Shadow of the Tyrant (9th part posted)
Moderator: LadyTevar
I'm just glad that Eric wasn't awake to see that. Wednesday wouldn't have come fast enough.
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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Alferd Packer
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It's only been a couple of days and I'm already getting all twitchy for the next part. 
I'm looking forward to what I suspect will happen next: as Eric heals, so too will Mary "heal," gradually growing more clever and calculating, so as to become the tyrant of which her dream-demon spoke. It will then be interesting to see how exactly their partnership works: will the balance of power dramatically shift back and forth between the two, or will they reach a happy middle, where each shares in the work and they present a united front against the world?
Of course, that's just what I suspect might happen. There are about fifty zillion ways the story could go, and I eagerly await it.
I'm looking forward to what I suspect will happen next: as Eric heals, so too will Mary "heal," gradually growing more clever and calculating, so as to become the tyrant of which her dream-demon spoke. It will then be interesting to see how exactly their partnership works: will the balance of power dramatically shift back and forth between the two, or will they reach a happy middle, where each shares in the work and they present a united front against the world?
Of course, that's just what I suspect might happen. There are about fifty zillion ways the story could go, and I eagerly await it.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
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Academia Nut
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What does the next update of Shadow of the Tyrant have in common with the Old Man and the Sea?
Both authors were drunk in Cuba when they wrote them.
Update in a day or two when I can transcribe the next section to the computer from the book I wrote in.
Both authors were drunk in Cuba when they wrote them.
Update in a day or two when I can transcribe the next section to the computer from the book I wrote in.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Well well... maybe the Hemmingway magic will rub off.
Or maybe you'll just have been too drunk for it to make sense now that you're sober
Or maybe you'll just have been too drunk for it to make sense now that you're sober
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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Alferd Packer
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Goody! I'm looking forward to it.
Oh, something else occurred to me regarding the whole alcohol thing: As Eric has a photographic memory with near-perfect recall, he would probably relish those instances where he has the ability to forget. I was thinking that being able to get pleasantly squiffed every once in a while could let him escape for a couple of hours. It need not be by brewing up some alcohol, either; he seems to have already found some plants that can fuck you up royally when ingested.
Of course, it's pretty evident that Eric's rigorous and requisite self-discipline would most likely stop him from even broaching such a path, as escapism might turn into addiction, which, of course, would mean death(either via suicide, accident, or being too fucked up to care that you're about to be eaten).
Oh, something else occurred to me regarding the whole alcohol thing: As Eric has a photographic memory with near-perfect recall, he would probably relish those instances where he has the ability to forget. I was thinking that being able to get pleasantly squiffed every once in a while could let him escape for a couple of hours. It need not be by brewing up some alcohol, either; he seems to have already found some plants that can fuck you up royally when ingested.
Of course, it's pretty evident that Eric's rigorous and requisite self-discipline would most likely stop him from even broaching such a path, as escapism might turn into addiction, which, of course, would mean death(either via suicide, accident, or being too fucked up to care that you're about to be eaten).
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
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Academia Nut
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- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
He dreamed of the beach. Crystal blue waters, sparkling white sands, trees of every tropical description over head bearing ripe fruit bursting with juice and flavour. The air was hot and humid, but the breeze was soft and cool, making the waves roll in low and slow, a soothing sound that was ever trying to lull him to sleep.
He hated this dream, hated it with a passion. It was his subconscious tormenting him. It was torment because the beach itself existed in this antediluvian world. He had been there before. It was about two days hike away. But the emotional feeling was from a different beach.
He had gone on a Caribbean vacation in his younger days, long before he had been sent here. He had been in school at the time and his parents, despite having more than enough money, had long ago decided that he should make his own way in the world. He had not minded though as he was quite successful at the things he did, although he did not have a whole lot of spare spending money for a trip. Thus the resort had been nice, but not that great. The food was good enough, the room a bit small but bearable, and the drinks had flown freely. Overall, it had been a good place for a university student to relax and party while on a budget.
More so, he had met had his first girlfriend there.
His original reasons for going were to keep a friend company. The guy had been going nuts with stress and had got the idea in his head that what he needed was a getaway. Not wanting the poor bastard to go alone, Eric had volunteered to go and keep him company, and keep an eye on him.
When they first got there, Eric’s initial fears were justified when his buddy lost all resemblance of self control and downed ten tequila shots in the time it took Eric to go to the bathroom. This quickly resulted in Eric and the idiotic bartender who let him drink that much having to haul the guy to the nurse’s shack. While Eric was filling out forms to get his friend taken to the hospital for treatment for alcohol poisoning, he met Lisa.
Lisa had come with her boyfriend; a brute of a man who played college football, for whom calling a Neanderthal was truly an insult to Neanderthals. A complete dumb ass and asshole, he had already blown most of his money for the year partying, so when it came time to book the Caribbean vacation he had promised Lisa, he booked cheap.
Thus when Lisa and three of the resort staff carried her drunk and concussed boyfriend, she was fuming. Not only had he skimped out on his gift to her, not only going cheap but apparently making her pay ¾ of the cost instead of the ½ he told her she was paying, but the first night there he got drunk and dived head first into 0.6m deep pool. The impact was enough to get through his thick skull and rattle his tiny brain.
With the two of them sitting in the waiting room, their vacations apparently ruined because of the idiocy of their friends, they immediately hit it off. Lisa was an arts student with a major in English, but she was really just drifting in her life, no idea what she wanted. She was, rightly so, considered the hottest girl on her campus, which was how she had come to be the possession of the brute. The bastard was continuously cheating on her and verbally abusing her, but she was too scared to leave. With the amount of steroids in his system, this was certainly justifiable.
But with him out of the picture, she was free to party the way she wanted. And while Eric was not the wiry hard ass he was now, he had his own charms. As a nerd, if there was one thing he could do well, it was talk, and with an opening at the hospital, he managed to talk her pants off.
It was like something out of a bad comedy, or a teenager’s wet dream. For a week Eric was enjoying sun and sand during the day, and blowjobs and doggy style at night.
When the stay was over, Lisa’s boyfriend was out of the hospital and pissed beyond belief that some overweight nerd had stolen his girl. Eric never would have stood a chance in a fair fight, so he didn’t fight fair. He had always been a manipulator of situations, knowing that it was better to have numbers on your side than brute strength. While not the same as now, he had always had the tyrant within him, the ruthless creature willing to do anything to achieve victory.
When the jackass threw the first punch, it was a security guard at the resort. Eric had no illusions as to being able to take the gorilla and no pride about fighting fair. So he had discretely tipped off security to keep an eye out. When the bastard started to get aggressive and violent, security stepped in and tried to diffuse the situation.
The words “spic” and “nigger” were thrown about.
A hand went out to restrain him.
A punch was thrown.
The nightsticks were whipped out and back-up was called for.
Eric watched smugly as half the resort staff joined in on the beat down. Apparently the guy was a bad tipper to boot.
Karma was a bitch.
Lisa had been shocked but ultimately pleased. She had grown to hate the macho bullshit typified by her now ex-boyfriend and had greatly appreciated Eric doing the responsible thing rather than the “manly” thing. She had shown her appreciation by inducting Eric into the Mile High Club.
The relationship did not last much longer after that. They stayed in touch and met up a few times, but being so far apart it was doomed to failure. Ultimately it was good for both of them though. Eric gained considerable self-confidence when it came to women, and Lisa realized that she had to set a new path in her life. She changed schools and got into business. Last Eric had heard she was working on an MBA while helping to manage the software company her new husband had started.
It had been a lovely wedding that the brute had not been able to attend as he was still languishing in a jail cell in the Caribbean.
And thus Eric hated the dream because it was a lie. Yes, there was a beautiful tropical beach so close he could practically smell it, but what point was there to it? There were no sexy women sunbathing topless, no bars serving unlimited alcohol, no buddies to play in the surf with. Just a beach, beautiful as was empty and lonely.
Oh, and dangerous, what with the bus sized crocodiles, and sharks, and let’s not forget the dinosaurs.
The beach dream was hollow, nothing more than a teasing torment of a life once had.
He sat on the beach for a short eternity, the sun always hot and directly overhead, the waves always rolling in low and slow from the sparkling blue sea. Perhaps the dream was his body’s attempt at creating a pleasant, soothing atmosphere while he recovered, or perhaps it was feverish punishment for getting hurt in the first place, but either way, the dream was ultimately painful for Eric.
And then it changed.
Where before it was empty of people save for Eric, another figure emerged. Rising out of the waves like Venus was Mary, a Mary that did not exist in reality, and almost certainly never would. She was tanned and lithe, her body was tight and strong, but with a pleasant layer of fat that made her soft and curvy in all the right places. She was wearing a modern bikini, rather than the oversized loincloth she had been wearing when Eric had fallen asleep the previous day or the torn up dress she had when she first arrived. The top of her bikini supported her breasts in a way that they never had been in real life, giving them perk and cleavage that made Eric resolve to make her a bra when he woke up. Finally, to complete the image, she had a bottle of beer in each hand.
Ah, beer. He had never been a big fan of beer, but now that it was gone, it was just one more of the numerous things he missed. He had figured out what local plants he could ferment, but the time commitment and impairment was not worth it. At best he could have distilled the product for use as a disinfectant, but he already had better stuff than moonshine for cleaning wounds.
The dream Mary approached him, smiling broadly, and kneeling down before him, she said, “You were incredible, my hero. And for that you deserve a reward.”
It took Eric a moment to realize that “Mary’s” voice was a composite of Mary and Lisa’s voices. In fact, her bikini was the same one Lisa had worn during the vacation where he met her.
“Oh? And what is my reward?” Eric asks somewhat rhetorically.
Mary sets down the beers and undid her top. A chorus of angel’s singing Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” heralded this grand unveiling. Eric had seen every last scrap of Mary naked, but in this dream was the first time he could fully appreciate her in an erotic context.
Hallelujah indeed.
Sliding down Eric’s swimming trunks, because this was a beach and he had to be wearing swim trunks, Mary began to play with Eric.
The broadest smile possible on her face, Mary looked at him while beginning to gently stroke up and down and said, “You took a big risk out there to save me. You deserve a big reward.”
Glancing down, she added on with a sly smile, “Well, for you, any reward would be big, now wouldn’t it?”
She then took him in her mouth, sliding up and down his length once before saying, “You get the rest when you wake up.”
Rising, she sashayed back to the water, blowing him a kiss before disappearing back beneath the waves.
Damn it! When he was awake Eric could control himself and avoid this sort of problem, but in his dream she just had to blue ball him.
Motherfucker.
The rest of the dream was a blur, with Eric eventually watching the sun set on the water while lounging on his beach chair, a warm, soft pillow under his head. He wasn’t sure if this was torment any more.
He woke up at the point in the dream where he fell asleep, opening his eyes to a starry sky above, brilliant with alien and yet familiar constellations. His body ached with a thousand unnamed aches, but none of the pain was sharp, and none of him felt numb, both absences he took as good signs.
Taking stock of the situation, he found his head well supported by something soft and warm. Something he quickly determined was Mary’s lap. She had probably fallen asleep some time around mid-afternoon, if the redness on her skin was any indication. Eric had burned pretty badly at first too, but at least he had not come from a culture that avoided the sun.
Well, okay, as a nerd and academic that was debatable, but the point was that even he had seen more sun than Mary.
Flexing his arms, Eric found more strength returning to his right arm, but some tightness entering into his left. He would have to do some serious yet careful exercise to guarantee that he would not suffer serious, permanent loss of strength and mobility.
Getting up, Eric examined the situation, and, thinking back to his dream, wondered if perhaps reality had been affecting the dream world. Definitely gave him some interesting questions to ask later.
Observing the fire, Eric sighed at the cold ashes in the heath. He was hungry and most of the food they had right now required thorough cooking for safety’s sake. He would have preferred not to have had to restart the fire, but at least he didn’t have to use a bow drill anymore. While not quite as good as flint and steel, he had figured out the kind of rocks that when he struck them together would produce sparks.
After a good five minutes, Eric had a modest little fire going and kebobs of half-rancid tyrannosaur meat charring over it. Glancing at Mary again, Eric sighed and went over to his medicine bag. Picking up a horn, he took the last of the antibiotic tea Mary had prepared and finished it off. The mould and leaf combination packed and lot of antibacterial and antifungal punch. More punch than penicillin probably.
Taking out a different set of plants, some just gathered a few days ago, Eric began grinding and mixing. When in the correct combination, he could make a potent anti-burn ointment, good for damage caused by flame or the sun. Mary would need a fair amount of the stuff when she woke up.
Some combination of the crackle of the fire, the smell of burning grease from the cooking meat, the soft clink of stone between the mortar and pestle, and Eric’s absence from her lap roused Mary from her slumber. Mumbling and groping about, she searched fro the head that should have been on her lap before looking up and finding Eric sitting across the fire from her.
“You’re awake,” Eric notes idly while continuing his work and picking up one of the kebabs.
“You’re awake,” Mary exclaims profoundly.
“I seem to have slept through an entire day, so it’s to be expected,” Eric replies dryly before tearing off a chunk of meat.
“But you’re sick,” Mary counters.
“Have to get better eventually,” Eric points out.
“Oh… well… yeah…” Mary finishes, with a little smile on her face.
“Yeah. Well, anyway, you seem to have been pretty badly burnt, so I’m making you this ointment,” Eric replies while finishing up his work.
“Oh. That’s nice of you,” Mary says happily.
“I need you working tomorrow, not wincing away at the sight of the sun,” Eric replies deadpan, hating to be such an ass but needing to be like that.
Mary frowns for a moment before the smile returns to her face and she says, “Makes sense.”
That was new. There was something different about Mary. A bit more confidence maybe? She had done something while he was asleep, but what Eric was not quite sure yet.
Completing his work on the ointment, Eric handed the stone bowl over to Mary and said, “Here, smear this all over the places where it stings.”
Taking the bowl, Mary begins to do just that, rubbing the green-brown paste over her face and shoulders. As she worked, the expression on her face became exquisite as pain mixed with relief as the soothing oils soaked into the burns, cooling them off.
As her breasts began to glisten in the light of the fire, liquid dripping off her erect nipples, Eric knew that today was Wednesday and he would embarrass himself soon. Only one option then. Go on the attack before weakness was revealed.
“Mary, did you play with my penis today?” Eric asked in a straightforward manner.
Dead silence.
Despite the poor light from the fire and the burns on her skin, Eric could see Mary turn beet red. Opening and closing her mouth like a fish gasping in open air, Mary finally hung her head and said, “Yes.”
Eric was rather glad she was looking away because Eric was pitching a tent with a pillar from the Parthenon. He had not expected that response. Still, he managed to keep his primary head in control of the situation.
“Can I ask why?” Eric inquires with a hint of sarcasm and a hint of genuine interest.
“Curiosity,” Mary mopes.
Eric was about thirty seconds away from blowing his load. And right now he was carrying more munitions than the Mont Blanc leaving Halifax. He would probably punch a hole in his loincloth if this continued.
“Curiosity? So you’re telling me that you just wanted to see what was beneath my loincloth, and when you saw you just started playing around?” Eric asks.
Mary just nodded her head.
The ship was on fire, and Commander Phallus was leading a full scale mutiny against Captain Brain, the hormone ratings bashing against the bridge door.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Captain Brain called up his trump card.
Margaret Thatcher in a thong bikini two sizes too small.
Commander Phallus retreated, whimpering in defeat. Captain Brain was already paying for such a move, but he would retain control this time.
Then Mary decided, unknowingly or not, to side with Commander Phallus.
“I was curious so I took a peak… then I started poking it and it got bigger and was al like a cobra and then something leaked out and I got worried so I checked it out and… and… and I licked your penis Eric,” Mary explains with a hung head and an ashamed tone.
Captain Brain found himself betrayed by Lieutenant Imagination, who somehow managed to make Margaret Thatcher hot, and Commander Phallus redoubled his efforts, right as the fire got to the munitions deck. Captain Brain decided to go down with the ship rather than surrender.
“So… uh… where did this curiosity come from?” Eric asked, a quiver of macho pride entering his voice.
Sighing, Mary points into the darkness and says, “That.”
Turning about, Eric squinted his eyes against the shadows until they adjusted, and he saw something he had never seen before. Something artificial not at all made by his hands.
Getting up, he went over to where the mask lay and picked it up. To call it crude was a compliment to the construction, but it was definitely a mask with nose, mouth, and eye holes. It also had a thin piece of sinew to it on the face, and perhaps interestingly, and disturbingly, enough, two horns carved into the top.
