Bottle in hand, I wandered the streets of a changed world.
Mr. Pash had perished, yes; but not before he had consummated the union, passing the magic on to Mrs. Spoon. I’m sure that his sacrifice had only served to strengthen her.
A winged goat larger than any ocean liner soared across the moon, bleating odiously. A monstrous Venus flytrap shot up from the turf of a children’s playground and snuffled ravenously at the swings and slide.
Screams of pain and horror echoed through the city. The earth thundered as impossible monstrosities lumbered through the night. From the shadows, I watched giant cannibals tear the heads from policemen at a doughnut shop. With great slurping noises they sucked the spinal cords from their victims. A few blocks down the road, a Liquifier slathered its web into a parked car and trapped a pair of lovemaking teenagers. Another Liquifier drew near to watch its sibling feast.
The Titans are everywhere. Spider-demons, cannibals, winged goats, vile plant-things. They see me, but leave me be. In fact, they regard me with trepidation. And why not? I am the usurper of their father’s throne. In their eyes, I am capable of unspeakable devastation.
I am writing this in a luxurious penthouse apartment. I had to walk up sixty floors. Mr. Pash, Mr. Pash—all of this should have been yours. I am sorry that I laughed. So terribly sorry. I had planned to throw myself off the balcony, but in the end, I could not.
Just as I was about to jump, an enormous pair of snarling, oddly inviting lips opened up in the pavement below.
CITY IN THE TORRID WASTE
The air heatshimmered. The persistent wind moaned longingly. Spiraling dustclouds and fragile pinnacles of metal oxide salts, pigmented in a harsh, dusky rainbow taunting of empty promise, surrounded the smoky bronze, UV-screening bubble-dome that crouched above the City in the Torrid Waste. Ghosts of long-dead millions howled outside its gates.
Once, the festering pit in the alkaline earth nearby had disgorged a wealth of varied ores, copper its primary vein. But that was before payload dwindled and the peons of the ascian latitudes slaved it forth far cheaper. Before the acid rains swept westward. Before the Hole in the Sky ripped wide. The once-beautiful, fertile flesh of Mother Earth ravished, defiled, and corrupted.
Now, the minds of the City’s denizens mirrored the nature-twisted configurations of the landscape.
The grass-green sheers billowed and swirled in the sweet-scented gusts of synth-breeze. The air was crisp, cool, and tinged with a whisper of magnolia blossoms and jasmine, a deft mingling accomplished by the dome’s air-conditioning plant. The total power consumption of the city must graph-out into stratospheric levels of mega- kilowattage, but the enormous pull, even at the summer’s ferocious peak temps, never caused a black- or brownout status. The solar collectors outside the dome, concealed beyond the nearest ridgeline, swallowed the sun’s fierce rays, collecting, storing, and assimilating the almost limitless energy. They were also virtually indestructible, built to last as long as the dream of humankind survived, and longer…
But the hidden machinations of tech-support were the farthest thing from this dark-maned nymph’s far darker mind.
Her long, delicate fingers caressed the gentle slope of shoulder, raising gooseflesh at the electricity of awakened desire. Her fingers trailed the sensuous curve of spine, the ripe, melonlike swell of lushly rounded buttocks, massaging the so-sensitive flesh with feather-tingling strokes. The taffy-haired girl giggled musically in Morrigan’s ear, letting her pink, warm tongue flicker into the shell-like orifice, seeking to return measure for measure every exquisite, eternal-moment of pleasure-torment she received. “Ooooohhhhh,” she cooed in ecstasy, “yes, yes, touch me
The glistening mask of jet-black feathers betrayed no hint of emotion, save for the terrible hunger betrayed in the slits of the eyeholes, emeralds that sparked with a cold, unquenchable fire. The dark vision of the Raven’s mask with its cruel beak poised above her only served to whet the taffy-haired girl’s excitement. Her own elaborate mask of feathers was a bizarrerie of bobbing plumes and downy tufts the same color as her hair, but with bold accents of black and crimson.
Morrigan lowered her sleek body onto the girl’s lap, impaling herself on the upthrust phallus…
They were both bathed in sweet, trickling perspiration, reeking of pleasure-pheremones, as were the forest- green sheets rumpled beneath them. Two roses and a thorn all intertwined.
“The delights of Yang.
“If all you can offer me, My Dear, is the pleasure of your flesh and soul, then I regret…”
Framed by heavy drapes of rich purple velvet, the filmy fabric billowed like clouds of lilac-tinctured smoke. Now, the sweet breath of unnatural breeze was scented of hyacinths, mountain laurel, and Persian lilac. Morrigan turned her Raven-masked face to stare into the eyes of her newest inamorata. The eyes behind the mask were vivid violet. The mask was an extravagant fantasy of rare feather tufts tinted in a rich palette of purple hues, stranded with ropes of tiny seedpearls and sparkling with faceted dangles of amethyst crystal. Her mouth was bare, lips glossed in matching pigments. Even the short spikes of her hair were dyed a coordinating shade.
Their lips joined, drinking deeply of one another’s passion.
Their lips parted. Slid down necks, trailing hot kisses.
Their lips savored the puckered berry-fruit of firm, luscious breasts. So many tasty berries. Suckling. Then slithered lower, leaving snailtrails of glistening saliva in their wake. They explored the warm, dark dimples of navels with their tongues. Then worked lower, into the soft tangle of pubic thickets…
The sheets were soaked with their perspiration
“I would gladly please you, Darling Morrigan, but, alas, I, as so many now do, entered my menopause quite early, just before my thirtieth birthday… Some claim it is a price we pay for maintaining a strict, total gynarchy. You are two years too late, I fear…”
The girl was so blonde her hair sparkled like filaments of purest gold. She was sleek and voluptuously formed, with lush, cantaloupe-sized breasts, so firm and succulent. She was clad all in buttersoft black leather, with a laceup bustier, sleek, tapered pants, tall, spikeheeled boots, and a true relic, an ancient cycle jacket—truly a museum piece… But the girl could obviously afford it. She had it all. Wellturned. And. Wellheeled.
Oh, yes, and nahualli jaguar mask of exquisitely painted feathers.
