I Survived the HELLoween Corn Maze!

I groaned, pushing myself up onto my elbows.

My face was gritty with dirt, and sore from smacking into the ground so energetically. The last echoes of Lucy's receding laughter were swallowed up by the rustling of the maze; she was already out of sight, and I had no idea which path she'd taken. I probably wouldn't be able to catch her anyway--a warning twinge from my ankle told me I'd twisted it as I fell, so I'd probably have to complete the rest of the maze at a walking pace.

Not how I expected our first date to go, I thought.

Maybe I should back up. You're likely wondering how I found myself sprawled in the dirt in the opening stretch of the world-famous (well, Hiram County-famous, anyway) HELLoween Corn Maze as the girl of my dreams legged it away into the depths of the labyrinth. I'll try to put it into some semblance of a logical sequence, but I warn you, reader, you're likely to doubt my sanity before long.

Honestly, I have my own doubts on that front. But it's a funny thing about being human: we don't really have anything to go on besides the evidence of our own senses. If all of this was (and continues to be) an elaborate hallucination, well, it's still my life. All I can do is chronicle it as best I can.

I suppose we should get some preliminaries out of the way. My name is Percival, bestowed on me by parents who probably thought I had a more exciting destiny than majoring in Business Administration at the decidedly middle-of-the-road DeWalt college in rural Connecticut.

In fact, in most regards, I turned out far more average than my hopeful parents had expected: average height, pleasant but forgettable face, straight B-minuses in high school (except in math, which made a kind of sense to me), solid but unremarkable athletic ability. I stubbornly refused to reveal myself as a child prodigy; my parents hid their disappointment reasonably well. But kids are perceptive.

I tried to make up for my mediocrity by being reliable and considerate, but the truth was, even at a college like DeWalt, I was easily outshined by more charismatic and interesting classmates. I'd struggled to make friends my freshman year, and my first few weeks as a sophomore weren't going much better.

Which was why it came as a colossal surprise when Lucrezia Hiram dragged a chair up to my desk, threw her bag down on the floor, and announced that I was going to be her partner for our Marketing 201 practicum.

Lucrezia was more or less my opposite--at least, that's how I thought of her. She was confident, widely known to be in the top two or three of our class, a track star, and rarely seen without a gaggle of hangers-on, all of whom were either infatuated with her or hoped to gain something by their proximity to her celebrity. Because on the one hand, she was staggeringly gorgeous: long, honey-brown hair that flowed past her shoulders, a face that seemed to radiate sunlight when she smiled, and a silhouette that would have made Botticelli bite his brush in half. And on the other hand, she was the only daughter of the Hiram family, the closest thing to royalty we had in this corner of the world.

So when she sprawled gracefully into her chair and started telling me about how we'd be working on a new marketing campaign for her family's seasonal Halloween attraction, at first I could only listen in dazed silence.

"So of course we won't be able to launch the campaign until next year, because things are already in full swing for this season. But I already talked to Professor Swenson, and she said all we need to do is submit our plan, timeline, and materials, and she'll grade us on that. I think it's actually going to be pretty easy, because my family is way behind the times--can you believe they don't even have an Instagram account for Fall into Fright? They take out newspaper ads, for god's sake. I'm telling you, it's going to be an easy A, and I can't wait to see the look on my mom's face when she sees how much more business we get next year. So. I was thinking that we could--"

"Wait. Wait, hang on, Lucrezia--"

"Call me Lucy. Oh, can I call you Perce? Percival's a little long."

"Huh? I mean, sure, that's fine, it's just... why me? We've barely talked, and I feel like everyone else here would commit literal murder to pair up with you." A quick glance around the room confirmed that while some of our classmates had found partners already, a number of others seemed to be frozen, looking at me with undisguised hostility, bafflement, or both.

Lucrezia breathed out a humorless laugh. "Um, yeah. That's kind of why. I don't know if you've noticed, but sometimes people are sort of... weird around me."

I thought again about the people who straggled after her, lovestruck or ambitious or both. What should have been an obvious truth snapped into focus: I had never seen her surrounded by friends, only admirers. In the grip of my own loneliness, I'd missed the distinction.

"I, uh... now that you point it out, yeah, I guess I see what you mean."

She sighed. "Well, you've never acted like that. Which is nice. Honestly, even if I end up doing all the work on this project myself, it'll still feel like a break."

"What? I won't let you do that."

Lucrezia's face broke into one of her dazzling smiles. I felt my heart go thump.

"I know you won't. I've been watching you, Percival. Hmm, maybe I like that better than Perce. I guess I'll just have to play around with it. Anyway. I think you have hidden depths."

I half-laughed. "Yeah, uh... I don't know. What you see is pretty much what you get, with me." I winced internally. The most beautiful woman I'd ever seen was trying to give me a compliment, and I was talking myself down. Why was I like this?

"You might find this hard to believe, but I do pay attention to the world around me," she said loftily, batting her eyes at me. Oh, god. "I happen to know that you're the only reason Miles Thayer didn't fail Stats 151 last year."

"Wait... what? How did you know about that?"

"Because I pay attention, dummy. I know that after the midterm--god, that was awful, wasn't it? What kind of math professor puts essay questions on their tests?--you tutored him in the library every week until the final, and he ended up scraping by with a C. And he didn't pay you or anything, right?"

"He brought me pizza," I said awkwardly.

"From his parents' restaurant, yeah," she said, waving her hand dismissively. I goggled at her. Had she hired a private eye or something?

She put her elbows on the desk between us and leaned forward, a small smile playing around her lips. She was wearing a dark blue cashmere sweater that both completely covered her chest and did nothing to hide the way she moved beneath it. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.

"My point is, Perce," she said, in the rhythms of one speaking to the slow of thought, "My instincts say you're a good guy. And I think you'd make a good partner." Her foot accidentally grazed my calf as she shifted in her chair. Probably accidentally.

"A good--?" I stammered.

"Partner," she repeated, her green eyes locked onto mine hypnotically. "You know. For the project?"

"The project? The project! Right. Yeah. The practicum. Um. Okay, yeah, let's do it. The project. Together."

"Yay!" she cried, grabbing one of my hands with both of hers, all but bouncing up and down with excitement. I kept my eyes above her neckline only with grim determination. "Great. You won't regret this. Do you have any plans for Halloween?"

Halloween was on a Friday this year, and just three days away. I was vaguely aware of about half a dozen parties, none of which I'd been invited to.

"Uh... nothing firm."

"Okay, good. Let's go to the farm. Fall into Fright lasts for a few more weeks, but Halloween is always the biggest night of the year. Obviously I know pretty much everything there is to know about it already, but you've never been, right? It'll be good to have a fresh perspective when we start working on the marketing plan. Plus, I know I'm biased, but it's honestly super fun. You're gonna have such a good time."

She hadn't let go of my hand, and she periodically squeezed it for emphasis as she rattled off the attractions she wanted to show me. Her hands were so soft and warm, and I kept getting hints of her perfume--lilac and cinnamon, maybe? Her foot brushed my calf a few more times, and I was starting to have a hard time believing it was an accident.

"--but of course the centerpiece is the HELLoween Corn Maze. It's a stupid name, I know, but honestly at this point it would be hard to change it, even if we're doing a major rebrand. Too many people like it the way it is. We'll save it for last. I think you're really going to like it."

Her voice had been bubbly and excited as she effused about the charms of Hiram County's most venerable Halloween attraction. But some other note entered here at the very end. Her voice sounded... smoky. And as she said the word "really", I had an odd hallucination. Her sea-green eyes took on a silvery luminescence, and as if in compensation, the classroom around me seemed to dim for a moment. The murky indoor twilight even muffled the buzz of conversation around us, as if we'd been briefly plunged underwater.

And then it was over. I shook my head, and it was just me and Lucrezia, sitting in the middle of a busy, fluorescent-lit classroom. She was beaming at me expectantly.

"Um, yeah, okay. That sounds great. I can drive us there," I said. I'd never been, but I knew roughly where Hiram Farms was--only about an hour or so east of us. And my car, though far from flashy, was reliable enough.

"Oooh, such a gentleman, and he comes with his own wheels," she cooed. "Sadly, I must decline. I need to be over there in the early afternoon--Halloween is sort of a Hiram family all-hands-on-deck situation. But I'll be off duty in the evening. Want to meet me at the front gate at around eight? The park stays open until midnight, so we'll have plenty of time to look around. It's more fun after dark, anyway." She gave me a wicked smile that raised goosebumps across the back of my neck.

"Right, uh... cool. Eight." My ability to string words together was being seriously hampered by that smile.

Lucrezia was unperturbed. "Awesome. Can't wait. Oh shit, is that really the time? I'm going to be late for Calc. See you Friday, cute stuff!" Before I could react, she scooped her bag up from the floor, shoved her chair back, and flowed out of the room--but not before leaning down to plant a quick, affectionate kiss on my cheek. I watched as a plurality of our classmates followed her out, seemingly powerless to resist her wake. Several shot me puzzled glances as they left.

The warmth of her lips on my cheek took an oddly long time to fade.

***

I suppose I'll spare you from an account of the next few days. Suffice it to say that I was in an agony of anticipation--I kicked myself repeatedly that I'd neglected to ask for Lucrezia's phone number. I saw her from afar a few times, but I didn't have any other classes with her before Friday, so I had no way of casually confirming that we were still on. I had nightmare visions of showing up and waiting for her in vain, only for her to tell me next Tuesday in class that, sorry, she'd run into Tom, or Emily, or Darius, and realized it made more sense to partner up with them for the project. I understood, right?

As the days dragged on, it seemed more and more implausible that she'd chosen me, that she'd arranged what was more or less a date, that she'd played footsie with me and kissed me on the cheek as she'd left. These were things that just... didn't happen. I tried to imagine her waiting to meet me where we'd agreed, and somehow the mental picture just didn't cohere.

Of course I drove out there, blasting early-aughts sad-boy music to try and distract myself from the sensation of my heart trying to climb up and out of my esophagus. I didn't know what I would do if she wasn't there. I forced myself not to think about it.

But I needn't have worried. In the extremity of my nervousness, I managed to get there about twenty minutes early, but she was already waiting for me, leaning against the wooden fence just to the side of the main entrance and reading a battered paperback.

I had to stop and gather my courage before I could even walk up to her. My eyes were immediately drawn to her fawn thigh-high boots, then took in a few inches of creamy skin before it was covered by a plaid, high-waisted skirt, into which was tucked a cozy turtleneck that utterly failed to hide a set of curves that should have been outlawed under the Geneva Convention. Her light brown hair tumbled down either side of her face, which wore an expression of unselfconscious concentration that, frankly, was the most attractive part of the whole package.

What am I doing here, again? some bewildered part of my brain asked. I was suddenly consumed with an irrational desire to run.

But as if sensing my presence, she glanced up from her book--something by Heinlein, I think--and smiled luminously at me.

"You came!" she cried, stuffing the paperback into her purse. She ran toward me with alarming speed and wrapped me in a crushing hug. The scent of lilac and cinnamon enveloped me, and the warmth of her body sapped my strength like some kind of drug. She felt like heaven.

"Uh, yep, here I am. Sorry, I didn't think I'd get here this early," I managed.

"That's fine, I got off early too. Come on, come on, I have so much I want to show you."

The next few hours passed in a happy blur. Part of me wants to recount every detail, but I probably don't need to. I'd like to think everyone gets one date like this, or maybe a handful if they're very lucky. Lucy and I found ourselves excitedly finishing each other's sentences, filling in gaps in each other's life stories--unearthing strange coincidences in the books we'd read, ideas we'd had, secret dreams we cherished. It all started to feel inevitable. Of course we were compatible like this, and like this, and like this.

And it slowly dawned on me that as magnetic as Lucrezia was on campus, I'd never truly seen her in her element before. She seemed to know everyone at the park--customers, performers, even the concession stand attendants. They all treated her like a princess in exile, only the foreign customs of this strange land restraining them from bowing or curtsying when she passed.

I was amazed to find that I didn't feel inadequate in her presence. Once my awkwardness exhausted itself, I suddenly found a charm and confidence in myself I'd never suspected was there. An exhilarating ease carried us through the hall of mirrors, the arcade booths, the Chorus Ghouls' Revue, and the Haunted Hayride. We held hands all through that last one, and I almost leaned in to kiss her. But some sixth sense--or maybe it was just my native cowardice resurfacing--held me back.

At one point, we passed a group of people all wearing the same T-shirt. Against a black background, a hyperrealistic, pumpkin-headed scarecrow loomed over white text:

I Survived the HELLoween Corn Maze at Fall into Fright, the shirt screamed in bold letters that oozed like candle wax. And then, in smaller, more restrained italics:... and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!

Lucy groaned as soon as the group was out of earshot.

"God, I hate those shirts. The font is embarrassing, the 'lousy T-shirt' thing was a cliche 20 years ago, and we don't even have a scarecrow character like that in the maze. My parents don't understand that T-shirts are basically mobile billboards. We're burning money by making ours so lame."

"That's the thing you wanted to show me later, right?"

"Yep." She grinned, an odd light in her eyes. "Best for last. I know I have a bad attitude about the shirts... and the name... but the maze itself is really cool. It's gonna change your life, dude."

I thought she might be overselling it a bit, but at that point I was so drunk on her presence that I couldn't bring myself to care. The big finale of the evening could have been a cardboard box filled with packing peanuts, and with Lucy at my side, I would have found it riveting.

But as eleven o'clock rolled around and she finally dragged me to the far end of the park, I had to admit that I was a little impressed. I knew corn grew tall, but the rows of stalks must have stretched to at least 15 feet. I wondered if they used some kind of special fertilizer.

There was a line of people--young couples, mostly, at this time of night--winding its way toward the entrance booth, but Lucy confidently walked us right up to the front. There were a few indignant murmurs, which mostly quieted when people realized who we were. Or who one of us was, anyway.

The man behind the booth was squat and wide, vaguely froglike in appearance. The sour expression on his face twisted into a smile of genuine happiness when he saw Lucy walk up.

"Miz Lucrezia," he croaked, respectfully tamping out his cigar into an overflowing ashtray. "Was wonderin' when I was gonna see ya. Two fer the maze?"

"Hey, Sal. Yeah, thanks. But... the VIP entrance, I think."

I looked at Lucy, puzzled. I hadn't seen any other entrances to the maze.

"Yeah... yeah, sure, o'course," said Sal. His face was sheened with sweat, or maybe he was just... moist. He cleared his throat with a nervous ribbiting noise, and he fumbled underneath the counter for a moment. There was a clunk, then an odd rustling from a few feet away. When I looked for the source, I saw a small gap in the corn that I hadn't noticed before.

"How did--" I started.

"Thank you, Sal, you're the absolute best," said Lucy smoothly. "Myra and the twins doing okay?"

"Oh, fine, fine. Thanks fer asking, Miz Lucrezia, I'll pass along yer regards. Um. I just need... with the boy, y'know..."

"Of course, of course," Lucy said, sounding mildly irritated, then turned to me. "Sal needs to give you a little safety orientation. Just a formality. I'll be waiting for you right inside, okay?"

She gave me another one of those maddeningly warm kisses on the cheek, briefly pressing her whole body against mine, then half-skipped through the tiny gap in the corn stalks, vanishing from sight.

I gave Sal a baffled look. "Uh, safety orientation? This is... a corn maze."

"Right. Yeah. But, uh... the VIP experience, y'see..." Sal's wide lips writhed, as if manually testing and discarding a half dozen explanations.

Finally he sighed. "Look, kid. Miz Lucrezia and her family've been good to me. Real good. She wouldn't want me to tell you too much, so I ain't goin' to. All I'll say is: things might get a little intense in the maze. Now, you won't be in any physical danger." His protuberant eyes screwed up in thought. "At least, I don't think you will be. But if you decide you're done, there's an exit word you can use, okay? Need you to remember it. It's 'credenza.'"

"'Credenza'?"

"That's the one. Say it any louder than a whisper, anywhere in the maze, and one of us'll come pull you out. Got it?"

"Uh... I guess so. But why...?"

Sal shook his broad head vehemently, which was an interesting anatomical exercise for someone with no apparent neck. "That's all I can tell ya, kid. Just remember 'credenza.' And... try not to be too annoyed with Miz Lucrezia, all right? You're gonna have a lot of questions for her. But I can tell she likes ya. She wouldn'ta brought you here otherwise. Now go on, doesn't do to keep a lady waitin', you know."

Still mystified, I slowly walked toward the narrow entrance Lucy had disappeared through. Sal's speech had disquieted me, but I figured it was all part of the experience. This was a haunted corn maze, right? It figured that a newbie like me would get an unsettling little introduction--a warm-up for the scares that awaited within.

Plus, he said Lucy liked me. And it sounded like he was telling the truth. The warm little glow inside my chest did a good job of pushing back the weirdness that was starting to creep in around the edges of this whole experience.

I stepped into the whispering hush of the maze. Despite the nearly full moon silvering the evening air, the gloom would have been oppressive without lanterns that stuck out from the walls of cornstalks every dozen feet or so. But nowhere in the half-light could I see Lucy.

I jumped as warm arms wrapped sensuously around me from behind. "Finally," she purred, rubbing her cheek against my neck. "I thought Sal was going to blather at you until the park closed."

"Jesus, you scared me, Lucy. Sal was saying some really weird things--"

"Oh, ignore him," she said, brushing her lips softly against my ear.

"With pleasure," I murmured, making her giggle. I turned around in her arms and held her close to me, our faces barely an inch apart. Her skin seemed to glow in the dim light. Her eyes were soft and inviting. Maybe now was the time to--

"Hey, Perce?" she said softly.

"Yeah?" I whispered.

"Do you like me?"

"Yeah," I said. On any other evening I would have hesitated, hedged. But somehow I'd never felt clearer about anything in my life. "I really, really like you, Lucy. I know we've only really known each other for a few days, but I don't think I've ever met anyone like you. I'm... really hoping this is the beginning of something, I guess."

"Oh, good," Lucy sighed. "That makes me really, really happy." Her eyes were bottomless pools, pulling me in as my mouth sought hers--

One slim, sweet finger pressed against my lips, stopping me.

"If you want to be with me, though, there's something I need you to do first."

"Anything," I said, mildly ashamed at the edge of desperation in my voice.

"You say that now," she said, smiling slyly. "But we'll see if you really mean it. First, do a shot with me, okay?" She disentangled herself from my arms and pulled a small silver flask, along with two tiny matching cups, from her purse.

"Uh... you'll go out with me if I do shots with you?" I asked, my brain struggling to catch up.

"Shot, singular. And no, this is just to... it'll help, okay? I know that sounds weird. But do you trust me?" She had already carefully filled the metal shot glasses with an amber liquid and offered one to me. I took it cautiously.

Did I trust her? The truth was, I barely knew her. But I thought back on the last few hours of what had, so far, been an essentially perfect date. I couldn't believe it was all an act. And when I looked into her eyes, I saw nothing but gentle pleading.

Fuck it, I thought. I clinked my glass against hers and tipped it back as she did the same.

