~ Toly and the Dark Apollo ~

By Alexander de Barr

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Toly gripped the trim of her dress and rubbed it nervously between her fingers.

“What you did, Miss Verdier, is unspeakable.”

The curly-haired blond didn’t dare look up. She was seated before an emergency disciplinary council, headed by a most displeased Professor Fullington.

Alexavier Silverwood, the professor of martial and psychic defences, leered at her with a hawk-like glare: she was in his sights.

“What you and your friends did was downright sadistic. You knowingly put another student in a situation that could have ended catastrophically.”

Heiliger, the professor of alchemy, was seated to Silverwood’s right. He spoke: “What’s more, we would have carried out the sentence. You would have made us instruments of your sadism.”

Toly had locked Lydia Weatherlee, a troubled freshman student, in a broom closet at a time when she risked expulsion if late to a critical appointment. Expulsion from the school carried with it the sentence of erasure of one’s memory, a rare practice necessary to protect the institution’s secret arts. Miss Weatherlee had since become a protégé of Heiliger’s, one he’d become quite fond of. Now Toly would have to face the consequences of her actions.

A palpable knot of anxiety kept the head girl constricted inward, her eyes down and off to the side. She couldn’t face this reality.

“How could this have happened? I’m good! Everyone knows that! How could this happen?”

“I… but, but…,” she stammered.

“Understand this, Miss Verdier: the only reason you were not expelled immediately is because of your impeccable academic record.”

Professor Silverwood was careful not to mention the damage that this incident would do to the school’s name. The present staff all knew it, but none dared say it: this was a scandal.

That their most capable student would behave like this, showing so little judgement and empathy towards another, would tarnish the school’s reputation for a generation.

Expelling the second-year head girl, one with so many academic accolades, one who’d become the face of the school at several international events, would be too much bad press. This matter had to be addressed discreetly and decisively. Even a school of mysticism was not immune to the ravages of adverse publicity, despite the public here being only a handful of furtive schools strewn about across the globe.

“Miranda! Penelope! It was their idea, I swear it!” Toly said. She’d say anything at this point.

“Your two friends have already been questioned. We know you act as a sort of ring-leader, Miss Verdier,” said Professor Fullington. Her distant, imperturbable tone kept Toly off balance.

Silverwood interjected, “You should know. Your friends have already been expelled.”

Toly’s eyes widened. An existential dread crept over her, grabbing her by the throat. Her brow became sweaty. She gulped down nervously as adrenaline flooded her veins. Her heartbeat became sharp and painful.

Professor Heiliger had had enough: they’d been here for two hours already, and he’d had his idea of what to do from the start. As the Master of Order, now was his time to put an end to this. After all, matters like these were his domain.

“Miss Verdier. In light of your past academic performance and outstanding work for the school, we will offer you a choice: you will either leave, which, for the official record, will be of your own volition…”

“No! I will not fail like this and have my memories taken from me! I belong here. I earned this. They should be thanking me!”

“…or…”

Time froze. Toly’s breathing stopped. Tears welled up in her eyes. She trembled in her seat.

“…or you will voluntarily undergo one of my disciplinary regimens.”

“A way out!”

“Yes!” she blurted, almost laughing.

Heiliger paused, then smirked a little.

“I warn you, Miss Verdier: this will not be pleasant. It might be worth just leaving.”

“I’ve worked too hard! I won’t lose to that harlot!”

“I’ll do it. Anything. Just let me stay!”

“How hard could it be? Just play the good girl, right?”

The professor sat back, folded his arms and examined her up and down. It’s the only way.

“You will keep this off my record, right?” she asked nervously.

“Oh, Miss Verdier,” Heiliger said as he leaned forward, a toothy and ominous grin on his face. “My disciplinary measures don’t go on any record.”

He took a deep, pensive breath and turned to his colleagues. “How does the council feel about this?”

Silverwood nodded. He’d never liked this girl, having always sensed something wrong, something fake, about her, and he knew what she was in for: it would do her some good.

“I.”

Fullington smiled. She wouldn’t deny Heiliger his simple pleasures. Besides, the girl clearly had some deep-seated issues. Dealing with them now would save her and them trouble in the future. And it would take the matter off her hands…

“I.”

Silverwood spoke: “Then it’s settled. Toly Verdier, please stand.”

She did as ordered.

“To make amends for your misdeed, you have chosen to undergo ritual disciplinary measures with the master of order, here present, Maximilian Heiliger. The council hereby accepts your decision. The sentence is to be carried out without delay.”

Heiliger spoke: “Tomorrow, Miss Verdier, you will meet me in ritual room eleven, at midnight and in light ceremonial attire. You will not attend your usual classes of the day. Instead, you will prepare yourself with meditation. Skip dinner. Shower and be presentable. Do not be late, or you will be expelled. No excuses.” He dismissed her with a wave of the hand.

