The Jackson in HRPG-World series is my affectionate little poke at some of the more risque inclusions in some computer games. Most of those games (not including the outright hentai games like Monster Girl Quest and Violated Hero) are harmless enough and require a truly filthy imagination to push their naughtier elements to their salacious extremes.
And then there are others...
(full link here. jump to 8:30 or so if you're bored of the fighting)
Am I even needed here? :)
The game is Vindictus or Maginobi Heroes and produced by Korean studio, Nexon. I don't know much about it other than it's an MMO based upon the Mabinogion, a collection of very old Welsh stories/myths.
It's a lovely interpretation of a succubus battle.
Given the sexism landmines that keep going off in the games industry after the Lara Croft rape thing, the Hitman sexy nuns thing, the Anita Sarkeesian thing, I wonder how long we'll get to enjoy little bits of offbeat titillation like this in computer games before the PC (political correctness, not personal computer) mafia shuts it down completely. I would be sad to see this happen. Games are fantasy. That fantasy can be ultra-violent and even include comicbook-representations of anatomy for titillating purposes, but it's still fantasy - a confection whipped up for pure entertainment. It might not appeal to everyone, but to stomp on something someone else derives innocent (largely!) pleasure from because it disagrees with your worldview is a particularly mean-minded attitude in my opinion.
There should always be a place for sexy succubi in games. And ludicrously over the top execution scenes a la Manhunt. It's. Not. Real.
The real world is grey enough without shoving that greyness into fantasy as well.
Enough ranting from me anyway. Will Jackson be paying a visit to a Vindictusian "Naughty Room" at some point in his future? Possibly. ;)
Edit: Here's the full intro as it's cut off on the first vid (yes, she doesn't care whether her visitors are male or female):
Friday, September 07, 2012
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Jackson in HRPG-World: 2-1 Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions
Time to kick off another mini-serial to run here over the next few weeks. I think we'll corrupt a few more innocent childhood gaming memories and continue Jackson's adventures in HRPG-World.
Where was he now? Ian Jackson thought.
He was standing on a giant conveyer belt running through some kind of madhouse factory. Giant gears clanked and clacked amongst puffs of steam. A lunatic carousel tune played in the background.
This didn’t look like the usual hackneyed, sub-Tolkienesque setting he expected for a fantasy role-playing computer game. It was a cavernous factory, more suited to a first-person-shooter or horror game, although the crazy organ-grinder music playing in the background seemed a poor fit for either.
Jackson wasn’t alone on the conveyer belt. He might have been tempted to describe them as toys. They were yellow and looked like a plushy doll of a cartoon character—some kind of flightless bird with a long bill. A kiwi?
The dolls were hideous. They looked as though they’d been put together by demented lab assistants working under Doctor Frankenstein. The stitching was crude, visible, and looked more like scars. None of the dolls had legs or feet. Instead, a pair of miniature cartwheels was attached to the sides of their bodies. Jackson doubted they were toys. Children were more likely to run screaming than play with these.
They were also alive.
Jackson watched as one of the bird-doll-things sat up and blinked oversized cartoon eyes. It was maybe about three-foot in height. The thing turned a head and looked around. In animation it looked like a real-life cartoon gone horribly wrong.
More bird-doll-things stirred as the conveyer belt reached an end illuminated with purple and red spotlights. More of the bird-doll-things waited for them, but they were brown in colour rather than yellow and directed the new arrivals with the scowling efficiency of airport security personnel. Jackson watched as the bird-doll-thing ahead of him hopped off the end of the belt. It was given a leather bum bag and pointed in the direction of a growing queue.
Then it was Jackson’s turn. He stepped off the end of the belt. The brown bird-doll-thing was halfway through the motion of giving Jackson a bum bag when it paused.
Jackson was about average height by human standards, which meant he towered over the three-foot-high bird-doll-thing. The brown attendant turned and found its bill level with Jackson’s crotch. It tilted its head up a little, then a little more, and then tilted it up a lot more until it could actually see Jackson’s face. It blinked slowly, as if aware something wasn’t quite right with the picture but not exactly sure what.
“Um, where is this place?” Jackson asked.
Crazy oompah carousel music continued to blare away in the background.
“You’re in the Nether Regions, mate,” the bird-doll-thing said.
Nether Regions? Must be the setting for this game.
“What am I supposed to do?” Jackson asked.
He wanted to ask, ‘What is my objective in this game?’ but most characters he came across, even the obvious designated game tutors, rarely gave any indication they knew this was really a computer game.
“Work for the masters, pay off your debt, get reincarnated back to the living world, mate.”
“Living world?”
“You’re dead, mate,” the bird-doll-thing said. “These are the Nether Regions. Souls are reincarnated here in the form of k’winnies and must work to pay off the debts their sinning accrued during their life, mate.”
“Dead? No no no,” Jackson said, shaking a finger.
He wasn’t dead. It was just a computer game. He was trapped inside until . . . well, he wasn’t sure exactly. He’d thought it was until he completed the game, but the rules—and the game—kept changing.
“Mate, they all say that,” the brown bird-doll-thing—k’winny?—said.
“Look at me,” Jackson said. “Do I look like I belong here?”
The k’winny peered at him. It frowned. Or rather Jackson assumed the expression was a frown given that it had a cartoon bird face rather than a human face. It blinked. Then it turned around and fetched a novelty yellow baseball cap that resembled the top half of one of the k’winny’s heads. The bill had a slender beak stitched into the fabric and there were a pair of large googly eyes glued to the front. The k’winny motioned for Jackson to duck down and then it reached up to place the k’winny cap on his head. It looked up and smiled. All was right in its world again.
Jackson glanced up at the cap on his head and shook his head.
The k’winny bent down, retrieved the greyish-brown bum bag it had put aside and handed it to Jackson.
“This is to hold your tāra, mate,” it said.
That meant nothing to Jackson. He held the bag up and looked at it in bafflement.
Something bumped against his leg. Jackson turned and saw another blearily blinking k’winny had come off the belt.
“Move along, mate,” the brown k’winny said. “You’re holding things up. Move along. Move along, mate.” He directed Jackson with a limb that was somewhere between a wing and an arm and looked fit for neither purpose.
Jackson walked away shaking his head. Maybe it was one of those games where he had to do a bunch of everyday shit for a couple of hours before the real plot became apparent. JRPGs never seemed in any hurry to actually start.
He joined a line of yellow k’winnies. Two of them looked back at him in surprise. At least until they saw the yellow cap on his head, at which point they went back to grumbling amongst themselves as if nothing at all was out of place.
“K’winnies!”
A shrill voice ripped through the factory. The voice was high-pitched, as though the owner was small, but it blasted through the air as if expelled by the lungs of a giant.
“Oh k’winnies,” the voice warbled.
“Shit. It’s Pihanga.”
Jackson turned his head. All the brown k’winnies had suddenly vanished. When he turned his head back the yellow k’winnies had vanished as well. Jackson was left alone to face the small party walking towards him.
Not quite alone. The k’winnies were still there, but hidden behind the barrels and crates littering the floor of the factory. Jackson saw a yellow head poke up from behind a barrel.
“K’WINNIES!”
The head hastily ducked back down. Jackson wondered if he should be joining it, but by then it was already too late. The party, a strange trio of individuals, had reached him.
At the front was a girl. Sort of. She had the dainty body of an adolescent girl or gymnast, but she also had horns, a tail and a pair of vestigial bat wings that looked too small to be anything other than ornamental. A devil girl, in miniature. Her eyes were the colour of raspberry juice. She gave off the air of a stroppy and spoilt teen and dressed as though she hadn’t yet learned the difference between party girl and streetwalker. Spiky black air erupted in defiance of gravity from two pigtails and her pointed ears were adorned with gaudy, lizard-skull earrings. Her red gloves and boots—long enough to reach her elbows and thighs respectively—covered more flesh than the rest of her clothes combined. Shorts that were little more than panties hid her crotch while a band of red leather was all that covered her chest. Not that there was much to cover—she was as flat as an ironing board.
“Aha, here’s one,” she said, looking at Jackson.
Behind her stood a pale-faced man in evening wear that had seen better days. Jackson assumed he was a vampire—one of the old school Nosferatu, not one of those stupid twinkly fairies from Twilight. He was hunched, had a hook for a nose, wide staring eyes and fangs so long they made him talk funny. Jackson supposed he should be scared of him, but he couldn’t quite muster fear in the face of what appeared to be a walking cartoon caricature.
“Are you sure Mithtreth Pihanga? It lookth a little large and . . . awkward for a k’winny,” the vampire said with a reedy lisp.
“Of course it’s a k’winny, Schreck,” the little devil girl said. “See,” she pointed at the yellow cap on Jackson’s head.
Jackson looked up at the bill of the baseball cap. They couldn’t be fucking serious.
The third figure giggled. Jackson had no clue what she was doing here. She looked like an angel—in the cartoon sense. Fluffy white wings too small for flight stuck out from her back. A white ribbon was tied in her long blue hair. She had a similar flat-chested figure to the devil girl, Pihanga, but less of it was visible beneath her sensible white robes. Was it Halloween in the madhouse or something?
“Come with me, k’winny,” the stroppy little devil girl ordered.
“Fuck off,” Jackson retorted.
Pihanga pulled out a gun and shot him in the face.
Given the source material, I may have trouble keeping this one under control . . .
Jackson in HRPG-World: 2-1 Exploding Kiwis in the Nether Regions
Where was he now? Ian Jackson thought.
He was standing on a giant conveyer belt running through some kind of madhouse factory. Giant gears clanked and clacked amongst puffs of steam. A lunatic carousel tune played in the background.
This didn’t look like the usual hackneyed, sub-Tolkienesque setting he expected for a fantasy role-playing computer game. It was a cavernous factory, more suited to a first-person-shooter or horror game, although the crazy organ-grinder music playing in the background seemed a poor fit for either.
Jackson wasn’t alone on the conveyer belt. He might have been tempted to describe them as toys. They were yellow and looked like a plushy doll of a cartoon character—some kind of flightless bird with a long bill. A kiwi?
The dolls were hideous. They looked as though they’d been put together by demented lab assistants working under Doctor Frankenstein. The stitching was crude, visible, and looked more like scars. None of the dolls had legs or feet. Instead, a pair of miniature cartwheels was attached to the sides of their bodies. Jackson doubted they were toys. Children were more likely to run screaming than play with these.
They were also alive.
Jackson watched as one of the bird-doll-things sat up and blinked oversized cartoon eyes. It was maybe about three-foot in height. The thing turned a head and looked around. In animation it looked like a real-life cartoon gone horribly wrong.
More bird-doll-things stirred as the conveyer belt reached an end illuminated with purple and red spotlights. More of the bird-doll-things waited for them, but they were brown in colour rather than yellow and directed the new arrivals with the scowling efficiency of airport security personnel. Jackson watched as the bird-doll-thing ahead of him hopped off the end of the belt. It was given a leather bum bag and pointed in the direction of a growing queue.
Then it was Jackson’s turn. He stepped off the end of the belt. The brown bird-doll-thing was halfway through the motion of giving Jackson a bum bag when it paused.
Jackson was about average height by human standards, which meant he towered over the three-foot-high bird-doll-thing. The brown attendant turned and found its bill level with Jackson’s crotch. It tilted its head up a little, then a little more, and then tilted it up a lot more until it could actually see Jackson’s face. It blinked slowly, as if aware something wasn’t quite right with the picture but not exactly sure what.
“Um, where is this place?” Jackson asked.
Crazy oompah carousel music continued to blare away in the background.
“You’re in the Nether Regions, mate,” the bird-doll-thing said.
Nether Regions? Must be the setting for this game.
“What am I supposed to do?” Jackson asked.
He wanted to ask, ‘What is my objective in this game?’ but most characters he came across, even the obvious designated game tutors, rarely gave any indication they knew this was really a computer game.
“Work for the masters, pay off your debt, get reincarnated back to the living world, mate.”
“Living world?”
“You’re dead, mate,” the bird-doll-thing said. “These are the Nether Regions. Souls are reincarnated here in the form of k’winnies and must work to pay off the debts their sinning accrued during their life, mate.”
“Dead? No no no,” Jackson said, shaking a finger.
He wasn’t dead. It was just a computer game. He was trapped inside until . . . well, he wasn’t sure exactly. He’d thought it was until he completed the game, but the rules—and the game—kept changing.
“Mate, they all say that,” the brown bird-doll-thing—k’winny?—said.
“Look at me,” Jackson said. “Do I look like I belong here?”
The k’winny peered at him. It frowned. Or rather Jackson assumed the expression was a frown given that it had a cartoon bird face rather than a human face. It blinked. Then it turned around and fetched a novelty yellow baseball cap that resembled the top half of one of the k’winny’s heads. The bill had a slender beak stitched into the fabric and there were a pair of large googly eyes glued to the front. The k’winny motioned for Jackson to duck down and then it reached up to place the k’winny cap on his head. It looked up and smiled. All was right in its world again.
Jackson glanced up at the cap on his head and shook his head.
The k’winny bent down, retrieved the greyish-brown bum bag it had put aside and handed it to Jackson.
“This is to hold your tāra, mate,” it said.
That meant nothing to Jackson. He held the bag up and looked at it in bafflement.
Something bumped against his leg. Jackson turned and saw another blearily blinking k’winny had come off the belt.
“Move along, mate,” the brown k’winny said. “You’re holding things up. Move along. Move along, mate.” He directed Jackson with a limb that was somewhere between a wing and an arm and looked fit for neither purpose.
Jackson walked away shaking his head. Maybe it was one of those games where he had to do a bunch of everyday shit for a couple of hours before the real plot became apparent. JRPGs never seemed in any hurry to actually start.
He joined a line of yellow k’winnies. Two of them looked back at him in surprise. At least until they saw the yellow cap on his head, at which point they went back to grumbling amongst themselves as if nothing at all was out of place.
“K’winnies!”
A shrill voice ripped through the factory. The voice was high-pitched, as though the owner was small, but it blasted through the air as if expelled by the lungs of a giant.
“Oh k’winnies,” the voice warbled.
“Shit. It’s Pihanga.”
Jackson turned his head. All the brown k’winnies had suddenly vanished. When he turned his head back the yellow k’winnies had vanished as well. Jackson was left alone to face the small party walking towards him.
Not quite alone. The k’winnies were still there, but hidden behind the barrels and crates littering the floor of the factory. Jackson saw a yellow head poke up from behind a barrel.
“K’WINNIES!”
The head hastily ducked back down. Jackson wondered if he should be joining it, but by then it was already too late. The party, a strange trio of individuals, had reached him.
At the front was a girl. Sort of. She had the dainty body of an adolescent girl or gymnast, but she also had horns, a tail and a pair of vestigial bat wings that looked too small to be anything other than ornamental. A devil girl, in miniature. Her eyes were the colour of raspberry juice. She gave off the air of a stroppy and spoilt teen and dressed as though she hadn’t yet learned the difference between party girl and streetwalker. Spiky black air erupted in defiance of gravity from two pigtails and her pointed ears were adorned with gaudy, lizard-skull earrings. Her red gloves and boots—long enough to reach her elbows and thighs respectively—covered more flesh than the rest of her clothes combined. Shorts that were little more than panties hid her crotch while a band of red leather was all that covered her chest. Not that there was much to cover—she was as flat as an ironing board.
“Aha, here’s one,” she said, looking at Jackson.
Behind her stood a pale-faced man in evening wear that had seen better days. Jackson assumed he was a vampire—one of the old school Nosferatu, not one of those stupid twinkly fairies from Twilight. He was hunched, had a hook for a nose, wide staring eyes and fangs so long they made him talk funny. Jackson supposed he should be scared of him, but he couldn’t quite muster fear in the face of what appeared to be a walking cartoon caricature.
“Are you sure Mithtreth Pihanga? It lookth a little large and . . . awkward for a k’winny,” the vampire said with a reedy lisp.
“Of course it’s a k’winny, Schreck,” the little devil girl said. “See,” she pointed at the yellow cap on Jackson’s head.
Jackson looked up at the bill of the baseball cap. They couldn’t be fucking serious.
The third figure giggled. Jackson had no clue what she was doing here. She looked like an angel—in the cartoon sense. Fluffy white wings too small for flight stuck out from her back. A white ribbon was tied in her long blue hair. She had a similar flat-chested figure to the devil girl, Pihanga, but less of it was visible beneath her sensible white robes. Was it Halloween in the madhouse or something?
“Come with me, k’winny,” the stroppy little devil girl ordered.
“Fuck off,” Jackson retorted.
Pihanga pulled out a gun and shot him in the face.
Given the source material, I may have trouble keeping this one under control . . .
Thursday, August 30, 2012
A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 6
There are six brand new stories in my new collection, A Succubus for Freedom. I've already run excerpts of five of them. Here's an excerpt from the sixth. It's the twisted homage to Robert E. Howard I talked about back here. This time it's "Barbarian vs. Succubus".
Even exaggerated with wine-soaked bravado, none of the tales of the Seraglio of Neeb matched up to the reality. It truly was a temple to the worship of sensual pleasures. The rooms beyond were more sumptuous than even the King’s own chambers. Nanok saw pools of crystal-clear water with fragrant flower petals sprinkled on the surface. Mountains of soft silk cushions were piled upon lush, exotic furs. And the girls . . .
Nanok had never before seen such a collection of comely beauties. If willing wenches were as plentiful as apples on the ground then these maidens must be the sweetest, most succulent fruits of the Gods’ own orchard. Nanok saw sapphire-eyed willowy blondes from Fe’berg; flame-haired temptresses from wild Zeminolia; olive-skinned beauties from the islands of Oran; a dark-skinned Buronthian with her black hair twined together in long braids; girls from every corner of the map he’d travelled to and some from regions he’d only heard of in campfire tales. Their supple bodies were naked save for swathes of fine silk around their shapely hips. All were adorned with delicate golden chains and glittering precious stones. A king’s treasure in metal, stone and flesh, was Nanok’s thought.
This temple even had its own idol. At the far end of the long room, with its legs astride a walkway between two pools, stood an enormous statue of the same horned devil woman Nanok had seen on both the chains of office and capstone above the entrance. Clouds of incense wafted around the statue’s legs.
All civilised men made a worship of hedonism and pleasure, in Nanok’s opinion. At least in Neeb they were honest about it.
The girls remained queerly composed. Nanok would have expected some to flee screaming at the arrival of ten bloodstained and battle-weary men, and wouldn’t have begrudged them. He’d sacked his fair share of cities. He knew full well men with their blood up from battle, even the most noble, often committed terrible atrocities in the moments following a city’s fall. These girls seemed so unafraid Nanok wondered if they might be ensorcelled or lost in dreams of the lotus. The same enchantment seemed to have spread to Nanok’s men. Rather than charging in like lusty sailors finding port after a long voyage, they were stricken with a kind of awe. They entered quietly and respectfully, more like men on their way to worship at a temple than men looking to spend coin and seed at a bordello.
Two veiled maidens—one dusky, the other as pale as a snowfield—approached Nanok and bowed.
“Esqeta told us King Lyoncar is dead and we are to serve you as we served him,” the dusky maiden said.
“We are yours as we were his,” the pale-skinned girl said.
“What is your wish, King Nanok?” the dusky-skinned girl asked.
Nanok smiled. “I have some battle-weary dogs in need of the light touch of a woman’s hand to pick up their flesh and spirits.”
As with the veiled Esqeta, if the women balked at the presence of the sweaty, bloodstained soldiers, they hid it well. They seemed well-versed in that peculiar civilised art of quelling the fires of the heart that Nanok so often found infuriating when dealing with the sophisticated elites. The slippery sons of snakes never let on what they were really thinking. By Dhom, the battle had been hard enough as it was. He was in no mood for thawing the loins of frosty dancing wenches.
He didn’t have to worry. The two veiled maidens led him to a soft pile of silk cushions. Both ran soft hands over the iron-hard muscles of his biceps and thighs while cooing like lovebirds. Nanok grinned. As usual, the daughters of civilisation were only too eager to let in the wolf prowling outside their gates.
Nanok lay back on soft cushions. It was a welcome change from cold earth and hard pallets. Around him the atmosphere grew more raucous as his men stripped off their armour and cavorted with the harem girls. Music—an exotic caterwauling of unearthly pipes, cat-screech strings and beating drums—played in the background. Plentiful food and fine wines were brought in—a coronation feast befitting a new king. And by Dhom, why shouldn’t he enjoy it. He’d earned it through blood and steel, as was the right of all men.
“Ha ha,” Vroo guffawed. “These wenches have been starved of real men for too long. The sagging sceptre of a fat old king is no substitute for the sword of a virile fighting man.” He took a bite out of a large leg of ham and rubbed his face between the breasts of the voluptuous maiden lying next to him.
Over on a plush divan Dranitreb was attempting to woo his maiden like a yellow-bellied Kosskootan—a kiss to her hand, a kiss to her wrist, a kiss to her arm, a kiss to—
“You’re supposed to make love to her, lad, not send her to sleep,” Nanok called out. “Forgive the pup,” he said to Dranitreb’s partner. “He became a man only today.”
Dranitreb blushed. Understanding flashed in the girl’s eye. With one quick motion she had Dranitreb on his back and was astride him. Nanok smiled. The Zeminolians were renowned horse riders. The young pup was likely to find himself broken in like a stallion if he didn’t watch himself.
The corded steel of Nanok’s neck and shoulders softened as he relaxed on the cushions. The battle was won; time to enjoy the spoils. The pale-skinned maiden brought a platter of sweet grapes and fed them to him while her companion caressed his muscles with first her hands and then her lips.
Scented smoke was filling the room like a fog. He watched it spill out of the nipples and sex of the giant idol and roll across the floor like mists across the northern lakes of Abyleen. Nanok snorted, trying to clear his nostrils of the cloying perfume. The scent was pleasant, but too thick. It overpowered his senses and left him feeling diminished in the way a blindfold over his eyes would take away his sight.
A fiery ache blossomed in his body and surged down to his loins. Sensing his arousal, the dusky maiden took off his loincloth and Nanok’s cock rose with the mists. The air must be drugged. Nanok had heard of such things. Plenty of peddlers in the flesh pits of Po-Teat promised all kinds of unguents, potions and scents to help a man’s rod stay straight and true. Undoubtedly King Lyoncar had required a little something of that magic to help him fully appreciate his treasures. Nanok thought it feeble. If a man had a willing wench beside him, he needed no help.
A gong sounded. The music paused.
“Lady Esqeta will now dance for your pleasure,” the dusky-skinned maiden whispered in his ear, close enough for him to feel the soft pressure of her full lips.
Nanok’s interest pricked up. He was curious to see what the mistress of the seraglio was hiding beneath her robes. A great cloud of smoke billowed from between the legs of the giant idol. Like the breath of a dragon, Nanok thought with a small sliver of disquiet. Two slender girls—golden-skinned beauties from far-off Kallahia, waved fans as they fluttered before the cloud like exotic butterflies. The smoke faded and revealed Lady Esqeta.
This was the last story to finish for the collection. Originally it was a simple prospect - take musclebound-but-dim stereotypical barbarian and have a succubus turn the tables on them. Then I reread all of Howard's stories and remembered his Conan, the archetypal and Ur-barbarian, is far more clever and cunning than the fantasy stereotypes that followed.
There's a little black joke at Howard's expense buried in the story. It wasn't deliberate, just a combination of words that could be taken to mean something else. I only noticed it was there when I was editing. I thought about editing it out, but that would mean acknowledging I have something other than a lump of black coal for a heart, which patently isn't true. Apologies anyway, Mr Howard, you stupid daft bugger for killing yourself so young. His genius is available to read here, and well worth checking out to see how good the early pulp masters were.
My humble effort, A Succubus for Freedom, is available now as an ebook from here, here, here, and even B&N here, although no one seems to go there anymore.
For the people waiting for a print version, I do have the full coverflat artwork now and I'm just waiting for the print manuscript to go through. I'll post here with details as soon as the print version of the book is available to buy. Sorry for the delay on that.
I'm not sure which fantasy stereotype is up next for "vs. Succubus". I have Rogue and Samurai (with a guest appearance from another of my characters) pencilled in. Any others you'd like to see?
* * * *
Even exaggerated with wine-soaked bravado, none of the tales of the Seraglio of Neeb matched up to the reality. It truly was a temple to the worship of sensual pleasures. The rooms beyond were more sumptuous than even the King’s own chambers. Nanok saw pools of crystal-clear water with fragrant flower petals sprinkled on the surface. Mountains of soft silk cushions were piled upon lush, exotic furs. And the girls . . .
Nanok had never before seen such a collection of comely beauties. If willing wenches were as plentiful as apples on the ground then these maidens must be the sweetest, most succulent fruits of the Gods’ own orchard. Nanok saw sapphire-eyed willowy blondes from Fe’berg; flame-haired temptresses from wild Zeminolia; olive-skinned beauties from the islands of Oran; a dark-skinned Buronthian with her black hair twined together in long braids; girls from every corner of the map he’d travelled to and some from regions he’d only heard of in campfire tales. Their supple bodies were naked save for swathes of fine silk around their shapely hips. All were adorned with delicate golden chains and glittering precious stones. A king’s treasure in metal, stone and flesh, was Nanok’s thought.
This temple even had its own idol. At the far end of the long room, with its legs astride a walkway between two pools, stood an enormous statue of the same horned devil woman Nanok had seen on both the chains of office and capstone above the entrance. Clouds of incense wafted around the statue’s legs.
All civilised men made a worship of hedonism and pleasure, in Nanok’s opinion. At least in Neeb they were honest about it.
The girls remained queerly composed. Nanok would have expected some to flee screaming at the arrival of ten bloodstained and battle-weary men, and wouldn’t have begrudged them. He’d sacked his fair share of cities. He knew full well men with their blood up from battle, even the most noble, often committed terrible atrocities in the moments following a city’s fall. These girls seemed so unafraid Nanok wondered if they might be ensorcelled or lost in dreams of the lotus. The same enchantment seemed to have spread to Nanok’s men. Rather than charging in like lusty sailors finding port after a long voyage, they were stricken with a kind of awe. They entered quietly and respectfully, more like men on their way to worship at a temple than men looking to spend coin and seed at a bordello.
Two veiled maidens—one dusky, the other as pale as a snowfield—approached Nanok and bowed.
“Esqeta told us King Lyoncar is dead and we are to serve you as we served him,” the dusky maiden said.
“We are yours as we were his,” the pale-skinned girl said.
“What is your wish, King Nanok?” the dusky-skinned girl asked.
Nanok smiled. “I have some battle-weary dogs in need of the light touch of a woman’s hand to pick up their flesh and spirits.”
As with the veiled Esqeta, if the women balked at the presence of the sweaty, bloodstained soldiers, they hid it well. They seemed well-versed in that peculiar civilised art of quelling the fires of the heart that Nanok so often found infuriating when dealing with the sophisticated elites. The slippery sons of snakes never let on what they were really thinking. By Dhom, the battle had been hard enough as it was. He was in no mood for thawing the loins of frosty dancing wenches.
He didn’t have to worry. The two veiled maidens led him to a soft pile of silk cushions. Both ran soft hands over the iron-hard muscles of his biceps and thighs while cooing like lovebirds. Nanok grinned. As usual, the daughters of civilisation were only too eager to let in the wolf prowling outside their gates.
Nanok lay back on soft cushions. It was a welcome change from cold earth and hard pallets. Around him the atmosphere grew more raucous as his men stripped off their armour and cavorted with the harem girls. Music—an exotic caterwauling of unearthly pipes, cat-screech strings and beating drums—played in the background. Plentiful food and fine wines were brought in—a coronation feast befitting a new king. And by Dhom, why shouldn’t he enjoy it. He’d earned it through blood and steel, as was the right of all men.
“Ha ha,” Vroo guffawed. “These wenches have been starved of real men for too long. The sagging sceptre of a fat old king is no substitute for the sword of a virile fighting man.” He took a bite out of a large leg of ham and rubbed his face between the breasts of the voluptuous maiden lying next to him.
Over on a plush divan Dranitreb was attempting to woo his maiden like a yellow-bellied Kosskootan—a kiss to her hand, a kiss to her wrist, a kiss to her arm, a kiss to—
“You’re supposed to make love to her, lad, not send her to sleep,” Nanok called out. “Forgive the pup,” he said to Dranitreb’s partner. “He became a man only today.”
Dranitreb blushed. Understanding flashed in the girl’s eye. With one quick motion she had Dranitreb on his back and was astride him. Nanok smiled. The Zeminolians were renowned horse riders. The young pup was likely to find himself broken in like a stallion if he didn’t watch himself.
The corded steel of Nanok’s neck and shoulders softened as he relaxed on the cushions. The battle was won; time to enjoy the spoils. The pale-skinned maiden brought a platter of sweet grapes and fed them to him while her companion caressed his muscles with first her hands and then her lips.
Scented smoke was filling the room like a fog. He watched it spill out of the nipples and sex of the giant idol and roll across the floor like mists across the northern lakes of Abyleen. Nanok snorted, trying to clear his nostrils of the cloying perfume. The scent was pleasant, but too thick. It overpowered his senses and left him feeling diminished in the way a blindfold over his eyes would take away his sight.
A fiery ache blossomed in his body and surged down to his loins. Sensing his arousal, the dusky maiden took off his loincloth and Nanok’s cock rose with the mists. The air must be drugged. Nanok had heard of such things. Plenty of peddlers in the flesh pits of Po-Teat promised all kinds of unguents, potions and scents to help a man’s rod stay straight and true. Undoubtedly King Lyoncar had required a little something of that magic to help him fully appreciate his treasures. Nanok thought it feeble. If a man had a willing wench beside him, he needed no help.
A gong sounded. The music paused.
“Lady Esqeta will now dance for your pleasure,” the dusky-skinned maiden whispered in his ear, close enough for him to feel the soft pressure of her full lips.
Nanok’s interest pricked up. He was curious to see what the mistress of the seraglio was hiding beneath her robes. A great cloud of smoke billowed from between the legs of the giant idol. Like the breath of a dragon, Nanok thought with a small sliver of disquiet. Two slender girls—golden-skinned beauties from far-off Kallahia, waved fans as they fluttered before the cloud like exotic butterflies. The smoke faded and revealed Lady Esqeta.
* * * *
This was the last story to finish for the collection. Originally it was a simple prospect - take musclebound-but-dim stereotypical barbarian and have a succubus turn the tables on them. Then I reread all of Howard's stories and remembered his Conan, the archetypal and Ur-barbarian, is far more clever and cunning than the fantasy stereotypes that followed.
There's a little black joke at Howard's expense buried in the story. It wasn't deliberate, just a combination of words that could be taken to mean something else. I only noticed it was there when I was editing. I thought about editing it out, but that would mean acknowledging I have something other than a lump of black coal for a heart, which patently isn't true. Apologies anyway, Mr Howard, you stupid daft bugger for killing yourself so young. His genius is available to read here, and well worth checking out to see how good the early pulp masters were.
My humble effort, A Succubus for Freedom, is available now as an ebook from here, here, here, and even B&N here, although no one seems to go there anymore.
For the people waiting for a print version, I do have the full coverflat artwork now and I'm just waiting for the print manuscript to go through. I'll post here with details as soon as the print version of the book is available to buy. Sorry for the delay on that.
I'm not sure which fantasy stereotype is up next for "vs. Succubus". I have Rogue and Samurai (with a guest appearance from another of my characters) pencilled in. Any others you'd like to see?
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Hentai Game Review: Violated Hero 2
Yay, another monster girl hentai game came out. Yay, another opportunity to lure fresh readers here and pimp books to them under the guise of a game review. As this is a hentai game, if you’re under 18 or likely to be offended by such things, now is the time to steer the mouse cursor up to the top left and hit the back button.
I blogged about the original Violated Hero back here. It was a game with some nicely executed H-scenes, but some rather lacklustre gameplay and a few iffy quirks. Well, it has a sequel out now from Dieselmine and the good news is they’ve managed to iron out a lot of the annoying wrinkles of the original.
They're not kidding around when they say violated...
It’s pricey at $34, but it’s a really chunky file at 1.5GB, so you do get a lot of content. Gameplay-wise it’s similar to the first one—the player wanders around two Dungeon Master-esque mazes, defeating enemies with either sword or magic. Lose (or sometimes win!) to certain enemies and you get a gorgeously rendered Game Over hentai scene where the monster girl performs a variety of different sex acts on the lucky/luckless hero.
The first maze is set in a forest and the second is set in the demon queen’s castle, both with nicely drawn backgrounds. As with the first game there isn’t a lot of strategy other than hit either the sword attack or magic attack button. The player also has the option of a special strong sword/magic attack, but each has a limited number of usages and is best saved for the bosses.
In the original the player levelled up by picking up a stat boost for each monster they killed, which meant an awful lot of tedious grinding against boring silhouette monsters to be able to beat the monster girl ‘bosses’ in order to proceed. This is mostly gone apart from six special conventional monsters (this time with full artwork rather than plain black silhouettes) hidden in each maze that give a stat bonus when defeated. Aside from them, the player levels up each time they defeat one of the main monster girl characters.
Milfy. Cute, bouncy, adorable...and general of an army focused on exterminating humanity.
The mazes are divided into five regions, each containing one of the main monster girl characters locked off behind a mystical barrier. The random encounters in each region are smaller versions of the main monster girl with lower quality artwork. Yes, the idiosyncratic pixelated artwork is back, but at least the main characters are all drawn with detailed artwork. Defeat three random encounters and the barrier pops open. Most of the time the player will do this before they even get to the barrier, so it’s not really a chore.
There are five monster girls in each maze as well as four generals and the demon queen herself, making fifteen characters in total. Common types such as harpies, lamia, slime girls (Milfy is adorable), mermaids and succubi are all present, and even some more unusual creations as well. Each has their own Game Over H-scene, which is the real reason you’re here, let’s face it. In that respect VH2 doesn’t disappoint. As with the first game, the artwork is consistent and well-drawn, and each scene is fully voiced. There’s a reason for that huge file size. Most of the monster girls have at least two scenes and the generals also have a third bonus epilogue scene after defeating you as well. These range from the sexy to the…um…yeah…weird.
Insector. I'm not sure I want to unlock her H-scenes...
Dieselmine clearly had one eye on Monster Girl Quest while developing this, and there’s more of a story this time around rather than a straight dungeon crawl to the Big Bad at the bottom. In particular there are plenty of cutaway scenes building up the characters of the demon queen and her generals.
Overall it’s still a collection of sumptuously-rendered hentai scenes in search of a game, but at least the game elements are less annoying this time around. It can be bought from here and the Dieselmine website is here. If you don’t fancy all the mucking around with AGTH and locales in order to play the Japanese version, this fella is working on an English translation, so it might be worth bookmarking their site.
And finally the inevitable plug. If you like this sort of game may I also humbly suggest giving my books a try, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too. Sample stories can be found here.
I blogged about the original Violated Hero back here. It was a game with some nicely executed H-scenes, but some rather lacklustre gameplay and a few iffy quirks. Well, it has a sequel out now from Dieselmine and the good news is they’ve managed to iron out a lot of the annoying wrinkles of the original.
They're not kidding around when they say violated...It’s pricey at $34, but it’s a really chunky file at 1.5GB, so you do get a lot of content. Gameplay-wise it’s similar to the first one—the player wanders around two Dungeon Master-esque mazes, defeating enemies with either sword or magic. Lose (or sometimes win!) to certain enemies and you get a gorgeously rendered Game Over hentai scene where the monster girl performs a variety of different sex acts on the lucky/luckless hero.
The first maze is set in a forest and the second is set in the demon queen’s castle, both with nicely drawn backgrounds. As with the first game there isn’t a lot of strategy other than hit either the sword attack or magic attack button. The player also has the option of a special strong sword/magic attack, but each has a limited number of usages and is best saved for the bosses.
In the original the player levelled up by picking up a stat boost for each monster they killed, which meant an awful lot of tedious grinding against boring silhouette monsters to be able to beat the monster girl ‘bosses’ in order to proceed. This is mostly gone apart from six special conventional monsters (this time with full artwork rather than plain black silhouettes) hidden in each maze that give a stat bonus when defeated. Aside from them, the player levels up each time they defeat one of the main monster girl characters.
Milfy. Cute, bouncy, adorable...and general of an army focused on exterminating humanity.The mazes are divided into five regions, each containing one of the main monster girl characters locked off behind a mystical barrier. The random encounters in each region are smaller versions of the main monster girl with lower quality artwork. Yes, the idiosyncratic pixelated artwork is back, but at least the main characters are all drawn with detailed artwork. Defeat three random encounters and the barrier pops open. Most of the time the player will do this before they even get to the barrier, so it’s not really a chore.
There are five monster girls in each maze as well as four generals and the demon queen herself, making fifteen characters in total. Common types such as harpies, lamia, slime girls (Milfy is adorable), mermaids and succubi are all present, and even some more unusual creations as well. Each has their own Game Over H-scene, which is the real reason you’re here, let’s face it. In that respect VH2 doesn’t disappoint. As with the first game, the artwork is consistent and well-drawn, and each scene is fully voiced. There’s a reason for that huge file size. Most of the monster girls have at least two scenes and the generals also have a third bonus epilogue scene after defeating you as well. These range from the sexy to the…um…yeah…weird.
Insector. I'm not sure I want to unlock her H-scenes...Dieselmine clearly had one eye on Monster Girl Quest while developing this, and there’s more of a story this time around rather than a straight dungeon crawl to the Big Bad at the bottom. In particular there are plenty of cutaway scenes building up the characters of the demon queen and her generals.
Overall it’s still a collection of sumptuously-rendered hentai scenes in search of a game, but at least the game elements are less annoying this time around. It can be bought from here and the Dieselmine website is here. If you don’t fancy all the mucking around with AGTH and locales in order to play the Japanese version, this fella is working on an English translation, so it might be worth bookmarking their site.
And finally the inevitable plug. If you like this sort of game may I also humbly suggest giving my books a try, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too. Sample stories can be found here.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The difference between censorship and censorship
The Edinburgh International Book Festival is running at the moment and has thrown up some interesting articles. Patrick Ness put out this brilliant polemic on censorship and in particular how social media can cause problems of self-censorship for writers worried about their words being taken out of context and misunderstood. In the latter article China Miéville made the point it's only really censorship when the police show up.
This is a familiar argument and a problem with how censorship is defined. Selena Kitt brought it up here after the problems with paypal and online retailers banning some of eXcessica’s books. The articles around the time generated some debate with other people making the point that it wasn’t true censorship—no government body was actively banning the books; the booksellers were simply refusing to stock the books, which they had every right to do. I argued back then that the semantics of whether or not it was technically censorship were moot if they resulted in the same outcome. It might not be censorship in the pedantic sense, but the end result is still a writer being unable to get their work out for readers to read. There isn’t really a word to fit this ‘soft’ form of censorship, so we tend to use censorship even though it’s not strictly accurate.
This ‘soft’ censorship is especially appropriate to social media and I think Ness has it spot on. A writer either has to censor themselves and avoid trigger topics completely, or risk something being interpreted the wrong way and then have a baying online mob (most of whom probably didn’t even read the original work in the first place) stomp all over their reputation and career.
Ness raised the example of Salman Rushdie. Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was not banned or censored by Western governments to my knowledge, but after seeing what happened to Rushdie, only an incredibly brave or reckless writer would attempt to tackle the same topics now. Again, this isn’t censorship in the pedantic sense, but the end result is the same—certain work will not be available for the public to read. It’s a kind of censorship by the mob.
And irony of ironies, this is the week when the Save the Pearls and Weird Tales controversy erupted on the internet, a situation that exemplifies Ness’s argument (although I don’t think he’d thank me for drawing the line from A to B).
I don’t want to talk about Victoria Foyt's book too much. I’ll be charitable and assume Foyt was aiming for an anti-racist message, but rather than hit the target, managed to spin around 180° and fire the arrow right through her foot. As a result plenty of people found it racist and were offended by it. They were also offended that Weird Tales (a fiction magazine with a long history) planned to run an extract. Further exacerbating the situation, Weird Tales had recently undergone some kind of editorial coup, with the popular Ann VanderMeer turfed out by the new owners.
This is where being one of those staunch Free Speech Warriors sucks. I fear and loathe all forms of censorship, which by extension means I also fear and loathe Political Correctness, as it’s another form of censorship, albeit by people with more honourable intentions. The moment you start to think certain things should be banned, for the “good”, is the moment you start opening the door to allow other people to ban other things, for their “good”, which might be vastly different and far more narrow-minded than your own “good”. That door should be kept shut and firmly locked. Unfortunately that sometimes means ending up on the side of the river you’d rather not be. As the famous quote goes: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Of course, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. If someone writes something bone-headed and stupid, someone else has the right to call them out for writing something bone-headed and stupid. There is, however, a fine line between honest and deserved criticism, and hounding a writer off the internet and leaving a smouldering crater where a magazine once stood.
I fear the chilling effects Ness talked about in his polemic. Culture is poorly served if writers are grinding their work down to tasteless gruel for fear of the PC police lurking at their shoulder. Free speech should mean exactly that, not “You can write what you like, but if you write things we don’t like it’s back to rounding up trolleys at Tesco for you.” Our culture shouldn’t be ruled by fear.
Given a choice between a world where people have the freedom to write what they want and occasionally fuck it up completely, and a world where people don't write because they're scared of an online lynch mob coming after them if they do fuck it up, I'll take the former. If that means the existence of the occasional disagreeable—even bigoted—book, it’s a price worth paying.
During the rather lively discussion beneath The Guardian article someone made the point freedom to be published is not the same as the right to be published. Ultimately that decision lies with the publisher or magazine. They’re not obligated to provide a platform to writers whose work they find disagreeable, same as readers are not obligated to support businesses they find disagreeable.
I agree with that, but this is not what happened in this case. Rightly or wrongly, Weird Tales had already taken the decision to publish an extract of Foyt’s work. Then—rightly or wrongly—a pitchfork-wielding mob turned up at the gates and forced the publisher into a U-turn. In doing so they denied other readers the chance to make up their own minds on whether or not to support the magazine’s decision. That choice was taken away.
This is censorship by the mob.
No matter the provocation, we should aspire to be better than this.
This is a familiar argument and a problem with how censorship is defined. Selena Kitt brought it up here after the problems with paypal and online retailers banning some of eXcessica’s books. The articles around the time generated some debate with other people making the point that it wasn’t true censorship—no government body was actively banning the books; the booksellers were simply refusing to stock the books, which they had every right to do. I argued back then that the semantics of whether or not it was technically censorship were moot if they resulted in the same outcome. It might not be censorship in the pedantic sense, but the end result is still a writer being unable to get their work out for readers to read. There isn’t really a word to fit this ‘soft’ form of censorship, so we tend to use censorship even though it’s not strictly accurate.
This ‘soft’ censorship is especially appropriate to social media and I think Ness has it spot on. A writer either has to censor themselves and avoid trigger topics completely, or risk something being interpreted the wrong way and then have a baying online mob (most of whom probably didn’t even read the original work in the first place) stomp all over their reputation and career.
Ness raised the example of Salman Rushdie. Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was not banned or censored by Western governments to my knowledge, but after seeing what happened to Rushdie, only an incredibly brave or reckless writer would attempt to tackle the same topics now. Again, this isn’t censorship in the pedantic sense, but the end result is the same—certain work will not be available for the public to read. It’s a kind of censorship by the mob.
And irony of ironies, this is the week when the Save the Pearls and Weird Tales controversy erupted on the internet, a situation that exemplifies Ness’s argument (although I don’t think he’d thank me for drawing the line from A to B).
I don’t want to talk about Victoria Foyt's book too much. I’ll be charitable and assume Foyt was aiming for an anti-racist message, but rather than hit the target, managed to spin around 180° and fire the arrow right through her foot. As a result plenty of people found it racist and were offended by it. They were also offended that Weird Tales (a fiction magazine with a long history) planned to run an extract. Further exacerbating the situation, Weird Tales had recently undergone some kind of editorial coup, with the popular Ann VanderMeer turfed out by the new owners.
This is where being one of those staunch Free Speech Warriors sucks. I fear and loathe all forms of censorship, which by extension means I also fear and loathe Political Correctness, as it’s another form of censorship, albeit by people with more honourable intentions. The moment you start to think certain things should be banned, for the “good”, is the moment you start opening the door to allow other people to ban other things, for their “good”, which might be vastly different and far more narrow-minded than your own “good”. That door should be kept shut and firmly locked. Unfortunately that sometimes means ending up on the side of the river you’d rather not be. As the famous quote goes: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Of course, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. If someone writes something bone-headed and stupid, someone else has the right to call them out for writing something bone-headed and stupid. There is, however, a fine line between honest and deserved criticism, and hounding a writer off the internet and leaving a smouldering crater where a magazine once stood.
I fear the chilling effects Ness talked about in his polemic. Culture is poorly served if writers are grinding their work down to tasteless gruel for fear of the PC police lurking at their shoulder. Free speech should mean exactly that, not “You can write what you like, but if you write things we don’t like it’s back to rounding up trolleys at Tesco for you.” Our culture shouldn’t be ruled by fear.
Given a choice between a world where people have the freedom to write what they want and occasionally fuck it up completely, and a world where people don't write because they're scared of an online lynch mob coming after them if they do fuck it up, I'll take the former. If that means the existence of the occasional disagreeable—even bigoted—book, it’s a price worth paying.
During the rather lively discussion beneath The Guardian article someone made the point freedom to be published is not the same as the right to be published. Ultimately that decision lies with the publisher or magazine. They’re not obligated to provide a platform to writers whose work they find disagreeable, same as readers are not obligated to support businesses they find disagreeable.
I agree with that, but this is not what happened in this case. Rightly or wrongly, Weird Tales had already taken the decision to publish an extract of Foyt’s work. Then—rightly or wrongly—a pitchfork-wielding mob turned up at the gates and forced the publisher into a U-turn. In doing so they denied other readers the chance to make up their own minds on whether or not to support the magazine’s decision. That choice was taken away.
This is censorship by the mob.
No matter the provocation, we should aspire to be better than this.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 5
Continuing the excerpts from A Succubus for Freedom, here's a tasty chunk from the other new Hell-space story, "Onychophoral Dreams (The Soul Worm II)":
It was quiet. I didn’t notice it until it was almost right on top of me and by then I was too surprised to react. She—
That’s the weird part. It’s so easy to focus on the human-like parts and forget their other . . . bits. I know I should think of it as an it, but it’s always a she.
She was right in front of me, not more than a couple of paces and as naked as the day she was born. Cute as well. She had a smile like the girls you always wanted to talk to at school, but never had the courage to ask. Those naked titties of hers were something to behold. Big, round, firm, and with the sweetest pink nipples you ever saw right in the middle of them. Pink like her hair, if it was hair.
I didn’t move. Ever since Beth . . . since Beth . . .
. . .
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a girl’s titties in the flesh. The other guys’ll go to their strip clubs, maybe get more if it’s offered, but not me. That ain’t me. Now there was this gorgeous naked girl standing right in front of me and I was so shocked I didn’t have the first idea what to do.
Except she wasn’t a girl. You only had to look down to past her waist to see that. Where a normal girl would have a cute little ass and maybe long sexy legs if you’re lucky, this girl had . . .
It’s hard to describe. Hey, you know what a velvet worm is? Proper name is peripati or puripatus or something like that.
Nephew of mine likes keeping weird little bugs for pets and that was one of them. They call it a worm, but it walks. Has these stumpy little legs—not like a millipede, more like a caterpillar.
Anyway, that’s what the girl’s lower body looked like—long, worm-like and dark pink in colour, but with rows of stumpy little triangular legs running down each side. She’d reared up so it looked like she was standing upright like a normal girl, but with that long, moist-looking worm body below the waist and fleshy little pyramid legs waving around in front of her. Even if you couldn’t see that lower peripati-whatever body, you’d still know she wasn’t a human girl. She had antennae. They grew out of her temples like the eyestalks of a slug. There was a second, bigger pair, growing out of her hips on either side of her pussy.
Ah, her pussy. It’s going to sound weird, like I’m the biggest goddamn pervert in the world, but I swear to you it was the sweetest damn little cunny you’re ever likely to see. So clean-shaven, as if it had been plucked, and with all her intimate folds tucked up so nice and tidy within her.
I know how I sound—a fucking deviant lusting after freaky demon poonang—but there was something about her exposed vagina. It drew the gaze, grabbed the eye and held it there like it had been harpooned. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m a good man, a god-fearing man. Heck, there hasn’t been anyone since Beth. Yet I was staring and gawping like I was back at puberty with my first porn mag beneath trembling fingers.
And while I was standing there and gawping like a deer in headlights those weird stalks sticking out of where her hips should be opened out into fleshy tubes and sprayed gunk all over me.
The gunk left her tubes as a jet of liquid, but it was already solidifying by the time it reached me—setting like glue or maybe some kind of stretchy rubber. The first sticky line hitting me in the chest knocked me out of my trance. I tried to struggle free, but it was already too late. She stood there and squirted more sticky threads over me until I was totally gunked up.
At that point I noticed the sticky gunk was eating right through my clothes like acid and I really started panicking. I thought for sure I was going to be melted in freaky alien slime. I thrashed around like a berserker.
Not that it did me any good. The thick threads stretched, but they were strong like thick rubber and stickier than glue. The girl thought it was funny. She stood there with her arms under those perfect pink titties and her shoulders moving up and down like she was giggling.
I was a crazed animal at this point. I was dreading the moment when the slime finished eating through my uniform and started to cut into my flesh.
It didn’t happen. As corrosive as the gunk seemed to be to clothes—and hair—I didn’t feel any pain or loss of sensation when it reached my skin. It felt warm, sticky and kind of pervy. Yeah, a weird description, I know, but that’s how it was. The stuff covered me and I felt all dirty and excited at the same time, like I was about to have illicit sex with that girl at school everyone warns you to steer clear of.
I kept pulling at the sticky, stretchy filaments, but my motions were slower now, like a punch drunk boxer on the ropes in the tenth round. I was stuck fast and knew it.
“Have you quite finished?”
Yeah, she spoke perfect English. It was a shock to me too. I stopped struggling and stared at her like I was an inbred redneck.
Her voice was high and sweet, kind of like a young woman being all teasy and girlish. She had that kind of face as well, if you ignored her weird antennae things.
“You won’t break loose, no matter how hard you struggle,” she said.
She was right. I was all trussed up in her sticky white ropes. What unnerved me was part of me seemed perfectly happy with this.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She didn’t miss a beat. She reached down and hooked a finger right up between the folds of her pussy. I swear that sweet little face went and gave me a smile dirtier than the filthiest jezebel.
Out now on Amazon, B & N, Smashwords and other ebook websites.
* * * *
It was quiet. I didn’t notice it until it was almost right on top of me and by then I was too surprised to react. She—
That’s the weird part. It’s so easy to focus on the human-like parts and forget their other . . . bits. I know I should think of it as an it, but it’s always a she.
She was right in front of me, not more than a couple of paces and as naked as the day she was born. Cute as well. She had a smile like the girls you always wanted to talk to at school, but never had the courage to ask. Those naked titties of hers were something to behold. Big, round, firm, and with the sweetest pink nipples you ever saw right in the middle of them. Pink like her hair, if it was hair.
I didn’t move. Ever since Beth . . . since Beth . . .
. . .
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a girl’s titties in the flesh. The other guys’ll go to their strip clubs, maybe get more if it’s offered, but not me. That ain’t me. Now there was this gorgeous naked girl standing right in front of me and I was so shocked I didn’t have the first idea what to do.
Except she wasn’t a girl. You only had to look down to past her waist to see that. Where a normal girl would have a cute little ass and maybe long sexy legs if you’re lucky, this girl had . . .
It’s hard to describe. Hey, you know what a velvet worm is? Proper name is peripati or puripatus or something like that.
Nephew of mine likes keeping weird little bugs for pets and that was one of them. They call it a worm, but it walks. Has these stumpy little legs—not like a millipede, more like a caterpillar.
Anyway, that’s what the girl’s lower body looked like—long, worm-like and dark pink in colour, but with rows of stumpy little triangular legs running down each side. She’d reared up so it looked like she was standing upright like a normal girl, but with that long, moist-looking worm body below the waist and fleshy little pyramid legs waving around in front of her. Even if you couldn’t see that lower peripati-whatever body, you’d still know she wasn’t a human girl. She had antennae. They grew out of her temples like the eyestalks of a slug. There was a second, bigger pair, growing out of her hips on either side of her pussy.
Ah, her pussy. It’s going to sound weird, like I’m the biggest goddamn pervert in the world, but I swear to you it was the sweetest damn little cunny you’re ever likely to see. So clean-shaven, as if it had been plucked, and with all her intimate folds tucked up so nice and tidy within her.
