Fierce Enchantments Read online

  Fierce Enchantments

  ♦♦♦

  Short Stories

  by Janine Ashbless

  For Roland – And about time too.

  ♦♦♦

  Sweetmeats Press

  Author’s Introduction

  I love writing short stories. Don’t get me wrong—I love writing novels too, and penning Named and Shamed (published previously by Sweetmeats) was a whirlwind ride of filthy delight for me. But there’s a special pleasure in writing a collection of short stories, perhaps because of the technical challenge. I have to think about crafting variety across the whole book, not just in erotic action and plot, but setting and vocabulary and viewpoint. Each story is a different facet of the whole, and I want that jewel to shine. Male and female points-of-view? Emotion and outrageous filth? First and third person narration? Fantasy and SF and historical and fairy tale? Check, check, check and check.

  I love a challenge, me.

  And I love my erotica to be challenging in and of itself. I delight in skating close to the thin ice, and I want to make worlds that are as convincing as they are surprising. I hope you find these tales immersive and enchanting in their fierce way, but take my advice—don’t trust the narrators, at least until they have earned that trust. Don’t ever just swallow whole what they have to say.

  “Too Much of Water” is based on Ivan the Terrible, Russian folklore and the fairy-story The Frog Prince, told in the coldest voice I could muster. “Bolt Hole” in contrast is burning hot—a post-apocalyptic zombie story drenched in sweat and despair and need, with just the faintest glimmer of hope. “The King in the Wood” is based on a the central myth in Sir James Frazer’s vast speculative anthropology text The Golden Bough (1915), which I read decades ago in the college library when I should have been writing essays; Frazer’s work is mostly discredited now but it was a rich source for my fervid imagination. “The Last Thing She Needs” is a story of traumatized vampire hunters and BDSM. I think there are far too few tales out there told from the point-of-view of the DS bit of that acronym, and I wanted to explore the paradox of the conscientious sadist. “Sycorax”, a re-telling of course of Shakespeare’s Tempest, employs one of my favorite devices: the tale written from the eye-level of the monster, where horror lurks between the lines. “Knight Takes Queen” is an Arthurian story, set in a chivalric world where modern notions of BDSM have never been articulated and sex is never simply innocent fun. “At Usher’s Well” is based on a ghostly Scottish ballad that I first heard sung by Steeleye Span. I’m not usually a huge fan of melancholic or downbeat erotica but it does have its moments, and I worked quite hard to keep the grisly details implied rather than explicit! “The Military Mind” is a riotous space-opera gang-bang, and all I’m saying here is that I adored the movie Aliens from the moment I saw it, my first adult-rated film. And after that brutal pounding, we switch to a gentler gear for the last two stories. “A Man’s Best Friend” was inspired by the very old TV series The Water Margin, but my version of ancient pseudo-China is fantasy without any historical basis. And “The Merry Maid” is pure playful fun, a riff on the fairy tale formula of three brothers seeking their fortune.

  This is my third collection of erotica tales (following Wild Enchantment and Dark Enchantment) and I’d like to thank Sweetmeats Press for believing my vision and giving me my storytellers’ voice again. Pull a seat up to the fire and let’s begin. Just remember, you don’t have to believe a word I say …

  xxx

  Janine Ashbless

  A Sweetmeats Book

  First published by Sweetmeats Press 2014

  Copyright © Janine Ashbless 2014

  The right of Janine Ashbless to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing from Sweetmeats Press and Kojo Black. Nor may it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978-1-909181-69-4

  Typeset by Sweetmeats Press

  Sweetmeats Press, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3XX, England, U. K.

  www.sweetmeatspress.com

  Contents

  Too Much of Water

  Bolt Hole

  The King in the Wood

  The Last Thing She Needs

  Sycorax

  Knight Takes Queen

  At Usher’s Well

  The Military Mind

  A Man’s Best Friend

  The Merry Maid

  Too Much of Water

  Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

  And therefore I forbid my tears

  –Hamlet, Act 4

  “Once upon a time there was princess who had a favorite toy: a ball of shining gold …” That’s how the story starts, doesn’t it? It’s nonsense, of course. She wasn’t a princess; she was the daughter of a wealthy boyar. And she didn’t love the ball, which wasn’t a toy—although it was made of gold, or at least gilt. She was given the ball by the Tzar himself, when he rode away west to oversee the war upon the Livonians.

  “Take and keep this ball of gold,” he said as he leaned from his saddle at the gate of her father’s house, “as a constant reminder of the troth you’ve plighted me. Let your chastity remain as pure and unsullied as this gold until our wedding day.”

  She watched the Tzar ride away with all his retinue and then she returned to her father’s house to wait for him, just as she’d been told. Her name was Anna, but from her earliest days her family had called her Zorya—a nasty pagan name, and who knows what her parents must have been thinking of. If they had stuck to a decent saint’s name perhaps none of the terrible things that followed would have happened.

