Thaumatology 08 - Ancient Read online

  Ceri gave Lily a swat on the shoulder. ‘Yes, she would, now pack it in.’ She swung her legs off the bed, Lily climbing after her and getting to her feet first.

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ Lily replied sweetly.

  Ceri’s hand landed on Lily’s behind with a loud smack. She knew exactly what the result would be before she did it.

  ‘Oo! Thank you, Mistress.’

  ‘You’re dreadful.’

  Lilly giggled and pulled Ceri to her feet. ‘C’mon, I’m hungry.’ She half dragged Ceri toward the shower, which was distinctly not submissive; Ceri grinned happily. ‘I must admit though,’ Lily added, ‘you can call me “my beautiful pet” and stuff like that as much as you like. Even just “my pet.” Makes me all tingly and happy.’

  Ceri thought about it for all of half a second. ‘Well, that I can do, my pet.’

  Lily giggled like a schoolgirl, giving a little shiver, and started the shower.

  Soho

  ‘Did you have a good birthday, Lily?’ Carter asked. It was about an hour after opening time and things had settled into their normal rhythm. There was time for normal conversation.

  ‘God yes! And thanks for putting up with me being a little… distracted last night.’

  Carter smiled. ‘Considering what Ceri was putting you through, I thought you were remarkably professional. And drink sales were up about five per cent.’ That got a giggle. ‘What did you think of Demi-monde?’

  ‘It was perfect. We didn’t get to try half of what they have there. Ceri even abstained from the library since she was really doing it for my pleasure rather than hers. I’d love to go again, but I’m guessing it costs a fortune to be a member.’ Lily looked a little sad at that, but fairly sanguine about her fate.

  Carter nodded. ‘As I suspected.’ He produced an envelope from his jacket pocket. ‘Your birthday present,’ he said.

  Frowning, Lily took it and opened the flap, pulling out a folded sheet of paper. Her eyes slowly widened as she read it, and then she looked up as Ceri came back from one of her tables. Saying nothing, she just held out the paper to Ceri.

  Ceri took the paper and read it slowly before moving closer to Carter. ‘This names me as a lifetime member of Demi-monde.’ Her voice was low, but rather intense.

  ‘Yes, he replied. ‘Yes it does.’

  ‘Carter… it’s… we can’t accept this. I mean, I’d love to, but… I saw the basic tariff. I asked just in case, but we couldn’t even afford the yearly fee. I hate to think what a lifetime membership would cost. You can’t…’

  ‘First of all, young lady,’ Carter interrupted, ‘since when do you get to tell me what I can spend my money on?’

  Ceri blushed. ‘Uh, well, you are spending it on me…’

  ‘Secondly, I wouldn’t say that a couple of hundred quid was a huge amount.’ Ceri blinked at him. ‘That’s what it cost to get a lawyer to handle the legalities. Since I’m part owner, I have a lifetime membership which I have used exactly once. I may mess about with a little bondage and a bit of spanking, but it’s really not my scene. I took Suzie there one weekend, Suzie Stacks. Frankly, you’d be doing me a favour taking it off my hands.’ His eyes tightened a little as he said it and Ceri winced in sympathy. Suzie was a porn actress with a liking for BDSM who had been murdered. The police had suspected for a while that Carter had killed her and it was not surprising that the memory would hurt.

  ‘In that case, thank you, Carter. Really, this is an amazing present.’

  Lily gave out a delighted squeak and bounced forward, wrapping her arms around Carter and hugging him before kissing him on the cheek. ‘I am the luckiest succubus ever. I have the best boss and the most wonderful mistress.’

  Carter’s cheeks actually coloured as he patted Lily on the back. ‘You’re welcome, both of you. Now settle down before people start thinking I’ve gone soft.’

  Lily grinned at him, but did let him go. ‘Your secret’s safe with us, Boss.’

  ‘Which secret would that be, my dearest Lily?’

  ‘You’ve always been soft. You’ve just got a crunchy shell. Like an insect.’

  ‘That’s our Carter,’ Alec said from across the bar, ‘just a really big bug.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted a fur rug to put in front of the fire,’ Carter growled, which just left Ceri and Lily laughing harder.