I'd been expecting the harsh burn of whiskey, but the liquid was sweet and smooth--notes of honey and citrus, with a slightly smoky finish--and it went down easily. Warmth bloomed in my chest, and the world went slightly soft at the edges.

"Whoa," I said, blinking.

"It's good, right?" Lucy asked eagerly, taking the shot glass back from me and stowing it in her purse. "My family brews it right here on the premises."

"What is it?" I asked. The warmth was still spreading through my body. I'd been drunk a handful of times before, but this didn't feel like that. If anything, I felt more alert, the colors around me growing more vivid. I looked at Lucy's face, and found that I couldn't look away.

Did I say she was gorgeous already? Well, she was, but suddenly I felt like I'd been looking at her through a layer of gauze all evening, and it had just been pulled away from my eyes. She was entrancing, bewitching, goddesslike. I wanted to pull her into me, kiss every pore of her skin, breathe every molecule of air that had ever been within her lungs--

"Easy," she giggled, grabbing my shoulders to steady me. "You'll get used to it in a second. We call it soulwine. Can't tell you the recipe--family secret. But like I said, it'll help. You're going to see a few surprising things in here, but now your brain should have an easier time... taking everything in."

Lucy still glowed with otherworldly beauty, but after a few deep breaths, I found I was a little less overwhelmed by it. I still wanted to kiss her more than I'd wanted anything in my life up until now, but...

"Wait. What was it you wanted me to do for you?" I was reeling with infatuation, but I also felt a sense of approaching danger, a premonition that the night was about to spin wildly out of control.

"You just have to find me," Lucy said, smiling as she took a half step back from me. She wrapped her arms around her body as if she were chilly, but I had a feeling she was just doing it to accentuate the swell of her breasts beneath her sweater. I gulped. "Just find me, and I'm yours."

"Uh... you're right here," I said, feeling like a bit of an idiot.

She took another step backward, shadows moving over her face until all I could see was the gleam of her smile. "Find me at the center of the maze. I'll be waiting." Then, without another word, she turned on her heel and ran lightly down the passage toward the first junction of the maze.

I reacted without thinking, which was a mistake. "Lucy, wait!" I shouted, lunging after her. But I wasn't quite as steady on my feet as I'd thought. I slipped on a clod of dirt, and I went down facefirst, swallowing a handful of the silky dust that made up the corn maze's foundation.

I lay prone for just a moment, shocked into immobility by the strange turn the evening had taken. Lucy laughed as she disappeared in a direction I couldn't see.

***

So, you see, that's how I found myself limping alone through a haunted corn maze on Halloween, having been deserted and possibly poisoned by someone who, until five minutes previously, I'd been sure was pretty into me. Now she was... what? Playing a prank on me? Would I turn a corner and find her entourage waiting for me, laughing and sneering and snapping pictures of my dirt-smeared face and clothes to post on social media, or, worse, DeWalt's unsanctioned "Anonymous Confessions" board?

Or... was she being serious? Did it really matter to her, for some reason, that I find her at the center of this maze?

I replayed our last conversation in our head. I minutely analyzed what I remembered of her body language, her facial expressions. I wasn't anything close to an expert, but I didn't think she was faking that she liked me. If anything... it seemed like there was something she wanted to tell me but couldn't bring herself to. She was less obvious about it than Sal had been. But something in me--maybe it was the soulwine--whispered that I should trust her.

Sal. If I were sure that this was a prank, I could say the word credenza. He'd seemed dead serious about the safeword--I was quite sure that someone would hear me, find me, and escort me safely from the maze. I could walk (or hobble) back to the parking lot, get in my car, and drive back to the dorms. I could have stern words with Lucy when I saw her in class next week. I could go back to the world I knew, the one I knew how to navigate.

And I'd never know for sure.

I didn't know whether Lucy was still mine to lose--if she'd really give me a chance with her if I found her. But if I gave up, I might never find out.

So, fine. I'd play along. It was a corn maze, after all, and testing my weight on my ankle, I found it didn't hurt too badly. What was the worst that could happen?

I walked gingerly at first, but after a few steps I found a stride that I could keep up with reasonable confidence and a minimum of discomfort. I came to the intersection where I'd lost sight of Lucy. Since I'd been busy getting up close and personal with the ground, I hadn't seen which direction she'd gone. And oddly, her footprints seemed to just vanish in the middle of the junction. I looked uncertainly down the dark paths opening to my left and right. Both looked equally unpromising.

But mazes were easy, right? You just had to... damn, what was the trick? Ah, right. You just had to pick a hand, left or right, and then trail it along the wall. Eventually you'd explore every part of the maze that way. Right? It'd be slow, but in the absence of any better strategies...

Left the route my walking takes, left alone with my mistakes. The left-hand path felt more appropriate for Halloween, anyway. Trailing my fingers along the brittle leaves, I set off.

The maze was quiet, eerily so. Logic told me that my fellow maze runners in the non-VIP section must be no more than a few feet away from me. But the shouts and laughter of the other HELLoween revelers floated to me as if from an impossible distance, all but drowned out by the dry rustling of the corn and the shff, shff of soft dirt beneath my sneakers. The occasional gust of wind sighing through the stalks only accentuated the feeling of isolation.

But all in all, I felt okay. My ankle gave an occasional twinge, but the warmth from the soulwine still coiled comfortingly within me. As strange as the situation was, I felt oddly buoyant, ready to face whatever the evening threw between me and Lucy.

Percival on a quest, some faintly mocking part of my brain narrated.

Damn straight, thought another part of me defiantly.

I ran into several dead ends, dutifully trailing my left hand along the stalks as I explored their depths. Trying to outthink the maze would just get me lost. But it wouldn't be able to stand against dumb process of elimination.

Heaven beware the patient plodder, I thought somewhat giddily. God, what was in that soulwine anyway?

Eventually I began to make out a new sound underneath the susurrus of the maze. It sounded like... music? Scattered notes became a melody, someone humming to herself. It was strangely arresting; more than once, I found my feet dragging to a stop to listen to it. Then I'd shake myself out of my trance and keep going.

I frowned in thought. For a haunted maze, I'd encountered far fewer scares than I would have expected. I'd been walking for almost ten minutes now, and so far nothing strange had happened besides my very odd parting with Lucy. Judging from the shouts and squeals I'd heard as Lucy and I had walked up to Sal's booth, the regular section must be crowded with actors, spooky tableaus, and jump scares. Why was the VIP section so... empty?

And why, now that I could hear something, was it not anything particularly scary? This was no eerie moaning or wailing. Just a lone voice humming an achingly beautiful, half-familiar melody.

As I drew closer to the source of the music, the air began to grow sweet and fragrant. It smelled like--

When I was a kid, our breakfast room opened onto a cramped, weed-choked side yard that my parents always said they were going to clean up and redo, a project for which they never found the time. It was barely six feet wide, and hemmed in by the house on one side and a tall fence on the other, so it was in almost perpetual shadow, and haunted by insects that loved the stagnant water that collected there.

But the fence itself was covered in lush vines that burst into enthusiastic yellow blooms in early spring. "Honeysuckle," my older brother told me, and he showed me how to pluck the blossoms, peel back the petals, and drink the bead of sweet fluid inside. I spent a number of happy afternoons back there harvesting flowers, though never too many at once; somehow it felt impolite to gorge myself on what the vine so generously grew.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because when my mother discovered this habit of ours, she told us with no small amount of horror that this was not honeysuckle but Carolina jasmine, every part of which was toxic. She forbade us, quite reasonably, from continuing to recreationally consume the poisonous nectar growing in the ill-favored yard. My brother and I never got sick, likely through the sheer luck of being insufficiently dedicated foragers.

Anyway. The scent wafting through the air was like that of the jasmine that grew in such profusion at my childhood home, but ten times stronger. The atmosphere grew rich, then redolent with floral sweetness. For a moment I forgot all about Lucy and her strange game. I had to know what smelled, and sounded, so sweet.

I turned the corner to one of the strangest sights I had ever seen.

The corn maze opened up into a circular clearing of sorts. To say that a woman was bathing in the center of it would be... technically correct, but it would leave out some glaringly salient facts. First of all, she clearly wasn't human. Her skin was pale green, like the flesh of a tree just below the bark. Her hair was a rich, dark jade. The only parts of her I could see that were not green were her eyes, which glowed gold, her lips, which were the deep, glossy red of strawberries, and her nipples, which were the pale pink of cherry blossoms.

Second of all, what she was bathing in appeared to be a giant flower growing directly out of the ground. Enormous but somehow delicate white petals splayed open, leading the eye into a pool filled with amber nectar, which the green woman was waist-deep inside. As she continued her haunting melody, she scooped up handfuls of nectar and rubbed it into her skin, which seemed to absorb the fluid. Judging from the rapturous look on her face, the process was more than a little pleasurable.

The air was thick with the smell of sugar. I stood in the entrance to the clearing, transfixed triply by sight, sound, and smell.

The woman rubbed a handful of nectar into her full breasts, humming contentedly as her fingers delicately circled her pale pink nipples. I made a strangled noise in my throat; she ceased humming and looked up at me in surprise.

"Oh!" she said in a sweet, high voice that made me think of wind chimes. "You must be Percival! Gosh, I wasn't sure if you'd be coming my way. I'm glad you did, though."

She gave me a smile of such inviting warmth that I melted a little. Her unearthly beauty and the heady fragrance in the air probably contributed a little to the feeling.

"Yes, uh, that's me. It's a pleasure to meet you, uh...?" I managed. I'd clearly lost my grip on reality, but that was no reason to be impolite.

"Goodness, sorry, how silly of me. I'm Ellesime. Welcome to my glade, such as it is. The real one is much nicer, but most of the plants wouldn't like being plopped in the middle of a corn maze, you know? Just have to make do with my primary bloom. She's pretty hardy," she said, patting one of the giant white petals affectionately.

"I hope you'll excuse my ignorance," I said, vaguely aware that I was drifting closer to the enormous blossom. "But, um, what, exactly--"

She flashed her dimples at me. "I'm an alraune," she said, and giggled at the blank look on my face. "Sort of a flower spirit? Not the most accurate way of putting it, but close enough for our purposes. I'm guessing you've never met an eidolon before?"

"Eidolon?" I said weakly. My somnambulant feet had brought me to within a few feet of the alraune. With her waist at ground level, she had to crane her head up to look at me. I had the strange sense of being perched on a dangerous precipice, hypnotized by the depths below me.

She tilted her head sympathetically at me. "It would have been kind of Ms. Lucrezia to prepare you a bit for this. Oh well. So--there are creatures that you have only encountered in folklore, yes? Vampires, demons, shapechangers, hybrids of various kinds..."

There was a golden haze in the air; pollen, maybe? Whatever it was, it seemed to mix with the sweet scent of Ellesime's nectar and impose a pleasurable languor on my thoughts. It was easiest just to nod.

"Well, collectively we're known as eidolons. Monsters, I suppose, though some of us find that term a bit loaded. In days past, we used to interact more freely with your kind, but..." She seemed to notice my slightly lopsided stance. "Oh dear, did you hurt yourself?"

"Oh," I said slowly. "Yeah, I... tripped. Twisted my ankle a little. It's fine." I swayed a little, lost in the soft glow of the alraune's eyes.

"Mm, that really won't do at all. Ms. Lucrezia expects you to navigate the maze on an injured ankle? Far be it from me to criticize the young mistress, but--come. Spend a few minutes in my blossom. The nectar should fix you right up in no time."

"Um. I don't. That is... I really ought to go find Lucy..."

"Oh, please, Percival," she said. Her bottom lip trembled, and so did my resolve. "Don't go so soon. We've only just met, after all, and I'd feel such a terrible hostess if I sent you off into the dark without doing something for you..."

Suddenly I found I couldn't bear to disappoint her. And soaking my ankle for a few minutes really did sound good.

"Uh... all right. I can stay for a few minutes."

"Oh, wonderful!" Ellesime cried, clapping her hands in delight. "Ah... may I ask you to remove your clothes first? They'd just get all sticky, anyway."

"Huh? Oh. Right, yeah, of course." I was initially taken aback by the request, but then I realized it was perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't climb into someone's hot tub fully clothed, after all.

Slowly, dreamily, I took off my corduroy jacket, plaid shirt, and jeans, neatly folding them on the ground. Last, I took off my sneakers and socks, standing on top of them so as not to get my feet all dusty right before climbing in with Ellesime.

I hesitated a moment, shivering a little as a chilly breeze stirred against my bare skin. The cold went some way toward cutting through the pollen- and nectar-induced mental fog that had been building up. I stared at the alluring plant woman waist deep in her nectar pool, a hand extended to help me in. Her pale green skin glowed invitingly in the moonlight, and her strawberry lips were curved in a guileless smile.

Is this really a good idea?

Then I caught another sweet whiff of nectar. Of course this is a good idea. Take a rest now, and you'll be faster later. Plus she's so pretty, and she's being so nice.

All good arguments. I stepped tentatively into the smooth, liquid embrace of Ellesime's nectar bath.

"That's right," she whispered, wrapping her arms sweetly around me. "Just relax now."

I had to bite back a moan. My ankle immediately felt so much better, to say nothing of the rest of my body. Her nectar cradled me in heavenly warmth all the way up to my waist; above that, her petal-soft skin pressed into mine. If the scent of nectar had been intoxicating before, now it was stupefying. I felt like drifting away, letting go of all control while I let waves of gentle bliss lap against my being.

Then Ellesime was kissing me.

Her lips were as sweet as they looked, tasting of berries and citrus and honey and ice wine. Her breasts were unbelievably soft as they pressed against my chest. Her silky fingertips traced warm trails of nectar all over my back and flanks, leaving a slow tingling pleasure to soak into me. I felt myself grow rock hard within the embrace of the nectar, and then her soft thigh began rubbing rhythmically against me.

I fought through the haze of pleasure. Her lips melting against mine, her body pressed into me, everything felt so right, but--

"Lucrezia," I mumbled against her lips. "Lucy," I said, finally finding the strength to pull myself a few inches back. "I can't... we're sort of on a date--"

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Ellesime, not sounding sorry at all. She moved her chest subtly back and forth, dragging her cherry blossom nipples across my skin. "I just thought you might want some comfort while you rested. I promise, the mistress won't mind if we... dally a little. She's very open-minded." The green-skinned woman's smile was full of gentle promise.

"She... she won't?" It was so hard to think, and my body was screaming at me that breaking that kiss was the stupidest thing I'd ever done.

"Not in the least," said Ellesime, slowly closing the distance between us again. Her lips were just teasing millimeters from mine now. "We can play together for as long as you'd like. And then when your ankle is feeling better, you can go on your way. Of course..." she lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's completely up to you. You can leave whenever you want."

"Oh... kay," I said, struggling to think. Thinking was... really hard. Like wading through syrup. Sweet, sticky syrup perfuming the air, making my thoughts go diffuse and vague. "Maybe I should..." Really hard. Just like my--

"How's your ankle feeling now?" Ellesime whispered. Her lips brushed mine as she spoke.

"My...? Oh. Actually, it's starting to feel... a lot better." I couldn't look away from her glowing eyes. I sighed in relief as her body pressed against me. What was I so worried about, again?

"Oh, good!" she said, planting a tiny kiss on the corner of my mouth. "I'm really, really glad. You should probably stay in here just a few more minutes, though, just to make sure the nectar's really done its job."

I could only nod. I was only half-conscious of what she was saying.

"And... you seem a little tense just right here, too," she said, wrapping a hand as soft as rose petals around my cock. A helpless moan escaped me. "Can I help you here too?"

I couldn't remember why I'd been fighting this. It felt too good. I'd let her help me. And then I'd... well, I'd start by letting her help me. Why not?

"Please," I gasped.

"Good boy," she purred, and pressed her lips against mine as she slowly started to stroke my length.

My mind about broke in half from the pleasure. She pumped me languorously, in no hurry at all to get me off. She ran the fingers of her other hand through my hair, along my jawline, all while planting insistent, hungry little kisses on my mouth. I had just enough presence of mind to touch her back, cupping one full breast with my left hand and squeezing her ass with my right.

She responded immediately, adhering herself to me and letting out breathy little sighs as I massaged her. When my thumb brushed her nipple, her whole body shuddered; distantly, I realized that the extreme softness of her skin must make her incredibly sensitive. As if overwhelmed by the sensation, she started stroking me more quickly, bringing me dangerously close to the edge. At the same time, she deepened our kiss, opening her mouth to let her tongue caress mine.

I became aware of a delicious taste trickling into my mouth. The tiny part of my rationality that hadn't crumbled under the sensory onslaught realized that the plant woman produced nectar instead of saliva, and more of it was pouring into me each time her tongue brushed mine. I had a nagging sense that this was a troubling development, but I couldn't quite piece together why. Most of me just wanted the influx of sweetness to continue, along with her gentle, insistent handling of my shaft.

Ellesime broke the kiss, drawing a noise of protest from me. She smiled at the look of abject, needy bliss on my face. "This is so, so nice," she murmured, trembling a little as I squeezed her nipple. "You're going to come soon, aren't you?"

I nodded mindlessly. Her hand was so soft and skillful, and her nectar served as the perfect lubricant. It was like getting a handjob from an angel. Hell, maybe she was an angel. I still had no idea what an "eidolon" was, exactly. I just knew it would only take a few more of those delicate strokes before I was throbbing in her hand, spilling my seed into her nectar pool...

"Good," she said, "That makes me so, so happy. And do you want to know something really nice about my nectar?"

"Y-yeah," I choked out. I was barely cognizant of what we were talking about, but I was feeling very agreeable at the moment.

"Well... I've heard that most human men have to take a break after they come. Right? But my nectar is... sort of an aphrodisiac. The more you drink, the hornier you'll get, and you'll stay hard even after I make you come. And I'll be ready for you to just slip... right... inside me," she said, brushing the head of my cock against the soft folds of her entrance without losing a single stroke from her rhythm. I gasped; I almost came right then from the unexpected, yielding pressure against my tip.

"And then you can fuck me, Percival. You'll bury yourself inside me, and fill me with your seed, and I'll keep kissing you and giving you more nectar so you don't have to stop. You can pour yourself into me over, and over, and over again. I'll close up my petals around us, so we'll be in our own private little world, just kissing and touching and fucking each other, making each other come again and again until we can't think about anything else. We can do that all night. Wouldn't that be nice? Say yes."

"Yes," I gasped.

"Good boy. Now I'm going to make you come." She kissed me again, drooling more of the lust-inducing nectar into my mouth. I thought of yellow flowers climbing a wooden fence, their sticky cores so sweet you couldn't taste the poison.

Her hand glided up and down my shaft. She guided me to her pussy again, her lower lips planting a sweet, obscene little kiss on my tip. I was seconds away from coming. And then she'd pull me into her, and I'd thrust in and out of her lily-soft entrance, and her flower would close over us, and we'd stay like that all night--

And I'd never reach Lucy.

The thought was a bucket of cold water over my inflamed thoughts and pleasure receptors. With horror, I realized that this was a test, and I was failing.

