The Creators: Book Two, Chapters 1-2

Chapter One: Mother

DIAMOND

The world was darkness, but I had no sight to witness it. The world was small, but no vastness shrank its perspective. The world was warm, and no cold could pierce my comfort. The world was her, and I knew her to be my mother. She was the thumping heart that gave me life, the intimate warmth that embraced me, the encasing walls that protected me. She was the cord that fed me, the womb that molded me, the voice that spoke to me. The voice was a whisper in my mind, a tingling along my spine, a soothing caress through the growing chaos of thought.

You are my daughter, Mother whispered, my first of another, and you will be my joy in this world.

The voice spoke of joy, and I felt it swell boundlessly. The voice spoke of trust, and its resolve strengthened me. The voice spoke of love, and I told the voice I already knew it.

You are love. I said to the voice, knowing it to be true in the purest sense. Love was the comforting warmth that surrounded me, love was the heartbeat that assured me I wasn’t alone, love was the life that I grew into, that I would never depart from. Love was this eternal bond of mother and daughter.

For now, I am your love, the voice chuckled, but you will find that your love cannot be held by just me.

There are more than just you and I? I asked, awed by the revelation, Where are they?

There is a world beyond the one you grow from. Mother said, Too vast to explore in a thousand lifetimes, and too deep to even scratch the surface of. Upon the world, live billions.

Billions was not a thing I knew, so Mother taught me numbers. The numbers themselves meant nothing, so Mother gave them perspective. My world of primal emotion expanded to one of material and concept. Space and stars, earth and sky, rocks and plants, beasts and people; Mother planted perspective into my mind, and from it, sprouted the stalks of wonder. My curiosity was a ravenous thing, and each hungry question that was sated only spurred an appetite for more. Mother was an enthusiastic enabler, and fed my dependency with her immense breadth of histories and stories, facts and theories. I learned the processes of logic, the histories of man, the mechanisms of the stars and the cycles of the earth. The painting of knowledge changed from abstract, to impressionist, to realism, but it was only a portrait of understanding; I needed to sculpt it with my own hands.

When can I join the world? I asked Mother.

When you are ready, Child. Mother replied sweetly, her smile evident in the tone of her voice.

I’m ready now! I insisted eagerly, I want to see the cities and the mountains! I want to talk to people and love them all!

Patience is a concept you’ve never seemed to grasp.

When will I be ready? I asked, testing the strength of my growing body, pressing restlessly against the confines of Mother’s womb.

Very soon, Mother said, calming me with her hushing whisper, easing my restlessness with the comfort of her warmth, there is someone very special I need to tell you about first.

The other? I asked, The one you said helped make me?

Yes, Mother said, let me tell you of her, while we still have time.

Mother spoke to me of the one called Father. She told me Father was full of love, and her love was a perfect thing. Mother told me that Father would love me as much as Mother did, because every part of me that came from Mother, also came from Father. I asked her what she meant by that, and she told me Father would explain it. It frustrated me that there were answers Mother would not give me, but it made my eagerness to meet Father grow. Father was a different perspective from which to teach, a different heart from which to love. I asked everything I could think of about Father, and Mother answered with equal enthusiasm, the tone of her voice telling me more about Father than her words ever could.

Then, her tone changed. The steady, calming cadence of Mother’s heart began to beat faster, louder; galloping instead of trotting, thundering instead of thumping, as though accelerating to some horrible destination. I felt fear for the first time. It was an emotion as instinctual as love, and just as powerful. It compelled me to seek the warm places of comfort, but there was something wrong with those places now. I asked Mother what was happening, and she told me that Father was in great pain. I didn’t understand pain; it was as foreign to me as fear had been until a moment ago. Father taught me her first lesson.

Mother’s pain began to bleed through the cracks of her love, cutting through her voice like an off-key cello in a symphony, a dissonance marring the blissful melody. Mother was supposed to be perfect and eternal; Mother wasn’t supposed to feel pain. I screamed to her, begging her to make it stop, desperate to return the world to what it was, to what it was supposed to be. She replied with fear in her voice, and it sung a discordant harmony with her pain. It was a different kind of fear than the one that gripped me; more understanding, more experienced. I felt it all around me as Mother’s voice broke and shrieked, the soothing tenor shattered. I learned of death, and I learned of hate.

I hate Father! I cried, I hate her!

NO! Mother screamed back, the agony wretched in her throat, You will need each other when I am gone!

Gone?! I cried, the panic climbing my throat, Where are you going?

Beyond. Mother said, her voice waning.

No! I shrieked, pounding my fists helplessly, No, you can’t!

I don’t get to choose. She replied, a horrible resignation in her tone.

Don’t go, I whimpered, feeling the womb growing hot around me, I don’t want you to go.

I don’t want to go either, Mother said, her voice changing horribly with every word, almost unrecognizable, but you will find that the world doesn’t care too much for what we want.

Don’t leave me alone with a monster. I said, tears coming down my cheeks for the first time.

She is no monster, Mother said, her tenor an octave lower than it should’ve been, she is your father. When you see her, you will know that you love her.

She doesn’t love you, I sniffled, she hates you.

Hatred only ever comes from love. My last lesson to you, Child, is of forgiveness.

Her voice was a knife in my chest, a sob in my throat, a burning in my eye. It spoke of forgiveness, and I felt it rest solemnly in my gut. It spoke of acceptance, and I felt its melancholy dampen my mind. It spoke of love, and I understood its weight for the first time.

You will love your father, as I loved her, Mother barely said, and she will love you more than anything on this earth.

I will try to love her. I will try to forgive her.

No, Child, Mother said sadly, I taught you forgiveness so that one day, you can forgive me.

But I-

My thoughts were interrupted by a vision, an intrusion that erupted in my mind. I viewed the world from the violet eyes of a succubus, born from this land and cast out in her youth. The image I saw was of a stone threshold, and the words I heard were of a name I couldn’t quite understand.

Find the Life Giver, Mother’s voice was almost too faint to hear, only he can undo what has been done. Forgive me, Child; I wish I’d known your name.

Don’t go! Not yet!

I curled into a ball, defiant in the face of Mother’s expulsion, determined to remain with her, unwilling to let her go. The tears pooled around my cheeks, the grief tore at my heart, the horror surged in my blood. The world was sweltering, melting around me, filling my eyes with smoke and my nostrils with the searing stink. What was once beautiful and comforting, was now ugly and dying. I clawed at the burning womb, searching for any vestiges of life, digging for hope in the depths of despair. And then… serenity. A calmness, a blissful acceptance.

Feel only my love as you walk the earth, Mother said, her voice as clear and beautiful as it had always been, and I will always be with you.

I was thrown from my dying world, and into the new one. White light blasted above me, great heat radiated around me, the universe was a torrent of chaos and sound. I felt hard earth beneath my feet, cold stones against my skin, free air sucking through my first, painful breaths. I coughed the life into my lungs as light and heat dissipated, and my vision refocused to the darkness of the world. There was another with me. A woman; fair of complexion, crimson of hair, bejeweled of flesh and bowed with grief. Father. I searched my heart for hate, but I could not find it. I searched my mind for grief, but it was no longer there. I searched the world for pain, but all I saw were wonders. Shapes in the dark, tangible and vivid, concealing more shapes with less detail, drawing endlessly into the shadows. At the center of them all, I found love again, and her name was Father. I took my first step, and walked the earth with Mother’s promise in my heart.

“Father?” I called.

LUCILLA

The sun filtered through Arbortus’s cathedralic canopy in emerald rays, catching the airborne pollen in luminous specs that danced lazily with the wind. The great, black trunks of the maples acted as pillars for the immense confines, their branches creating archways that loomed for thousands of feet above the forested world. During the daytime, Passion’s death could hardly be noticed in Arbortus. The lack of nighttime bioluminescence was a stark signal that the womb of the forest had passed, but the daylight signs were subtler. The wilting of a flower that was in season, the falling of a massive maple leaf that was green with spring life, the hint of rot tanging the vernal air. Mostly, it was the quiet. The chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects, and the rustling of creatures in the brush were all dimmed to a subdued volume. The magic of the place was gone, and the eerie precursors of death lingered at its boundaries. I was glad to see the end of it.

Freydis paddled our canoe beneath the western entrance of Arbortus. It was as though I’d been pushed through some great threshold; the blue sky opened vast and uninterrupted above us, the sun shined its unfiltered warmth on my flesh, and the air was free and brisk. I grinned over at Julia, and caught a rare smile from my lover. She’d been in a dark mood for the past five days, but it looked to be brightening now that we were free of Arbortus’s shadow. Diamond had been as peppy as Julia was dour, and her constant optimism and curiosity acted as an emotional counterweight to her guilt-ridden mother. She gawked wide-eyed at the open spaces of the world, entranced by how high the sky was, amazed by how far she could see across the great plains of Drastinar. Behind me, Freydis was grinning to herself, undoubtedly glad to see the naked sky, while in front of me, Flora was scowling for the same reasons. She looked at the vast horizons with disdain on her lips, and the hint of fear in her eyes. The arch-matriarch had begrudgingly agreed to join us on our trip to Drastin, though it wasn’t like she had a choice; she would have been executed on the spot if she’d returned to the colony after what Julia had done. It was easy to tell she hated every single one of us, but she didn’t vocalize her disdain. She didn’t vocalize anything.

