Inanna's Descent Into the Underworld

Chapter 02: Ereshkigal in Uruk

[This story is the second of the series. I received enough requests for a continuation to actually write one. This story, like most if not all of mine, is also predicated on a fetish: women who are paragons of muscular development, and who may be engaged in intense struggle for physical and mental dominance. If you have thematic objections to this, please do not read this story.]

[I would like to thank LaRascasse for being someone whom I can bounce ideas off, and who also contributes his copy-editing to my work. We are all our own worst editors, and LaRascasse helps me on a regular basis.]

[Despite the fact that I mostly try to use Sumerian naming, I found that certain Babylonian or Akkadian equivalents were more evocative than the Sumerian versions. So, any such inconsistencies in my story are intentional.]

*

In the cold dank halls of the Underworld, the goddess whimpered in agony.

The sound was so high-pitched, and so soft, that it could barely be heard unless one were very close by. In any case, it was lost in the eternal susurration that enveloped the entire realm of the dead. Whispers of loss, of mourning, of unrequited desire, filled the air. Despair pervaded the atmosphere.

Ninshubur shivered, her hands going up to cup her bare nipples. She decided she hated this place. But she had to brave it -- her beloved mistress and queen Inanna needed her more than ever before.

While Ereshkigal was away, the powers of the Anunnaki, the Judges of the Underworld, were temporarily focused elsewhere. Still, Ninshubur found that the gatekeeper Neti insisted on following the laws to the letter.

"You are the very soul of a bureaucrat," she had grumbled, as she passed through the gates, divesting herself of her garments. Neti had remained unmoved, though Ninshubur's lithe beauty was something that enraptured every god and goddess in the Heavens.

Now she crept into the hall of the absent Ereshkigal, stepping around the boundary of the dais upon which Inanna had undergone a crushing defeat, a defeat that had been seen by spectators ghostly or divine. From her position in the skies, Ninshubur had gazed down, and she had wept tears of deep sorrow at Inanna's suffering.

She had gone to plead at the feet of Almighty Enki, her liquid eyes as large as a doe's, her lush lips trembling.

"Do not let bright silver be covered with dust; do not let precious lapis be broken into stone; do not let fragrant boxwood be cut for firewood," she had cried, rending her garment of sackcloth to reveal her breasts. "My mistress Inanna is the strongest and best of all goddesses -- she is the font of life on the Earth. With her life essence stolen by the evil Ereshkigal, all fecundity has faded; the mortals gain no pure joy from the holy act of consummation, but are driven by dark desires; the plants wither, the wombs of mothers are bare, and death stalks the land like a hungry beast. Do not abandon Inanna to this unjust fate! Let me go to her and restore to her the life force that is hers by right!"

Most of the gods were callous and heartless. They scoffed, and opined that Inanna had been foolish in the extreme to enter such a Trial with Ereshkigal on the latter's terms. They had enjoyed the sight of the haughty goddess's abject humiliation. "Your lover could not even control her own body, Ninshubur," they crowed. "We saw how Ereshkigal overcame Inanna in every way. Your loyalty to her is touching, indeed!"

Enki, however, had been persuaded sufficiently to give Ninshubur a portion of the Essence of Life, to restore Inanna's corpse to its divine glory, for which Ninshubur was duly grateful.

That corpse was now coming into view, and Ninshubur wept again as she beheld the sight of naked Inanna, displayed as a trophy by Ereshkigal's throne.

The wicked sadistic Queen of the Netherworld had devised a cruel torture indeed. Inanna's back had been snapped, and only the barest glimmer of her consciousness remained in her broken body. A goddess could not be "killed" so easily, yet this could be a curse -- Inanna's suffering was unending. She hung from a hook in the wall -- this hook was the size of a sea serpent's tooth, and it pierced her womanhood. Rivulets of blood dripped down Inanna's useless, unmoving thighs.

Inanna's arms were chained to metal rings set in the walls, and this was the only way Inanna could support her weight apart from letting herself hang completely from the hook -- if she did that, she would be eviscerated in short order. Inanna's mighty biceps bulged -- and it was all she could do to keep them flexed so that she could lift her body above the hook, lessening the pain. Intermittently, however, her meager reserves of strength failed her, and her body would slump. The hook would slice into her, and she would have to suffer until enough of her arm strength returned for her to pull herself upwards again.

By now, barely any such strength was returning each time Inanna faltered. She was beyond being exhausted -- even a goddess could not endure this indefinitely, Ninshubur thought.