I didn't quite know how I'd reached that conclusion; honestly, I didn't quite know how I'd accepted any of this was real. But I was certain I was right. Ellesime was telling the exact, literal truth: if I let her make me come, we'd have sex all night. And then what? Morning would arrive, and I would have failed to do the one thing Lucy asked of me.

And this didn't seem like the kind of test you could retake.

Time seemed to slow down as I rummaged through my options. Somehow, pushing myself away from Ellesime and dragging myself out of her pool felt impossible; I was too much under her spell. I could say credenza, but that would be just another flavor of giving up. I could only think of one plan that might work. It was really, really stupid, but it was the best I could come up with in the half-second or so before I spent myself into the alraune's nectar pool.

I took a deep, deep breath (getting an unfortunate lungful of pollen- and nectar-hazed air) and plunged straight downward, landing on my knees, completely submerged in Ellesime's nectar.

The alraune's body went rigid with surprise. I knew she wouldn't be off-balance for long, and I guessed I had about ninety seconds before I ran out of air, so I wasted no time. I wrapped my arms around her deliciously soft thighs and buried my face in her pussy.

I couldn't hear her high, decadent moan, but I felt it as it vibrated through her body. Her fingers reflexively twined in my hair and pulled me tight against her. I couldn't do anything about the sweetness infiltrating my mouth, half from the nectar bath and half from her luscious slit. I just had to hope I wouldn't get so crazed with lust that I'd forget the need to breathe and drown. Sal had said I wouldn't come to physical harm in the labyrinth, but he probably hadn't anticipated my sudden act of anaerobic cunnilingus.

I licked, kissed, and sucked the alraune urgently. Helpfully, she seemed to be guiding me exactly where I needed to go. Her fingers gently tugged at my hair, until my lips sealed almost of their own accord over her most sensitive place. Her clit was hard, begging for attention; I sucked with abandon and bathed it with my tongue, mercilessly stimulating her. Her knees went weak, and she would have sunk to the bottom of her pool if I hadn't been supporting her thighs. By now I could hear her moans--they were so loud and penetrating that they reached me below the nectar's surface, albeit blurrily.

I traced tight circles with my tongue, flicking the underside of her stiff clit with every circuit. Her hips bucked against my face, wordlessly begging me to keep going. I did so.

The burning sensation in my lungs was becoming difficult to ignore. I could risk coming up for air, but I had a feeling if I did, she might immediately start jerking me off again, and I didn't think I'd be able to bring myself to pull away this time. I was painfully turned on from eating her out. She tasted and felt astonishingly good, and the way she responded to my touch was doing strange, primal things to my brain.

Spots swam before my eyes. I felt like my chest was about to burst. I didn't like to think what might happen if I accidentally took in a lungful of nectar; it might be too viscous to cough up. I pushed the thought out of my mind, and I squeezed her ass with both hands as I lashed her clit with my tongue. I gave a final, desperate suck and pressed my tongue against her bud, bathing her with warmth and pressure.

My vision went red around the edges, then black. I couldn't endure it any longer. I erupted to the surface, taking frantic, grateful breaths. Now, surely, was when she would strike, when I was too disoriented to mount a response--

But the alraune was collapsing into my arms, keeping up a high litany of "oh goddess oh goddess oh goddess," shaking as her legs failed to hold her up. Her golden eyes were unfocused, and her mouth was slack with pleasure. I'd done it.

Done what, exactly? Why did this feel like a contest?

Now wasn't the time to think about that. I held Ellesime tenderly, stroking her back and kissing her forehead as she rode the aftershocks of her orgasm. She cuddled close to me. Something had shifted between us; she was no less beautiful, and part of me wanted nothing more than to pick up where we'd left off, pin her against the side of her flower's basin and slide my cock into her, let her pour her nectar into my mouth so we could fuck until morning. But some spell over me had broken. I could take note of my horny impulse, and decide that there were other things I wanted to do with my evening.

She lifted her eyes to mine once she'd regained some of her coherence. There was something like admiration in her gaze. "That was... that was amazing. Do all humans do that? With your... you know, with your mouth?"

"You mean, uh... eating out? A lot of us do, I guess. Not all of us, but it's pretty common, I think."

"Wow," she said. "Just when I think I have you all figured out. You are truly an inventive species. Um. I'm... sorry for trying to, uh, seduce you. And waylay you. It's nothing personal, I promise. Just kind of my job."

"Nothing personal?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "So I'm just a professional obligation to you?"

"Oh no, oh gosh, I didn't mean that, I mean, you're really, um, I liked..." she stammered to a halt, then narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you teasing me?"

"Maybe a little," I said, smiling. "Call it even?"

"Hmph," she said, but she couldn't suppress a grin as she wiggled against me. She sighed. "The truth is, I really would like to stay with you all night. And, um, do stuff with you. In my flower."

After her effortless dirty talk while her hand was wrapped around my cock, her shyness was surprising. And incredibly endearing. I thought I could even see a faint pink blush on her pale green cheeks.

"Yeah, well. Obviously I was really, really, really tempted to do just that," I said, lightly kissing her nose.

She looked up at me sheepishly. "I, um, don't suppose...?"

I gave a rueful laugh. "Better not, I guess. Sorry. Like, you have no idea how sorry."

She smiled and rested her head in the hollow of my neck. "That's okay. This was really fun, anyway. I should probably let you go now. You still have more maze ahead of you."

"Yeah. I guess I ought to head out," I said with a sigh. Suddenly the sheer bizarreness of my situation crashed over me. Just what on earth was happening tonight? And why was I taking it all more or less in stride? I ought to have run screaming into the corn the moment I saw a plant woman bathing in the middle of a clearing.

"Hey, uh... Ellesime, can you... tell me anything about, well, any of this? Is... is Lucrezia an eidolon, too?"

She looked at me seriously, as if debating something. "Yes," she finally said. "Yes, I think it's fine for me to tell you that. The mistress is an eidolon. But she's adept at appearing human."

"Okay. So... is she like you? An alraune?"

Ellesime let out a high, tinkling laugh. "Oh, goddess, no. And no, don't ask me what she is. I wouldn't be able to tell you. Rules, you know."

"I guess that's fair," I said. Fair!? demanded some part of my brain that was still trying to fit this all into a logical framework. I ignored it. "Then... can you tell me why this is all happening? It seemed like things were going really well between us, and then she was running away from me--"

"Yes, that's not a surprise. I can't tell you much, except that this is happening because things were going well between you. Look, you'll have to ask her about it yourself. I know this isn't the way humans do it. But Ms. Lucrezia... she has good reasons for what she's doing, even if it seems strange to you. We're all very fond of her, you know. And after spending a little time with you..." She gave me a bashful smile. "Well, I think you two might be really good together. Don't give up, okay?"

I grunted. I'd been hoping for a little more concrete information. Something that could help me make sense of this whole insane situation. But it was oddly heartening, knowing I had Ellesime's vote of confidence.

"Okay. One more question. Anything you can tell me about what else I might be up against tonight?"

"Hmm," she said. She gave me a long, considering look. Then she kissed me. She still tasted amazing, but I noted that she was very careful to keep her mouth closed. With a small noise of regret, she pulled away. "Okay. I'm really not supposed to give you any hints, but... the Trinity are proud, and they don't get along very well. You might be able to use that if you run into them."

"The Trinity?" I asked.

"I can't say anything else. Sorry," she said, shaking her head.

"No, that's okay. Thank you, Ellesime. Really. You've been so wonderful."

"Aw, stop. You're gonna make me regret not trying to enthrall you again," she said, licking her lips suggestively and brushing her fingertips against my still mostly hard cock. I jumped, and she giggled. "But no, I'm invested now. Go get your girl."

The alraune made a stirrup with her fingers and gave me a leg up out of the reservoir. I looked around for my clothes. Then I looked around some more.

Baffled, I cast my gaze all around the clearing. The dirt was entirely innocent of clothing. But I thought I could see a rectangular impression where my neatly folded outfit had rested, next to some vaguely sneaker-shaped imprints.

"Um. Ellesime? Any idea where my clothes might have gone?"

"What?" she said with surprise. "Oh... heck. Yeah, that's something the Trinity would do. Goddess, I'm sorry, Percival. It must have happened when we were, um. Distracted."

"Damn. Uh. Okay." Suddenly I felt much less confident about the rest of the maze knowing I'd have to do it in the nude. Not to mention covered in nectar.

"And I've made you all sticky, too. Oh, no." The plant woman sounded genuinely distressed. "Um, hang on. I can't help with the clothes, but..." She closed her eyes tightly, concentrating on something.

Not far from where I was standing, a green shoot suddenly nudged its way out of the dirt. It quickly grew to the height of two feet or so and unfurled about a half-dozen broad, soft-looking leaves.

"Wow," I said. "Uh. What's this?"

Ellesime opened her eyes. When she spoke, it was with a hint of justifiable smugness in her voice. "It's towelleaf. Here, pluck one."

Hesitantly, worried I might be hurting her--was this new-sprouted plant part of her body in some obscure way?--I pulled off one of the fanlike leaves. It was thick and surprisingly plush.

"You should be able to get most of the nectar off with that. You'll, um, still be naked. But at least you won't attract as many flies?"

The alraune was right. The leaves did an admirable job of removing the sticky juice I was drenched in. After using up the third, I figured I was about as clean as I was going to get. I thanked her again, and, following my rule, I departed via the passageway that opened to the left of the way I'd come in. Ellesime blew me a kiss as I left. Maybe I was still under the influence of the nectar and pollen, but I thought I felt it land warmly at the corner of my mouth.

My head gradually grew clearer as I left the honeyed glade. I took stock: I was completely naked, which wasn't great. I felt terribly exposed, especially since I was still thoroughly aroused from my encounter with the plant woman. My erection had mostly gone down, but I felt it threatening to come back whenever I allowed my mind to drift back to the golden pool and what might have happened if I'd stayed. Even now, the petals might be closing around us, shutting us in fragrant darkness as I plunged into Ellesime's soft, welcoming entrance over and over again--

I shook my head. Maybe my lust-filled haze hadn't cleared quite as much as I'd thought. But on the plus side: I was relatively clean, and my ankle actually felt completely recovered. The alraune had been telling the truth about the restorative properties of her nectar. I suspected she had told the truth about everything, actually, at least to the extent she was allowed.

Which meant that Lucy wasn't human. I didn't know what she was, but it had to be something at least a little scary if she was capable of bossing around creatures like Ellesime. And for some reason she had decided to use her supernatural clout to throw a bunch of obstacles in the way of me properly dating her.

My footsteps slowed as I considered these facts anew. Before tonight, I would have sworn I'd never stand for ridiculous games like this--if two people liked each other, that should be enough. Was it really worth the effort of jumping through all these hoops and possibly humiliating myself just to have a chance at dating someone who--lest we forget--didn't even belong to the same species as me?

But Ellesime said Lucy had her reasons. I wanted to find out what they were. And I couldn't ignore the fact that whenever I thought about her, I felt a soul-deep thrum of excitement, a full-body "yes" that was an utterly new sensation for me.

So, fine. I'd play along for now. If I changed my mind, I could always credenza myself out.

I looked around the maze. The corn had gone strange here. Darker in hue, it gnarled and twisted together instead of growing in straight, parallel stalks. I peered into one of the vegetal walls. Were those... thorns?

I was pretty sure that wasn't normal at all. Then again, very little about this night was.

As I was reflecting on the sinister turn the corn had taken, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise up.

I'd always heard it was a myth that people could feel when they were being watched--I think a group of scientists even debunked it experimentally. Over and over again, they demonstrated that their experimental subjects' convictions had no more predictive power than random chance. But what I felt in that moment wasn't a vague suspicion that I could reason away. The pressure of this gaze was like a pair of heated coins pressed into my naked shoulder blades.

Forcing myself to stay calm, I turned around. All the way down the corridor I'd just traversed, nearly hidden in the gloom, twin ruby-red embers burned at waist height. A massive, wolf-like shadow hulked behind them.

As the demonic eyes locked onto mine, a towering wave of fear crashed through me. Without a further thought (besides, perhaps, a fervent litany of nonononononono), I spun, stumbled, ran.

I forgot all about my left-hand rule. Sprinting heedlessly, I took any turn available to me, anything to put more barriers between me and those burning eyes, conscious of nothing but the sick terror that sloshed through my limbs. Every step I took, I had the mental image of those eyes growing closer behind me, eating the distance between us until the shadowy form pounced, bore me down, took my head in its massive jaws, and--

I whirled around, steeling myself to put up a last, desperate defense. The path behind me was still and quiet. I could see no burning eyes or outsize lupine silhouette; could hear no panting, no thudding pursuit. There was only the wind whispering through the twisted, blackened corn.

My sigh of relief was cut short by a girlish, malicious giggle.

I looked around again, feeling increasingly like a paranoiac. There was no one, nothing to be seen except the twisted stalks and powdery dirt of the corn maze.

The giggle came again--or maybe it was a different one this time. The first sounded like it had come from somewhere to my left, and this one filtered through the stalks on my right.

"Hey, mister human," came a sultry, mocking voice from my left. "Why are you walking around our maze all naked like that?"

"Yeah," the right-hand voice chimed in, a little harsher and breathy with excitement. "What happened to your clothes, mister human?"

"Come on, girls, don't be mean," said a new voice, quieter and less teasing. "You know we took his clothes. We don't have to taunt him."

"Oh my god, Selene, what is your problem?" snapped the voice on my right. "Why do you always have to ruin our hunts like this? Can we not present a united front for five fucking minutes--"

"Shut up, both of you!" growled the voice from my left. "What would the mistress say if she could hear you right now? Let me handle this, all right?"

The two other voices grumbled but subsided.

"That's better. Now, mister human," the first voice purred, smooth and tempting once again. "Even though you're completely exposed and showing off your... assets to the whole maze, you're actually doing very well. Did you know you're almost at the center? You just have to keep going forward. We'll meet you just up ahead and... help you out with the last part. Don't be embarrassed, even though all three of us can see everything right now."

I flushed, and was immediately furious with myself for it. Whoever this was, her attempts to needle me were incredibly clumsy and unsubtle. And infuriatingly, they were working. It was all too easy to imagine their eyes roaming all over me, taking in every inch of my skin, lingering especially between my legs, where...

I looked down in disbelief, blushing all the harder at what was happening to me.

"Oooh, you're getting hard, mister human! Do you actually like exposing yourself to strangers? That's totally okay, you know. We're not judging you at all. And now that we can see how big you really are--mm, you should definitely come join us up ahead, so we can admire you up close."

I took a deep breath, doing my best to banish my humiliation to a dark corner of my mind. So I was naked in front of an audience. Who cared? They probably weren't even human. Anyway, the voice's attempt at herding me forward was blindingly obvious, and I wasn't about to fall for it.

"Right. Thanks for the suggestion," I said with forced nonchalance, making a U-turn. I tried to ignore the titters at the way the movement made my erection bob and twitch. "If it's all the same to you, though, I'll find my own way."

"Ohh, I wouldn't do that, mister human," said the second voice huskily. "You may have shaken the Guardian for now, but she's still sniffing around back there. You head back that way, and she's sure to pick up your scent. And she's not nice like we are. Just trust us, mister human. Let us help you," she said. I thought I heard another giggle from the first voice, and--a faint sigh?--from the third.

I cursed under my breath and froze, considering my options. Obviously these voices--the first two, anyway--didn't have my best interests at heart. The trouble was, they were right. I'd just barely lost the shadow wolf, and remembering the way I'd felt when those flaming eyes had bored into mine, I decided just about anything would be better than letting it pick up my trail. Including walking into an obvious trap.

I sighed. "Fine," I said. "Thanks for the words of wisdom. I guess I'll see you up ahead." I reversed direction again and continued down the passage.

Cheers and wolf whistles erupted from the walls around me.

"That's the spirit. See you soon, mister big-dick human."

"Oh, we're gonna have so much fun together. We'll show you exactly where you need to go, don't worry."

"Um... I'm really excited to meet you."

"God, Selene, could you at least pretend to put in a little effort? Fucking embarrassing."

Trying to reassure myself that I'd chosen the least-bad option available to me, I walked to the end of the passage, which doglegged left, then right. The teasing (and sometimes bickering) voices matched my pace. I kept hoping a side passage would open up that would let me avoid whatever destination they were funneling me toward, but there seemed to be only one way forward.

The passage finally disclosed onto a wider space. This time, I found myself in a square clearing whose only distinguishing features were a secondhand couch, a card table with three mismatched chairs pulled up to it, and a triple bunk bed up against the far wall of stalks. An abandoned game of Settlers of Catan lay scattered across the table.

Also notable was that there appeared to be no way out of here. I'd been tricked into a dead end. Of course.

I was still processing this irritating and somewhat anticlimactic development when the corn behind me began to rustle. I spun around just in time to see my presumed tormentors walk--no, fly--out from behind stalks that seemed to bend out of the way of their own accord.

The first to fully emerge could have been mistaken for a human (albeit an unusually small one) except for two things. First, her skin was a bright, candy-apple red. The unusual shade was made all the more attention-grabbing by just how much of her was on display; she wore a tiny, gold lamé string bikini and nothing else.

The second anomaly was the tiny pair of bat-like wings that sprouted from the small of her back. Though barely a foot long each, they somehow managed to keep her hovering a foot or so off the ground.

Once I'd taken in (if not fully reckoned with) these two bizarre features, my brain was freed up to notice a few more things: the auburn hair, just a few shades paler than her skin, that ran in a long braid nearly to her waist; the cruel and somehow hungry smile on her face; and the fact that, although she was barely five feet tall, whatever forces had created her had seen fit to bestow her with some truly impressive curves. The word "stacked" would have come to my mind if it hadn't been crowded out by the much more assertive "AHHH! DEMON!"

But I didn't have time to wallow in either my panic or my nascent arousal. The red-skinned apparition was soon followed by two equally arresting companions.

The second to emerge had pale lavender skin, and a short black bob that would have looked adorable if it weren't for her general air of gleeful malevolence. She was roughly the same height and build as the first demoness, and she had the same tiny bat-like wings keeping her aloft. But she was dressed, if that was the right word for it, even more outrageously: a sheer black thong barely covered the space between her thighs, and her gravity-defying breasts were bare except for two X's of electrical tape covering her nipples. She floated in front of the opening I'd come through, smirking as she blocked my only possible escape route.

The third demon was around the same height as the first two, but a little more slender. And while the white lace teddy she wore revealed what in any other circumstance would have been a shocking amount of lapis-blue skin, next to her two counterparts she looked downright demure. Soft blond hair tumbled around her face, which wore a sweet, half-apologetic smile.

I surveyed the three demonic women floating in front of me and felt a dull, leaden certainty that I was in very serious trouble.

"Welcome to our little break room, Percival," purred the ruby-skinned demon as she slowly floated toward me. "It's not much, but I'm sure we can find some way to make your stay very comfortable."

"Uh, thanks a lot," I said, trying to edge into a position that would give me a clear shot at the exit. "But I kind of promised my date I'd come get her. So if you don't mind, I'll just be--"

"Oh, but you can't go yet." Somehow the red demon woman had closed the distance between us, and placed a delicate forefinger against my sternum. I was suddenly extremely conscious of my nudity--and of her near-nudity. My eyes flicked down to her bikini-clad form, and I felt a mixture of desire and trepidation. "We haven't even introduced ourselves. My name's Aura."

"I'm Nyx," said the lavender-skinned woman, baring her teeth. "And I'm planning on getting to know you very well." As if I could have any doubt as to her meaning, she seductively hefted her tape-clad breasts.

"And, um, my name is Selene." The blue-skinned demoness was approaching now too, if a little shyly. And while she lacked the predatory aura of her two companions, she was staring at my erect member with undisguised lust. With a sinking feeling, I realized she was likely just as dangerous as the other two.

"Very, uh, very nice to meet you ladies." Keep them talking. Keep them talking and maybe you'll think of a plan before they mob you. "What--what is it you do here?"

"Oh, come now, that's not the question you want to ask," said scarlet Aura, now close enough to drape her arms casually around my shoulders. The fabric of her bikini brushed my chest, and I was all too aware of the soft warmth of what lay behind it. "You're too polite to ask: what are you? Well, lucky for you, I like polite boys. We're lust sprites."

"Lust sprites?" I asked numbly.

"That's right," said Nyx throatily, running one of her light violet hands up my inner thigh. I jumped in surprise--I'd completely missed her approach, mesmerized as I was by Aura. This was really not good. "We're sort of... incarnations of desire. Low-ranking, of course, in the eidolon hierarchy. But... we're good at what we do." With her other hand she gave my ass a light squeeze.

"Sorry we can't let you just go on your way," said Selene, from--beneath me, I realized with alarm. The blond-haired, azure-skinned lust sprite had somehow gotten behind me and knelt between my feet. Either they could move unnaturally quickly, or they were just that adept at distracting me while their allies got into position. "It's... kind of against our nature. Don't worry, I promise we'll make you feel really, really good. But if you want to stop, you just need to say the exit word."

"Oh, Selene, don't be stupid," said Aura, wrapping her arms more tightly around my neck, causing her chest to flatten warmly against mine. "He's not going to want to stop."

And then she kissed me. The world went blank.

Well, in fairness, they all kissed me. And ran their hands over me. And in fairly short order, divested themselves of their skimpy clothing so they could rub their bodies against mine without hindrance. Soon I was so awash in sensation that it was only with the benefit of hindsight that I could piece together what, exactly, they were doing to me.

Aura was easiest to figure out, since she was right in front of me. The crimson imp was dominating me with her mouth, skillfully sucking and nipping at my lips as her tongue darted in and out of my mouth. She rubbed her now-bare breasts against me, her nipples dragging with hypnotic slowness over the skin of my chest.

Her attentions alone probably would have been enough to shatter any thoughts of resistance I might have had. But the two other sprites were busy below my waist with their own obscene temptations.

Nyx was kissing a trail across my hip bone, moving with exaggerated slowness toward my painfully hard member. As if by accident, the movements of her body occasionally brought one of her soft tits into warm contact with my shaft, making me twitch. Mindlessly, I found myself angling my hips toward her, hoping for more of those seductive brushes.

And blue-skinned Selene still knelt submissively between my feet, planting soft, sensual kisses alternately on my inner thighs. My balls, which still felt achingly full from my encounter with Ellesime, registered the soft, ticklish touch of her blond hair as she worked her way higher. I felt her hand slide tentatively between my buttocks, making me moan involuntarily into Aura's mouth.

"Ohhh, you're really enjoying this, huh, Percival?" she murmured against my lips. "I think you like being helpless. I should have known the way you wandered into our lair, all naked and horny and defenseless. You were just looking for three slutty little lust sprites to bully and tease you, weren't you?"

The moment I opened my mouth to respond, she kissed me deeply, sucking sensually on my tongue. Selene kissed me as well, shyly and somehow sweetly, right at the root of my body where my thighs met. I felt Nyx slowly, possessively wrap her warm tits around my cock. My half-formed retort dissolved in a wave of shameful bliss.

"It's so hard making all of your own decisions all the time, isn't it?" Aura cooed, her fluttering little wings lifting her higher as she kissed her way up to my cheek, then my forehead. My brain seemed to melt a little as she spent a few seconds planting slow, warm, wet kisses on my brow. Selene was now sucking on my perineum, her bottom lip just brushing my balls; Nyx had pressed her breasts together, squishing my shaft between them as she kissed the sensitive skin below my navel.

"You don't have to think anymore," the sprite continued, her voice low and coaxing. She flew a little higher, letting her full, crimson breasts hang directly in front of my face. Her delicate fingers ran soothingly through my hair, and she brought one of her dark maroon nipples almost subliminally closer to my mouth. Helpless to resist, I wrapped my lips around it and started eagerly sucking, and stroking the hardening peak with my tongue.

"Ah! Ohh, yes, that's very, very good," Aura rewarded me by pressing her chest more insistently against my face. "No more worrying. Just relax. Enjoy."

As if the last word were a signal, Nyx and Selene stopped teasing me and started pleasuring me in earnest. The lavender sprite began stroking me rhythmically with her tits, and her hot, wet mouth engulfed my tip, applying a steady suction. Selene, meanwhile, started licking and sucking greedily at my balls. She took one inside her mouth, caressed it with her tongue, then released it to favor the other with the same treatment. Then, to make matters worse (or better), I felt one of her delicate fingers, slick with either her saliva or her own arousal, insinuate itself between my ass cheeks and trace tiny circles around my opening. The lower half of my body grew warm with unfamiliar pleasure.

Flailing for any way to turn the tables (though why was I against any of this again? It was getting harder and harder to remember), I groped blindly until I found the wetness between Aura's legs with my right hand. It felt like there had been an oil spill there; her hot juices had spilled halfway down her thighs. As I began gently rubbing her pussy, trying to return a fraction of the pleasure I was enduring, the scent of her wafted to me, dizzyingly musky and arousing.

"Mmm, yesss, right there, that's so good. Ohh, Percival, yes, I think we'll keep you. Do you want to be our little pleasure thrall? I'm sure your mind is racing with all the ways we could make you come, make you drown in pleasure. And trust me, your imagination is nothing compared to reality. We know everything there is to know about lust, and all the most depraved ways to satisfy it. I'm sure we could convince the mistress to let you stay. You'll enjoy being our pet."

I ruthlessly suppressed the surge of vertiginous delight I felt at the prospect. She was still far too in control. I needed to up the ante somehow. I did the only thing I could think of: I released her sweet nipple, grasped her thighs, and lifted her higher, pulling her soaked slit to my mouth.

"Goddess, yessssssss," she moaned wantonly. "That's a good little thrall. Oh, fuck. Eat my pussy, Percival. You'll be addicted to it soon enough."

That was... worrying. But I told myself this was the only way forward. She couldn't be faking the gasps and shudders that ran through her as my tongue caressed her lower lips, and flicked at her clit, stiff and slick with her arousal. I tried, with very marginal success, to focus all my attention on the movements of my mouth. It was vital that I ignore the rhythmic milking motion of Nyx's breasts around my cock; the feeling of her tongue as it lovingly bathed my head, flicking in and out of the tiny slit there; Selene's steady, hungry sucking at my balls; the gentle but insistent pressure of her finger as she caressed and prodded my asshole.

Yeah, this really wasn't going well.

"Mmm, ohhh, yess, Percival, you like my pussy, don't you? Your tongue feels magnificent," she crooned. The pleasure in her voice was evident, but she was still distressingly in control. She twined her fingers affectionately through my hair as she smoothly ground her crotch against my face. Her moisture had already coated the bottom half of my face; I could feel warm droplets pattering on my chest.

"I'm, mmm, curious, though. What exactly is your plan, here? Even if you manage to make me come in the next minute or so--and no offense, but that's not super likely--you'll still have Nyx titfucking and blowing you, and Selene gargling your balls, unless she's already moved onto eating your ass, like I know she really wants to."

"Hey," came a softly indignant voice from below me, but soon the azure sprite resumed her tender, salacious ministrations.

"My point is," continued Aura with a little giggle, "you can't possibly think you can turn the tables just by eating me out, right? I mean... you know that our pussy juice is even stronger than the plant lady's nectar, right? We're lust sprites. And you've been guzzling me like you're dying of thirst. I mean, were you not turned on enough already?"

I paused, panic-stricken. I'd been distracted by attempts to gain the upper hand, and by the admittedly very compelling sensations below waist-level. But now that Aura mentioned it... a throbbing, insistent heat was building in my chest, and I realized just how much I was craving the sharp, musky sweetness pouring from between the sprite's legs. I realized belatedly that for the past minute or so, I'd barely been focusing on her clit at all. I'd just been single-mindedly licking and sucking, desperate for more.

And what's the problem with that, again? I wondered. I was happy. The lust sprites were clearly happy. Soon I'd be blissfully emptying myself into Nyx's mouth, and Aura would be wrapping her legs around my head as she came like a faucet all over me, and Selene would be burying her sweet face in my ass. Then maybe Aura would float down and impale her dripping cunt on my still-hard cock while Nyx straddled my face and gave me a taste of what was between her legs...

And Aura promised they could keep me. The more I thought about it, the more appealing it sounded. I could devote myself to pleasing these three insatiable incarnations of lust, and in return they would immerse me in unending bliss. Everything would be washed away; my average life, my average college experience, my far-below-average social life...

... the girl I'd started to fall for earlier tonight...

Lucrezia. Lucy was still waiting for me, somewhere in this maze. I imagined the faint disappointment--heartbreak, even?-- on her face when she realized I wouldn't be coming for her after all, that I now belonged to someone else.

Why did I still care about her so much, if she'd put me in such a perilous, impossible position? I didn't have a good answer for that. I just knew I needed to see her. I needed to hear her reasons for all of this. That, somehow, was more important than a potential lifetime of infernal pleasure. I had to break free.

But there was nothing I could do. I'd been beaten, and thoroughly.

As defiance battled with despair, Ellesime's voice rose unbidden in my mind. The Trinity are proud, and they don't get along very well.

A really dumb plan coalesced in my mind. Well, more like a fifth of a plan. No lightbulb went off over my head; it was more like a sick firefly had flown drunkenly past my ear.

Perhaps I'm belaboring the point here, reader, but I want you to understand that even as addled by pleasure and addictive supernatural body fluids as I was, I knew how stupid this idea was. I don't want you to get the impression that I thought, even at the time, that I was being clever. If you haven't lost all respect for me already, this would probably be the final straw.

But the thing is: when you're thoroughly, abjectly, comprehensively screwed, even the shittiest strategy can't make things appreciably worse. So I judged, as I was nose-deep in Aura's pussy, and as Nyx and Selene played the lower half of my body like some kind of lewd musical instrument, that my terrible idea was worth a shot.

With colossal effort, I paused my worship of Aura's gushing slit. I didn't need to feign my adoring expression as I gazed up at her face.

"God, you're beautiful," I half-whispered.

She really was. I could have stared at her for hours.

"Aww. That's... actually really sweet. You've given up, haven't you? That's good, little thrall. It'll be so much nicer if you just let us kiss you, and touch you, and drain you dry over and over again." She stroked my cheek affectionately. "You're never going to get tired of fucking our tight little pussies and mouths. And maybe our assholes, too, if you're good."

"No," I persisted, stubbornly banishing the very compelling mental image she'd conjured. "I mean really beautiful. It must be kind of hard, you know? Being the pretty one."

"What?" Aura said.

"WHAT?" shouted Nyx indignantly, spitting out my cock and releasing it from between her soft, imprisoning breasts. The chilly night air felt like a violent slap against my shaft. I welcomed the clarity it brought.

"Oh no," murmured Selene.

My mind raced. I couldn't believe this was working. But if I didn't play this next part just right, they'd go right back to their debilitating pleasure offensive.

Which I did not want, I had to remind myself vehemently.

"Oh, I don't mean any offense, you two," I said, heart pounding as I considered all the ways this could go badly. "You're both quite attractive--"

"Quite attractive?" hissed Nyx, digging her nails into my thigh. I ignored her, turning back to Aura.

"I just mean that when you're especially beautiful, it can make things surprisingly difficult. You get underestimated a lot, right?" I did a tiny mental victory dance as I saw Aura start to nod thoughtfully. "I thought so. I bet you have to work extra hard so that people notice your actual accomplishments rather than just filing you away in the 'pretty face' folder. Nyx, on the other hand--"

"Oh COME ON," growled Nyx. "Aurie, stop listening to this idiot's bullshit and let's finish him off."

"Shut up, Nyx," said Aura, in a voice so acidic it could have etched metal. "He's actually being very perceptive right now. You know management doesn't really take me seriously. Because I'm so hot."

"Because YOU'RE so--you don't actually think you're hotter than I am, do you, Aura? Because if you're that stupid--"

"Stupid? Listen, just because you're the ugly one--"

"We'll see who's ugly when I'm done with you!" screeched Nyx, launching herself upward to tackle the crimson lust sprite from below. Aura was knocked up and backwards, and then the two of them described a parabolic arc as they crashed into the dirt floor of the break room. I watched, dumbstruck, as they rolled together, clawing, biting, and hissing at each other. I tensed myself to run while they were distracted.

"Oh, you don't need to," Selene said from her position between my feet. "Look."

Somehow the Aura and Nyx had wrestled themselves into a symmetrical pin; red thighs locked around lavender head, and vice versa. Soon their growls and curses were interspersed with soft moans--the lust sprites were eating each other out.

"Why--?"

"It's just the way they fight," said Selene with a shrug. She'd made no move to come out from between my legs. "The way we fight, really. Sooner or later, pretty much everything comes back to sex for us." She grinned sheepishly up at me, but then her eyes were drawn involuntarily to my still-hard cock. She swallowed, unable to hide the naked desire on her face.

I realized with alarm that as turned on as I was, even the meekest of the sprites might be more than a match for me. I tried to clear all traces of apprehension from my expression as I looked down at her.

"Do you submit?" I asked sternly. Wait. Why did I phrase it like that?

"O-oh. Yes, I... I submit, Percival. I'm, um, not really used to hunting alone..."

"Good," I said. "I'll be going, then. Don't try anything." With as much dignity as I could muster in my naked, embarrassingly aroused state, I stepped away from Selene and toward the exit.

Or where the exit had been, anyway. I glanced frantically around the square clearing. All I saw were four unbroken walls of thorn-haunted cornstalks.

"Oh, um. About that... you, um, actually can't leave until one of us comes. S-sorry. That's just how this room works."

"Ah. Right," I said, trying to hide my dismay. My eyes landed on Aura and Nyx, who were now moaning loudly as they devoured each other's pussies. "I guess at the rate they're going--"

"W-well, you see, that's the thing," said Selene. I looked back at her--her legs were still folded primly under her, and she wrung her hands nervously in her lap. "They're really good at edging each other when they're fighting like this. They might be at it for hours."

I groaned. Even in defeat, the lust sprites were still finding ways to make my life infuriatingly difficult.

"But, um... I kind of have an idea?" the sprite continued. "I know I already submitted to you, but maybe you could... kind of... make me submit?" She looked up at me hopefully. A fresh surge of arousal swept away my exasperation.

"You mean--"

"Well, you see, I'm really, really attracted to you, and super turned on, and, um, if you took control and sort of made me surrender to you, I think you could make me come really quickly?" Her words came out all in a rush, as if desperate to escape before her natural shyness reasserted itself. Her pretty blue face was noticeably tinted by a rosy blush. "And then you could go. I think that'd be your quickest way out of here. Honest."

I was already walking back toward her. If this was a trick, I reflected grimly, I'd lost. In the state I was currently in, I just didn't have the strength to resist the earnest desire radiating from her.

"Stand up," I said, my voice remarkably level. She obeyed immediately, looking up at me with wide, hopeful eyes. "Give me your hand." She did so.

I led her away from the cursing, moaning, sixty-nining mess that was Aura and Nyx, toward the battered couch against one of the break room's walls. I sat down and studied Selene for a moment. She squirmed under my gaze, but subtly pushed her chest toward me. She seemed to be desperately suppressing a smile.

"Look at me," I said. She raised her gaze to meet mine. I felt her pulse quicken in the wrist I was holding. "You've been really bad, haven't you?"

"Yes," she said, the word almost exploding from her in her eagerness. "I've been so, so bad. Nyx and Aura, well, they're mean, but they can't really help it, you know? That's just how they are. But I know better. I knew it was wrong to take your clothes, to lure you here, to make fun of you, and then to gang up on you with the two of them. And also, also, I touched your butt without even asking for permission, and if you hadn't distracted them, I would have just kept kissing you between your legs, and I would have made my way higher until--"

"That's enough," I said, gently cutting her off. Her eyes gleamed with shame and anticipation. "You're right, all of that was very, very wrong. You agree that you've been a bad girl, don't you?"

"Yes," she said in a choked whisper. She seemed to be using her left hand to restrain her right from sneaking between her legs. Her thighs already gleamed with telltale moisture. "Such a bad girl."

"But you don't want to be a bad girl, do you? You want to be good."

"Ye-es," she said again, a hint of a whine in her voice.

"You can call me Sir, or Master," I said. Where is this coming from? I wondered, not for the first time that evening. I felt like I was reading from a script someone had dropped in my lap. But it was hard to argue with the results.

"Yes, Master. Please, please, help me be good, Master." Her eyes were wide and liquid, pinned by my gaze.

"I'll see what I can do. Lie across my knees," I commanded.

She all but skipped to obey me, throwing herself facedown across my lap. "I'm ready for my punishment, Master," she breathed, then yelped as my hand struck her firm, plush ass. I found myself startling slightly at the loud crack.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, was that too hard?" I asked, slipping out of character.

"Noo-oo, please, Sir, you can spank me harder than that, please, please punish me Master, I need it so badly--"

Well, okay, then.

Crack. I slapped her other cheek, considerably harder this time.

"YESSSS, oh, goddess, yes, just like that, show me just how bad I've been, please, Master..."

Crack. Crack. Crack. I kept spanking the lust-drunk sprite, causing her to squeal and moan with each impact. She began wriggling her whole body as the pain/pleasure of her punishment overwhelmed her, and my thighs were soon soaked with her juices. Her ass began to take on a rosy glow as I mercilessly swatted her, again and again. Still she thrust hips back to meet my hand, wordlessly begging me for more correction.

Acting on instinct, I slipped my left hand under her body and sought out her dripping pussy. It all but sucked my fingers into her. Her moans took on a new pitch as I alternated right-handed strikes to her ass with left-handed come-hither motions inside her.

"Ohhhh, yessss, pleasepleasepleaseplease, that's perfect, Sir, OH! Yes, fuck, it's so humiliating that you can feel how wet I am from being spanked. My naughty pussy is squeezing your fingers so hard while you punish my ass, it hurts so good I can't even think anymore, I'm yours, Master, I'm just your plaything now, I'll never ever ever disobey you again, even though I'm just a bad, slutty little lust sprite--"

Without giving her a chance to catch her breath, I pulled her into a sitting position on my lap, my cock comfortably nestling in the crease of her rear. "You've taken your punishment like a good girl," I whispered roughly in her ear. "Do you think you've learned your lesson?"