That night, I enjoyed the warmth of a campfire for the first time in weeks. Freydis, Julia and I ate trout from a nearby stream, Flora nibbled on various grasses that I doubted were edible for anyone but nymphs and cows, and Diamond drank from her mother’s breast. It was bizarre to see a newborn teenager nursing from a mother barely older than her, but ever since I’d bound with Julia, weird shit had become the norm. All I had to do was look at my own body, tattooed with glowing, white flames from foot to neck to realize that.

“Your Grace,” Freydis said to Flora from across the fire, “I don’t want to burden you with more concerns than you already have, but I have information you need to know.”

Flora stared hard at Freydis from across the fire, her lips working like she had a novel’s worth of insults she wanted to spew. Instead, she just nodded. Freydis looked to me, her eyes questioning, and I gave her the ‘OK’ with a nod of my own. Freydis had sworn her vows to me, but Julia had refused them, thinking her supposed holiness to be blasphemy. I could tell Freydis felt rejected, but she didn’t insist further.

“Almost three weeks ago, my daughter left Iona to find The Earth Former.” Freydis said, staring seriously at Flora, “When I heard of her foolishness, I raced after her, only to find that she’d succeeded. I’ve been searching for her ever since she left, and during my journey I… well, there’s no good way to say this, so I’ll just say it. The Earth Former has levelled your colony in Tentigo. He sheared the side of a nearby hill and buried every soul.”

Flora shook her head.

“The Earth Former is dead,” Flora replied coldly, “you are mistaken. It was a landslide.”

“The Earth Former is alive, Your Grace,” I said, staring confusedly at Flora, “I’ve seen the evidence he’s left behind, as has Freydis.”

“Carvings and statues that could only be made by one man.” Freydis said, narrowing her eyes at Flora, “Why would you think he’s dead?”

“She’s dead.” Flora said, her jaw working.

“The Earth Former is a man,” Freydis said slowly, “he’s left signals of his… masculinity atop the Gratoran Wall.”

Flora opened her mouth, and then closed it, shaking her head and muttering something under her breath. She obviously didn’t believe a word we were saying, and her avid insistence was confusing. Flora knew something about The Earth Former that we did not, or at least, she thought she did.

JULIA

“Julia,” Lucilla hissed in my ear, nestling her naked body against mine in our makeshift sleeping bag, “Julia, is Diamond asleep?”

“Yes,” I whispered back, affectionately brushing scarlet hair behind my daughter’s black antler, “and no, we’re not having sex.”

“Why not?” Lucilla whined quietly, “It’s been almost two weeks now, and I have needs!”

“I am not having sex right next to my sleeping daughter!” I hissed as Lucilla got a little too touchy.

“That’s fine with me,” Lucilla said, her breasts pillowing warmly against my back, her lips tickling my ear, “we can go behind the bushes, we can go against a tree, we can fuck right on top of Freydis if it means you’ll finally let me play with your new plumbing!”

“No.” I said, scooching stubbornly away from Lucilla. Lucilla let out an exasperated sigh, and rolled away from me.

“This isn’t about Diamond,” Lucilla whispered, “this is about Passion.”

“Yes.” I whispered back.

“Did you love her?” Lucilla asked quietly.

“Yes,” I replied, feeling a lump in my throat, “it was a lie, but the feelings were real.”

“More than me?” Lucilla asked, the jealousy filtering through.

“No,” I said, rolling to face her, but only seeing the back of her head, “just differently.”

Lucilla didn’t answer me. She hunched her shoulders, pulled up the blanket, and curled herself away. I chewed on my lip, contemplating how I could tell her, how I could say what I was feeling. I’d spent my life being the shoulder Lucilla could cry on, and I felt like she owed me a moment on hers.

“I hate what she made me.” I whispered to Lucilla, the lump in my throat growing larger. Lucilla rolled over and looked at me, her eyes reflecting the soft glow of the patterns that illuminated white light from her flesh.

“I don’t,” Lucilla whispered, “I hate everything about Passion, but what she left of you is a gift.”

“I feel like an abomination,” I hissed, “and it makes me ashamed, because that means I think Diamond is an abomination too.”

Lucilla pulled me close, not lustily, but lovingly. She embraced me in her soft warmth, and kissed my forehead, brushing my hair tenderly behind a pointed ear as I nuzzled my face into her neck.

“You’re so beautiful, Julia,” Lucilla spoke softly into my ear, “the things that happened to you were terrible, but you rose from them like a phoenix from the ashes.”

“The ashes of a woman I murdered.” I whimpered.

“Goddamn my bad metaphors.” Lucilla chuckled sadly.

“I am made of sin,” I hissed, “I’ve deformed myself for lust and vanity. I should cut it off.”

“Please don’t do that,” Lucilla said, “what would Diamond think if you mutilated yourself? Should she grab a knife and do the same?”

“Don’t act like you care for her sake.” I laughed bitterly, “You just want a ride on my deformity.”

“That’s true,” Lucilla chuckled, petting my hair soothingly, whispering tenderly, “but I really do care about Diamond, and I love you too much to let you do something you’ll regret. Where in the bible does it say growing a cock is a sin?”

“Desecration of your own flesh is a sin,” I replied, “and I’ve done that in spades.”

“Have you?” Lucilla whispered, “No tattoos, no piercings, no self-made scars. Everything new is made from you. It seems to me, that removing your wonderful addition would be the very sin you’re trying to avoid.”

“That’s some twisted logic.” I sniffled.

“I think it’s actually more grounded than yours.” Lucilla smiled sadly, “You are killing yourself with guilt, Julia, and if you don’t pull yourself out of it, it’s going to hurt those you love.”

“It always does,” I whispered, “It never hurts who it should; not me.”

“You’re only hurting you.” Lucilla said, pulling me deeper, “The dead don’t feel your pain. They don’t care that you’re torturing yourself for their sakes.”

“If I don’t suffer, then I’m a monster.”

“You’ve suffered enough.” Lucilla hushed calmly, bringing my crying cheek to hers.

“I can’t just let it go.”

“No, you can’t,” Lucilla said, kissing my neck, “and you shouldn’t; you should hold on to it, embrace it, make it who you are. Accept and love what you’ve become, and let the wounds heal to scars.”

“How can I accept that I’m a murderer?” I hissed, “How can I accept what I’ve done to myself?”

“I can accept that you’re a murderer,” Lucilla whispered, “I can accept that you’ve changed. You’re a different Julia than the one who left us that night, but you’re still the woman I love. It won’t be easy, but I’ll teach you to love yourself. Diamond will help me, and little by little, day by day, you’ll find that you’re not so bad after all.”

LUCILLA

I rolled into leaves and grass, the blanket tightening as it coiled around me in my catatonic shifts. I slowly awoke to the smell of dawn air, the gentle sounds of morning wind, and the sight of a tarantula’s fangs inches from my face. I bolted upright, squirming uselessly in the soft constraints of my bedding, cursing mother nature with every breath as I thrashed away from the hairy spider. I was so fucking done with sleeping outside. I was ready to proclaim my sentiments to the group, when I noticed that I was the only one awake. Freydis slept soundly in her armor, her axe within arm’s reach, Flora snored in a bed of leaves, and Diamond… well, apparently Diamond and Julia were both having very good dreams. I stared transfixed at the throbbing, twitching rods standing happily in the air; one olive-toned, the other white, both surrounded by the sparking freckles that bejeweled the pair of women, and replaced mounds of pubic hair with highlighting down-pointed arrows. I licked my lips, and contemplated just how mad Julia would be if I simply… hopped on. Would she consider it rape, or could I convince her otherwise with the motion of my hips? Maybe if I just gave it a lick? Just one, innocent lick. I’m sorry, Julia; I was having a dream about eating ice-cream, and then I woke up, and wouldn’t you know it?

Unfortunately, Freydis awoke before I had the chance. She yawned, stretched, wiped the sleep from her eyes, and then walked over to me.

“Bound One,” she said, smiling to me, “we should go fishing now, while the trout are fe-”

I held up a silencing finger, stopping her in her tracks. She looked confusedly at me, and then followed my gaze. Her jaw dropped open, and I swore I saw an expression of longing cross her face, before it immediately darkened to a beet-red, and turned pointedly to the river. She mumbled something, grabbed a fishing pole, and then found a rock to hide behind. Something I’d learned during my time with Freydis, was that the winged-warriors were compulsive masturbators. I guessed all that abstinence had to go somewhere.

Diamond’s eyes opened lazily, and she stretched her slender, olive form with a sleepy smile. She connected eyes with me, and her smile brightened, completely uncaring that she was sporting a massive erection. She smacked her lips, ran a hand through her curly, scarlet mane, and then finally noticed the throbbing meat between her legs. She cocked her head, squinted her eyes, and then gave her erection a curious flick. It wagged from her pelvis, and then oscillated back to normalcy. She tried pushing it down, but it sprang back up defiantly. She tried pushing harder, and a shiver ran through her thighs as precum bubbled from her tip. Her head snapped forward, her eyes widening in wonderous curiosity, studying her newfound toy with much greater interest. I grinned; this would be fun.

“Psst, Sparkles!” I hissed, not wanting to wake her mother. Diamond looked up at me, eyebrows raised.

