Cthulhurotica (17 page)

Heather’s eyes widened. “Isha, did you tell him?”

“Unfortunately,” Isha replied, unzipping her coat.

“Scandalous!”

I nodded, smirking.

Heather grabbed the bottle and pulled. “How much did you tell him?”

Isha glanced at me. “Just about the one time we kissed.”

Heather burst out laughing. “Oh, the
one
time! Girl, I’ve had my fingers inside of you more times than I can remember.”

“What?!”

Isha groaned and snatched the bottle from Heather’s hand.

“I knew it!” I yelled, grabbing the bottle away from her. “Liar.”

Heather bit her lip. “You’re upset by that?”

I upended the bottle and filled my mouth with the harsh liquid.

“Jaswinder?” Heather said.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I don’t care what you two did ten years ago. I just want an honest wife.” I glared at her.

Isha looked down. “You don’t think what we did is wrong?”

I drummed my fingers on the bottle. The tent was beginning to spin. “No,” I said. “I don’t think it was wrong.”

Isha exhaled loudly. “I was sure you would hate me if you found out. I thought you would think it was… immoral.”

“Lying is immoral,” I said. “What you two did isn’t immoral. In fact, it’s kind of…”

“Hot?” Heather interrupted.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Hrmm.” Heather brushed the hair out of her face and straightened her back. “Jaswinder,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Would you like to see?”

Isha’s mouth dropped open.

“See what?” I said, leaning back.

“You know… me and Isha.”

“Heather!” Isha said, squirming.

I waved my hands. “Absolutely…
not
.”

Heather giggled. I looked at Isha. “I almost thought he was going to say yes, Ish. Then what would we have done?” She leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “For old time’s sake.”

Isha rolled her eyes.

“Alright, enough of
that
,” Heather said, reaching for her suitcase. “There’s something I want you two to see.” She pulled out a large, leather bound book with an ornate brass clasp, and brushed her palm over the cover. Isha’s eyelids fluttered with excitement.

I capped the bottle and put it away. “Is that the ritual book?”

“In the flesh.” Heather popped the clasp.

“What’s all that weird writing?” Isha asked.

“Arabic.”

“You can read that?” I asked.

“Some,” Heather replied, turning the pages. “But I had the fertility ritual translated so we don’t miss any steps.” She stopped turning, tapping a page with her finger. “Here it is. Recognize that?”

I bent over. On the page, drawn in red ink, was an image of a winged beast with a bulbous head, hateful, narrow eyes, and a nest of tentacles dangling from its jaw where a mouth should have been. Between his legs was an erect, double-headed phallus.

“That’s the
thing
in your suitcase,” I said, shivering.

Heather pulled the idol out of her suitcase and held it up for Isha and me to see.

“Ugh, get it away,” I said, shielding my eyes.

“You’re such a prude, Jas,” Isha quipped.

“Why does it have two penis heads?”

Heather turned the statue around and stroked the golden phallus. “I dunno. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m fine with just the one, thank you.”

Heather cocked an eyebrow at me. “Isha has told me as much.”

I glared at my wife. “You told her about my penis?”

Isha cringed and hid her face.

“Aww, you’re both prudes. Well, you better relax, because this ritual isn’t for the faint of heart.”

Heather grabbed her coat and shrugged into it. “Now, I’ve got some preparation to do. You two stay warm, have a few more drinks, and I’ll be back before midnight.”

“Wait, we have to do it out there?” I said, pointing at the tent flap.

Heather smirked. “We didn’t come all this way to do it in a tent.”

****

I must have passed out because I suddenly realized that I didn’t have any clothes on.

“What’s going on?” I said, propping myself up on my elbows.

Isha was removing my socks.

“Let’s go, Jas. Heather wants us to put on these robes and meet her outside.”

“Just robes? Nothing else?”

“That’s what she said. Now come on, we don’t have much time.”

I growled and sat up. “This is nuts.”

Isha handed me a black, hooded robe, a length of rope, and a pair of black slippers. I put them on and followed her outside.

“It’s freezing!” I said, too loudly.

Isha grabbed my hand and pulled. “Come on!”

