Chapter 7 3

How far can the depths of the Earth take us?

We're running, our craggy path illuminated by just a wicking flame in the palm of my hand, petering out at the worst times as my strength ebbs and I continue my flight by will alone. Behind me, beside me, Tonya dashes, clumsier than me. At some point, her hand slipped into mine. The warmth soothes.

The farther away from the Goddess my legs take me, the cooler the air becomes. I don't pretend to understand, though it doesn't jive with the understanding of the world I'd assembled for myself through a battered education that was more interested in making use of my powers than giving me lessons in geology. It tweaks and bobs in the back of my head. We should be warmer.

But the smell of fresh, sweaty air is a lifesaving grace. How long had the perfume of femininity and lust and warm flesh ensconced me? Would I have ever noticed it again if I hadn't left?

Fled. I'd fled, not left. This wasn't an apartment party I could exit gracefully, or a movie I wasn't keen on sitting through. This was life and death, and I was getting very thirsty.

At last Tonya falls behind me, clumsily hitting the ground and scraping along it painfully. I let myself slow for the first time in what is likely hours, panting and trying to force air into my lungs. Details in the cave stand out to me more, and the vast array of tunnels we've passed to get here look like every other passageway in this benighted underground cavern? How far did it extend? And why?

Tonya weeps behind me. I know the sound; it's pure, unrelenting exhaustion, when the body has nothing else to give, and yet more is asked of it. I move to her, touch her shoulder, squat beside her and wrestle my gaze into hers.

Read me, I invite. There's no one here but us.

Tonya's lip quivers. I couldn't have put a sharper point on the observation if I'd sliced at her with a knife, but the familiar tingling of the scalp brushes through me, and I welcome it, and I'm assaulted--

-by warmth, and desperation to please, and appease, and never let go never ever-

I jolt backwards, but insist on keeping eye contact, forcing my body to abide. I won't let Tonya go. She has nothing else.

In the moment, she couldn't care less. She's in my mind more than hers. I feel her swishing from side to side, inspecting her new favorite place, her safe space.

It feels like she's moved into my mind.

Dreams did come true.

I follow her in, shutting my eyes and picturing her there instead. Her heart is missing. But she smiles for me anyway, a sad, kind sort of smile you give someone who tries everything to help you, even though you know it won't make a difference.

Tonya looks at me, the blackness around us making her glow all the brighter. Flame ignites in a circle, enshrouding us in silent, observant fire. The heat washes over me, and goosebumps rise against my volition, but I soon come to accept them.

Something touches my lips.

I open my eyes as Tonya pulls away, sheepish, smiling, tears still streaking down her soul.

"Sorry", she whispers hoarsely, quietly. "I just--thank you. I wanted to... you've been so kind--"

I launch at her, grabbing her head and pulling her inevitably towards me. My gaze bores into hers, and I force my thoughts at her, so intensely, so focused, so raw that I'm sure my eyes are bleeding.

Shut the fuck up and kiss me.

I feel her breath flutter, a weight come off her, a breeze flow through her, a cleansing ravish her. I sigh and growl as she attacks me, lips pressing and then melding, tongues intertwining, bodies and souls slowly wrapping around each other and braiding into a new consciousness of open, fraught lust--

The tickling on my scalp goads me, teases me. She wants in. She will always be in now, always and forever, just as it should have been, just as it always should have been. How can I be so aroused? All I've fucking done is cum my ever-weakening brains out, and yet it's as if magma broils in my core, and drips hotly down my thigh, quivering and shaking and--

-she's in my head, and the setting has changed. The mattress is soft and pink, as though my very brain supports us both. It's smooth and tingly to the touch, and we descend atop it, atop each other, wrestling for a dominance we both want to lose--

I gain the upper hand, disconnecting from our kiss and staring at her. I see vacancy. Bliss. Eagerness. She wants to serve. She wants to be owned. It's not her choice anymore. It's a purpose.

I leap forward, straddling her and bring my snatch to her hungry, ravaging lips. I quake with the first delicate darting touch, my eyes roll back, my body spasms with invasion and ecstasy.

And she licks, and licks, and licks more, slow, eager, focused worship of a pussy. My pussy.

Never meant to be mine, though.