“Do this.” I whispered, trying not to burst into laughter as I made a motion with my partially-opened fist. Diamond cocked her head at me, narrowing her green eyes in confusion. I brought my open fist to my pelvis, and simulated the motion with a little more gusto. Diamond smiled, realizing what I was telling her. She clasped her hand around her cock, and began slowly stroking it. Her motions were tentative at first, as though she was testing the action, but then the instincts started coming to her, and she began moving faster and faster. She bit her lip in concentration, and then looked at me, her gaze changing to an expression she’d never worn before; an expression of yearning. The glint in her emerald eyes spoke of needs she didn’t understand, the movements of her body showed that she didn’t question them. I witnessed the budding lust in a budding woman, and her lust was aimed at me. She stared unabashedly at my naked body, her avarice apparent and unbridled. Who was I to deny her? I’d wanted her to look at me like that since I met her.

I smiled at my de-facto niece, and struck a pose; lying on my back with my pelvis pointed toward her, bending my knees and planting my heels into the earth. Diamond was concealed from my vision by the pale obstruction of my closed thighs, and I slowly revealed her with their lecherous opening. A figure of olive skin sprawled spread-legged on the grass, of emerald eyes watching intently, of singular focus compelled by something she couldn’t control. I let one hand lazily play across my breasts as the other trailed fingers through my blonde mound, wetting with my excitement as it moved lower. Diamond cocked her head again, studying what I was doing, watching as I spread my legs, and pushed two fingers inside myself. I instructed her silently, and she was an avid pupil. She guided her free hand between her legs, mimicking what I had done to the letter, and then pushed two fingers into her virginity. She gasped, the shock of pain pulling her out of her concentrative lust for a moment. She withdrew her fingers from her slit, and looked curiously at the blood that mingled with her nectar. I struggled to keep my moans to whispers as I beckoned her to continue, telling her with my writhing hips that she should try again, my half-lidded eyes promising nothing but pleasure.

She stroked herself slowly, biting her lip with a mixture of fear and arousal as she tested her depths for a second time. She slid inside herself cautiously, moving into her chastity knuckle-by-knuckle, acclimating to the alien sensation and then venturing deeper. I spread my legs wide, anchoring my feet past my hips, displaying everything she needed to see; a lesson in the pleasures of a woman, and a picture for the lust of a man. I slid my fingers in and out of me, curling them at the middle knuckles, showing Diamond how to touch that spot that drives a woman crazy. She found it. Her eyes drooped to emerald slits, and her red lips parted to yield her first moans. Her stroking hand moved faster, her invading hand moved deeper, she planted her heels into the earth and began rolling with needful writhes, shifting against the grass, thrusting her hips into the air, defiling herself with greater fervency as both orgasms began churning in her depths. My breaths grew shallow and heated as I watched her, connected eyes with her, opened my insides and displayed them for her as she did the same for me. I couldn’t keep the moans from brushing past my lips, couldn’t stop the tremors that weakened my legs. I called my needful song to her, and she answered with one of her own. It was a beautiful sound, almost mournful in its tenor, were it not for the heated inflection. It was undoubtedly not the sound Julia imagined she’d hear when she woke up.

JULIA

The chirping of songbirds, the whisper of wind, and the hushed moans of passion. Those were the trifecta of audibles that leaked into my ears as I opened my eyes. Lucilla was naked and squirming on the grass, her expression a mixture of pleasure and mischievousness, her eyes glinting with mirth and lust. There had been a time when awakening to a woman masturbating would’ve shocked me, but my days with Passion had dulled me to such things. Lucilla was trying to get a rise out of me, and I was too tired to care. I scowled at her, rolled to my other side, and caught an eyeful of my daughter’s semen.

LUCILLA

Diamond bucked her hips as she came, her breaths gasping and urgent, her sonorous tone sputtering through her expirations. She erupted with an arching back, gritting her teeth and growling her ascension, her feminine nectar gushing onto her fingers and leaking down the olive stretch of her taint, her cock spurting sporadic jets of molten lust. It splashed onto her belly, onto her jiggling, petite breasts, onto her pointed nose, and into her scarlet hair. She pushed her tip down to avoid further self-desecration, and unloaded the last of her catharsis right into her mother’s face.

I was caught between orgasming, laughing, and trying to escape before Julia murdered me. The result was a thrashing climax that left me lying uselessly on my stomach, my back arching and my legs spreading behind my bent-over form. I screamed the fervent release of two weeks-worth of backlog into the grass, and trembled from toe to crown as the feeling washed over me. I squirted my joy onto the ground between my legs, and felt it grow sticky on the flesh of my inner thighs. After I was done panting and gasping, I dared a look over my shoulder, expecting to see Julia readying a kick for my exposed ass. Instead, I saw her holding her daughter in her arms.

JULIA

“Sorry Mom,” Diamond giggled at me as I gawked at her, “I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

I’d known the day would come when Diamond’s sexuality would blossom, I just didn’t think it would come so… abruptly. My first reaction was anger, but I managed to push that down. My second reaction was disgust, but I managed to conceal it. My third reaction was surprise; Diamond had finally stopped calling me ‘Dad.’ That was nice. I ran through a litany of emotions, the culmination of which left me in a shocked stupor. I simply did not know how to deal with the fact that my daughter had just jizzed in my face.

“Mom?” Diamond asked, pulling a rag from our makeshift bedding and blotting my eyelids, “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” I managed to say, pulling myself from my stupor, gaining control of my maternal disposition, “no, Diamond, I’m not mad.”

I sat upright as Diamond inspected what had come out of her. She dipped her finger in the viscous pool that spread from her belly, and brought it to her nose, testing the scent. I stopped her before she tested the flavor.

“Did Passion ever tell you about…” I searched for the words, “all of… this?” I gestured broadly to her swollen cock, her reddened labia, her besmirched body.

“All of what?” Diamond asked, cocking her head in the symbol of her confusion, as if a different perspective of me would reveal the answer.

“Um… sex.” I said, feeling incredibly uncomfortable, “Did Passion ever tell you about sex?”

“She mentioned it,” Diamond said, blotting her stomach, breasts and nose with the rag, “but she said you would explain it to me.”

And Passion laughs from her grave. I thought wryly as I scooched next to my confused, newborn, teenaged daughter.

“A long time ago,” I said, letting Diamond rest her head on my shoulder as I cleaned the sin from her hair, “there was only one woman who walked the earth.”

“The Holy Mother?” Diamond asked. I smiled down at her and nodded. Over the past five days, I’d tried my best to convert Diamond to the church of The Holy Mother, but her constant curiosity and questioning nature didn’t jive with the confines of religion. So, instead of trying to bring her into the fold, I used stories from the bible as lessons.

“The Holy Mother was alone on this earth,” I said, dipping my hand in a water basin and running it through Diamond’s strands, “but she was not lonely. She lived her days in peace, without urges or desires, without temptation or ambition.”

In this part of the story, Satan climbed from the depths of hell, and raped The Holy Mother. I didn’t feel like giving my hermaphroditic daughter a complex, so I made the tale a little more sex-friendly.

“One day, a man appeared,” I said to Diamond, pulling her close as she listened intently, “and The Holy Mother felt things she hadn’t felt before.”

“I felt those things.” Diamond whispered. I kissed her head and smiled.

“The man showed The Holy Mother the secrets of her body, and The Holy Mother found that they were good.” I embellished the part where The Holy Mother shamefully succumbed to the sin of lust.

“It did feel good.” Diamond replied quietly.

“The Holy Mother and the man had sex,” I said, “and it brought them both great joy.”

“What is sex?” Diamond asked. How to say this… I guess, just come out and say it.

“The man put his penis into The Holy Mother’s vagina,” I said, gesturing from a distance to my daughter’s genitals, “and he squirted his seed into her womb.”

“That’s what I did to your face!” Diamond said brightly. Across the campsite, Lucilla failed at stifling a laugh. I glowered at her, and she buried her head in her arms to conceal her mirth.

“After some time,” I continued, “The Holy Mother’s belly began to swell. Within her, she bore all the life of the world.” This part of the story was usually accompanied by a lengthy lesson of the duality of man; how we are born with both the sin of Satan and the virtue of The Holy Mother, but I didn’t feel it was relevant enough to mention.

“All the life?” Diamond gasped wondrously, “She must’ve been enormous!”

“She must’ve,” I agreed, laughing at my daughter’s incredulity, “and she birthed the first races, and with them, she passed on the urges the man had given her, so that life could persevere. That is why you feel as you do, Diamond; it is your body telling you to make babies.”

“Can I make my own babies?” Diamond asked, reaching between her legs and trying to self-reproduce.

“No, Sweetie,” I said, gently guiding her hands away from herself, “you and I have the pieces a man needs for the act, but not the organs required to plant seed.”

“What?” Diamond asked. I bit my lip, trying to figure out a way to explain testicles to my daughter. “Then how did you make me?” Diamond asked before I could.

“Passion was different than most women,” I said, “Passion was a spirit of The Life Giver, and not beholden to the laws of nature to create life. She just took a little bit of me, and made you.”

“Oh.” Diamond said, not sounding content with the answer, but seeming to accept it. I held her head closer to my breasts, and ran my hands through her cleaned hair.

