The Silver Chain - Cutting Room Floor

There is sometimes a thing or two that I might initially put in a story but later decide to take out. The second of my Wildling stories is called The Silver Chain, and it concerns Princess Melody. The section "Plaything of the Gods" deals with a lot of the sexual aspect of mythology - I'm not sure I can articulate it properly, but the confluence of sexuality and sex and enlightenment and madness is something I find deeply fascinating. This section, which I've left out of the final text, shows a part of Melody's symbolic journey as a pantheon of beautiful goddesses make her their toy - it shows how she becomes entirely their creature before becoming who she truly is, and lets us find out a little bit about Melody. In the first book, Melody is only mentioned. In this story, she and the witch Alura are the main characters.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Here is the section, featuring Melody and a Goddess of the Hunt:

Rough hands took her arms and tore her from the tree. Thorns scratched and clawed at her as she fell, the wind whipping her hair. The world moved sharply into focus - a huntress, garbed in leather, grappled with her as she fell through stars and into unending night. The woman pulled at the matted hair of the hunter goddess, feeling her fight back against her as they fell. The huntress pulled at the woman’s chain, but she felt no pain. She grinned, her fingers curling into the seams of the huntress’ leathers and rending them apart. The hunter-goddess sneered at her, struggling as the woman’s legs wrapped around her thighs and her hands worked deftly to shred her primitive leathers and touch the toned skin beneath. Baring a breast, the woman dove on her opponent, nipping and sucking at her as they fell, heedless of the howling endless wind that battered them. She held the struggling goddess closer, feeling her resistance and desire to dominate, to conquer, slowly ebb away from her. The huntress’s muscles relaxed and the woman smiled, yelling with triumph into the nothing that was everywhere around them. Slowly she inched her way up the huntress’s body, forcing her caged sex onto her opponent’s face and feeling her lap reluctantly at first but with increasing eagerness at her wet swollen lips.

She tore the huntress’s jerkin open, running sharp fingernails over her conquered body as her opponent’s tongue drew itself along the lines of her folds before venturing timidly inside her sex. She was Desire, she was Need, Intimacy. She had passed beyond the need for control. The huntress’s eager breath rushed hot against her body, and she was intoxicated by it. The woman took her opponent’s hair in her fists and drew her in closer, pressing her face hard into her sex.

She could  not say whether her climax was fired by the tender movements of the huntress’s careful tongue or from the act of conquering her. They fell, and as they fell the woman reached out ...

                                                           *****************

There was a night-goddess, with skin of midnight blue and moon-pale eyes. Her hair shone like the Northern Lights as it fell down to her waist and she came upon the Woman like a shadow, kneeling behind her as her hands worked their way up her naked body. The Woman surrendered to her completely, feeling her hands teasing her, prying her apart and kissing her inner self beneath the tranquil cool blanket of the night. She lay naked on soft cool ground and the night-goddess covered her in starlight, whispering secrets in her ear that she would never remember while the Sun hung in the sky. The woman lay beneath the goddess she did not know, wrapping a hand tightly around each midnight blue leg as she gave herself to the night. Her lover’s hair flickered as she threw back her head - her moans were the wind softly blowing through a leafy glade.  

Of The Honesty Found In Tequila

Today's preview - the last I'll be doing for this week - is from another modern short story (currently at 12,000 words and I still need a last act for it). This one is called "The Wicked Stepmother", and it deals with a crisis point in the life of a woman in her early 40s, after her life has started to go somewhat off the rails. The extract tonight details her first encounter with another woman - a drunken tumble with a friend from her book group, which our heroine finds hard to resist...

from The Wicked Stepmother

an erotic short story by Zoe Melville

Oh, God ... what am I doing? Jenny’s lips are on top of my own, each of us breathing the other’s air. Her mouth tastes of tequila. I can feel her hands shake as they pull at my t-shirt. Do - do I want her to take it off? Do I want to see where this goes next? My head’s spinning - I’ve had too much to drink, and Jenny’s had way more than me. There’s a crash - a lamp hits the floor and rolls away. I pull the covers hard, throwing them off the bed and down onto the floor. Jenny stumbles backwards, slipping on them and putting a hand out to steady herself as she bounces giggling on the mattress. I hear a faint rip from the seam of my shirt, and I feel myself lurch a little inside at the sound. Jenny’s fumblings bring her hands under the fabric of my shirt. I gasp; her fingertips, hot and sweaty against my skin, inch fearfully higher and higher. I arch my back - breathe in, lean into her - there, she takes the bait, her hands track up my ribs and I can feel her fingers gently brushing against the underside of my breasts and it’s so good, so naughty.