“Thank you, professors. I’m so sorry for the trouble I’ve caused.”

Toly hid a smirk as she walked out the door. I outsmarted them. I won.

Silverwood was gathering his papers: “She’s very good, that girl, at hiding the ugliness she has inside.”

“No worries, Alexavier. My friends will be more than happy to excise it,” Heiliger said with some satisfaction. He paused. “You were always good at that?”

“At what?”

“Seeing what others are hiding.”

“It’s my speciality, Maximilian. That girl is deeply disturbed and emotionally immature. A classic case of narcissistic sociopathy. Left untreated, her wounds are hooks for future addictions, possessions even.”

“I’ll be careful, Alex.”

Silverwood continued. “Not to mention that she’s a danger to others. Look at what she did! Who knows what she’s gotten away with so far…”

“But she’s still young. Her mind is still forming,” Fullington interjected. “Don’t be too harsh.”

“That’s up to them, Della,” Heiliger said. “My friends will only give the girl what she can handle.”

It was ten to midnight when Toly arrived at the ritual floor, deep underground. Like most floors within the school, it could be accessed via a steam-powered mechanical lift that was reserved for staff members. As the best student, Toly had been given special accreditation to use it whenever she liked, which was often; it reminded her of how far she’d come.

“How few people had ever ridden in a lift, even outside Profiterole? Does that make me special? It certainly makes me better than most…”

In her mind, all the hard work she’d done had made her deserving of such modern luxuries.

Her slippers pattered against the moist stone floor as the breeze licked her hair, still damp from her evening shower.

The hallway was cold, and her clothing didn’t help. Heiliger had specified light ceremonial attire, which was nothing more than a white robe and slippers. No underwear, no socks. Toly felt nude as she made her way down the corridor. This garb was best worn when one was looking forward to uncomfortable magical work.

“Where is room eleven?”

She turned a corner and saw a light. A door was agape in the distance.

“That must be it.”

Heiliger was already there, getting everything ready. As Toly neared the room, her confidence, born of arrogance and denial, receded, making way for nervous doubt.

“What ’re we going to do down here? Is this safe?”

She got closer until she heard footsteps and the crackling of firewood. She pressed against the door, which was heavy, like that of a dungeon cell, and took a peek inside. Heiliger, his back turned to her, was busy setting up a ceremonial altar. A warm fire was burning in a stone stove against the wall. The room was dank stone, and the ceiling was high and arched.

Something in Toly enjoyed that her professor didn’t know that she was there, spying on him. She held her breath to be more discreet, enjoying this small nibble of power.

“Maybe I can sweet-talk him into letting me go? He probably wants me, the pervert—”

“I know you’re there, Miss Verdier.”

“Professor!” - Toly nearly fell flat on the floor. She came in swinging from the door handle.

““Come on in, and watch your step, young lady,” he said, amused.

She got to her feet. He motioned for her to come closer.

“Professor, um?” - She twirled a lock of her golden hair and made big, seductive eyes at him as she spoke: “I was, well, I was wondering if there was some way that…”

He looked at her with a steady smile, motionless. She crossed her arms and pressed her breasts together.

“I mean, maybe we could do this some other…”

His aura was like that of some impenetrable monolith. Her attempts ricocheted off him. This wouldn’t work. Toly was left feeling powerless.

“Put your arms out. Form a cross,” he commanded, calmly yet forcefully.

She hesitated before doing as instructed.

He grabbed the sleeve of her robe and pushed it up to her shoulder, baring her delicate arm. He then fastened an iron manacle around her wrist. She felt the weight of his grip against her girlish frame as he worked. He then did the same to her other arm.

“Um?”

The professor ignored her. Once done, he pointed to a chalk circle that he’d drawn on the ground.

“Kneel.”

“There’s no way out. Whatever this is, I’ll just have to go through with it. I can do this. How hard can it be?”

She kneeled in the circle. The floor was bare wood, uncomfortable.

Heiliger came to her side, some chains in hand. He restrained her arms to a thick metal hoop bolted to the floor behind her.

Toly, kneeling, veiled in white robes, chained with her arms behind her back, felt like a virgin sacrifice being offered to some beast. To be alone now with the professor in this place made her both nervous and lightly aroused.

He picked up a small glass vial from the altar, one filled with a wine-coloured substance, took a few drops in a pipette, and squirted them onto his tongue. He filled the pipette again and came to the delinquent schoolgirl. “Stick out your tongue.”

She did as she was told.