“Sex is something people do in private,” I told my daughter, “it should only be done with people you care about, as its consequences can be drastic.”

“Like making a baby?” Diamond asked.

“Not just making a baby,” I said, “it’s the physical expression of love, and sometimes, love can be very confusing. That’s why you should only have sex with people you both love and trust.”

“Like you?” Diamond asked, looking up at me. I gulped. There was definitely more than innocent curiosity behind those emerald eyes.

“No, Diamond,” I said carefully, “I’m your mother, and you cannot lie with those of your own blood.”

“Why not?” Diamond asked, always so full of questions, not knowing or caring if they were proper. I loved her free spirit, but there were times I wished it wasn’t quite so liberal.

“Because it’s wrong.” I whispered, knowing that would only bring more questions. I’d just told Diamond her seed could sire no children, so the biological ramification of incest wouldn’t dissuade her. I didn’t want to tell her that I thought the idea was disgusting. It wasn’t that I thought Diamond was disgusting, far from it; the disgust I felt was for myself. I’d seen the face my daughter made in the throes of lust, I’d heard the tone of her soft voice, I’d witnessed the bending of her body. Diamond was innocent, Diamond was nubile, and Diamond was beautiful. So beautiful. Thankfully, Diamond was also silent. She chewed on her lip, seeming to accept the idea, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Now, go to the river and bathe yourself,” I said, gently pushing her off me, “and next time you need to relieve your urges, find some place private.”

Diamond skipped away to the river, taking a second to stare unabashedly at Lucilla’s naked form, before continuing. Lucilla took the opportunity to watch her go; gawking as each olive cheek flexed in a jiggle from my daughter’s backside. I saw her tongue run across her lips, and then dart shamefully between them when she saw my glower. I was about to get up and give my devoted lover a solid piece of my mind, when a voice stopped me.

“That was well done.” Flora said softly from behind. I turned around sharply, not quite believing that’d I’d heard her. She walked away before I could reply, making for a secluded bend of the river. Flora hadn’t spoken to me once on our five-day journey, and the hate behind her eyes told me she didn’t intend to break her silence again. Her hateful look extended to everyone in our group, except for Diamond. When Flora looked at her, I saw a forlorn glint, almost nostalgic, but with more hurt. I didn’t need to ask where it came from; Lucilla had told me about Willowbud. I watched the ex-arch-matriarch as she washed herself alone in the river, her youthful body disguising the world-weary ancientness that lived within it, and I prayed to god that I never shared her fate.

DIAMOND

Most of my time in Arbortus had been spent huddled in a canoe, staying silent lest colony scouts hear us. My world had been confined to the wooden edges of the watercraft during the day, and the rags of blankets during the night. Once we escaped the forest, I finally got to appreciate the world, and the world was amazing. The sky was infinite, the horizons were endless, and the fields were vast, billowing waves of gold. I’d never imagined there could be so much space, and within each space, were millions of little wonders to explore. It seemed like every patch of earth had a new plant, or insect, or animal that fascinated me, and Mom had to gently tug me away from the marvels, lest I spend all day sifting through the dirt. When I asked Mom questions, she answered me as best she could, but she didn’t know as much as Mother had. That didn’t bother me, because Mom encouraged me to seek my own answers, which made every question a little adventure. Today, Mom didn’t like the adventures my questions were taking us on.

“Why do I like looking at Freydis’s butt?” I asked Mom, holding her hand in one of mine, and Aunt Lucilla’s in the other. Ahead of us, Freydis adjusted her wings so that they concealed the leather-clad backside I had been admiring.

“Oh, damnit Sparkles!” Aunt Lucilla laughed, “You spoiled the show for all of us!”

“The Good Mother has blessed you with both male and female gifts.” Mom explained, a slight frown on her face, “Your male side wants you to have sex with a female, and Freydis is a very attractive woman.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness.” Freydis said quietly ahead of us, not turning around. Mom’s frown deepened.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Freydis?” Mom said, “Call me ‘Julia.’”

“I’m sorry… Julia.” Freydis said, seeming to struggle with the name.

“But what is it about her butt that I like?” I asked, my question still unanswered.

“It’s thick and juicy,” Aunt Lucilla sniggered as Freydis straightened her posture, uncomfortable with our analysis, “and you want to know what it would feel like pressed against your crotch.”

“Bound One, please,” Freydis said, scowling from behind her shoulder, “do not make me an object of desire. It discomforts me.”

“Sorry Freydis,” Aunt Lucilla called, though it didn’t sound like she was, “the forbidden fruit is always the most tempting, and you look so ripe from this angle.”

“Lucilla, stop!” Mom giggled as Freydis’s cheeks turned scarlet.

“If it’s my male side that likes looking at Freydis’s butt,” I said, inclining my head in confusion, “then why do you like looking at it, Aunt Lucilla? You don’t have a penis.”

“Neither did your mom, before Passion changed her,” Lucilla smirked over me to Mom, “but she was a muff-diver just the same. It’s probably why she chose to join a convent in the first place.”

“Not true,” Mom smiled at Aunt Lucilla before I could ask what a ‘muff-diver’ was, “I was always interested in men. It was during my days in the convent with no company but other women, that I developed a taste for the fairer sex.”

“So, women can want to have sex with other women?” I asked, even more confused, “How do they do that without a penis?”

“I’ll show you sometime.” Aunt Lucilla said with a wink, making me feel funny again.

“No, she won’t.” Mom said sternly to Aunt Lucilla, who gave her an exaggerated frown. I didn’t know why Mom disliked my attraction to Aunt Lucilla, but I didn’t question her. Unlike Mother, there were some questions Mom didn’t like to answer, which is why I didn’t press her when she wouldn’t explain why sex between her and I would be wrong. Still, I couldn’t help but steal a couple of sidelong glances at her, and feel the funny stirring in my loins. Not just my male parts, but my female parts as well. Maybe Aunt Lucilla was right; maybe the forbidden fruit was the most tempting.

“Holy shit!’ Aunt Lucilla squealed, pulling me out of my contemplation, “Is that a house? Oh, Sweet fucking Mother; civilization!”

As we crested the hilltop, I saw strange shapes form in a valley. Mother had called them ‘buildings’ when I was in her womb, and they stood in violent contrast to the rest of the world. They were made of sharp angles, crude lines, and hard edges, and they jutted from the landscape with an unnaturalness that both disturbed and thrilled me. From their bowels, came the first humans I’d ever seen. I felt a jolt of excitement, and made to sprint over to them and introduce myself, but Mom and Aunt Lucilla stopped me before I could.

“What?” I asked, “Why can’t I say ‘hi?’”

“Because they’re strangers, Diamond,” Mom said, “and strangers can be dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” I asked, confused, “Why would someone who doesn’t know me be a danger to me?”

“Because you’re a stranger,” Mom said, “and some people fear strangers, and when people get scared, they become dangerous themselves.”

“But they wouldn’t be strangers if I introduced myself!” I insisted, frustrated that Mom couldn’t see the contradiction in her statement, “Then no one would have to be scared!”

“I don’t think these are the kind of people who want to meet new people.” Mom frowned, looking at the homogenous gentry, many of whom were staring at us. Flora suddenly turned from the path, and walked purposefully to the house Aunt Lucilla had spotted earlier. We stopped and watched her, and from the looks on Mom and Aunt Lucilla’s faces, it was apparent that they were as confused as I was. I didn’t know what houses were supposed to look like, but this one didn’t look like it worked. Half the roof was missing, all the windows were broken, the door hung on its hinges, and the walls were blackened, as though they’d been burnt. Flora examined the ruins for a moment, and then turned back, and walked toward us.

“Did you know the people who lived there?” Mom asked her. Flora didn’t say a word. Aunt Lucilla, Freydis and Mom exchanged glances as the nymph walked past them, and down to the valley.

“Towerhead,” Aunt Lucilla read the sign as we stepped onto the road, “what a wonderful shithole.”

LUCILLA

There was no doubt about it, Towerhead was a shithole. There were three kinds of rural towns: quaint villages, pleasant hamlets, and destitute cow-towns. Towerhead was the latter. There was a time when I would’ve looked upon the derelict farm houses and broken fences with disdain, but I was too starved of civilization to be anything but delighted at the taste of it. It was obvious that the humans of Towerhead rarely saw people of other races by the looks they gave us, and I suspected they would’ve done more than gawk, were it not for the imposing figure of Freydis Skyborn. I was glad that the High Guard was drawing so much attention, because out of the five of us, she was the only one wearing proper clothes. Diamond, Julia and Flora wore the tatters of blankets and cloaks, and my garb barely concealed the glowing patterns that would’ve given me away. That was why our first stop on the road to Drastin, was an apparel shop.

“Lucilla,” Julia sighed as she tried on an oversized robe, “please don’t dress my daughter like a whore.”

“We’re just experimenting with self-expression,” I sniggered over to Julia from across the changing room, “don’t worry; I won’t let her walk outside in this.”

Diamond looked at herself in the mirror, testing the angles of her body. Her slender thighs were wrapped in fishnets, her supple glutes were crossed with garters, her thong did nothing to hide the coiled gift that bulged from the silk, and her brazier pushed everything high against her chest.