What does she want? She’s married, he’ll be home soon and he’ll find us. Why Me? She shrugs my t-shirt up, cups a breast with both hands. I let her - God help me, I let her. I close my eyes, narrowing the world down to just that feeling - just those hot fingertips, her sweat on my skin. An electric buzz crawls slowly up my spine, making the hairs stand up at the nape of my neck. I roll my head forward and let out a moan - I don’t mean to, it just happens. The buzz rolls around my body, pricking my skin. I feel my nipples puckering, stiffening. A hand circles my waist and I feel Jenny’s body against me, naked and oh so willing. When did she strip? Her small breasts feel soft and inviting pressed against my stomach. I put a hand down onto her shoulder, run it up her long neck and let my palm brush her short peroxide-blonde hair. Her tequila-sweet mouth draws closer, and I feel her hot breath on my body. She kisses my neck and works her way down to my breast, kisses falling on my skin. Why was nobody else ever like this? 

A Conversation in October

A longer extract with a shorter intro tonight: This is from a modern piece I'm writing, around 10,000 words or so. It's more romance than erotica, but there's a pretty hot-and-heavy sex scene in it which I'm not posting tonight. Tonight, a conversation between the two leads - Sabrina and Becky - about Halloween:

from The Office Party; or, No Regrets

A Short Modern Romance by Zoe Melville

“What are you dressing up as for Halloween?”

Becky leaned across from the desk opposite to whisper conspiratorially to Sabrina. They sat at Sabrina’s workstation in an empty corner of the main office on the first floor, next to the filing room and the supply cabinets.

Sabrina looked blankly over at Becky. Today she wore accents of turquoise in her hair, glasses, eye-shadow and lipstick. Sabrina had been surprised at how slowly Thursday had passed, how normal it had seemed. She flashed a smile at Becky - a timid, in-on-the-joke smile that came and went quickly, but lingered around her eyes.

“I’m twenty-seven, Ms. Flint. I don’t need to dress up as a witch or a ghost if I want chocolates. I can buy my own.”

Becky blew a short disapproving parp and stuck her thumb down. “Wrong. Chocolates you get for Halloween are always the best.”

“What if someone poisons them?” Sabrina’s counter was immediate and instinctive. God, she thought, I must sound totally paranoid. 

“You take all the fun out of things, Sabrina.”

She loudly stapled a few pieces of correspondence together and tucked them into a file. “It’s my job. Yours too, if you’d do it.”

“Foul. Changing the topic. You get a penalty.”

Sabrina sat back in her swivel chair and darted a furtive glance around the empty room. “You’re awfully bold for someone who’s still on probation.”

Becky gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m always on probation.”

Sabrina smirked. “What’s my penalty, then, rebel?”

Becky leaned in close, and Sabrina mirrored her movement. She let her eyes flicker down for an instant, catching a glimpse of Becky’s body through the open neck of her t-shirt - a shallow chest with prominent collarbones, light catching on the upper edges of two small upturned breasts, and a few lines of ink that spoke of a tattoo spread across her cleavage. Startled and ashamed, she looked up quickly but could see no sign that Becky had noticed her staring.

“OK, here’s your penalty. You have to tell me - honestly - what you would dress up as for Halloween, if you went out partying.” She smiled wickedly. “Or even if you didn’t go out and just, you know, stayed in.”

Sabrina crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Hmm.” She mulled the question over for a few seconds, shushing Becky when she looked like she was going to start giving suggestions. “A pirate.”

Becky nodded appreciatively. “Not bad - a pirate. Three-cornered hat?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thigh-high boots?”

Sabrina smiled secretively. “I already have a pair.”

“lace-up white shirt?”

“Wouldn’t look the part without it.”

