More on 'Feeding the Tree.'
Extremely rough, but I'm afraid not to save everything here. (skimming over this, I see two Easter eggs...unintentional. I am bloody hopeless.)
“Mm,” Cadmus answered distractedly. Flint looked behind him and saw that Cadmus was immersed in the virtual reality of the Internet. He began easing back around the bed to the door. Surely one of the adjacent rooms they had passed might offer up sanctuary and even escape. But Cadmus looked up at the movement and shook his head. “Now, where do you think you are going, my titch?”
“Don’t -“
“Call me ‘titch.’ Yes, I know. But see, Flint, I do as I please, and it pleases me to call you ‘titch.’ Protest all you want. This will be your last day of resisting my Will.”
Cadmus opened his vast eyes to their full effect, drinking in all that Flint had been or would ever hope to be. In that one moment, suspended in sublimity on a thread of time, Flint was enraptured in Cadmus’ infinite eyes. He was completely lost in those eyes, black within black within the endlessness of all that is darker than black. He wanted to find repose in those eyes. He wanted those eyes to gaze upon him forever, two endless coals of seduction mingling with his own phosphorescent strangeness. Closer and closer still, Cadmus drew his face closer to Flint’s until his lips touched his.
Cadmus pulled Flint to the bed, straddled him, pinned him down.
“You crave this lushness,” Cadmus said. “You wish to have my lips upon yours, to feel their Elfin fullness upon your own. The mere thought of it pleases you. Admit it, Absinthe. Own your desire for me, who am your Elven progenitor."
“I…”
“Speak, my young beauty. Say the words you have so long wished to utter. I know that you want me, in your dreams ever day as you sleep hidden away from the mighty star sun. Speak it, my odd little man. Utter the truth in your words.”
Flint held his breath, closing his eyes with all his might against the wonderment of Cadmus’ endless gaze. Yes, he wanted him. Despite his preference for the female persuasion, Flint desired the impossible beauty of Cadmus Pariah. Desperately did he want him. Leaning up to touch his lips fully on Cadmus, Flint kissed him, and felt the purity of his desire.
But then Cadmus withdrew, propping his chin on his spider hands, his elbows resting comfortably on each side of Flint’s thin chest. Next came that unbearable smile again, the very expression of the damned brought full circle.
“Like so many of your tribe, you Darkbloods, your weakness is sexual; then again, it does serve my purposes so very often. The Blood of the Incubus, or Succubus, any kind, is charged with a particular level of sanctity. The Little Death wrapped so snugly within the Greater. Ah, but I must admit that, on a certain incomprehensible level, my desire for you reaches just beyond my need for Blood…or the hungers that lie within my sacred Tree. Your mess, the whole of you, it sings to me on some unexplained level. My hatred of you is tempered also with a kind of fascination, and a special brand of…confusion. That is something I have not yet felt: confusion. Why is it that such conflicting apices could reside in the same plane of awareness?”
“I am not an apex, Cadmus.”
Cadmus blinked his infinite eyes with unconcern. “When you boil it down, young Absinthe, all anyone or anything is, is merely an apex masked in the fallacy that is emotion. Such is the reality of my sacrament. It bears for me the scars that realised apices may carry within their wily traps. You are nothing to me but an apex barely conceived within the nightmare of my reverie. You are a blip in the perfection that is my reality, something to be dispensed with and discarded, as soon as you are used up to my satisfaction. And what is so amusing by this, is that you are privy to all of it, yet you still willingly participate, because it is impossible to deny the undeniable. Especially when that which shall not be denied desires you above all others. At least for this day of days. Before you die, you may drink of me. Be the Blood of my Blood. Taste the flesh that, by family lineage alone, remade your own. Possess me in body, as I also possess you…in body, in Blood, in soul. This is me, as bared as perhaps I shall ever be, but only because I know that you will never see another luna to tell of it. Only by the branches of the Tree shall you be known for time immemorial. In the Tree, and in my undying memories of secret indulgences. Now, tell me, titch; do you have anything under those layers of thrift store bargains, or are you nothing but a ghost with revenant eyes?”