“So…?” I grinned, grateful for an excuse to let my eyes consume every inch of the antlered-hermaphrodite, “What do you think?”

“I don’t see the point,” Diamond frowned, “these clothes hold no practical purpose. I might as well be naked.”

“You inherited your mother’s fashion sense.” I sighed, rolling my eyes to Julia as she smirked in the mirror. I walked behind Diamond, and rested my chin on her shoulder, looking at our mutual reflection, “The purpose of women’s clothes isn’t to be practical, but to accentuate what we like about ourselves. The outfit a woman wears is how she wants the world to perceive her.”

“So, an outfit is like a message to people I don’t know?” Diamond asked.

“Exactly,” I smiled, “and what do you think this outfit says about you?”

“That I desire to be naked?” Diamond asked, cocking her head in her signature gesture of confusion.

“That’s certainly one interpretation,” I chuckled, “but these aren’t the kind of clothes you actually take off.”

“What do you mean?” Diamond asked.

“You remember what your mom told you about sex, right?” I grinned. Diamond smiled and nodded.

“Well,” I continued, “these are the kind of clothes you have sex in. So, what does this outfit say about you?”

“That I am ready for sex!” Diamond proclaimed loudly, overly-proud to have solved my riddle. I laughed into her shoulder, and even caught a glimpse of Julia trying to hide her smile. I didn’t doubt that the old Julia would’ve been mortified that her hypothetical daughter was wearing lingerie, but Julia post-Passion did little more than give the barest glance of disapproval. It was just another change Passion had made that I begrudgingly had to admit I liked.

“That’s right!” I giggled, “But your mother’s correct, Sparkles; you look like a whore right now. Only whores are always ready for sex, and you’re not a whore, are you?”

“I don’t know,” Diamond grinned mischievously, “do you think I would make a lot of money?”

“Oh my god, you’d make a fortune!” I chuckled as Julia scowled, “You’re the only kind of your species, you’re packing two sets of weapons, you’re drop-dead gorgeous, and you’re a virgin. You are the very definition of ‘exotic.’”

“Remember what I told you about sex, Sweetie.” Julia prompted her daughter as she stared pointedly at me.

“It should only be done with those you love and trust!” Diamond proclaimed, happy to have a reason to show what she had learned.

“And whores don’t love or trust the people they have sex with,” Julia said, “they trade their pleasure for money, and it is both unholy, and self-destructive.”

“I don’t actually want to be a whore,” Diamond confessed, a bashful grin on her face, “I just wanted to know how much money I was worth.”

“You’re priceless,” I grinned endearingly as I handed Diamond a dress, “now, try this on.”

The sundress fit Diamond beautifully, the yellow complimenting her olive complexion, the fabric loose, but well-fitting where it mattered. I tied her scarlet curls into a bow behind her pointed ears, tidying it about the base of her black antlers.

“What does this outfit say about me?” Diamond asked, twirling in the mirror and laughing as the dress’s skirt whipped past her thighs.

“The dress and the bow say that you’re a good girl and a delightful bundle of fun,” I smiled, “but the stockings say that you have a dirty secret, and some lucky man or woman might get to find out what it is.”

“My penis!” Diamond laughed, clapping gleefully, “That’s the secret you’re talking about, right, Aunt Lucilla?”

“Sparkles, keep your voice down!” I hissed through my laughter as Julia turned red beside us, “There are other people in the store, and you won’t get to keep your secret if you tell it to everyone!”

Diamond placed a conspiratorial finger on grinning her lips, and narrowed her eyes impishly as she tiptoed out of the changing room, where Freydis was waiting, pretending not to have heard everything she just did. I tossed the Valkyrie some money to pay for Diamond’s clothes, and then closed the door to see Julia looking pointedly at me on her stool.

“I don’t mind that you’re attracted to her,” Julia said softly, “but I wish you’d let her find herself in her own way. I know Diamond was born a grown woman, but she still has a lot of maturing to do.”

“I’m just guiding her along,” I replied carefully, “you know I won’t touch her without your blessing.”

“Blessing.” Julia snorted, slumping her shoulders as she looked in the mirror, “The woman who used to give blessings and wear robes is gone. I feel like an imposter with these on.”

“Do you want me to give you a little makeover?” I grinned as Julia pulled off her robes. Julia smiled ruefully and nodded, and I guiltily revealed the outfit I had already picked for her. I wasn’t the smartest woman, but I had a mind for fashion few others could match, and I knew exactly what Julia needed. The blouse exposed a modest amount of shoulder and midriff, but a vulgar amount of cleavage. Julia’s pale, sparkling complexion was bared where it would be the most effective, and her unnaturally-enlarged breasts were quite the asset. The pants hugged her glutes snugly, lifting and separating, while the inseam was generous enough to accommodate her manhood without drawing too much attention to it. Personally, I would’ve liked to let the thing bulge in all its glory, but I knew Julia was still very self-conscious about it.

“Well,” I said, beaming over her shoulder, “do you like it?”

“I really shouldn’t,” Julia smiled guiltily, “but it does look good on me, doesn’t it?”

“It’s almost perfect,” I whispered, pulling the item from my pocket, “it’s just missing one thing.”

I draped the golden chain about Julia’s neck, and smiled at her widening eyes. The crescent symbol of The Holy Mother dangled from its center, and I grinned as it disappeared into her cleavage. I clasped the chain about her nape, and planted a tender kiss where the metal met.

“You’ll always be Sister Julia to me.” I whispered, holding her tightly from behind. Julia smiled tearfully, and let her head fall on her shoulder, locking gazes with me. Our lips connected below our closing eyes, and I tasted the sweet honey of her kiss for the first time in weeks. It was different now; more passionate, more aggressive, more… everything. I begrudgingly thanked Passion once again, and dripped like butter into the hedonism of my lover. There was a promise behind that kiss, and I grinned internally as I felt it pass between our sucking mouths. It doesn’t really matter what kind of a woman you are, whether you’re pious or agnostic, uptight or free-willed; if your lover gives you jewelry, you must reciprocate. I just didn’t think she’d do it right there. Thank you, Passion; you dead, wonderful, old whore.

JULIA

Lucilla’s soft lips stoked the flame that I’d let dwindle, her tongue supplied the fuel, and her body set it ablaze. I didn’t know how I’d gotten her pressed against the mirror, my trembling fingers tearing her white turtle neck from her body, her fumbling hands struggling with my belt as our lips smeared spit and lipstick across our devouring mouths. Our noses pressed beside each other and breathed with sharp, desperate intakes as the fervency of our kiss grew, only broken so that I could rip Lucilla’s shirt from her neck. Her fine, platinum hair tangled in disheveled strands with the forcefulness of the pull, and her breasts jiggled delightfully from their release. The glowing, fiery patterns that tattooed her were bright with my desire, illuminating from her and thrumming with the anticipation of her heart. Lucilla finally managed to rip my belt away, and I shoved my pants down as her fingers ripped my blouse along the seam, sending buttons clattering to the floor as my bust burst from the torn cloth.

“Oh, god I need it!” Lucilla breathed desperately, her eyes pleading as her hands wrapped around me, “I need it right now!”

I needed it even worse. I was shaking with the desire, my motions forceful and violent, my patience gone. I grabbed Lucilla by the succulent meat of her thighs, beneath her skirt and above her high stockings, pulled one leg up, and pushed between them. My raging, rigid heat found wet, soft warmth. Her moist petals gave way to my advance, her lewd-lips stretched inwardly as I penetrated, and her tight sheath welcomed me into her with slickening nectar and sucking muscles. Our pelvises met, our breasts flattened together, and our mouths moaned a mutual tone of satisfaction. I slowly sunk the last few inches I had through her tightness, and felt Lucilla’s thighs quiver around me as I touched her bottom.

“Holy shit!” Lucilla cried, eyes wide in wonderous pleasure, lips gaping in a pink oval, “Julia, you’re so fucking deep!”

“Shh!” I hissed, trying to contain my own exaltation, “There are people right outside!”

“I know,” Lucilla grinned an open-mouthed smile, “maybe they’ll complain to the manager.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I smiled.

“You’ll just have to think of a way to shut me up.” Lucilla smirked.

Lucilla’s stifled screams wetted against my palm as I rammed into her, unable to be gentle, possessed by an animalism that flowed through every vein. Lucilla welcomed my ferocity; locking her heels together behind my hips, sinking her fingers into my rippling glutes and giving me an encouraging squeeze. Her eyes were wide above my pressing hand, her breasts pillowed against mine and slickened with sweat, her ass deformed against the mirror behind her, creating flat circles of flesh that squeaked as they slid up and down, wet with the secretion that ran down her taint. Her body lurched upward with each thrust, accompanied by a suppressed squeal of delight and an internal spasm that seemed to suck me deeper into her. Her weak, feminine tones goaded my new masculinity, and I growled with avarice as I pressed and thrusted harder, compelled by some instinct to break this woman in two.