“What is this?” Eric asks, the mutiny in his head put on hold for the moment.
Mary opened her mouth to say something before snapping it shut and holding out her hand. Handing it to her, Eric watches her put it on.
It took almost three seconds for the change to occur, and probably another two for Eric to properly notice, but the switch was as different as night and day. Mary’s whole manner and posture changed. She perked up, her posture becoming straighter and more attentive. She began to make small, excited movements, not quite fidgeting, but close. Perhaps a comparison to a small puppy was best.
And then Mary spoke.
It was scary just how different her voice was. Where before she had a refined, and to Eric’s ears at least, archaic British accent, now she had a higher pitched, lilting tone that was childish not just in sound but in grammatical structure.
“Oh! You’re better! I’m so happy they worked!” She exclaimed giddily.
“‘They’?” Eric asks suspiciously.
“My boobs of course!” Mary says before grabbing her breasts and shaking them around while chanting, “Boobs! Boobs! Boobs!”
Looking at her in horror, Eric wondered fearfully if he had pushed her too hard, too fast.
Clearly grinning beneath her mask, Mary says, “It was just like you said. Boobs have healing powers! Hooray for boobs!”
This was terrifying beyond belief. Whenever Eric lost control, it scared him to his core. But to see this happen to someone else? When he had no control over the situation? Something beyond his worst nightmares brought to life.
Still grinning idiotically beneath her mask, Mary then says, “Oh yes! There’s this ticklish spot between my legs! Can you tell me about it?” She then lifted up her loin cloth, spread her legs, and placed a hand on her genitals.
This was not in any way erotic for Eric. It, in fact, made him feel like a paedophile; Mary’s behaviour was so childish that despite the fact that Mary was physically an adult woman, it felt like Eric was talking to a seven year old.
Wait a second…
Sitting down next to her, Eric gently took Mary’s hand and began explaining things.
“This is the mons pubis, this is the labia majora, the labia minora, the prepuce or clitoral hood, the glans clitoris, the urinary meatus or urethral orifice, and the introitus or vaginal orifice,” Eric states clinically.
“Ooooh! Why do they tickle so much when touched?” Mary asks.
“Because they are inundated with nerve endings, especially in the clitoris, for the purposes of giving pleasure during sexual intercourse,” Eric says.
“Why?” Mary asks in a sing-song voice.
Sweet Buddha, Loki, and Ra, give me strength.
Going into full blown professor mode, Eric states, “Two primary reasons. The first is that the pleasure makes you want to repeat the act of sexual intercourse, increasing the chances of conception. The second is that sufficient stimulation will eventually lead to orgasms, which in females will produce muscular contractions in the vagina and cervix that can help aid sperm in reaching the egg, again increasing the chances of conception.”
“Why?”
Sighing, Eric continues, “Because conception leads to pregnancy, which leads to birth. The more children born, the greater the odds that more will make it to reproductive age and have children of their own, thus passing down the traits that caused the increase in reproduction.”
“Why?”
“Because that is evolution. Those organisms, including humans, that reproduce more than their competitors, will eventually drive their competitors away. Traits that improve reproductive success are passed on; traits that do not improve success either are not passed on, or pass due to luck. Life is all about continuing on through the generations and evolution guarantees it will continue in one form or another,” Eric states.
“Why?”
Shrugging, Eric says, “Because it does. Life is life. We are born, we live, if we are lucky we reproduce, and then we die. Those are the fundamentals. Everything beyond that is up to us.”
Her posture becoming confused, Mary then says, “Okay then… what’s sexual intercourse? Or an orgasm?”
Oy vey.
“Sexual intercourse, most basically, is genital-genital contact, although other forms are also possible. In male-female intercourse, the male inserts his erect penis into the female’s vagina, and then through repetitive thrusting action, they co-stimulate, until such point that orgasm is achieved. Orgasm for both sexes involves an intense release of hormones, muscle contracts throughout the body, and feelings of euphoria throughout the body but focused about the genitalia. Additionally, for males orgasm is typically accompanied by ejaculation, which is the expulsion of semen from the end of the penis via the urethra. Semen is a mixture of fluids that support the sperm, the male gametes, carriers of genetic material,” Eric explains as thoroughly as he can.
Mary listens intently before looking at their crotches a few times and then saying, “So you stick your penis between my legs and then it spits stuff inside me?”
Nodding, Eric says, “In a very basic sense, yes.”
“Impossible! You’re huge!” Mary states incredulously.
Compliment, probably backhanded, aside, Eric just sighs and shakes his head before saying, “The vagina is a tube of muscle capable of expanding to permit the entry of the penis, and with the right hormonal cues and a few months to prepare, the exit of a baby.”
“There is no way that-” Mary abruptly stops talking as she accidentally slides two fingers in. Pulling them back out, she thinks for a moment before saying, “Oh. I guess maybe you could fit.”
Only two fingers? Ouch.
Looking at her fingers, Mary notes, “They’re wet.”
Nodding, Eric states, “Yes, during arousal blood floods the genitals of both sexes. In the male, this is to provide hydraulic support to cause the penis to become erect, while in the female the increased blood flow provides fluid that can be processed into a lubricating secretion to aid in penetration.”
Sniffing her fingers, Mary asks, “So this is like oil for a train? Smells more like the stuff you ‘ejaculated’ yesterday. Are you sure this doesn’t have ‘sperm’ in it?”
Shaking his head, Eric says “That was pre-ejaculate yesterday, trust me, you would know the difference if you saw a full ejaculation. While the fluid does contain sperm, it is mostly just lubricant. And females do not produce sperm; they produce eggs, typically once a month, one or two at a time, in comparison to the hundreds of millions to billions of sperm produced daily by men.”
“Once a month? So…” Mary begins.
Interrupting with a nod, Eric says, “Yes, in human females if the eggs released are not fertilized by sperm within a few days then the tissue that builds up along the uterine wall in anticipation of receiving a fertilized egg is sloughed off over an interval of several days, the so called period.”
“Oh! So you’re telling me that if you stick your penis in my ‘vagina’ on the right day and squirt fluid into me, I won’t have a period but will rather get pregnant,” Mary sums up.
“Yes,” Eric states.
“Can we try that?” Mary asks impishly.
“No,” Eric states dryly.
Clearly pouting beneath her mask, Mary whines, “Why not?”
“Because you aren’t ready for sex,” Eric states flat out.
Dragging her fingers across her genitals, Mary holds them up and shows off the wetness, saying, “See! I’m aroused! You said that means I’m ready.”
Actually, Eric had not said that, it had just been implied by some of his statements. This personality was woefully ignorant, but like Mary, she was not stupid. In fact, she was probably smarter than normal because she was unafraid of looking stupid or improper.
“Physically, yes. But then again, physically you are what, twenty? Yet you are only as mature as say a seven year old, an age far too young for sex,” Eric chastises.
“I’m at least eight!” Mary exclaims angrily, making Eric raise an eyebrow. There was no sarcasm in her voice. There was something big being hidden here.
“You need to grow up a bit first. Kiss me and we’ll go from there,” Eric says.
Mary froze. She was smart enough to see what Eric was doing. She would have to take off her mask and would revert back to the timid girl she had crafted the mask to escape from.
Moving closer to Eric, Mary sits down next to him, tears running down her face visible through the crude holes cut in her mask.
Looking at him, Mary says, “You are a cruel tyrant, you know that?”
“Would you have it any other way?” Eric asks.
“No,” Mary states before ripping off her mask and grabbing Eric’s head in her hands, pulling him close and planting her lips upon his. It was awkward and sloppy and felt more desperate than passionate, but it was definitely real.
Eric felt Mary change, her whole body tensing up and becoming afraid, but she did not break off the kiss right away. Instead, she slid her hands down Eric’s neck and shoulders before breaking away to say, “Hold me… please.”
At that moment, Eric barely had use of either arm, and yet he felt like he could have taken another, bigger, rex in a fist fight.
They sat in silence in the night for several minutes like that, Mary in his lap, arms wrapped about each other, until Mary broke the silence by saying, “Eric, I’m scared.”
Eric was terrified beyond belief. He had come into this alien world sane and lost his mind. Mary… he doubted she had been well for a very long time. And there was so little he knew about psychology. He was a math and science man.
Still, that was not what she needed to hear. She needed strength and security, a port to call home during a storm.
So he said all he could, “I know Mary, I know.”
Mary was silent for a moment before asking, “Eric, can you promise me something?”
“If it is possible,” Eric replies stonily, dreading the coming request.
“Don’t sleep with me… with her. When I put on that mask… I’m… I’m not myself,” Mary begs.
Sighing, Eric says, “I’m afraid that request is not possible.”
“What?” Mary cries out before something dawns on her and she hangs her head, weeping softly, saying, “Oh… right. You’re a man. You need sex. And I won’t give it to you. Only she will.”
Lifting her chin so that she is facing him, Eric says, “No. Never think like that. You kissed me, I kissed back, and you kept kissing. Your request is impossible because is there is no you and her, there is only you. I know it must be scary to lose control like that, trust me, I know. Before you came, it was a constant tug of war between me and the beast within. Ruthless tyrant versus relentless animal. But you, you have reminded me what it means to be human. Remember, life is hard, and it won’t get easier unless you stand your ground and hit back.”
Mary’s lower lip was quivering. Her whole body was quivering. Eric could smell her femininity. A huge party of him, a huge part, wanted to lay her back and take her. She would love it, would beg him for more with sweaty, panting breaths. But he held back. He knew at his core that she was not ready for this mentally or emotionally.
Taking a deep breath to focus, Eric asks, “Do you trust me?”
Mary nods, tensing up slightly. Definitely not ready.
Disengaging from her grasp, Eric picks up a small piece of tinder and holds it over the fire until the tip ignites. What he was doing was risky as he barely knew what he was doing, but then again, so was nearly everything else he had done since his arrival here.
Holding up the burning twig, Eric says, “I want you to stare into the flame and listen to the sound of my voice.”
Mary nods and begins to gaze at the tiny pinprick of light, her eyes shifting back and forth with the flicker of the flame.
Eric had never done this one another person before. He had taught himself autohypnosis years before as a way of helping to better organize his often cluttered memory. He was pretty sure he could avoid hurting Mary though.
Pretty sure.
“I want you to listen to the sound of my voice Mary, and to trust what I say. First, there is nothing to fear here, so you should relax. Relax, relax, relax. Yes, yes, you have had a long day, you deserve to relax. Relax, relax, relax. You are floating away, not a single muscle tight you are so relaxed. Relax, relax, relax. There are lead weights on your eyelids, you should close them and relax. Relax, relax, relax,” Eric prompted in a low, soothing voice, watching as Mary first shed the tension in her body, then dropped her eyes closed before her head slumped over into her chest.
Blowing out the twig, Eric says, “Good Mary, good. You are totally relaxed now, and whenever I snap my fingers I want you to return to this state of relaxation. If you understand, just nod your head.”
Mary nods once.
“Good, good,” Eric says. He would start with some stage tricks to make sure he was doing it right. “Mary, I want you to hold up your arms.”
She immediately held up both her arms at right angles to her body.
“Good, good. Now, lace your hands together. Good, good. Now… Mary, your hands, they are a solid ball of steel. You can’t get them apart,” Eric tells her, and she immediately tips over and begins struggling to separate her hands. Interesting. She added weight of steel to the scenario in addition to the strength of steel.
Snapping his fingers, Eric watches Mary sit back up, her arms falling to her sides as she returned to her relaxed state.
“Good, good. You are relaxed. Relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. Now Mary, you are at a fine ball in an elegant dress, and you have been invited to dance. Will you dance Mary?” Eric prompts her.
Standing up, Mary curtsey’s politely to some phantom figure and then begins to dance. What sort of dance Eric is unsure of, but it is certainly beautiful. Elegant and precise, Eric cannot help but notice how fine her ass and legs are. Get her in the right clothing and she would be spectacular.
After about a minute Eric remembered his purpose and snapped his fingers, causing Mary to pause in her dance and slump over again.
“Good, good. You were excellent Mary and you deserve to relax. Relax, relax, relax,” Eric says before gulping profoundly. Now was the dangerous bit.
“Now Mary, I want you to relax even more. To relax until you go to sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. You will wake up to this relaxed state when I snap my fingers, okay? Sleep, sleep, sleep,” Eric orders, and as Mary slumps over further, he waits a second before asking, “Can you hear me?”
No response.
Eric snaps his fingers and Mary perked up a bit. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Mary mumbled sleepily.
“Good, good. Now I want you to sleep again. Sleep, sleep, sleep,” Eric waits for her to fall asleep again before saying more firmly, “I want to talk to anyone else there.”
Mary straightened up and a small, predatory smirk came over her face, and she spoke in a low, husky tone, “I was wondering when you were going to start this part.”
“Are you the one that comes out when Mary puts on the mask?” Eric asks.
“Yes and no. We haven’t been formally introduced, but I am there when the Imp is playing with Mary,” she says.
Somehow, she made the word “introduced” sound dirty. Shaking his head, Eric asks, “If I have only met the Imp, them who are you?”
Moaning throatily and then licking her lips, she says, “You want to know my name? Is that so you can scream it out when I am riding your firm, hard cock?”
“Answer the question,” Eric demands firmly.
Twitching a slight frown, she says, “I am one of Mary’s demons, the darker parts of her she hides away. I suppose just Demon would work.”
Shaking his head, Eric says, “No. An Imp is also a demon. You are something else, aren’t you? You’re her sexuality, aren’t you?”
She frowns more deeply, the expression sticking while she says, “I am more than just sex. I am everything Mary hates about herself. I am strong, aggressive, and powerful. Everything she refuses to be because she is weak.”
“Then the Imp is everything she hides from herself, right? Curiosity, cleverness, mischievousness, etc. Right?” Eric asks.
Leaning back, she shudders and says, “I love it when you do that. But yes, I suppose you could say that.”
It would be comical how hyper-sexualized Mary was acting if not for the seriousness of her condition. This personality was an adolescent caricature of sex, almost as immature as the Imp. Eric supposed only one name would do.
“All right then demon, since I know I let you out, I supposed I should name you. So then, what do you think of Succubus, a demonic predator of men via sex?” Eric suggests.
As expected, she practically orgasms before saying, “I love it! I love it!”
She then pouts slightly and adds on, “But I have no men to prey on, only you, and you are my lord, my Evening Star.”
Raising an eyebrow, Eric asks, “You think me a demon?”
“No, a devil! Peer and superior to Lucifer the Morning Star. You are my Eric, my master, the tyrant I live only to serve,” she states melodramatically.
This was truly fucked up.
“Succubus, you and the Imp existed long before Mary came here. Where did you come from?” Eric asks.
Shrugging, she says, “The weak willed bitch knows… I think.”
“But you are her,” Eric states.
A look of fear passes over her face and she shakes her head violently before saying angrily, “No! I am not her! I am pure evil, everything she wants to be but is too weak to be.”
Better back off a bit.
“Fine. You are not her. But you should be. Sex, aggression, and power are not evil, and I would like to see more that, along with more curiosity and cleverness, mixed in with the kindness and gentleness I see in Mary,” Eric says.
She looked like he had slapped her, mumbling, “But I am evil.”
“No more than me. Sleep my dear, I wish to speak with Mary now,” Eric says before snapping his fingers. Slumping over like a marionette with cut strings, Mary just sits there.
“Mary, are you there?” Eric asks.
“Yes,” she replies sleepily.
“How do you feel?” Eric inquires.
“Wonderful,” she replies.
“Is there anyone else there?” Eric asks.
“Just you,” she says warmly.
“What about your demons?” Eric asks.
Mary frowns and says, “They’re sleeping.”
“When did they appear?” Eric asks.
“I don’t know,” Mary says with a quiver of stress in her voice.
“Was it when you were eight?” Eric asks gently, remembering the comment from the Imp.
Her whole body shaking, Mary manages to stutter out, “Y-y-yes.”
His voice soft and gentle, “Do you know what happened?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Would you like to tell me?” Eric asks.
“N-n-no… y-y-yes. Y-yes. T-t-tell y-y-you,” Mary stutters out.
“Then, at your own speed, tell me what you remember,” Eric says gently.
Trembling all over, Mary begins in a childish voice, “Daddy had been out all night, and he missed dinner and supper. Nana had already put me to bed, but I wanted to see daddy. I…”
As Mary paused for breath and to collect her thoughts, Eric had only one thought on his mind.
