The demon inhaled. A look of shock crossed his ugly features. “Oh, I’m done for! How could this happen?” Then he popped out of existence.
Prior ran across to Tantamount. Only about fifteen minutes had passed, but that was enough to set a good three inches of the stake into her.
“Don’t touch me!” she gasped. “Any jog will drop me on it. Pull from the other end.”
He ran to the clock. He was about to take hold of the rope between it and the pulley, but she stopped him again. “Wind the clock hand backwards. That’s safest.”
He did so, and slowly the rope rewound and drew her up off the stake. Once she was clear, she pushed herself to the side with one leg. “Now lower me, slowly.”
He did so, and soon she stood on the ground, bringing her hands down. He rushed to embrace her.
Chapter 22—Demoness
Tantamount turned eagerly to accept Prior’s embrace. “What happened?” she asked. “The demon was winning, and I feared for you. Then he started laughing and didn’t stop. The joke couldn’t have been that funny.”
“No joke,” he said, pausing to kiss her. “I farted laughing gas.”
“Laughing gas!” she exclaimed, laughing herself. “But that’s an anesthetic.”
“Yes. He thought he was laughing of his own volition, so he didn’t even try to fight it. That was his mistake.”
“You’re wonderful!” She kissed him passionately. “Let’s find a bed, while we have time. I’m so relieved to be free again.”
“Forget it, mortal man,” a sultry voice said. It was a dusky demoness in an elegant dress, bold of breast, stout of thigh, classic of feature, with a necklace of fifty severed shriveled human penises. “You must win her from me. Tomorrow at noon.”
“The Second Branch!” Prior exclaimed.
“But we should have a day to ourselves, between bouts,” Tantamount protested. She was feeling downright romantic, after the horrors of the night and her near brush with impalement.
“No. You are in my power now.” The nails of the demoness’s fingers extended like the claws of a cat, digging into Tantamount’s flesh. “Hostage to his performance tomorrow.”
Then the scene changed. They were in a lush bedroom suite. This was obviously the second level, the residence of the Second Branch.
Maybe she could learn something useful. “You look too svelte to be in a business like this,” Tantamount said. “You have an hourglass figure.”
The demoness dropped into an easy chair and crossed her legs, the left ankle over the right knee, so that her well-fleshed thighs showed all the way to the cleft. “True. But a very small slit. Look.” She reached to her crotch with her two hands and pulled her vulva lips apart.
Tantamount looked more closely. It was true; the vulva was hardly more than a crease, and the vagina seemed to be a pinpoint hole that a hypodermic needle would have had trouble penetrating. “How do you ever manage to have sexual intercourse?”
“That, my dear, is the point: in a normal combat with a male, my anatomy is virtually impenetrable. Of course I could loosen it if I chose, but I will hardly choose to do so tomorrow. I remain angry at your boyfriend.”
“Because he defeated you in fair combat?”
“It wasn’t fair!” the demoness snapped. “He changed weapons in mid-engagement. He screwed on his pipe-cleaner model, then beat me up until I could no longer resist. He raped me!”
Tantamount had to laugh. “Rape a sex demoness? That’s a hyperbolic exaggeration.”
The demoness nodded, putting her lifted foot down and straightening her skirt so that her genital region no longer showed.
“True. But it was a considerable annoyance. Tomorrow I will repay him in kind.”
“You don’t look strong enough to hold him down for a killer fart.”
“I’m not. However I have a strategy that should prevail. I would have used it last time, had he not annoyed me to the point of rage so that I couldn’t think straight.”
This was interesting.
“What did he do?”
“He bit my breast,” she said indignantly. “He chomped my nipple, hard, repeatedly. Then in my distraction he tied me up and drilled my hole with his thin rod. It was an outrage.”
“But as a demon you shouldn’t have felt pain, should you?”
“We don’t need to feel pain, but turn it on for important encounters, as it’s an excellent guide to damage. But it was the barbarism of the act that got to me. No man chomps a breast as lovely as mine!”
“It does seem barbaric,” Tantamount agreed.
“So you will understand why tomorrow you will be fitted with a miniature toothed animal trap that will close on your right nipple after a certain length of time has passed. You will lose the use of that breast for nursing if that trap trips.”
Ouch! But the demoness would do what she chose to do.
“I do understand.”
“Very good. Now make yourself at home. I want you to be pretty for tomorrow.”
The demoness faded out.
It did make sense, Tantamount thought as she nursed Chance. The demoness had a grudge, and this would not only hurt Prior back, as it were, the same way as he had hurt her, it would make him appreciate the horror of Tantamount’s predicament. What was to stop the demoness from destroying the other nipple too? Chance was not yet ready to be weaned, and anyway, she liked nursing him; it provided the kind of closeness she had never before had with another person.
Fortunately Prior had the Spire, and it had proved its effectiveness. He would find a way. She hoped.
She washed Chance and herself, and put on one of the exquisite gowns she found in the closet. It fit her perfectly, as the wall-sized mirror confirmed. Demons did know how to do things when they wanted to. The demoness reappeared.
“Would you like to join me for dinner?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“There is no need to be defensive. We both know our situations, and what will happen tomorrow. Tonight we can set that aside and be social, if you wish. You do have a choice.”
Tantamount realized that even demons might like to socialize on occasion. “Truce for the evening?”
“Truce,” the demoness agreed, and smiled. The room actually brightened; demons could make things literal when they chose.
Dinner was in a dining hall like that of a major hotel, but there were no waiters. Instead the platters floated in on their trays and settled before them as required. It turned out to be an excellent meal, complete with quality wine and delightful dessert. Tantamount was quite satisfied. So was Chance, sitting in his convenient high chair.
“I must say, you are a quality entertainer.”
The demoness made a wry moue.
“The males insist on it, on occasion, between bouts of sadistic sex. I am expected to conjure the food and clean the dishes. Woman’s work.”
“I’ll help with the dishes.”
The demoness paused, considering. “Very well.”
They repaired to the kitchen, where the used dishes were piled on counters. Tantamount got to work, sorting and scrubbing, and the demoness helped. It was pleasant working together.
“I had understood that demons did not need to eat,” Tantamount said.
“We don’t. But we have few natural pleasures, and food can be one such. We spent several centuries having to eat nothing but ice cream; I was glad to get away from that. The Third Branch didn’t eat; he had neglected to form an alimentary tract, so could not process food well. But I could eat, and prefer it to sex, for an obvious reason.”