  The golden ball, she swiftly found, was an object of admiration to everyone else but a nuisance to her. Being a betrothal gift from the Tzar, and one laden with such meaning in the giving, it was hardly the sort of thing she could leave in her room for safekeeping. On the other hand it was too big to slip into a purse, and if she put it into an apron pocket it bumped heavily against her with each step. Zorya grudgingly grew used to carrying it about in her two hands, setting it beside her plate at meal times and on her pillow at night when she slept. Its gleam was the first thing she saw in the morning when the shutters were opened, and in the evening the candles that lit her chamber shone still more beautifully in the golden depths of its reflection. No matter how she handled it, no smudge of dirt dulled its shine.

  “Oh, my lady,” her maids-in-waiting would sigh; “what a beautiful gift: the Tzar must love you very much.” Or “When you are Tzarina, my lady, you will eat off plates of gold and cut your meat with a golden knife, and this golden ball you will roll to your firstborn son. You must be so impatient, waiting for that day!”

  But Zorya only moved her mouth in a troubled smile and did not reply when they spoke like that. She was a contrary girl. It was true that the Tzar had seemed most enchanted by her when they met—but what man would not have been, since she had two thick looped plaits of hair the color of beaten flax, and large eyes of cool gray, and her lips were as ripe as the cherries in her father’s orchard. As for the Tzar himself, he was hale enough and handsome enough, his thick beard still untouched by white, but s
he hadn’t warmed to him in the brief moments she’d been in his presence. Ungrateful as only youth can be, it was not enough for her that this was the Tzar of all the Russias courting her. She had balked at his commanding air and stern manner and wished that he was a gentler, humbler man, to put her at her ease. Nor had it escaped her notice that he had had four wives before her, and that every one of those women had ended badly.

  One day she wandered, aimless, from out of her father’s house and across the grounds of the estate. It was spring and the young leaves were pale speckles on the birch-twigs. Zorya smiled to see the goose-girl driving her flock out to graze among the last stubble of winter, and the new calves lifting their oozing milky muzzles from the cows” udders. She walked down toward the river, tossing the golden ball idly from hand to hand, but she held it tight as she crossed the plank over the millrace. Then she wound her way among the coppice stools edging the millpond, stooping to look for frog-spawn among the bright new spears of the rushes. The bank was a little steep, but she kept her balance with one hand holding the willow branches.

  Willow is a treacherous tree. A narrow stem snapped under her hand and, slipping suddenly, she had to snatch at another trunk to stop herself going down the bank. The golden ball dropped from her fingers and rolled down the slope, bounding into the millpond with a hollow splash.

  For a moment Zorya could not believe what had happened. She slithered down to the water’s edge and stared, trying to glimpse a gleam of gold beneath the dark surface. But in a moment even the betraying ripples vanished, and there was nothing to show where the Tzar’s gift had gone. The pond lay like polished malachite, and the willow saplings only sighed.

  “No,” said Zorya to herself, pressing her knuckles to her lips. The second “No,” built in her belly then came out as a long moan of pain. She hunched down, unheeding of the wet on her skirts, and dappled her hands in the water; it felt cold as ice and there was nothing but soft mud beneath her questing fingers.

  Foolish girl. She didn’t think to call on the saints to help her; she only folded her frozen hands to her bosom, sullying her bodice with mud, and burst into tears, rocking back and forth as she knelt.

  “Why are you crying?” said a voice.

  Zorya looked up and through her tears saw a man standing before her in the pond. She could only see him from the waist up, and what she could see was naked. Her heart clenched within her and crammed into her throat, but she was too frightened to scream. She felt the last tears roll down her cheeks.

  “Well?” said he.

  “I lost my golden ball in the water,” she whispered. Her fingers twitched but she couldn’t cross herself, despite being in no doubt as to whom she was speaking. This was a Vodyanoi: a water spirit. She’d heard that they could appear in human form, though more often they looked like sunken logs or moss-draped toads of monstrous size. This one wore the guise of a young man, and his long wet hair hung about his face and shoulders like drips of tar. His lithe body was pale, almost greenish in hue, each muscle visible under the wet shine on his hairless skin. He was very handsome. She wasn’t fooled: the Vodyanoi are evil, and delight in drowning the unwary.

  “Aren’t you a little old to weep over lost toys?” he asked, his thin lips crooked in a smile.

  “It’s not a toy.” She wondered if she could jump to her feet and dash away among the willows, but she was fairly certain he would catch her with a single lunge.

  “What, then?”

  “It was a betrothal gift from Ivan Vasilyevich, Tzar of all the Russias.” It was the symbol of her faithfulness to him, and his public trust in her; to fail to treasure it would be counted an unforgivable insult. “He will have me buried alive for betraying him.”

  “Then I’ll fetch the ball back for you.” His black brows were wickedly arched, as proud as Satan’s, and his smile was dagger-edged. “For a price, of course.”

  “What price?” The breath seemed to have deserted her lungs.

  His smile broadened. “An hour in your arms.”

  Zorya drew herself up, straightening her back. Acid found its way into her voice at last: “Then I might as well leave the ball where it is. If I’m not a virgin on my wedding night, the Tzar will kill me anyway.”

  The Vodyanoi seemed to find her ire engaging. “In that case, I will take my fee only after your nuptials,” he suggested.

  And Zorya was stuck then. If she didn’t agree to his proposal she knew she would surely die, but if she did agree then he would likely betray her. At the very best it would be an act of treason and adultery which might buy her only a day or so’s life. She wrung her hands and searched his face for some sign of goodwill, but found no comfort in his sardonic expression.

  “Very well,” she said at last—because even one more day seemed infinitely precious.

  The Vodyanoi bowed his head and slid beneath the water’s surface, his disappearance leaving a single slow ripple. Zorya took the chance to retreat up the bank a pace or two and crouch among the willow stems, wrapping one arm about the stoutest. The trees could not shield her, but she meant to cling on with all her strength if he tried to drag her into the pond upon his return.

  He didn’t take long. First the green water bulged, and then it broke around the peaks of his dark head and his pale shoulders. He lifted his face from the pool and smiled, showing her his outstretched hands cupped about the golden orb. Then he waded out of the pool, each step revealing more of his body. She feared at first that he would be naked, but there seemed to be something heavy wrapped about his lower half. As he mounted the bank, streaming water, she saw that it was a leathern sheet, secured by a knot of thong and all slick with water and algae, hanging low from his hips and so long that it brushed the tops of his feet. With every step his left leg flashed pale through the gap in the wrapped hide. He ascended the bank and then knelt down so that his face was on a level with hers.

  “What’s your name, Daughter of Eve?”

  His eyes were gold, she realized—not the pure gold of her gilded ball but dark and flecked like those of a frog, and quite beautiful. Somehow thrown into confusion by this—was she not a foolish girl as well as a willful one?—she answered “Zorya,” without thinking to lie. If she’d spoken a good saint’s name perhaps, even then, it might have protected her; but as it was she was quite helpless. She didn’t even recoil when he reached out a finger and drew it down the line of her throat, leaving a line of chill damp that made her shiver, before tracing a spiral upon the top of her breastbone just above the lip of her bodice. She couldn’t wrench herself away, only drop her eyes before his impertinent gaze.

  “You’re quite comely.”

  “So they say,” she answered through her teeth. A cold bead of water found its way from his fingertip into the cleft of her breasts, where it trickled down the slope of her warm flesh like a secret caress.

  “And beloved of the Tzar. Such good fortune.”

  She clenched her jaw.

  “Are you thankful?”

  “Beyond words,” she said in strangled voice.

  The Vodyanoi smiled. “Here you are, Zorya,” he murmured, pressing the ball into her free hand. Then he leaned forward and brushed his lips to hers, speculatively. His mouth was cold on her warm one, and her face grew even warmer as she flushed with shame. He chuckled at that. “Soon, my love.”

  Not, she thought, if she could help it. After all, her marriage would take place in Moscow, far away from this little millpond. How would a Vodyanoi find her at that distance? She would be safe from him, surely?

  And yet despite her cold calculation she burned and squirmed inside.

  Then he rose and left her, walking back down into the pool, his leather kilt dragging behind him, and she watched him go through the bars of her lashes: his narrow hips, his broader shoulders, his bare and muscular back, the slick of his hair as black and smooth as silt deposited after a flood. Those thing
s burned themselves onto her mind’s eye.

  Then she took herself and her ball off back to the safety of her father’s house. She dried and polished the Tzar’s gift, and was relieved to find that it had taken no dint from being dropped. Only, now there was a smudge upon it that would not clean off: a tiny patch no bigger than a thumbprint, and luckily no more noticeable. She wrapped the ball in a silken cloth and did not let it slip from her grasp again.

  ♦♦♦

  Shortly thereafter the Tzar returned and they married in the great cathedral in Moscow, and Zorya became the Tzarina. She lived in a great palace, far from the river, and she made sure never to approach any lake or pond. But as the pitiless heat of summer reached its height the Tzar decided to spend his days hunting in the deep shade of the forest, and he moved his court to the Royal Dacha there. Since he was well pleased with his new wife, he took her with him among his entourage.

  The Summer Palace was built of wood from the foundations upward, through its beamed halls to its many-gabled roof and its carved shingles, so it was dark without and darker within. It stood upon a great rock in a forest clearing, and around the rock flowed a loop of a river—not the same river that ran through her father’s lands to be sure, but Zorya’s heart crashed within her breast when first she saw it. A window in the royal bedchamber opened out over a sheer drop down the rock-face to the river below. It ran fast and wild, and its music filled her dreams every night and disturbed her rest, leaving her anxious and fretful.

  The golden ball was placed upon a shelf at the head of their walled bed.

  The Tzar split his time between organizing the affairs of state and riding out to pursue wolves and boar in the endless tracts of forest, and Zorya was often left to her own devices during the day. She was never alone though, because when the Tzar was not about he set an old woman called Olga, who had once been his wet-nurse, to attend upon her. She was never left alone—not for a moment, not even to use the close-stool. It would not have been seemly.