This was fucked up beyond belief, and he felt like someone was making balloon animals out of his intestines and had placed lead weights in his stomach. He wanted to end this now, did not want to hear this. But he needed to know the extent of the damage.
“He smelled funny. He got angry that I was out of bed. Very angry. He got out his cane. He… he… DADDY I’M SORRY!” Mary screamed and then threw up her hands to defend herself against phantom blows.
Snapping his fingers, Eric shouted out, “Mary, relax! Relax, relax, relax…”
Slowly, Mary calmed down, until only the tears staining her face gave testament to the fact that anything was amiss.
Eric got lucky, he knew, that she still responded to him. Things could have gone very, very badly and he resolved not to try hypnosis again.
“Mary?” Eric asks softly.
“Yes?” She asks back.
“Did your father ever touch you in places you did not like to be touched?” Eric asks.
“No. He only ever spanked me when I was naughty. When I was a good girl he was nice. I like being a good girl. So does the rest of my family,” Mary says sleepily.
Okay, so she had just suffered horrible physical and psychological abuse and not sexual abuse. Big improvement that was.
And then a horrible, horrible thought struck Eric.
“Mary, what was your father’s name?” Eric asks.
“Lucas,” Mary replied.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!
The Succubus called him the Evening Star, the peer and superior to Lucifer.
Fuck.
Eric had no idea what to do. He… he…
“Mary, when I snap my finger, you will awaken as from a pleasant dream, feeling refreshed and at ease. You will remember nothing of our conversations. Do you understand?” Eric asks.
“Yes,” Mary replies.
Eric snapped his fingers.
Mary’s eyes flickered open and when she saw Eric she immediately broke out into a warm, gentle smile.
“Oh! I’m sorry Eric, I seem to have drifted off to sleep there,” Mary says warmly.
Smiling back despite his worry, an easy task considering the masks he wore about her all the time, Eric says, “I think I drifted off for a bit there to. Did you dream pleasantly?”
“Oh yes! I dreamt of you actually, blazing brightly like a star in the evening, holding me close and warm,” Mary says before a look of embarrassment crosses her face.
“It has been a cold night. Come over here if it will keep you warm,” Eric says, patting the stone next to him.
Smiling, Mary gets up and walks over to him before saying, “Oh… I know it is improper, but…”
And then she sits down on Eric’s lap, snuggling into him and saying, “I don’t want to be cold again.”
Gently placing an arm about her shoulders, Eric holds her close and kisses her forehead gently saying, “As long as I am here, you won’t be.”
Closing her eyes, Mary says, “Thank you,” before a tear rolls down her face and she drifts off to sleep.
Rolling his head back to rest against the cold stone, Eric looks up at the night sky. A single shooting star crosses the sky and Eric wishes he had the power to heal Mary’s mind.
And then he sees another shooting star.
And another.
And… oh fuck. Mary’s arrival had disrupted all his planning.
He had forgotten about the Doombringers.
He hated this dream, hated it with a passion. It was his subconscious tormenting him. It was torment because the beach itself existed in this antediluvian world. He had been there before. It was about two days hike away. But the emotional feeling was from a different beach.
He had gone on a Caribbean vacation in his younger days, long before he had been sent here. He had been in school at the time and his parents, despite having more than enough money, had long ago decided that he should make his own way in the world. He had not minded though as he was quite successful at the things he did, although he did not have a whole lot of spare spending money for a trip. Thus the resort had been nice, but not that great. The food was good enough, the room a bit small but bearable, and the drinks had flown freely. Overall, it had been a good place for a university student to relax and party while on a budget.
More so, he had met had his first girlfriend there.
His original reasons for going were to keep a friend company. The guy had been going nuts with stress and had got the idea in his head that what he needed was a getaway. Not wanting the poor bastard to go alone, Eric had volunteered to go and keep him company, and keep an eye on him.
When they first got there, Eric’s initial fears were justified when his buddy lost all resemblance of self control and downed ten tequila shots in the time it took Eric to go to the bathroom. This quickly resulted in Eric and the idiotic bartender who let him drink that much having to haul the guy to the nurse’s shack. While Eric was filling out forms to get his friend taken to the hospital for treatment for alcohol poisoning, he met Lisa.
Lisa had come with her boyfriend; a brute of a man who played college football, for whom calling a Neanderthal was truly an insult to Neanderthals. A complete dumb ass and asshole, he had already blown most of his money for the year partying, so when it came time to book the Caribbean vacation he had promised Lisa, he booked cheap.
Thus when Lisa and three of the resort staff carried her drunk and concussed boyfriend, she was fuming. Not only had he skimped out on his gift to her, not only going cheap but apparently making her pay ¾ of the cost instead of the ½ he told her she was paying, but the first night there he got drunk and dived head first into 0.6m deep pool. The impact was enough to get through his thick skull and rattle his tiny brain.
With the two of them sitting in the waiting room, their vacations apparently ruined because of the idiocy of their friends, they immediately hit it off. Lisa was an arts student with a major in English, but she was really just drifting in her life, no idea what she wanted. She was, rightly so, considered the hottest girl on her campus, which was how she had come to be the possession of the brute. The bastard was continuously cheating on her and verbally abusing her, but she was too scared to leave. With the amount of steroids in his system, this was certainly justifiable.
But with him out of the picture, she was free to party the way she wanted. And while Eric was not the wiry hard ass he was now, he had his own charms. As a nerd, if there was one thing he could do well, it was talk, and with an opening at the hospital, he managed to talk her pants off.
It was like something out of a bad comedy, or a teenager’s wet dream. For a week Eric was enjoying sun and sand during the day, and blowjobs and doggy style at night.
When the stay was over, Lisa’s boyfriend was out of the hospital and pissed beyond belief that some overweight nerd had stolen his girl. Eric never would have stood a chance in a fair fight, so he didn’t fight fair. He had always been a manipulator of situations, knowing that it was better to have numbers on your side than brute strength. While not the same as now, he had always had the tyrant within him, the ruthless creature willing to do anything to achieve victory.
When the jackass threw the first punch, it was a security guard at the resort. Eric had no illusions as to being able to take the gorilla and no pride about fighting fair. So he had discretely tipped off security to keep an eye out. When the bastard started to get aggressive and violent, security stepped in and tried to diffuse the situation.
The words “spic” and “nigger” were thrown about.
A hand went out to restrain him.
A punch was thrown.
The nightsticks were whipped out and back-up was called for.
Eric watched smugly as half the resort staff joined in on the beat down. Apparently the guy was a bad tipper to boot.
Karma was a bitch.
Lisa had been shocked but ultimately pleased. She had grown to hate the macho bullshit typified by her now ex-boyfriend and had greatly appreciated Eric doing the responsible thing rather than the “manly” thing. She had shown her appreciation by inducting Eric into the Mile High Club.
The relationship did not last much longer after that. They stayed in touch and met up a few times, but being so far apart it was doomed to failure. Ultimately it was good for both of them though. Eric gained considerable self-confidence when it came to women, and Lisa realized that she had to set a new path in her life. She changed schools and got into business. Last Eric had heard she was working on an MBA while helping to manage the software company her new husband had started.
It had been a lovely wedding that the brute had not been able to attend as he was still languishing in a jail cell in the Caribbean.
And thus Eric hated the dream because it was a lie. Yes, there was a beautiful tropical beach so close he could practically smell it, but what point was there to it? There were no sexy women sunbathing topless, no bars serving unlimited alcohol, no buddies to play in the surf with. Just a beach, beautiful as was empty and lonely.
Oh, and dangerous, what with the bus sized crocodiles, and sharks, and let’s not forget the dinosaurs.
The beach dream was hollow, nothing more than a teasing torment of a life once had.
He sat on the beach for a short eternity, the sun always hot and directly overhead, the waves always rolling in low and slow from the sparkling blue sea. Perhaps the dream was his body’s attempt at creating a pleasant, soothing atmosphere while he recovered, or perhaps it was feverish punishment for getting hurt in the first place, but either way, the dream was ultimately painful for Eric.
And then it changed.
Where before it was empty of people save for Eric, another figure emerged. Rising out of the waves like Venus was Mary, a Mary that did not exist in reality, and almost certainly never would. She was tanned and lithe, her body was tight and strong, but with a pleasant layer of fat that made her soft and curvy in all the right places. She was wearing a modern bikini, rather than the oversized loincloth she had been wearing when Eric had fallen asleep the previous day or the torn up dress she had when she first arrived. The top of her bikini supported her breasts in a way that they never had been in real life, giving them perk and cleavage that made Eric resolve to make her a bra when he woke up. Finally, to complete the image, she had a bottle of beer in each hand.
Ah, beer. He had never been a big fan of beer, but now that it was gone, it was just one more of the numerous things he missed. He had figured out what local plants he could ferment, but the time commitment and impairment was not worth it. At best he could have distilled the product for use as a disinfectant, but he already had better stuff than moonshine for cleaning wounds.
The dream Mary approached him, smiling broadly, and kneeling down before him, she said, “You were incredible, my hero. And for that you deserve a reward.”
It took Eric a moment to realize that “Mary’s” voice was a composite of Mary and Lisa’s voices. In fact, her bikini was the same one Lisa had worn during the vacation where he met her.
“Oh? And what is my reward?” Eric asks somewhat rhetorically.
Mary sets down the beers and undid her top. A chorus of angel’s singing Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” heralded this grand unveiling. Eric had seen every last scrap of Mary naked, but in this dream was the first time he could fully appreciate her in an erotic context.
Hallelujah indeed.
Sliding down Eric’s swimming trunks, because this was a beach and he had to be wearing swim trunks, Mary began to play with Eric.
The broadest smile possible on her face, Mary looked at him while beginning to gently stroke up and down and said, “You took a big risk out there to save me. You deserve a big reward.”
Glancing down, she added on with a sly smile, “Well, for you, any reward would be big, now wouldn’t it?”
She then took him in her mouth, sliding up and down his length once before saying, “You get the rest when you wake up.”
Rising, she sashayed back to the water, blowing him a kiss before disappearing back beneath the waves.
Damn it! When he was awake Eric could control himself and avoid this sort of problem, but in his dream she just had to blue ball him.
Motherfucker.
The rest of the dream was a blur, with Eric eventually watching the sun set on the water while lounging on his beach chair, a warm, soft pillow under his head. He wasn’t sure if this was torment any more.
He woke up at the point in the dream where he fell asleep, opening his eyes to a starry sky above, brilliant with alien and yet familiar constellations. His body ached with a thousand unnamed aches, but none of the pain was sharp, and none of him felt numb, both absences he took as good signs.
Taking stock of the situation, he found his head well supported by something soft and warm. Something he quickly determined was Mary’s lap. She had probably fallen asleep some time around mid-afternoon, if the redness on her skin was any indication. Eric had burned pretty badly at first too, but at least he had not come from a culture that avoided the sun.
Well, okay, as a nerd and academic that was debatable, but the point was that even he had seen more sun than Mary.
Flexing his arms, Eric found more strength returning to his right arm, but some tightness entering into his left. He would have to do some serious yet careful exercise to guarantee that he would not suffer serious, permanent loss of strength and mobility.
Getting up, Eric examined the situation, and, thinking back to his dream, wondered if perhaps reality had been affecting the dream world. Definitely gave him some interesting questions to ask later.
Observing the fire, Eric sighed at the cold ashes in the heath. He was hungry and most of the food they had right now required thorough cooking for safety’s sake. He would have preferred not to have had to restart the fire, but at least he didn’t have to use a bow drill anymore. While not quite as good as flint and steel, he had figured out the kind of rocks that when he struck them together would produce sparks.
After a good five minutes, Eric had a modest little fire going and kebobs of half-rancid tyrannosaur meat charring over it. Glancing at Mary again, Eric sighed and went over to his medicine bag. Picking up a horn, he took the last of the antibiotic tea Mary had prepared and finished it off. The mould and leaf combination packed and lot of antibacterial and antifungal punch. More punch than penicillin probably.
Taking out a different set of plants, some just gathered a few days ago, Eric began grinding and mixing. When in the correct combination, he could make a potent anti-burn ointment, good for damage caused by flame or the sun. Mary would need a fair amount of the stuff when she woke up.
Some combination of the crackle of the fire, the smell of burning grease from the cooking meat, the soft clink of stone between the mortar and pestle, and Eric’s absence from her lap roused Mary from her slumber. Mumbling and groping about, she searched fro the head that should have been on her lap before looking up and finding Eric sitting across the fire from her.
“You’re awake,” Eric notes idly while continuing his work and picking up one of the kebabs.
“You’re awake,” Mary exclaims profoundly.
“I seem to have slept through an entire day, so it’s to be expected,” Eric replies dryly before tearing off a chunk of meat.
“But you’re sick,” Mary counters.
“Have to get better eventually,” Eric points out.
“Oh… well… yeah…” Mary finishes, with a little smile on her face.
“Yeah. Well, anyway, you seem to have been pretty badly burnt, so I’m making you this ointment,” Eric replies while finishing up his work.
“Oh. That’s nice of you,” Mary says happily.
“I need you working tomorrow, not wincing away at the sight of the sun,” Eric replies deadpan, hating to be such an ass but needing to be like that.
Mary frowns for a moment before the smile returns to her face and she says, “Makes sense.”
That was new. There was something different about Mary. A bit more confidence maybe? She had done something while he was asleep, but what Eric was not quite sure yet.
Completing his work on the ointment, Eric handed the stone bowl over to Mary and said, “Here, smear this all over the places where it stings.”
Taking the bowl, Mary begins to do just that, rubbing the green-brown paste over her face and shoulders. As she worked, the expression on her face became exquisite as pain mixed with relief as the soothing oils soaked into the burns, cooling them off.
As her breasts began to glisten in the light of the fire, liquid dripping off her erect nipples, Eric knew that today was Wednesday and he would embarrass himself soon. Only one option then. Go on the attack before weakness was revealed.
“Mary, did you play with my penis today?” Eric asked in a straightforward manner.
Dead silence.
Despite the poor light from the fire and the burns on her skin, Eric could see Mary turn beet red. Opening and closing her mouth like a fish gasping in open air, Mary finally hung her head and said, “Yes.”
Eric was rather glad she was looking away because Eric was pitching a tent with a pillar from the Parthenon. He had not expected that response. Still, he managed to keep his primary head in control of the situation.
“Can I ask why?” Eric inquires with a hint of sarcasm and a hint of genuine interest.
“Curiosity,” Mary mopes.
Eric was about thirty seconds away from blowing his load. And right now he was carrying more munitions than the Mont Blanc leaving Halifax. He would probably punch a hole in his loincloth if this continued.
“Curiosity? So you’re telling me that you just wanted to see what was beneath my loincloth, and when you saw you just started playing around?” Eric asks.
Mary just nodded her head.
The ship was on fire, and Commander Phallus was leading a full scale mutiny against Captain Brain, the hormone ratings bashing against the bridge door.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Captain Brain called up his trump card.
Margaret Thatcher in a thong bikini two sizes too small.
Commander Phallus retreated, whimpering in defeat. Captain Brain was already paying for such a move, but he would retain control this time.
Then Mary decided, unknowingly or not, to side with Commander Phallus.
“I was curious so I took a peak… then I started poking it and it got bigger and was al like a cobra and then something leaked out and I got worried so I checked it out and… and… and I licked your penis Eric,” Mary explains with a hung head and an ashamed tone.
Captain Brain found himself betrayed by Lieutenant Imagination, who somehow managed to make Margaret Thatcher hot, and Commander Phallus redoubled his efforts, right as the fire got to the munitions deck. Captain Brain decided to go down with the ship rather than surrender.
“So… uh… where did this curiosity come from?” Eric asked, a quiver of macho pride entering his voice.
Sighing, Mary points into the darkness and says, “That.”
Turning about, Eric squinted his eyes against the shadows until they adjusted, and he saw something he had never seen before. Something artificial not at all made by his hands.
Getting up, he went over to where the mask lay and picked it up. To call it crude was a compliment to the construction, but it was definitely a mask with nose, mouth, and eye holes. It also had a thin piece of sinew to it on the face, and perhaps interestingly, and disturbingly, enough, two horns carved into the top.
“What is this?” Eric asks, the mutiny in his head put on hold for the moment.
Mary opened her mouth to say something before snapping it shut and holding out her hand. Handing it to her, Eric watches her put it on.