  Kennington, March 25th

  Ceri had had one regret about Lily’s birthday; the fucking machine had looked like an incredible ride and it would have been rather inappropriate for her to have tried it. Mentioning the wistful wish to Lily had produced a giggle. ‘You don’t need one,’ she had said. ‘Trust me’

  Now, her arms stretched out to the sides of the altar in their own dungeon, her ankles tethered wide apart, and Michael banging away at her, Ceri understood with what was left of her brain. In wolf-shape, Michael had considerable stamina, and with Lily feeding on him he became little more than a big, furry, very energetic, fucking machine. They had padded the altar a bit, but Ceri’s hips were starting to feel the pounding against the rock plinth and her taught nipples were a little sore from rubbing against the altar cloth, but most of all her lungs were aching from trying to draw breath and she thought her pussy was going to catch fire. Then Lily suddenly released Michael and he came, and Ceri let out a shriek as her own body suddenly exploded with a final climax.

  Michael collapsed over her. His weight on her back. His loud, ragged breathing in her ear, almost whimpering. Lily knelt down beside her and whispered in her ear. ‘Better than a machine, I think.’ Ceri nodded, not able to speak yet, and Lily giggled. ‘I think the explosion at the end really adds a great punch-line.’ Ceri groaned; it had, she was still feeling it.

  Finally gathering the energy, Michael lifted off her. He pulled out slowly, thinking it would be easier on her, but it was exquisite torture, and when he finally slipped free she let out a whimper, half loss and half relief. Ceri lay there panting, barely aware of what was happening, but Lily had apparently moved.

  ‘God you’re wet.’ The half-succubus’ voice came from behind her. ‘You’re dripping on the floor.’ Ceri let out another little whimper. ‘We should’ve been filming this. I know just the markets. We could’ve made a mint.’ Another whimper, more of worry; Ceri was not entirely sure Lily would not act on her money-making scheme in the future. ‘Better get you cleaned up a little.’ There was a tiny pause and then, ‘It’s not like you can stop me.’ And then Lily’s tongue was lapping away between Ceri’s legs.