The moon was nearly full, basking the valley in rich pale light. Heather was waiting about fifty meters from the tent on the west shore of the lake. We hurried over, trembling.

She walked toward us and smiled.

“Step inside,” she said. “He’s waiting.”

She gestured toward a wide circle of more than a hundred skulls on the ground. Candles burned freely in the circle, seemingly untouched by the wind. In the center of the circle was a bed of blankets covered in red silk and two matching red pillows. The idol and Heather’s book were placed on the center of the bed.

I narrowed my eyes. “What is this?”

“Go,” Isha demanded.

I grumbled and stepped over the skulls.

The frigid wind stopped abruptly, replaced by a pocket of fresh, warm air. I shot a look at Heather, who quirked her eyebrow knowingly. The headache I’d woken up with simply vanished, and every minor discomfort I’d been feeling over the past few hours, as well as those I’d felt for years, instantly slipped away.

Isha followed me in. She immediately gasped.

“How are you doing this?” I said, staring at my hands.

“So many lost their lives at this place,” Heather said as she stepped across the line of bones. “Men, women… children.” She swept an open palm toward the skulls. “Their loss is our gain.”

A euphoric grin melted across Isha’s face. “That’s beautiful,” she said.

I nodded dumbly, as a wave of bliss crashed over my mind.

“Come here, Jaswinder,” Heather said.

I moved toward her. Heather loosened my belt and pushed the robe from my shoulders, smiling. She turned to Isha then removed hers as well. I licked my lips as her robe fell to the ground.

Heather removed her own robe and stepped out of her slippers. My mouth hung open as I stared at her body. Feeling uninhibited, I started toward her.

“Not now,” she said, gently pushing my hands away. She glanced at the bed. “This way.”

Heather took our hands and laid us down on either side of the idol. “Relax for a moment,” she said, kneeling in front of the idol. She picked up her book, and began reading.

I put my arms around Isha and kissed her gently on the lips. I felt her tongue pass over mine, and a tiny bolt of energy flowed into my mouth.

“Wow,” I said.

Isha kissed me again. “I feel like I’m floating.”

She ran her hands over my chest, and a flood of warmth surged into my body.

Each touch felt electric, each caress I felt with all of the nerves in my body. As Heather spoke, her words flowed over us, through us. The language had no meaning, but I felt her voice pouring into me, feeding me. I stared into Isha’s eyes. I felt her entirely. I knew her.

Heather closed the book.

“We will begin,” she said, handing
me the idol.

I took it and turned it over in my hands. “It’s vibrating,” I said.

“Yes. We all are, Jaswinder. Do you know what to do?”

“I–I do,” I told her. “I don’t know why, but I do.” As I held it, the idol’s phallus swelled and grew. “Amazing,” I gasped. I gently separated my wife’s legs and slid it inside of her. Isha arched her back and a wave of pleasure instantly crashed over me.

Heather slid her arms around my chest and put her mouth to my ear. “You can you feel it too, yes?”

“I can feel everything.” I moved the idol faster and faster inside of Isha.

“Now let
it
do the work,” Heather whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“Let go.”

I relaxed my hands and the idol began moving on its own. Isha shrieked in response, clawing at the idol, wrenching it closer, begging it to go faster.

Heather pulled me away.

“Just you and me now,” she said, crawling on top of me.

“Is it okay?” I asked, reaching for her breasts.

“This is how it’s done.”

“Yes. This feels right,” I said, filling my mouth with her flesh. Heather slid her hands between my legs and grinned devilishly.

“I can’t wait,” I said.

“Are you sure?” She said, biting her lip.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Heather smiled as she slid down on top of me. I gasped as she flicked her tongue over my teeth.

“You like?”

“You feel amazing,” I moaned.

I glanced toward Isha. The idol had grown into a massive winged creature three times her size. Snake-like tentacles stretched out from its jaw, encircling her body. The creature wrenched her into the air and Isha howled with pleasure.

“I hope it’s a boy,” I said.

Heather sneered and grabbed my throat. “Isha and I will raise him well.”