He disgorged the liquid into her mouth. It was oily and bitter. She swallowed, after which he took a seat, cross-legged, palms on his thighs, behind the ceremonial altar.

“Professor,” she asked sheepishly. “What is this?”

“What you did, Toly, is very serious,” he replied. “I don’t think you realise just how badly things could have ended.”

“Uh… sure, professor, I do.” — Utterly unconvincing.

“I’m going to introduce you to some friends of mine. They’re going to take you to some dark places… places that few of us would go to willingly, but sometimes, we must. I will be there to accompany you so you don’t get lost. Whatever happens, whatever they do, let it be your lesson. Be warned, however: my friends can be a little rough.”

Those last few words stuck in the air, resonating in her head like the reverberations off a drum. Colours evanesced: only the washed-out red of the fire remained.

Toly’s mind quieted. It was only then that she realised how noisy it was most of the time, running around in circles, attaching a story to everything, and quieting down only when she studied.

The minutes went by, and things began to change. Reality became blurry and malleable, like water in a stream. The heat of the fire grew and grew until it was like a furnace. Toly wanted to disrobe but couldn’t. The chains held her arms firmly in place, and besides, she’d be naked with the professor. It wouldn’t make much difference anyway: the rising heat was coming from within.

A moment passed, and things cooled off. The room took on a pale bluish hue, which wrapped around the girl like a silk drape and soothed her soul.

She tilted her head back and let herself go, becoming like a soft breeze blowing under the cool moon. Leaves and flower petals blew through her, dots of pink and orange sailing on the gentle waves of the sea that she’d become. Flocks of birds danced soundlessly through her, turning her into a living canvas of life and beauty. Soothing bliss.

“This is no punishment,” she thought to herself. “I’m loving it! So soft…”

She looked down at the world around her. Some ways off in the distance, standing atop a lonely rock, was a virile young lion. Toly knew in that instant that it was Heiliger.

“You’re here? With me?”

No answer. He gazed back at her without judgement. How he could see the wind and the waves that she was was a mystery, but she knew that he’d seen her.

It was in that most exquisite quietude, with the serenity of a guardian watching over her, that Toly could completely give herself to the experience. The weights and burdens of her mind fell away like rusty bits of old armour. Layer upon layer cracked, peeled, and evaporated, leaving her utterly pure and exposed. In that instant, she remembered who she really was, deep down inside, something only a lucky few ever do.

And then, a new presence made itself known. A man, carved of marble like a Greek god but darker, his skin smeared with volcanic ash, materialised from behind and took her, the wind, the water, the moonlight, the birds, and the leaves, all in his arms.

A voice boomed from within the deepest recesses of her mind: “This is what you could be.”

It all ended in a flash.

A dark presence was now in the space. Toly tried to open her eyes, but there was black in all directions. She could no longer feel her body in Room 11. She was somewhere else, seeing with a different set of eyes: it was the dream world, her inner world, and something foreign had just penetrated it, along with a clawing fear that soaked into her like blood into cloth. That wonderful feeling of serenity was smothered, extinguished, like the former flame of a burnt-out candle.

The lion reappeared just long enough to remind her that he was there before fading again. The fear seeping into her slowed its growth when she saw him: a vacant space was left within her, waiting to be filled, but with what?

The ashen man spoke again, his voice deep and piercing. “Hello, my dear.”

Darkness took form. A pair of smooth, firm hands crept up Toly’s back, like sentient shadows, and wrapped around her shoulders, ran up and around her stomach, down to her thighs, and back up to her hair.

The black floor began to bubble before her. A pillar of molten rock gushed forth, each time higher than the last, until it reached the height of a great man. The heat was suffocating, but it didn’t burn Toly’s flesh: that wasn’t the way things worked here, no. As the bubbling mass took form, Toly was seized by another feeling: a most base, most crass, and most savage lust. Such was the intensity of this overpowering eagerness that her legs gave out from under her, and she was brought to her knees.

The magma receded, the excess imbibed by the floor, and there he stood: the dark Apollo, a tall, ashen inversion of the classical ideal.

His eyes were bright red, radiating with the aura of roaring fire. His smile was playful and tinged with ardent sadism. His teeth, seemingly sharpened, gleamed like pearls. His smooth, rippling muscles flexed under his animate, sullied, marble skin. He towered over the petite head girl.

“Who… are you?” she stammered.

“We are the disciplinarian.”

He grips me by the chin with two muscular fingers. Sharpened nails press into the rosy flesh of my cheeks.

“You have been a naughty little girl, haven’t you?”

His claws grate against my skin, then he slaps me firmly across the face.

The impact ignites the simmering lust in my loins: where I thought that I’d cry in protest, I moan in delight instead.