“Mm,” Cadmus answered distractedly. Flint looked behind him and saw that Cadmus was immersed in the virtual reality of the Internet. He began easing back around the bed to the door. Surely one of the adjacent rooms they had passed might offer up sanctuary and even escape. But Cadmus looked up at the movement and shook his head. “Now, where do you think you are going, my titch?”
“Don’t -“
“Call me ‘titch.’ Yes, I know. But see, Flint, I do as I please, and it pleases me to call you ‘titch.’ Protest all you want. This will be your last day of resisting my Will.”
Cadmus opened his vast eyes to their full effect, drinking in all that Flint had been or would ever hope to be. In that one moment, suspended in sublimity on a thread of time, Flint was enraptured in Cadmus’ infinite eyes. He was completely lost in those eyes, black within black within the endlessness of all that is darker than black. He wanted to find repose in those eyes. He wanted those eyes to gaze upon him forever, two endless coals of seduction mingling with his own phosphorescent strangeness. Closer and closer still, Cadmus drew his face closer to Flint’s until his lips touched his.
Cadmus pulled Flint to the bed, straddled him, pinned him down.
“You crave this lushness,” Cadmus said. “You wish to have my lips upon yours, to feel their Elfin fullness upon your own. The mere thought of it pleases you. Admit it, Absinthe. Own your desire for me, who am your Elven progenitor."
“I…”
“Speak, my young beauty. Say the words you have so long wished to utter. I know that you want me, in your dreams ever day as you sleep hidden away from the mighty star sun. Speak it, my odd little man. Utter the truth in your words.”
Flint held his breath, closing his eyes with all his might against the wonderment of Cadmus’ endless gaze. Yes, he wanted him. Despite his preference for the female persuasion, Flint desired the impossible beauty of Cadmus Pariah. Desperately did he want him. Leaning up to touch his lips fully on Cadmus, Flint kissed him, and felt the purity of his desire.
But then Cadmus withdrew, propping his chin on his spider hands, his elbows resting comfortably on each side of Flint’s thin chest. Next came that unbearable smile again, the very expression of the damned brought full circle.
“Like so many of your tribe, you Darkbloods, your weakness is sexual; then again, it does serve my purposes so very often. The Blood of the Incubus, or Succubus, any kind, is charged with a particular level of sanctity. The Little Death wrapped so snugly within the Greater. Ah, but I must admit that, on a certain incomprehensible level, my desire for you reaches just beyond my need for Blood…or the hungers that lie within my sacred Tree. Your mess, the whole of you, it sings to me on some unexplained level. My hatred of you is tempered also with a kind of fascination, and a special brand of…confusion. That is something I have not yet felt: confusion. Why is it that such conflicting apices could reside in the same plane of awareness?”
“I am not an apex, Cadmus.”
Cadmus blinked his infinite eyes with unconcern. “When you boil it down, young Absinthe, all anyone or anything is, is merely an apex masked in the fallacy that is emotion. Such is the reality of my sacrament. It bears for me the scars that realised apices may carry within their wily traps. You are nothing to me but an apex barely conceived within the nightmare of my reverie. You are a blip in the perfection that is my reality, something to be dispensed with and discarded, as soon as you are used up to my satisfaction. And what is so amusing by this, is that you are privy to all of it, yet you still willingly participate, because it is impossible to deny the undeniable. Especially when that which shall not be denied desires you above all others. At least for this day of days. Before you die, you may drink of me. Be the Blood of my Blood. Taste the flesh that, by family lineage alone, remade your own. Possess me in body, as I also possess you…in body, in Blood, in soul. This is me, as bared as perhaps I shall ever be, but only because I know that you will never see another luna to tell of it. Only by the branches of the Tree shall you be known for time immemorial. In the Tree, and in my undying memories of secret indulgences. Now, tell me, titch; do you have anything under those layers of thrift store bargains, or are you nothing but a ghost with revenant eyes?”