Arjuna's Descent Ch. 07

This close to the waterfront in the second story of your uncle's old warehouse, you'd have expected a measure of peace. After all, ahead of you is nothing but trackless green sea, whipping wind and the domain of Varuna. You'd grown accustomed to the metropolitan hum coming from all angles, a grinding sound of buzzing electricity and combustion engines, the chatter of millions of human beings packed into one place - Rose County and Hyderabad tell a different story but the orderless drone is similar in scope.

It's still there of course, but you hear so much more now... as if your whole life had been spent listening to the world's soundtrack through a cellphone speaker where now you were plugged into a functioning stereo. You hear...

A rat skittering through a wall on an unknowable mission; its breath wheezes as if the humidity had driven bronchitis into its tiny lungs. The miniscule predator stops to scratch at a scabrous spot of skin; it mutters a bitter curse and scratches a sigil into the rotting plywood.

Outside the window, a trio of young men congregate around an oil drum, crackling with a low fire. They pass around a bottle - you hear the liquid swish around in the glass - and tell stories you can only vague sense of. The speech of one is overlain with the hissing cadence of something inhuman, a passenger - or perhaps the one driving - aping his words.

Something you dare not look upon through the slatted window shades floats on the sea breeze, composed entirely of gossamer thread and moonlight. It is the source of the cold spot that pervades this place, mist forming from the water and crawling up the sides of the warehouse. It calls to you: "Fire-in-His-Eyes... Fire-in-His-Eyes...

It's a name, one that you reflexively associate with horrible things: malformed children or bastards buried in fields to render them cursed and fallow. A widow thrown upon her husband's funeral pyre, screaming in vain that she wanted to live. Plunging your hand into a crucible filled with molten metal, holding it there to prove that you were in fact a witch.

"The water runs at least." Lana's voice breaks through your haunted reverie as her cellphone light illuminates the darkness; there's no need, the moon shines through the window slats and it's bright as twilight. She stands wearing nothing but a towel around her body, and inappropriately your thoughts lurch toward what lies beneath... but now isn't the time. Her face is still tight with the adrenaline coursing through her veins

The shower is running in the otherwise barren bathroom, stocked with the absolute minimum for those nights where Uncle Samir decided to work late and stay in-town rather than making the return commute out to Eden Park.

"Come on, you need a shower... I can still smell the blood all over you." Is she trying to be funny? You wordlessly acquiesce and walk past her, feet swishing quietly across the concrete floor. There isn't even a curtain, just a drain, a sink, and a toilet. You can smell the filth, the static-charged rainwater, the gore Lana had washed off flushing out into the Gulf. "You doin' alright?" she asks for the third time since arriving, sitting down on the toilet lid and watching you.

Unbashful of her gaze, you settle underneath the lukewarm water and sit down against the ceramic wall, watching her... perhaps a little too intensely as she looks away and starts to fidget. "I didn't mean to do it," you state flatly; she flashes you a look, and you know it isn't necessary to assure her of that. Neither of you can imagine anyone planning, or even impulsively deciding to commit those heinously violent acts. "I don't know what's wrong with me Lana."

"Do you have any idea what you are?" she returns. Implicit is the fact that your best friend doesn't see you as human anymore - how could she?

I have no idea hovers at the tip of your tongue... though you recall something your grandmother told you, back when you were nine years old, on the day your family left India.

That your line was but a single, hidden branch of a far-ranging tree of blood, one that had produced figures of notable cruelty and excess. She hadn't bothered to go into detail but assured you that you were better off leaving behind those cursed lands and people with their Laws of Blood and Concrete and Howling

Had she meant something beyond the sheer inhumanity that humans could casually show their 'lessers', a notion thoroughly baked into your family's way of thinking? You were, of course, treading upon alien ground; nothing in your life had prepared you for whatever nightmare-reality had crept out of the corners of your world.

"I don't know, like... how do you even answer a question like that?" your voice snaps harder than you intended, the undertone of a growl shuddering unintentionally in your chest; she flinches from your words as if you'd cracked a whip. It makes you feel guilty, but you press on rather than acknowledge that weakness. "I think I'm..."