"Yes, yes, Master, you've punished me so well, I'll be good from now on, but please, please--"

"Please what?" I said. My fingers were still deep in her pussy, but I'd let them grow still. She whined and bucked against my hand.

"Please, Sir, please let me c-come, I'm so horny I could die..." She wiggled her hips, sending a dangerous jolt of pleasure through my shaft.

"Then be a good girl and come for me," I said, pressing down on her clit with my thumb and roughly squeezing her breast with my other hand.

"Oh goddess oh fuck!" screamed Selene as she convulsed in pleasure. She turned her head and closed her mouth over mine in a desperate, needy kiss. I hugged her tight against me, feeling the muscles in her abdomen twitch and jerk, tangible evidence of the waves of ecstasy rolling through her body. Her hips moved against mine, and I realized she was giving me an unintentional assjob, squeezing my cock rhythmically as she writhed in my lap. I gently scooted her forward a few inches. I didn't know exactly why, but I had an unshakable sense that letting myself ejaculate in the presence of the three lust sprites--even if one of them was stunned with pleasure and the other two were thoroughly occupied with each other--would be terribly dangerous.

I kissed Selene gently but thoroughly, stroking her hair, her cheeks, her belly, and the swells of her breasts as she came down from her shattering orgasm. Finally, she recovered enough to break the kiss. She leaned limply back against me, a little sweaty from exertion.

"Um. Wow," she said in a small voice. "That was. Wow."

"I'm glad you liked it," I said. I shot a quick glance around the room. Aura and Nyx were still grappling fiercely and amorously, oblivious to anything that had happened in the last ten minutes. And true to Selene's word, not one but two passages had now opened in the obstructing corn--the one I'd come through, and one I was positive hadn't been there in the beginning.

"Oh," she said, following my gaze. "Yeah. You can... you can leave now. I really wish you could stay. But... I understand. You have an appointment to keep."

"Yeah, I do. But..." I lifted the diminutive woman up and turned her halfway around, letting her settle against me face-to-face. "I can stay for a couple of minutes, though. If you don't mind."

Delight suffused her face. "You can? Really!? Oh, please, yes, let's stay like this for just a little longer. Mmm," she said, wiggling a little as she found the position that would bring us closest together. She rested her head on my shoulder. "Yeah. That's good. Gosh, you're so warm." There was a thoughtful pause. "Hey, um, Percival?"

"What is it?" I lightly stroked her back.

"You, um... did you mean the thing you said, about Aura being the pretty one?"

I let out a brief laugh. "What? No, Selene. That was just a trick. It was such an obvious lie that I still can't believe it worked. You're all incredibly gorgeous. But... if I were forced to pick, do you know who I'd choose?"

"Nyx, right? Her skin is such a pretty shade of purple. And her breasts, oh god, if you've ever had your face between them--"

"You, Selene. No matter how good someone looks, cruelty always spoils it, at least a little. You're so sweet and lovely that it makes you ten times as pretty as either of them."

She reared up and goggled at me, disbelief written on her face. "You don't--are you being serious right now?"

I nodded, smiling slightly as I admired her face up close. Then I couldn't see much of anything, because she was kissing me too violently.

"You can't--mnnn--'ve never--oh my god--too sweet--fuck, Percival--mmph--"

Between each crushing kiss she started and abandoned a new sentence, leaving an adorable wreckage of half-formed thoughts between us as she attacked my lips. Finally she gave up trying to say anything coherent and just made little whimpering sounds as she pressed her whole body against me, as if trying to melt into the space I was occupying.

Eventually she subsided, drawing back to look at me wistfully. "I know you can't, but you have no idea how much I want you to bend me over that card table and fuck me right now."

"Believe me," I said in a half-strangled voice. "It's taking everything in me not to yield to that exact temptation."

"Well. I like you too much to make it any harder for you," she said, reluctantly climbing off my lap. "But, um. After all this is over, when you've reunited with the mistress, would you... I mean, if you want to, would you come and visit me again? The mistress will know where to find me, and I know she won't mind..."

I stood up, put my hands on her shoulders, and kissed her on the top of her head. She blushed deeply. "Selene, I'll be honest, I have no idea what's happening tonight, or what will happen after all this is over. I don't know if I'll be able to forgive Lucy... Lucrezia for putting me in such a bonkers situation and not telling me a single goddamn thing about it."

"Oh. Um. Yeah, I guess that makes sense," said the lust sprite, sounding abashed.

"But," I said. "If there's any way at all for me to come see you, I'll make it happen. You're really special, and whatever else has happened tonight, I'm really glad I got to meet you."

"Oh!" said Selene, beaming up at me like I'd just made her entire month. "Okay. Yay. I'll just... keep my fingers crossed then. And, um..."

She trailed off, shooting a nervous glance at the room's two exits. "So, I'm not really supposed to tell you this, but..." She beat her tiny wings, floating upward until her lips were whisper-distance from my ear. "Leave this room by the new exit, not the one you came through. Take your first right, your second left, then right at the T-junction."

"Oh, wow," I said in a low voice. "Thank you Sel--"

"I'm not finished yet," she hissed, a hectic edge to her voice now. "The garden lacks seersk ridges--oh fuck! Oh no, no, run! I'll slow her down, go!"

Her half-panicked murmur rose quickly to a fully panicked shout, nearly blowing out my eardrum. I followed her horrified gaze to the opening I'd come through, which was now crowded with a hulking, quadrupedal shadow. And two burning red eyes.

My legs nearly went to jelly as a familiar wave of fear washed through me, but I tore my gaze away from those awful eyes and staggered to the far opening in the corn. In my peripheral vision, I saw sweet, brave Selene fly in the other direction, waving her arms and trying to hold the beast's attention. Even Aura and Nyx had been shaken out of their lustful trance and were now flying around in panic, adding to the general confusion.

I paused for an agonized moment, looking at Selene blocking the shadow wolf's path with her body. I couldn't just leave her here, could I?

She shot me a frantic glance. "I'll be fine, she won't hurt me, go now!"

I ran. I dug into the dirt with each step, hurling myself forward, hoping, praying that she was telling the truth. They were all on the same side right? And... Sal had promised I wouldn't get hurt in here. Shouldn't that go double for the employees (for lack of a better term)? There must be some supernatural OSHA equivalent that would come down on this place like a ton of bricks in the event of monster-on-monster violence.

Selene had told me I should run, and I trusted her. That's all I had to hold onto.

Still, I doubted the lust sprite could slow the lupine nightmare down much, even if the other two decided to pitch in and help. I had to make it to the end of the maze before it caught up with me.

First right, I thought, taking the corner at a run. Then first left--no, that's wrong, second left. I passed the first opening, then flung myself through the second. I sprinted down a long straightaway, thankful again for the healing action of Ellesime's nectar, but lamenting that I hadn't asked Selene where the sprites had hidden my clothes.

I heard rapid, thudding pursuit. A snarl ripped through the air. I was sure the beast was gaining on me. Don't look back, I thought, remembering those paralyzing eyes.

I sped up, my lungs stinging. The T-junction barreled toward me--right--and I used the dirt to brake just enough to keep me from crashing into the wall of thorns.

The wolf was almost at my heels, but I'd made the last turn. If the exit was close enough--

No exit. Dead end. Game over.

I slowed to a jog, then stopped, because it was either that or run headfirst into a world of corn-inflected pain. Selene had been wrong. Or she'd been playing me the whole time. Or I'd just misremembered her directions. It didn't matter, really. I had very literally reached the end of the road. My pursuer growled steadily behind me, knowing I was cornered.

I forced myself to turn around. Whatever was about to happen to me, I wanted to at least face it head-on.

Primal, visceral fear washed through me as those furnace eyes locked onto mine. But perhaps because I was ready for it, I wasn't frozen to the spot. Merely completely terrified.

Now that the creature was just ten feet away or so, I saw the hulking, wolf-like body wasn't made of shadow, as I'd half-thought; it was just covered in inky black fur that all but vanished in the gloom. An interesting detail, but hardly relevant at this point. I was beginning to suspect I was about to die, Sal's reassurances notwithstanding.

As if reading my thoughts, the wolf coiled like a spring and leapt at me. I didn't even have time to brace myself, or think about putting up some semblance of a fight. I was borne to the ground, the wind knocked out of me, the massive wolf crouched hungrily over--

But that wasn't right. The wolf was gone. Pinning me to the dirt instead was a statuesque woman with skin the color of burnished bronze, piercing amber eyes, an aquiline nose, and wide, lush lips set in a stern line. It was hard to tell with her lying horizontally on top of me, but I thought she must be at least seven feet tall. Her body rippled with muscle.

The only apparent exceptions to her rock-hard physique were a pair of truly impressive breasts, whose warm weight spilling across my chest would, in any other circumstance, have been extremely pleasant. As it was, they only heightened the intimidation I felt, trapped beneath this shapeshifting Amazonian huntress.

Heat rippled off her body, as if she'd just been pulled from some massive forge. She regarded me for a moment, her face a mixture of skepticism and disappointment.

"You are the one the mistress chose to run the Gauntlet?" Her voice was like the tolling of a church bell.

"Uh," I wheezed, still trying to recover my breath. "Yeah. That's me, I guess. So, now that you've verified my identity, you can let me go, right?"

A patch of darkness twitched above me, and I realized that my captor had retained at least a couple of traces of her wolf form: two large, furry, pointed ears protruded from the top of her head. One had just flicked--in irritation at my bluster, I could only assume.

"Funny. But no. I don't believe I'll be letting you go, young human. You've done far better than I expected, but your journey ends here."

"Wait, wait, hang on, before you... uh, do whatever it is you're about to do to me, can't I at least get your name? The other eidolons at least introduced themselves before trying to fuck me into submission. I'm Percival, by the way."

Her ear twitched again. I was annoying her, but that was okay. Stall. Stall for time and think. What was it Selene had tried to tell me? She'd been mumbling, too afraid to say it out loud. "The garden lacks seersk ridges." What the hell is a "seersk"? Is a "seersk" what I'm under right now? If so, why does it matter that the garden lacks her ridges?

"I know who you are, little human," the possibly-seersk growled. "And you don't need to know my name, only my function. I am the Guardian of the Gauntlet, and I am bound by my mistress to cast out the unworthy. Since you have allowed yourself to be tracked and subdued so easily, that means you."

As she spoke, a faint glow emanated from her mouth, as if flames danced somewhere within her. That probably didn't bode well.

"Are you sure that I'm unworthy?" I asked. I was starting to wonder whether stalling was the best idea, actually; the longer I lay under the bronze-skinned woman, the more conscious I was of the large expanses of smooth, kiln-hot skin pressed against me. To my alarm, I felt myself getting hard underneath her. "I made it past the other guardians."

"Ha!" The massive woman laughed in my face. Her warm breath carried the aroma of spices I had no name for, mingling with the heady scent of her sweat to make a combination I found inexplicably arousing. "The alraune, and the lust sprites? They are no guardians. It is frankly embarrassing that they gave you any difficulty at all. No. In me you faced your first true trial, and you failed immediately. But do not take it too hard. Your era is a weak one. I doubt there is any human alive today who can stand against me."

She began moving her body slightly against mine, rubbing me with her sultry, sweat-dewed skin. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly as she felt my length stirring against her.

"All right, fine," I said, struggling not to panic. The garden lacks seersk ridges. "So what are you, anyway? A werewolf or something?" Or maybe a seersk, for all the good it would do me?

The guardian chuckled throatily, a smile of genuine pleasure cracking her stoic facade. "A werewolf? No, little human. Something far worse, I'm afraid. I am a hellhound, anointed by the gods below to harry and subdue the enemies of the Pit. No prey has ever escaped me. You will not be the first."

Despite her initial reticence, she seemed to appreciate the opportunity to monologue about herself. As if in thanks, she lowered her head to mine and planted a slow, sensuous, burning-hot kiss on my lips.

Nerve-searing arousal surged through my body; at the touch of her burgundy lips, my body arced up to press against hers as if briefly electrocuted. My cock hardened to iron in an instant, pressing insistently against her smooth skin. She rubbed herself against me appreciatively. I let out a broken moan. She was too strong, and too alluring. I was powerless against her.

Once again she seemed almost able to read my mind. "You should just submit, little human. I bear you no ill will; I am merely fulfilling my duty. Your defeat is an inevitability, but I can make sure you thoroughly enjoy it."

Before I could respond, she graced me with another soul-melting kiss. Her body undulated against mine, moving with a grace that belied her titan-like physique. Her firm stomach, slick with sweat, slid up and down against my shaft, making me shiver with pleasure.

She broke the kiss, a thin strand of saliva briefly connecting our lips. She stared down at me with a proprietary air, as if I were a newly acquired possession that she was reasonably satisfied with.

"Well, Percival? Do you give in?" She slid her body up mine by a foot or so; I whimpered as my rigid member settled perfectly against her hot, slick lower lips. Her dark-bronze breasts, each roughly the size of my head, dangled inches above my face. Incredible heat poured from her sweat-kissed skin, along with her animalistic, unbelievably arousing scent. My body and my brain were both screaming at me to surrender to her, let her do whatever she wanted with me.

So I was faintly amazed to feel my mouth forming any words other than yes, please.

"Well, I actually have a few points of order to raise, if you don't mind," I babbled. "First, I think we could make the case that I did successfully navigate the Gauntlet. I have it on good authority--though I'm afraid my source must remain nameless--that I reached the end of the maze before being, in possible defiance of the rules of this contest, bodily detaimmpphhh--"

I had no warning. One second I was desperately spinning bullshit, trying to buy myself enough time to unravel Selene's riddle or think of another way out of this impossible situation, and the next, my world went pitch dark. And soft, and warm, and redolent of spice and intoxicating pheromones.

It was difficult, but not impossible, to breathe with my face completely enveloped by the hellhound's breasts. The real problem was that every straining breath forced more of her delicious scent into my lungs, making me dizzy and weak with arousal. I could feel my cock twitching against her steaming entrance, so agonizingly close to slipping inside and plunging me into untold depths of pleasure...

Light and air returned. The Guardian looked down at me with an unamused expression on her face. "I believe there's no further need for talk. You remember the exit word?"

"Uh?" I asked dizzily, struggling to focus on anything but the feeling of almost, almost sliding into her. "Oh. The exit--yeah. Yeah, I remember."

"Good. You'll soon be unable to speak again, but if you tap my hip three times--" She picked up my limp hand and tap, tap, tapped it against her smooth flank, as if doubting my ability to follow purely verbal instructions. "--I'll relent for long enough to let you say credenza. If you say anything besides that, I will be very upset with you. Do you understand?"

"I... yeah, but--"

"Good," she said, and lowered herself, suffocating me in bliss once again.

I was helpless, thoroughly bested, and more than a little embarrassed by how turned on I was by my predicament. I took a few laborious breaths, telling myself it was just to get some oxygen in my lungs, and not because I was desperate to inhale as much of her as I could.

And then any remnants of inner conflict melted to nothing as she slid her hips down, smoothly engulfing my cock.

I thought I was already intimately familiar with the hellhound's unnatural heat. But her skin, her mouth, her imprisoning breasts were nothing compared with the tight, burning crucible of her pussy. I should have screamed in pain; I should have blistered, charred. But her incandescence failed to harm me. By some mysterious alchemical process, all of the excess heat was converted directly into a searing pleasure that roared through me as she drew me into her hellish depths.

I writhed in unbearable ecstasy beneath her. I would have pistoned frantically, urgently into her, but she had pinned me too effectively to make any meaningful movements. She rocked her hips agonizingly slowly against mine, swallowing me inch by delicious, torrid inch, then letting me slip out again just as gradually.

I found myself falling into a hedonistic trance. Every thought was driven from my head by the conquering softness of her breasts, and the leisurely, torturous pleasure she inflicted on me with her molten pussy. Well... almost every thought.

The guard enlies seer's riches.

It didn't matter. I was hers now. So many times tonight I'd been pushed to the brink of orgasm, only to haul myself back through luck, will, or desperation. It seemed I'd run out of all three. She was starting to pick up the pace, just a little bit, grinding against me with a little more urgency. Lost in ecstatic surrender, I kissed, licked, and nuzzled her smothering tits. She was right; I'd never stood a chance against her.

La Guardia lye shears bridges.

Ha, no that made even less sense. Plus I was sure there had been at least a K or two in Selene's hurried mumble.

Why was I fighting this when everything felt so, so good? I was pinned, I could barely breathe, but oh, the way she felt wrapped around my cock.... With a single, forceful movement of her hips, she swallowed my entire length, and, oh god, she wasn't letting me go anymore. She kept me hilted in her as she moved in tiny, irresistibly sexy circles, drowning me in constant superheated bliss. The Guardian had won, and soon I'd finally--

The Guardian--

The Guardian lacks, lye, lies, LIKES, the Guardian likes seer, sheer, no, no, she likes--oh--

Teetering on the brink of no return, and half-wondering why I was resisting the most intense pleasure I'd ever felt in my life, I tentatively reached an arm up, up past her shoulder, past her face, up to the top of the head, searching for and finding the soft, soft fur there, and the sensitive skin underneath--

The Guardian likes ear scritches.

I scritched, reader, scritched like my soul was on the line. Of course I'd be too late, and there was no way such a simple thing could--

The reaction was far more dramatic than I could ever have anticipated. At my first gentle (but not too gentle) rub of the silky black fur at the base of her pointed ears, the hellhound went rigid, dislodging my cock from her depths in a single, spasmodic jerk. And then she melted, instinctively sliding off me, curling up slightly as my affectionate touch drew the tension from her body.

I could breathe and see again. Not wanting to risk breaking contact, I half-rolled with her on the ground until we were both on our sides, face to face. She wore a soft, abstracted expression, through which she tried (and largely failed) to glare at me. Tentatively, I ran the hand not occupied with the vital scritches down the side of her body.

"You... ugh... oh, gods below, that feels good... how did you--"

I switched my hand to her other ear; she closed her eyes in ecstasy, pushing back against the pressure of my touch. "Like I said, my source must remain nameless."

Her eyes sprang open again, and a spark of rage burned within them. "Selene," she hissed.

"No comment," I said, and I rubbed her with a little more vigor, using my fingernails to lightly scratch her scalp. She subsided with a bliss-drunk moan, and she shifted to press her body lightly against mine.

I spent the next minute or so caressing and rubbing her furry ears. After the almost terrifying heights of arousal I'd navigated throughout the night, I was getting a refreshingly simple enjoyment from the act of petting her, and from watching her grow ever more relaxed and boneless under my touch. Tiny rumbles of contentment escaped her every now and then.

"So, uh... what happens now? If I stop scratching your ears, will you just attack me again?"

An expression of consternation crossed her face. It made her look unexpectedly adorable. "You... unnhh... you would stop?"

"Oh. Uh... I mean, I have to go find Lucrezia eventually. But that doesn't have to be right now, I guess. I could keep scratching you for a little while longer, if you'd like...?"