Becky threw up her arms. “So do it, then! Come out with me - with us.” She cleared her throat. “Some of my friends are going out to a thing in a few days, I’d love you to come. Come on - shiver your timbers and splice the mainbrace with us?”

Sabrina made a face. “It’s nothing - I mean, it’s just, the university crowd, they’re not really my crowd. I don’t know anyone except you, and I’ve only known you for two days.”

Becky sat up and cradled her chin in her hands. “You know me well enough, and I know you. I know you want to be a pirate for Halloween, I know you have a pair of thigh-high boots, and I know you’re reading Tolstoy on your lunch break.”

Sabrina reddened. “So you can look in a bag - well played, Lieutenant Columbo.”

Becky frowned a little. “I didn’t mean it like that, Sabrina - it’s just that ... how well do you know these people? You never really talk to them, and they never seem to talk to you. Come out with me on Halloween. I know some really fun places. Come on. Come out with me, Sabrina.”

“like I say - I don’t think I’d fit in with your friends.”

Becky raised her eyebrows - her eyes were very striking under the turquoise accents. “You’re right - you read way better stuff than they do. It’s all Fifty Shades and Twilight and that sort of thing over there - no respect for the classics.”

Sabrina turned back to the cold glow of her PC. “I don’t think I’d fit in.”

“So don’t fit in. Don’t go out with them. Go out with me. Be a pirate and come out with me.” She lowered her glasses with one finger and looked seriously over them at Sabrina. “Just me, I promise.”

She pursed her lips. “What will you be dressed as?”

Becky bared her teeth in a wicked snarl. “Dracula.” She tapped her teeth with one elaborately-painted nail. “Or maybe Darth Vader. Get away from the whole Vampire thing.”

“Sexy Darth Vader?” Sabrina regretted the question immediately. Becky just grinned.

“I don’t know - is Darth Vader sexy?”

Sabrina shrugged noncommittally. “He has a very commanding presence - and there’s all that black leather. People think black leather is sexy.” 

Wednesday's Last Gasp

Tonight I'm putting out the last of the three preview I'll be doing from my fantasy stories - the next two will be Pulp-themed or Modern. This excerpt continues to show a little of the relationship between Alura and her captive, the princess Melody. This is from the section "Plaything of the Gods".

An Excerpt from "Plaything of the Gods"

An Erotic short fantasy fiction 

by Zoe Melville

“Disrobe me”, Alura whispered - ignoring her question - and the captive moved silently to obey. With careful hands she slipped the sash from Alura’s waist and laid it aside. Intimately, familiarly, she took the robe from one shoulder and, kissing the bare skin, dragged it down over her arm. Savouring the moment, she slowly undressed her mistress and let the robe fall to the ground, holding her breath as Alura stepped naked and flawless from the ring made by her rumpled clothes.

“This is a special day”, Alura purred, exulting in the play of the sunlight over the curves of her body as she examined herself in the light. “Today, in the last of the midsummer light, I will pass to you a portion of that which I took from the gods.”

The captive stood, hands at her side and unashamed of her nakedness. She drank in the sunlit contours of her mistress’ body. For as long as she could remember she had lived with Alura in shadow and darkness, always in the tower of Howling Rock. Fighting to take her eyes off her mistress she looked up at the sky, darkening in marbled shades of orange and black as the day crawled away into the west.

Alura took hold of the captive’s chain and pulled her closer - she gasped at the unexpected tugging on her sensitive nipples and stumbled forward.

Alura drew the captive next to her lips, whispered in her ear. “Anoint me”, she growled, and the captive nodded. She kissed her mistress on the forehead, smoothing aside her heavy curtain of long black hair to kiss her neck before moving down to plant a third lingering kiss on her breastbone. Carefully, reverently, she cupped each breast, kissing the tip of each orb of unblemished flesh and feeling the weight in her hand like a sacrament, holding each nipple in her mouth until she felt it pucker and swell beneath her lips. Slowly she knelt and kissed her mistress once on each hip, and then lastly she trembled as her lips brushed delicately against Alura’s sex. She stepped back and bowed to her mistress, her priestess - her god.

“You are anointed.”

Two Short Excerpts

Hi again!

