Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One Page 3

  As time passed the deepening solitude of her existence had driven her to steadily riskier behavior, games and trysts with meaner skulks in more desolate places, till finally she had gone looking for… whatever she’d been destined for all along, she decided now.

  It was quiet but for the susurrus of woven currents that fed the warm lake where she had fled the men, but her thought was still resonant with their muttering plaint, drawing ineluctably closer.

  Shutting her eyes, she recalled their hidden ambition, revealed only when it was almost too late. Just the dimmest recess of identity had saved her then, a tiny voice stalling her desperate inclination to society. She had wailed then, an abject denunciation of fate, thrashed free of the fellatio rank and the dark parlor where it operated. But she could not seem to escape the waters they controlled, or the knowledge of her gradual reduction as personality was displaced from her head, stroke by stroke.

  The currents toyed with her till she gave up trying to decipher them, and the skulks had finally isolated her in this nameless water, lit to a melancholy gleam by a neurotic, green-eyed gnome hanging low over a distant territory of the cavern.

  A querulous hoot issued, not far off. The skulks were drifting onto the lake now, would soon detect her. Any fast movement would draw them quickly to her position.

  Emma was done crying, finished with all the bitter rites of redemption and self-consolation. She lacked the energy for any kind of emotion now, even regret. All that remained was a dull impetus to see how it ended for her.

  She stopped treading, drifted below the surface, departing its fitful interface of air and water for gradations of just the latter. Everything went mute.

  Would she lose courage, change her mind and resume her dread existence? Why, if she couldn’t even conceive a future justification? If she waited long enough, sank far enough, she wouldn’t return, drifting forlornly about the deep reaches of the lake, unsought by any friend or lover. It was no great concern now…

  Emma was drawn silently, relentlessly down to a virescent realm of foliage-choked elevations hovering over low altitudes of shadow. The water grew dimmer by increments, and she let her eyes fall solemnly shut as darkness gathered. The green streams, the pleasure parlor, the skulks on the lake above, all were softly blotted from concern, affairs of another world, not so serious really. How far gone now? It didn’t matter, not anymore.

  Everything was slowing down…

  A rhythm coalesced on the deep, a faint but vital sound drawing near. They had arrived then—there was no going back. She felt dream beckoning, readied a final question for its alien surmise.

  But it was no man that approached; the cadence was subtly wrong. Her eyes flared open to discern a thready coruscation issuing from a blurred but feminine silhouette far above, moving so fast Emma had to blink off the impression of a skulk. What was another woman doing here? Emma kicked once, arresting her descent.

  She dully tracked the stranger, saw her falter, slowing to a weary tread that revealed the elegance of her long body from beneath. She would have her choice of skulk companions Emma knew, if she was desperate enough to brave their company. That she could be found in a place like this said as much, and Emma felt a minute sorrow form on behalf of this friendless creature. By her alarmed swiveling it was clear the stranger had detected the skulks on the lake now, would shortly answer for Emma’s indiscretions. Alone, like herself in the end. But so close, too…

  Everything stalled at a fathomless instant of equilibrium, then Emma blasted for the surface, kicking madly. Green light gathered on her brow, welling to an already discredited intensity…

  She emerged with a grim sense of purpose, heaving quietly. A thick resonance of muttering and hollering advertised the approach of her former companions from several directions, eager to secure her participation once again.

  “Hey,” she whispered, blinking in the gloom. The stranger started in alarm, whirled to face her, and Emma flushed at her beauty, the intelligence glinting in her brown eyes, felt something stir a condensed numbness within.

  “What’s with the skulks?” the other demanded, and Emma was enthralled by her voice, imperiously commanded despite the fearful significance of the question.

  “Yeah,” she squirmed, suddenly hesitant to explain. “They’re pretty worked up, looks like…”

  The men were making enough noise to cover their conversation now. Emma had drifted closer to the stranger, could have reached out to touch her fine brown hair, swishing rhythmically about the sensual declination of her neckline. She turned from their enemies to stare directly at Emma.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Emma might have asked the same, but found herself looking away. She decided to let the stranger think what she would, and from this sad correspondence of circumstance a tiny empathy took root.