"Please," she moaned, reaching up to hold my hand in place. I rubbed her steadily, reassuring her I wasn't about to draw it away. "Yes... of course you must go, but please, for just a while longer. I so... ahhh, I so rarely..."

"... get to rest?"

"Allow myself to rest, I suppose. It's... mnn... we hellhounds are... we take our duties seriously. Sometimes I forget what it is like to, ohh, what it is like to... I'm sorry, it's... mm, it's a difficult topic..."

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Relax for a little bit, okay? I'll just keep doing this."

She let out a surprisingly high-pitched sigh. "Thank you, Percival. Truly. But... if you do not mind... perhaps a little closer...?"

I shifted, closing the rest of the distance between us. With another sigh, she wrapped her free arm around me and pulled me tight against her, the heat of her body a little gentler now, like banked coals. I kept ruffling and stroking the fur of her ears, making sure not to neglect a square inch. She made little noises of approval, gently shifting her body from time to time to nestle closer, or perhaps just to feel her skin brushing against mine.

After a few minutes, something in her manner shifted. I noticed her body temperature beginning to rise again; her movements grew less languid and more urgent; and her sighs began to sound more aroused than relaxed. Tentatively, I stroked the underside of her breast with my free hand. As soon as I touched the smooth, delicate skin, she let out a low moan, opening her eyes and fixing me with a needy look. She gently took my wrist and guided my hand between her legs. "Please," she whispered.

I didn't need any further encouragement. My right hand still stroking her ears, I slipped the first two fingers of my left hand inside her soaking pussy. I moved both hands in the same steady rhythm, and her body twitched and jerked in response. She stared at me for a moment, unfocused as she tried to adjust to the overwhelming sensations washing through her, and then she was kissing me like a starving animal. The sudden heat of her tongue in my mouth almost made me lose all focus, but I kept up my insistent attentions, wanting to make this rare reprieve as enjoyable as possible for her.

That went on for several minutes, the hellhound making increasingly frantic noises into my mouth as she kept up her devouring kisses. I refused to be hurried, even when she began bucking her hips against my hand. I just stroked, and stroked, and stroked, intent on melting her simultaneously from the top down and the bottom up.

Before too much longer, she reached her limit. The arm wrapped around me crushed me against her. Her thighs, slick with sweat and love juices, clamped around my left hand, and into my mouth she whimpered something that sounded suspiciously like my name, over and over again.

I cradled her for a few minutes more as the tremors rocking her body slowed, then stopped. Only then did I slowly, slowly remove my hand from the top of her head, tracing my fingers down her cheek, slowly brushing her lips with my thumb. She kissed the digit tenderly.

"Will you be okay if I stop now?" I asked. "I don't have to."

The hellhound smiled gently, eyes still closed. "You have been more than generous with your attentions, Percival."

"That's... not what I asked."

Her smile grew wider, and she opened her eyes. There was a look of tenderness in them that was almost impossible to reconcile with the implacable huntress she'd been--or at least pretended to be--just twenty or so minutes before.

"You're right. Yes, I'm fine, Percival. Much, much better than fine. That was... I would never have suspected a human to be capable of making me feel the things I have felt tonight. And after the way I treated you... I must apologize for my abominable behavior."

"Oh. I mean... you were just doing your job, right?"

The hellhound sighed heavily. "Yes. I rather suspect that's the problem. But anyway. You have an appointment to keep, and I have already delayed you inexcusably." With acrobatic grace, she transitioned from lying on the dirt, to sitting, to standing, in about half a second. She extended a hand to help me up.

I stood in front of her, then craned my neck back so I wasn't staring directly at her chest. Lying side by side on the ground, I'd almost forgotten that she was at least a foot taller than me. She eyed me critically for a moment.

"This won't do at all. I can't send you to meet the mistress looking like you just rolled out of a potato sack."

It was only then that I noticed I was half-caked in the powdery dirt of the corn maze. Sheepishly, I held still while the hellhound briskly brushed the worst of it out of my hair, then worked her way down my back, as well as the side I'd been lying on.

The contact was strictly business-like, but the feeling of her warm hands traveling all over my body was enough to make me stand to attention again. She was good enough not to mention it--she just gave me a tiny smile as she noticed the effect she'd had on me.

"All right." She gave me one last appraising glance, then laid her hands gently on my shoulders. "Still a bit disheveled, but this is the best we can do with the tools we have. I think you're ready to..." She looked down at me with those piercing amber eyes, hesitating.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"I..." The Guardian sighed. "I don't know how to answer that question. Perhaps."

A sinking feeling took hold of me. "Is this where I find out that... has Lucrezia been messing with me this whole time? Am I going to get to the end of the maze and find out this has all been some kind of elaborate prank designed to humiliate me? That she never liked me in the first place?"

The bronze goddess shook her head vehemently. "No. No, nothing could be further from the truth. The mistress's regard for you is genuine, and very strong. That is... honestly what worries me."

"Why?" I demanded, my patience starting to slip. Was no one going to give me a single straight answer tonight? "Why the hell would that be a problem?"

She gave me an agonized look. "You... you must understand, I am sworn not to reveal certain facts to you. What I can say is... the mistress is young. Only a few years ago did she reach the age of maturity for her kind."

"And that kind is--?"

"--another detail I cannot reveal to you. You will know soon enough. The point is, she may let her desire for you overrun her reason and self-control. And if that happens..." Her voice suddenly took on a new urgency. "The exit word, Percival. You will not see me, but I will be listening, and if you say the word, I will personally pull you out of there. You have completed the Gauntlet, no one could argue otherwise at this point, so you would not be giving up. You would not lose the mistress. It would... merely give cooler heads a chance to prevail. In fact, there is nothing preventing you from saying it right now. Please, Percival. Please consider it."

I was so taken aback by her unexpected vehemence that I did consider her suggestion--her plea, really. Clearly she was worried something bad might happen if I kept going, if I saw this thing through. Maybe it would be smarter to retreat for now.

But a tiny blue flame of defiance kindled in my chest at the thought of making a tactical retreat. Lucy owed me answers now. I wanted to know what she was and why she had put me through this bizarre trial, and I wasn't willing to wait any longer. If I felt like I was in any danger, well, I could tap out then. The Guardian would be listening.

I lifted her hands from my shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. "Thank you. It's... honestly really touching that you're this concerned about me. But I have to see Lucy now. I can't leave this unfinished."

She exhaled heavily, then nodded. She tugged one hand free and gave a casual wave at the wall of twisted corn behind us--it began to smoke, then smolder, then burn. In moments, there was only a patch of fine ash where the barrier had been. Just beyond was a set of stone stairs leading downward.

"My mistress will be pleased," she said wryly. "Just be careful."

"I will," I said, and then the hellhound was pulling me into a feverish, passionate kiss. Her tongue twined with mine, and the ardent heat of her mouth seemed to fill my body, spreading all the way to my fingertips and toes, removing all traces of the night's accumulated fatigue. I felt lit from within.

"Wow," I said weakly when she finally let me go. She just smiled. Then I blinked, and a massive black wolf was running away down the passageway and disappearing around the bend. For a few silent seconds, I watched the space where she'd been, feeling strangely lonely.

Then I turned toward the staircase and squared my shoulders. I considered that this might be the worst idea I'd had all night--and I'd had some bad ones--dismissed the thought, and made my way down into the earth.

It was a long descent; the stairs spiraled widely, taking me down the equivalent of at least four or five stories. The darkness grew oppressive as the moon and stars disappeared above me. But after pausing for a minute to let my eyes adjust, I became aware of a flickering orange glow spilling up from below. I continued toward it cautiously.

The stairway ended in a rough stone arch giving onto a chamber that looked as though it had been hacked from the bedrock centuries ago. The ceiling was curved and about twenty feet high at its apex, supported by a ring of columns covered in intricate carvings of cavorting demons and monsters. Hundreds of candles imparted a warm, intimate brilliance to the space. Despite being so far underground, the air was fresh and inviting, smelling of lilac, cinnamon, and some other scent I couldn't quite place.

But all of these details barely registered next to what awaited me in the center of the stone vault. A modern, opulent-looking bed sat on a stone dais beneath the ceiling's highest point. And kneeling on top of the bed's blood-red satin sheets was the most terrifyingly beautiful creature I'd ever seen.

It took a few seconds of blank astonishment for me to realize I was looking at Lucy.

In my defense, the transformation she'd undergone was a dramatic one. She had the same symmetrical, achingly sweet features, the same gorgeous curves, though now entirely unencumbered by clothing. But her skin was now a dusky rose hue, and a pair of small black horns sprouted from her forehead. I caught glimpses of a thin, spade-tipped tail as it lashed back and forth in anticipation. And her previously green eyes were now pools of liquid silver, shimmering like mercury.

In that long, frozen moment, I noticed two other things. The first was that a slim golden chain hung between her breasts, each end anchored to a ring piercing one wine-dark nipple. The second was that her knees were spread wide, and one twilight-pink hand was idly stroking her glistening sex.

I'd already been hopelessly infatuated with Lucy when she was in her ordinary, human guise. Now, confronted with the full extent of her terrible beauty, my attraction was like a grappling hook lodged in my heart, slowly reeling me toward her.

Almost literally, in fact. I noticed with vague wonder that my feet had already started carrying me toward her, without any input from my brain.

"Sir Percival," she said, a gentle, wicked smile spreading across her face. She panted lightly as her fingertips delicately traced her labia. "At last. It seems you have prevailed in your quest."

I continued to approach her, feeling like I was swimming. My eyes snagged on the ruby of her lips, the soft gleam of the chain that bridged her breasts, the slow action of her fingers between her thighs. The smell of flowers, spices, and something delectably unnameable was growing stronger.

I wanted to demand answers from her. But it was so hard to think through the pink mist of arousal filling my mind.

"Lucy," was all I could manage.

"Hmm. I did tell you to call me that, didn't I? But wouldn't you agree the diminutive doesn't quite fit this form? I think Lucrezia would be more apropos." Her smile grew wider, and her silver eyes flashed. "Or Mistress, if you prefer."

"M--Lucrezia," I choked out. "What--"

"Oh, dear, you can hardly put your thoughts in order, can you?" With exaggerated slowness, she withdrew her hand from between her thighs. She began crawling toward me, putting an extra little sway in her hips and breasts. I had already drifted within arm's length of the bed. "It's all right. I know the questions that are crowding your tongue, and I'll give you the answers you crave. You've earned it, my Champion."

My thighs bumped against the edge of the mattress. She rose up on her knees again and gently cradled my face in sinfully soft hands. I let out an involuntary moan. It felt like she had laid twin kisses on my soul.

"Perhaps you've guessed by now, but I'm what your people call a succubus. I know by now you're familiar with lust sprites." She smiled again at this. "But despite what boasts the Trinity may have made about their nature, they're sort of... faint echoes of what we are. My kind were born when the first flicker of desire stirred in a human's heart. We are the primordial embodiment of lust, archons of carnal yearning, apex predators of erotic energy. I could go on, get technical about our origins and capabilities, but I think it would be so much more satisfying to show you what I am. Don't you agree?"

I made a strangled sound, and nodded.

"Good answer," she said, and kissed me.

Arousal, so strong it was almost painful, cascaded through my body like an electric current. Every square inch of my skin flushed; my cock grew so hard and sensitive that the mere stirring of air felt like a lover's caress. I swayed and half-collapsed into the bed as the strength bled from my limbs. Some seductive, invading presence flowed into me through her sweetly devouring mouth, pouring into me like a hypnotic draught. I welcomed it with abject joy. I wanted more of her, all of her, forever.

She caught me as I went limp, tenderly pulling me into the center of the bed and straddling my hips, never breaking the annihilating kiss. My hands rose blindly, dreamily, and I whimpered into her mouth as my fingers found the exquisite weight of her breasts. She made a pleased noise, and she placed her hands atop mine, encouraging me to knead her, brush my thumbs over her nipples, savor both her warm flesh and cold metal of her piercings.

Finally she broke the kiss, drawing a bereft noise from me. "We need to pace ourselves," she said breathlessly. Her silver eyes seemed to be glowing more brightly now, and a dreamy lassitude had spread throughout my body. Why would the Guardian have thought I'd ever want this to end?

I continued to stroke and massage her perfect tits, half-mesmerized by the sight and feel of them. Playfully, Lucrezia guided one of my hands along the chain connecting her nipples, and hooked my index finger over the center of it. "You can pull it," she whispered. "Gently."

I gave it a tentative downward tug, my mind melting further as I watched the way her piercings pulled her nipples downward toward each other. "Goddess," she moaned gutturally. "That feels so good. My Champion."

Helpless as I was, utterly at the mercy of her otherworldly beauty, the last word still managed to flip a tiny, corroded switch in my brain.

"Lucrezia," I all but sighed. "Why--why did you--"

"Still curious?" She arched an eyebrow, then gave me a sultry smile. "That's good. I'm impressed. Let me give you a little reward while I think about how best to answer."

The succubus bit her lower lip and sank her hips toward mine, inch by inch, until her dewy entrance just kissed my tip.

I made an awful, desperate, ecstatic noise. I felt my awareness shrink to those few square millimeters of skin touching the sweet wet heat of her. My entire being was bound up in that tiny universe of blissful contact.

Slowly, the sensation receded until it was merely overwhelming. Delicious shivers ran up and down my spine as Lucrezia slowly, slowly gyrated her hips on top of me, painting my glans with her lust. Distantly, I became aware she was speaking.

"You see--mmm--the difficulty with being a supernatural avatar of lust is that nearly everyone who looks at me wants me. I know, I know, poor me, right? But it makes it almost impossibly difficult--ahh, yesss--to know who actually likes me. That's what the Gauntlet is for. Those who just want sex... well, they find it. They stumble across some arousing distraction, some lesser eidolon, and they forget their quest in their haste to satisfy their base desires. After they've spent themselves, they are cast out, and I know they weren't worth my time."

She looked at me with both fondness and hunger, and she bent forward, letting her dark amber hair tickle my face as she continued to grind ever so delicately against me. "But if what they truly want is me, not just a quick fuck, well, they'll find their way past any obstacle to reach me. Just as you have, Sir Percival, my sweet Champion. You have conquered my gauntlet, and now you claim your prize. My body, and my soul, are yours."

She brought her face even closer. Her sweet breath teased my lips as she spoke.

"Of course... the reverse would also have to be true as well. It's only fair, don't you think?" She gave a little twitch of her hips, drawing me just half an inch inside her. I could only moan brokenly. "What do you say, Percival? Do you offer yourself to me, your Lucrezia, your Mistress? Body and soul?"

Credenza, I thought vaguely. I can end this if I want to. Do I want to?

"Percival?" she said in a small, sweet voice. She brushed her lips, feather-light, against mine.

"Yours," I gasped. "All yours. Lucrezia. Mistress. Please--"

"Oh, good," she breathed. In a single motion, she lowered herself onto me, swallowing my achingly hard cock with her demonic pussy.

My orgasm was immediate, and violent. My vision strobed and flickerd as I throbbed urgently inside her, filling her with what felt like a lifetime's worth of cum. I felt as if my nerve endings had multiplied tenfold in an instant, every one of them euphorically aflame.

In the midst of this utterly alien experience, I had a moment of very ordinary embarrassment. Had I really come inside her on the first stroke? Oh god.

But Lucrezia was smiling down at me, looking like the cat that had gotten the cream (so to speak). "Mmmm, fuck, that's good. Oh, don't worry--I'm a succubus, remember? Frankly, I would have been insulted if you'd lasted any longer than that. And you've drunk deeply of some potent elixirs tonight: the soulwine, Ellesime's nectar, and Aura's... essence. Don't worry, lover, we're far from finished here."

She was right. Even after the most colossal orgasm of my life, I was still iron-hard inside Lucrezia. She started moving even before she'd finished talking, smoothly pistoning her hips, engulfing me in rhythmic, ruinous pleasure. My limbs felt warm and leaden; it was like I was sinking and floating at the same time. She softly ran her hands over my torso as she fucked me, every brush of her skin against mine like a silent burst of fireworks in my nervous system.

My cock was so acutely sensitive that I could feel my seed being spread throughout her depths as she rode me. A look of rapture took over her face, as if she were savoring a bite of the most gorgeous meal she'd ever tasted.

"Oh, Percival, Percival, you taste magnificent, so rich, so vital, fuck, and you're close again, aren't you?" Her silver eyes gleamed with excitement as she placed her silk-smooth hands on my abdomen, steadying herself as she started to rock her hips faster. "That's right, my sweet. Let go. Spend yourself inside me. Claim your prize, your Lucrezia, come for me now--"

Her last words seemed to resonate inside my head, and then I was exploding inside her again, my vision blurring as sheets of lightning traveled up and down my spine. My hips jerked as I pulsed inside her caressing depths. I could feel every soft, velvety millimeter of her squeezing me, the copious stimulation drawing out more and more cum from me, prolonging my orgasm longer than I ever thought possible--

Lucrezia cried out, eyes lambent with maddened lust as the sensation of being filled by me drove her over the edge. She collapsed against me and twined her fingers in mine, incanting a litany of sweet curses in my ear:

"--fuck, Percival, yes, fill my tight cunt with your cum, despoil me, ravish me, give yourself over to me and feed me, feed me your essence, fuck me until we're both utterly ruined with pleasure, be my puppet, my thrall, my slave, drown yourself in me until you forget the touch of anything but my slick, hot pussy wrapped around the core of your being--"

I could only listen to her and continue to twitch and throb inside her in a languid daze. A strange, soul-deep exhaustion had come over me, as if some vital charge was leaking out of me with every pulse of my cock. But it was hard to care when everything felt so good.

She dragged her lips in a sensuous trail across my face until she reached my mouth and kissed me, maddeningly slowly. Intimately connected now in two places, I felt the flow of vitality from my body into hers quicken slightly. But what I lost was replaced by fever-bright ecstasy that reached all the way down to my soul. I thought, distantly, of the way mosquitos fed--as they sucked out their blood meal, they replaced it with a dose of numbing saliva so their host wouldn't even notice the loss.

This is a lot better than mosquito spit, I thought, as Lucrezia continued to decant that warm, sweet nothingness into me.

"Percival," she murmured against my lips as the heights of her orgasm subsided. "You taste so much better than I even imagined. You can give me more, can't you?"

She gave me a coaxing, draining kiss. "I'm still so hungry, and you're so--you're perfect, my sweet Percival, my knight, I didn't know it could be like this, please don't deny me now, please--"

Things had gotten way out of hand. I was aware of that, intellectually--I knew I should call it off now. But with her agonizingly gorgeous face so close to mine, with the mingled scents of cinnamon and lilac and vanilla and inhuman sweat and pure, undiluted lust filling my nose, with every nerve ending in my body singing at the touch of her smooth, flushed skin, and with her luscious, hellish pussy wrapped around me like a silken vise, I simply couldn't bring myself to do the smart thing.

