Damsel in Distress 9 - The 13th Bride - Part 1
"It's a lovely little seaside town, isn't it, dear?"
Looking out the window of the motor cab, Kelly Ann might, under different circumstances, agreed. The houses were quaint and well kept along this street and just beyond them, with the backdrop of a orange evening sky, were docks where a fleet of fishing boats bobbed in the water. Yes, it was very quaint, but Kelly Ann couldn't say she agreed, even if she was inclined to, because of the ball gag in her mouth.
"Oh, here we are," remarked her Aunt Suzanne. "Pull up to the rear door," she told the driver.
The cab came up behind the town's church, which was actually more of a cathedral with high, square towers. It was constructed of gray stone and its size seemed out of character for this small village. As the vehicle pulled to a stop, two men in black, hooded robes met it, and escorted Aunt Suzanne, and her captive niece, inside a back door.
"I was so foolish!" thought Kelly Ann. After the last incident with her murderous Aunt Suzanne, David, her bodyguard and lover, had become very protective of her, not letting her leave the safety of her fabulous mansion without him at her elbow. That was fine with Kelly Ann, but when he was forced to travel on business for a week, she had been expected to stay in the safety of her estate the whole time. After three days she had become bored and wanted to go shopping in the nearby village. After all, Suzanne was in jail, wasn't she?
Finding out that a motor taxi service had just become available that in the town, she ordered a cab. How exciting it would be, she thought, to travel in one of those new-fangled, fancy horseless carriages! When she had climbed into the back, however, she realized an unwanted passenger was already aboard: her psychotic aunt who had already tried to murder her several times in pursuit of the immense Vanderhilt fortune left to Kelly by her parents. The driver, Suzanne's henchman, had driven them under her orders several hours to this small fishing village on the coast.
The men in robes led them into the rear of the church. The sanctuary felt odd. There was no cross or other traditional symbols, and while she'd seen gargoyles on cathedrals before, they were always on the outside of the building, NOT the inside. In this church, however, the sanctuary was ringed with statues of odd creatures that seemed like men, but with horns, and tentacles instead of legs.
The women were hustled down a spiral staircase and through some touch-lit tunnels below the street. Finally they reached a room where two black robed women waited. Here they stopped and Suzanne barked an order to the women: "Strip her!"
The women began disrobing Kelly Ann as her aunt removed the ball gag.
"How did you get out of jail!?!" she asked her aunt.
Suzanne smiled one of her wicked smiles and replied, "You know your gambit of getting me to confess and implicate those people who had helped me escape last time, almost worked. Without being able to bribe or seduce anybody this time I was really stuck. Fortunately, providence was in my favor and I found myself in a cell with this rather odd women. She was reluctant to talk at first, but with my powers of hypnosis I was able to get her to spill her life story. She was from a town - this town - Innsmoore. And the stories she told about it were quite amazing. Let me give you a little history."
"So about a century ago, this place was a little seaside village that was slowly dying. The fishing was poor and so were the people. But then they discovered something. Just off the coast here was a colony of sea creatures. Intelligent sea creatures. They looked like men - and perhaps they once were - but they could live underwater. And instead of legs, they had tentacles," Suzanne explained.
"As it turned out contact with the sea people turned the village right around. The sea people had a need for goods that could not be manufactured underwater and access to a seam of gold on the ocean bottom. The villagers were happy to supply those goods and take gold in return. The arrangement even revived the fishing industry, as the sea people would drive schools of fish into the village nets," she continued.
Kelly Ann was fully naked by now wearing only a pair of black high heels with her hands bound behind her back. A thin, almost transparent, black cape, open at the front and tied at the neck was put on her. Her aunt pointed to another tunnel and pushed Kelly Ann forward. As they walked the flimsy cloak, blew behind her displaying her nakedness to everyone. Kelly Ann suspected it was designed to do just that, whenever she moved.
As they walked Suzanne continued her history lesson. "The sea people had only two requirements to continue this advantageous arrangement. First, the village must worship, as they did, their God-King. He was the oldest and most powerful of the sea people. The village, happily complied and you saw the cathedral they built for that purpose on the surface."
"The second requirement was that on the King's mating cycle, every seven years, a beautiful human bride be given to him during a lavish ceremony," Suzanne explained.
They had entered a huge round, underground room with columns around the outside that supported a domed roof. In the center of the room, in front of them, was a raised, round, marble platform with a pentacle inscribed on the surface, which Kelly Ann realized was supposed to be an altar. Behind them, between the columns, niches had been carved into the rock and about half of them were filled with elaborate statues, while the rest were empty. On the far side of the altar was a pond about 20 feet wide. From the way the water was constantly in motion, and the smell of salt in the air, Kelly perceived it must be connected to the ocean through an underwater passage. Extending from the altar, down into the pond was a wide ramp, also made of smooth marble.
"Originally it was considered a great honor to be selected as the bride of the Sea-God," Suzanne continued, "and with the faithful looking on, in this underground temple, the marriages were consummated right here on this altar. But after the first few brides, reluctance began to show among the girls of the village. You see the sea people's physiology was very incompatible with human physiology. The male sea people's semen was poisonous to humans and the brides died within hours of having intercourse with their husband."
"Most of the villagers of the cult felt this was a trivial sacrifice, however, given the wealth and power the arrangement gave them so the tradition continued," Suzanne said, "Eventually, however, there was pressure to find brides from outside the community by whatever means necessary and paid kidnappers were often employed."
Suzanne turned to Kelly Ann and gave her another wicked smile. "It was at this point in my cellmate's story I had a revelation: I had spent years and a small fortune trying to do in my pretty niece. Now here was an opportunity to have someone else do it for me, and have them pay me for the privilege! A deal was soon struck, they helped me escape from jail, and here we are now."