Frantically, she started forward. Inanna raised her bowed head, and a flicker of alarm flared in her eyes.

"Mistress! I have come to save you!" Ninshubur called out, as she ran fleetly towards the trapped goddess.

Inanna croaked, "No... my beloved... sukkal [a word meaning "vizier" or "second in command"]... go... flee..."

Ninshubur halted, even as she held her hand out, beginning to muster the Food and Water of Life from within her. Was this a trap...?

Then she shivered. It had not seemed possible, but now the chamber was even darker, even more oppressive, than before. Inanna's pupils diluted to pinpoints of terror, and her body slumped, but she seemed heedless of the agony at her loins. Ninshubur was aghast -- what could terrify her mistress so?

Then she remembered. She remembered what the gods had consigned into the deepest oblivion, so many millennia ago. And it came to her in a flash -- Ereshkigal's new emboldened attitude, and incredible strength. There could only be one source.

A sibilant voice, that seemed to thrum along her very bones, came to her ears. It was an eerie voice, like nothing even she, Ninshubur, had ever heard. It seemed to resonate in nothingness.

"Little sweetmeat... so frail... so tasty... have you come to sate my hunger?"

And the unspeakably monstrous form of Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters, hove into view.

***

Ereshkigal raised her head and howled in victory. All around her, her retinue of galla, or demons, echoed her cry. And all around them lay the corpses of the army of Uruk, the finest soldiers Inanna's holy city had to offer who were not her priestesses. The shattered remnants had fled, gibbering and gesticulating in horror, their minds as broken as the bodies of their fallen comrades.

It was sweet to taste the air of the sunlit realm again! Ereshkigal exulted in the sensation, and in the knowledge that she was untrammelled, free to roam the land and exact tribute and worship from mankind. The excursion she had made earlier, with the carnage and devastation she had wrought in order to lure Inanna down from her empyrean idylls, had been a precursor only, a brief foretaste of her liberation.

Now, she felt the strength of her sister goddess thrumming through her muscles even now. Her thighs trembled at the memory of the duel, but she kept herself under control. She had already experienced orgasm three times during the slaughter of the humans, but she told herself that there was yet more wild pleasure to be had.

Already, she was plotting to increase her power by absorbing the essence of one more of her fellow deities. She bore none of them any love -- they had all watched, uncaring, as her sister had thrown her down into the pits of Irkalla. She had vowed vengeance on every one, without exception, but she knew she had to move with cunning and discretion. From here on, she could not let her desire for vengeance dictate her movements, as she had with Inanna. She had to plan.

But first... she grinned. Raising her hands, she parted the folds of space, and in a twinkling she was standing in the halls of the Great Palace of Uruk, residence of the current ruler, Dumuzi the Shepherd, erstwhile consort of Inanna.

The maids and eunuchs had long since fled. Bits of masonry crumbled and fell from the exterior of the palace, occasionally visible through the openings in the walls of the corridors. Even the Royal Guard was nowhere to be seen, except where they lay in pools of blood and viscera.

Her lips remained curved in a cold, cruel smile as she approached the gilded double doors, which she had specifically instructed her demons not to despoil. All around the entrance, corpses were strewn. These men had died bravely defending the craven indolent King Dumuzi. Ereshkigal had always scoffed at her sister's tastes in mortal men -- Inanna seemed to crave the adulation of weak men, soft men, who needed her almost as an infant boy needed a mother. She would feed her male mortal lovers on milk from her own teats, and gently envelop their male members fully in the folds of her womanhood, almost as if she wanted to take them back into the womb.

Ereshkigal braced her hands on the doors, and with a single effortless movement threw them apart, sending them flying and crashing down onto the ground many floors below. In her naked glory, she strode into the bedchamber of King Dumuzi, known as Dumuzi the Shepherd.

The corpulent man was cowering on his bed. He was garbed only in bed silks, consisting of a loincloth wound several times between his thighs and some strands around his body. Uruk had known warrior kings before -- most notably, Enmerkar who had laid the foundations, Gilgamesh who had raised the walls. And now...

Even Ereshkigal could not help curling her lips with contempt as she stood at the foot of the opulent bed and gazed upon the cowering worm-like form of Dumuzi.

"Pl-please... great, great goddess... whatever you wish, we, we shall give it to you... please, don't kill me..." Dumuzi whimpered, even as his eyes grew wide and roved all over the divine form of Ereshkigal.