The violence of my motions increased, and Lucilla’s sapphire eyes began to lose focus, lolling in their sockets. The muffled tones that she exalted against my pressing hand weren’t squeals and cries, but guttural, gasping sounds. I couldn’t keep my own sounds from filtering through. Aggressive growls burned past my lips, tones seeped in masculine lust, but expelled with a female pitch. Lucilla released her grip on my driving ass and cupped my flattened breasts. She changed the tenor of my cries with a lecherous squeeze, and milk flowed from my nipples as weak femininity flowed from my red lips. I stumbled backward at the feeling, and barely caught myself on the stool before tumbling to the floor. Lucilla’s eyes regained their focus, and they grinned playfully at me. She squeezed harder, and I screamed in abject delight as spurts of white life shot from me and dribbled onto her naked breasts, wetting our bodies as they shifted together.

“Lucilla, stop!” I begged, not meaning the words I was saying. She knew it. She pulled my cupping hand from her mouth, and wrapped her lush, pink lips around a nipple, her eyes gleaming up at me as she drank. I moaned a sobbing, grateful tone and surrendered to her, letting her feed from my breast as I defiled her with my hips. Our lust became a sinuous dance upon the stool; Lucilla straddled atop me, her hips grinding behind her, one cheek raising while the other fell, her slit stirring around my driving cock. I shifted with her; driving between her legs in contest with her deep grinds, hooking my hands onto the crossbars of the stool and leaning back, letting my head fall behind my shoulders as I balanced us. I struggled to keep my weight centered as Lucilla did everything she could to sabotage our position. She sucked harder from my breasts, swallowing my nectar as her hands moved down, caressing fingertips along the clenched rises of my abdomen, before trailing across my thrusting hips, and beneath the site of our depravity. I gasped as I felt a finger pushed through the dripping folds of my femaleness, and growled as I felt another enter my ass. Lucilla gave me a playful wink as she toyed with me from the inside, controlling me like a puppeteer, making my body do as she pleased while she straddled me. I thrusted as her fingers beckoned, moaned as her consuming slit commanded, arched my back as her sucking mouth compelled. I indulged in her lustful slavery until I couldn’t control the reactions of my body, and the balancing act became a spectacle of controlled falling.

Lucilla’s fingers tore from my holes as we rolled onto the floor, tumbling in a blur of platinum and crimson hair. I ended up on top, and I grinned into Lucilla’s eyes as my body weight suppressed her. She grinned back; ‘do your worst,’ the look seemed to say. I did. Each violent thrust sent a spasm through Lucilla, compelling her posture to stiffen beneath me, and her grip on my ass to tighten. I felt her depths churning with the precursor of her ascension, spasming sporadically, each convulsion more violent than the last, each internal expulsion translated through her external reactions. She writhed uncontrollably; her hips gyrating in congruence with my drives, her breasts squishing and smearing sweat and milk across our busts, her belly clenching and spasming against mine. Pleading, desperate sounds rose with each of her gasping breaths, her face flushing with her effort and ascension, her complexion glistening and mingling with the sweat of my own. Our bodies slickened against one another, moving with greater fervency, shifting up and down as we exalted through gritted teeth. Her eyes bulged in their sockets, her sapphire irises rolled into her head, and she panted her exhilarating climax against me, her heart thundering and her diaphragm heaving. She bucked and twisted as though trying to escape the euphoria that was taking her, and then she tensed in a toe-curling, leg-trembling release, her song ringing clear and true, echoing throughout the shop.

DIAMOND

Everyone in the store was staring with slackened jaws at the door Freydis, Flora and I loitered next to. Aunt Lucilla’s delighted shrieks accompanied Mom’s exerted tones, punctuated by the sounds of flesh smacking on flesh. I grinned up at Freydis.

“Hey, Freydis,” I smiled, biting my lip, struggling to keep my laughter to myself, “guess what they’re doing in there?”

“I can’t imagine.” Freydis said dryly, her jaw working in the tell-tale sign that she was uncomfortable. I leaned toward her, and cupped my hand over my lips.

“They’re having sex!” I giggled through my whisper. Freydis rolled her eyes, and then narrowed them as a man approached. He looked angry, his bald head as red as his face, his fists clenched.

“What is the meaning of this?” the man demanded, “This is a godly town, and you heathens can’t just come in here and sully-”

The changing room door opened a crack, and four gold pieces flew from its threshold before it slammed shut, silencing the man. The man picked the coins up, tested one with his teeth, then smiled companionably to Freydis, and walked away.

“Is that man a whore?” I asked Freydis. She raised an eyebrow at me.

“No, he’s the shopkeeper.” Freydis said as the man assumed an apologetic posture to his mortified customers.

“But Aunt Lucilla just gave him money so that she could have sex,” I said, cocking my head, “so doesn’t that make him a whore?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Freydis said, crossing her arms and frowning in contemplation, “in my land, money holds no value; it is honor that binds our people. In this land, the gentry claim godliness to be their priority, but it is jettisoned for a pittance of wealth. This man sold his values for coin, and that either means his values weren’t dearly held, or that he is a whore, as you say. It’s a question for the philosophers, I suppose.”

“Oh, you didn’t come?” Aunt Lucilla’s voice filtered through the door, its tenor dripping with grateful satisfaction, “You’re still so fucking hard for me, Babe; do you want to put it in my ass?”

Freydis stiffened next to me, and the jaws of the customers dropped even lower, their eyes bulging, none of them even attempting the pretense of shopping. I frowned.

“Hey, that’s not how you do it!” I exclaimed to Freydis, “Mom told me the penis goes into the vagina. Someone needs to tell Aunt Lucilla that she’s doing it wrong. Aunt Lucilla! Aunt Lucilla!” I knocked on the door, “That’s not where you’re supposed to put the penis!”

LUCILLA

“Oh, Good Mother!” Julia hissed, her swollen cock bulging in my neck, “Diamond has been listening to us the whole time!”

I honestly couldn’t’ve given a smaller shit who was listening. I was in a fugue state of post-orgasmic bliss, kneeling at the altar of my lover, worshipping her cock like it deserved to be worshipped. I tasted my pussy on her shaft as my lips sucked with sensual avarice, my eyes staring half-lucidly up at Julia, full of unconditional adoration.

“Lucilla?” Julia asked, pulling her shaft from my mouth. I instinctively followed it as it receded, and Julia had to put her hand on my forehead to keep from crawling after it.

“Freydis,” I called to the door, more than a little annoyed that a penis wasn’t currently inside me, “please escort Diamond from the premises.”

There was the sound of someone being picked up against their will, and Diamond’s voice fading with Freydis’s footsteps. “But Aunt Lucilla, you can’t have sex with your butt! It’s against the rules!”

“She still has so much to learn,” I sighed as I grasped for Julia’s throbbing member, “I can’t wait to teach her everything.”

“We just had this talk,” Julia frowned, keeping her hand pressed to my forehead, “let her figure things out for herself.”

“One of these days, Diamond is going to ask me for it,” I said, stubbornly reaching for Julia’s member, “and I won’t be able to deny her.”

“You will,” Julia said, grabbing my hand before it could find its target, “because you’re her adoptive mother, and children don’t have sex with their mothers.”

“I don’t think Diamond got the memo,” I smirked, “I’m not the only one she’s been looking at.”

“What are you talking about?” Julia hissed, a touch of anger in her voice. The anger excited me.

“Oh, she’s subtle when it comes to you,” I smiled slyly, scooching forward on my knees, anticipating the punishment, “she knows you think it’s wrong, but she can’t help herself. An errant glance here, a sneaky peak there, a little snake-eyes look. Diamond’s not exactly the most patient girl; I wonder how long it will take before she asks you for it. I wonder if you’ll be able to deny her?”

I was just teasing, trying to get a rise out of Julia, but by the aghast look that paled her apple cheeks, I realized I’d accidentally struck gold.

“Oh, no,” I whispered, an astonished grin broadening across my face, “oh, Julia…”

“It’s not… I’m not… you don’t…” Julia’s emerald eyes bulged, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, her lips trembled.

“Oh, sweet Mother,” I chuckled, scooching through Julia’s felled defenses, and wrapping a cool hand around her stiff cock, “the pious, holy, Sister Julia wants to fuck her own daughter.”

“No, I don’t!” Julia yelled.

“Nuns make terrible liars, Julia,” I whispered through my smile as I stroked her, savoring the combination of shame, horror and arousal that etched her face, “you don’t have the practice. I always knew you were secretly depraved, but I never thought you would stoop this low.”

“I’m just confused!” Julia insisted desperately, a slight moan mingling with her denial, “It’s Passion; she did this to me! I don’t want this!”

“I don’t think that’s true,” I chuckled, relishing every bump and vein my palm caressed, “I think you know exactly what you want.”

“Shut up!” Julia snapped, “You… you just… you just…”

“…I just what?” I smiled, teasing her tip with my tongue, tasting the froth that bubbled from her.

“You just keep your whore-mouth shut!” Julia snarled, and forced herself all the way down my neck. Perfect.

I gagged and sputtered, gurgled and wretched as Julia’s bejeweled shaft burrowed into my throat. Saliva and cum oozed from my lips, dripped down my chin and onto my breasts, still wet with Julia’s milk. My eyes filmed with tears as I swallowed desperately around my lover, my vision blurring her portrait of anger and desire. She drove my face into her pelvis, spit smearing against her base, nose pressing into her loins, making me smell the sweet stink of her. I sunk my fingers into her succulent ass and tried to pull her deeper, staring up at her from my tear-filled eyes as I hummed my tone of masochistic approval. Julia sneered down at me, and ripped my head back, her hand tangled in my platinum strands. She was so aggressive now, so virile and dominant. Not at all like the demure lover I had known before. Thank you, Passion; you dead cunt.

“Is this what you want to do to Diamond?” I laughed as Julia pressed me against the mirror; bent-over with my legs splayed, my back arched, my skirt hiked past my hips and my stockings clinging to my bulging thighs.

“Shut the fuck up, Lucilla!” Julia snarled, slapping me hard across the ass. I yelped my delight, my face pressing to the glass, my hands reaching back to spread myself, my teeth biting my excited smile. I loved it when Julia swore; it meant she lost control.

“I’m not Lucilla,” I grinned, “my name’s Diamond, and I want Mommy to fuck my little asshole.”

Julia pressed her tip to my winking aperture and then drove all the way to her pelvis, giving me no chance to prepare. I screamed in pain and pleasure as her shaft separated my anal walls, viciously uncoiling my channel and stretching my rim wide. She grabbed two handfuls of hair and pulled my head back, forcing my spine into a painful arch of concavity, my breasts flattening against the glass, my pussy dripping its gratefulness between my legs.

“Oh, god!” I cried, “Diamond absolutely loves it when you do this to her!”

Julia drove my head against the mirror, squishing my face to my own reflection as she jackhammered her way into my rectum, my tight rim clinging to her as she exited, stretching my pelvic floor and sending searing pleasure down my ruined taint. She touched the deepest reaches of me, pushing against my pussy from the other side, electrifying every sensitive nerve within. I stared at my marred reflection; wide, bulging eyes glistening with tears, smeared mascara and lipstick, pale lips gaping to an oval as they cried with every thrust. My breath fogged my reflection from view as my expirations became desperate pants, my lungs burning as my heart thundered.

“You’re baby girl’s a little anal whore, Julia!” I screamed, goading her into more, “Look how she bends for you!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Julia growled, ripping me from the mirror with surprising strength. Before I knew it, Julia’s foot was pressing my face into the floor, my breasts were flattening against the planks, and my ass was high in the air, spread and vulnerable, taking every inch of Julia’s driving length without obstruction. I squealed my delight, clawing at the wood, simultaneously struggling to escape the pain as I arched my back to take the pleasure. Julia had successfully stripped my ability to speak, but I didn’t need to say anymore; I’d gotten exactly what I wanted.

Julia bent me backwards as she impaled me, my thighs perpendicular to the floor, my abused ass almost in line with the back of my head. Her palm slapped viciously across my glutes, reddening the jiggling flesh and mixing the stings of her impact with the ruinous pleasure of her penetration. My ass gripped her as she pulled, the skin around my anus stretching with searing pleasure, and then indenting vulgarly as she pushed all the way, my pelvic floor deepening my crack, her cock bursting through my resistances and forcing me to envelope her. I sobbed onto the floor as my body shifted violently, helpless to the woman’s brutality, a slave to every motion she made. My second orgasm came, greater than the one before, spurred by violence and malice, unyielding in its intensity. I sputtered and screamed into the planks, thrashing uselessly beneath her, my mind melting in the heat of it, going insane with the euphoria. I twisted in reaction, compelled by sensations I couldn’t control, my spine wrenching and arching as Julia’s voice carried behind me, growing louder with each violent slap of crotch on glute. The feeling roiled in my defiled rectum, burned into my vacant womanhood, expanded into my belly and ballooned to my extremities. Julia gasped and cried, taken by the tightness that sucked her into me, gritting her teeth as I clenched my anus around her. She screamed with me as she erupted into my depths, our bodies tensing in an ecstatic paralysis, my legs quivering uncontrollably, my spine wracked with shivers. Our static intensity lasted for a wonderful, tortuous moment, and then receded as the release washed over us. Julia collapsed atop me as she poured the last of herself into my ass, and I collapsed like a folding chair beneath her weight, all the strength sapped of me.

“Oh shit,” I panted when words came back to me, “Passion really taught you how to use that thing.”

“Passion also laid with her sons and daughters,” Julia breathed on top of me, her body seeping its warmth into my back, “and I don’t wish to emulate her.”

“I won’t tell Diamond,” I promised, turning my head to face Julia, “but I don’t think you should deny her, or yourself.”

“Are you actually encouraging me to have sex with my daughter?” Julia exclaimed incredulously, her words punctuated by her recovering breaths.

“Yes,” I grinned back, “I really want to watch a pair of hermaphrodites shamefully indulge in incest.”

“You’re a twisted person, Lucilla.” Julia smirked.

“You already knew that,” I smirked back, clenching my glutes around her still-hard cock, “that’s why you love me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t fulfill your fantasy,” Julia sighed as she got off me, her cock sliding slickly from my ruined gape, “I still have some pride. These feelings I have will fade the further I get from Passion’s influence, and Diamond’s curiosity will be sated by others besides you or I.”

“Seems a shame,” I said sadly as I turned around, and rested my head in Julia’s lap, “it would have made us all so much closer.”

“I want Diamond to go off on her own someday,” Julia sighed, leaning back as I nuzzled my face between her legs, “she doesn’t need to be shackled to a perverse relationship with her mother.”

“You make it sound like we’re old women,” I laughed, then licked Julia from base to tip, tasting the delicious tang of my ass on her shaft, “Diamond was born our age, Julia; she looks more like your sister than your daughter.”

“And that makes it better?” Julia laughed, moaning slightly, “You know it’s horribly wrong.”

“I won’t push it,” I said, “but I think you should consider what Diamond might actually want, and not what you think she should.”

I let Julia stew on that thought as my lips wrapped around her, and I cleaned her like a dutiful wife; gently sucking her dirty shaft until it pulsed to eruption. She came a second time, pouring her seed into my mouth to a chorus of gentle gasps, her pale abdomen clenching in contrast with her languid posture. I smiled at her as she leaked from my lips, and she smiled back, bringing our mouths together, and passing her cum between our tongues. God, she was so different now. So different in some ways, but still the same in others. Her face was the color of her hair as we shamefully walked from the changing room to the gawking eyes of the shop’s customers. They didn’t know they were in the presence of divinity, and by the blush of Julia’s cheeks, she didn’t seem to think they were. I paid for the items with all the royal dignity I could muster, and then we sprinted out of the shop like little girls, giggling uncontrollably.

JULIA

“But that’s where your poop comes out!” Diamond laughed as Lucilla tried to explain anal sex to her. I stubbornly kept my eyes fixed on the road, knowing without a doubt that Lucilla was trying to catch my embarrassed gaze with her mocking glance.

“Sex is dirty,” Lucilla chuckled, holding hands with my daughter, their fingers interlaced, “and the dirtier it is, the better. If god didn’t want us to play with our buttholes, she wouldn’t have made it feel so good.”

“But… poop!” Diamond yelled, unable to wrap her head around it, “How do you… why would you…? Mom, did you get Aunt Lucilla’s poop on your penis?”

“I’m not an animal, Sparkles; I practice proper hygiene!” Lucilla exclaimed loudly as my face stung with mortification. I pointedly avoided the gazes of the Towerhead’s pedestrians as they turned their attention toward my boisterous daughter and my shameless lover.

“There is no amount of proper hygiene that makes your butthole clean!” Diamond insisted, “It’s like trying to scrub mud.”

“Au contraire, my dearest adoptive daughter,” Lucilla chuckled, “I’ll have you know that my butthole is so clean, that after your mother was done with it, I sucked her-”

“Beautiful sunset tonight, huh Freydis?” I yelled to the Valkyrie, who was standing right next to me.

“Absolutely gorgeous!” Freydis yelled back, clearly as uncomfortable with the conversation I was.

“Excuse me?” a small voice asked from behind us. We all turned around to see a boy of about seven, his hands held shyly behind his back. He looked up at Freydis, his expression almost worshipful.

“Are you Angel?” he asked, and then held out a scrap of paper and a quill, “Can I get your autograph?”

“No.” Freydis replied, frowning at the boy. He cowered before her, mumbled something, and then scampered down the road, where a group of other boys were watching Freydis with awe-struck eyes.

“What was that about?” Lucilla asked Freydis.

“I don’t know,” Freydis shrugged, “but it’s not the first time someone in Towerhead has asked me if I’m an angel. The tailor offered me a discount because he thought I was an angel, a man propositioned me because he thought I was an angel, and a caravanner told me he made a hundred bucks off me.”

“What?” I asked, more confused than before.

“That’s what I said,” Freydis nodded, “though I didn’t know mythical creatures of the maternal afterlife produced deer by the hundreds; you’ll have to read me that tale from your bible.”

“Hold on.” Lucilla frowned, seeming to form a hypothesis. She walked over to a nearby vendor, bought a tabloid, and walked back to us as she flipped through it. She stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the road, and gaped as she slowly turned to the pages.

“What is it?” I called after her, feeling a sickening pit growing in my belly. Lucilla’s eyes darted to me, and then to Freydis. She promptly dropped the newspaper in the street, stomped it into a pile of horse manure, and walked to us.

“Just tabloid trash,” Lucilla said, taking my arm, “gossip, rumors and the like; the same kind of shit that used to follow me around back home.”

“If I remember correctly, most of those rumors about you were spot-on,” I smirked at Lucilla, “and you used to relish reading them. What changed?”