I've got a couple of short excerpts from later on in the Story of Dreanna; the first of these introduces Alura, the Witch of Howling Rock. She is a pivotal character in the series, having placed someone Dreanna meets under a powerful curse. Dreanna runs into Alura and her beloved prisoner, the Princess Melody, as she leaves her companions and flees into the forest to get away from her desires.

The second excerpt is the first time we meet Melody in her role as Alura's prisoner, her beloved - the pampered and nameless object of Alura's desire. At this point in the story, Melody has cast away her own identity, and she has in her quiet selfless way enchanted the Witch of Howling Rock, even as Melody herself is enchanted ...

Alura: An Excerpt from Captive of the Witch

by Zoe Melville

She had gone by many names over uncounted years; she was known in the wider world as the Witch, but at the moment she preferred to be known as Alura. She had been Tempestua, once, and nations had fallen at her hand. She had been Destria, and made the Pillars of the World into the Broken Mountains. She had kept harems of princes and princesses, had shattered castles just to take one stone as a souvenir, and had been mistress to creatures that wielded powers that made kings weep. Alura had, after a while, become bored of these things and so retreated to her home at Howling Rock and lived in relative isolation, cut off from the outside world.

She awoke, as usual, late in the day - she stretched, and with a wave of her hand gusts of perfume and scent were blown on unnatural winds from worlds beyond understanding, clinging to her body and filling the air with sweet and exhilarating odours. She held her hands above her head, smiling broadly as a roll of purple silk spun around her, folding itself into a low-cut sleeveless dress that lay open from her throat to her navel. A heavy chain of gold wrapped itself around her waist, settling over her hips and pulling seductively at the split hem of her silken dress. Looking in a full-length mirror and pronouncing herself satisfied Alura padded barefoot from her airy bedchamber, scooping a goblet of sharply sweet dark golden mead from a table as she went.

The great hall of Alura’s tower was pleasantly warm and exotically scented, and she luxuriated in the memories and sensations the scents evoked as she stalked across the polished floor. Today, she mused, was special. Today called for something worthy of the occasion. Alura paused in front of the large portrait that hung at the head of the staircase, taking in the warm golden frame and the play of light and shadow across the shady trees that would have stood to either side of the painting’s subject - if the subject were still present in the painting. She grinned wickedly to herself, torn between dallying in the galleries to build the anticipation of the morning and rushing to the highest room to see in the flesh what she had seen last night in her dreams, what she had seen in the canvas yesterday. She put a hand absently to her breast and sighed as she lazily squeezed her firm copious flesh. There would be nothing to be gained by rushing through this, she thought. Taking her time would only make the day pass all the sweeter. Perhaps some jewellery would make her look better?

The tiara was worth a king’s ransom - indeed, Alura had taken it as payment for returning King Berrig the Third to his people in Manasthar, when Kings had still ruled that ancient city. The gems that adorned her brow complemented her eyes, when she was in the mood to have her eyes shine green. The platinum blazed bright and cool against the long straight black hair that hung past her waist. It was one of her most stunning pieces, and she pouted as she shook it out of her hair and cast it away with a clang amid all her other necklaces, bracelets, anklets and chains. Perhaps, she thought as she straightened the plunging neckline of her robe, simplicity serves me best. Should I be taller, then? She raised a foot, angled it down to the floor and studied the curve of her calf, her ankle, her toes. Shoes? She raised a hand and let it drop, laughing at her own foolishness. She was Alura - she was perfection itself. With an airy shrug, Alura swept out of the room and started the long climb to the topmost chamber of Howling Rock.

******

The captive rose naked and steaming from the bath with careful, minimal movements. The water behind her cast a misty haze over the chamber in the morning sun, heated by captive spirits and scented with oils that had travelled over the breadth of the world to Alura’s chambers. Petals floated in the great shallow dish of the bath, each one plucked from a flower that only existed in a different dream, slowly releasing memories and sensations both pleasant and vague as they melted in the heat. The captive stood and looked out of the wide tower window, to the balcony beyond and the sun’s lazy rays as it rose above the jagged peaks beyond. The captive remembered the view from the tower, as she had seen it every day that she awakened there. The mountains, always the mountains and never the forest. The captive remembered that she wanted to see the forest, but she had never said as much. Not to the invisible servants, and not to Alura. The captive did not think there was anyone else in the tower, and she had not given it much thought.