Constella Espj
IPSA SCIENTIA

For the third night in a row Kara was voice-chatting with Jake.

“So you like libraries, huh?” She teased, flirting with him already. She’d found him on a science fiction website and had become immediately attracted to his incredible intelligence.

“Libraries are wonderful. They are places of learning. They all remind me of the library near my home.”

“Where’s that?”

“If you can guess correctly, I will tell you that you are right.” His accent was rich and exotic. She couldn’t place it.

She pouted. She hoped he could hear it in her voice. “Aw, well I’ll keep listening and try to figure it out. Can I at least get a hint?”

“Hmm,” if he had a pointy beard he was probably stroking it. “Well, not to give too much away, it is known to my people as the Great Library.”

“What? That’s so not helpful! There’s probably a million ‘great libraries’ in the world. I’ll be on the Internet forever trying to find it.”

“If you can find it on the Internet I would be impressed by your researching capabilities.”

Kara scoffed. “Please, I’m a master researcher! If there’s anything I love, it’s hunting things down, figuring them out.”

Jake sounded curious – at least how Kara imagined curiosity would sound on him. “What is it that you love about research?”

“I love to learn new things. It’s crazy but I love knowledge. Anyway, give me more hints.”

“Anything one could hope to learn is contained there. There you can find history, science–more knowledge than any human could absorb in a lifetime. If you love knowledge, you would like it there.”

After work the next evening, Kara was online with Jake again. This time she was reclining in bed. She was working on a short story and asked him about faster-than-light travel. If anyone knew, it would be a physicist. She’d told him that much but she hadn’t mentioned that only a thin pair of white panties was covering her brown skin. Their last chat had left her so… warm.

“It is technically impossible right now, but there is a way around it. Have you ever heard of the Alcubierre Drive?”

She had not but she was enthralled. His mellifluous voice came right through her headset and directly into her brain. Eyes half open, she stared at nothing, panting softly and squirming with excitement. She was learning something, but she wasn’t sure what, just that it was about negative energy density.

“This matter does not exist here, of course, but–”

She perked up. “But what about somewhere else? Could it exist in some other part of the universe, where our laws of physics don’t necessarily apply?”

Jake paused. “Well…”

“I guess it’s not like anyone’s been there so–”

“Not yet, no. No humans have been there yet.”

“Tell me more.”

“This is very esoteric matter, you must understand.”

He went on. Kara’s fingers slipped lower. She was dizzy, drunk on the things he was telling her. She bit her lip to keep silent.

After a month of talking to each other nearly every day, Jake mentioned he’d be nearby to pick up some equipment at the end of the year. Kara didn’t know if she could wait until then. She had a huge list of things she wanted him to teach her when they finally met, and in five months it could only become a longer list.

“I’m not sure I can learn all this while you’re here.”

“I can teach it to you. You are smart enough to learn it. I believe you can.”

She requested a vacation from her boss the next day, intent on spending every moment she could with Jake in person.

Jake wasn’t online when she got home. Dejected, she went to a physics chat room to find someone to talk to about her new passion.

“Knock knock,” said an instant message.

Kara broke into a gleeful grin and sent back a reply: “Hi! I have a million questions!”

“Voice?”

She grabbed her headset and closed the chat room window. “You know it!”

She probed him about his research. He was maddeningly vague but under her barrage of questions, mentioned that it had something to do with high-temperature superconductors. He quickly changed the subject, and refused to let her lead the conversation back in that direction.

Later, after their goodbyes, Kara was too excited to sleep. Everything Jake had told her was swirling in her head. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she was panting. Her fingertips traced the curve of her breasts, the plane of her belly, the angles of her hipbones. She giggled softly to herself, remembering how she’d told Jake that the Navier-Stokes equations made her think of navels and strokes and soon the fabric of her panties was like space-time, caved to the density of her desires.

When they finally met, Kara was so nervous she tripped over a curb as she walked up to meet him, and knocked over two glasses of water at the restaurant where they had dinner. He politely pretended not to notice. She didn’t relax until they were sitting outside on a picnic blanket, far from the Las Vegas lights, staring up at the stars.