It took almost three seconds for the change to occur, and probably another two for Eric to properly notice, but the switch was as different as night and day. Mary’s whole manner and posture changed. She perked up, her posture becoming straighter and more attentive. She began to make small, excited movements, not quite fidgeting, but close. Perhaps a comparison to a small puppy was best.
And then Mary spoke.
It was scary just how different her voice was. Where before she had a refined, and to Eric’s ears at least, archaic British accent, now she had a higher pitched, lilting tone that was childish not just in sound but in grammatical structure.
“Oh! You’re better! I’m so happy they worked!” She exclaimed giddily.
“‘They’?” Eric asks suspiciously.
“My boobs of course!” Mary says before grabbing her breasts and shaking them around while chanting, “Boobs! Boobs! Boobs!”
Looking at her in horror, Eric wondered fearfully if he had pushed her too hard, too fast.
Clearly grinning beneath her mask, Mary says, “It was just like you said. Boobs have healing powers! Hooray for boobs!”
This was terrifying beyond belief. Whenever Eric lost control, it scared him to his core. But to see this happen to someone else? When he had no control over the situation? Something beyond his worst nightmares brought to life.
Still grinning idiotically beneath her mask, Mary then says, “Oh yes! There’s this ticklish spot between my legs! Can you tell me about it?” She then lifted up her loin cloth, spread her legs, and placed a hand on her genitals.
This was not in any way erotic for Eric. It, in fact, made him feel like a paedophile; Mary’s behaviour was so childish that despite the fact that Mary was physically an adult woman, it felt like Eric was talking to a seven year old.
Wait a second…
Sitting down next to her, Eric gently took Mary’s hand and began explaining things.
“This is the mons pubis, this is the labia majora, the labia minora, the prepuce or clitoral hood, the glans clitoris, the urinary meatus or urethral orifice, and the introitus or vaginal orifice,” Eric states clinically.
“Ooooh! Why do they tickle so much when touched?” Mary asks.
“Because they are inundated with nerve endings, especially in the clitoris, for the purposes of giving pleasure during sexual intercourse,” Eric says.
“Why?” Mary asks in a sing-song voice.
Sweet Buddha, Loki, and Ra, give me strength.
Going into full blown professor mode, Eric states, “Two primary reasons. The first is that the pleasure makes you want to repeat the act of sexual intercourse, increasing the chances of conception. The second is that sufficient stimulation will eventually lead to orgasms, which in females will produce muscular contractions in the vagina and cervix that can help aid sperm in reaching the egg, again increasing the chances of conception.”
“Why?”
Sighing, Eric continues, “Because conception leads to pregnancy, which leads to birth. The more children born, the greater the odds that more will make it to reproductive age and have children of their own, thus passing down the traits that caused the increase in reproduction.”
“Why?”
“Because that is evolution. Those organisms, including humans, that reproduce more than their competitors, will eventually drive their competitors away. Traits that improve reproductive success are passed on; traits that do not improve success either are not passed on, or pass due to luck. Life is all about continuing on through the generations and evolution guarantees it will continue in one form or another,” Eric states.
“Why?”
Shrugging, Eric says, “Because it does. Life is life. We are born, we live, if we are lucky we reproduce, and then we die. Those are the fundamentals. Everything beyond that is up to us.”
Her posture becoming confused, Mary then says, “Okay then… what’s sexual intercourse? Or an orgasm?”
Oy vey.
“Sexual intercourse, most basically, is genital-genital contact, although other forms are also possible. In male-female intercourse, the male inserts his erect penis into the female’s vagina, and then through repetitive thrusting action, they co-stimulate, until such point that orgasm is achieved. Orgasm for both sexes involves an intense release of hormones, muscle contracts throughout the body, and feelings of euphoria throughout the body but focused about the genitalia. Additionally, for males orgasm is typically accompanied by ejaculation, which is the expulsion of semen from the end of the penis via the urethra. Semen is a mixture of fluids that support the sperm, the male gametes, carriers of genetic material,” Eric explains as thoroughly as he can.
Mary listens intently before looking at their crotches a few times and then saying, “So you stick your penis between my legs and then it spits stuff inside me?”
Nodding, Eric says, “In a very basic sense, yes.”
“Impossible! You’re huge!” Mary states incredulously.
Compliment, probably backhanded, aside, Eric just sighs and shakes his head before saying, “The vagina is a tube of muscle capable of expanding to permit the entry of the penis, and with the right hormonal cues and a few months to prepare, the exit of a baby.”
“There is no way that-” Mary abruptly stops talking as she accidentally slides two fingers in. Pulling them back out, she thinks for a moment before saying, “Oh. I guess maybe you could fit.”
Only two fingers? Ouch.
Looking at her fingers, Mary notes, “They’re wet.”
Nodding, Eric states, “Yes, during arousal blood floods the genitals of both sexes. In the male, this is to provide hydraulic support to cause the penis to become erect, while in the female the increased blood flow provides fluid that can be processed into a lubricating secretion to aid in penetration.”
Sniffing her fingers, Mary asks, “So this is like oil for a train? Smells more like the stuff you ‘ejaculated’ yesterday. Are you sure this doesn’t have ‘sperm’ in it?”
Shaking his head, Eric says “That was pre-ejaculate yesterday, trust me, you would know the difference if you saw a full ejaculation. While the fluid does contain sperm, it is mostly just lubricant. And females do not produce sperm; they produce eggs, typically once a month, one or two at a time, in comparison to the hundreds of millions to billions of sperm produced daily by men.”
“Once a month? So…” Mary begins.
Interrupting with a nod, Eric says, “Yes, in human females if the eggs released are not fertilized by sperm within a few days then the tissue that builds up along the uterine wall in anticipation of receiving a fertilized egg is sloughed off over an interval of several days, the so called period.”
“Oh! So you’re telling me that if you stick your penis in my ‘vagina’ on the right day and squirt fluid into me, I won’t have a period but will rather get pregnant,” Mary sums up.
“Yes,” Eric states.
“Can we try that?” Mary asks impishly.
“No,” Eric states dryly.
Clearly pouting beneath her mask, Mary whines, “Why not?”
“Because you aren’t ready for sex,” Eric states flat out.
Dragging her fingers across her genitals, Mary holds them up and shows off the wetness, saying, “See! I’m aroused! You said that means I’m ready.”
Actually, Eric had not said that, it had just been implied by some of his statements. This personality was woefully ignorant, but like Mary, she was not stupid. In fact, she was probably smarter than normal because she was unafraid of looking stupid or improper.
“Physically, yes. But then again, physically you are what, twenty? Yet you are only as mature as say a seven year old, an age far too young for sex,” Eric chastises.
“I’m at least eight!” Mary exclaims angrily, making Eric raise an eyebrow. There was no sarcasm in her voice. There was something big being hidden here.
“You need to grow up a bit first. Kiss me and we’ll go from there,” Eric says.
Mary froze. She was smart enough to see what Eric was doing. She would have to take off her mask and would revert back to the timid girl she had crafted the mask to escape from.
Moving closer to Eric, Mary sits down next to him, tears running down her face visible through the crude holes cut in her mask.
Looking at him, Mary says, “You are a cruel tyrant, you know that?”
“Would you have it any other way?” Eric asks.
“No,” Mary states before ripping off her mask and grabbing Eric’s head in her hands, pulling him close and planting her lips upon his. It was awkward and sloppy and felt more desperate than passionate, but it was definitely real.
Eric felt Mary change, her whole body tensing up and becoming afraid, but she did not break off the kiss right away. Instead, she slid her hands down Eric’s neck and shoulders before breaking away to say, “Hold me… please.”
At that moment, Eric barely had use of either arm, and yet he felt like he could have taken another, bigger, rex in a fist fight.
They sat in silence in the night for several minutes like that, Mary in his lap, arms wrapped about each other, until Mary broke the silence by saying, “Eric, I’m scared.”
Eric was terrified beyond belief. He had come into this alien world sane and lost his mind. Mary… he doubted she had been well for a very long time. And there was so little he knew about psychology. He was a math and science man.
Still, that was not what she needed to hear. She needed strength and security, a port to call home during a storm.
So he said all he could, “I know Mary, I know.”
Mary was silent for a moment before asking, “Eric, can you promise me something?”
“If it is possible,” Eric replies stonily, dreading the coming request.
“Don’t sleep with me… with her. When I put on that mask… I’m… I’m not myself,” Mary begs.
Sighing, Eric says, “I’m afraid that request is not possible.”
“What?” Mary cries out before something dawns on her and she hangs her head, weeping softly, saying, “Oh… right. You’re a man. You need sex. And I won’t give it to you. Only she will.”
Lifting her chin so that she is facing him, Eric says, “No. Never think like that. You kissed me, I kissed back, and you kept kissing. Your request is impossible because is there is no you and her, there is only you. I know it must be scary to lose control like that, trust me, I know. Before you came, it was a constant tug of war between me and the beast within. Ruthless tyrant versus relentless animal. But you, you have reminded me what it means to be human. Remember, life is hard, and it won’t get easier unless you stand your ground and hit back.”
Mary’s lower lip was quivering. Her whole body was quivering. Eric could smell her femininity. A huge party of him, a huge part, wanted to lay her back and take her. She would love it, would beg him for more with sweaty, panting breaths. But he held back. He knew at his core that she was not ready for this mentally or emotionally.
Taking a deep breath to focus, Eric asks, “Do you trust me?”
Mary nods, tensing up slightly. Definitely not ready.
Disengaging from her grasp, Eric picks up a small piece of tinder and holds it over the fire until the tip ignites. What he was doing was risky as he barely knew what he was doing, but then again, so was nearly everything else he had done since his arrival here.
Holding up the burning twig, Eric says, “I want you to stare into the flame and listen to the sound of my voice.”
Mary nods and begins to gaze at the tiny pinprick of light, her eyes shifting back and forth with the flicker of the flame.
Eric had never done this one another person before. He had taught himself autohypnosis years before as a way of helping to better organize his often cluttered memory. He was pretty sure he could avoid hurting Mary though.
Pretty sure.
“I want you to listen to the sound of my voice Mary, and to trust what I say. First, there is nothing to fear here, so you should relax. Relax, relax, relax. Yes, yes, you have had a long day, you deserve to relax. Relax, relax, relax. You are floating away, not a single muscle tight you are so relaxed. Relax, relax, relax. There are lead weights on your eyelids, you should close them and relax. Relax, relax, relax,” Eric prompted in a low, soothing voice, watching as Mary first shed the tension in her body, then dropped her eyes closed before her head slumped over into her chest.
Blowing out the twig, Eric says, “Good Mary, good. You are totally relaxed now, and whenever I snap my fingers I want you to return to this state of relaxation. If you understand, just nod your head.”
Mary nods once.
“Good, good,” Eric says. He would start with some stage tricks to make sure he was doing it right. “Mary, I want you to hold up your arms.”
She immediately held up both her arms at right angles to her body.
“Good, good. Now, lace your hands together. Good, good. Now… Mary, your hands, they are a solid ball of steel. You can’t get them apart,” Eric tells her, and she immediately tips over and begins struggling to separate her hands. Interesting. She added weight of steel to the scenario in addition to the strength of steel.
Snapping his fingers, Eric watches Mary sit back up, her arms falling to her sides as she returned to her relaxed state.
“Good, good. You are relaxed. Relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. Now Mary, you are at a fine ball in an elegant dress, and you have been invited to dance. Will you dance Mary?” Eric prompts her.
Standing up, Mary curtsey’s politely to some phantom figure and then begins to dance. What sort of dance Eric is unsure of, but it is certainly beautiful. Elegant and precise, Eric cannot help but notice how fine her ass and legs are. Get her in the right clothing and she would be spectacular.
After about a minute Eric remembered his purpose and snapped his fingers, causing Mary to pause in her dance and slump over again.
“Good, good. You were excellent Mary and you deserve to relax. Relax, relax, relax,” Eric says before gulping profoundly. Now was the dangerous bit.
“Now Mary, I want you to relax even more. To relax until you go to sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. You will wake up to this relaxed state when I snap my fingers, okay? Sleep, sleep, sleep,” Eric orders, and as Mary slumps over further, he waits a second before asking, “Can you hear me?”
No response.
Eric snaps his fingers and Mary perked up a bit. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Mary mumbled sleepily.
“Good, good. Now I want you to sleep again. Sleep, sleep, sleep,” Eric waits for her to fall asleep again before saying more firmly, “I want to talk to anyone else there.”
Mary straightened up and a small, predatory smirk came over her face, and she spoke in a low, husky tone, “I was wondering when you were going to start this part.”
“Are you the one that comes out when Mary puts on the mask?” Eric asks.
“Yes and no. We haven’t been formally introduced, but I am there when the Imp is playing with Mary,” she says.
Somehow, she made the word “introduced” sound dirty. Shaking his head, Eric asks, “If I have only met the Imp, them who are you?”
Moaning throatily and then licking her lips, she says, “You want to know my name? Is that so you can scream it out when I am riding your firm, hard cock?”
“Answer the question,” Eric demands firmly.
Twitching a slight frown, she says, “I am one of Mary’s demons, the darker parts of her she hides away. I suppose just Demon would work.”
Shaking his head, Eric says, “No. An Imp is also a demon. You are something else, aren’t you? You’re her sexuality, aren’t you?”
She frowns more deeply, the expression sticking while she says, “I am more than just sex. I am everything Mary hates about herself. I am strong, aggressive, and powerful. Everything she refuses to be because she is weak.”
“Then the Imp is everything she hides from herself, right? Curiosity, cleverness, mischievousness, etc. Right?” Eric asks.
Leaning back, she shudders and says, “I love it when you do that. But yes, I suppose you could say that.”
It would be comical how hyper-sexualized Mary was acting if not for the seriousness of her condition. This personality was an adolescent caricature of sex, almost as immature as the Imp. Eric supposed only one name would do.
“All right then demon, since I know I let you out, I supposed I should name you. So then, what do you think of Succubus, a demonic predator of men via sex?” Eric suggests.
As expected, she practically orgasms before saying, “I love it! I love it!”
She then pouts slightly and adds on, “But I have no men to prey on, only you, and you are my lord, my Evening Star.”
Raising an eyebrow, Eric asks, “You think me a demon?”
“No, a devil! Peer and superior to Lucifer the Morning Star. You are my Eric, my master, the tyrant I live only to serve,” she states melodramatically.
This was truly fucked up.
“Succubus, you and the Imp existed long before Mary came here. Where did you come from?” Eric asks.
Shrugging, she says, “The weak willed bitch knows… I think.”
“But you are her,” Eric states.
A look of fear passes over her face and she shakes her head violently before saying angrily, “No! I am not her! I am pure evil, everything she wants to be but is too weak to be.”
Better back off a bit.
“Fine. You are not her. But you should be. Sex, aggression, and power are not evil, and I would like to see more that, along with more curiosity and cleverness, mixed in with the kindness and gentleness I see in Mary,” Eric says.
She looked like he had slapped her, mumbling, “But I am evil.”
“No more than me. Sleep my dear, I wish to speak with Mary now,” Eric says before snapping his fingers. Slumping over like a marionette with cut strings, Mary just sits there.
“Mary, are you there?” Eric asks.
“Yes,” she replies sleepily.
“How do you feel?” Eric inquires.
“Wonderful,” she replies.
“Is there anyone else there?” Eric asks.
“Just you,” she says warmly.
“What about your demons?” Eric asks.
Mary frowns and says, “They’re sleeping.”
“When did they appear?” Eric asks.
“I don’t know,” Mary says with a quiver of stress in her voice.
“Was it when you were eight?” Eric asks gently, remembering the comment from the Imp.
Her whole body shaking, Mary manages to stutter out, “Y-y-yes.”
His voice soft and gentle, “Do you know what happened?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Would you like to tell me?” Eric asks.
“N-n-no… y-y-yes. Y-yes. T-t-tell y-y-you,” Mary stutters out.
“Then, at your own speed, tell me what you remember,” Eric says gently.
Trembling all over, Mary begins in a childish voice, “Daddy had been out all night, and he missed dinner and supper. Nana had already put me to bed, but I wanted to see daddy. I…”
As Mary paused for breath and to collect her thoughts, Eric had only one thought on his mind.
This was fucked up beyond belief, and he felt like someone was making balloon animals out of his intestines and had placed lead weights in his stomach. He wanted to end this now, did not want to hear this. But he needed to know the extent of the damage.