  “How did you surprise me like that?” she pressed. “Are you alone?”

  Emma temporized, looking about for anything that might seem to explain. “What’s that?” she pointed.

  The stranger turned to regard a distant sweep of the embankment where a solitary vessel drifted, trapped by a standing eddy. A bedboat. She lunged off without looking back.

  Emma lost no time deciding whether to follow the faster, expediently dispassionate woman.

  “Wait!”

  The stranger reached the craft just ahead of the nearest complement of skulks, now howling with mean intent, strong bodies aroused with unsavory desires, roiling the water to a chop in their haste. Five of them, Emma saw, and more would arrive soon.

  The other woman had already limbered herself onto the bedboat, and Emma clambered in after her.

  “Oars!” spat the stranger, rising to survey the disposition of men about their vessel. Emma found one next to the headboard cabinets, dug another out from under the mattress. Her partner snatched this and faced the nearest skulks, long legs flexed deeply on the mattress for balance, feet stamping a tumult of pink bedsheets.

  “Start paddling,” she hissed, leveling the oar to a menacing presentation.

  The first men were reaching for the prow, pulling themselves up, and Emma watched in astonishment as her associate thrust the oar with wild force, shoving the boldest encroacher away as he groped avariciously about her thighs, repelling him back into the lake.

  The weapon moved again, ramming another on the chest to send him reeling off the boat, erection wagging in frenzied admonishment. The stranger sensed her paralysis.

  “Get us out of here! Row! “

  Emma, who was only modestly capable with an oar, commenced a manic paddling, roused by the prospect of escape. She managed to elude the advances of the men ranged about the craft by shifting sides as needed, though it made navigating in a straight line almost impossible.

  “Get somewhere, you slipper!” the stranger screamed, lofting the drenched bedspread with a lightning-fast kick to envelop multiple skulks. Blinded by this clinging adversary they flailed about in confusion, vaingloriously pummeling one another, to careen off the other side of the boat on a savage, lateral motivation of her oar.

  The boat pitched wildly as another trio of men clambered up the headboard cabinets behind Emma, shouting triumphantly, and she realized that her partner, already contending with several more, would not respond in time. Emma contained her panic, tried for a moment to ignore the shouting, grasping invasions of the skulks, now constant enough to be overwhelming.

  “Fuck!” the other woman shrieked, hysterical now. “We’re–

  Emma found a daring then she could not have imagined, rose and swung the oar with all force, connecting spectacularly with the closest skulk, a brutal impact to the nose. As with any weapon, the oar could ultimately deliver no more than a hard slap, and the skulk shook its head and vaulted onto the cabinets with a sneer, menacing her with both hands and a taut boner weaving pugilistically about—a distractingly outsized organ that beguiled the eye, confusing her defense.

  “Use it for leverage!” her partner rai
led. “Push!”

  Emma desperately shifted tactics. Jabbing upward, she caught the skulk on its belly and shoved with brutal force, feet driven deep into the mattress. Unlimbered by her strong thighs, he was toppled onto his partners, and they wobbled back into the lake thundering incomprehensibilities.

  “Ever going need what ended too!”

  There was no time to savor the victory. Another trio was already rising to confront her at the left. One pinched her closer nipple with a deft movement and Emma hissed in outrage at this mean gambit, rewarded his boldness with a merciless flurry of head kicks. But his nearest conspirator lurched inward and got her in an armlock and managed to turn her over, pushing her face into the mattress.

  “Fuck you skulk!” she maniacally screeched into the sheets and took advantage of his limited leverage—obtained only from an ungainly abdominal fold halfway over the side of the bedboat—to reach around and spastically spank at his testicles till he released her and slipped back into the froth.

  “Then to hide said be who!”

