Excerpt: Slave of the Lamp

E-anthology Underworlds: tales of paranormal lust is now out from Mischief Books. It's only £0.99! Here's the author lineup:

Heavenly Shades - Charlotte Stein
Slave of the Lamp - Janine Ashbless
Katie - Angela Caperton
Sleepwalker's Secret - Rose de Fer
They Come at Night - Elizabeth Coldwell
Period Drama - Lara Lancey
The Ursa Legacy - Anne Tourney
Riding the Ghost Train - Chrissie Bentley
Fancy a F**k? - Lisette Ashton
The Hunt - Penelope Hildern

My story, Slave of the Lamp, is all about werewolves.
No, I'm shitting you ... it's about a genie, of course! - he's prisoner/slave of the Queen of Sheba and he's NOT AT ALL HAPPY ABOUT THAT. Especially when Queen Bilqis comes up with a shocking use for his magical powers. There's gender-bending, pervy sex, and extremely dubious consent in this tale ...

And here's an excerpt:

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She summons me forth once more. This time I am indoors, and cannot grow to my full height. I rein myself in before I smash through the carved cedar beams of the roof.

There is a squealing and a shrieking, a flurry of panic at my arrival. I look down and see the room is full of women. It makes me grin to see them shrink away and cover their faces - though several are peeking through the slits of their fingers, and that makes me grin too. I have arrived clothed, because Bilqis commands me thus, but my silken trousers do not fully disguise the extent of my exuberance. They are all young and lovely; their breasts bare and firm, their shapely thighs and rounded bottoms a field of delight that my rampant share urges me to plough. In Solomon's palace, I would assume that this is the apartment of his concubines. Here in Sheba, they must be the queen's handmaidens. It is clear they have not been expecting the arrival of any male, and their consternation is enchanting. I wish to rush in among them like a cockerel among a flock of hens.

'Djinni!'

I force my attention back to Bilqis, who kneels upon cushions in the middle of this fluttering crowd, with a slender maiden cradled in her arms. 'Mistress?'

She's dressed less formally today. I can see her ebony nipples through the damp and clinging gauze of her robe. I understand that the land of Sheba is considered punishingly hot by humans. 'Djinni,' says she, 'my slave here has been bitten by a viper. Can you heal her?'

The girl in her arms is twisting with pain, her dark skin grey now and glistening with sweat. I can see her injured foot, swollen to twice its natural size, propped upon a cushion.

'Pray to the God of Solomon, mistress,' I suggest sourly. 'Does He not promise to be merciful?'

'I have. And to Shams and Ilmaqah and Athtar, who rule this land. The gods do not answer me. So if it lies within your power, djinni, I command you to heal this maid.'

I briefly consider some way to twist her words, but my heart is not in it. I am too distracted by the perfumed, quivering throng of women. And the girl is pretty, for a human, or will be so when well. I twitch a single finger - mostly to show how easy this is for me - and the poison hisses out of her, issuing as faint green cloud from her open lips. Her leg reverts instantly to healthy flesh.

Everyone in the room utters a wahwahwah of wonder. Except Bilqis, who smiles and nods, and the girl, who sobs and buries her face in her queen's breasts.

'There, there,' says the monarch of all Sheba, both left and right of the Red Sea. 'You are fine. Not need to cry, my sweet one.' And my eyes widen as the maid pulls down the fine gauze of the queen's robe and sucks a big nipple into her mouth.

Bilqis closes her own eyes for a moment in pleasure, then opens them, meeting my gaze with a long, considering look. 'You did well, djinni,' she says. 'It pleases me to reward you.' With a couple of clicks of her fingers she jerks two of the women at the side of the chamber from their knees. 'You two: see to his pleasure.'

I'm taken aback, but far from dismayed. The young women are curvaceous of body and beautiful of face, and they advance toward me with rapidly rising and falling breasts, bright-eyed but gratifyingly nervous.

'It would help, djinni,' says the queen in a dry voice, 'if you were to assume the size of a mortal man.'

I comply, shrinking my towering form down from the ceiling, until I am only the size of a very large man. The two handmaidens kneel before me on the cushioned floor, and reach for my hidden weapon, wetting their lips as they tug at my clothes. They are eager to obey their queen, I note, approving.

'Do not hurt them, djinni,' Bilqis adds as an afterthought.

I bare my sharp teeth in a grin at her.

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P.S: You'd be amazed at the amount of research that went into this short story. I even had to look up the distribution of snakes in the Middle East for that one line about the viper-bite!