AUTHOR'S NOTE ---- Ooh-er... Sorry it's taken so long folks. Real-life's been much busier over the past few months.
If it's any consolation, this one's quite long, and there should be another story (though not from the garden) coming very soon...
There's now just one chapter (hmm... maybe two TOPS) left until the end of the Garden series though!
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Mandy closed her fists as the light around him faded.
"I see you met Matron. She likes to prey on the vulnerable while keeping them in her own private purgatory.
"She gobbled you up, ripped your body to bits and sent your soul to her own little dimension. She had complete power over you there – you'd have felt or believed whatever she wanted you to.
"You're very lucky – you're the first person ever to return from it. It took me a lot of study to find a spell to bring you back in one piece. You should feel honoured."
John was more preoccupied with fighting the urge to vomit.
"I've been looking forward to meeting you again," she beamed.
"I thought you were just an impotent scrote at first. But when I heard you had been chosen by the Queen Slug, I thought you worth a second look."
John sat up, narrowed his eyes and merely stared. He had had it with these lunatics. Nothing he did no longer made any difference to his plight. He may as well just lie down and let her do her thing.
"Yes, I think I shall enjoy you, warlock," continued Mandy, oblivious to his resignation, as she sauntered towards him, slinking her hips.
A sinister expression formed on her face as she stared down at him.
"I shall make you beg me to use you. You will pay for daring to resist us earlier.
"First, let us put your aptitude for duelling to the test."
John's eyes widened. This was the first time anyone had mentioned duelling. As in actual combat. He froze in panic.
"Get up, warlock," snarled Mandy. John continued to stare, motionless.
"I said, GET UP!"
Narrow bolts of red light flashed from her palms and slapped John's torso. The motion flung him to his feet, where he teetered drunkenly in confusion.
"This will never do. I want you to come at me with all your might!
"Rabidus!"
Another flash of red light coalesced into the shape of a wolf's head, with teeth bared, and lunged for John, before sinking into his body. As it did so, he felt a burning rage seethe through him, as a guttural cry of rage erupted from his tortured psyche.
He was fire, he was anger, he was a living psychosis and he would tear the unholy flesh from the nearby bitch's body.
"N-gaaarrrrr!!!!"
He charged at Mandy, not caring about protective spells or wards, or preparing his own offensive magicks. He would simply rip her throat out.
"Constrictum Voluptuosus!"
An array of bright pink streamers shot out of her hand before he could get halfway to her. As they hurtled towards him, they seemed to glow and diffuse a pale light, each one not so much a length of rope as a trail of glowing glyphs.
In seconds, they were brushing past his skin. Intangible lengths of strange, alien characters flowed over his body, their form nothing more than glowing light.
As each one glided across his arms and his limbs, they radiated a warmth that lingered, just for a second, before fading away. He tried shaking his arms to free them of the insubstantial bindings, but it made no difference as they wrapped themselves further and further round the limbs.
John tried instead to pull his left arm to his right, in a bid to pull the bizarre and luminous cord off, but his hand simply passed through the bizarre symbols, which carried their relentless motion unhindered, a breezy warmth rolling over every inch of skin they passed.
It was incredibly difficult to escape the attentions of the glowing ribbons, and it was getting harder still to deny that their warm and sensuous strokes were actually feeling really good.
Already his arms were wrapped in the strange restraints, and as more of them flew forward to greet him, his thighs and legs were quickly wrapped in the bizarre lights.
They swam down past his shoulders to coil round his chest and stomach, causing John to shudder at the teasing streams of heat they created.
He had almost forgotten about Mandy, who took the time to mock his predicament.
"Well, I did want to talk, but seeing as how you're all tied up..." the beautiful demon laughed.
"I would say you're a hard man to pin down, but..."
John looked down at his body, which was covered in a sliding mass of pink glyphs, which coiled and curled elegantly round every inch of his flesh. They had no substance or density to speak of, but yet they seemed to hold him tighter than any bonds ever could.
The lengths of the spell at his thighs slithered up his member and wrapped round the aroused organ. They continued to slide round it, creating a constant motion that continued even when it was completely covered.
Blood rushed to his member as the spell kept up its teasing, the lightest warmth lapping around his entire penis at once. John groaned and tried to shake, in a futile effort to work them off.
Yet more of the seemingly endless ribbons now coiled themselves gently round his head, sliding round his ears.
As they did so, a soft and melodious woman's voice seemed to trickle into his ears, as if from far away. It was almost as if the symbols were being read aloud when they passed his eardrums, and despite not having the first clue what was being said, John felt a strong compulsion to just stop and listen.
It really was the most beautiful voice – soft and melodious, light and feathery and John temporarily forgot his troubles as his eyes lowered shut and he listened.
The teasing at his crotch seemed only to coax him to ever higher levels of arousal, but he started to wonder if the delightful soundtrack might be enough to tip him over the edge.
"Si lua me hoo soo arn yee keem..." the woman sang, in a form that was more a melody than an incantation.
As he listened rapturously, his legs were effortlessly lifted clean off the floor as more and more of the pink, translucent ribbons slithered up his calves and round his thighs, the tantalising warmth lingering as they did so.
John shuddered as the pleasure at his waist mounted, but only succeeded in wiggling his torso round his limbs while the glowing pink trail of symbols vied for an ever greater hold.
When a warm palm wrapped round his member, John gasped and opened his eyes – only to be greeted by a pink haze, as the ribbons slid over his eyes, his entire body now mummified in the insubstantial light show.
The pink haze seemed to grow more and more intense, until it became his entire environment.
He was in freefall, floating through a realm of the colour, that voice filling his mind and pleasure grasping his crotch.
In the distance, a figure was emerging. It was getting closer... closer...
'She' was a woman, a nude woman – a very elegant nude woman who was calling out to him...