Her caress alights on my thigh, and I almost fall backwards. There's so much here, so much to taste and savor and inflict...

She's licking me still, but her eyes wander, her pupils dilate. I can see her. Visualize her. She's touring my consciousness as I writhe helplessly, suspended totally in her lingual thrall.

She touches pots and pans of my childhood kitchen, effortlessly steps to the bedroom of my lost virginity, and spies a back closet. I never go in there. I never dare.

She walks towards it.

"Nghh, ugh... no... don't", I whisper and plead and beg. My thoughts match my words, but Listener smiles; Tonya's comforted, gentle eyes have turned again. Now they burn.

Now they believe.

Her hand caresses the handle. I roil as satisfaction peaks.

The door is thrown open.

Black, howling miasma screams from the depths of a mind that's never been taught to resist. My mind. My closet. My memories. My miasma, locked away forever.

My Goddess.

I stare at Listener with my eyes, but all I see is her craven, mad glare of pure, furious, enlightened satisfaction. She keeps licking.

I keep screeching for mercy.

In my mind, in the cavern we lay in, mercy is the farthest thing I'll ever be granted. I understand now. I understand everything.

The black swarming mist dissipates like a screaming banshee ascended, and there, from the gloom, from the darkness, light flows. Angelic, golden aura spills onto me, warms me, warms my soul. Sharp, slow, intimate heels clack on a floor of nothingness. The sound resonates in my head, I vibrate to its beat. Clack. Clack. Clack.

Each tap is a second's tick, a clock's peaceful, endless report. Time is counting down.

Goddess emerges from the mist. She surveys my thoughts, my disjointed, untempered ramblings of a foolish girl. A foolish girl who needs a strong, owning hand. Her hand.

Listener kneels beside me, one leg up, hand on my shoulder, tilting my head back to face my only idol. The One True God.

I welcome her arrival into my soul with covetous bliss. "Goddess..."

Listener approves, commends me, licks my neck slowly, sensuously. I can't tell if it's in my mind or not. I don't care. She approves. The greatest connection to the Goddess approves.

Do you see now? Listener coos. She can never truly leave you. And she never will.

I peer into Tonya's mind, watch as barriers I could have never noticed before slid away, stored for a later purpose of Goddess' plans. She blossoms from all of Listener's consciousness, everywhere all at once. Listener bathes in joy. I want to join her. I want to join her in waves of roiling hungry orgasm, but to do so... first I have to lose everything.

I smile to myself. It's a small price to pay for eternity.

Goddess finds us where we're weakest, says Listener, breathing into my ear as much as breathing into my mind. She maps us as an explorer, charts us as a designer, arranges us as a conductor, devours us as a predator. I see your thoughts, sweetheart. I see your failure to belong-

...my heart contorts in shame. A drop of dew descends my calf.

-your desperate pining for us.

...I surge, but she holds me tight, ripping my chest apart, throwing my heart to be devoured, or at least that's what I hope she's doing, because if she isn't, how can I ever stand this pain? I see myself from her eyes, unsubtle, ungraceful, barging around like the brash young toy I am. I'm a toy. A toy for Tonya...

No, she interjects. Not me.

Goddess' visage is suddenly all I can see. Her pale, perfect skin beckons, her breasts promise to quench and make worse all the spiraling hungers that consume me. Her black hair flutters. The world bends to her will. The ground submits to the heel of her will.

Every question I've ever asked, finds an answer in her curves. Every late night spent wondering about the future, about life, about our place in the universe... is satiated. Curiosity kneels. Empathy kneels.

Everything I am kneels.

Goddess gazes down at me.

"Good girl".

I shudder, as if an electric current slices into me. I collapse. Listener catches me, holds me tight, grinds whatever feeble resistance my mind can murmur from the depths of my psyche into a fine, granular powder.

Goddess is purpose. Goddess is life. Goddess is endless. Goddess is absolute. Goddess is pleasure.

Each thought rams into me, spirals me further into a hole I can't leave even if I want to. I watch myself flicker.

I watch myself die.

I watch myself awaken.

Listener cradles my rebirthed form in strong, tender arms, as I twitch and grunt and cry with ecstasy, and she begins to trek back to where Goddess awaits us.