  Ceri felt like she was melting.

  ~~~

  ‘You’re walking a little funny, Ceri,’ Twill commented as she dished up Sunday lunch. As usual, it was a roast; beef this time, cooked to perfection, moist, but not bloody, and there were roast potatoes which everyone knew would be beautifully crunchy on the outside and meltingly fluffy on the inside.

  ‘Thirty minutes on the demon-powered-werewolf sex machine and you’d be walking like this too,’ Ceri replied.

  ‘Twenty-five,’ Lily said. ‘I went easy on you.’

  ‘It felt like twenty-five hours!’

  ‘You loved it.’

  Ceri chuckled. ‘Yes, okay, I did, but I want a massage later.’

  ‘Of course, Mistress,’ Lily purred.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ Twill said, hovering beside the table with her arms crossed. ‘Fill your mouths with food before I decide to keep Michael behind to try out this “sex machine” myself.’

  Ceri raised an eyebrow, but started digging into her food. It was not that Twill was a nun; she had demonstrated that fae could be just as wild as their reputation suggested. However, she almost never made a statement suggesting she actually desired sex. Maybe it was time to get her laid again. Ceri glanced across the table at Lily and could just tell she was thinking the same thing.

  ‘How are the preparations going for your trip into Europe?’ Twill asked, almost as if she knew they needed distracting.

  Ceri made sure of swallowing before sh
e answered. ‘I’d just about forgotten about that after the last couple of days. Pretty well. We’re basically ready, but we’re being our usual paranoid selves and going over everything for the fourth time.’

  ‘And we have the survival course thing in a couple of weeks,’ Lily added.

  Michael gulped down the food he was chewing. ‘Survival course?’

  Ceri sighed heavily, rolling her eyes. ‘The Ministry won’t let me and Lily do the final section of the trip on our own unless we’ve done a three day survival course. They’ve got some specialist from the SAS or the Marines, or something.’

  The werewolf looked confused. ‘What do you need a survival course for?’

  ‘I don’t, and I’m pretty sure Lily can cope with most things, but they’re still going to make us run through a lot of mud anyway.’

  When Ceri had first met Michael he had been a bit insecure, especially in human form. Now he could manage a very respectable wolfish grin when the need arose. ‘Can I watch?’

  ‘It’s not like we’ll be naked.’

  ‘Though that’d be fun,’ Lily added.

  ‘Maybe for you. You’ve got internal heating.’

  ‘Technicalities. You’ve got magic. You’re the most powerful practitioner in the world that isn’t actually a dragon. You’re right, you don’t need a survival course. If you can’t survive something, some SAS guy is going to be so dead they couldn’t even raise his spirit.’

  Ceri looked at her across the table, chewing mouth-wateringly good beef for a few seconds. ‘Yeah, but we get to spend three days with a bunch of hunky squaddies.’

  ‘Maybe we do need a survival course.’

  March 26th

  Ceri walked out of the little foyer with a stack of envelopes, checking each one as she went. Bill, junk, junk, junk… ‘Is there some sort of agency that manufactures junk mail in bulk?’

  ‘Probably,’ Lily said as she swung down the stairs to head for the kitchen. She stopped. ‘Twill sounds rather happy.’

  Ceri got closer and the sound of singing could be heard. Twill had a beautiful singing voice. ‘Yeah, well, she doesn’t have to close her legs while she’s hovering.’

  ‘Is that sour grapes I hear?’

  Ceri blew a raspberry at her. ‘At least she sounds happy… And it was a pretty good threesome.’

  Lily looked thoughtful. ‘She always takes a little coaxing and then gets really wild.’

  ‘I can hear you,’ Twill sing-songed from the kitchen.

  Ceri and Lily giggled and followed the continued singing. Twill was hovering near the cooker, conducting her various implements as they fried bacon and buttered bread. Watching Twill cook had given a few norms heart palpitations and Ceri had always wondered how people thought fairies got by in a world filled with things built for people nearly twenty times their size.

  ‘Breakfast is almost ready,’ Twill said, ‘and I am a little sore if you must know, but it’s my own fault. As you noted, I do get a little wild with two skilled young women working on me.’

  Ceri sat down at the table, flicking through envelopes again. ‘Thank you, Twill.’

  ‘What for, dear? I should be thanking you.’

  ‘You said two skilled young women,’ Ceri explained. Lily was looking rather proud, which was fair since more or less everything Ceri knew about sex with girls she had learned from her pet demon. Well, Lily and her father, technically. Ceri stopped leafing, dumped all but one envelope on the table, and opened the rather thick bundle of documents open. ‘That club works fast.’

  ‘Huh?’ Lily said, suddenly interested.

  ‘It’s from Demi-monde, the membership agreement, rules… And there’s a big addendum section that Arabella didn’t mention. I guess they’re to do with the lifetime thing.’

  ‘Arabella?’

  ‘Yeah, she was there… Oh, you probably didn’t notice her while a machine was busy pounding your pussy.’ Lily giggled in response. ‘And it’s Mistress Arabella to you. She runs the place. I think you’d like her.’

  Two plates floated over to the table with bacon sandwiches on them. ‘Eat them while they’re hot,’ Twill instructed. ‘I take it you’re going into the university, Ceri?’ The LMU T-shirt and jeans were generally a giveaway.

  ‘Uh-huh. Hey, I can bring guests as long as I’m there. No more than one Dom and one slave at a time.’ Twill rolled her eyes as Ceri continued reading while chewing on bacon and buttered bread.

