you must wait till next time’.

And with that she pulled back her whip, brought it down with an almighty crack and disappeared off into the forest as quickly as she had come, leaving Edmund standing there, speechless.

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Thiassi's prey Bearded axe holiday, fat and furtive in downtown parks in Lower Jotunheim.

Breast bright and packing cheek, named Iduna she's a solitary trapeze.

I like home visits Knock knock: Crank up the Babe And pass me the apples.

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Appendix

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The Authors of each work are as afollows:

The Werewolf of london (Parts one through seven) Niall O’Sullivan Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnus (Written) Emma Hammond Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnus (Illustration) Emma Skinner Mermaid and Octopus Michael Cottage The Joy of Sex 1 anon Friday David Porter Selkie Kim Alexander This Machine Emma Hammond Haiku 1 Emma Hammond

Oly Casey Brian Doherty Faun Michael Cottage Gravity Jason King Untitled Emma Hammond Tree lady Milos Simpraga Milk Wolf (Written) Emma Hammond Milk Wolf (Illustration) Michael Cottage Haiku 2 Emma Hammond

The True Folly of Icarus Saskia Walker Idduns Erica Read Vahalla David Porter Untitled Chris Hughes Morning Surgery at the Fairyland STD Clinic Tim Clare Haiku 3 Emma Hammond

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Zeus Milos Simpraga Skeleton Under My skin Robert Auton Satan Jason King Boob Wings Milos Simpraga Dreamless Adrianne. J. Odasso Incubbus Michael Cottage In The Ages of the Earth Guy Jackson Haiku 4 Emma Hammond

Feverish Light Patricia Esposito Mermaid and Diver Rheannon Ormond The Joy of Sex 2 anon Dining Room 16 David Porter Erotic Murray Sommerville Rumpelstiltskin Amelia Boon Haiku 5 Emma Hammond

Untitled Emma Hammond Leo Casey Brian Doherty The Cyclops Jason King Wolf and Maid Milos Simpraga Centaur Anna Fyda The Call of Cthulhu Joseph Madden Haiku 6 Emma Hammond

Edmund Meets the White Witch Emma Hammond Mermaid and Seaman Matt Ox The Joy of Sex 3 anon Thiassi’s Prey David Porter Three Headed Maid Michael Cottage Haiku 7 Emma Hammond

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The True Folly of Icarus was made available to us by the kind permission of Lucy Felthouse and was taken from the book ‘Seducing the Myth’ Web: www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk

End page illustrations by Michael Cottage

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