  Up front the stranger employed the oar with numb precision on a procession of invaders, and for a breathless, deafening interval they fought together, shoving and sweeping and prying skulks to leave a ragged trail of them behind the bedboat, treading in sullen astonishment.

  Suddenly it was over.

  Emma closed her eyes for a moment in the surreal calm that returned. Beneath her own heaving respiration she could hear the softly woven voice of the lake, the system of its being.

  The stranger sat, began to paddle with exhausted determination. Emma joined her, grunting as the oar bit deep. They straightened their zigzag course to ply for the exit she had selected, caught a tendril of its flow and were soon drawn along by it. The skulks—a dox or trix in number—glared in disbelief behind them, exhausted and irked but not defeated. One rubbed its nose in painful retrospection of their meeting as they dwindled from view.

  Emma splashed on in a kind of mania, desperate to discover where the river was taking them. But her attention was soon arrested by the sight of a lone man on the right bank, staring at them with insolent interest from the comfort of an easy chair.

  “Look!” said her partner, and in the depths behind him Emma saw a line of seated women. About them were littered the trappings of a pleasure parlor, presently vacant of callers.

  As they approached, the man stood without hurry, reckoning the difficulty of acquiring them with a calculating leer. Emma saw his penis stir, balefully saluting their desirability. Her companion muttered something she didn’t catch, but Emma detected uncertainty in her tone. Their eyes locked in mutual estimation, then the taller woman looked away timidly, a reaction that was deeply unnatural to her, Emma decided. She might have accepted this tacit signal to withdraw but for a sudden intuition that no friendship with this proud creature would develop from a compromised beginning.

  “Pull over,” she directed, straightening to whatever fate required. After a moment the other woman yielded to her choice, and the bedboat slipped to the side of the channel. They shifted their weight to the rear at the last moment, easing the prow up onto the bank. Emma grabbed an oar and stepped off the vessel.

  They cautiously approached the skulk. He was big, taller than her new friend and far more muscular—a hunky blond villain she would rather have flirted with, things being otherwise.

  He stared, dumbfounded by their audacity, then shook his head and stepped decisively for them. Terror came and went in Emma, deflected by a comprehensive exhaustion, and suddenly she was screaming.

  “Whaaaaa!”

  They lurched toward their adversary, oar braced wide between them, and the skulk backpedaled in surprise, unable to summon the fortifying psychology of a group.

  He starting yelling, a furious nonsense of words, flailed back in alarm and tripped on his chair. They accelerated straight for him and he scrabbled away on hands and knees, testicles jouncing between his clambering thighs as they chased him off, shrieking random imprecations.

  “Fuck off, skulk!”

  “Scram you asshole! Beat it!”

  He skidded down the embankment howling for his comrades, splashed into the stream and swam away upstream, vanquished by boldness alone.

  Numbly exultant, they returned to the parlor, breathing hard. The women there were seated in sumptuously gilt and padded chairs, each with a round pink rug situated before it, symbolically provided for their delicate knees as they accommodated customers sitting for service. Emma winced at the sight of their rouged and ready lips, well-exercised by the frequent ingress of lusty skulk cocks.

  “What’s the deal?” her friend anxiously demanded, looking in vain for cuffs or collars. She fell silent when it was obvious the women were not secured in any fashion.

  “The skulks catch’em at first, bring the best ones here. But after a while they return for their own reasons,” Emma tried to explain, blushing painfully.

  She moved to the rightmost woman in the lineup, by convention the prettiest and best skilled, faced a tense-looking blond, unquestionably alluring to skulks with her glinting nipple clamps and full, liquid lips. Emma knew from experience how hard it was to rule the rank even in a tiny parlor like this, guessed the woman had an expert oral regimen to match her beauty.

  “Get up!” she commanded, to no result.

  “You’re free! No more sucking! Let’s go!” her partner shouted. Still there was response.

  “We have to push the chairs around,” she hurriedly decided.

  “What?”

  “Scatter them!” Emma demonstrated by dragging a chair out of position, precipitating an immediate apprehension among the parlor women.

  “Move it! Get up, you slippers!” her ally shrilled, hauling at another chair. The women muttered in agitation, began to rise in confusion as the hierarchy loosened.

  From upstream a frenzy of muttering issued into the channel. Emma turned to witness a large complement of skulks, swimming at full speed on the current toward their position.

  “Let’s go!” her partner shouted and swung the oar, finding the backside of a slipper, who wailed, lurching toward the bank.

  “Into the boat!” Emma instructed, and the women were forcibly driven there to tumble on the mattress.

  Her new friend pushed off, tried to accelerate with a spastic application of an oar, but the vessel moved sluggishly, badly overloaded and taking water as it pitched about. Emma slumped in exhaustion, knowing her contribution would be meaningless.

  There was time for a final regret, and she met her partner’s haggard gaze, wondering what might have been.

  But the former captives were shrugging off their torpor and untangling themselves to functionality, restored to a faintly familiar context now. One reached for an oar, took it from Emma, then her friend was relieved, and in moments four slippers had doubled up on the rowing to send their craft gliding toward a barely conceived future. Emma stood by the headboard cabinets, staring behind in dread fascination.

  Their pursuers built speed, glorying in the chase, pulled to within a few lengths of the stern on a superb display of athleticism. Everyone was shouting and Emma found herself thumping the headboard, crudely synchronizing the rowers.

  The bedboat remained just out of reach, goading the men on till some territorial limit finally persuaded them to desist. They fell back, treading against the current, eyes glinting hatefully in the gloom.

  And from this chance meeting a new society had emerged. The desperate acquisition of a few slippers from a scrubby fellatio parlor catalyzed a fragile but genuine confidence in their partnership, inspiring acts of presumption and cunning that yielded more women in turn, by the six and dox and trix, till eventually there were over five sex of them—almost a whole sen—dwelling along a beautiful subterranean stream in richly adorned cavern apartments; a small but viable people on equal footing with the other societies that together comprised the hidden women of the Lap.

  And in that time Emma had grown to love th
e fierce, beautiful creature named Ione.

  Now, treading the waters of another lonely lake, Emma watched the distant camp and the women they had rescued since waking to Manassa’s kiss. A chorus of slippers laughed at something the big woman was doing, captivated by her vitality and charisma. Nearby, Ione monitored her rival with a stealthy but unwavering interest.

  The women were preoccupied with the simple novelty of interaction for the time being, finding their way among each other as distinct personalities emerged. But their physical desires would soon predominate, and Emma knew they would have to be led by example, at least until enough stable relationships formed. It wasn’t the prospect of Ione’s example-setting that worried her so much as the question of what additional use her lover might make of the situation.

  The alienation of awakening surged again, warring versions of reality that twisted her identity with a fearful leverage. Emma stiffened, barely treading, waiting for it to subside, then exhaled to emptiness as its fantastic, deranging notions finally relented to improbability.

  When she was calm once more she hardened herself for what would follow and stroked quietly back to the camp.

  Ione stared at her partner, kneeling by a basket of freshly cleaned toys and lingerie, eyes submissively downcast. The cavern was awash in low tones of red, echoed with boisterous slipper chatter, senseless but clearly amatory in nature.

  “Adorn yourself in panties. Pink.” There was a lull in the noise at her peremptory tone and heads swiveled their direction from all about the camp. Ione had chosen a broad prominence for their sleeping site, clearly visible from every direction.

  Emma procured the specified item from the basket and self-consciously dressed herself.

  “Turn over and furnish your body for discipline,” Ione directed. She responded without hesitation, rolling over to fix her forehead on a bulky bedspread freshly misted with some sugary perfume from the recovered supplies. Blond locks gathered in a tumult at her neck, and her pink-pantied rump was lofted high in the air, crowning thighs spread wide to stoically planted knees.