She shivered as the crisp morning air kissed at her newly-shaven mound, and briefly wished for a gown to cover herself. The thought left her as soon as it surfaced, as passing as the breeze. The captive studied herself in the mirror, satisfying herself that she met with her mistress’ expectations. She was pale-skinned, wide-hipped and long-legged. Her heart-shaped face and rosebud lips were framed by shining blonde hair freshly trimmed into a precise bob that bunched up halfway down her ears, leaving the nape of her neck and the base of her head shaved bare save for a gossamer-soft sheen of fuzz. Her oiled and pampered skin was naked and shining with oil - she wore only a silver collar from which hung a long silver chain. The chain ended in a pin that was threaded through her clitoris, attached to a silver filigree thimble that constrained her like a muzzle. Two cross-arms of tight silver chain were stretched across to the soft pink buds of her high pointed nipples. The chain chimed gently as she stepped out onto the balcony and looked with pensive blue eyes out across the mountains at the distant sun. The captive’s soulful gaze would have been breathtaking to anyone it fell on - her eyes were as blue as the sky on a frosty winter’s morning, and her gaze was soft, strong, and honest - but the tower’s servants had long known their mistress’s pleasure in simply staring into the captive’s eyes and so they had spent the morning after trimming and brushing her hair and scenting her bath hunting out pigments and brushes. As the captive lay back with her head resting on the wide lip of the bathing pool, her eyes closed as if asleep or deep in meditation, the servants had rimmed her eyes with a stark outline of kohl that transformed her look from arresting to almost unbearable in its beauty - beauty the Captive did not seem to consider. The servants as they swooped made curlicues and patterns in the pigment, creating scoops and whorls of black and intricate designs shaded in hues of purple and blue that complemented the captive’s natural beauty perfectly. Alura thought their artistry a bit much, but she appreciated the captive’s glances so much when they came from beneath her long dark eyelashes that she never chastised the servants for their work. 

By Way Of Introduction

Hi - this is my blog. I'm using it as a holding place, until I can find my own space to get my work up and published. I've written quite a few short stories, playing around with genres and themes and characters. At the moment I've gone through an erotica phase, so my work (which I don't usually show to ANYONE) has sprung from my desire to write that sort of story.

I'm going to post a few excerpts this week, just to give people a taste of what it is that I write. I'll welcome any comments people have - I'm on Twitter @MelvilleZoe so look me up there!

The first excerpt is from an ongoing series of fantasy-themed short stories. They're a linked set dealing with the awakening of difficult romantic feelings within a hard-bitten wilderness guide for a fellow adventurer, and the journey she takes and the people she meets along the way.
I can't think of much more to say about it, so ... a short excerpt:

The Story of Dreanna the Wildling

Part One: The Campfire

A Story by Zoe Melville

Excerpted as a preview of her work, on This Her Blog

As the flames roared higher into the air, Dreanna watched the young sorceress move her delicate pale hands in several graceful passes – the elegant movements of her order, as much a dance as they were sorcery. Dreanna had barely noticed their softness before, hardly paid attention to the way her dress clung to her heavy breasts before dropping abruptly over her stomach to gather tightly at her waist and flow over her wide hips. Dreanna watched as the sorceress danced gracefully in the light of the fire; the warmth of the flames reached her within her blanket, but Kallyria did not seem to feel the heat. She watched as sparks leaped from the fire, coaxed by Kallyria’s teasing hands as they weaved in and out of the smoke. They danced across the woman’s lips, across her brow - one stuck to a nipple, charring her dress and making Kallyria gasp, stumble, and bite at her full red lips. Her dance slowing to a sensuous sway, Kallyria undid the clasp that held her dark blonde hair in place and let it fall to her shoulders, fall all the way down her back - as she circled the fire Dreanna caught a glimpse of her long golden hair tumbling down her back to nestle in the curve above Kallyria’s buttocks, glinting like treasure in the light of the campfire.

Dreanna looked, still and forlorn, at the vivacious sorceress as the spun and swayed, circling the fire. As her own finger found its way between her legs to the dark wet place that ached to fuck Kallyria again, she already knew that she had lost her chance. She was not the lover that Kallyria needed - she could not excite the cream-pale skin in the way the fire could, and she had not the imagination that Kallyria’s dance demonstrated.

