They lowered her, bound so that her arms pressed tightly against her back, feet-first into the pit. She staggered for a moment when she touched the bottom, regaining her balance awkwardly without the use of her arms. She cried out for help, knowing full well that none would come. She was far from home, far from help, and an untold number of miles deep beneath unexplored mountains.
The space was liquid-dark, with only the barest greying to mark the opening above her. She could hear the shuffling of feet and the harsh reptilian sibilance of her captors' voices as they retreated back the way they had all come, taking with them their precious torches. As the sounds of their departure faded, the silence grew almost palpable. Her exposed skin began to tingle as though lightning were soon to strike nearby, and a most unusual odor began to assault her nose: a scent like grass and anise, neither pleasant nor offensive, but growing stronger, settling finally in a magnitude just beneath what would have been obnoxious.
"So, you are what they have bought me." A voice came to her from a space she had thought empty.
She took a panicked step backwards before realizing that there was nowhere, in truth, she might run. The diminutive lizard-men had taken with them the only source of light in this subterranean nightmare, and even with light she had no means by which to escape her bonds, nor the strength to scale the vertical passage back to the caves they had brought her in by.
The sense of presence shifted slightly, and she turned slowly with the impression of movement.
"You are lovely in the manner of your kind. This is good. The Kobolds know not to risk my displeasure with an unfit offering." The voice mused aloud as it continued to circle her.
"How can you see what am or am not in this darkness?" She demanded, finding her courage in the face of her inevitable and impending death.
"I forget, some creatures are not suited to the darkness. Your kind, human kind, are light-dwelling creatures, is this not so?" The voice asked of her, the utter calm of it making her want to scream.
"Of course it is!" She heaved, exasperated by the cold detachment with which the voice examined her.
And then the chamber became light.
She screamed. There was no other way in which her mind could respond to the shock of what lay before her. The monstrosity of the thing was unmatched in horror by anything her limited experience or expansive imagination could possibly encompass. The creature, if such it was, lay like a massive fleshy slug, fully as broad in diameter as she stood tall. A dozen or more appendages of varying shape and size protruded at odd angles from its main bulk, most of which were trained forward, towards her. The frontmost portion of its body was yet larger still, well over her own height by perhaps two feet or more, and opened into a single giant orifice ringed by row upon row of teeth-like ridges. Its body appeared to taper back from this mouth- opening, but its length was such that its body disappeared back into a rearward tunnel approximately ten to twelve yards beyond where she stood, and she couldn't be certain.
"It is unfortunate that you find my appearance abhorrent, for we are to be wed." The creature said as it undulated forward and past her, circling her opposite the way it had previously. As it slid back in line with its own mass it stopped abruptly, a collection of its longer appendages flying out and wrapping her about her waist so swiftly that she could barely manage a startled yelp before they had lifted her from her feet in an almost crushing grasp. "Do not think that our attachment grants you any rights, however. You are MINE! You were given to me, by those who serve me. By right of conquest, you are mine." The grip eased slightly. "I had decided that I was in need of a mate, you see, but as deep below as I am, I had no access to the outside world. The sun does not favor me with its light, and in all my travels of the deep, dark world I have never encountered even a hint of another like myself. I did discover the Kobolds, though, and when I ceased consuming them long enough to learn their language and speak it back to them, they learned to revere me. I am their Liege and their Deity. I protect them from discovery by outsiders and from the many foes that would prey upon them. In return they provide for me amusement and information of the outside world. They have spoken to me of mating, and of marriage. And they spoke to me too of humankind, of their grace and beauty, of their fair flesh. I demanded that they provide to me a mate of the human kind, and it is you they have produced. My servants consider me their leader, and therefore male, though I know not what, if any, is my own gender. To this end they brought you to me, a female. I think, for the moment, that I am pleased.
