This one I wrote pretty much just for myself, trying to do something new with several different themes. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I think it stands as a story, so I decided to put it online. If you like monster sex and my brand of happy ending, maybe it'll work for you.
Disclaimer: This one is a shade rougher and darker than my usual. Contains monstrosities and mindfuckery. Proceed only if that's your sort of thing.
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Clarice looked into her mirror, saw nothing staring back at her, and tried to convince herself she was sane.
Her efforts were not aided by the fact that she was in an asylum. Though she had been let out of the padded room, her new room had few comforts and no sharp edges. The straitjacket still pinned her arms against her body. It bound her tightly except for around her chest, because Ferdinand... but no, she didn't want to think about that. Better to focus on her sanity.
It had been a year since her family had decided that she was inconvenient and sent her here. In the beginning, she had been certain that the doctors would soon discover that she had full command of her senses and send her back. That had been before the frowning doctors, before Ferdinand had touched her, before her mind and body had been through so much...
Before the nothingness in the mirror. Clarice couldn't help herself and her eyes wandered up toward the mirror on her wall.
She strained to see herself, to see if she had changed more. Could this be one of his tricks, to keep her from having a view of herself? Before the mirrors had started going blank, she had watched her once slim body become increasingly voluptuous, contorted to his desires by the rituals. She had thought she was pretty before, but now... Clarice stared where her reflection should be and strained her eyes, not wanting to see how she looked now and yet desperate for it...
For a moment she did glimpse herself, but not the young woman she hoped she still was. There had been a glimmer of herself with her arms unbound, but far too long and ending in claws. Her jaw had hung slack and filled with several rows of teeth, and her eyes...
A moment later the vision was gone, and she was staring at the nothingness. Everything in the room reflected just as it was in reality except for her. Instead there was a terrible, weighty nothingness that floated where she should have been. The sensation had been getting stronger lately and she found herself wondering if she truly was going mad.
While she stared, the nothingness shifted. A shimmering oval appeared, barely visible and yet as undeniable as the nothingness. Clarice stared despite herself and realized that it was a mask. A mask made of perfectly clear glass, only visible as the light caught it, yet...
A mask of her face.
Clarice shuddered and threw herself back, her head hitting the wall behind her. The blow made her vision swim and sent pain through her body, but it didn't make the mirror return to normal. In fact, the weight of the emptiness seemed to be pressing down on her now, and the mask was drawing closer.
The lock on her door clicked and all at once it was over. The mirror reflected nothing but her, eyes wide and bloodshot. She looked mad, but she was sane. She had to be. Being kept here all day might have been driving her a little mad, but all it took was the door opening to bring her back to reality.
For a few heartbeats, she hoped that the visitor would just be one of the nurses. They came to bring her food occasionally, and some even loosed her jacket to let her eat for herself. But she heard the tenor of his voice, saw his shadow as he entered the room, and knew that it was Doctor Ferdinand.
"Hello, Clarice." He had such a soft, gentle voice. Clarice shrank down into the corner beside the door before he could see her, before those dulcet tones could capture her mind. "How are you doing today?"
As soon as he stepped inside, she launched herself at him. Clarice had no clear plan in mind, knew that he could overpower her even if her arms were free, she just wanted to hurt him. Hoped that she could get her teeth into his body. If she bit into his ear, she could tear it off, she would...
Bite his ear affectionately, maybe run her tongue over it or just whisper loving nothings. She couldn't remember why she had been upset, but it was likely because of his long absence. A calm smile spread over her face as Ferdinand turned to face her and she heard the gentle ticking.
He held the metronome in his hands like it was an instrument of his trade, but it could never be mistaken for anything of the sort. The device was strange and misshapen, bulging with strange tentacle-like strands. And the pendulum that swung back and forth... it was pitch black, as if a strip had been torn from the world and there was absolutely nothing beyond.
Clarice stood and watched it swing back and forth peacefully. It ticked with each movement, the gentle sound soothing her mind. When she heard Ferdinand chuckle, only a small part of her shuddered in horror. The rest looked up to smile at him.
"Hello, Master."
"You will call me 'Doctor' today, pet. We are going to visit some very important colleagues of mine, so you will need to be on your best behavior."
"Of course, Doctor." Her body automatically straightened and squared her shoulders as well as she could in the straitjacket. When he controlled her like this, she felt little emotion. It was far preferable to the warm rush of emotion when he made use of her body.