Fresh from the battlefield, Ereshkigal's body was streaked with blood, the crimson contrasting sharply with the ivory pallor of her skin. Her raven tresses were immaculate and so were her black-painted nails and lips. Dumuzi's body responded even as he cowered in naked fear. Ereshkigal laughed at Dumuzi's ill-concealed lust, and she struck up a pose. It was the same pose she had struck up in front of Inanna, prior to the commencement of their Trial. She began to twirl her body around slowly, so graceful that her feet seemed not to move at all even as she turned.

Within moments, Dumuzi's cock was as stiff as a rod. Being only five inches in length (less than half a su-du-a), though, it just managed to stand out from the rolls of fat around his thighs and waist. It protruded out past the flimsy silk of his loincloth. As Ereshkigal finished one complete turn and her limbs repositioned for the next portion of the dance, Dumuzi came, his male member giving up its tribute in a few hard spurts without even a touch. His eyes widened, and his pupils rolled back into his head. His lower lip trembled, and his chins wobbled.

Several droplets of it landed on Ereshkigal's ridged abdominal muscles. Even in the midst of his physical ecstasy, Dumuzi cried out in terror. "Pardon... your pardon, goddess! Oh... I crave pardon... goddess..."

But Ereshkigal only laughed coldly and throatily. "You have given me offence, little worm," she crooned. "Your filthy, worthless seed is on my divine flesh. Tell me, Dumuzi... consort of my sister Inanna, whom I have defeated in single combat and utterly humiliated, and who now hangs in my throne room like a sack of meat... tell me, do you find me beauteous of form? Do you find me to be Inanna's superior in physical perfection?"

Dumuzi's mouth hung open in shock as Ereshkigal announced her triumph over Inanna. "Impossible," he blurted, his tongue moving far faster than his brain. "The Strong Mother... Queen of War... not even you..."

Ereshkigal's eyes flashed. "Yes, I! I did it! Your precious goddess of love and sex grovelled before me and begged for mercy! I defeated her in a test of strength and skill, and I broke her will, making her orgasm at my desire!"

She climbed onto the bed, and Dumuzi backed away until there was no room left at the bedstead. "You do not believe me, fat little consort?" she asked menacingly.

"I... I... I..." Dumuzi could find no words. This incredible vision of muscular womanhood was right in front of him, and so potent was Ereshkigal's unearthly appeal that he found himself rock-hard again, despite the discomfort. He had counted himself lucky beyond all account to have been the consort of Inanna. In his own way, despite his personal failings and foibles, he had loved Inanna wholeheartedly, seeing in Inanna a strength he knew he himself did not possess.

Now, to be told by Inanna's evil sister that she had crushed and beaten the goddess he loved... had proven superior to Inanna in strength and prowess... and to have his body respond in this way to this revelation... he simply did not know what to think or say.

She grabbed his hair, and moved it close to her abdomen. The strength in her grip made him gasp.

"Lick off your mud offering, worm."

With a terrified obedience, he extended his pink tongue and nervously licked off every drop of his own semen from Ereshkigal's skin. He could not help seeing how Ereshkigal's body exuded power and strength, in a way radically different from the maternal, warrior-like Inanna, but incredibly alluring still. He fought down his panic, knowing that he was only a plaything of this goddess. If he was to have even the smallest chance of survival, he had to play along.

"M-Mighty Ereshkigal... I-I am unworthy..."

"You are less than a worm."

"I am less... less than the earth that the worm eats... I am a creature of dung," Dumuzi blubbered, prostrating himself on the bed before Ereshkigal.

Ereshkigal uttered a short bark of laughter. "You are skilled at self-abasement, Dumuzi. I begin to see why my holy sister took you as her consort! She must have greatly enjoyed your slavishness!"

Inanna had, in fact, enjoyed Dumuzi's worship, but not as a sadistic mistress enjoys the subjugation of a slave. Rather, she was the strong protective mother and a nurturing source of warmth and life. Dumuzi, naturally, kept this thought to himself.

Ereshkigal raised herself on one knee in front of Dumuzi, and struck up a pose of strength. Dumuzi was struck by the contrast -- Inanna often performed this pose to display her physical prowess, and her wholesome strength was always presented as a protective force. Now the sultry Ereshkigal was flexing, and the overtones were very different indeed -- the smooth movement of her flexed muscles were an implied threat, a blade wrapped in silk, a promise of violence dangerously, seductively attractive.

