Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

Born among the great, she recognized authority when she heard it. “Are you…?” she asked.

“I am. And your ladyship’s servant, for as long as you require it. Return to us whenever you wish. You are as safe here as in your nurse’s arms. You will go to your noble husband as virgin as the day you were born.”

“If I can wait that long,” she muttered rebelliously.

“If you find that you cannot, there are ways to repair it—but you wouldn’t like them, they hurt. And should a mistake call a new soul down from heaven… there are many ladies who have found their way here to send it back.”

She smiled and drew her hand down his spine. “I will invite you to dance at my wedding.”

“And I will come,” he answered, kissing her hand, “though it be beyond the farthest sea.”

He added, “Your time is not quite up,” although it was; and he took her in his arms and kissed her mouth as sweetly as a young boy would do who knew nothing of the many uses of the tongue.

“Now,” said Eyas, “I shall summon a very dependable servant of mine named Hannah, who will help you wash all the sweat and moisture off you. She will particularly enjoy washing your hair—which, I’m afraid, has become tangled and rather sticky.”

Ellen Kushner writes:

It’s an all-too common experience, that I’m sure most of my fellows in this volume are familiar with. “What do you write?” someone asks me, at a party, say; and when I answer, “Fantasy,” they give me what is meant to pass for a sophisticated leer.

Well, now I’ve finally done it. There is no magic in this short story, but a great deal of fantasy.

Actually, this story, editor Terri Windling, and I go back a long way together. When we were in our twenties, living on New York’s lawless Upper West Side and looking for assured income, we came up with the idea of marketing a series of erotic novels set in a generic fantasy-style city, centered around an exotic brothel called The House of Nine Doors. We did the fun part first: figuring out who all the continuing characters would be—and then got down to the distasteful chores of plotting and writing sample chapters. The core of this story was one of those.

Our proposed series was packed with sexually ambiguous people, lots of tortured longing, devious machinations, twisted desires and sublimated passion: just like everything else on the market these days. Back then, our radical vision would have sold like hotcakes. So I would just like to formally and publicly say, to all the pusillanimous editors who brainlessly turned it down: You’re Jerks!

Oooh. That felt good.

Persephone or, Why the Winters Seem to Be Getting Longer Wendy Froud

SIX POMEGRANATE SEEDS, AS red as rubies, lie on a golden plate. They glow with crimson fire in the candlelight. My lord bids me eat. I can feel his hands upon my shoulders. I can feel his breath hot upon my neck. I eat the first fruit, and as I taste, my lord tastes the skin of my throat, where the scent of flowers still lingers.

In the world above, the daylight fades. The wind blows cold among the trees.

The second seed is eaten, and my lord kneels at my feet. His hands reach for my breasts, and through the fabric of my gown I feel his caress, first soft, then hard. I watch my nipples rise and strain against the thin gold silk. He takes a small knife from the table and, holding it delicately, cuts through the neckline of my dress. The fabric tears, parting from white flesh, and falls away.

In the world above, as night draws close, the grasses turn in the wind. Flowers bend. Petals fall.

My nipples are the color of crimson seeds. The third seed is upon my lips as my lord suckles at my breasts, tracing circles of fire with his tongue. They ripen like fruit beneath his kisses.

The world above is dark. The trees are black and bare. Creatures shiver, and shelter where they may.

My lord explores my body, kissing, biting, tasting the length of me. I need to see him. He will not undress. He will not let me touch him. I know that he is beautiful; I can feel that beauty as my body lifts to press itself against him. Naked now, my thighs tremble and open. The fourth seed is eaten.

In the world above, frost traces white patterns on brown leaves. The last of the summer fruit returns to the soil beneath the sleeping trees.

I catch my breath as my dark lord parts my thighs. His fingers touch me, there, gliding on the juices of my passion. His tongue, questing, thirsts for me, tasting me even as I taste the fifth seed upon my tongue.