Dozens of dead bodies stare at you in condemnation, littered about the strip bar's linoleum floors.

MONSTER.

"I... uh..."

Carmen's hand finds your massive shoulder, a feeble attempt to stay your wrath; you lash out, digging your claws into her flesh and causing third-degree burns.

MONSTER!

"I'm still me."

LIAR!

"Maybe you should stay away from me."

SNAKE. It's true... you know her well enough, that won't make her shy away; she's oppositional by nature and already you can see the steely resolve in her eyes. She wouldn't leave your side even if someone put a gun to her head, because she's just that kind of person. She's stuck with you through thick and thin, through the best and worst times and you don't know why because... just like Fernando... you've never given her anything.

"I hate when you do that shit," she curses softly at you, and you know the hook has slipped into that pretty lip of hers. "You always talk like you don't need anybody, and then when we just let you handle it on your own you're a disaster."

You even pretend to smolder at that, and to a certain degree you do because she's correct. Your mind is a spiraling pit, a whirlpool that drags you into the cavernous depths of your skull where you seep and stew. "Don't you think it's a bit dangerous to hang around me after what you saw me do at the club?" You minimize it as best as you can; you'll confront the scale of your slaughter later. "I don't know how to control it... I don't even know what it is."

"Then we can figure it out together." She sounds unshakeable and utterly obstinate as always. "C'mon, we've been through this much and still hang out for some reason, bit of the ol' ultraviolence can't stop this train." It's touching that in the face of all this, she's trying to make light of it. You force yourself to laugh, pushing your hair back under the shower water.

She's mine.

The two of you fall quiet for a bit, watching each other. In spite of everything... maybe because of everything, since sexuality has always been your primary stress outlet, you find yourself admiring her body. You do that quite often in fact... your mind drifts to the sensual curves of her otherwise hard exterior; Lana isn't a gym rat like you are, and aside from some obligatory physical activity for her job she prefers an easygoing lifestyle. You like the softness of her stomach, the generous shape of her ass and the smoothness of her strong thighs. Your eyes glaze over as your imagination shifts from the glow of bloodletting to the warmth between her legs...

As if noting the way you're staring, you see them part, just slightly. Lana's mons is covered by a trimmed thatch of bright blonde hair, and at this point you don't even need to see her sex to picture its rosen pinkness, the swollen pillows of her labia, the pearlescent swell of her clitoris. You realize you're growing harder and harder, and she's watching your shaft as it stands at attention, rising from your thigh. Somehow it's both terribly inappropriate, but also makes sense.

You rise as one and approach each other; her expression is reserved, a serious mask she wears during moments of intimacy... like one final bit of armor to clothe her vulnerable core, even with you. She wordlessly throws the towel around your slender shoulders, dragging it down your body. Your hands find her hips, droplets of water pressed between your as your lips meet, and her fingers release the towel to wrap gingerly around your shaft. She strokes delicately, fingers dancing over the velvety girth and around the ridge of your glans.

The bed is more of a cot, but it does its job admirably as you take refuge in each other's flesh. The feeling of her nipples in your mouth is, in fact, calming... a familiar sensation; they're particularly hard, their texture standing out to your tongue as it circles them... what Carmen had said earlier was correct; her breasts are wonderful, large enough to fill your palms and then some. For her part Lana has always adored such attention, bucking and rolling her groin against your thigh... the scent of her arousal is more potent than you remember, and she seems almost urgent despite her hard gaze.

"Mmm Arji... can you please go down on me? I love when you do that, and you know... I need to be really wet to take you." She tilts your head upward, cracking the mask with a smirk and it's impossible not to look over her shoulder at the shadowy figure against the wall, indistinct but vaguely human-shaped, stroking its phallus.

You wordlessly acquiesce as she opens her legs and tilts her hips backward so you can take her rear in your hands. You lose yourself in her more avidly than usual, messily sucking and slurping at her warm pussy. She dissolves in a series of low moans that grow ever more needy as your tongue slides up the track of her vulva to hook underneath her node, circling and flicking before thrusting it inside of her. You taste of her deeply, wearing her scent across your mouth in the same way Carmen's scent still clung to your cock.