  ‘We could take Michael,’ Lily suggested.

  ‘Not entirely his scene… I think. Though he did get off on that DVD…’

  ‘Wonderful breakfast conversation,’ Twill commented.

  Ceri grinned and put the letter to one side. ‘Sorry, Twill.’

  Holloway

  ‘I assume Lily did have a good birthday?’ Cheryl asked as she stood with Ceri in the little room they used as a kitchen in the High-energy Thaumatology Building. ‘She certainly seemed to be, uh, happy when I saw her.’

  ‘You’d be happy too, with a vibrating egg in your pussy,’ Ceri replied, smirking.

  ‘Ah, that’s what you did to her. I wondered.’ Cheryl poured coffee. The kitchen was mostly meant for supplying water if they ever needed it. It had few conveniences, but one thing it had to have was a good coffee machine. Right now the machine almost seemed to be purring as it brewed; Ceri had got her hands on around eight pounds of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans, which the American government had paid for, so they were drinking the best. ‘Carter said something about giving you membership of that BDSM club too.’

  ‘Yeah. He did. Demi-monde. I think we mentioned it. Incredibly posh, really upmarket. Private rooms above ground, baths and dungeons below. All the dungeons are open so whatever you’re doing you can be watched. So if you ever have urges to be abused in public, or enormous luxury, let me know and we’ll go over there. I can take guests.’

  ‘Perhaps for my birthday.’ Was there a hint of breathy anticipation in her voice?

  Ceri narrowed her eyes slightly at the attractive redhead. ‘You really are getting kinkier as you get older, Boss.’

  ‘Actually, I’m regaining the kink I had drummed out of me trying to get to where I am. Ten years ago, the academic community still had a well-deserved reputation for misogyny. Any hint of impropriety and you could kiss most of your career, never mind tenure, goodbye.’ Her lips pursed. ‘Well, you could forget actually being academically successful. You could manage a paying job and your name on a few paper by bending over the right desks. Everyone knew you were doing it though, and if they knew you enjoyed sex then it was assumed you were sleeping with your boss anyway.’

  ‘So…’ Ceri paused, considering exactly how to put this. ‘When I first knew you, that cast iron bitch persona you used to affect…’

  ‘Was me keeping people at arm’s length so I could avoid having relationships with anyone at the university, yes.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘You.’ Ceri looked blankly at her. ‘Oh, threesomes with a wizard and a werewolf set it up, but then there was you in a tent on Salisbury Plain. I woke up thinking “Oh crap, I slept with my assistant,” and then “and I enjoyed it,” and then “what the fuck.” Why should I deny myself? Why not be what I am? You are.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ceri had never really considered herself as some sort of facilitator of freedom. It was a bit of a shock, but she began to smirk after a second. ‘So after me you decided to let your hair down?’

  Cheryl grinned back. ‘I remember you telling me I should. In a strip club, no less.’

  ‘I remember. I was right, you should let your hair down…’

  Before she could finish the sentence Cheryl put her mug down, reached up, and pulled a couple of pins from her hair. Red waves cascaded down around her shoulders as she shook her bun out. ‘Anything you say, Mistress,’ Cheryl said meekly.

  ‘That’s mean,’ Ceri growled. Her boss was dressed in typical work attire, a satin blouse, pencil skirt, and heels. Her nipples were tent
ing the fabric a little, a fact which put a crack in Ceri’s belief that Cheryl was teasing. ‘Really mean. It’s not like we can…’

  Cheryl was unbuttoning her blouse. ‘No one ever comes out here. There are plenty of cable-ties.’

  Ceri looked at her. This was crazy. She should stop it… ‘You’ll need to be gagged, you’re too noisy.’ Switching into “Mistress mode” was just a matter of straightening her back and setting her features. ‘Take your knickers off.’

  Cheryl swallowed. ‘Yes, Mistress.’

  Kennington

  ‘Cheryl did that?’ Lily said from the vicinity of Ceri’s armpit.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you just went with it? Turned Mistress, just like that?’

  ‘I did, yes.’ Ceri’s fingers played absently with Lily’s hair as they watched TV, and did not watch TV really.

  ‘You cable tied her to a chair, stuffed her thong in her mouth, and made her come.’

  Ceri’s lips twitched. ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Lucky bitch,’ Lily said. Ceri could hear the pout. There was a tiny, subtle change in Ceri’s posture and Lily’s body trembled.

  ‘Go get your collar, a ball gag, and some rope.’ Lily was beaming as she bounced off the couch. ‘I’d use your knickers, but you never wear any.’

  March 27th

  ‘You’re just switching into Mistress Mode whenever you feel like it now,’ Lily commented with a voice full of contentment. Her head was now on Ceri’s shoulder as they lay in bed. The room was almost entirely dark and they had just finished making love by touch; slowly, softly, and somehow more intensely than when they could see. Every touch had been a surprise, every sound had seemed to vibrate in the air. And there had been no Mistress Ceridwyn, just two people enjoying each other.

  ‘I guess. Sort of. I think I need a sub to trigger it.’

  Lily giggled softly. ‘There’s not much point in being a Dom with no sub to dominate.’

  Ceri grinned in the darkness. ‘Yeah, I guess. How does Tuesday nights sound for visits to Demi-monde?’