Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.- Songs of Solomon 8:6-7
As Dahlia came to, she felt the heat of the demon's gaze as it focused on her skin. The fever pitch began to rise in her again, despite being so expertly and completely satisfied moments before. Was she becoming an unholy paragon feeding on the depravity of sex and climaxes? Had she become a cliché? The righteous woman tempted by another snake in her garden?
Granted, this snake was much more along the lines of an anaconda than a mere serpent and the promise of it made her garden flood without reason but was it enough to justify her cheating?
Her Husband was a good man. He was faithful and kind and true to her. So why was she snuggled into the warm and firm planes of the demon's body as he left light strokes along her arm? Had her mother been right all along?
Was she really the unworthy of her Husband's love that she'd let this thing touch her the way only her Husband should?
Ashemdai could sense the change in her. At first, he could see the sexual aura around her sharpen and creep its way onto his skin. The intermingling of her soft rose aura and his crimson red was a hypnotizing feat he wanted to continue.
And he would have, had he not seen the porcelain white veil that began to pull the velvety rose back from him.
They'd been closer to mating than his father to insanity and she mentally pulled away from him again. He could not lie, he was disappointed, but he channeled the disappointment into a resolve that would terrify Dahlia if she could read his mind.
They would complete the fucking and he would imprint his dick onto the walls of her vagina as punishment for denying herself something she clearly wanted.
He inhaled. She wanted him badly.
"Are you well, Vashti?" he curiously prompted to scare the awkward silence that was threatening to sully their moment.
"I think so. I have never passed out from a climax before."
Suddenly, Ashemdai's fangs were on full display as he beamed with predatory intent.
"You have also never come before."
Dahlia's eyes flashed with a quick heat that threatened to blind Ashemdai's sexual third eye. Something about his formal speech and the dirtiness of the word 'come' had her ready for a next journey into the unconscious brought on by his expert skills.
Ashemdai felt it too and reveled at the sadistic nature of her arousal.
There is hope for you yet, Dahlia.
"You should rest. I'll be back for you later tonight."
Despite the conflicting emotions for the man, Dahlia couldn't help but feel a little disappointed at the haste he was willing to leave her sided. It was even worse that she still wanted him to do filthy, animalistic things to her that betrayed her Christian faith.
"Thank you, for the uh-, you know, orgasm. It was uh- appreciated." She whispered suddenly feeling shy.
Ashemdai chuckled softly as he raised her lowered face.
"If you go on thanking me for orgasms, you will need an extra Psalm or two when I am finished with you. And in any event, I accept gratitude in face rides."
Dahlia licked her lips. She wasn't certain of the mechanics behind a face ride but the salacious note he ended made her want to find out more, expeditiously.
"Namow" Ashemdai all but growled at the sight of her pretty pink tongue. He slowly rubbed his thumb over her thick bottom lip and firmly but gently pushed into the warm wet heat of her mouth.
His resulting groan echoed in the bated silence of the room and he could almost hear the nectar rush from her core at the sound.
Slowly and reluctantly, he removed his thumb and leaned in for a kiss. He was pleasantly surprised when Dahlia met him halfway and plastered her naked form that tattooed itself onto his skin through his clothes.
Languidly, they kissed and stroked each other's tongues until Ashemdai felt the pang of the rune warning him his time in her realm was almost over.
They detangled and Ashemdai reverently lay Dahlia on her bed, where he took one last look that would fuel his dreams forever if he had any.
Dahlia's thick curvy body lay on the rumpled sheets. Her lips heavy with desire and parted mouth was like a beacon to his member as it rose even higher than before. It was her hair that did him over. The tightly coiled black locks lay spread above her head and his finger itched to gather it into a ponytail and pull.
The pang of the second rune leaving his skin brought him back from his lucid dream.
He bent and kissed Dahlia's forehead, whispered a goodbye and phased back to hell.
Dahlia's limbs felt heavy with need; she couldn't bother to put on any clothes and thus fell asleep in the same position Ashemdai arranged her in.
***
"Why are you naked like some immoral whore?"
"I-"
"Who is Ash?"
"What?"
"Why were you outside after your curfew last night?"
Dahlia fell silent. Even though she had no excuse and she refused to lie, something in her was quietly betraying the authority her Husband had over her.
She met his eyes and shock flashed in them before being replaced with sadistic intent that promised something very different than her demon's. She couldn't help it, she flinched at its presence and acquiesced control once more.
"You know what is coming don't you?"
The Husband did not wait for her answer but continued, as if lecturing a recalcitrant child,
"Of course, I won't do it. I'm far too civilized to take part in such Neanderthal and backward behaviour. Perhaps I should call Mark? Or maybe Matthew? He's been known to have a heavy hand that cures all insurrections. And you dear wife, have committed the most dangerous act of treason against me. Can you imagine how embarrassed I was when Malachi and Samson told me they saw you last night? Like a Babylonian whore, watching me and Ruye? You are sick, wife, overcome with the devil's influence and it needs to be beaten out of you."
The end of his tirade was a final and foreboding and the sick slice of a guillotine. She was going to be whipped. Five years of marriage meant nothing to him, and he was going to publicly display her sins to the community.
Dahlia knew that she should have felt upset at her wayward behaviour. But somehow, she remained unfazed by the looming threat. It might have been Ash's caresses stilling ghosting over her skin, but she couldn't summon any apologetic feelings towards her situation.
Her Husband must have seen it in her eyes, as something otherworldly and foreign drew him up and he drug her by the arm, nude, to their porch in front of the men in the community.
He forced her to her knees, as a Dom would command his Sub, and motioned for Matthew to do the honours.
With ill-concealed glee, the man unwound the whip form his waist and gave it a few test-runs before slinking to Dahlia's folded form.
As the cat o' nine sunk its fiery fangs into her back, Dahlia realized that the pain from the lashes was not the worse part her punishment. Rather it was the heavy weight of her ancestors' sorrows that bore down on her chest and snuffed her breath.
Unlike her, they couldn't not attempt to change their situation without fear for their lives. As the whip beat a staccato rhythm on her back and her blood rushed to slink into the topsoil and join her ancestors', Dahlia made a vow.
She whispered plans into the earth, where the combined blood of her and her ancestors made it echo in the seventh circle of hell and ricochet around the heavens, with the power behind its intent.
While the community and Ruye stood watching her bleed, Dahlia become a new woman, borne from the blood the men had spilled.
The potency of her resurrection held such command over her space that it dispelled the lingering aura of sulphur that whispered in her husband's ear.