“He smelled funny. He got angry that I was out of bed. Very angry. He got out his cane. He… he… DADDY I’M SORRY!” Mary screamed and then threw up her hands to defend herself against phantom blows.
Snapping his fingers, Eric shouted out, “Mary, relax! Relax, relax, relax…”
Slowly, Mary calmed down, until only the tears staining her face gave testament to the fact that anything was amiss.
Eric got lucky, he knew, that she still responded to him. Things could have gone very, very badly and he resolved not to try hypnosis again.
“Mary?” Eric asks softly.
“Yes?” She asks back.
“Did your father ever touch you in places you did not like to be touched?” Eric asks.
“No. He only ever spanked me when I was naughty. When I was a good girl he was nice. I like being a good girl. So does the rest of my family,” Mary says sleepily.
Okay, so she had just suffered horrible physical and psychological abuse and not sexual abuse. Big improvement that was.
And then a horrible, horrible thought struck Eric.
“Mary, what was your father’s name?” Eric asks.
“Lucas,” Mary replied.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!
The Succubus called him the Evening Star, the peer and superior to Lucifer.
Fuck.
Eric had no idea what to do. He… he…
“Mary, when I snap my finger, you will awaken as from a pleasant dream, feeling refreshed and at ease. You will remember nothing of our conversations. Do you understand?” Eric asks.
“Yes,” Mary replies.
Eric snapped his fingers.
Mary’s eyes flickered open and when she saw Eric she immediately broke out into a warm, gentle smile.
“Oh! I’m sorry Eric, I seem to have drifted off to sleep there,” Mary says warmly.
Smiling back despite his worry, an easy task considering the masks he wore about her all the time, Eric says, “I think I drifted off for a bit there to. Did you dream pleasantly?”
“Oh yes! I dreamt of you actually, blazing brightly like a star in the evening, holding me close and warm,” Mary says before a look of embarrassment crosses her face.
“It has been a cold night. Come over here if it will keep you warm,” Eric says, patting the stone next to him.
Smiling, Mary gets up and walks over to him before saying, “Oh… I know it is improper, but…”
And then she sits down on Eric’s lap, snuggling into him and saying, “I don’t want to be cold again.”
Gently placing an arm about her shoulders, Eric holds her close and kisses her forehead gently saying, “As long as I am here, you won’t be.”
Closing her eyes, Mary says, “Thank you,” before a tear rolls down her face and she drifts off to sleep.
Rolling his head back to rest against the cold stone, Eric looks up at the night sky. A single shooting star crosses the sky and Eric wishes he had the power to heal Mary’s mind.
And then he sees another shooting star.
And another.
And… oh fuck. Mary’s arrival had disrupted all his planning.
He had forgotten about the Doombringers.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
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Alferd Packer
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Yes, yes...and then what?!
I'm really impressed with Eric's self control. Were I in his shoes, my brain would've already shut off. Oh, the things I'd do to Mary...well, anyway. Now all Eric has is to jerk off to a meteor shower.
Though I imagine that will be a very brief episode.
Absolutely cannot wait for more!
I'm really impressed with Eric's self control. Were I in his shoes, my brain would've already shut off. Oh, the things I'd do to Mary...well, anyway. Now all Eric has is to jerk off to a meteor shower.
Though I imagine that will be a very brief episode.Absolutely cannot wait for more!
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
I'm not sure I like the idea of Mary as an abused child. It's a bit cliched and doesn't really seem necessary to the story.
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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Academia Nut
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Oh, trust me, this is important to the story outside the bounds of the exploration of their psyches. Incidentally, T. rexes next chapter, promise. As interesting as I find the psychological drama, I'm feeling the need for more awesome in the story.
And the challenge is often not avoiding cliches, but realizing that everything is cliched if only given a shallow treatment of the matter.
And the challenge is often not avoiding cliches, but realizing that everything is cliched if only given a shallow treatment of the matter.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
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Sidewinder
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So Mary, being the victim of physical and emotional abuse, sees Eric as a father figure who'll also abuse her? That's fucked up, but then, I've heard a lot of fucked up things happening to victims of abuse.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
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Alferd Packer
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While I'll probably be proven wrong in subsequent chapters, I'd just thought I'd share this notion regarding the abuse:
What if that wasn't Mary speaking, but rather the so-called Succubus? What if she put on this elaborate show for Eric to evoke his sympathy, or rather, lower his defenses? It would be easy for Eric to draw parallels between the abuse by the father and his own harsh treatment of Mary, necessary or not. This would be consistent with the stated objectives of the Succubus in Mary's dream, that is, to manipulate Eric in such a way that Mary becomes the Tyrant.
It's not a perfect fit, though. For example, how would the Succubus know that Eric would be repulsed by stories of abuse? For all she knows, Eric could think that smacking around women and children is perfectly acceptable behavior, and thus her maneuver would fail. This would be, then, just one possible interpretation.
What if that wasn't Mary speaking, but rather the so-called Succubus? What if she put on this elaborate show for Eric to evoke his sympathy, or rather, lower his defenses? It would be easy for Eric to draw parallels between the abuse by the father and his own harsh treatment of Mary, necessary or not. This would be consistent with the stated objectives of the Succubus in Mary's dream, that is, to manipulate Eric in such a way that Mary becomes the Tyrant.
It's not a perfect fit, though. For example, how would the Succubus know that Eric would be repulsed by stories of abuse? For all she knows, Eric could think that smacking around women and children is perfectly acceptable behavior, and thus her maneuver would fail. This would be, then, just one possible interpretation.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
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Academia Nut
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Okay... so school started and it took me 33 days to get the next update done, but it is still September, so I can in all honesty say that I have updated at least once a month. Also, I'm not entirely happy with this chapter as a combination of the aforementioned school and writer's block interfered with it, so this is going to be a bit shorter than normal, somewhat like chapter 3-4, which I internally merged into one chapter but presented as two different entities for the purposes of creating a mini-cliffhanger.
Anyway... onto the update
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Mary awoke still snuggled up next to Eric, sitting on his lap with his arms draped about her shoulders. A sudden burst of guilt struck her as she wondered how this was affecting his wounds. Getting up, she went to work preparing the mixtures for him in the pre-dawn light. Sometime before she finished preparations Eric blinked awake, a small frown on his face that was quickly replaced by a warm smile.
The warmth reached his eyes as well. They were still dark, hard points of rock, but something else had crept in. Made them molten. Showed off some of the energy contained within and that it could be directed towards kindness and compassion as well as fighting tyrannosaurs.
Just a few days ago when the fight first happened, the thought would have terrified her, but now when she thought about it, her whole body became warm, and she knew now that she was becoming aroused. She was becoming aroused by the thought of Eric fighting for her, and of the incredible strength and skill. Skill that…
Sighing, she shoved the thoughts to the side. Now was not the time to get lost in a fantasy.
“Good morning,” Mary says brightly.
“Good morning,” Eric replies while checking over his body before asking, “Did you sleep well?”
Nodding, Mary says, “I was with you.”
“Good, because the next few days are going to be hard,” Eric replies gloomily.
“And the previous days weren’t?” Mary asks with just a hint of sarcasm.
“Last night there was a meteor shower, one that marks the end of the season. Under normal circumstance I would have already set out for the coast…” Eric says, trailing off.
“The coast?” Mary asks worriedly.
“Yes. In two or three weeks the rainy season will begin and it will be near impossible to fish for the next three months, and there are certain nutrients in seafood needed for good health and healing. More so, the coast is the best source of ripe fruit containing large amounts of citric acid and vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, which is necessary for fighting scurvy.” Eric begins.
“Scurvy,” Mary says with a profound gulp before asking worriedly, “Are you sure about all of this?”
“Trust me, I know when and where to get the foods needed for survival, and right now the best source is the coast. And trust me; you do not want to be travelling when the rains come. More so, once the rainy season hits numerous plants will go out of season, making it difficult to get what we need until it ends. It is possible to get some extra nutrition if we eat our meat raw, but the humidity means that we would have to increase hunting by several times due to spoilage, and I will probably only be back to my best by the end of the season,” Eric explains.
“But… we would have to go out of the lair… and bring things back… and your arms…” Mary says, listing off her objections.
“I know. This is why things are going to be hard. I can’t use a bow for a month or two, and even then not at full strength. So for the next week we are both going to get stronger, and you must learn to use the spear and sling,” Eric states.
Mary gulps fearfully. That was a lot to put on her so suddenly. Then again, that could be said of this entire situation.
Sighing, Eric says, “That’s not even the worst of it. Mary… you have a problem, a big one. Last night we talked after you took off the mask… talked in a way that I could make you answer questions that you would not normally like to answer. I found out that you have what is called dissociative identity disorder, which means that rather than confronting problems in your life, you have shoved them aside until the point where new, distinct personalities have formed.”
“What? What do you mean by new personalities?” Mary asks frantically, not fully understanding but feeling terror begin to rise in her breast.
“As in the demons are mind are as distinct as other people,” Eric says.
Mary nearly panics then and there, screaming, “What? What? What are you saying? I want them out!”
Placing his hand on her shoulder, Eric says, “Calm, Mary, calm.”
“Calm? How can you talk about calm when… when…” Mary was lost in those molten eyes and she found herself taking a deep breath and trying not to panic. Eventually she just says, “I want them out.”
Sighing, Eric shakes his head and says, “And that, unfortunately, is the problem.”
Mary was unsure of what to say to this. If she had other people, demons in fact, living in her head, then shouldn’t she want them out?
Looking at her profoundly, Eric lets his statement sink in before explaining. He says, “They exist because they are you, parts of you at least, and you are driving them away. The further and harder you push them, the more distinct they get, and the harder they will be to get rid of later. We cannot simply push aside who and what we are.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Mary cries out indignantly, “So you say. Hypocrite.”
Eric stared at her for a moment, the warmth draining from his eyes, before he said, “How I deal with my inner beast is completely different. Yes, I do have a raging animal inside me, but I don’t push it away. I keep it on a leash, and I keep it close. Every day of my life since arriving here I have been trying to keep the pieces together, trying to make myself whole. To shove away my beast would be counter-productive.”
Shaking her head, Mary cries out in denial, “I don’t believe you. No one wants to have a monster inside them. I don’t want monsters inside me.”
Frowning deeply, Eric gets up and goes to the edge of the lair, looking about for something before he descends the ladder and says, “Haul the ladder up.”
Staring at him incredulously for several seconds, Mary finally says, “What?”
“I said haul it up,” Eric orders imperiously before adding on in a softer tone, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Fearfully hauling up the ladder, Mary watches as Eric sits down and takes several deep breaths. Watching in tense anticipation and a growing sense of horror, Mary is stunned when Eric lets his mask fall away. She had seen but a momentary flicker on the second in comparison to this.
Even from the top of the rock outcrop in the waxing light of dawn, Mary could see the horrible madness in Eric’s eyes, eyes that held only pain and fury. And then he laughed and it was the worst example in a bad lot. It was high pitched and manic, loud and frantic. Eventually it died down in insane giggling.
Getting up, Eric began to prowl, his steps long, slow and careful while his shoulders hung low and bestial. His face was constantly twitching, eyes snapping back and forth, head turning to catch new sounds, and even his nose was flaring.
And when he looked at Mary, she nearly lost control of her bladder. There was only hunger there, for calling what she saw lust was giving too much human emotion to the sight. Eric cocked his head and smiled at her, or rather bared his teeth, letting a bit of drool leak out the side of his mouth.
And then he spoke, his voice broken and cruel, like shattered glass being dragged across a chalkboard.
“Hey slut, want to fuck? You’ve got a sweet little whore’s mouth there, and well, we already know you like how I taste. So why don’t you come down here and hang onto this with your lips?” Eric offers lewdly while waving his penis around.
Mary just keeps looking over the edge of the rocks in mute terror.
Waiting a couple of seconds, Eric then snarls, more drool running down the side of his face, and screams out angrily, “Didn’t you hear me bitch? I said get down here, and I fucking meant it. If you make me come up there, I will fuck you up the asshole so hard blood will be your fucking lube. You hear me you fucking bitch? Do you fucking hear me?”
Mary was crying now, terrified beyond belief. This was not Eric.
Screaming out in fury with a roar that would have impressed a tyrannosaur, Eric shouts out, froth flying from his lips, “I am fucking, fucking tired of fucking myself with my fucking hand, especially when there is fucking sweet, tight virgin cunt so fucking close to me. So get the fuck down here you piece of shit.”
Glaring up at her, something truly malicious passes over Eric’s face and he says, “Oh! Of course. You like it rough, just like with daddy. You want me to leave marks. Well, you don’t have to piss me off, you just have to ask. I can pound your pussy until you can’t walk straight, and then I’ll pound your ass until you can’t walk. How’s that sound slut?”
Her father? What was he talking about?
With still no response, Eric finally truly lost it, screaming and raving incoherently, seemingly every other word out of his mouth some obscenity hurled at Mary. Eventually though he calmed down and began to pace back and forth like a caged animal… or perhaps an animal being caged. Soon he was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed.
After a few tense, quiet minutes he opened his eyes, stood up, and calmly asked, “Mary, could you please lower the ladder?”
For a long moment Mary just lay there, staring down at him before she lowered the ladder. Slowly climbing up because he put little weight on his right arm, Eric reached the top and looked at Mary profoundly before saying, “That was the beast within me. And do you know what?”
Shaking her head, Mary says nothing. She hates these questions Eric throws her way, not just because she could never answer them, but because he always gave her an answer she knew would be worse than anything she could dream up.
“I meant what I said,” Eric says coldly before adding on apologetically, “Although I do regret the crudeness and threatening nature of the delivery.”
Mary wanted to say something, but she knew that she would just ask a stupid one word question, so she just stared at him in mute horror.
“Mary, let me be blunt with you. I really want to have sex with you. And not just bog standard ‘penis goes into the vagina’ sex. I want you to suck on my penis. I want to lick your genitals. I, and I’m sure this will disgust you, want to stick my penis up your butt. Yes, you heard me right; I want to put my penis into your anus. But do know what? I don’t, because all those things involve your body, and it’s not right to force you to do such things. It’s not right to impose my own selfish impulses upon you,” Eric explains.
“But why do you have such impulses in the first place? Why do you let such a beast dwell within you?” Mary asks while blushing in shame at hearing such scandalous things to hide the fact that some of them turned her on.
“Because they are natural,” Eric exclaims, pointing a finger at her head, “The marvellous, miraculous slurry of oatmeal between your ears is constantly churning, creating new ideas. Most of them are stupid, and thus it is always rejecting ideas, but they will always be there nonetheless. To deny them is to deny your own mind the capacity to think. Sometimes even a seemingly stupid idea will turn out to be correct.”
Taking a deep breath, he then says, “And I live with the beast because the beast is a survivor. The beast might be in pain like I am, but he can ignore it by living from moment to moment, not caring about the future or the past. Before you came, if the pain became too great and I considered shoving one of my knives into my throat, I would let the beast take over, sometimes for days. The beast wants to live, even when the man wants to die.”
Mary shudders at the look on Eric’s face. She had never seen him look so weak, so downtrodden. She wanted to embrace him then and there and say it was alright. But then she remembered him doing that for her just a few hours before, and she wondered how she could be strong for him if he was being strong for her?
Or how he could be strong for her when he was so weak right now?
Regaining his composure, Eric says, “As much as the beast is a complete and total jack ass, in that it cares not for others or their feelings, it is not evil per se. Self-centred as a gyroscope and impulsive as an ion engine, yes, but not evil. The beast will not go out of its way to harm others; it will simply run over anything in its path.”
“Sounds evil to me,” Mary says.
Shrugging, Eric says, “Okay, it’s definitely debatable, but I am trying to make a point here. The beast is simply the instinctive, animalistic parts of me let out from beneath the layer of civilization we all have, something more natural than anything else. I would have certainly hurt you, hurt you badly, if I had not been isolated from you when I put on that demonstration, but the threats were mostly hyperbole to try and scare you into giving up easily.”
“And your point is?” Mary asks worriedly, trying to gauge the truthfulness of his words.
“My point is that you have created your demons because you have been suppressing natural aspects of yourself. Not only that, but by denying their existence, by wanting them gone, you are going to slowly pervert and corrupt that which was normal and healthy into that which is abnormal and sick. It is not evil or wrong to be curious about the world, or to want to have sex with people you are attracted to. But by labelling these thoughts as ‘evil’ you are going to make them evil. And you are going to lose control eventually. If you do not own your demons, they will own you,” Eric says with utter, absolute seriousness.