"I know nothing of your kind but what I have learned from those who serve me. Your duty shall be in part to educate me in the nature of your being, for I am above all a curious creature. Before I am through with you I will know all the sounds and smells, tastes and textures of your flesh. Some of what I shall do to you you shall enjoy, and some you shall abhor, some will cause you pain and some will bring you pleasure. If you please me, I shall limit your suffering to what is bearable. To this end you must tell me not only of the sensations you experience, but also of the feelings they elicit. I would know the nature of your joy and your sorrow, for such things are alien to me. I know only entertainment and boredom, amusement and emptiness. If you fail to perform as I demand of you, I may yet grow tired of you and dispose of you in a way I see fit. Most likely, I will consume you. But it would be quite a waste when your presence poses such a great opportunity for my own entertainment.
"Have no fear, for as you are mine, I will care for you as my own. No harm will come to you that is not of my causing or at my behest. I will provide for you nourishment, only you must tell me of what you require, and I shall demand it of those who serve me. If there is aught else that is necessary to your survival, only ask and I shall see that it is provided. If you please me I will offer you what gifts I see fit, and perhaps in time allow you to ask of me what you desire. For now, ask only what is essential for your continued wellbeing, else my servants shall tell me and I will in turn be forced to punish you. Do you understand the nature of our arrangement?"
"I..." Words of horror, fear, and denial froze in her throat, and she choked silently upon them. She could not be wed to this...thing...this monstrosity that didn't even know its own gender! Thoughts of escape, of rescue, of suicide, swirled in her head as the thing's tentacle-like appendages tightened about her midsection.
"You need not accede to this. Your wishes, for now, are meaningless. Only know and understand that to risk my displeasure is to risk your own demise, and that I will not allow you to expire swiftly or painlessly. You will die over a thousand agonizing hours if you anger me, so I would advise all caution against. Now, I think it is customary for a bride to go unclothed to her wedding night...."
And the creature opened its maw wider still and swallowed her whole.
Inside her nominal husband, it was still light enough for her to see by, and she realized with some degree of shock that the light in fact emanated from his flesh. She remained tightly bound and wrapped about the middle by a set of long slender 'arms', so she could only watch in dread fascination as a sinuous protuberance from the back of his 'throat' stretched down and opened a long many-fanged mouth of its own. This internal mouth was slender and beaklike, with a single set of serrated teeth running in an elongated 'V' down the top and bottom of its jaw. The mouth proceeded to slide its way, serpentine, down the front of her dress, biting and grinding at the fabric until it tore. It slid between her breasts, leaving a light trail of slick wetness that evaporated quickly. The peculiar odor of grass and licorice was stronger here, inside him, and she realized that this too was coming from her so-called husband. She was distracted from this thought by the sensation of the inner mouth sliding down her abdomen and between her hips, and the vibration of its jaw grinding the fabric of her underclothes apart.
"Does this arouse you?" He asked, though she could not discern where the sound was actually produced.
She was about to deny it, but her reply was cut off as the inner mouth completed the cutting-away of her clothes, and the entire larger orifice closed down about her, and she experienced the here-to-fore unimaginable sensation of being sucked on from head to toe. It caused her breasts and buttocks to grow taught, as though they were being tugged upon. She could feel the pull strongest in the twin peaks of her nipples and it drew them into tight pink pebbles. The tatters of her clothing were pulled free of her body, and she was ejected quite suddenly to stand, surprisingly unbound, on the warm smooth stone of the cavern floor. Her slightly damp clothing shot forth a moment later to land at some distance against the far wall.
He still held her wrapped about the waste, but his grip had loosened, and the tips of the tentacles were sliding back and forth absentmindedly across her navel.
"Your skin tastes mild, and ever so-slightly sweet and salty, but it is smooth and soft, like my own. Kobolds taste like brine, all salt and sour, and their skin is rough and pebbled. But your hair is most interesting, it tickles slightly and tastes like the flowers my servants leave upon my altar. I think that if I choose to eat you, I will start with your hair, but that is not today. Today we are wed, and so I must learn what it is to mate. So I ask you again, does becoming nude arouse you?"