I thought I had known helplessness before: when Ellesime was pouring nectar into my willing mouth, her hand sweetly pumping my length; when the lust sprites were pressing their mouths, hands, and breasts into every vulnerable part of me; when the Guardian of the Gauntlet was smothering me in her sweat-kissed tits while drowning my cock in impossible heat. But every time, I'd found some tiny escape hatch, and unsuspected route to freedom.

Now I finally understood what true helplessness was. I didn't want to escape. I wanted to give myself over to Lucrezia entirely. Even if it cost me everything.

I gathered the energy to kiss the writhing, begging succubus who had brought me under such perfect control. I felt a little more of myself slip away, and I rejoiced.

"I could never deny you, Mistress," I half-gasped, half-growled as our lips briefly parted. "I pledge myself to you. Body, soul, and everything else I may be."

Lucrezia gave a delighted cry, soon muffled as she devoured my mouth again, twining her tongue against mine with frenzied hunger. Her hips bore down with bone-bruising force. Vaguely, I wondered when she was going to start moving. Then I realized she didn't need to.

Inhuman muscles, python-strong and velvet-soft, began moving within her. I let out a shocked, stifled moan as her demonic pussy started to rhythmically squeeze me, milking every inch of my length. Molten pleasure spiraled through my body, erasing everything else in my awareness except the feel of her body and her overpoweringly arousing scent.

I was floating in a haze of lust unlike anything I'd ever known; time seemed to lose all meaning as she kissed me ravenously, sweetly drawing more energy from somewhere deep within me. Dark spots began to crawl across my vision as she continued to churn and constrict, suck and squeeze in complicated, delicious movements, all while we remained as close together as two bodies could possibly be.

"Yes," she whimpered half-audibly into my mouth as she felt my third orgasm building. Somehow she must have known it would be the most powerful yet. "Yes. Yes. Please. Oh, please, Percival. Yes, yes, yes--"

I erupted. My entire body shook as I poured out load after load inside her, the expert manipulations of those inhuman muscles giving way to a wild, involuntary bucking of her hips that was just as effective at drawing out everything I had to give her. She screamed in ecstasy, her whole body seeming to glow with unholy pleasure and satiety as I disappeared inside her, spurt by spurt.

"More," she gasped as she kissed my neck and dragged her breasts over my chest. Her hips kept up their unsteady rhythm as she tried to keep milking me through the unruly tides of her pleasure.

With blurry amazement, I realized her command was working. I just kept spilling into her, kept filling her with my seed and with something less tangible but far more essential. The world grew dark and vague around me as my sight failed; sounds grew echo-like and indistinct.

Still I came. I could no longer muster enough coordination to kiss her, but she made up for my lack by energetically kissing me all over my face, throat, shoulders, and chest. Each imprint of her lips was like a warm, loving nibble taken out of me. It felt so good, being savored like this; I never wanted it to stop. I didn't think it would. Or at least, when it did stop, I didn't think there would be enough of me left to notice.

Every downward thrust of her hips forced yet more warm, sticky liquid out of her, the mingled residue of our communion. God, it felt so good. I still hadn't stopped filling her, though I thought the stream had died down slightly. Everything grew soft, dark, and quiet. There was only a warm sea of peace and pleasure, and I was slowly becoming one with it.

I survived the HELLoween corn maze at Fall into Fright, I thought inanely as my brain flickered like dying Christmas lights. And all I got was my soul sucked out by a succubus.

I laughed weakly. I thought I heard Lucrezia saying something, but I couldn't make it out. The last flashes of consciousness gave way to a perfect, final bliss.

***

I was floating, and bathed in light.

So, I thought. There really is an afterlife. Huh.

I was a little surprised that enough had been left of my soul to make the voyage to whatever far shore I found myself on; I'd been sure that Lucrezia would consume me entirely. But then, metaphysics had never been my strongest suit. Maybe there was some quintessential part of me that was even deeper and more indestructible than what we called the soul. Or maybe she'd just gotten too full to finish me off.

I mustered enough mental effort for a basic fact-finding mission. What could I see? Not much. The light around me was uniform, red, somehow soothing. Restful. Did I have a body? Yes, I could feel my limbs, which was interesting. Perhaps any form of existence requires incarnation; perhaps a new body is provided whenever a soul reaches its destination. Was it the same kind of body? Well, one way to find out--

My eyes opened, and I beheld a baffling scene. I wasn't floating in space, standing before enormous gates manned by a kindly clerical angel, or even in a crumpled heap before a lake of fire. A tendril of doubt uncurled within me; why go to the trouble of making an afterlife if it was going to be so boring?

Oh, it was a nice enough room; walls painted a light sage, windows on two walls letting in warm daylight, an antique-looking rolltop desk, and an unostentatious but very comfortable double bed currently occupied by yours truly. The pleasant but impersonal decorating scheme all but screamed guest room.

"Weird heaven," I mumbled to myself. I got out of bed so I could start investigating this new phase of my existence. At least, I tried to get out of bed. What actually happened was that I levered myself up by about an inch, suddenly felt the invisible piano on my chest, and subsided with a groan and a wave of dizziness.

That was the moment my brain chose to let through a number of queued signals from various parts of my body. Not only was I exhausted, but my god, how I ached. It felt like I'd spent twenty-four hours on tumble dry low.

But worse than that was the raging, burning thirst that suddenly elbowed its way into my awareness.

That, more than anything else, was what convinced me I might actually not have died last night. Like, sure, I could see heaven starting you out in a blandly pleasant guest bedroom before it walloped you with infinite waterfalls and septuple rainbows and talking golden unicorns. Just to minimize culture shock, or something. But what was the point of arriving at your ultimate reward parched and exhausted?

Ontological questions could wait. I needed a drink so badly I was on the verge of panic. Vertebrae creaking, I turned my head a few inches to the left--no thoughtful glass of water waited for me on the nightstand. I probably wouldn't have been strong enough to reach it anyway. What was I going to do?

There was a soft knock at the door, which opened without waiting for a reply. The first thing I noticed was the answer to my prayers, complete with flexible straw, held in the woman's hand. The second thing I noticed--

My entire body gave a startled jerk, and I uttered an inarticulate protest as my global ache briefly intensified. Lucrezia, resplendent in form-hugging jeans and a light yellow blouse, gave me a sympathetic smile.

A second look began to reveal subtle discrepancies. This woman's hair was a dark chestnut color, not Lucy's lighter, honeyed brown. Her eyes were set a bit more widely apart, and she was perhaps an inch or so taller. Her face was almost as youthful, but there was a dignity to her features that lent her an air of experience and hard-won wisdom.

"Sorry to barge in," she said, her voice rich and warm, "but I felt your thirst as soon as you woke up. No, don't try to sit up on your own, let me help you, silly."

She rearranged me into a sitting position as easily as if I were a child. "Drink," she said, easing the straw between my lips. I drained the glass greedily, not pausing for breath until it was empty.

"Another?" she asked.

"Yes, please," I croaked.

"I thought as much." A hard expression briefly crossed her face, then she gave me a kind smile and left, returning almost immediately with a refill. This time, she rolled the desk chair to my bedside and sat before offering me the straw again. I drained the second glass nearly as quickly.

"Let's give your body a chance to absorb that before risking any more," she said, putting the glass on the nightstand. She studied my face for a moment. "We need to talk about a few things, but do you want to sleep a little longer first? You ought to rest as much as--"

"No." My voice was marginally stronger now. "Please. Let's--is Lucy okay?"

The woman's eyebrows climbed nearly to her hairline.

"Is Lucy okay?" She breathed an incredulous laugh. "Lucrezia will be fine once she recovers from the severe and richly deserved chewing out I gave her last night. Gods above and below, I knew the girl was impulsive, but I didn't think I'd raised such a complete, blithering idiot..."

"Wait. Lucy is... you're her mom?"

"I am deeply ashamed to admit that, yes, that foolish child is my daughter. My name is Ophidia, and it's truly a pleasure to meet you, Percival. Be welcome in our home." My hands were firmly tucked under the covers, so she patted me through the duvet in lieu of a handshake. Then she shook her head and resumed her tirade.

"I still can't believe it, really. To think she would run a suitor through a Gauntlet without even telling us, then compound her stupidity by having sex with him without making any preparations--I swear, that girl will be the True Death of me yet..."

"Uh... can you... maybe break some of this down for me?" My head was spinning, and I wasn't sure whether it was from exhaustion, confusion, or both.

She blew out an exasperated breath and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. I noticed for the first time that I was wearing unfamiliar blue pajamas; even through the cloth, her touch tingled pleasantly.

"Sorry, sweetie. I'm still so mad at her I can hardly think straight. Let me think about where best to start. Lucy told you what she is, right? And told you a few things about the Gauntlet? She was too distraught to give me a very clear account of what happened, but Fluffy was close by, and she filled in some of the gaps for me."

"Uh... Fluffy?"

"Oh." She smiled ironically. "I of course mean the fearsome and formidable Guardian of the Gauntlet. Her real name is thirteen syllables long, with a truly impressive number of X's and glottal stops, and Lucy couldn't pronounce it when she was little. Thus our hellhound became Fluffy, and so she has remained. She pretends to hate it, but I think you discovered for herself last night just how much of a secret softie she is."

I felt a flush creep across my cheeks. Ophidia's smile became a grin.

"Anyway, Lucy told you that she's a succubus, yes? And I'm sure you've gathered that I am too."

I coughed. "Yeah. And the Gauntlet is... a courtship ritual, I guess? A rite of passage to weed out..."

"... the unworthy, yes. What she didn't tell you is that none of our kind have really taken it seriously for the past 400 years. Oh, sure, most of us still do it, you know, for form's sake. But when my husband ran his, I made sure the only 'guardians' he had to face were a dryad who spent the whole night asleep in her tree, and a werecat friend of mine, who, while very sweet, has been known to climax from a sufficiently stiff breeze."

My blush deepened as I desperately tried not to dwell on that mental image.

"Wait, so... why did Lucy decide to--"

"To throw an alraune princess, a trio of insatiable lust sprites, and a gods-cursed hellhound in your path? It's ridiculous, I know. I thought she must not actually want to be with you, to stack the odds so badly against you like that."

My stomach gave a sick little lurch. Ophidia must have seen my dismay on my face, because she gave me a reassuring smile and continued:

"But I managed to gather from her--between a lot of incoherent crying spells, you understand--that pretty much the opposite is true. She'd gotten it in her head somehow that because she was so head-over-heels smitten with you, she needed to make her Gauntlet nigh-impossible. To ensure you'd only get through it if you liked her enough, you see? Otherwise she'd be in for certain heartbreak. At least," she said with a disgusted shake of her head, "that was the conclusion she arrived at with the help of her atrocious reasoning skills and a truly unhealthy amount of trad-succ content."

"Trad-succ content?" I asked weakly.

"It's the worst kind of nonsense, barely worth going into. A bunch of silly young succubi make these videos promoting a return to 'traditional monster-human roles' in relationships, as if such a thing ever existed. It's all garbage like 'Your TRUE Champion Will Overcome Any Temptation for You,' 'If He Doesn't Fear You, He Doesn't Love You,' and 'If He Didn't Almost Die, Did You Really Even Have Sex?'"

"Oh," I said. Certain pieces were beginning to fall into place for me.

"Yeah. 'Oh' is right. I bet you can just guess why, after you somehow made it through that stupid Gauntlet, my darling daughter thought it would be a good idea to reward you by sucking out your soul from both ends. Percival, I just..."

The succubus's voice broke, and her eyes swam a bit. She took a moment to compose herself.

"Subjecting you to a Gauntlet like that was bad enough, but if you'd failed, well, we would have just gently altered your memory and taken you back to your dorm to sleep it off. We would have told Lucrezia that she was being foolish, and she should ask you out on a normal date as soon as you were recovered. But Percival... you're such a nice young man, and our daughter's carelessness--no, her negligence nearly killed you. If she hadn't come to her senses when she did, and run to come find us..."

Ophidia blinked, and a single teardrop leaked from each eye, drawing parallel tracks down her face. She was a really beautiful crier, to my utter lack of surprise.

She let out a shaky sigh. "I'm so truly, horribly sorry, Percival. Sorry for the ordeal my daughter put you through, and even more so for the appalling risk she took with your life. But I guess most of all--I'm her mother. I should have taken more care, should have paid closer attention so I'd--so I'd know what a boneheaded thing she was planning. But I'd let her convince me that she was a grownup now, and that she didn't need me looking over her shoulder anymore."

The dark-haired succubus looked bereft. With a massive effort, I dragged one of my hands out from under the covers and wrapped it around hers. She gave me a watery smile.

"It's okay, Ophidia. Really. Look, I... obviously I don't know anything about parenting. But I know there's no manual for it, at least for humans, and I suspect the same is true for eidolons. As for Lucy... I guess, well, everyone makes mistakes--"

"Yes, but not everyone gets so horny they almost kill someone." Her voice was firmer now. "Not even succubi--not for the last few centuries, anyway. But it's very kind of you to say that. I think I understand what my daughter sees in you."

I found myself completely unable to muster a response to that. Thankfully, Ophidia had more to say.

"If you're feeling up to it, Lucrezia will want to talk to you. To apologize in person, first and foremost. I don't know if you'll be able to forgive her, and frankly, I'll think no less of you if you can't. But you should know that... she would still willingly be yours, if you would have her. She was beside herself with grief last night when she realized she might lose you. I don't say that to influence your decision in any way. I just thought it was fair that you know."

"Oh. Okay. That's... a lot to take in. I guess I'd have to--"

"Is Lucy's champion feeling up to some breakfast?" came an unreasonably cheerful voice from the door.

Ophidia and I turned to look at the newcomer. A tall, lanky man in robust middle age beamed at us, eyes twinkling behind old-fashioned half-moon spectacles. His sandy hair was starting to recede a bit, and there were smile lines around his mouth and eyes, but he positively glowed with health and ebullient good spirits. I knew now where Lucy got her smile.

"Um. Hi. You're... David Hiram, right? I've seen you in the newspaper a few times. Thank you for your, uh, hospitality."

"Ahhh, an understandable misapprehension, considering it's one that I actively encourage," he said, bustling in with a laden tray. I began to salivate at the savory aromas wafting from it. "But I think you've more than earned the right to join our little conspiracy. My name is Wilfred Hiram, m'boy, and a pleasure to meet you indeed."

"Wilfred--but--wait, that can't be right," I stammered, trying to dredge up what I knew of the area's history. "Wouldn't Wilfred Hiram be--"

"A hundred ninety-two years old as of September, isn't that right, dear?" Ophidia smoothly got to her feet and gave her husband a more-than-merely-affectionate kiss on the lips, angling her body around the tray. She looked back at me as she walked to the door. "I'll leave you in Wil's capable hands, sweetie. But I won't be far if you need anything."

Wilfred gave his wife's shapely rear a long, appreciative look as she walked out. He sighed happily, sitting in the chair she'd just vacated and balancing the breakfast tray on my duvet-covered legs.

"Every day I wonder what I did to deserve her. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yes. I'm afraid David Hiram is my entirely fictional great-great-grandson. I find it necessary every few decades to disappear for a bit and return as my own descendant. Keeps the awkward questions to a minimum. You'd be amazed how well it works--put a halfway plausible story in front of most people, and they'll paper over the inconsistencies themselves."

"But--how?" I spluttered. After everything that had happened to me in the past 24 hours, it didn't occur to me for a moment to doubt him, but I still needed to know.

"Oh, just one of the many perks of being married to an eidolon of the seventh circle. Some of that semi-immortal shine rubs off on you, y'see? I'm not going to live for millennia like she will, but I've probably got a good couple-three centuries left in me. But enough about me, you should eat something, get a little of your strength back. It's all vegan, I'm afraid--tempeh bacon, tofu scramble, and egg-free French toast. But you'll love it, I promise. Go on, now."

I took a tentative bite of the faux bacon. It had an unusual texture, almost pebbly, but it was smoky, substantial, and rather delicious. After the first couple of bites, I realized just how ravenous I was, and I began attacking the plate like a man with a grudge.

Wilfred watched me eat with a broad smile on his face, hands clasped loosely between his knees. "So," he said once I was merely devouring the food rather than inhaling it, "How're you feeling, champ?"

"Uh," I said around a mouthful of French toast, "Better, I think? I can move now, which is an improvement."

"Ha! No problem with your appetite, either, which is a good sign. Honestly, I'm amazed at how quickly you're bouncing back, but you're what, twenty? Twenty-one? Only to be expected, I suppose. Just don't overdo it, okay? You're not going to be back to full strength for another few days, I think."

I chewed thoughtfully. Lucy's father was looking at me with almost professional interest. A tiny suspicion formed in my mind.

"Did you save my life last night?"

Wilfred Hiram looked surprised and pleased. "Well, now. I'm not sure I'd say saved as such. I just... made it a little easier for your body to do what it needed to do. I'm a bit of a dabbler in the alchemical arts, and I just happened to have a few vitality draughts collecting dust in the lab. Could be they helped. Could be you would have pulled through regardless. Doesn't matter too much, in my book. I'm just glad things turned out the way they did. In the end, I mean."

"Well. Thank you very much anyway. I have a feeling I needed all the help I could get last night."

"Perhaps so," he said quietly. His face grew solemn for the first time since I'd met him. "I've never seen her like that, you know. Lucy. She's always been a firecracker, fiercely independent, even when she was a child. But last night she was beside herself, just sobbing and sobbing, carrying you in her arms like a broken doll, begging me to do something. I knew I should be mad at her, and I guess I was, a little, but mostly... oh, it broke my heart to see my little girl like that. I don't know if I could have lived with myself if I hadn't been able to bring you back. I don't know if she ever would have been the same."

I didn't know what to say. I put my fork down; I didn't think I could eat around the lump that had formed in my throat.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this," he continued. "I guess it's--well, it tears me up that this all happened. I know my wife already apologized to you, but let me do so as well. Everyone who comes to Hiram Farms is our guest, and we failed you last night. And... I feel awful, too, that in the end my little Lucy might still get her heart broken. I'd never try to tell you what to do. But I want you to know that... what you saw last night, that Queen-of-the-Night business, that's not the real her. She was trying to impress you, I think. She didn't realize that her appetite would take hold the way it did.

"Maybe that doesn't matter to you. Maybe you never want to see her again. If that's so, my wife and I will keep her out of your hair, and when you're strong enough to leave, you'll do so as a friend of mine. But... all I ask is that you give it some thought. Not just for my daughter's sake, but for yours too." His face split into a grin. "Marrying my wife was the best decision I ever made. And our daughter, well. She's an awfully special person. And man oh man, is she head-over-heels for you."

I took all of this in. Conflicting emotions surged within my chest. I was desperate to see Lucy; I was furious at her for what she'd put me through; I wanted to dry her tears and tell her everything was going to be okay; I wanted to shake her, demand to know who she really was.

"I think... I think I'll need to see her. To decide how I feel. I think I won't know until then."

Wilfred clapped me on the shoulder, his expression serious but warm. "Smart kid. My daughter may have terrible decision-making skills, but at least she's got good taste. You ready to see her now? Or do you need more time? There's no rush."