“So what do you want me to do?” Mary cries out, afraid of all this. Afraid of what Eric is telling her. Afraid of what she might become.
Shaking his head sadly, Eric says, “I honestly don’t know, this is beyond me. All I do know is that you have to stop repressing those parts of you that you don’t like. To do that, you probably have to come to terms with the reasons why you started repressing them in the first place.”
“Oh? And what doing you think is that?” Mary asks sarcastically, trying to hide her fear behind anger.
Holding the bridge of his nose with a hand in frustration, Eric says, “I don’t know. But I think it has something to do with the fact that your father beat you.”
“So?” Mary asks with a blasé and confused tone. She did not see the significance of his statement.
Eric looked at her completely and utterly gobsmacked before saying in a shocked tone, “Mary, he wailed on you with a cane in a drunken fury.”
“So? I was a child out of my bed well past my bedtime. I would have been caned by any responsible adult,” Mary says, looking at Eric with confusion and surprise. He was looking at her with disgust and horror for some reason.
“How can you be so calm about this?” Eric cries out in frustration and horror.
Cocking her head to the side, Mary looks at him funny and says, “Canings happen to children. I will admit that incident was worse than most, but I got over it in a few days. It’s not like that sort of thing is unusual.”
Eric looks like he is desperately trying to say something, but stumbling over his own tongue in a fit of rage before finally he screams out, “It is where I come from for exactly these reasons!”
“You don’t beat children in your time?” Mary asks sceptically. Surely she was misinterpreting him.
“No! Caning is illegal in most countries that aren’t shit holes, and any form of corporal punishment is highly controversial, because even if the physical marks don’t last, the mental ones definitely can last, and cause problems later in life. Case in point,” Eric says angrily, although it did not seem to be directed at Mary as much as life in general.
Mary wanted to comment on this, but instead she just shook her head. Eric could be so incredibly strange at times, and not just when he was a raving beast. While she rarely commented on it, she was often confused by his speech and mannerisms, to say nothing of his casual swearing. She resolved to ask him more about his home later.
Seeing that she was not going to say anything, Eric instead dismissively waves and says, “We’ll pick up this discussion later. For now we need to get to the tasks of the day. We’ll start with training once breakfast is finished.”
About half an hour later and Eric had somehow coaxed Mary down to the ground and set up several bits of debris as targets. Putting a strip of leather in one hand and a few nuts in the other, Eric says, “You’re going to practice with something that won’t cause lasting damage until you figure out how to get them to go in the right direction.”
After a quick discussion of the mechanics, Mary takes her first swing with the sling only for the nut to slide right out and strike Eric in the forehead. Giving her a look of utter blasé sarcasm, he rubs the spot where he was hit before saying blandly, “Try again.”
Several attempts later, one of which ended with Mary the proud owner of a nasty welt on her forearm from accidentally whipping herself with the sling, she finally managed to get the nuts to go in the right direction on launch, although they quickly tumbled out of control.
Nodding, Eric takes a few sections of wood he had brought with them and props them upright out in the gravel of the open plains to make a few makeshift targets before handing her a bag of pebbles and saying, “Okay, now try with these.”
After about a dozen shots without hitting even the closest the target, Mary looks at Eric plaintively but he just shrugs and says, “It took me a good thirty tries before I hit anything. Keep practicing.”
“But I’m almost out of rocks…” Mary starts to whine before seeing the look on Eric’s face and deciding not to continue but instead says sheepishly, “I’ll pick up new ones then.”
Nodding, Eric looks at her feet and frowns. “You’re going to need better shoes. I’ll go get some leather and start the preparations. Keep practicing.”
Nodding, Mary keeps slinging rocks in a futile manner until Eric is out of sight before slumping down in frustrated defeat. She just sort of sat there for a few moments before a sudden wash of rage passed over her and she slammed her fist into her thigh in a fury over her situation. She just couldn’t get this, it was beyond her, it was…
It was beyond her, but then again so were all of the things she did when she wore the mask. But could she really put that thing on again? Eric said that the other… others… were her, but how much could she trust him on that? He kept things from her, he was violent, he swore, and he had a beast within him that terrified her to her core. How much could she really trust him?
Absolutely.
In an epiphany, she realized that she had to trust him absolutely. There were only two of them, so there were only two people she could trust: she and Eric. And right now, she knew that Eric was far more trustworthy than she was. Even if he was betraying her, she still had to trust him, because the alternative was to rely only on her, something she knew would lead to disaster. She needed him, but the opposite was not true.
So her only option was to trust him, and to trust his advice.
Sneaking back up to the lair, she grabbed the mask before descending back to the ground. Holding it in her hands and rolling it about, she tried to keep from shaking. It was such a simple thing really, and yet she supposed all truly profound and terrifying things were. Could she really put this thing on again?
She could. If she were alone, she might lose herself to the mask, but with Eric around, she would always pull find her way back. He was her Evening Star, lighting the way.
Taking a deep breath, she strapped on the mask.
A few seconds later and she had sent a pebble downrange, hitting nothing, but smiling all the same.
And when several throws later she actually hit something she was aiming at, she burst out giggling.
This was fun! Better yet, if she got good at this Eric would be happy, and that was a good thing.
As she continued to practice, she began to think of hitting things with the rocks. Living things. Like some of those chicken sized dinosaurs that had been picking at the corpse of the dead tyrannosaur before larger predators had carried most of it away in the night. Mary bet that those things would taste good fried over a fire.
As she progressed, she began to try and throw the stones harder, picturing bones breaking and flesh distorting.
Soon the faces she was mentally caving in were no longer saurian, but human. She pictured smashing open that bitch’s skull…
No… no… that would be too quick for her. Hit her in the ankles first, crippling her. Let her crawl along the floor, begging for help that would not come. Then hit her in the wrists so that she had to flop about on knees and elbows helplessly. Then… ooooh! The sling itself could be used like a whip. Yeah, the welt she wore was a testament to that. But if she were to go harder, surely she would break the skin? Yes… yes… and then, when the bitch was crying on the floor, begging for mercy and aid that would not come… only then would she have her face smashed in. Again and again and again and again and again and…
Mary blinked a few times behind her mask before shrugging and going back to hitting targets. This game was a lot more fun than make-believe anyway.
Mary felt a hot, wet wind on her back, stinking of decaying meat.
Turning around, she found herself face to face with a tyrannosaur.
Again.
“Oh, hello there,” she said cheerfully.
Anyway... onto the update
---
Mary awoke still snuggled up next to Eric, sitting on his lap with his arms draped about her shoulders. A sudden burst of guilt struck her as she wondered how this was affecting his wounds. Getting up, she went to work preparing the mixtures for him in the pre-dawn light. Sometime before she finished preparations Eric blinked awake, a small frown on his face that was quickly replaced by a warm smile.
The warmth reached his eyes as well. They were still dark, hard points of rock, but something else had crept in. Made them molten. Showed off some of the energy contained within and that it could be directed towards kindness and compassion as well as fighting tyrannosaurs.
Just a few days ago when the fight first happened, the thought would have terrified her, but now when she thought about it, her whole body became warm, and she knew now that she was becoming aroused. She was becoming aroused by the thought of Eric fighting for her, and of the incredible strength and skill. Skill that…
Sighing, she shoved the thoughts to the side. Now was not the time to get lost in a fantasy.
“Good morning,” Mary says brightly.
“Good morning,” Eric replies while checking over his body before asking, “Did you sleep well?”
Nodding, Mary says, “I was with you.”
“Good, because the next few days are going to be hard,” Eric replies gloomily.
“And the previous days weren’t?” Mary asks with just a hint of sarcasm.
“Last night there was a meteor shower, one that marks the end of the season. Under normal circumstance I would have already set out for the coast…” Eric says, trailing off.
“The coast?” Mary asks worriedly.
“Yes. In two or three weeks the rainy season will begin and it will be near impossible to fish for the next three months, and there are certain nutrients in seafood needed for good health and healing. More so, the coast is the best source of ripe fruit containing large amounts of citric acid and vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, which is necessary for fighting scurvy.” Eric begins.
“Scurvy,” Mary says with a profound gulp before asking worriedly, “Are you sure about all of this?”
“Trust me, I know when and where to get the foods needed for survival, and right now the best source is the coast. And trust me; you do not want to be travelling when the rains come. More so, once the rainy season hits numerous plants will go out of season, making it difficult to get what we need until it ends. It is possible to get some extra nutrition if we eat our meat raw, but the humidity means that we would have to increase hunting by several times due to spoilage, and I will probably only be back to my best by the end of the season,” Eric explains.
“But… we would have to go out of the lair… and bring things back… and your arms…” Mary says, listing off her objections.
“I know. This is why things are going to be hard. I can’t use a bow for a month or two, and even then not at full strength. So for the next week we are both going to get stronger, and you must learn to use the spear and sling,” Eric states.
Mary gulps fearfully. That was a lot to put on her so suddenly. Then again, that could be said of this entire situation.
Sighing, Eric says, “That’s not even the worst of it. Mary… you have a problem, a big one. Last night we talked after you took off the mask… talked in a way that I could make you answer questions that you would not normally like to answer. I found out that you have what is called dissociative identity disorder, which means that rather than confronting problems in your life, you have shoved them aside until the point where new, distinct personalities have formed.”
“What? What do you mean by new personalities?” Mary asks frantically, not fully understanding but feeling terror begin to rise in her breast.
“As in the demons are mind are as distinct as other people,” Eric says.
Mary nearly panics then and there, screaming, “What? What? What are you saying? I want them out!”
Placing his hand on her shoulder, Eric says, “Calm, Mary, calm.”
“Calm? How can you talk about calm when… when…” Mary was lost in those molten eyes and she found herself taking a deep breath and trying not to panic. Eventually she just says, “I want them out.”
Sighing, Eric shakes his head and says, “And that, unfortunately, is the problem.”
Mary was unsure of what to say to this. If she had other people, demons in fact, living in her head, then shouldn’t she want them out?
Looking at her profoundly, Eric lets his statement sink in before explaining. He says, “They exist because they are you, parts of you at least, and you are driving them away. The further and harder you push them, the more distinct they get, and the harder they will be to get rid of later. We cannot simply push aside who and what we are.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Mary cries out indignantly, “So you say. Hypocrite.”
Eric stared at her for a moment, the warmth draining from his eyes, before he said, “How I deal with my inner beast is completely different. Yes, I do have a raging animal inside me, but I don’t push it away. I keep it on a leash, and I keep it close. Every day of my life since arriving here I have been trying to keep the pieces together, trying to make myself whole. To shove away my beast would be counter-productive.”
Shaking her head, Mary cries out in denial, “I don’t believe you. No one wants to have a monster inside them. I don’t want monsters inside me.”
Frowning deeply, Eric gets up and goes to the edge of the lair, looking about for something before he descends the ladder and says, “Haul the ladder up.”
Staring at him incredulously for several seconds, Mary finally says, “What?”
“I said haul it up,” Eric orders imperiously before adding on in a softer tone, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Fearfully hauling up the ladder, Mary watches as Eric sits down and takes several deep breaths. Watching in tense anticipation and a growing sense of horror, Mary is stunned when Eric lets his mask fall away. She had seen but a momentary flicker on the second in comparison to this.
Even from the top of the rock outcrop in the waxing light of dawn, Mary could see the horrible madness in Eric’s eyes, eyes that held only pain and fury. And then he laughed and it was the worst example in a bad lot. It was high pitched and manic, loud and frantic. Eventually it died down in insane giggling.
Getting up, Eric began to prowl, his steps long, slow and careful while his shoulders hung low and bestial. His face was constantly twitching, eyes snapping back and forth, head turning to catch new sounds, and even his nose was flaring.
And when he looked at Mary, she nearly lost control of her bladder. There was only hunger there, for calling what she saw lust was giving too much human emotion to the sight. Eric cocked his head and smiled at her, or rather bared his teeth, letting a bit of drool leak out the side of his mouth.
And then he spoke, his voice broken and cruel, like shattered glass being dragged across a chalkboard.
“Hey slut, want to fuck? You’ve got a sweet little whore’s mouth there, and well, we already know you like how I taste. So why don’t you come down here and hang onto this with your lips?” Eric offers lewdly while waving his penis around.
Mary just keeps looking over the edge of the rocks in mute terror.
Waiting a couple of seconds, Eric then snarls, more drool running down the side of his face, and screams out angrily, “Didn’t you hear me bitch? I said get down here, and I fucking meant it. If you make me come up there, I will fuck you up the asshole so hard blood will be your fucking lube. You hear me you fucking bitch? Do you fucking hear me?”
Mary was crying now, terrified beyond belief. This was not Eric.
Screaming out in fury with a roar that would have impressed a tyrannosaur, Eric shouts out, froth flying from his lips, “I am fucking, fucking tired of fucking myself with my fucking hand, especially when there is fucking sweet, tight virgin cunt so fucking close to me. So get the fuck down here you piece of shit.”
Glaring up at her, something truly malicious passes over Eric’s face and he says, “Oh! Of course. You like it rough, just like with daddy. You want me to leave marks. Well, you don’t have to piss me off, you just have to ask. I can pound your pussy until you can’t walk straight, and then I’ll pound your ass until you can’t walk. How’s that sound slut?”
Her father? What was he talking about?
With still no response, Eric finally truly lost it, screaming and raving incoherently, seemingly every other word out of his mouth some obscenity hurled at Mary. Eventually though he calmed down and began to pace back and forth like a caged animal… or perhaps an animal being caged. Soon he was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed.
After a few tense, quiet minutes he opened his eyes, stood up, and calmly asked, “Mary, could you please lower the ladder?”
For a long moment Mary just lay there, staring down at him before she lowered the ladder. Slowly climbing up because he put little weight on his right arm, Eric reached the top and looked at Mary profoundly before saying, “That was the beast within me. And do you know what?”
Shaking her head, Mary says nothing. She hates these questions Eric throws her way, not just because she could never answer them, but because he always gave her an answer she knew would be worse than anything she could dream up.
“I meant what I said,” Eric says coldly before adding on apologetically, “Although I do regret the crudeness and threatening nature of the delivery.”
Mary wanted to say something, but she knew that she would just ask a stupid one word question, so she just stared at him in mute horror.
“Mary, let me be blunt with you. I really want to have sex with you. And not just bog standard ‘penis goes into the vagina’ sex. I want you to suck on my penis. I want to lick your genitals. I, and I’m sure this will disgust you, want to stick my penis up your butt. Yes, you heard me right; I want to put my penis into your anus. But do know what? I don’t, because all those things involve your body, and it’s not right to force you to do such things. It’s not right to impose my own selfish impulses upon you,” Eric explains.
“But why do you have such impulses in the first place? Why do you let such a beast dwell within you?” Mary asks while blushing in shame at hearing such scandalous things to hide the fact that some of them turned her on.
“Because they are natural,” Eric exclaims, pointing a finger at her head, “The marvellous, miraculous slurry of oatmeal between your ears is constantly churning, creating new ideas. Most of them are stupid, and thus it is always rejecting ideas, but they will always be there nonetheless. To deny them is to deny your own mind the capacity to think. Sometimes even a seemingly stupid idea will turn out to be correct.”
Taking a deep breath, he then says, “And I live with the beast because the beast is a survivor. The beast might be in pain like I am, but he can ignore it by living from moment to moment, not caring about the future or the past. Before you came, if the pain became too great and I considered shoving one of my knives into my throat, I would let the beast take over, sometimes for days. The beast wants to live, even when the man wants to die.”
Mary shudders at the look on Eric’s face. She had never seen him look so weak, so downtrodden. She wanted to embrace him then and there and say it was alright. But then she remembered him doing that for her just a few hours before, and she wondered how she could be strong for him if he was being strong for her?
Or how he could be strong for her when he was so weak right now?
Regaining his composure, Eric says, “As much as the beast is a complete and total jack ass, in that it cares not for others or their feelings, it is not evil per se. Self-centred as a gyroscope and impulsive as an ion engine, yes, but not evil. The beast will not go out of its way to harm others; it will simply run over anything in its path.”
“Sounds evil to me,” Mary says.
Shrugging, Eric says, “Okay, it’s definitely debatable, but I am trying to make a point here. The beast is simply the instinctive, animalistic parts of me let out from beneath the layer of civilization we all have, something more natural than anything else. I would have certainly hurt you, hurt you badly, if I had not been isolated from you when I put on that demonstration, but the threats were mostly hyperbole to try and scare you into giving up easily.”
“And your point is?” Mary asks worriedly, trying to gauge the truthfulness of his words.
“My point is that you have created your demons because you have been suppressing natural aspects of yourself. Not only that, but by denying their existence, by wanting them gone, you are going to slowly pervert and corrupt that which was normal and healthy into that which is abnormal and sick. It is not evil or wrong to be curious about the world, or to want to have sex with people you are attracted to. But by labelling these thoughts as ‘evil’ you are going to make them evil. And you are going to lose control eventually. If you do not own your demons, they will own you,” Eric says with utter, absolute seriousness.
“So what do you want me to do?” Mary cries out, afraid of all this. Afraid of what Eric is telling her. Afraid of what she might become.
Shaking his head sadly, Eric says, “I honestly don’t know, this is beyond me. All I do know is that you have to stop repressing those parts of you that you don’t like. To do that, you probably have to come to terms with the reasons why you started repressing them in the first place.”
“Oh? And what doing you think is that?” Mary asks sarcastically, trying to hide her fear behind anger.
Holding the bridge of his nose with a hand in frustration, Eric says, “I don’t know. But I think it has something to do with the fact that your father beat you.”
“So?” Mary asks with a blasé and confused tone. She did not see the significance of his statement.
Eric looked at her completely and utterly gobsmacked before saying in a shocked tone, “Mary, he wailed on you with a cane in a drunken fury.”
“So? I was a child out of my bed well past my bedtime. I would have been caned by any responsible adult,” Mary says, looking at Eric with confusion and surprise. He was looking at her with disgust and horror for some reason.
“How can you be so calm about this?” Eric cries out in frustration and horror.
Cocking her head to the side, Mary looks at him funny and says, “Canings happen to children. I will admit that incident was worse than most, but I got over it in a few days. It’s not like that sort of thing is unusual.”
Eric looks like he is desperately trying to say something, but stumbling over his own tongue in a fit of rage before finally he screams out, “It is where I come from for exactly these reasons!”
“You don’t beat children in your time?” Mary asks sceptically. Surely she was misinterpreting him.
“No! Caning is illegal in most countries that aren’t shit holes, and any form of corporal punishment is highly controversial, because even if the physical marks don’t last, the mental ones definitely can last, and cause problems later in life. Case in point,” Eric says angrily, although it did not seem to be directed at Mary as much as life in general.
Mary wanted to comment on this, but instead she just shook her head. Eric could be so incredibly strange at times, and not just when he was a raving beast. While she rarely commented on it, she was often confused by his speech and mannerisms, to say nothing of his casual swearing. She resolved to ask him more about his home later.
Seeing that she was not going to say anything, Eric instead dismissively waves and says, “We’ll pick up this discussion later. For now we need to get to the tasks of the day. We’ll start with training once breakfast is finished.”
About half an hour later and Eric had somehow coaxed Mary down to the ground and set up several bits of debris as targets. Putting a strip of leather in one hand and a few nuts in the other, Eric says, “You’re going to practice with something that won’t cause lasting damage until you figure out how to get them to go in the right direction.”
After a quick discussion of the mechanics, Mary takes her first swing with the sling only for the nut to slide right out and strike Eric in the forehead. Giving her a look of utter blasé sarcasm, he rubs the spot where he was hit before saying blandly, “Try again.”
Several attempts later, one of which ended with Mary the proud owner of a nasty welt on her forearm from accidentally whipping herself with the sling, she finally managed to get the nuts to go in the right direction on launch, although they quickly tumbled out of control.
Nodding, Eric takes a few sections of wood he had brought with them and props them upright out in the gravel of the open plains to make a few makeshift targets before handing her a bag of pebbles and saying, “Okay, now try with these.”
After about a dozen shots without hitting even the closest the target, Mary looks at Eric plaintively but he just shrugs and says, “It took me a good thirty tries before I hit anything. Keep practicing.”
“But I’m almost out of rocks…” Mary starts to whine before seeing the look on Eric’s face and deciding not to continue but instead says sheepishly, “I’ll pick up new ones then.”
Nodding, Eric looks at her feet and frowns. “You’re going to need better shoes. I’ll go get some leather and start the preparations. Keep practicing.”
Nodding, Mary keeps slinging rocks in a futile manner until Eric is out of sight before slumping down in frustrated defeat. She just sort of sat there for a few moments before a sudden wash of rage passed over her and she slammed her fist into her thigh in a fury over her situation. She just couldn’t get this, it was beyond her, it was…
It was beyond her, but then again so were all of the things she did when she wore the mask. But could she really put that thing on again? Eric said that the other… others… were her, but how much could she trust him on that? He kept things from her, he was violent, he swore, and he had a beast within him that terrified her to her core. How much could she really trust him?
Absolutely.
In an epiphany, she realized that she had to trust him absolutely. There were only two of them, so there were only two people she could trust: she and Eric. And right now, she knew that Eric was far more trustworthy than she was. Even if he was betraying her, she still had to trust him, because the alternative was to rely only on her, something she knew would lead to disaster. She needed him, but the opposite was not true.
So her only option was to trust him, and to trust his advice.
Sneaking back up to the lair, she grabbed the mask before descending back to the ground. Holding it in her hands and rolling it about, she tried to keep from shaking. It was such a simple thing really, and yet she supposed all truly profound and terrifying things were. Could she really put this thing on again?
She could. If she were alone, she might lose herself to the mask, but with Eric around, she would always pull find her way back. He was her Evening Star, lighting the way.
Taking a deep breath, she strapped on the mask.
A few seconds later and she had sent a pebble downrange, hitting nothing, but smiling all the same.
And when several throws later she actually hit something she was aiming at, she burst out giggling.
This was fun! Better yet, if she got good at this Eric would be happy, and that was a good thing.
As she continued to practice, she began to think of hitting things with the rocks. Living things. Like some of those chicken sized dinosaurs that had been picking at the corpse of the dead tyrannosaur before larger predators had carried most of it away in the night. Mary bet that those things would taste good fried over a fire.
As she progressed, she began to try and throw the stones harder, picturing bones breaking and flesh distorting.
Soon the faces she was mentally caving in were no longer saurian, but human. She pictured smashing open that bitch’s skull…
No… no… that would be too quick for her. Hit her in the ankles first, crippling her. Let her crawl along the floor, begging for help that would not come. Then hit her in the wrists so that she had to flop about on knees and elbows helplessly. Then… ooooh! The sling itself could be used like a whip. Yeah, the welt she wore was a testament to that. But if she were to go harder, surely she would break the skin? Yes… yes… and then, when the bitch was crying on the floor, begging for mercy and aid that would not come… only then would she have her face smashed in. Again and again and again and again and again and…
Mary blinked a few times behind her mask before shrugging and going back to hitting targets. This game was a lot more fun than make-believe anyway.
Mary felt a hot, wet wind on her back, stinking of decaying meat.
Turning around, she found herself face to face with a tyrannosaur.
Again.
“Oh, hello there,” she said cheerfully.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Mary felt a hot, wet wind on her back, stinking of decaying meat.
Turning around, she found herself face to face with a tyrannosaur.
Again.
“Oh, hello there,” she said cheerfully.
Notgoodnotgoodnotgood!
If you take a full month to resolve this one, I will personally come and sit you in front of your computer until you've typed it out. Kathy Bates got nothing on me.
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
Academia Nut
- Sith Devotee
- Posts: 2598
- Joined: 2005-08-23 10:44pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Tell me, what would be worse? The cliffhanger, or having to wait an indeterminant length of time while I finished off the rest of the chapter, which is probably going to be about as long as this one?
I think I can get it done by next weekend though. Long enough to let you all stew in your own speculative juices.
*cue evil laughter*
I think I can get it done by next weekend though. Long enough to let you all stew in your own speculative juices.
*cue evil laughter*
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
-
Alferd Packer
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 3704
- Joined: 2002-07-19 09:22pm
- Location: Slumgullion Pass
- Contact:
I'm with LadyTevar on this one. I start getting all twitchy, the longer this goes without updates.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
-
Academia Nut
- Sith Devotee
- Posts: 2598
- Joined: 2005-08-23 10:44pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Inspiration hits at the weirdest times. Anywhere, here is the rest of the chapter.
---
Mary looked up at the tyrannosaur, and the Succubus went screaming away to cower in a small dark corner somewhere and wait for the end to come. The Imp however, was childish and playful and curious, and utterly without fear. Thus, when she was looking upon the tyrannosaur, she was not looking at a six ton killing machine, but looking at it with the eyes of a child. Around the world since their discovery, children have had a near universal response to dinosaurs.
Awesome!
Mary stared at the tyrannosaur, and the tyrannosaur stared back, snorting gale winds of hot, moist breath at her through its nostrils.
Mary bopped it on the nose and said, “It’s not polite to breath on people like that.”
The dinosaur jerked its head back in confusion and surprise, blinking a few times at the audacity of the tiny creature in front of it. Fortunately for Mary, this was Elizabeth, the biggest, meanest rex in a two hundred kilometre radius, and the only one on the planet that was smart enough to be stupid enough to mistake humans for tyrannosaur chicks.
Thus, Elizabeth’s relatively small and surprisingly avian brain came to the correct solution for all the wrong reasons. She had been struck by a playful, enthusiastic chick. No harm, no foul. So instead of attacking, the queen of Cretaceous predators tapped Mary back, with astonishing gentleness.
Mary still had the wind driven out of her by the huge head butting her gut, but she interpreted at as just another bit of play too.
A small part of Mary’s rational brain, a part currently being ignored, pointed out that Mary seemed to have the most incredible luck when it came to tyrannosaurs.
Recovering from the blow, Mary waggled her finger and said, “Now, now, that’s not nice.”
The tyrannosaur snorted in complete lack of understanding. The two looked at one another dumbly for a few seconds before Mary hugged the beast about the snout, saying, “You’re so cute! I can’t stay mad at you!”
Complete lack of fear; including the healthy aspects of fear. Such as not hugging six tons of death incarnate about the business end.
Elizabeth responded to this by thinking Mary wanted to go back to the nest, so she picked her up… with her mouth. Again, the degree of gentleness was incredible, but Mary would have nothing of it. The riding in the mouth bit anyway.
So, swatting Elizabeth about the nose, Mary clambered about until she was sitting atop Elizabeth’s back, the tyrannosaur having endured the climbing and such with the patience only a mother could bring forth.
Giggling and kicking her feet back and forth, Mary threw up her hands and cried out, “Wheee!”
Eric, having come in on the scene, could only watch from the lair and make strange, strangled gasping noises that sounded like he was trying to say something but he kept inhaling and interrupting himself.
Seeing this, Mary waved and said, “Look at me Eric! I’m riding a dinosaur!”
Eric continued to make the same strangled noises while pointing dumbly at Mary.
Waggling her finger at him, Mary scolded, “Don’t you know it’s impolite to point? And close your mouth before you start catching flies.” She then brings her hands to her mouth before giggling scandalously, adding on “You got told! By me!”
Having seen that Eric was all right, Elizabeth began to march off back for the nest. While the initial acceleration nearly threw Mary, she quickly regained her balance and threw up her hands again, crying out, “Wheee!”
The world was impressively different when sitting three metres up on the back of a dinosaur walking at a sedate twenty kilometres per hour. For one, everything suddenly became funny. That or the urge to cackle insanely because you’re riding a tyrannosaur became overwhelming. Mary wasn’t quite sure. Either way she was laughing her head off the entire time.
After a good ten to twenty minutes, they arrived at the rex nest, where the other three were relaxing in the early morning sun, the jackal birds picking over the last bits of a kill the rexes had made a day or two ago, except for two that were running about in a state of great agitation.
Crouching down, Elizabeth let Mary hop off before going over to the two and settling down next to them. Approaching out of curiosity, Mary found that the two were running circles about a large mound of dirt covered in rotting leaves. Seeing her approach, the two jackal birds immediately rushed up and began hissing at Mary, but Elizabeth just hissed at them and they immediately cut it out.
While she had never seen anything quite like this, she could immediately tell that this was a nest of some sort, so Mary merely sat down at the edge and looked over it. She might have lacked natural healthy fear and had a startling lack of common sense, but she wasn’t stupid enough to disturb the nest. Although not because she feared being ripped apart by a furious mother lizard, but because she was hoping that there would be cute babies soon and she didn’t want to hurt them.
While still unnerved by her presence, the jackal birds eventually settled back into pacing before eventually they began to kick the leaves off the nest, and clawing at the dirt with their arms, throwing up great gouts of dirt. Forced to retreat by the storm of debris, Mary returned when the jackal birds finished, sitting down to watch over their work.
The nest now revealed two dozen long, ellipsoid eggs and three much larger eggs, curiously speckled blue, and at this point at least one of the eggs were wiggling at all times. Mary could only stare in wonder and awe.
Time passed and tiny cracks began to appear in the shells, and peeping noises began to issue forth. Finally one of the smaller eggs broke open and a wet, feathery little bundle tumbled out, peeping and mewling like a tiny baby bird.
It was about at that point that Eric arrived, dressed in fully gear, and angry as hell. Mary glanced over at him skulking about and waved for him to come over.
Slipping over to where she was seated, he asked angrily, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Watching the baby dinosaurs hatch,” Mary says cheerfully in a self-evident tone.
“Do you have any idea how much danger you’re in?” Eric hisses.
“They haven’t hurt me yet,” Mary points out before clapping happily as another egg hatches.
“They’re wild animals! And you have no idea how they act! You’ve been running on extraordinarily luck so far. Make a wrong move and they’ll rip you to shreds! And, hey, if that isn’t bad enough, you’re hanging around their nest when the eggs are hatching. I’m sure they won’t be twitchy and oversensitive about intruders,” Eric counters angrily before grabbing at Mary’s wrist.
The most extraordinary thing happened. The entire scene went still as a low, threatening growl was issued forth; one dripping with enough menace that the jackal birds immediately went back on guard.
Eric immediately released Mary’s wrist, more than wise enough to know that if she was making a noise like that then backing off was the appropriate strategy.
Settling back down, Mary returned to watching the scene happily while Eric took to watching her back with enough paranoia to have led at least three conspiracies.
For the next several hours Mary sat and watched the hatching, applauding the chicks as they tumbled out, giving extra vigour for the first two tyrannosaur chicks when they broke free from their shells. Soon all that was left was a single tyrannosaur egg with a large crack in it, but the wiggling was slowly becoming less vigorous.
Frowning beneath the mask, Mary asked, “Why are the jackal bird chicks gathering about that egg?”
Glancing over, Eric shrugs and says, “They’re waiting for Elizabeth to give the approval to one of the nest tenders to break open the egg.”
“Oh, so they’re waiting to meet the last of their new friends,” Mary says happily.
“No, jackal birds are cannibalistic from birth. Eggs that don’t hatch are devoured by the newborns,” Eric says casually.
“WHAT?” Mary screams out in horror, drawing the attention of every predator in attendance.
Holding up a pleading hand, Eric whispers desperately, “Please calm down.”
“I will not!” Mary declares furiously.
“Then could you at least lower your voice so that the twenty-odd tons of muscle, claw, and bones surrounding us are not so agitated?” Eric pleads.
Frowning furiously, Mary lowers her voice and demands, “Either apologize for telling me a sick joke or explain why you aren’t doing anything.”
Sighing, Eric says, “You obviously were insulated from the realities of the farm even in your time. Look, not all eggs will hatch. Sometimes the chicks are just too weak-”
Eric finds himself cut off by a dainty fist slamming into his jaw at unladylike speeds, laying him flat out on his ass while he tries to figure out the number of the truck that hit him.
Over a decade of repressed rage exploded out at the closest available target, namely the nest warden that had its foot on the remaining egg, preparing to crack it with its sickle claw. The flying tackle took every creature in attendance by surprise, none more so than the jackal bird hit by the attack.
Despite being a dedicated predator, the jackal bird was immediately in an enormous amount of danger. In human animal fights, the animal needed to have a good weight advantage on the human to be guaranteed success. A human calm enough to act rationally or enraged enough to feel no pain was actually extraordinarily dangerous. Long limbs giving tremendous reach and opposable thumbs good for gouging and crushing windpipes tended to be bad news when used properly.
Mary out massed the jackal bird by nearly a factor of two, and her flying tackle ended with her pinning the creature’s legs. Immobilized and its primary killing claws unable to respond, all it could do was try and cut her with its rather more feeble hand claws.