"Worship my body, mortal. Worship the muscles that defeated your beloved Queen Goddess of the Sky."

Wordlessly, Dumuzi forced himself to crawl forward, the hairs rising on the nape of his neck. He reached out and took hold of Ereshkigal's right arm, kneading the flexed muscle. The flesh barely yielded beneath his pudgy fingers.

"Yes... this arm proved stronger than my sister's..." Ereshkigal moaned. "Feel its power... kiss it..."

When Dumuzi hesitated, Ereshkigal grabbed his head and shoved it into the flesh of her arm, smothering his pudgy face. Every time Dumuzi had given Inanna similar worship and ministration, it had been a loving affair, slow and sensual. Ereshkigal was rough and violent, and this new experience was shocking to the fatuous king. It was also proving to be immensely arousing.

Smiling, Ereshkigal guided Dumuzi's face down to her ripe breasts, with nipples so dark they had a purplish tinge. Before Dumuzi could part his lips, Ereshkigal shoved his face forcefully into her bosom, smooshing her teats hard against his cheeks. Again, this was completely different from how Inanna would give suck to him from her divine teats, in remembrance of how she had succoured some of the first men to walk the Earth. This was abuse -- Ereshkigal was suffocating him with her womanly flesh. She finally pulled his head away, and he drew in deep shuddering gasps -- but with a hard swinging motion of her torso, Ereshkigal sent a breast smashing right into Dumuzi's face.

The poor mortal king collapsed to the side, feeling the warm salty wetness of his own blood gushing out from his nose, which felt broken. That single smash from Ereshkigal's breast had been like a punch from a strong man -- no, harder! He was dazed, and swooning.

"Tell me, whose breasts are superior? Your precious Inanna's, or mine? Ereshkigal demanded, slinking forward with a serpentine grace to dangle her breasts over Dumuzi's bloodstained countenance.

Dumuzi cringed in terror. The two luscious mounds hung over him. "Yours, great goddess," he cried out, his voice cracking. "Better than any I have ever seen... better than Inanna's..."

She pushed down on his shoulders and mounted him. He writhed helplessly under her irresistible grip, as her thighs clamped around his pelvis painfully.

"Inanna's body was broken upon this thigh," she laughed, stroking her left leg, tensing the muscles for emphasis. "And before that, she yielded up her woman's pride to me... Do you think you could resist me for even a moment?"

Dumuzi was never the most potent of lovers, but as Ereshkigal reached in between his legs and trailed one fingernail along the length of his rod, it sprang stiffly up, and he felt on the verge of another explosive ejaculation. Then Ereshkigal lowered herself, enveloping his penis completely -- and he came again, his body quivering, his limbs jerking around. He felt overwhelmed. His body was being pushed beyond its limits -- he was as a puppet, completely deprived of volition.

When Ereshkigal languidly rose off his hips, Dumuzi gave a wordless cry of dismay, and the blood drained from his face. His manhood was a bloody ruin! His orgasms had been so excessively intense that the last one had contained blood. It was unlikely that Ereshkigal was experiencing the woman's moon-flush -- though the thought briefly skitted across his terrified mind -- so the blood had to be his.

"Such a pitiful offering," Ereshkigal sniffed with disdain. "My sister was content with this little from you? I cannot help but wonder, how many other consorts did she take? Surely you alone could not satisfy her appetite.

"But you will render your offering, your approbation, to me now... I will have the ultimate offering from you, King of the Sheep."

She shifted upwards until she had mounted his upper body, her knees pinning his shoulders. Then, she raised her arms and clenched her fists again in a show of muscular might.

"I will have your soul," she breathed, as she lowered her dripping sex onto Dumuzi's helpless face, muffling the beginnings of his screams.

She rode him, suffocating the luckless monarch, completely smothering him with her crotch. His life force flowed upward into her loins -- a meagre snack compared to the feast she had enjoyed when she had defeated Inanna and absorbed her power, but still satisfying because of the knowledge that her sister had claimed this mortal under her protection.

"Your dominion shall be as nothing, Inanna," she whispered, hips shuddering with pleasure as her climax approached. Dumuzi was already dead -- his skull had caved, and his body was shrunken, like a mummified corpse. "I shall lay waste to all you claimed as your own -- everything under the skies that was yours will be mine. And I shall enjoy tormenting you for eternity!"