***AUTHOR'S NOTE***
Er, this is where it gets a bit dark. In more ways than one. Though this section does focus on an interlude which could be dismissed as adolescent fantasy, but that's kinda the point.
It's something different anyway. If you've been following the series, I'd love to know what you think. I promise all will be explained by the end of it all!***
John was still feeling a little out of sorts as he wandered through the wilderness. Though he may have been under the influence of the demonic sap secreted by his previous captor, he had still formed what felt like a very real connection to the lover that held him tight inside it.
Her death it seemed it had taken a very real mental toll on him.
As he stumbled aimlessly forward, he saw her shrivelling face in every crinkled fern, every twisted shrub. The scream she had made -- it was like the screech of the mandragora he and several of his less gifted wizard chums used to uproot for shits and giggles.
Back then they had laughed themselves sick over a face on what looked like a sweet potato scrunching up and giving a piercing howl. The girl's scream wasn't amusing in the least -- it had chilled his very bones.
Still, at least he was free. That was something, right? Right?
A stinging pain from the head of his member distracted him. Looking down he could see the skin on his glans red and dry and on the verge of blistering. His shaft had several sores where the foreskin had cracked open.
As he stared in horrified trance at the wounds, the pain steadily grew as the chemicals he had taken on wore off.
He sank to his knees and screamed as a burning pain hotter than any coal engulfed his crotch.
None of the garden's other creatures had left him in such a state, but then none of the other creatures had ridden him as hard as the girl in the flower.
Minutes passed as an eternity with his mind helplessly focused on the pain, until eventually the sensation died away and he was left with a persistent tingle, as if he had rubbed his dick in a handful of stinging nettles.
When he regained a level head, he realised it had gone dark around him. For the first time ever, he had seen night in the garden. Had it really taken this long, or was he always incapacitated at night?
Probably the latter, he accepted glumly.
There was no moon in the sky, or even stars. Nothing but an endless black void, as if a bucket of ink had been emptied onto the pink canvas of the garden's daylit sky, and had spread across the entire work.
Yet despite the endless noir, moonlight seemed to be filtering in from somewhere and fell onto an isolated hollow tree trunk that lay on its side like a makeshift bench.
John wandered over and sat as he pondered what on earth to do next. He was never leaving -- that much he had accepted like Tara. But whereas Tara had resigned herself to an eternity of pleasure, even that fate was denied to him. Though he had not chosen capture during his last encounter, he had given himself to it with glee, only to have it ripped away from him at the hands of a mystery spellcaster.
He sank his head into his hands, while his elbows perched on his knees, and he began to cry.
It seemed he was determined to wander the garden forever in despair, forever alone. If he couldn't find a way back to Earth, maybe he could find a way to another realm of Hell, where some demon would be only too happy to consume his soul, ending it forever. If he played his cards right, it might not even be painful.
"Are you alright?"
A hand rested lightly on his shoulder as the soft feminine voice spoke to him. As he looked over his shoulder, the woman slinked round in front of him and stood to face him.
She had pale, sheet-white skin and a similar shade of hair, that fell about her in snow-white shoulder-length tresses.
Despite the cold hue surrounding them, her eyes were a warm cyan that welcomed his gaze and she was wearing a friendly smile.
As John's eyes inevitably fell down across the rest of her body, he saw she was wearing a strapless black dress that left her arms exposed and, like a tight corset, lifted her not inconsiderable chest, pushing it out. It looked like it was about to overflow and spill out in front of him.
The dress expanded outwards from her tight waist down to the floor, forming a bulbous crinoline skirt that gave John absolutely no frame of reference with which to guess the appearance of her legs.
"I'm fine..." he began, having long overcome his shyness around both erotic and bizarre physical attributes.
"Oh, you don't look fine, you poor thing..." she began, as she strode towards the bench. No... strode was the wrong word. It was more like glided, as if she was standing on a platform supported by several thousand ants.
John was beyond trying to fathom such things, or even caring.
"So, what are you after?" he began bitterly. "Sperm for food, for hunting or sheer perverse pleasure?"
"No such thing," she said without a hint of offence.
"I picked up on your loneliness. I'm here to comfort you -- my name is Matron.
"Whenever a guest finds this all too much, it's my job to comfort them. That's my job."
"'Guest'? 'Comfort them'? I'm supposed to be in Hell! I should be in a realm of eternal misery!"
"You didn't die," she said, with the air of someone correcting another's grammar.
"So you're a guest. Not to be harmed... too much."
"I think my dick would take issue with that logic," he muttered.
"Oh, come now. It's not really harm if you want it."
He stared ahead vacantly.
"I was cut loose. I didn't want to leave."
"Of course you didn't," the woman simpered, as she put an arm round his back and stroked a hand through his hair.
"I feel so... so sorry you had to go through that."
John could feel his eyes welling up. Oh God no. Not the waterworks. He hadn't done that in front of someone since he was 10. He could always remember the feeling, the pressure building, the knowing sense of inevitability, that there was no way out of this situation without an embarrassing bout of blubbing.
"I... I just want it to end!" he blurted, as his eyes contorted.
"I know. Oh, warlock... I know..."
"I... I was happy on earth and when I came here, I-I thought it would just be a matter of finding the exit and going, but now... Now I know there is no exit, there is no way home, there's just this forever and ever and ever... and I thought if I could at least stay happy it wouldn't be so bad but that's not going to happen, is it..."
"Oh, come on, please don't cry..." the woman said as she pulled his unresisting head to her, allowing it to rest on her enormous bosom.
As his sobs died down, John began to speak again.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lost control like that...
"You're not a normal demon, are you?"
"I just want to help you... You shouldn't have to struggle through this alone."