He slaps my other cheek, then glides backwards into the void, whispering in my mind as he fades, “When we are done with you, you will beg for it like a bitch in heat.”

“He’s vanished. Where is he? I’m scared!”

A shadowy hand comes to rest on my head: he’s behind me! I can’t even feel him move. He’s everywhere at once. If this place is me, then he’s invaded me completely. It’s already his, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m at his mercy.

“Mercy!” I cry.

“No mercy for unruly brats,” he says with cruel delight.

He grasps me by the neck and lifts me into the air. My feet lose touch with the ground, and, in an instant, the void beneath me becomes a mile-long drop. Gravity tugs at my feet. I’m petrified. “What the hell is this? Somebody help me!”

Just then, a beam of light cuts through the black. Clouds up above part, revealing a blue sky and bright sunlight: it’s the lion! He looks down on me, regal and protective. He’s still there. I relax in the grip of the disciplinarian’s power.

“That’s it,” says the shadowy deity. “Good girl.”

He fades out again, whilst I remain suspended in air. Up, down, backwards, and forwards have become meaningless.

“The lion always saves the naughtiest boys and girls for me.”

“Heiliger?”

And again the ashen being appears before me. He raises a clawed index finger and presses it to my forehead. A cool breeze stirs my hair as he punctures my brow with the tiniest of pinpricks, and through this minuscule hole his will invades me. Golden threads surge from his fingertips and latch on to my mind, my thoughts, my will, my body, my feelings: he’s taking control. Part of me yields instantly.

“We will mould you and shape you until you’re ready to take your place in our harem, with all the other obedient little girls that have come before.”

There’s a flash of light. I have a vision of young women, millions of them, as far as the eye can see, all of them on their knees, all of them in rows and columns, their hands on their thighs, their heads upright, their eyes down, and all of them at peace.

Each girl’s story is accessible at a glance: one had no father and lived in a cold, loveless world until she found her solace in servitude; another had been taught that her desires of submission were wrong and made her weak; she resisted them, thrashing about for years until her soul couldn’t bear it anymore, and she relented. Am I to join them?

“No!” A petulant voice shrieks from within, “I’m better than all of you!”

“What is that? That voice is horrid!”

The voice is that of a little girl twisted by coercion and shame, an irritation that I can’t reach or soothe.

“But it’s so familiar! It’s always there, so much so that it took me over. I want it out! I thought it was me, but it’s not! That ugly little voice has been guiding me for so long.”

“Give in to us, and we’ll take it out.”

The promise of release is too much: “Yes.”

He slaps me across the face. I moan in delight again. “Say please.”

“Please.”

He slaps me on the other cheek. “Say please, masters.”

“Please, masters.”

He caresses my sore flesh. His grin grows wider, like a predator honing in on his prey.

“What a good little girl.”

As he takes over, a growing part of me relishes the thought. I sigh and groan. Some kind of new climax is near. The golden threads reach deeper and deeper: my toes, my hands, my thighs, my tongue, my clitoris: everything. He’s taking control of everything. As he does, so goes my fear. Deep down I want to be his puppet, his plaything.

“You will dance for us.”

I snap out of it. The fear surges again.

“What is happening to me? Why do I want this? Oh, how do I know that it’ll feel so good?”

“You will please us.”

In my mind, there’s chaos: Yes… No! Yes… No! Yes!

I’m being pulled in all directions at once. As a spider’s web in a tree, swaying in savage storm winds, I’m being stretched to my limits. The boundaries of my being are clear like never before.

“Are you ready to let go?”

“I am…”

“Masters.”

“Yes, masters. I’m ready.”

Halos of rose light descend like a procession of crowns, blasting through my forehead, through my heart, through my belly, through my flower: ecstatic rings of dancing pink photons, faster and faster, lighter and lighter.

“You belong to us.”

My eyes open into a dark place. I’m back in my body, but something’s changed. My skin, my muscles, my hair: everything is made of light. Smooth, soft, weightless, perfect, and utterly timeless, indestructible.

Suspended in air, yet somehow on solid ground, I’m back on my knees. I feel around with my hands but find nothing else. All alone in this blackness, somehow there is peace. I sit with it for a moment, taking it all in.

But then, it begins. Tiny pustules of rotten red light appear from beneath my skin and start crawling up my legs, my arms, all over me. Millions of these little insects wash over my body like a wave, and suddenly I hear her voice again:

“Do you know who I am? I’m Toly Verdier! I’m the best student in this school. You need to be more like me! Everyone should be more like me!”

The angry girl crawls into my head and pushes me aside. My peace of mind is entombed under her vicious thrashing. I struggle to keep my head above water: I’m sinking into a violent ocean. Her angry waves are trying to swallow me whole. I’m pulled beneath the surface. My mouth opens to scream, and freezing water rushes into my stomach and lungs.

“It’s so cold! Am I going to die?”

Hope fades.

It’s only then that a most villainous laugh resounds through the glacial waters, as if they were but air. The disciplinarian steps forward and shields me with his presence: a protective whirlpool forms around us, keeping us dry and the tumultuous waters at bay. We’re at the bottom of the sea, on a bed of wet, greenish sand.

He raises his left hand upwards, like the claw of some great eagle…

“We have you now, little girl.”

…and springing from the tips of his fingers are those same golden threads. He gazes through me with deep red eyes. I feel an inner resistance rise up to challenge his will, compressing my chest in the process.

The angry girl speaks through me: “You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Oh? Is that so?” he says, grinning ear to ear like a rapacious shark. I am in his world, and his world is in me. He is in command here: he knows this, and so do I.

He brings his ring and middle fingers together and tugs on them in unison. Something smooth, beyond description, passes over my clitoris, as if it were caressed by the tongue of an angel. A surge of cosmic pleasure gushes upwards and collides into my anger, soothing my inner defiance as cold oil would cool scalding metal. He curves his ring finger further: the arousal disperses outward, up my arms and between my fingers, down my thighs, and through my toes! It fondles every atom of my body as it passes.

I lose myself in this fluttery euphoria.

“If you surrender…”

I moan in delight.

“…this is what you get.”

He flattens his ring finger. The pleasure recedes. I groan at its withdrawal. I mourn its passing. “More! Please!”

My breath steadies and my heartbeat slows, only for the angry girl to speak again. She possesses me: “No! I’m better than you. Better than all of you! I have to be!”

The disciplinarian extends both arms out. Thousands of golden threads emerge like a maelstrom of divine snakes. They wrap around me, lifting me effortlessly off the sandy floor: I’m utterly powerless to stop any of it.

“I’m so much better than you!” I cry, in tears.

The threads carry me off like a leaf in a gust of wind. I’m in the hands of some colossal power far beyond my own. I’m pulled this way and that, as if the master is indecisive or testing my body to see what it can be made to do. I close my eyes and let myself be moulded to his liking. My arms are effortlessly pulled straight above my head. Then, my ankles are tugged at until I’m kneeling. I’m brought back to the ground in this pose, feeling like some creature to be domesticated. My knees sink into the thick, moist sand.

It feels so liberating to lose control, to serve and please, to be in a place where my wants are meaningless.

“No!” the angry girl shrieks. “It’s awful. That’s what she did to me!”

Just then, an image flashes in my mind: I see my mother. I see her disapproving stare, the coldness in her eyes.

“You can do better.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“It’s not good enough.”

Tears well up.

“I’ll try my best.”

“I want to see results. You can always do more. Are you the top of your class yet?”

“No…”

“You have to be the best, or else…”

“Or else?”

The storm picks up. Thunder cleaves the sky in two. The waters howl violently, threatening to bury us. A horrid feeling pervades me. I am shattered glass, a mirror broken in two, right down the middle, through my heart.

“…I won’t love you!”

A cry of agony erupts from the depths of my soul. I gasp and flail against my golden manacles, to no avail. I heave and wail, sobbing like a child.

The disciplinarian stands at my side.

“It’s alright,” he says as he pats my head. “We’ll show you what a good little girl you were all along.”

He wipes my eyes gently with his thumb. The tears float into the air and are swallowed by the sea. Then, the golden threads, slaves to his will, converge in the palm of his hand. They weave and bind together, taking shape: he now holds between his fingers a very fine baton. I recognise it from horseback riding: a dressage whip tipped with a fine lash.

“Is that for me?”

The little girl in me screams in protest, “I was made to perform for her, and it broke me. I won’t perform for you!”

“The first step is always the hardest. Come along,” he says. “Besides, you won’t be performing for us. You’ll be performing for yourself.”

The words resonate in my mind. I can’t make sense of them, but they speak to something deep within: they ring true.

The angry girl recedes into some cramped nook in my psyche. A deep wave of relaxation washes over me, cooling my temper all the way to the tips of my ears and fingers. The master’s golden threads gently guide me down, first to my knees, then on all fours. A solid gold rope forms snugly around my neck: a lead in the master’s grip. He brings his whip to my bare bottom and starts tapping it gently.

“Begin,” he commands.

The tender, rhythmic tapping makes its way up through me. It hums soothingly in my ears. I move my bottom up and down to match it. “This is fun…”

The master inflicts a sharp strike. The pain cuts through me, piercing through the tear in my heart. I gasp deeply. My mind flips upside down. The angry girl in me cries out in horror.

“How dare you?” she screams.

As I steady myself, I feel a little bit of something break away: tiny pieces of seashell flake off of me and are swallowed hungrily by the swirling waters.

“Come now, dear. We’re waiting.”

I understand what I’m to do. I crawl on my hands and knees as the master continues tapping my bare butt to move me forward. But after a few feet, a huge resistance wells up. Each step further is harder, until I freeze: I can’t move.

I’m encased in stone, entombed in some psychic cement. I feel so heavy and drowsy. And then, the master inflicts a punitive strike, one that cuts through the fog, the fatigue, and all that anger.

I gasp for air. The heaviness in me explodes, bursting in all directions. A rain of seashell fragments eclipses the sky. I look up and see the moon, many miles away, enormous in the night sky. The angry girl screams as bits of her fall away and dissolve in the spume and moonlight. Now I can move more freely.

I keep going, crawling on all fours, the master leading me in a circle. Every time the heaviness sets in, he whips it away. I feel better, playful even. I trot a bit, then I start arching my back and rocking my hips seductively. I invite him to play with me. He grins.

“Very good. You see?”

“Yes.”

A harsh strike of the whip to my bare bottom.

“Yes, Masters…”

“Yes, Masters!”

I’m his little creature, exhibiting myself for him. I enjoy his appreciation of the spectacle I offer him as my fear of this being, whatever he may be, fades.

“I yearn for you to do more to me.”

“Then we will…”

I gasp.

The whirlpool closes in. The disciplinarian glides back into the sea and vanishes. The freezing cold nibbles at me as the frothy waters creep closer and closer. There’s nowhere to go. I’m swallowed whole. I shut my eyes and feel my body freeze. The cold seeps in through my skin, turning the blood in my veins to ice. I’m frozen in time, a glacial statue, the essence of beauty trapped in this pit where no one can enjoy the sight of me.

Then, a powerful rumbling quakes the earth. The sea tremors. Deep gashes open all around, and thick black smoke jets forth from the sands. Gusts of purple fire boil the waters. Red light floods the depths, chasing away the darkness. My body thaws.

The disciplinarian returns, and with him so does the whirlpool: it forms a protective column around us once more, pushing the bubbling waters out. I sit there, my butt on the wet sand, trembling with cold, at his mercy yet grateful for his presence.

“It’s time to seed you with the raw power of the roaring earth.”

Something primal in me comes, furtively. I stifle a gasp as he raises his hand high above his head. The fiery mountains of the seabed erupt in the background as a volley of golden webs encircle him. In a flash of blinding light, he transforms into something more. Red plumes grow from his shoulders and back, forming a regal crest. His sinewy muscles engorge and enlarge. And his phallus rises, sharp, hard, and erect, ready to make its way inside me, to impregnate my heart with whatever he desires, to make me bear his essence. I kneel before this god of the heavens and the earth.

He moves his digits like a puppet master plucking at the strings of his favourite toy, and I move: first my wrists, then my head, my legs, and with each flick of his fingers, the angelic tongue comes back to gift me with a lustful burst of ecstasy, overwhelming any resistance that still holds sway over me: I am, willingly or otherwise, his to do with as he pleases.

“I am so cold,” I mutter.

“We will warm you.”

The sea floor fades away: there is only the darkness now. I am pulled up into the weightless air. The golden weaves tie my arms behind my back. I am his beauty, suspended in the ether. The disciplinarian materialises behind me, grinning as he plucks at one of his threads. My ankle is pulled up, my leg lifted into the air: I am spread wide open, my flower now unguarded.

He runs a warm, muscular hand over my pubic mound, down to my inner thigh, and back again. His sharpened claws press gently into my soft belly. I tremble at his touch. He slaps my flower firmly with the palm of his hand: I jump. And again, then one more time. A warm shiver reaches up to the tips of my ears. I feel the wet sea flowing through my loins: he’s making me ready. I’m so cold that I clamour for it. I look down, ready to plead, but a firm hand reaches out from above and grabs me by the hair. My head is pulled back. “There’s two of them!”

The disciplinarian is also above me, somehow. He flashes a devious grin whilst bringing my face to his groin. His phallus is huge, pulsating with ardent life, hard like volcanic rock and hot like fire. A drop of white-hot magma runs from its tip. The smouldering heat beckons.

“Be a good girl now,” he says playfully.

I don’t have to be told twice. I open my mouth and take it all in, wrapping my lips around him eagerly. He grips my face in his powerful hands and pushes the weight of his mountainous body into me. I feel his claws press into my cheeks, and his manhood thrust deep into my throat. The searing heat of his creative essence banishes the deadly cold. With every one of his thrusts, some life comes flooding into me: his heat invades the very cells of my body. Warmth returns. My eyes roll into the back of my head.

Then, a third pair of hands reaches up from under me to fondle my breasts. Clawed fingers scrape against my tender chest. I feel another one, a third dark Apollo, press up from below, lifted by some unseen force, until he is within reach. He wraps his legs around my waist to bring himself closer. A hungry mouth meets my nipple and tugs deeply and longingly. My breast is so cold: there’s nothing there for this loving suckler, yet the suction grows.

The mouth is soft, gentle, and patient. It draws softly and nibbles playfully at my breast. The heat from my face is drawn down to my chest, where it builds and accumulates. I yearn to give this mouth all my love, but, still, there’s nothing. Something is missing.

“Please, I want to give.”

My prayer is answered: the heat in my chest coalesces into a warm hurricane, spinning slowly at first, then picking up speed. I feel the winds of a tropical storm rise. I can smell the moist air, the torrential energy of the monsoon. My heart is the eye of the storm. It builds and grows and sways to and fro. I see a majestic rainforest, its trees drinking the rain from the rich earth and growing tall and strong.

A second mouth rises up, wraps around me, and clamps around the remaining nipple. This one is impatient, eager, famished. It yanks and tugs, pulls and draws, reaching for something that isn’t there. So cold inside…

But the suction is too much to bear. The pressure in me rises and rises again. I yearn to be full of heat and love, and finally the levee breaks: something has awoken from its deep slumber and gushes forth through my heart. White lightning shoots out in all directions. The two mouths claw and tug, pushing, shoving, biting, and fighting each other as they struggle to feed off of me, to get those first few drops. Oh, how long they’ve been waiting, how thirsty they were!

The drops turn to a trickle, then to a flow, and then to a terrifying deluge. It runs through me, cascading over my head, down my back, passing through my heart, and out my breasts. The voracious mouths open wide, drinking their fill: I let them. How I feel like a giving angel. I reach to hold them, but my arms are restrained. Now I feel like their prey. Perhaps they will show mercy, perhaps not. Some time passes, and their selfish devouring gives way to content suckling. Peace is restored.

My attention is drawn to my flower again. The disciplinarian is pushing his member against it. I can’t turn my head to look, as my mouth is in use, but I can feel it. Searing droplets of incandescent lava ooze from the tip of his manhood, spilling, tinging my inner thighs with their sublime heat. Such a waste: I want him to gush it all deep inside me. The submarine volcanoes lining the ocean floor begin to quake. Their might makes the floor tremble.

“I want it.”

I moan.

“Not yet,” the one between my legs says mockingly.

I wail loudly as the one in my mouth continues his forceful thrusts. “You’ve been such a naughty girl.”

I moan again, as cool tears stream down my face and flick onto the sand.

The two at my breasts, in unison, “Your reward: to taste such delicious torment.”

They lick their chops and resume their wearying suckle. They’re insatiable, but I can’t help but give: I can’t stop them and wouldn’t if I could.

More hands reach out from the abyss to find me. They grab my arms, my thighs, and around my belly. I feel a dozen hands or more fondling me, caressing me, running their sharp nails along my body.

“Take me.”

“Yes. It’s time.”

A point of warmth takes shape in my heart: it grows with each beat, small at first, then larger and larger, until it’s pushing against the very boundaries of my body and mind. I take a deep breath. As the bubble reaches its peak, the Greek god between my legs speaks. “Hold your breath.”

I do as bid. He slides inside of me. I feel my loins mould and shape themselves to accommodate him. Geysers erupt in the distance with deafening booms. He presses his sharp nails against my belly as he thrusts: my soft flesh is caught between his manhood and his talons. Pleasure and pain mix, blend, merge, and dance, becoming one and the same: two sides of the same coin.

The disciplinarian laughs darkly. His villainous cackling fills the air. The pressure in me builds and builds. I feel my body, round and rich, supple and young, and feel him drawing life into this world through me. Visions of molten rock pouring into the roaring waters of the sea flood my mind. I see islands born from beneath the waves, new earth ready to birth teeming life.

Finally I can hold my breath no longer: I release.

In that instant, powerful gusts of wind lash the waters. As my breath leaves me, the mouths drink me dry. I feel my body thinning, my skin ageing, my muscles stiffening as I am drained. I’m a sacrifice, but it feels good. I am enjoyed, and I enjoy it. I enjoy it more than anything that’s come before. I see now that giving is better than taking. I become smaller and smaller until I touch the point at which I’d cease to exist. It all makes sense now. My heart was like a desert: there was no love to give to others. I see great forests wither and die under a burning sun, the trees crackling and turning to dust.

Then it starts all over again. I breathe in the warmth of my heart, and life pours into me from the fountain of youth. The mouths relent, giving me pause so I may refill. But the fervour of the thrusts picks up: they are drawn to seed the life inside me.