You rise before her and kneel; she reaches forward with both hands, gripping the length of your haft and quirking her lips... women had often expressed a unique satisfaction with your manhood

Long enough that even in her double-grip there were still inches curving upward before terminating into a thick glans... you can't help but think about what Carmen said about her mate, that his girth was greater. Insecurity rises in the back of your throat like acid, and because you can't hide anything you sense Lana's attention to that detail.

"Hey... you alright? We don't have to have sex if you're not feeling it, I'm even a bit surprised..."

"No, I want to," you admit, driving the point home by leaning in to take one of her breasts against your lips... again, the comfort of suckling at her nipples... you hazard honesty. "Carmen uh, she said... like, her man has a thicker dick than I do, and... I guess it's kinda been haunting me? It's real stupid."

She raises an eyebrow and rests her legs around your waist. "That's such a thing for guys... you know it's not as big a deal - haha, ohhh that feels nice - as you think it is, right?" Before you can answer she purses her lips almost daintily at you. "Okay look. Arji, you have a great dick. Look at this..." Lana measures your length across her mons, up her lower belly. "See? It goes up past my navel, and this shape? You get those really nice spots deep inside of me and those other girls, I've heard the reviews. Remember Lilly? She didn't shut up about it and... didn't know we were still fuckin'... but regardless, Carmen's trying to get in your head or something. I saw her doing it at the bar - and before you hover over that detail," she stops you.

"You're more than thick enough. Okay? Now, if your ego is thoroughly polished, Ajuna Chattar," she puts a hand on the back of your neck, the other guiding you to her warmth, "I want you to fuck me like that time you made me pass out. You remember that? Christmas Eve?"

Yeah. You remember; she was pretty drunk admittedly, but the point stands. You have an idea of what it is she wants.

You work her deep and rhythmic, not the kind of merciless soul-reaching thrust Carmen desired from you, but a varied motion you'd perfected over the years with Lana Ekholm. You push into her slowly, her eyes narrowed and her breath hissing between her teeth until you make contact with the back wall of her vagina... and you push deeper, pressing your thumb under her clit. She grips the sparse sheets of the cot, squeezing her eyes shut and pushing back against you to come back down with a sharp exhalation when you pull out. "I see what you mean, I think," you purr against her earlobe.

"What do you see?" she inquires coolly, tugging your hips to enter her again.

"Just... when I do this," you note as you push her thighs back and press on her deepest intimacy, driving her body taut like a wire, "you really seem to like it."

" Ohhhh fuck yes... that's what I... yeah Arji I do - don't stop," she implores you, bucking her hips in encouragement. "Also, tonight, it's safe so... I was gonna tell you..." Her fingers crawl around your shoulder to touch your lips.

"Tell me what?" you nip at their tips softly, catching her fingernail between your teeth

"I want you to cum in me, dude. Like we used to do, remember how you liked it?" That's surprising; she'd asked you to start using rubbers, or just shoot across her belly when you stopped being an actual couple. Part of you wonders what's going on, and given everything that's happened you almost stop to ask but instinctive prerogative drives you onward

She's worthy of receiving your seed... ideally you should be impregnating her you shut off that bizarre line of thought and focus instead on mating no, inseminating what is going on with you?!

"Arjuna?"

You plunge back inside of her and increase your tempo, burying your face between her breasts as her legs splay wide in the air for you. You don't think about whatever has come over the both of you... you simply lose yourself in the imperative of the moment, lose yourself in her. When your orgasm comes it's powerful, more than any you've ever had, and you growl and grunt your way through. Arching your back above her, Lana's voice crescendos in sustained delight - the familiar notes of her own climax - and you pump your semen in her. You feel each pulse of your manhood, from base to throbbing head; your volume is greater than ever, spilling out of her and over the sparse sheets.

You pull free, a string of your pearlescent cum connecting you two before it drips into her pubic hair. Wordless, sheened with sweat, Lana pulls on you to lie at her side, wrapping your arms around her and pressing her head against your chest to listen to your heart. This sort of intimacy with her is rare and unusual, but you rationalize it away due to the incredible stress of tonight. In truth, you also need to be held close to someone familiar... and you marvel again at her loyalty.

