the floor, taking my ruined, paint-stained
clothes off. Smears of color covered my skin, making me look like I'd rolled in
a Jackson Pollack painting. Malcolm sat in one of the leatherbound swiveling
chairs, watching me. “You are startling,” he said when I finally stood before
him, completely nude except for his own markings.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don't speak.”
I licked my lips.
“Lie down on the floor,” he commanded.
I glanced down dubiously at the fine carpet. Wouldn't the paint
ruin it? But hey, I wasn't a freaking billionaire, what did I care? I did as he
bade, stretching out, my arms above my head, my toes pointed towards him.
“Open your legs,” he said. Then he reached down and opened a bag
I hadn't seen there, withdrawing a familiar-looking tin. A box full of charcoal
sticks.
“Where'd you get that?” I said.
“What did I say about speaking?” he asked me.
I clammed up.
“Spread your legs,” he commanded again.
God. I'd never known how much I liked to hear a man talk dirty
to me. My breathing picked up as I let my thighs fall open, exposing my inner
flesh to his gaze.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Like that.” And he left his chair and knelt
down between my legs as he opened the tin of charcoal.
I wanted to ask what he was going to do. I didn't think he'd be
so amateur as to stick charcoal inside me, but you never knew with some people.
He didn't though. Instead, he took one stick of charcoal out and
held it lightly, poised to draw on my skin. Tilting his head to one side, he
took me in.
“You aren't finished yet,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“But how will I know when enough is enough?”
I could have told him that sometimes you never do, but then he
lowered the charcoal to my belly and began to write. Not draw. Write.
The tip of the stick tickled me, and it was all I could do to
stifle my giggles as he dragged it over my stomach, dipping it inside my navel,
letting it wander and swirl around my hip. Swift cursive letters flowed into
each other as he scrawled something across my flesh, branding me with who knew
what. Then his other hand alighted on my pussy and without preamble he pushed
his way inside. I was slick and wet and ready, but it still surprised me, and I
gasped.
“Don't move,” he said. “You will make the letters all wobbly.”
Curling his finger inside me, he ran the pad over the sweet,
aching spot at the top of my tight passage that I knew could make me come.
Technically. I technically knew that. I'd never had an orgasm from that before.
I wanted to see if he knew how to do it.
“'I have gone out,'” he said suddenly, his voice rich and dark
as he rubbed his finger in circles over my g-spot, making my toes curl and my
back arch. “'A possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night.'”
Something began to build deep in my belly. A heaviness that I
had never felt before. It was almost uncomfortable, a dark, lurking experience,
waiting to be released, and I couldn't stop it. The circling of his finger
inside me was relentless. I quivered and quaked around it, knowing that he
could give me things I'd never known.
The charcoal continued down my thigh. “'Dreaming evil,'” he
murmured slowly, and I realized he was writing the words on me. I could barely
concentrate on his voice. The thunder of blood in my ears was almost too much
for me to bear. It was a poem I had never heard before, but it sent the hairs
on the back of my neck on end even as my body twisted and thrashed, out of my
control. The terrifying feeling in my belly mounted, growing larger and larger.
I didn't know how much more I could take.
“Malcolm,” I pleaded, my voice shuddering in my chest. My arms
had come down, of their own volition, and crossed over my breasts. I cupped
them in my hands, rubbing my palms absently over my nipples as my lower lip
found its way between my teeth.
His hand stilled and I cried out, bereft. “No speaking,” he
commanded. His dark
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain