“The warm summer sun makes you weary good sir, so weary and sleepy, yes sleepy and tired. Like the weight of the sky, so warm, so soft and heavy is descending down on you now, down on your eyelids and your shoulders now, yes.”

Those words fluttered out from the darkness of the forest, long, soft, feminine, and sibilant, accompanied by two faint violet orbs; unblinking eyes staring out of the thick underbrush and the walls of vines between the trees.

He blinked and felt the weight of those words, and started to fall under their lingering spell, staring deep into the shifting purple glow, watching those irises dancing from hue to hue like a candle’s flame burning high.

He was a strong man by most accounts, broad shouldered and hardy, brave as any man was expected to be, but the whispering, slithering voice and those glowing eyes left him weak.

“Come into the shade, where the sun is not so bright, and the ground is cool and soft. Come into my lair and sleep for a time. You’re too tired now, yes, too tired to go any further, too tired now to do your duty, trust me, come and sleep, trust in me and sink into quiet slumber here, come to me, come into the darkness and sleep.”

Those eyes had started to sway back and forth and his body followed them, rocking and swaying, and as they began to retreat back into the darkness of the deeper forest his feet took shuffling steps to follow.

When he stepped out of the direct sunlight he tripped over something and began to fall forward, only to find his body falling into waiting arms, and his head coming to rest on large pillow soft breasts.

“Close your eyes and sleep for me, trust in my words, in my embrace and sleep. I shall care for your charge brave one, slumber now and leave her to me. Fall into my embrace and trust your mind and body to me.”

He was laid gently to the ground and his breeches were undone, and pulled down, then his legs were spread.

“As you sleep, your body will rise for me,“ a forked tongue flickered across the head of his steadily swelling cock as a soft hand stroked it.

“Your mind will sleep as your body rises, and you will give it to me to use, your body and voice will be mine as you sleep. Trust me, trust in my softness and give yourself to me.”

He let out a shuddering sigh as his now fully erect cock slid into her. Those same soft breasts greeted his vision as his eyes found their way to opening, his mind and body shocked be the ecstasy of the moment.

Then those beautiful violet eyes met his again, and he saw that they belonged to a beautiful, angular face with a slightly upturned nose and thin, delicate lips. Lips that pursed back to reveal fangs…

Fangs that did not piece his flesh as she pressed them against his neck as her long silver hair cascaded over his face, “You are dreaming already, there is nothing to fear. Dreams are just dreams, trust me and sleep.”

The shuddering and sudden eruption of his climax jolted his mind into a sudden and deeper darkness than he had ever known, and the last thing he saw was those eyes staring into his as the words, “Trust in me, it is time to sleep” echoed from her lips.

He did not see the lower half of his captor’s body, the tail of a snake whose scales were of the palest green.

“Goodman Henry, you had me worried, you seemed gone an age.”

Martha looked at her guide, a forester of no small acclaim, and a man known for knowing where to find the rarest of herbs and flowers.

“Apologies miss, but as I was about my business I saw a clearing where perhaps you’ll find what you seek.” To Martha’s eye he seemed different, but in a way she could not capture.

His step was off, his words were slow, and it seemed to be taking no small effort for him to say and do all he had just done, “Goodman Henry, have you had more than a nip from your flask just now?”

Martha was a fair skinned young woman with long brown hair that fell in thick curls from her shoulders. Like her mother, and her mother before her, she was an apothecary, but unlike them, she had not married young and so the man who would be her guide in the woods was not her husband.

Though, many in her township wished they were.

“No miss, but I find the heat suddenly heavy on me.” He seemed distant as well, and his words were hollow sounding, but the day had become pressingly hot.

Martha’s white dress clung to her body, her own sweat had assisted in that, and she was glad her apron was thick as it was, lest the Goodman who had clearly had a touch too much of his own wine for the weather, would see the shape of her ample chest and behold the prominence of her own pert nipples.

“Well lead the way sir, and the sooner we are done the sooner you can find yourself in the shade of a tavern.” Her jibe was not meant to shriven him, as she knew well enough the way the heat could play at the effects of wine, especially the more potent vintages that their township produced.

They walked from the main trail down a gentle slope into the thicker woods, and Martha felt the cool embrace of the shade as a welcome respite. Before her, there was a small clearing amidst the trees the vines had grown thick and the underbrush tall.

There were many wonderful plants and herbs that she had sought, all growing at the edges of the clearing, and Martha made a note to commit this place to memory, for it would yield her much of what she would need.

As she knelt down to cut a sprig, she saw something strange out of the corner of her eye, a flash of light reflecting like purple flame, and then she heard a hiss of wind though she felt no breeze.

“Goodman Henry?” she rose and looked back to where the man was standing, only to see him collapsed in repose, his back to a tree, his eyes shut and the muffled sounds of slumber rising from him.

Suddenly, the forest felt closer and the shadows longer.

“Sweet flower, how happy I am you’ve found your way to me.”

Those long flowing words echoed from the darkness, soft as the fluttering notes from a flute. “So fair, so wise, so sweet you are to come to my domain. I have watched you from afar and now we are together.”

“Who are you?” Martha found herself looking about as she slowly started to backtrack towards the sleeping man.

“I am but a woman of the woods, a fair creature who favors the night to the day, but do not flee my sweet, my delight, come to me and forget your sleeping friend. He is in my trust already, he will not rise and wake for you, not until I’ve had my say.”

“Then say your piece and let us be on out way, whatever you are, whomever you are!” Martha felt a cold shiver down her spine as she spoke. The forest outside her township had long been safe from the darker things found in the deeper woods, but there were tales that perhaps it was not so empty as it seemed.

As she knelt beside Goodman Henry’s sleeping form she tried to give him a shake, but the sounds of deep slumber continued and his head merely lolled to the side.

“My piece, dear beauty,” the voice floated about the clearing and seemed to come from every shadow about her, “is but to have a piece of your wisdom and your talents. And to give you the peace you would crave were you to know its touch. Heed me well, for if I show myself to you, the sight will beguile you and you’ll not have the strength to deny me.”

“Why would you tell me so? Why would you ask of me when clearly you could…” she stopped herself, fearing that some greater trick was afoot and turned her back on both the clearing and her sleeping companion to leave them both behind.

“Only my lovely so you may know well the feeling that would come upon you were you to agree, so you would not be shaken by it. But, if you leave now, having heard nothing more of what I would ask of you, then perhaps your friend will never wake. Or perhaps he shall, only to serve me in ways you lack, and perhaps to find another who would.”

The stranger’s voice was haunting and while Martha denied its sweetness, its ever-inviting lilt pressed on her, and she could not deny the flutter in her heart that came with each flattery the unseen woman offered. “Speak then, tell me what you desire.”

“You know it not, but within your teachings and within the books of your people there is a potion that would allow me to walk as one of you. A tincture that would grant me a more human guise and would shield me from the burdens of my form. I would give you your freedom and his for this potion, fair in trade.”

Martha gulped, “You would have me serve my own people to you, to allow you to leave your confines and prey upon us in our beds or in our homes. I know not what you are, I care not what monster you may be…”

Her voice trailed off as she found herself staring into the darkness, her eyes drawn to two dancing orbs of violet light, glowing and shifting as though they were candles burning a purple flame.

So incensed and fear stricken had the young woman become, and so melodic and phantasmal was the voice of the unseen woman, that Martha did not hear the sounds of shifting brush, nor did she realize that while the sun was still high it had sunk just enough that the shadows had grown longer and deeper.

“It is such a burden to carry such a kind and generous heart dear Martha, so wearying indeed to shoulders the cares of so many. You are tired of these burdens, tired of these cares my beauty, come into my lair and confide in me, come into my trust dear love.”

The glowing eyes began to sway back and forth before the paralyzed young woman’s gaze, and her body felt not frozen or petrified, but taut in the way a rabbit is before it bolts. She watched those eyes, their owner still obscured by the darkness, and she knew that at any moment she would run, yet, she could not, dared not look away from that gaze for fear its owner may strike.

Martha found herself studying the dancing violet flames, round and flickering like starlight, and as she did, the stranger’s words seemed to grow heavy in her

mind, heavy with the undeniable weight of truth. And just as the ethereal sound of flattery had struck the young woman in ways she would deny to herself, the beckoning call of that voice, to rest, to forget her fears that had come so suddenly and weighed so heavily, was truly overwhelming.

“No,” she chose that moment to act, to turn away, and as she took her first step to flee, she felt strong hands grab her by the shoulders. At first she thought it was Goodman Henry, so powerful was the grip, but his slumbering form was there before her eyes.

“You are too tired to run my dear, the weight of care has dragged you down, how else could I be this close to you.” She felt the mysterious woman’s breath on her neck, and down at her feet, just within the edge of the long shadows that covered her… how long had she looked into those eyes before their owner spoke… she saw the tail of a snake, of an impossibly large snake coiling about her.

The hands that held her shoulders became an embrace, and Martha felt large breasts press into her back as those hands started to massage her own breasts. The touch was not unpleasant, and a sigh escaped her lips, shocking her as much as the revelation of the creature who was accosting her.

“Yes my flower, my beauty, you are so tired now, heavy with care, mind clouded with too many concerns and so many secrets, heed my voice and let slumber take you. Fall into my arms, melt into me and I will keep you through the night. Know that my eyes are waiting to guide you, see them.”

The lamia’s voice, for that was what this being was, was not as beguiling as the sight of those very eyes that were conjured into Martha’s mind, but out of the sunlight they become intoxicatingly enthralling, where if the listener were touched by the direct sun they were merely hypnotic and persuasive.

In the night shadows, as Martha had found herself, the lamia’s charms were overwhelming her powerful mind. She was, unlike the lamia’s other victim, of a sturdy will and a determined sensibility, and it was that and that alone which allowed her to bring her own hands up to her captor’s, to attempt to pry them away.

“Release me.” The touch of the snake woman, and the teasing promise of the breath on the young apothecary’s neck made her words less certain on her lips than they had felt in her mind, but she continued. “You have no claim to me, you have no right to me, and I deny you.”

Beings like the lamia could sometimes be denied and chastised into retreat from nothing more than the statement of purpose and of pure truth, but as the tip of the snake woman’s tail crept up Martha’s inner thigh the pure ecstasy of such intimate touch worked against such an offering.

Plus, the lamia’s voice had so infatuated her that all that was befalling the maiden, and indeed Martha was a maiden in the most carnal sense, that all that was befalling her body was more welcomed with every breath.

“Do you deny me, or do you deny yourself now? You are so weak, so weak and weary from the cares of others, what of yourself my beautiful flower? What of your own desires? Come into my trust, confide in me and let your fears fall to sweet slumber.”

The lamia’s tale was soft as a curious fingertip as it pressed against the wetness between Martha’s legs.

“Trust in me, there is no one else you can serve this day, let me be a servant to you.” Martha’s grip on the lamia’s hands, hands that had been massaging the maiden’s breasts and in so doing massaging her will to resist, loosened as the pleasure she had only dared to giver herself once hummed up from between her legs.

The suggestion to see the snake woman’s eyes, though Martha still had her back to the creature had been a powerful one, and as the heaviness of sleepy promises and the pleasure of this endless embrace caused her eyes to close, those violet orbs filled Martha’s mind’s eye, and the memory of their hold over her followed those visions.

“Yes my lovely, let me care for you, let my touch comfort you, find succor in my voice, find trust with me, vulnerability with me.” Now that her prey had become near limp in her arms as the tip of her tail continued to brush against Martha’s wet, delicate weakness, the lamia easily stripped away all of the maiden’s s garments.

As one soft hand started to press and toy with one of her now exposed nipples, the shockwave of ecstasy caused her to open her eyes. They opened, only to close again as one of the lamia’s fingers entered her as she’d been told a man would on her wedding night.

“None but me knows what you have truly craved. No man has called out to you in this fashion, the sight of no man has awoken these desires. All thoughts and fantasies were pale things weren’t they, weak compared to my touch.”

The voice had pushed past her defenses and past all logic and reason that had governed Martha’s life. The voice was overwhelming her now, causing her to lose herself in its melody, and as ever word pressed deeper, so too did a probing finger, only to slide out and brush against her in ways that were more beguiling than any enchantment.

She moaned and bit her lip as her body quivered in the arms of the snake woman. “You, who are so fair and so kind, you who have a heart burdened by the needs of all others, you who are free to surrender this sacred trust to me, to trust in me, you deserve this pleasure, you deserve my embrace, and to be known as only I know you.

Martha found her body turning as surely as the lamia twisted her mind, “Do not open your eyes my beauty, do not gaze upon me yet, but tell me, “ the touch between Martha’s legs became more vigorous, and the hand that had been massaging her breast moved to the entranced young woman’s neck, “what fair vision on your township captures your gaze and your passions?”

If Martha had been less bewitched she would have wondered and questioned how the lamia knew of her secret proclivities, or perhaps she would have realized that the overwhelming power of its voice could have simply changed her mind as well as loosened her lips, but she was lost in the constricting grasp of the snake woman’s mental games and enchanting powers.

“Lady Donnalyn Silkmantle,” the name came as she did, and Martha found her head pressed against a large soft breast.

“I will give her to you if you help me. I will teach her of your beauty and her own heart if you indulge me my wants, as I indulge you yours, Such is our trust now is it not?”

With that, the lamia titled took Martha’s head in both hands and looked down into her prey’s slowly opening eyes.

“You are so weary of being alone, of wanting what you have finally been given. Look deep into my eyes and find the slumber you have longed for. Trust in me as you sleep, give your talents and your wisdom to me as your mind finds peace now, too weary and spent to serve you were you to stay awake. Let the light fade as heavy sleep calls to you. Slumber now my spent maiden, and let me taste of the flower of your wisdom.”

Martha moaned out a long slurring yes as she was lain on the ground. The lamia’s forked tongue flickered between Martha’s legs, and as she was on the verge of climax the snake woman’s fangs punctured her inner thigh, not deep, just enough to deliver the venom that would reinforce the desire to be passive and obedient.

The lamia’s immediate expert touch masked the shock of the sudden pain, as did her gentle cooing whispers to sleep.

In the following days Martha moved through her life in a dream, her mind asleep as her body acted on the lamia’s instructions. Finally, once the potion she had been tasked to make was complete, Goodman Henry and Martha returned to the clearing.

“You have done well my flower,” the lamia’s words made Martha blush, “and so, this very day I will speak with your desired and she will find her way to you. You will live happily ever after, made so by your service to me, and this man shall be your slave and of service to you as you are to me.”

It had not been so simple a task to enchant the woman to serve her.

Though she would never know it, there were many moments where the young apothecary could have escaped the snake woman’s wiles. Luck had it that she was attracted to women, but the lamia has imposed that desire on more than a few maidens in her time as well.

Luck also had it that she was repressed, and that she was vulnerable to affection and to touch. Yes, perhaps she could have broken the girls mind open like cracking a nut, but doing so could have ruined the contents within, and then they would both we at a loss.

Bargaining, temptation, and seduction were as keenly important to the lamia as her hypnotic gaze and enchanting voice. And now, as she walked under the sun on two legs, in the heat of the township that she had long ago been banished from, it was more from her ability to tempt and offer than to dominate and demand.

“Excuse me, are you mayhaps Donnalyn Silkmantle?”

The young woman looked up from her sewing table to see a stranger standing in her doorway.

That stranger, the woman speaking to her, was impossibly beautiful, with long silver hair hanging loose over her shoulders, and breasts so full they looked to belong to a wet nurse and not an apothecary by the look of the woman’s apron and dress.

“Your father said you were upstairs. He’s told me to tell you he’s gone to have a rest,” the merchant’s daughter looked up into strangely shifting violet eyes, “he was feeling ever so sleepy, as you are now…”