Neither of you speaks for some time until she breaks the quiet. "That was... mind blowing."

"You telling me all the other times weren't?" you exhale against her back.

"No, no they were but something was different about now... it's like..." Lana rolls over languidly onto her back, her breasts rounding pleasantly and temptingly; you feel the urge to enter her again, but can tell she's exhausted. "Maybe something's messed up with me because all I could think about was how dangerous this is. I felt like my life had color, you know?"

Yeah. You knew. She'd used that expression before. It was something you both struggled with, a world whose meaning was dull... it made tolerating its trials and tribulations no easy feat, as there was no payoff in the end; just a Sisyphean struggle toward death

When you two had started dating though, when things had been working smoothly with you both, it felt different; like she said. The world had color and it was beautiful, but no lovely thing can survive for long.

"That worries me." Your voice... you hadn't spoken to her in this close tone in a long time. "You're putting yourself in danger by being around me, we don't even know what I am, and we don't know what Carmen wants with me. I asked her before but she just gave me these bullshit riddle answers, like Gollum or something."

"It was horrible. All the death - I had no idea it was you until it was all done and changed back, but it was also, y'know... kind of a wakeup call." Her hand finds yours, holding it over her lower belly... you can feel the warmth of her fertile womb, throbbing and hot with your mark; she's on birth control, has been for years, but you still find some strange thrill in the idea that you could whelp life from her.

Why?

"I wish I could just go back to sleep," you whisper against her cheek.

"Do you really? Now that you know there's more to the world than you thought, that impossible things do happen, do you really want to just fall back into that?" Lana sounds like she doesn't believe you at all... and she shouldn't, you're lying, but mostly to yourself. You can't deny that there's a sense of forward momentum that hasn't left you since departing the charnel house of your transfiguration.

It doesn't take long for her breathing to become even and slow. You sit up on an elbow and look down on her for a while... her fair locks pool beneath her head; that shadowy figure hovers nearby, its phallus still throbbing and dripping as it watches her as well. "You want a turn?" you whisper to it not really understanding why, narrowing your eyes to get a better view of its elongated head... its streamlined body... the heft of its arousal - you still have no idea what it is, and wonder if you're just losing your mind babbling to shadows

It regards you. "[More than content to watch and experience through you,]" it responds in a casual tone

It leaves you mortified with shame and singularly thirsty for more... you get up and leave the barren excuse for a bedroom, moving with care to not awaken Lana as you put on some of the spare clothes your uncle keeps here and climb the staircase to the warehouse roof. It's cool enough outside that the thin cloth of Samir's oversized Cuban shirt does little to insulate you, but the elements bother you less than they once did.

You gaze out across the water.

The Gulf of Mexico chews at the landscape, like a needy mouth the size of the old Confederacy. Its liquid teeth make patient work of the shoreline, slowly chewing through until one day everything will fall in, down to its inky blue guts... at least it's beautiful

The crescent moon's double-tines flicker, the Lunar body clearer and brighter than you'd ever witness, and... there's so much more. It glimmers with patterns you've never noticed in your whole life, symbols that drag in its wake in a shape that reminds you of flame. An ethereal song seems to radiate outward from it, right at the rim of your hearing. It's ghostly and heart-wrenching in its beauty... impossible. That had to be a hallucination.

A lot of people you knew knocked meditation, but grandma had insisted you practice as a means of controlling that formerly notorious temper of yours, and it'd become something of a refuge. Diverging from her intense internal focus, you allow your attention to wander outward and settle on the moon... admiring and internalizing all the details of its face that you'd never noticed before. The illuminated slice is pitted by craters / **scarred by massive divine talons** that form patterns

You stare at it for a good hour, letting your mind drift, as if upon the Gulf waves.

Dimly, you take note of glimmering motes of light moving on their own accord around the moon, like gnats compared to its immensity... only...

One of them has taken notice of you and it's absolutely massive compared to you; it can see you from over five hundred thousand kilometers away, and it's coming closer like a fucking meteor that's about to smash into you; you're frozen in its grip, you can't move, and even if you could it would chase you down like a killer whale pursuing a trout.

You struggle to your feet, stumbling on shaky knees to escape but it's on you.

There's no escape.