Unfortunately for the jackal bird, Mary also demonstrated the other reason why humans were not nice in close quarters combat. She grabbed a fist sized rock from the ground and immediately began to slam it into the skull of the jackal bird. It went limp after the first hit.
“MOTHERS!”
Crack!
“ARE!”
Crunch!
“SUPPOSED!”
Snap!
“TO!”
Splat!
“CARE!”
Splurt!
“AND!”
Crunk!
“HELP!”
Crack.
The rock had hit bare stone beneath.
By this point Elizabeth ended the fight by clubbing Mary off the now headless jackal bird with a swing of her lower jaw. Mary was knocked a good two metres across the ground and blacked out.
She came to with Eric sitting next to her, a sad look on his face, the mask held in his hand contemplatively.
“It wasn’t your father’s beating that sent you over the edge, was it?” He asks sadly.
“No…” Mary says, crying, huddling up into a tight ball.
“What did your mother do?” He asks.
“Nothing… she didn’t help… she just looked at me while father spanked me and all I could see was… disgust. I hated her for that. I hated her for just standing there, approving of it, and not even trying to get father to ease up a bit. I went to bed sick to my stomach… and woke up having sealed away my heart. I can see that now,” Mary says miserably.
“Any idea why you sealed away the parts you did?” Eric asks.
“Not really,” Mary mutters.
“Well, at least that’s one piece of the puzzle solved,” Eric says, setting down the mask.
After a few minutes of silence he says, “Oh, and I broke open the egg. The chick will survive… for now. He’s not very healthy, I think the membrane was too thick and there were a few other defects.”
Uncurling a bit from her ball, Mary asks, “Oh? How do you know it’s a he?”
“I don’t. The name I gave him was male though, so ‘he’ it is,” Eric explains.
“What’s his name then?” Mary asks.
“Oedipus. Both his feet are kind of screwed up and I don’t think he’ll ever be able to run properly, although he is tottering around with the other too chicks,” Eric says.
Mary immediately bursts out laughing, and smiling, Eric says, “I see you are a scholar of Greek tragedies. Although, considering the life spans of the average tyrannosaur, I think there is little danger of him ever marrying his mother.”
Letting the giggles subside, Mary says, “Why did you do it?”
Letting out a long, frustrated breath, Eric says, “Because I knew you would be sad if I didn’t at least give the chick another chance, and it hurts me when you’re sad.”
Mary immediately tackled him, hugging him close while bawling her eyes out.
“You’re not going to smash my skull in are you?” Eric asks with a morbid chuckle.
Batting him playfully upside the head, Mary kisses him and says, “No.”
“Good. That said, I think we should take this conversation elsewhere seeing as the predators are starting to look rather agitated what with all the screaming and killing and blood everywhere,” Eric says, pointing to the unsettled looking tyrannosaurs and positively ballistic jackal birds.
“Oh. Yeah,” Mary says.
“Plus we should get you back to the lair and dress your wounds,” Eric says, and Mary immediately feels the cuts the frantic jackal bird had managed to inflict upon her before it was silenced by a chunk of rock to the face.
They stung, especially one cut along her chest.
Mary looked at it and smiled.
“Yeah, we should probably go now,” she says enigmatically.
---
Mary looked up at the tyrannosaur, and the Succubus went screaming away to cower in a small dark corner somewhere and wait for the end to come. The Imp however, was childish and playful and curious, and utterly without fear. Thus, when she was looking upon the tyrannosaur, she was not looking at a six ton killing machine, but looking at it with the eyes of a child. Around the world since their discovery, children have had a near universal response to dinosaurs.
Awesome!
Mary stared at the tyrannosaur, and the tyrannosaur stared back, snorting gale winds of hot, moist breath at her through its nostrils.
Mary bopped it on the nose and said, “It’s not polite to breath on people like that.”
The dinosaur jerked its head back in confusion and surprise, blinking a few times at the audacity of the tiny creature in front of it. Fortunately for Mary, this was Elizabeth, the biggest, meanest rex in a two hundred kilometre radius, and the only one on the planet that was smart enough to be stupid enough to mistake humans for tyrannosaur chicks.
Thus, Elizabeth’s relatively small and surprisingly avian brain came to the correct solution for all the wrong reasons. She had been struck by a playful, enthusiastic chick. No harm, no foul. So instead of attacking, the queen of Cretaceous predators tapped Mary back, with astonishing gentleness.
Mary still had the wind driven out of her by the huge head butting her gut, but she interpreted at as just another bit of play too.
A small part of Mary’s rational brain, a part currently being ignored, pointed out that Mary seemed to have the most incredible luck when it came to tyrannosaurs.
Recovering from the blow, Mary waggled her finger and said, “Now, now, that’s not nice.”
The tyrannosaur snorted in complete lack of understanding. The two looked at one another dumbly for a few seconds before Mary hugged the beast about the snout, saying, “You’re so cute! I can’t stay mad at you!”
Complete lack of fear; including the healthy aspects of fear. Such as not hugging six tons of death incarnate about the business end.
Elizabeth responded to this by thinking Mary wanted to go back to the nest, so she picked her up… with her mouth. Again, the degree of gentleness was incredible, but Mary would have nothing of it. The riding in the mouth bit anyway.
So, swatting Elizabeth about the nose, Mary clambered about until she was sitting atop Elizabeth’s back, the tyrannosaur having endured the climbing and such with the patience only a mother could bring forth.
Giggling and kicking her feet back and forth, Mary threw up her hands and cried out, “Wheee!”
Eric, having come in on the scene, could only watch from the lair and make strange, strangled gasping noises that sounded like he was trying to say something but he kept inhaling and interrupting himself.
Seeing this, Mary waved and said, “Look at me Eric! I’m riding a dinosaur!”
Eric continued to make the same strangled noises while pointing dumbly at Mary.
Waggling her finger at him, Mary scolded, “Don’t you know it’s impolite to point? And close your mouth before you start catching flies.” She then brings her hands to her mouth before giggling scandalously, adding on “You got told! By me!”
Having seen that Eric was all right, Elizabeth began to march off back for the nest. While the initial acceleration nearly threw Mary, she quickly regained her balance and threw up her hands again, crying out, “Wheee!”
The world was impressively different when sitting three metres up on the back of a dinosaur walking at a sedate twenty kilometres per hour. For one, everything suddenly became funny. That or the urge to cackle insanely because you’re riding a tyrannosaur became overwhelming. Mary wasn’t quite sure. Either way she was laughing her head off the entire time.
After a good ten to twenty minutes, they arrived at the rex nest, where the other three were relaxing in the early morning sun, the jackal birds picking over the last bits of a kill the rexes had made a day or two ago, except for two that were running about in a state of great agitation.
Crouching down, Elizabeth let Mary hop off before going over to the two and settling down next to them. Approaching out of curiosity, Mary found that the two were running circles about a large mound of dirt covered in rotting leaves. Seeing her approach, the two jackal birds immediately rushed up and began hissing at Mary, but Elizabeth just hissed at them and they immediately cut it out.
While she had never seen anything quite like this, she could immediately tell that this was a nest of some sort, so Mary merely sat down at the edge and looked over it. She might have lacked natural healthy fear and had a startling lack of common sense, but she wasn’t stupid enough to disturb the nest. Although not because she feared being ripped apart by a furious mother lizard, but because she was hoping that there would be cute babies soon and she didn’t want to hurt them.
While still unnerved by her presence, the jackal birds eventually settled back into pacing before eventually they began to kick the leaves off the nest, and clawing at the dirt with their arms, throwing up great gouts of dirt. Forced to retreat by the storm of debris, Mary returned when the jackal birds finished, sitting down to watch over their work.
The nest now revealed two dozen long, ellipsoid eggs and three much larger eggs, curiously speckled blue, and at this point at least one of the eggs were wiggling at all times. Mary could only stare in wonder and awe.
Time passed and tiny cracks began to appear in the shells, and peeping noises began to issue forth. Finally one of the smaller eggs broke open and a wet, feathery little bundle tumbled out, peeping and mewling like a tiny baby bird.
It was about at that point that Eric arrived, dressed in fully gear, and angry as hell. Mary glanced over at him skulking about and waved for him to come over.
Slipping over to where she was seated, he asked angrily, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Watching the baby dinosaurs hatch,” Mary says cheerfully in a self-evident tone.
“Do you have any idea how much danger you’re in?” Eric hisses.
“They haven’t hurt me yet,” Mary points out before clapping happily as another egg hatches.
“They’re wild animals! And you have no idea how they act! You’ve been running on extraordinarily luck so far. Make a wrong move and they’ll rip you to shreds! And, hey, if that isn’t bad enough, you’re hanging around their nest when the eggs are hatching. I’m sure they won’t be twitchy and oversensitive about intruders,” Eric counters angrily before grabbing at Mary’s wrist.
The most extraordinary thing happened. The entire scene went still as a low, threatening growl was issued forth; one dripping with enough menace that the jackal birds immediately went back on guard.
Eric immediately released Mary’s wrist, more than wise enough to know that if she was making a noise like that then backing off was the appropriate strategy.
Settling back down, Mary returned to watching the scene happily while Eric took to watching her back with enough paranoia to have led at least three conspiracies.
For the next several hours Mary sat and watched the hatching, applauding the chicks as they tumbled out, giving extra vigour for the first two tyrannosaur chicks when they broke free from their shells. Soon all that was left was a single tyrannosaur egg with a large crack in it, but the wiggling was slowly becoming less vigorous.
Frowning beneath the mask, Mary asked, “Why are the jackal bird chicks gathering about that egg?”
Glancing over, Eric shrugs and says, “They’re waiting for Elizabeth to give the approval to one of the nest tenders to break open the egg.”
“Oh, so they’re waiting to meet the last of their new friends,” Mary says happily.
“No, jackal birds are cannibalistic from birth. Eggs that don’t hatch are devoured by the newborns,” Eric says casually.
“WHAT?” Mary screams out in horror, drawing the attention of every predator in attendance.
Holding up a pleading hand, Eric whispers desperately, “Please calm down.”
“I will not!” Mary declares furiously.
“Then could you at least lower your voice so that the twenty-odd tons of muscle, claw, and bones surrounding us are not so agitated?” Eric pleads.
Frowning furiously, Mary lowers her voice and demands, “Either apologize for telling me a sick joke or explain why you aren’t doing anything.”
Sighing, Eric says, “You obviously were insulated from the realities of the farm even in your time. Look, not all eggs will hatch. Sometimes the chicks are just too weak-”
Eric finds himself cut off by a dainty fist slamming into his jaw at unladylike speeds, laying him flat out on his ass while he tries to figure out the number of the truck that hit him.
Over a decade of repressed rage exploded out at the closest available target, namely the nest warden that had its foot on the remaining egg, preparing to crack it with its sickle claw. The flying tackle took every creature in attendance by surprise, none more so than the jackal bird hit by the attack.
Despite being a dedicated predator, the jackal bird was immediately in an enormous amount of danger. In human animal fights, the animal needed to have a good weight advantage on the human to be guaranteed success. A human calm enough to act rationally or enraged enough to feel no pain was actually extraordinarily dangerous. Long limbs giving tremendous reach and opposable thumbs good for gouging and crushing windpipes tended to be bad news when used properly.
Mary out massed the jackal bird by nearly a factor of two, and her flying tackle ended with her pinning the creature’s legs. Immobilized and its primary killing claws unable to respond, all it could do was try and cut her with its rather more feeble hand claws.
Unfortunately for the jackal bird, Mary also demonstrated the other reason why humans were not nice in close quarters combat. She grabbed a fist sized rock from the ground and immediately began to slam it into the skull of the jackal bird. It went limp after the first hit.
“MOTHERS!”
Crack!
“ARE!”
Crunch!
“SUPPOSED!”
Snap!
“TO!”
Splat!
“CARE!”
Splurt!
“AND!”
Crunk!
“HELP!”
Crack.
The rock had hit bare stone beneath.
By this point Elizabeth ended the fight by clubbing Mary off the now headless jackal bird with a swing of her lower jaw. Mary was knocked a good two metres across the ground and blacked out.
She came to with Eric sitting next to her, a sad look on his face, the mask held in his hand contemplatively.
“It wasn’t your father’s beating that sent you over the edge, was it?” He asks sadly.
“No…” Mary says, crying, huddling up into a tight ball.
“What did your mother do?” He asks.
“Nothing… she didn’t help… she just looked at me while father spanked me and all I could see was… disgust. I hated her for that. I hated her for just standing there, approving of it, and not even trying to get father to ease up a bit. I went to bed sick to my stomach… and woke up having sealed away my heart. I can see that now,” Mary says miserably.
“Any idea why you sealed away the parts you did?” Eric asks.
“Not really,” Mary mutters.
“Well, at least that’s one piece of the puzzle solved,” Eric says, setting down the mask.
After a few minutes of silence he says, “Oh, and I broke open the egg. The chick will survive… for now. He’s not very healthy, I think the membrane was too thick and there were a few other defects.”
Uncurling a bit from her ball, Mary asks, “Oh? How do you know it’s a he?”
“I don’t. The name I gave him was male though, so ‘he’ it is,” Eric explains.
“What’s his name then?” Mary asks.
“Oedipus. Both his feet are kind of screwed up and I don’t think he’ll ever be able to run properly, although he is tottering around with the other too chicks,” Eric says.
Mary immediately bursts out laughing, and smiling, Eric says, “I see you are a scholar of Greek tragedies. Although, considering the life spans of the average tyrannosaur, I think there is little danger of him ever marrying his mother.”
Letting the giggles subside, Mary says, “Why did you do it?”
Letting out a long, frustrated breath, Eric says, “Because I knew you would be sad if I didn’t at least give the chick another chance, and it hurts me when you’re sad.”
Mary immediately tackled him, hugging him close while bawling her eyes out.
“You’re not going to smash my skull in are you?” Eric asks with a morbid chuckle.
Batting him playfully upside the head, Mary kisses him and says, “No.”
“Good. That said, I think we should take this conversation elsewhere seeing as the predators are starting to look rather agitated what with all the screaming and killing and blood everywhere,” Eric says, pointing to the unsettled looking tyrannosaurs and positively ballistic jackal birds.
“Oh. Yeah,” Mary says.
“Plus we should get you back to the lair and dress your wounds,” Eric says, and Mary immediately feels the cuts the frantic jackal bird had managed to inflict upon her before it was silenced by a chunk of rock to the face.
They stung, especially one cut along her chest.
Mary looked at it and smiled.
“Yeah, we should probably go now,” she says enigmatically.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
-
pieman3141
- Youngling
- Posts: 139
- Joined: 2006-06-19 03:54am
Oh my.
Why do I have a feeling that 'Odie' will be Mary and Eric's first pet?
Why do I have a feeling that 'Odie' will be Mary and Eric's first pet?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
Alferd Packer
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 3704
- Joined: 2002-07-19 09:22pm
- Location: Slumgullion Pass
- Contact:
I'll be very interested to see how Mary acts now when she puts the mask on. Perhaps the childish aspect of her personality will be reduced, so that other aspects will be more dominant.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
-
Sidewinder
- Sith Acolyte
- Posts: 5466
- Joined: 2005-05-18 10:23pm
- Location: Feasting on those who fell in battle
- Contact:
Sounds like Eric better brew up some sedatives to keep Mary from going nuts on another dinosaur. I'm surprised that Mary is actually heavier than a jackal bird, though.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
-
Academia Nut
- Sith Devotee
- Posts: 2598
- Joined: 2005-08-23 10:44pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Maybe because that's pretty much why I started writing this in the first place and it's probably pretty obvious?LadyTevar wrote:Oh my.
Why do I have a feeling that 'Odie' will be Mary and Eric's first pet?
You'll see...Alfred Packer wrote:I'll be very interested to see how Mary acts now when she puts the mask on. Perhaps the childish aspect of her personality will be reduced, so that other aspects will be more dominant.
I forget if I listed a general size, but jackal birds are roughly in the 25~30kg range while Mary is 50~55kg easily, putting her comfortably in the "approximately double" range. If I did list a bigger size earlier then the largest I could see them getting is ~40kg, so Mary will still have a significant mass advantage. They don't need to be very big to fulfill their ecological niche, that's why they teamed up with the rexes.Sidewinder wrote:Sounds like Eric better brew up some sedatives to keep Mary from going nuts on another dinosaur. I'm surprised that Mary is actually heavier than a jackal bird, though.
No idea when the next update will be, but at least it's not a cliffhanger, no?
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists