Cruel Enchantment (Black Lace) Read online

  She stepped across the room, moving like a dancer or a lioness. Her breasts swayed and bobbed under their own weight, hinting at dark nipples through the clinging fell of her hair. She trailed one hand across the top of the table, almost the only stick of furniture in that austere room, the better to emphasise the curves of her arm and her long fingers tipped with carnelian nails. She was a harlot; she was a goddess. Gregory, who had in the days before his conversion taken his women when and where he wanted – though perhaps fewer than most men of influence, because he had always been restrained by the stern sense of his dignity and position – felt his throat dry up and the blood surge to his loins. It was six years since he had lain upon the naked flesh of a woman; almost four since he had seen a female face at all. The Devil clearly knew his business.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Gregory said in a low growl. ‘You won’t get what you want from me.’ There was no purpose in dismissing her more forcefully; he had tried exorcising the vision in the name of Christ upon her first visit, but she had merely smiled enigmatically and ignored the command. If God had permitted her to remain and test the monk further, who was he to argue?

  ‘What I want?’ the succubus asked, reaching the stone bench he used as a bed and seating herself gracefully upon it. She smoothed the threadbare blanket beside her. ‘It is what you want that concerns me. I know exactly what that is, Gregory; that is why I am here.’

  ‘You’re here to tempt my soul into damnation,’ he growled. ‘Don’t think I don’t know that, demon.’

  ‘I am here to give you what you need,’ she said softly, looking at his lap.

  The folds of rough cloth covered any betraying sign; she could not possibly see what struggled beneath. Gregory cleared his throat. ‘You talk like your master,’ he said brutally, ‘the Father of Lies. You know nothing of what I need. My need is Heaven. You are a serpent from the pit.’

  She stretched herself slowly upon the bed, reclining upon her right side, her thighs rubbing one on top of the other. Gregory tried to look away.

  ‘I am what you want,’ she corrected gently. ‘A thousand nights alone, Gregory, and I can smell your frustration on the wind from here to Alexandria. You’re lying awake in the dark, unable to sleep, unable to pray, terrified to touch the serpent flesh in your own bed. The hardness of your pallet beneath you, the serpent trapped between flesh and stone. The orphaned memories returning to haunt you; slave girls kneeling at your feet, the Nubian maid you kept in your chamber, spying upon your mistress as she bathed … Dreams that keep returning. Your seed spilt while you were sleeping. Do you think these things are secret?’

  Gregory kneeled lower until his forehead nearly brushed the floor and groaned. ‘I am a sinner; I have never denied it,’ he said. ‘But I have repented every moment and been forgiven by the ever-merciful Father. I am not fooled by the temptations of the flesh, demon; I have known them too well. You may be beautiful in outward form, but beneath a woman’s skin lurks all the stinking corruption of the grave. You are a path to the worms and the fire.’

  ‘And your flesh?’ asked the succubus, her blood-coloured lips moving into a smile. ‘Is it so holy?’ The darkness around her that was, or might become, her wings seemed to deepen.

  ‘My flesh is dust. My soul is in the hands of God. I yearn for Heaven, I strive for purity, but my flesh drags me earthwards. Who will release me from this body of death?’ he shuddered.

  She rocked her hips. The little skirt of metal pieces chinked and shifted, revealing flame-coloured fleece beneath. ‘I can,’ she offered. ‘Lie with me once, Gregory, and I promise that you will never be troubled by your desires again. I will suck the lust from you like the juice from an orange. If that is what you want, I can make you a withered man, a eunuch for your God.’

  Gregory raised his head and stared at her. ‘Now you are tempting me with an escape from my sins,’ he said bitterly. ‘How truly you are said to be the subtlest beast of the field! Listen, snake, you cannot tempt me to sin that way. The body is a beast that must be tamed, mortified, denied. It must be brought to submission until the Last Day, when it will be raised in perfection.’

  ‘You hate yourself,’ she observed sadly.

  ‘I know what matters,’ he countered. His words were confident but his gaze skidded everywhere around her and his hands were clenched in his groin. ‘The flesh is corrupt and will not last,’ he said unevenly. ‘My soul is immortal and may enter the Divine Presence. That is what is important. Your petty temptations are nothing compared to the ecstasy of eternal life!’

  ‘Really?’ she purred, rising from her reclining position. Her eyes – gold and luminescent, like the eyes of a cat, framed in dark lashes, burning with appetite – were narrowed and deadly. In two steps she was standing over him. Gregory shut his eyes. She took his head in her hands and pressed it forwards against her raised thigh, so that his cheek and lips brushed her satiny skin. He did not struggle, but began to recite the Lord’s Prayer rapidly under his breath, his lips tickling her soft flesh. The smell of her – perfume and musk, the rich hot smell of a wanton woman – slipped down his throat.

  ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil …’

  She released his head and he raised his face to the sky, eyes still closed, features tight with concentration. She bent over him. Her hair brushed his face and then his shoulders. She bent lower and the ripe globes of her breasts bumped softly against his brow, trailed down over cheek and nose. Gregory stopped speaking. Her breasts, soft, firm, alive with sensation, nestled in the hollows of his eyes. They were big enough to touch as they hung down, big enough to encompass the whole of his face. His nose had slipped into the warm cleft between them. He could not breath, except for the sweet smell of her skin. If he dared to open his eyes he could not see anything but the swell of her golden flesh dusted with tiny white hairs. She drew back to release his face and then turned from side to side, dragging the weight of each rounded fruit and the stiff point of each puckered nipple across his mouth. His lips were soft, the stubble upon his chin and cheeks rasping. She raked him with nipples hard as fingertips, then, pressing her two breasts together with her hands so that the nipples abutted, dropped them both together against his lips. The lips did not yield entirely, but his breath came hot and fast between them and the dampness made lips and nipples cling together.

  ‘Am I not what you want above all else?’ she murmured. ‘Am I not the embodiment of beauty?’

  ‘No,’ he whispered, though his tongue brushed her flesh as he spoke. ‘I have seen greater beauty.’

  She pulled right back from him. Her eyes were stormy, her lips swollen with desire. ‘Where?’ she said.

  Gregory reeled under her gaze. ‘I have seen an angel,’ he said hoarsely, ‘and they are more beautiful than you. One stood outside my window in the dawn, less than a month ago. She shone with the glory of God. She was white and pure, like snow on mountain tops. All the glittering tawdry charms of Hell could not touch her divine beauty, because she was the image of Heaven. And I have woken in the night to see one at the foot of my bed. God has set angels to watch over me; how can I fall to your wickedness?’

  The temptress drew herself up, her face dark and apprehensive. Suddenly her wings unfurled, their black leathery span filling the room. They clapped once, and she was gone.

  It was some moments before Gregory could rise to his feet. He went over to the bed and would have sat down upon its hard surface, but shrank back – the cloth retained the scent of the monster where she had lain, and the smell – part flowers, part sex – was not calming. Gregory took up the knotted whip from the foot of the bed and kneeled shivering before the crucifix. Reluctantly, but with the knowledge of the inevitable, he pulled his coarse robe over his head. His lean, muscular body was marred by the obscene length of his erection, rising like the Tower of Babel from between his thighs and aspiring blasphemously to reach Heaven. The skin of his rigid cock was stretched taut and shiny, the swollen head purplish and dribbli
ng in frustration from its leering slit of a mouth. Gregory prodded it with one fingertip, appalled at its vitality. It jumped under his touch. It was like a small devil living in his skin, a part of him yet alien and hostile.

  Gregory brought the many-thonged whip up over his shoulder and deliberately laid a blow across his own back. The pain made tears spring to his eyes, but the monster only danced wickedly between his legs. Gregory realised that when Jerome next arrived with his provisions of bread and water, tomorrow or the day after, he would have to break his normal habit of silence and order the man to bring him a knife and bandages. He would have to undergo minuition – bleeding himself in order to weaken and quell the rebellious flesh. He brought the lash across to the other shoulder and down in one vicious movement. Red weals scarred his pale back. Again and again he endured the bite of the thongs, the stinging pain, until he was wet with sweat and weeping with contrition, and the devil had drooped its head once more.

  It was dark by the time he ceased. Gregory climbed dizzily to his feet to light the one candle he allowed himself. His back was a crawling sheet of white-hot pain, like a thousand knife-cuts. He might have been bleeding but he was not concerned to check. As he found the tallow candle, fumbling in the gloom, he heard a rustle behind him and the room was flooded with a pearly light. His shadow jumped, weirdly shaped, upon the wall in front of him. He turned, heart thumping.

  The angel was in his room. The light came from her wings, each perfect feather of which glowed with a glacial radiance, as pure as sunlight glancing off a snowdrift. Her skin was flawlessly pale, her long hair a silver only faintly touched by gold, her robe a waterfall of white linen that plunged to the floor and lay in folds that concealed her feet. She was as straight and slender as a willow-wand, an icon of maidenly perfection. The only touch of colour about her was the suggestion of pink at her lips and the intense blue of her eyes, deep as a summer’s night, now turned upon Gregory with a look of compassion and unspoken wisdom that made his heart hurt.

  The monk fell to his knees once more, crossed himself and then covered his shame with his hands, new tears blurring his eyes. He had no reason to think that an angel would be shocked by his naked flesh but he flinched nevertheless from despoiling her sight with such a crude reminder of human frailty, as Adam and Eve had hidden themselves in Eden, ashamed of their nakedness. ‘Forgive me,’ he murmured brokenly. The angelic light washed over his bare skin like a balm. A scent of indescribable loveliness had filled the room.

  ‘Be not afraid, Gregory,’ said the angel. Her voice was as gentle as the sigh of a breeze.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he repeated. ‘A poor sinner who does not deserve such grace as is offered him, to see a messenger from the Lord Almighty with these poor eyes. I am … not worthy of your presence.’

  ‘God’s grace is always undeserved,’ the angel reminded him gently. ‘And be not so proud of your sins that you cannot be thankful, Gregory.’

  ‘Praise God,’ he amended swiftly, ‘praise Him in the heights. Praise Him for His greatness and mercy.’

  ‘Praise Him,’ the angel agreed, ‘and forget your sins, as He has forgiven them, and put them aside.’ She stepped forwards and laid cool fingertips on Gregory’s brow; a great wave of light seemed to sweep through him, leaving him dizzy with weakness. The pain of his torn back faded to a silken bliss. ‘Tell me the desire of your heart, Gregory,’ she instructed.

  ‘To see the Lord,’ Gregory choked, ‘to be filled with His righteousness and holiness, so that there is no room for the grubby desires and cares of earth.’

  ‘Then this shall be granted to you,’ the angel said. A sweet smile suffused her face. ‘Your body is a worn garment dusty from the road; a shabby half-tamed beast that has carried you for many miles. But the garment can be cast off and replaced, and the beast is not the rider. Today you will be transfigured, Gregory, as it is your great desire.’

  A huge joy swelled in Gregory’s chest, almost painful in its intensity. He clasped the angel’s hand in both of his and showered it with tears and kisses of gratitude. His earlier self-loathing was forgotten, his lust disregarded as an insignificant thing. He did not spare his naked flesh a thought as the angel drew him to his feet; it was no longer of any importance. She laid a feather-light kiss upon his lips with her cool ones. He nearly staggered under the blow. He could feel a singing in his bones, a choir massed upon the edge of his hearing.

  ‘I greet you with the kiss of love, Gregory,’ she said.

  ‘Praise the Lord who has made all good things,’ he gasped.