"I think I'm ready now." Suddenly I felt unaccountably nervous. "Uh--do I look okay?"

The lanky man barked out a laugh as he took the empty tray from me. "For someone freshly back from the dead, you look like a million bucks, son. And trust me: the state Lucy's in now, she probably wouldn't notice if you had a third arm growing out of your scalp. I'll tell her you're ready."

He walked to the door, paused, looked back at me tentatively.

"Listen, champ, whatever you decide... you'll try to be nice, right? You have every right to be mad at her. But she's pretty fragile right now. Not that that means you--" His mouth twisted in self-reproach. "Hell, Percival. I'm sorry. Not fair for me to ask anything more of you. You've already been through too much, and none of it's your fault."

I gave him a genuine smile. Even without the supernatural charm of his wife and daughter, there was something impossible not to like about this man.

"It sounds like we both had pretty rough nights. I can't really predict what I'll need to say to her when I see her, but... I promise I'll try not to make things worse."

"Good man. She'll come find you in a few minutes." His footsteps receded down the hall.

Now that I was alone again, I took another inventory of my body. I was still outrageously tired, but I could move under my own power now. I didn't ache quite as badly as before, and now I felt pleasantly full from breakfast. A pretty marked improvement over just an hour or so ago. Now I just had to prepare myself to face the woman who'd almost killed me last night.

I tensed slightly as I heard the approach of soft footfalls. A familiar form appeared in the doorway, and my heart gave a sideways lurch.

Lucy had abandoned her sexy nightmare incarnation. She wore soft gray pajama pants and a plain black tank top, and in all honesty, she looked like a mess. A beautiful mess, certainly. But there were dark circles under her eyes, which were red and puffy from crying. Her hair fell in uneven tangles around her haunted-looking face. And her usually perfect posture had abandoned her. Her shoulders were drawn in, like I might suddenly spring toward her in a rage.

Some taut core of resentment inside me melted. I had a sudden conviction despite being a succubus, Lucy had never experienced Hell until last night.

"Hey, stranger," I said softly.

"Hey," she said, sounding lost. "Um. Dad says... he thinks you'll be okay...?"

"Yeah, he didn't seem too worried once he saw me attacking the food he brought. I feel fine, honestly, just kind of tired."

"Okay. That's good." She looked down at her feet. The silence stretched out between us.

"Percival, I'm--"

"Hey, Lucy, why don't--"

We both stopped. Lucy gestured for me to go first. "Why don't you come in? You're weirding me out, lurking in the doorway like that."

That brought a ghost of a smile to her face. She walked around the bed and sat in the chair her parents had previously occupied. She fidgeted with her hands for a moment, not meeting my eyes.

"I... Percival, I just wanted to..."

I waited for her. Her face suddenly crumpled.

"Percival, I'm so fuh-fucking sorry--" Sobs swallowed anything else she might have been trying to say; she buried her hands in her face, shoulders shaking.

I'd been expecting something like this, but it still wrenched my heart seeing her so miserable. I wasn't strong enough to pull her into bed with me, but I reached out and grasped one of her hands, and with soft, encouraging murmurs I coaxed her under the covers. She wrapped herself around me and clung like a shipwreck survivor, weeping into my shoulder as I did my best to comfort her.

Any last vestiges of anger vanished as she spent the next few minutes crying helplessly in my arms. I gently ran my fingers through my hair as she spent her grief, fear, and remorse wetly into the cloth of my pajama shirt. Yes, she had almost driven me off last night, then almost killed me. But if I had any doubts about how much she cared about me, they were washed away by her flood of tears, by her abject relief that I'd somehow made it through. All I wanted in that moment was to ease the terrible pain she felt.

And, I realized with a bloom of warmth in my chest, my feelings for her hadn't budged an inch. Okay, sure, they were complicated a little by the fact that she was a supernatural embodiment of lust, quasi-immortal and extremely dangerous if she lost control. But now I was convinced that nothing about last night's date had been feigned. She really did like me, possibly so much that it scared her, so she'd acted both to protect herself and win me over as thoroughly as she could. And now that she'd given up so completely on both projects, her victory was complete.

I was hers. And this morning, that thought filled me with no terror or awe, only a rush of tenderness.

I didn't delude myself that I was somehow seeing her "true self" for the first time. The confident queen of our college and the bewitching, otherworldly seductress weren't false fronts--they were both genuine facets of who she was, as was the sobbing wreck in my arms. I felt like I was getting closer to assembling a holistic understanding of Lucrezia-as-a-whole. I didn't think that understanding would ever be perfect, but I wanted the opportunity to keep deepening it.

She quieted after a while. I kept stroking her hair, holding her close to me. She let out a shuddering sigh, and her wet eyes sought mine.

"Do you think you can ever forgive me?" Her voice was quiet and tentative.

"I think I forgave you as soon as I saw you this morning."

She hiccuped, a complicated emotion playing across her face. "You... Percival, are you just being nice to me right now? Letting me down easy? I know I can't... really make demands of you right now. But if there's no chance of us ever being together, I just really, really need to know--" Her words were tumbling out of her mouth now, a slightly panicked edge to her voice.

"Hey, hey, shh, it's okay." I stroked her cheek. "Lucy, I really, really like you. This is all happening pretty fast, and it's sort of upending everything I thought I knew about the world. But I still think you're amazing. Even if you made a mistake last night. Well, a few mistakes, I guess. It doesn't matter. I want to keep getting to know you, if you're okay with that."

Her eyes swam, and then she was pulling me tighter against her, almost whimpering. Now that she was no longer sobbing, it was a little easier for me to notice just how incredible she felt against me. Even through our shirts, the feeling of her breasts squished against my chest was sending warm tingles through me. Slowly, almost dreamily, she wrapped one of her legs around my hip. I felt myself hardening against her.

She pulled back enough to look into my eyes again. A flicker of hunger danced behind them, and then she was pressing her indescribably soft lips against mine--

There was a brief, cold spray against my cheek, then an outraged shout a few inches from my ear.

"MOM! Oh my god, what are you--STOP--!"

I turned my head, baffled, a little dazed from thwarted desire. Ophidia leaned casually in the doorway, her face like stone, a translucent green water pistol clutched in one hand. She continued to douse Lucy with deadly accuracy, soaking her face and hair while only splashing me with the odd droplet or two. The younger succubus spluttered indignantly as her mother kept up the assault, only stopping when the reservoir ran dry.

"Already looking to repeat last night's performance, are we, daughter mine?" I may have been imagining it, but a faint golden luminescence seemed to be spilling from Ophidia's eyes. "And just how many of your kisses do you think Percival could survive in his current state?"

"I--you--" Lucy struggled to come up with a suitable retort as she swiped water from her face. Then she paused for a moment, taking in what her mother had said. She flushed with shame.

"You're... you're right, Mom. I'm sorry. I lost control."

"Did you, now," the older succubus said dryly. "A tremendous shock. What a happy coincidence I happened to be just in the next room, with a fully loaded weapon on hand." She stuffed the empty squirt gun into her back pocket.

Lucy was all contrition now. "I... it won't happen again."

"It better not. It'll be the hose next time." Ophidia's expression softened marginally. "I love you, sweetie. You know that, right?"

Lucy smiled a little, brushing away the damp hair that clung to her face. "I know, Mom. I love you, too. Thank you for... for looking out for us. For me. Best behavior from now on, I promise."

"Mm. Well, either way, I'm dragging you out by your ankle in 30 minutes. No argument. Percival needs his rest."

"Okay, Mom."

Ophidia gave me an apologetic smile. "Sorry if I got you wet, Percival. Fog of war, ricochets, you know."

"That's okay, Ms., um--" I hesitated, unsure whether she'd taken Hiram's last name, or retained her own, possibly unpronounceable one. If succubi even had last names.

"Just Ophidia is fine, I think, seeing as we're friends now." She beamed at me, then gave us an airy little wave. "I'll be right outside, just in case you need anything," she sang, half threateningly, as she left us alone again.

"Um. Sorry about my mom. She can be a little..."

"Terrifying?"

"I was going to say intense, but yeah, terrifying works too." Lucy giggled as I attempted to towel her off with the sheets.

"I like her, though. Your dad, too."

"That... makes me really happy. I mean, they're a lot sometimes, but they're really important to me. And... well. After last night, I'm getting the feeling I should probably listen to them a little more."

I studied her face. The clouds of misery had mostly lifted from it, allowing more of her natural, radiant beauty to shine through. I thought, with a pang of yearning, just how good her brief, interrupted kiss had felt.

"So, um. How does this work, exactly? Can we just... never kiss again? Or do anything else? It's... it's okay if not, I still want to be with you, but I guess I just want to know what I should expect."

She goggled at me. "What? Oh my god, dude, no. I'm a succubus. We're not really built for sexless relationships. I mean, my parents--" She froze, then shook her head. "Actually, scratch that, let's not go down that road. Percival, we can definitely kiss, and eventually we can have sex, like utterly filthy, mind-blowing, unimaginable marathons of sex."

"Uh." My mind struggled to shift directly from neutral to fifth gear. I felt important pieces of machinery go chhrgh-chhrgh behind my eyes. "But... last night, we... and... you know, just now, with your mom and the squirt gun--"

"Right, yeah, I know, that's just because we--no, I tried to do way too much too fast last night. Look, succubi get vital spiritual nourishment from sex, and we draw it from the human... soul, or vitality, or whatever you want to call it. And if we take too much, well, your life force gets exhausted and you d-die," she said, stumbling slightly. But she rallied and continued.

"The thing is, though, it's not a one-way process. When we partake of your essence, we give you a bit of ours in return. And ours is... well, it's sort of, divine, you might say? Or infernal? There's not as much difference as you might think. Anyway, given enough time to acclimate, it sort of supercharges your ability to generate more vital energy. That's why my dad is still going strong, even though he's pushing two hundred. And it's why he and my mom can--um, never mind, the point is, we just kind of have to... go slowly. Build up your tolerance over time. But, yeah, Percival, eventually we're going to be having sex. Like, a lot of sex. You know, if you want."

She finally stopped talking, her cheeks a little flushed--with both arousal and embarrassment, I thought.

"Okay. Um. Holy shit. That's... really good news." It also made it really, really hard to hold myself back from doing very unwise things with her right then and there. But somehow I wrestled myself under control. "And... I don't suppose you know when, roughly...?"

"We-ell," she said, drawing out the word and running her fingertips along my arm, "once it was clear that you were going to make it, I kind of pestered my dad to give me a timeline. He didn't want to, at first, because he wasn't sure... how you'd feel about me when you woke up, and he didn't want to get my hopes up. But I was so desperate to know that eventually he caved."

"Okay?" My heart was beating wildly. "And--what did he say?"

She gave me a naughty grin, clearly enjoying drawing out the suspense. But then she took pity on me and relented. "He thinks in a week, it'll be safe for us to kiss again. And then, if we escalate slowly from there--he kind of, uh, put together a little spreadsheet for us--we might be able to have sex again in about six weeks. Not quite like we did last night, of course. But eventually we'll get there, too."

I stared at her blankly, my mind reeling. A few moments ago, I'd been mentally reconciling myself to a relationship where I could never actually be intimate with Lucy again. Honestly, I thought it would have been worth it, if that's what it took. But now a very different kind of future unrolled itself before me.

"A week. Then six weeks." My voice was quiet, but there was a slight tremor to it.

"A week," she purred. She ran her hand up my thigh. "Then six weeks." Gently, so gently, she rested her fingertips against the bulge under my pajama pants--

"LUCREZIA ESCHATON HIRAM," came Ophidia's icy voice from the next room. Lucy's hand jerked back as if she'd been burned.

"MOM! GOD! I WASN'T GOING TO DO ANYTHING!"

"I FELT YOUR HUNGER, YOUNG LADY. DO I NEED TO GET THE HOSE?"

"NO! NO. WE'RE JUST TALKING, MOM. I PROMISE." She lowered her voice to a mortified whisper. "I am so sorry."

I tried to contain my laughter, and mostly succeeded. From outside the door I heard what sounded like a "hmph," and the rustling of a newspaper.

Lucy listened for a little longer to assure herself her mother wasn't about to escalate her suppression tactics. Then she smiled shyly at me and took my hand.

"So, um. You're... really okay with all of this? Like, all of it? The world you never knew about, the whole Gauntlet fuck-up, me almost killing you, my weird parents, the fact that we have to wait to, you know, do anything--"

I wished I could have kissed her to interrupt the litany of reasons I shouldn't date her. I settled for gently laying my fingers against her lips. She made a small, needy "mm" noise as she subsided.

"Those are all just... details. The truth is, Lucy, you're the first person who's ever made me feel anything other than mediocre. I like who I am when I'm with you. And I like you. Every part of you. I can't wait to keep getting to know you. That's really all there is to it."

"Goddess's tits," she swore reverentially, nuzzling my palm with her nose and cheeks. "I can't believe you're real."

I had to laugh a little at that. "Yeah, well. Imagine how I must feel."

She grinned at me, then suddenly looked shy. "Hey, so... my mom's gonna boot me out of here pretty soon, but can I ask you one more thing?"

"Yeah, anything."

"I was wondering... would you like to spend a few days staying with us here? The rest of the weekend, and maybe Monday and Tuesday too? You can call the college, tell them you have the flu or something. I know my dad would feel better if he could keep an eye on you a little while longer, and my mom is basically president of your fan club already. And, um. It would make me really happy. If you were here for a bit, and we could just... spend some time together. Maybe kind of start over. You know?"

A strange feeling was working its way through me. It had started the moment Lucy had crawled into bed with me, let me wrap her in my arms as she unburdened her grief. It had intensified as she'd excitedly shared the intimacy timeline she'd wheedled out of her father. And now, looking at her hopeful, radiant, slightly nervous expression as she told me how happy my presence here would make her, the sensation became impossible to ignore. It felt like a miniature sunrise inside me; gentle, internal luminescence that infiltrated my muscles and uncoiled tension I'd been carrying, it seemed, for years.

It was contentment, I realized.

I dared to rest my forehead against hers. She closed her eyes as she relished the contact.

"That would make me really happy, too. I know we go to the same school and everything, so it's not like we'd be saying goodbye, exactly, but... yeah, I really like the thought of being able to spend more time with you here. Let's do it. Long weekend at the farm."

She squeaked with happiness and nuzzled my cheek, careful to keep her lips from touching mine. With a half dozen tiny movements of her body, she nestled more completely into me.

"Okay. Great. You'd have to keep sleeping in here--no way they'd let you stay in my room. But, um, that might be safest anyway. For now." There was a thoughtful silence. "Okay, I know I said 'one more thing,' but--"

I laughed softly into her hair. "There's no quota for things. Hit me."

"All right, well, so, since you'll be here for the next few days anyway..." She trailed off for a moment. "Okay, here's the thing, all my friends really, really, really liked you last night."

"Your--" She was so different this morning from the domineering sex demon she'd been last night that my first thought was when did I meet her friends? Then I remembered the rogue's gallery of seductive eidolons who had tried their best to keep me from reaching her.

"Oh. Uh." I said the first thing that came to my mind. "Even Aura and Nyx?"

She giggled. "Okay, Ellesime and Fluffy and Selene really liked you. And the other two, well, I think their actual words were something like 'he's a dirty fucking cheater, and we demand a rematch.' But that means they want to see you again, which is pretty high praise coming from them. So since you'll be here anyway, I could maybe take you around to say hi to everyone? I mean, if that wouldn't be too weird for you."

I thought about it, but not for very long. "No, that would be fine. Honestly, I really liked your friends, too. Even the terrible twosome have their charms. It'd be fun to see them again when they're, you know, not trying to seduce me and turn me into their plaything."

Lucy was quiet for a suspiciously long time. "Well, um... about that..."

"... you can't be serious."

"Okay, so, it's totally your choice, and if you're not interested, I promise I'll never bring it up again." She spoke quickly, trying to hide the thrill of excitement in her voice. "But, you know, we can't even kiss for the next week, and we have to wait even longer to have sex, and I just thought, well, maybe you'd like to play with my friends while you wait? And, like, maybe I could... watch?" Her voice grew so tiny on the last word that it was almost inaudible.

My thoughts careened drunkenly as I tried to come up with a response. "You'd... really have no problem with me, uh, being with your friends?"

I felt her body shifting against mine; I was pretty sure she was rubbing her thighs together. She pulled back far enough to look at me; her eyes seemed to have picked up the faintest hint of a silver glow.

"Well, I mean, I did kind of throw them at you last night, didn't I? Look, succubi tend to be a little possessive, and I'm no exception, but Fluffy and Ellesime and the lust sprites and I have always been really, really close. Like... extremely close. You know?"

I coughed. "Yeah, I think I'm getting the picture." A lot of pictures, really. Very compelling ones.

"Well, last night, thinking about what you might be doing with them didn't make me jealous, it just got me all worked up. So I guess I just wondered whether you'd be up for a... re-enactment. One that I'd have a front-row seat for."

A replay in my mind of the bronze-skinned hellhound pinning me down, suffocating me with her enormous chest, mercilessly grinding her hips against mine. Only this time Lucy was kneeling with her legs spread just a few feet away, an avid look on her face as she feverishly stroked herself...

"Uh... yeah," I said, my mouth suddenly dry. "We should talk about it a little more, but... I think I'd be very okay with that."

She grinned at me lasciviously. "You'd just have to remember that at the end of the day, you're mine," she said, running a finger down my jawline.

I shivered with pleasure. "I don't think I'll ever be able to forget."

"Knock, knock," came a jovial voice from the door.

"Oh, Dad, please, can't we have just a few more--"

"Already taken care of," said Wilfred, holding up a placating hand. "Got your mom to agree to another half hour. I gather the reunion is going well, and physical touch is good for the healing process."

"Oh my god, Dad." Lucy's eyes were shut tight with embarrassment.

"I think you meant to say, 'Wow, Dad, thank you so much, very considerate of you, especially considering Mom has been on the warpath since last night.' Just a slip of the tongue, I imagine, could happen to anyone."

"Yes, okay, thank you, Dad. Was there something you needed?"

"Nope, nope, just wanted to deliver the good news." His eyes danced behind his semicircular lenses. "Oh, and I remembered that the champ here never got his proper reward."

"My proper--?" My mind flashed back to a candlelit chamber, a vision of unearthly beauty undulating above me, lovingly drawing out my life force drop by luscious drop...

"Catch." Wilfred tossed a forearm-sized black cylinder at me, which unfurled slightly as it tumbled in the air. My still-sluggish reflexes meant it sailed past my outstretched fingers and hit my face with a soft fwup. "All right, be good, you two, and Lucy, I'll come and get you in thirty minutes so Percival can get some rest. Really for real this time."

With that, he left us be, whistling tunelessly as he walked away. I unrolled the cloth bundle. A smile spread across my face as I took in the looming scarecrow, the bold, drippy capitals, and the smaller italic postscript underneath it all.

Lucrezia grimaced. "We are definitely changing that design next year."

"We can talk about it." I couldn't seem to stop grinning. "But I'm treasuring this one forever."