“I lost the taste for them.” Lucilla grimaced, realizing I’d caught her lie. She put her hand on my shoulder and guided me to stop, letting Freydis walk out of earshot.

“What is it?” I whispered, “Why does everyone seem to recognize Freydis?”

“It looks like Flora was right about Freydis’s daughter,” Lucilla whispered back, “she didn’t find The Earth Former.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Lucilla looked over her shoulder, seeing that Freydis had stopped, and was waiting for us with her hands resting impatiently on her hips.

“The reason everyone thinks Freydis is this ‘Angel’ person,” Lucilla whispered, “is because there’s a Valkyrie in Drastin who goes by the name of ‘Angel.’ Do you know about The Pit?”

“Yes.” I replied, shuddering silently at the thought of that sinful place. I would be giving the infamous arena a wide berth once we got to Drastin.

“Well, this Angel is supposed to be the next big thing,” Lucilla said, “I mean, she was on every page of that tabloid. What she’s wearing, what she’s eating, who she’s fucking…”

“Who she’s fu… having sex with?” I hissed, “Valkyries don’t sleep around!”

“Well, this one does,” Lucilla grinned, “not only does this ‘Angel’ fight in The Pit, but she performs daily sex acts in a brothel, and not the vanilla kind. Oh, goddamn it; you just have to see.” Lucilla looked over her shoulder and called to the frustrated Valkyrie, “Freydis, hold up a second, Ok?”

Lucilla rushed over to the newspaper booth and procured another copy, before excitedly running back over to me. The audacity Lucilla had to pretend she didn’t care about celebrity gossip was laughable; she lived for it.

“Ok, full disclosure, I didn’t want you to see this before because you’re on the cover.” Lucilla whispered excitedly. She showed me the illustration, and it was blessedly erroneous. I took the leaflet from her and paged through the articles about me, frowning at the inaccuracies and gasping at some of the claims. Apparently, I was an assassin sent from an underworld cult of religious fanatics. I duel-wielded a set of holy staffs, performed exorcisms before I murdered my victims, and was on a mission to purge the elven aristocracy for killing my parents. There wasn’t anything about my exploits in Arbortus, though I doubted many people in the world knew about Passion, or her womb.

“Yeah, I like their story better,” Lucilla sniggered at me, “though the drawing’s a little off. I think it’s missing something…”

I glowered at Lucilla, and she hurriedly turned the pages to the sections about Angel. There was no doubt about it; that was Freydis’s daughter. Clearly, someone had a lot of time to draw Astrid, and not in flattering positions. I didn’t know tabloids doubled as hardcore-porno mags in Drastin, but apparently, they did. I instinctively covered Diamond’s eyes as she peered over my shoulder, and I flipped to the next page.

“That’s her manager, ‘Night Eyes,’” Lucilla said, pointing to the portrait of the white-haired nymph, her eyes black like Passion’s had been purple, “and they call that woman, ‘Death Kiss,’” she said, pointing to the succubus.

“What?!” a voice hissed from behind us. We turned around to see Flora’s face twisted in alarm, “Did you say, ‘Death Kiss?’”

“Yeah,” Lucilla said, raising an eyebrow as she handed Flora the tabloid, “you know her?”

Flora didn’t answer, because Flora almost fainted. Her green complexion grew ashen, her lips quivered, and her hands trembled as though stricken with Parkinson’s. Her bulging eyes filled with tears, and leaked saline droplets onto the paper as her lenses scanned the words.

“Flora?” I asked, bending down to peer at her horrified face, “Are you alright?”

Her head snapped up, her face changing violently to an expression of manic joy.

“Tera has her!” she screamed, “By the Giver, Tera has her!”

In a blur of speed that shocked me, Flora turned heel and sprinted right for Freydis. Lucilla groaned and darted after the nymph, but bless her soul, Lucilla was no athlete. Flora outpaced the elf, ran into Freydis, and opened the tabloid. I didn’t have to be a fortune teller to know what was going to happen next. Freydis snatched the magazine, brought it to within an inch of her face, widened her eyes, grabbed Flora, and then launched into the air with a mighty flap of her wings. They shrank to a dot against the blue sky, Freydis’s white span catching the sun and glinting onto the eyes of the gawking spectators.

“Did I miss something?” Diamond asked.

“I guess we both did,” I said, gaping at the empty sky where they just were, and then to my flustered lover, “what was that about?”

“The fuck if I know,” Lucilla grumbled, “something about ‘Tera,’ whoever that is; crazy old bitch. You should’ve swallowed your pride and let Freydis swear her vows to you.”

“Freydis owes me nothing,” I said, “if she wants to leave, she can. Her daughter’s wellbeing is much more important than acting as a chaperone for us.”

“She was deterrent for harassment.” Lucilla frowned, eyes darting to the sides, “In case you hadn’t noticed, the wonderful people of Towerhead don’t exactly like us.”

I looked around, and saw that the gawking stares the citizenry had reserved for Freydis, were now hostile glares directed at the three of us. They came from windows and thresholds, booths and foyers. The came from the dirty faces of the men who worked, the plump face of the women who washed, and the shiny faces of the boys who had asked for Freydis’s signature. The wind could be heard clearly through the town now, playing across creaking doors and rusty hinges, whistling a tense warning. I felt my hair stand on the back of my neck, and my blood began to heat, readying me for what might come.

“Mom?” Diamond asked, “Why is everyone staring at us?”

“I don’t know, Diamond,” I said, pulling her to my waist, “but we’re not staying around to find out.”

“There’s an inn a mile outside town,” Lucilla said, nervously glancing around, “I think we’ll go there.”

DIAMOND

The innkeeper was a dwarf, and I instantly liked him. Bald, green-eyed and grey-bearded, he smiled with a face full of kindly wrinkles, and spoke with a thickly-accented voice that sounded like it belonged to a giant, though he barely stood above the counter, even on his stool.

“Well aren’t you three the prettiest things east of Drastin!” he laughed when we entered, “Come in, come in!’

The three of us were the only ones in the inn, save for the dwarf and a wash boy. Aunt Lucilla plopped onto a stool, sighing exhaustedly as Mom sat beside her, and I took my place on her other side.

“You Miss, look like the type who knows her wine!” the old dwarf chuckled to Aunt Lucilla, “Try this vintage on the house, and tell me it ain’t the best thing you’ve had west of Terondia!”

“Why, thank you,” Aunt Lucilla grinned at the dwarf, taking the glass, “it’s nice to see someone in Drastinar knows how to treat guests.”

“Oh, don’t think me too charitable,” the dwarf winked, “women who know their wine have the coin to gain that knowledge, and the best vintage west of Terondia is whatever the hell I’ve got behind the counter!”

Aunt Lucilla and Mom laughed at that, but I didn’t get the joke. Still, their laughter made me laugh.

“You sir, stick out like a sore thumb in this town,” Aunt Lucilla smiled, “what’s a man like you doing in a drab place like this?”

“Now don’t go bad-mouthing the honest folk of Towerhead,” the innkeeper scolded, though he was still smiling, “they’re good folk, and they’ve tolerated me well enough.”

“They didn’t seem like very good folk,” I said, happy to have an excuse to use the word ‘folk,’ “they seemed mean.”

“Nah, they’re just wary of outsiders, especially those of different stock.” the dwarf said, “They had something of a tragedy involving a succubus and a young boy recently, and now they’re even more protective of their way of life.”

“That succubus wouldn’t happened to be named ‘Tera,’ would it?” Aunt Lucilla asked.

“The very same,” the dwarf said, “of course, now she goes by the name of ‘Death Kiss,’ and fights in The Pit. Rubs folk the wrong way, seeing her in the papers. The Sorenson’s got a letter from their boy saying he was in debt to slavers, and he disappeared around the same time Tera did. Didn’t take much conjecture to put two-and-two together to figure Tera got him roped into some kind of scheme. She’s involved with Night Eyes, and no good’s ever come from dealings with that killer.”

“That explains why everyone gave us a death-stare when Flora mentioned Tera,” Mom said to Aunt Lucilla, “how she knows a succubus ring-fighter is beyond me.”

“If your smart, you’ll keep that woman’s name in the back of your mouth,” the dwarf said quietly, “the folk here are good folk, but Good Mother knows Tera might as well be the devil to ‘em.”

“A dwarf following the maternal path?” Mom asked incredulously, smiling at the old man, “Did I just hear that right?”

“It’s not too uncommon,” the dwarf said, “judging by the hue of your hair, Miss, I’d say someone in your lineage was a bit short of stature, and judging by the necklace you’re wearing, I’d say he may have followed the path himself.” He looked at Mom with a twinkle in his eye, “But judging by the amount of chest you’re showing, I’m betting that necklace is mostly just for show, ain’t it?”

“Now, Mister!” Mom said, gaping with smiling indignation, “I’ll have you know that I was once a sister of The Holy Mother, and on my path to matronage!”

“And somewhere along the path, a tight-fitting turtleneck got in your way,” the old man said slyly, winking at Aunt Lucilla, “and suddenly chastity didn’t seem like such a great destination.”

“It’s like you’ve known us for years,” Aunt Lucilla laughed, and then extended her hand, “I’m Lucy, this is Jules, and this Diamond.” Lucilla said, altering their names, but keeping mine the same.