"This way, Clarice. Don't delay." Ferdinand left the room, hiding the twisted metronome again. She followed silently, the sound still ticking peacefully in her mind. Now that she had seen her Master for who he truly was, she would never attack him. While her world was filled with this bliss, she knew only the joy of serving him.
Her Master only came to her for two reasons: to make love to her or to ask her for help in his rituals. The majority of Clarice loved both equally, so long as she was being of use to him. A small, miserable part of her was glad that today would be a ritual. No amount of cutting from the knives or shame of being shown to his "colleagues" could compare to the sweet pleasure of his gentle touch...
While walking, a shudder ran through Clarice's body and she nearly stumbled. She had no idea why she might have felt such a thing, not when she was so near Master. Ferdinand... no, Master... turned toward her and frowned. He fiddled with the metronome under his coat, then just shook his head.
"Hurry along now."
Free from distracting thoughts, Clarice drifted happily after him as they entered the unused wing of the asylum. A locked door marked as a supply closet opened to reveal a staircase that descended deep into the ground. Her little-used legs soon ached, but Clarice continued on with a placid smile. At the bottom she found the familiar sacrificial circle, surrounded by Master's friends.
Though one or two wore the formal black robes of their order, most dressed as they did in real life: respected doctors, lawyers, heirs to great estates. Men who spoke of things far too important for her ears, who deserved to have pets like her. Clarice smiled happily at the thought, though of course she loved Master most of all.
"Raise your arm, pet." His hand slid along her arm and she shuddered with joy, happy to raise it for him. Master was speaking, but she couldn't understand his worlds, just listened to his soft voice as he raised the ornate knife and explained what he was doing to the others.
Eventually the knife did cut into her arm, drawing her blood. It ran from her freely, pooling in the small bowl that seemed to be made from bone. Clarice stood with a smile on her face, trying to focus on the images carved on the walls around them. Such funny images, with strange tentacles reaching over everything...
"Strip and lie down on the altar." No matter how far her mind wandered, a command from her Master cut through her reveries. Clarice smiled and quickly moved to disrobe and lie down on the twisted altar in the center of the circle. Though the ritual was different every time, there were always similarities. Besides, she was obeying Master.
Finishing his ritual, one of the men reached down into the bowl of blood... and withdrew something dark and twisting. Even through her happiness, Clarice flinched slightly. That creature had not existed a moment ago, and it should never existed at all. Even the men who had come here for the very purpose of performing these dark rituals looked at it with some distaste. The man held it at arm's length as he moved closer to her and Clarice tried and failed to focus on his face.
Soon all she could see was the small twisting creature... and then it dropped. It hit her stomach and immediately burrowed into her flesh. Clarice screamed and her entire body arching off the stone, her mind burning with twisting black pain.
As the creature expanded inside her, tearing and chewing and consuming, everything was stripped away. The happiness fled like mist under the sun. Though this was a terrible, unholy sun, she welcomed it. All the men around her were just men. Especially Ferdinand - he was only her "master" when he used that subtle metronome to control her.
Though the pain went on for a long time, eventually it ceased. It always did. They needed her, after all, and though the lives of young women were cheap, they could not afford to simply discard her after so much work. She collapsed back to the altar, trying not to focus on the awful mass crawling out of the gaping wound in her stomach.
She could feel it burn like acid as it crept out of her, but strangely, that burning was also what saved her. Though her insides should have been shredded and she should have lost enough blood to kill her through the gaping wound in her stomach, that wound... no longer existed. There was a strange purple scar there, seeming to pulse faintly, veins reaching deeper into her body.
Had it ever been that way before? Clarice had endured many other rituals, but between the agony and the joy, it was difficult to remember details. She didn't think there had been any ritual like this before, but others had given her wounds that should have killed her. Yet even with those, she didn't remember the injury healing like that...
The mass that had crawled out of her had been split open by Ferdinand and the other men. They began murmuring excitedly as they extracted what they wanted. At first she couldn't focus, it just looked like a twisted mass. Then suddenly it was familiar: it was another metronome.
Ferdinand set his own down on the table and set the pendulum rocking back and forth. Another pendulum had been attached to the second metronome, but they seemed out of sync and there was no sound within her mind. Still, he didn't seem at all upset.
"You see? No obstacles remain to the original ritual."
"They still aren't connected," another man objected.
"Give it a moment of time. The slime hasn't even cooled." Ferdinand did bend down and poke at the pendulums, a slight frown on his face. Another man shook his head and scowled.