Deeper and deeper they go, until they can go no further. An ear-shattering crack bursts up from beneath the ocean floor. Red liquid fire blasts out in all directions. The dark Apollos release. The molten heat of their ejaculate floods into me, filling every crevasse to burst. I am inseminated with the very heat of the darkest depths of the earth. Colours invert and shift at blinding speed. The world and my sense of it lose all meaning. The ocean bed, the darkness, the sand, and the sea break into myriad white crystals and dissolve like sand blowing in the breeze, leaving only a pure white canvas. I’m propelled upwards, out from the depths and into the white sky, where I float for a time, not sure of who or what I am, or what any of this is: it’s all too much, and I have not an ounce of strength left.

The clouds part, and a large creature, golden with a black mane, steps forward. “What is it? Will it eat me?”

It takes me effortlessly in its jaw. I lay there a moment, wondering: “What is ‘me?’”

A beam of light glides down from the sun and descends over us. It lifts us smoothly, and we rise, together, to meet it.

A familiar voice is heard one last time: “I await your return, young lady.”

A harsh, raspy sound met Toly’s ear: the grinding of metal against metal, rust flaking and springs stretching. They were in the mechanical lift, heading up to the office level. She was resting in Professor Heiliger’s arms, still feeble from her ordeal.

“What time is it?” she stammered.

“Don’t speak.”

Toly was so weak that she couldn’t even nod. The professor brought a hand under her head to cradle it. She barely had the strength to move her lips. Her eyelids were like stones, yet she wasn’t sleepy: in fact, she was quite awake.

He carried her out of the elevator, through various hallways lined with suits of armour, paintings of teachers from bygone eras, and such until, eventually, they reached his office. He fumbled with the key whilst still holding the girl.

Once inside, he laid her down on a couch, draped a blanket over her, and started the fire in a nearby wood stove.

“Is she gone?” Toly muttered.

“Who?” the professor asked.

“The angry girl…”

Heiliger was still a moment. He closed his eyes as if someone was speaking to him from very far away.

“Not completely,” he answered softly. “Rest.”

Heiliger opened a small window and filled his kettle with mountain snow. A gentle puff of winter cold came dancing in and kissed Toly’s feet. She shivered.

“I’m making some herbal tea. It will help you sleep.”

He put the kettle on the burner, then froze. Toly could see him making gestures with his fingers, like the ones that the disciplinarian made when he had her in his power. Something in her stirred excitedly in anticipation, but nothing came. After a moment, the professor ceased.

He took a seat next to the stove. “The fire is coming along nicely,” he said. The night’s events had tired him visibly.

“Professor,” Toly murmured, “Who was that? The statue…”

“You saw him as a statue?”

Toly nodded faintly. “I saw him as a sooty marble statue.”

Heiliger had to suppress a snigger. “Well, that’s a first.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s like in dreams,” he explained. “Our minds draw an image to convey meaning to spiritual experiences. He’s not a Greek god. It’s symbolic, like poetry. What you saw was what your mind could make sense of.”

The professor scratched his chin before finishing his thought: “To me, ‘he’ has always appeared as something quite different…”

“You were the lion in the sky…”

There was a knock at the door.

“We’ll talk about it some other time,” he said to Toly. “Come in, Lydia!”

The door opened, and Lydia Weatherlee, still wiping the sand from her eyes, stepped in.

“Professor?” she asked drowsily.

“I’m sorry to wake you in the middle of the night, Lydia…” Heiliger began saying.

“That’s okay, professor. What can I do for you?” she said in a subservient manner.

“I need you to take Toly back to her dormitory.”

Lydia then noticed her classmate lying on the couch. She made no effort to hide her displeasure; her face changed to outright repulsion.

“What’s she doing here?!”

Heiliger, imperturbable as ever, tugged the air gently with two of his fingers. Toly recognised the gesture. “The angelic tongue…”

Lydia’s head tilted back, her body quivered, then she let out a gratifying sigh before regaining her subservient composure.

“Now now, young lady. Be good. Toly’s been through a lot today,” the professor said coyly.

“Yes, professor,” Lydia answered, suddenly meek as a lamb.

He poured two cups of herbal tea and came over to the girls.

“You two are going to work out your differences, especially you, Toly, given that it’s you who aggrieved Miss Weatherlee here…”

Toly lowered her gaze towards her cup. “Yes, professor.”

Lydia, meanwhile, felt a flutter of satisfaction. The professor’s right-mindedness set her at ease.

“And I’ll be keeping a close eye on the both of you, since you’ll be doing your chores together for the foreseeable future.”

“What?!”

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