  She turned him towards the stone bed. ‘You are weak with longing,’ she said. ‘Rest. I shall be with you until the moment of your joy.’ She had to help him cover the few paces and lay himself upon the bed, and then she sat at the head of it, cradling his head and shoulders in his arms. She was effortlessly strong, despite her slender build. Gregory felt almost too weak to move. His limbs were full of light, a burning, cold shining that sucked away his volition, and a core of fire seemed to run through him from heart to bowels. He looked down the length of his lean frame and was surprised to see that he had a huge erection once more, a rigid quivering spire pointing upwards. The sight puzzled him more than anything else.

  ‘Disregard it,’ she said, turning his face up to look at her. ‘It is only your body, a last cry of rebellion against your soul – and that is reaching to Heaven now.’ She planted another kiss on his lips. For an endless spinning moment he was lost in a vision of light, his spirit soaring upwards as if to plunge into a great white sun. He came to his senses with the tremulous crystal chords of an unearthly music in his ears; he could hear the angelic choir quite clearly now. The angel who held him smiled tenderly and stroked a few grey hairs from his forehead. She was so beautiful he could hardly breathe.

  A warmth enveloped his flesh. He looked down. The succubus was kneeling astride him, hands on his waist, and as he watched she impaled herself on his jerking prick and slid the entire length of it between her straddling thighs. Her own legs were tense with effort, her neck and back arched. Her ripe breasts slapped together as she began to move up and down on him, pulling almost all the way up on his cock before sinking back down until their hair meshed, so that he could clearly see the swollen pink lips of her sex stretched around his thick member, the juices running from her and coating it in a slippery tide as she writhed on it. She moaned and twisted in unrestrained pleasure, devouring every inch. Her nipples were like black eyes staring at him. He was bemused to see that his own pelvis was rising to meet her, answering her hot wantonness with thrust after thrust into her wet, open parts.

  Gregory turned his eyes anxiously to the angel.

  ‘Ignore her,’ she said soothingly. ‘You are not your flesh. You are a soul filled with the light of God.’ And Gregory felt the pure joy of the Lord fill him to every pore, until he felt as if he were incandescent with delight. He was hardly aware of the lewd grinding thrusts of his hips shoving into the demon’s splayed pussy, so intense was the holy pleasure that filled him. His mind was filled with the face of the angel. She was as pure and beautiful as a lily, a white flower growing in the desert, a white bird soaring in the blue vault of the sky. The sound of singing drowned the desperate cries of the succubus as she fucked herself towards carnal ecstasy on his worthless flesh. There was nothing in him but wide spaces filled with flame. The angel was holding him, bent over him, cradling him from sin in the virginal fastness of her arms. She looked like the very Virgin herself. Gregory thought, with the last vestiges of clarity left to him, that she reminded him of a painting he had seen in a church in Constantinople of Mary suckling the Christ-child at her breast. He saw himself lying in her arms and a mute, helpless plea rose in his eyes.

  She understood. With a smile of infinite comprehension and mercy, she parted her robes with one hand, revealing a small, white and perfect breast tipped with a little nipple of maidenly pink. Gregory gazed at it with holy awe. She tilted him towards her and his mouth closed over the
cool, stiff point, his tongue enveloping the puckered surface. As his despised flesh below thrust and contracted towards its unholy apotheosis, Gregory began to suck upon the angel’s breast. Ecstasy incomprehensible exploded in him. The fire and the light became a howling flame that tore him apart. His body poured pulse after pulse of acid seed into the hungry cunt of the demon, and his soul erupted forth.

  The two winged beings stood in the cell, looking down upon the body of the monk. In his last spasms, his face had locked in an expression that could be read as numinous ecstasy.

  ‘He was a poor fool,’ said the dark one sadly. ‘If he had only yielded to me, I would have taken his lust and left him with his life.’ She furled her midnight wings around her as if for comfort.

  The luminous one was not really looking at the empty shell before her; her vision was far away. ‘He died in perfect joy,’ she said, her voice empty of any emotion, wiping the corner of her tender mouth with one forefinger. ‘He was a soul on fire, hurtling towards the white-hot furnace of his desire. He was a star falling into Heaven. His was bliss unspeakable, the culmination of every hope, the annihilation of being in utter fulfilment. He was … delicious.’