I know how I sound—a fucking deviant lusting after freaky demon poonang—but there was something about her exposed vagina. It drew the gaze, grabbed the eye and held it there like it had been harpooned. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m a good man, a god-fearing man. Heck, there hasn’t been anyone since Beth. Yet I was staring and gawping like I was back at puberty with my first porn mag beneath trembling fingers.
And while I was standing there and gawping like a deer in headlights those weird stalks sticking out of where her hips should be opened out into fleshy tubes and sprayed gunk all over me.
The gunk left her tubes as a jet of liquid, but it was already solidifying by the time it reached me—setting like glue or maybe some kind of stretchy rubber. The first sticky line hitting me in the chest knocked me out of my trance. I tried to struggle free, but it was already too late. She stood there and squirted more sticky threads over me until I was totally gunked up.
At that point I noticed the sticky gunk was eating right through my clothes like acid and I really started panicking. I thought for sure I was going to be melted in freaky alien slime. I thrashed around like a berserker.
Not that it did me any good. The thick threads stretched, but they were strong like thick rubber and stickier than glue. The girl thought it was funny. She stood there with her arms under those perfect pink titties and her shoulders moving up and down like she was giggling.
I was a crazed animal at this point. I was dreading the moment when the slime finished eating through my uniform and started to cut into my flesh.
It didn’t happen. As corrosive as the gunk seemed to be to clothes—and hair—I didn’t feel any pain or loss of sensation when it reached my skin. It felt warm, sticky and kind of pervy. Yeah, a weird description, I know, but that’s how it was. The stuff covered me and I felt all dirty and excited at the same time, like I was about to have illicit sex with that girl at school everyone warns you to steer clear of.
I kept pulling at the sticky, stretchy filaments, but my motions were slower now, like a punch drunk boxer on the ropes in the tenth round. I was stuck fast and knew it.
“Have you quite finished?”
Yeah, she spoke perfect English. It was a shock to me too. I stopped struggling and stared at her like I was an inbred redneck.
Her voice was high and sweet, kind of like a young woman being all teasy and girlish. She had that kind of face as well, if you ignored her weird antennae things.
“You won’t break loose, no matter how hard you struggle,” she said.
She was right. I was all trussed up in her sticky white ropes. What unnerved me was part of me seemed perfectly happy with this.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She didn’t miss a beat. She reached down and hooked a finger right up between the folds of her pussy. I swear that sweet little face went and gave me a smile dirtier than the filthiest jezebel.
* * * *
Out now on Amazon, B & N, Smashwords and other ebook websites.
Friday, August 10, 2012
A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 4
A Succubus for Freedom is already out as you might have seen. I don't have exact details on when the print version will appear - hoping to have more information on that soon. In the meantime here's another excerpt from one of the new stories, "Come on the Candle". (Sorry about the repetition for the people who've already picked up a copy - I'll make it up with a new Jackson in HRPG World mini-serial starting here after I'm done with the ASfF promotion season.)
* * * *
“She looks like a devil,” Vince said.
The candle looked like the kind of prop you’d expect to see in an old Hammer film about Satan worshippers.
“That’s because she is,” Annette said. “She is Arpella, spirit of lust and temptation. The ritual is a rite of cleansing. By spraying his seed onto the candle, a man is—in essence—telling her: ‘Take this. It has no hold on me.’ It’s a way of demonstrating he has transcended the pleasures and desires of the flesh.”
“Arpella?” Vince queried. “Not Lilith?”
The sculpture looked like a Lilith, or one of those succubus demons from a computer fantasy role-playing game.
Annette laughed. “That’s a Christian invention,” she said. “They took their stories from the Romans and modified them, just as the Romans took theirs from the Greeks, and the Greeks took theirs from sources long forgotten in the dust of history.”
Vince looked at the candle. “This ritual. All I have to do is light the candle and masturbate over it?”
As genuine as Annette sounded, he couldn’t quite shake the fear the attractive shopkeeper was having a joke at his expense.
“That’s right,” she said.
“Sorry. I’m picturing this in my head and it looks . . . well . . . a little ridiculous to be honest.”
“Smell the wax,” Annette said.
Vince put the sculpture to his nose and took a cautious sniff. Oh. That smelt kind of nice. Exotic. Like perfume or incense, but with a hint of something else. His previous mental image of him jerking away in front of the candle was swished off screen and replaced by a picture of a dusky desert maiden belly-dancing in a cloud of scented smoke.
“That’s the real magic,” Annette explained. “The wax is impregnated with a special blend of aromatic compounds and essential oils. As the wax melts they’re released into the air and inhaled by the user.”
“Oh. It’s a kind of aromatherapy,” Vince said, understanding.
“Yes,” Annette said. “The smoke will help you relax and achieve the perfect state of mind for flushing all the tensions from your body.”
That was good to hear. Vince was a little apprehensive about the ‘flushing’ part.
“Actually,” Annette lowered her voice, “one of those compounds is quite a potent aphrodisiac. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the force and strength of your release.”
The shop owner might have the voice of a prim and proper schoolmarm, but right there and then she gave him a look as filthy as any of the nymphs from the naughty films Carolyn had forbade Vince from seeing.
* * * *
It's Annette Brite up to more mischief. This one is best described as like "Bubble Bath", but with smoke. I haven't forgotten about that foam succubus minion either. I'll be catching up with her in the next collection.
And yeah, I know, Vince is a bit of a strawman. . .
* * * *
“She looks like a devil,” Vince said.
The candle looked like the kind of prop you’d expect to see in an old Hammer film about Satan worshippers.
“That’s because she is,” Annette said. “She is Arpella, spirit of lust and temptation. The ritual is a rite of cleansing. By spraying his seed onto the candle, a man is—in essence—telling her: ‘Take this. It has no hold on me.’ It’s a way of demonstrating he has transcended the pleasures and desires of the flesh.”
“Arpella?” Vince queried. “Not Lilith?”
The sculpture looked like a Lilith, or one of those succubus demons from a computer fantasy role-playing game.
Annette laughed. “That’s a Christian invention,” she said. “They took their stories from the Romans and modified them, just as the Romans took theirs from the Greeks, and the Greeks took theirs from sources long forgotten in the dust of history.”
Vince looked at the candle. “This ritual. All I have to do is light the candle and masturbate over it?”
As genuine as Annette sounded, he couldn’t quite shake the fear the attractive shopkeeper was having a joke at his expense.
“That’s right,” she said.
“Sorry. I’m picturing this in my head and it looks . . . well . . . a little ridiculous to be honest.”
“Smell the wax,” Annette said.
Vince put the sculpture to his nose and took a cautious sniff. Oh. That smelt kind of nice. Exotic. Like perfume or incense, but with a hint of something else. His previous mental image of him jerking away in front of the candle was swished off screen and replaced by a picture of a dusky desert maiden belly-dancing in a cloud of scented smoke.
“That’s the real magic,” Annette explained. “The wax is impregnated with a special blend of aromatic compounds and essential oils. As the wax melts they’re released into the air and inhaled by the user.”
“Oh. It’s a kind of aromatherapy,” Vince said, understanding.
“Yes,” Annette said. “The smoke will help you relax and achieve the perfect state of mind for flushing all the tensions from your body.”
That was good to hear. Vince was a little apprehensive about the ‘flushing’ part.
“Actually,” Annette lowered her voice, “one of those compounds is quite a potent aphrodisiac. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the force and strength of your release.”
The shop owner might have the voice of a prim and proper schoolmarm, but right there and then she gave him a look as filthy as any of the nymphs from the naughty films Carolyn had forbade Vince from seeing.
* * * *
It's Annette Brite up to more mischief. This one is best described as like "Bubble Bath", but with smoke. I haven't forgotten about that foam succubus minion either. I'll be catching up with her in the next collection.
And yeah, I know, Vince is a bit of a strawman. . .
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