Divine Torment Read online

  I think he could do anything with me.

  It is late. Most of the lamps have guttered out. I need to feel him inside me one more time before dawn.

  She shifted beneath the Irolian General, trying to wriggle from beneath his weight, but he murmured in his sleep and tightened his arm about her.

  ‘Roll over,’ she whispered, as if she could avoid waking him. She pushed gently at his shoulder and watched as he tumbled slowly over onto his back, rucking the already rumpled sheets as he turned. She sat up so as to be able to see him, the whole supine length from head to feet. His amber skin looked golden in the lamplight and his hair was spread wildly about his head like a nimbus. She had never seen a man sleeping and she marvelled at his utter relaxation, at the graceful lines his body had fallen into, as if it were a small miracle.

  She put her hand as softly as she could upon his breastbone to feel the rise and fall of his chest and he half-opened his eyes. He smiled at her, a slow, sleepy smile.

  ‘Shh,’ she breathed and bent forward to lick softly at his nipple. She felt the long indrawn breath pushing his ribcage up. Then she traced each ridge and furrow with her tongue all the way down the length of his chest, down to the warm plain of his stomach, down to the thicket of hair at his groin. She found cock and balls with her hands and separated them gently. Veraine made a small noise of resignation and spread his thighs a little further to assist her endeavours.

  His prick was thick and heavy but soft with exhaustion, warm even in her warm palm, and bruise-dark. The scrotum beneath was almost as hairless and as velvety and the plums nestled within were firm under her fingers, as ripe as the damsons that yielded the fiery Yamani brandy. She kneeled over him, testing the full pouch with her lips and tongue, faintly aware of his sigh of pleasure. She ran her fingertips through the glossy thatch of hair that framed these treasures, teasing out the curls stiffened by her own sex juices. The hair was very dark, almost black, but she was intrigued this time to notice a couple of silver strands glinting among the jet ones. She kissed his cock warmly and felt it stir beneath her lips.

  ‘You’re insatiable,’ mumbled Veraine with a tired grin.

  Gently she took it in her mouth, nursing on it, letting the full, limp length settle on her tongue and in her throat. But it did not remain manageable for long, swelling instead to the rhythm of her suckling and filling the wet cavern of her mouth until she could no longer contain it and still breathe. She relinquished her hold on him and pulled away far enough that she could use her tongue to tease him into even greater rigidity, testing and probing the little wrinkles, the smooth glans, the moist eye of his cock. She was in no hurry. She made him wait patiently for each frisson of pleasure, building up the multi-layered edifice of arousal slowly stage by stage like the immense wedge of the towering temple goparum, until his member stood engorged and proud once more, slippery with her saliva and twitching at each caress of her lips. So engrossed was she in the manipulation of that length of masculine flesh, in the exploration of its moods and preferences, that she almost forgot the end to which she was aiming and only Veraine’s hand descending to rest heavily on the back of her head roused her from her reverie. He tried to push her down further on his prick. Shaking free of his grip she rose and straddled him, trying not to brush against the ugly contusion on his left hip, pressing down on his chest through her splayed hands. His rigid member sought and easily entered her puffy sex-lips, still slippery with previous pleasures. She ignored the stinging of her abraded flesh and bore down on him, taking him as far as she could.

  The smile had gone from Veraine’s eyes now, to be replaced by the look of concentration she was learning so well. She shook out her hair and wriggled on him, which made her breasts jiggle. This did not escape his attention; he pushed into her further than was comfortable, and she felt the strange kick of pain that was also arousal deep inside her. His hands moved to grip her hips, his strong thumbs sliding up and down her skin, into her pubic hair and back again. The muscles in his arms flexed as he urged her to rise and fall on the thick stake of his member. She rolled her hips, frustrated by the way he was not quite touching her clitoris, biting her lip.

  Veraine dug his heels into the bed and pushed up shudderingly beneath her and inside her, stretching her wet hole wide and digging it deep. His thumbs moved in a merciless circular caress on the skin above her pubic mound, and to her amazement she felt the fire from the ember of her clit begin to creep up her belly, as if the whole of her pubis was becoming sensitised beyond endurance, as if he could turn her body into one pulsing star of arousal. New moisture was brimming from her yoni, slathering him in juices that lubricated each thrust and twist of their coupling. Her breasts slapped together with the rhythm of her thrusts. She knew her end was within reach, that she only had to ride a little further, a little faster, that she could whip him to the finish in moments, and she watched dazedly as her fingers bit into his pectorals.

  ‘She’s there,’ said Rasa Belit from the doorway. ‘Get them.’

  The Malia Shai pulled herself off his prick and was out of the bed by the time the priests reached her, but it was too late to get any further. She felt her arms grabbed in hands of iron and she was dragged into the middle of the room, thrown into Rasa Belit’s grasp as the priests reached past her for the man on the bed. Half-blinded by her own loose hair she was flung aside roughly, tumbled across the stone floor while one arm was held captive in a biting grip. She looked up, gasping, in time to see the men in saffron robes seize a Veraine paralysed by his own arousal and jerk him from the sheets. His knee cracked upon the stone.

  Veraine was yelling something in Irolian, his face twisted in rage. The priests had hold of his wrists. They held him on his knees, arms twisted and locked out behind him like the wings of a swooping hawk.

  ‘Go on!’ Rasa Belit yelled. ‘Shout as much as you like! None of your men are within the Citadel, remember!’

  Veraine fell silent and glared up at him. Rasa Belit kicked him in the head and the Irolian snapped to the side, trapped on the frame of his own sinews. Blood ran from his mouth when he turned his face back into view. His eyes were black pits of hate to match Rasa Belit’s. The Malia Shai felt her heart freeze.

  ‘You piece of shit,’ the high priest pronounced, his voice thick and low. ‘You stupid piece of shit. Did you think we wouldn’t find you here?’ He turned his glare on her. ‘She didn’t attend the Waning Moon Ceremony. We went looking for her. She wasn’t in her room, but this was hidden under the bedding.’ He held up a small bronze cup of Irolian design.

  She saw recognition in Veraine’s face, and something that might have been shame as he dropped his gaze.

  ‘Let me go,’ she whispered.

  Rasa Belit’s grip tightened so far that her blood began to well up under his nails. She felt the pain, but it was a distant distraction. ‘You. I don’t believe you’ve been so stupid,’ he told her. ‘You’ve thrown away your chance at ascension this lifetime.’ The lines around his mouth were like scars. ‘All my work. Everything I’ve given you. You’re finished.’ Further words were unable to escape his tightly twisted mouth and he released her suddenly, pushing her away.

  She was dimly aware that the lesser priests were staring at her nakedness furtively, with horror and fascination.

  ‘I’m the Malia Shai,’ she said numbly. She didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Put your dress on,’ he ordered. ‘You are disgusting.’ He turned away from her. ‘And you,’ he said, ‘I will enjoy killing you.’ He kicked Veraine again, hard, straight in the groin with his sandaled foot. His prisoner spasmed and folded, retching with pain, and the Malia Shai felt a white explosion of fury flare in her chest and burst out through her throat.

  ‘Don’t touch him!’ she shrieked, throwing herself at the high priest with hands stiffened to claws. She raked at his face and saw the shock blooming there before he turned, threw up his arm and knocked her across the room. She hit the floor and sprawled, speechless, feeling the pain swell in her cheekbone. Everyone was staring at her now, Rasa Belit not seeming to believe what he had just done, the priests registering fear and doubt, and Veraine from under the tumbled rags of his hair meeting her eyes with a flash of heartbreaking warmth.

  She found she was shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘Look what you’ve done,’ Rasa Belit said at last, when the silence had swollen to a monstrous thing. ‘Look at you. What a waste.’ His mouth worked. ‘I said get your dress on.’

  Two of the priests came forward at the savage gesture of his hand, though they looked uneasy. They found her dress lying crumpled on the floor and began to stuff her into it as if she were a stubborn child. She didn’t fight them.

  ‘Belit,’ croaked Veraine, ‘if you don’t release me now then I swear the Imperial Army will reduce your fucking temple to sand. Let us go.’

  The priest made a choking sound as if about to cough. ‘But you’ve already gone, General,’ he protested. ‘Drunk, in the dark, you must have fallen over the cliff-edge, forgetting that the walls were tom away in the earthquake. We will regretfully find your body in the morning, mangled beyond recognition by the plunge but-’ he glanced around the room at Veraine’s possessions ‘-identifiable by its accoutrements. Distinctive armour or something. And while your men mourn you I shall be making sure that your funeral is, although premature, fully justified.’ He bent, as hunched and foul as a carrion crow, over Veraine’s kneeling figure and dropped his voice to a whisper as he concluded, ‘I shall conscientiously search through every steaming, glistening inch of your entrails until I find whatever sorcery it was you used on her.’

  ‘Maybe you should just ask her,’ Veraine said, attempting a sneer through the blood. It was dripping on the high priest’s toes.

  ‘Rasa Belit, let him go,’ she said. ‘It’s my command. Listen to me.’

  The priest closed his eyes slowly, as if in pain. ‘Be quiet. You’ve lost touch with your divinity, and you have nothing to say. When you have been released from this incarnation you will see it all clearly. You’ll be grateful to me.’

  Disbelief pinned her.

  ‘What are you going to do to her?’ Veraine demanded.

  ‘Don’t worry, General, you will die first. I lack the . . . restraint to prolong your punishment beyond a couple of days. The Malia Shai will be confined to await her next life.’

  Veraine said nothing, but he looked over at her. She saw a terrible hopeless regret in his eyes and that hurt her more than anything the priest had done.

  ‘Take the Malia Shai to her room. And you – get this Irolian offal covered up.’ Once more he kicked Veraine brutally in the crotch.

  As the priests pulled her to her feet, she found her own voice again. ‘I curse you, Rasa Belit.’ Her voice sounded old and weary even to herself. ‘I set the curse of the goddess on you. You will not lay eyes upon me for a thousand lifetimes.’

  His mouth twisted, but she knew he did not believe her. ‘Take her away,’ he repeated.

  She was pushed into her room just as the grey of dawn was starting to show through its open windows. The two priests released her arms but they made no move to leave, taking up positions at either side of the door instead. The Malia Shai turned to look at their faces, but realised there was no point speaking to them. Hamin and Pajlet were two of Rasa Belit’s closest acolytes and she could not imagine them disobeying him. She glanced around her room hopelessly, seeing the mattress of her bed lying askew and disordered. She went and kneeled upon it, having nowhere else to go.

  Her dress was hanging off her shoulder. She reached up to gather in the drawstring collar, and caught a waft of musky scent from her hands. She raised them to her face, breathing in deeply. It was Veraine, the smell of him, the aroma of his body and his sweat and his sex, trapped on her skin. Even now that scent, that ephemeral yet intimate reminder of his body, made the warm ache surge inside her.

  She did not want to imagine him broken by torture and her mind shied away from the picture. Once she was stripped of her own mortal flesh, she told herself, she would intercede with the divine powers so that Veraine, heathen barbarian or not, would be reborn into a noble and dignified life. She would –

  The entry of Rasa Belit into the chamber broke her reverie. She looked once at him and then away, suddenly finding his features repulsive beyond words. His colour was high and he was breathing with effort. A few whispered words were exchanged with the priests and then, as they left the room, he advanced upon her. He was carrying the short ebony staff of the high priest, the badge of office he wielded on formal or solemn occasions.

  She did not look up or acknowledge him in any way, even when he walked over her bedding, circling her. There were still little spots of blood on his toes, she noticed.

  He put a heavy hand upon the crown of her head and dragged his fingers slowly through the length of her damp, tangled hair. Then he took hold of it at the nape of her neck, twisting it into a rope around the ebony rod, and used it to pull her to her feet. She didn’t resist, rather she hung weakly from his grip, her legs taking her weight reluctantly.

  ‘Look at you,’ he murmured into her ear. His voice was heavy and thick with disgust. ‘You are a mess. You’re filthy. You stink.’ He crushed her scalp to his face, inhaling the scent of her hair. ‘Do you know what you smell of?’

  She knew.

  Rasa Belit wiped his nostrils across her cheek. His lips felt hot.

  ‘You smell remarkably like a whore,’ he said, each word as slow and considered as a blow. ‘Your mother was a whore; a snatch-peddler from the lowest cat cage in the city. God knows what your father was. Well, you look like her.’ He put his hand on her bare shoulder. ‘Why did you let him do it?’

  She shut her eyes. She could feel his words crawling over her skin.

  ‘That’s what I can’t understand. His kind have conquered us, sacked our palaces, desecrated our temples. They’ve made us into a slave nation. Butchered our children. Raped and burned and starved and humiliated us. Haven’t there been enough of our women forced to spread their legs for his kind, without you doing it willingly? I don’t understand how you can touch him without choking on your own vomit.’

  His open palm slid down over her breast and settled over her sore nipple. His moist hand seemed to burn through the thin cotton.

  ‘I know, this isn’t the first time you have failed in your mission. You’ve taken on frail mortal flesh, after all. You are subject to temptation. All the weakness of your woman’s body, craving carnal knowledge of a man. The Malia Shai has stumbled before, and been cleansed, and begun her journey anew.’ He squeezed her breast slowly, kneading it between hard fingers. ‘I know what you want,’ he whispered. His tongue brushed her earlobe. ‘You burn for a man’s weight pinning you down and a good, thick bone banging into your wet hole.’

  She could not help thinking of Veraine and the hot dew moistened her clenched thighs.

  ‘But,’ he murmured, ‘you have never been so debased in all the centuries as to offer your cunt to an Irolian. You might as well have been discovered in a sty being fucked by the boar. You’re truly defiled this time.’

  His hand slid down over the length of her belly and settled on her pubic mound, taking a good firm handful of the soft flesh. She felt her treacherous body, so recently aroused to the brink and still not sated, respond to his touch. Inadvertently she whimpered.

  ‘Too late for regret, my Malia Shai. Perhaps in your next life you will remember this shame.’

  He licked her exposed throat. His fingertips were digging into her labia and the pressure on her clitoris was making her burn.

  ‘I can taste him on you,’ he whispered. ‘Quite an unmistakable stink. Corruption. Degradation. I bet he did things to you that would make whores blush.’

  Her legs felt too weak to hold her up. She could feel the moisture gathering in her sex, despite her desperate need to ignore his thick, probing fingers. When the door-curtain was suddenly lifted and the two acolytes reentered the chamber she did not know whether it was relief or frustration that stung the most as Rasa Belit released her crotch and gestured the two priests over.

  Hamin was carrying a bronze laving bowl, and as he came closer she saw that inside it nested a jar of soap and a silk cloth. Pajlet heaved the weight of a copper vessel full of water. She stared at the water, aware of how dry her throat was, how her thirsty body craved to gulp it down. What has happened to me? she thought.

  ‘Fill the bowl,’ instructed her captor and the two priests hurriedly obeyed. He forced her back to her knees in front of the dish and unwound the rod from her hair. ‘You must be washed before you proceed to your next incarnation.’

  With that he pushed her shoulders forward and down, forcing her head into the water, and his other hand shoved down on the back of her head. She opened her mouth in a silent cry, her eyes seeing only the metallic sheen of the bronze through a swirl of her own floating hair. She thought for a moment that he intended to drown her, but just as the pressure in her lungs became pain he yanked her back up into the air. She gasped and blew out water from her throat. The weight of her wet hair slopped down on her breasts. Water ran down through her clothes onto the floor, cool on her sweat-slicked body; a brief and tantalising delight. The cotton clung to her wherever the water went.

  Rasa Belit slapped the silk cloth into the water, then tilted her face up and struck her stingingly across the cheeks with it. Then he roughly scrubbed her face and throat.

  ‘Remember how it is to be clean,’ he sneered.

  The wet cotton she wore was all but transparent, her nipples jutting up against the cloth. Rasa Belit’s breathing was harsh.

  ‘We must wash off his taint.’ He sloshed more water over her head and ran his fingers cruelly across her scalp, ignoring the tangles that he tore through. Tears sprang unasked-for to her eyes. ‘He’s been in your mouth, hasn’t he?’ he sneered, and forced the wodge of silk between her lips. It clogged her throat as he scrubbed mercilessly at every inner surface, the sodden cloth making her gag. Eventually he whipped the rag out again and stared at her with malicious satisfaction.

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