When Dreanna thought she could bear no more of Kallyria’s dance, the young mage reached up and undid the string that held the shoulder of her dress closed. With one quick movement she had shrugged out of her dress and stood naked before the flames, her pale skin and dark curly golden hair shining bronze in the light of the towering flame. She spoke three words that Dreanna did not know, spitting each one with ecstatic force into the darkness of the night. With each word the tower of flame seemed to buckle and sway, sinking down into a brighter, stronger, thicker fire. Dreanna, her hand languidly stroking her aching mound, suppressed a moan at the sight of Kallyria’s nude body, Kallyria’s thick thighs shifting as she stretched up, full breasts rising and parting with each deep breath she drew, lips parted to reveal the gleam of her bright teeth and darting tongue behind. Dreanna furtively looked around the camp - Ranton and Tezorik were fast asleep, each lying bundled in their blankets and cloaks. It would be the easiest thing in the world, Dreanna thought, to simply stand up and go to her, to lie with her in front of the fire and taste her as she knew she should have done the night before - yet her own doubts and fears stopped her, and she lay silently within her own blanket, her finger stroking her wet trembling sex in time to the mage's movements as she danced naked around the fire.

With a wave of her hand Kallyria spoke a fourth word, and a sound like a thunderclap echoed through the barren hills. Dreanna blinked and when she opened her eyes again, the fire had taken shape. Kallyria stood wide-eyed, panting in front of it. Dreanna blinked and almost gasped in surprise, covering her mouth with her sticky hand so as not to betray her presence to the mage. There was no mistaking the form the fire took - the tight curve of the buttocks, the matted tangle of hair, the strong arms and lean, tight belly. The fire was an imitation of Dreanna herself built of smoke and flame, of air and magic. Hair of coiling smoke twirled up from the nape of a neck of dark red flame. Small hard breasts glowed red and orange, tipped with nipples of searing white. Hot yellow lips parted to reveal white shimmering teeth and a tongue that was almost blue. The flame-Dreanna licked her lips and smiled, twin burning eyes fixed on her summoner, her mistress. Dreanna gasped as her flaming double reached out with one scorching hand and touched Kallyria’s pale skin - fearful that she would be burned, be consumed by the creature she had created, but fearful too of attracting her attention, of giving her watching presence away.

The flame-Dreanna’s hand brushed over Kallyria’s shoulder and went to her neck - Kallyria gasped and tilted her head back, going limp in the elemental creature's searing arms arms. Dreanna strained to see the mage, lit only by the flames that seemed to burn beneath the surface of the creature that held her; no burns marred her pale flawless skin, only smudges of soot streaked over her body where the flame-Dreanna’s lips had touched. Kallyria bent down, cupping a glowing breast in one hand and bringing a hard, flame-white nipple to her lips. Without fear or hesitation she took it into her mouth, running her tongue over it. The flame-Dreanna hissed, closing her flickering eyes, and stretched out her smoke-wreathed body as Kallyria’s fingertips ran the length of her tight blazing belly, tracing the memory of every muscle. Dreanna, watching in silence, aped the mage’s motions on her own body, feeling the building sensation of pleasure as she saw Kallyria kiss and caress her duplicate through a haze of stifling heat.

The elemental gasped, her moans of pleasure as Kallyria’s tongue ran across her searing body sounding as the crackles and bangs of twigs consumed by a bonfire. Grabbing her mistress roughly by the shoulders, the conjured simulacrum of Dreanna pulled her up and fixed her with her burning stare. Kallyria, her face aglow so close to the searing flames, watched dumbly with half-lidded eyes, shadows dancing behind her as she panted. The creature bent and took one the mage’s rose-petal pink nipples in her mouth, running her white-blue tongue across the stiffening flesh. Kallyria closed her eyes and moaned - Dreanna, watching, saw her expression slacken, her jaw drop, as she surrendered herself completely to the moment. The flame-Dreanna turned Kallyria’s nipple over in her hot mouth, nipping it with shining white teeth and driven on by the yelps and jerks she elicited from her mistress. 

I shall post more tomorrow night - I promise. Thanks for reading!