Since I've found out this week that three-novella collection Magic and Desire is getting a re-release with a snazzy new cover, here's an excerpt from my story The House of Dust.
3000 B.C: Ishara, priestess of the great sex-goddess Innana, invokes the goddess into her own flesh and opens the doors to the Land of the Dead. She must descend through all Seven Gates to rescue the murdered king Tamuz.
‘The Lady Inanna will submit herself,’ the gatekeeper says softly, his hands descending on my shoulders. ‘The Lady Inanna will be humbled before the Great Below.’
I understand, though my heart catches in my breast. He does not wait for my acquiescence, however. Smiling, he draws aside the folds of his kilt even as he reaches for my hair with his other hand. My face is at the level of his groin; I see clearly that he is perfectly shaved, even his soft and rather pendulous stones. And he is already erect, as white and hard as caked salt. The effect is strange but not displeasing to the eye and I am stung to feel Inanna’s interest quicken within me. He pulls my face to his thigh and I do not resist. But he doesn’t want my mouth. Not even my co-operation is required; he wraps my thick dark tresses about his jutting member and caresses himself with the hair.
‘Let me fill your dark night full of stars,’ he mocks.
This is an exercise in humiliation, I realise. I have to kneel before him and listen to the small wet noises of his hand upon his member, to the rising tempo of his breath and the gasps he makes as he pumps himself. He works with fervid concentration. My breasts brush his thighs but I cannot see anything except his hip and his flat belly. He tugs my hair, gathering handfuls to rub over his cock, bringing tears to my eyes. I only know he is done when he grunts and shudders against me.
When it is over he wipes his phallus clean on my scalp. He lets me stand, at last. ‘Follow,’ he orders, and leads me through the First Gate.
Beyond that portal is an absolute darkness through which stairs descend, a narrowing ribbon of rock flanked to either side by a gulf. Within a few steps the way is no wider than my own shoulders. I balk at the path presented, trying to peer into the blackness. The air is cool but dry. There is no sound except those we make ourselves, no draft, no scent except the musk of my befouled hair. The only illumination comes from Neti himself, who gives off a pallid gleam like marsh-light. There is nothing else but the void. As he slips past me and starts down I realise that I must keep up with him or be marooned in the darkness, unable to take a single step and forced to crawl on hands and knees.
I follow in his wake down the irregularly hewn steps, sick with vertigo. It’s impossible to tell if our path is held up by solid rock or by pillars or by nothing at all: it seems to curve gently to the left but no glimpse can be caught of anything but the worn steps directly beneath our feet. I follow until I lose count of their number, until my thighs ache from the descent and my hips feel jarred from their sockets. He does not flag, and as he pulls further ahead it becomes harder for me to see where I am walking. Suddenly I misstep: my foot slides on the edge of the path and I pitch forward with a cry.
Neti is there, faster than thought; he catches me by my tangled hair as my knee bangs off the stone, and wrenches me back onto the path. My fingers claw at the rock.
‘You must stay on the path,’ he says with satisfaction. ‘The dead fall - but they cannot take harm from the drop.’
‘Wait. Let me rest,’ I beg.
‘We are here.’ He sweeps me with a triumphant smile. ‘Behold the Second Gate.’
Before and below us is a patch of red light, hanging in the darkness. I try to nod, but he still has a hold of my hair. He pulls me to my feet by it and leads me the rest of the way bent double in his wake, gasping, his fingers knotted in my locks. There is no chance of me falling now. He leads me onto an island of stone that floats in the void. It is pillared with painted columns and furnished with mounded cushions. The gate in the far wall is of red bronze with two leaves; barred on this side. I realise for the first time that the gates are not there to keep intruders out of the Underworld; they are there to bar the way from below. There is a figure between us and that door and my sickened heart clenches.
‘This is the Great Lady Inanna, Queen of Heaven,’ says Netu, pushing me forward onto my knees upon a rich rug. I am grateful just to be still for a moment.
‘She smells like a gutter slut,’ observes the Keeper of the Second Gate, who gives light to this place. He is taller than any man and built like a warrior. His skin is scarlet and flames burn about his head where hair should be.
Neti laughs. ‘She seeks to pass the Second Gate while still living.’
‘Then she must surrender her earrings.’ He closes until he is standing right before me, his feet nearly touching my splayed knees. I look up mutely, in dismay. His eyes are crimson.
‘Must I?’ When we write, the word for ear is the same as that for mind.
‘The laws of the Underworld are perfect, Inanna. Do not question them.’
‘As you command,’ I say. He unhooks the heavy gold clusters from my ears and they turn to water in his palms and run away over his wrists. I bow my head.
I will do this, I tell myself, for the sake of my king, for the sake of my vengeance; I will do whatever it takes. And Inanna is with me. I feel her move more strongly than ever in the heat in my blood, in the pulse that beats at my sex.
Thoughtfully, the Keeper of the Second Gate hooks his bare foot under my skirt. His foot nudges up against my mound and I gasp at the heat of his skin as he plays roughly with the folds below. He does not find me dry. ‘So the Lady Inanna is humbled before the Great Below,’ he rumbles.
‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘Yes,’ gloats Neti. ‘Do with her as you wish. As I did.’
‘Do you suck cock, Queen of Heaven?’
‘Yes.’ I can’t keep my voice calm.
‘I would have you suck this, little queen.’ He opens his kilt. My eyes widen involuntarily: given his body size I should expect a daunting length and girth – but this is a monster. It lolls and drools like a drunk between his thighs. The gatekeeper takes hold of me and rubs my face in his groin, forcing me mouth-to-cock, marking me with the scent of his crotch. The scarlet bludgeon kicks eagerly against my jaw. His skin is hot – not so hot as to burn but uncomfortable on my tongue. It is all I can do to stretch my mouth around his turgid glans. I tongue the slit, tasting his readiness and finding it both smoky and sharp.
‘Good,’ he says, surprised. ‘You are well trained, for a queen.’
Rebellion kicks under my ribs and my eyes flash.
‘Thank him,’ instructs Neti dryly. ‘He has complimented you.’
I pull my lips from his cock, leaving sticky saliva trails. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.
Laughing, the gatekeeper turns his back on me. ‘Stay,’ he orders, and I do not move as he goes to sit upon a mound of cushions. He spreads his knees, opening his kilt so that I can see his huge, ruddy erection. Lovingly he strokes it up and down, hefts his balls and preens himself. ‘Now come here.’
I gather myself.
‘On your knees.’
I flush. Nobody has ever treated me with such contempt. Not even the usurper Nergal has dared do that to me. He knows I am a goddess. And Inanna…
Inanna loves this. My vulva is soft and wet and swollen.
Hitching up my skirt I crawl slowly over to the Keeper of the Second Gate on my hands and knees and look up from between his splayed thighs. He pats my head and strokes my face.
‘Lick my cock.’
I lick the hot, throbbing column, kissing the pronounced underside ridge all the way to his juicy plum.
‘Lick my balls.’
I roll his stones with my tongue, sucking them into my mouth.
He sighs and leans back in the cushions. ‘Now lick my hole, Queen of Heaven.’
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