Standard Maelstrom

Feedback greatly appreciated. *passes a long a jar full to the brim with cookies*

~Author's Note:No much plot development in this one but no worries, I know where I'm going... *looks at the strangled muse on the floor*..
If it feels like it'd dragging, it's probably cuz it is >.>
Thank you for the reviews and yes I know that I have a nasty tendency of overabusing concepts and all but it's all part of the game, ey....
Hope you'll enjoy this part, too ^^

~Warning:18+ for graphic depictions of sexual situations in a church, abuse of colors...

~Theme Songs: Kokia - Ave Maria, Kokia - Il mare dei suoni

Edit: Just enabled anonymous replies as well... *loves glitches*

Chapter 2



A Perfunctory Smile









Mera’s POV:





“Have a nice doomsday!” I guess that saying: “I’m in hell!” would be an understatement. Nisien smiling all the time is not relieving at all, either. The Church is more of a papier-mâché and frankly is making me feel quite dizzy. This whole bloody thing is gonna fall to pieces any time now and I’m the only one seeing the obvious. “Have a nice doomsday, My Lords.”





“It won’t stop till he drives me crazy….. Nisien tell it to shut the hell up.”





“I’m not his patron. They’re very obedient but their obedience lies only with their Master.”





“How come do you know so much?” Have you ever had that feeling when you’re in an oniric plane of existence? And that’s okey with you only that after a while there’s an annoying buzzing sound coming from nowhere in particular. Just being there like a trashcan or an ashtray. “Scratch that… Arghh….”





“Want a Xanax?” He’s different today. There’s like an aura change. It’s vague but persistent like a fluttering veil on a soon to be exposed painting. I frankly don’t know how to take it. “Take it as it coming, My Lord.” What’s more important is another realization I’ve come to: in the end, even if I’ll be disappointed or straightforwardly outraged, I don’t believe it will matter. Nothing will. Which gets me to how I came to chaperon him in the first place… the motivation, the order, Virgil’s going all ballistic on me…. I’ll be damned if I don’t win the jackpot when some patronizing voice will tell me that this all has been staged…





Why going for all this trouble? The million dollar answer will be targeted at why bothering so much with this neatly webbed mise-en-scene? “Mera, are you feeling alright?” The echo of his voice reaches me just in time for me to wake up sprawled on a diaphanous floor. Quickly it loses its transparency and I throw a last glimpse at Nisien; before I know it, he faded to dark. Damn, not the best of times to have an aneurysm .





“What? Where am I? What happened?”





“In 1160, because the church in Paris had become the "parish church of the kings of Europe", Bishop Maurice de Sully deemed the current Parisian cathedral unworthy of its lofty role, and had it demolished shortly after he assumed the title of Bishop of Paris. According to legend, de Sully had a vision of a glorious new cathedral for Paris, and sketched it in the dirt outside of the original church. To begin the construction, the bishop had several houses demolished and had a new road built in order to transport materials for the rest of the cathedral.”





“Who?” Fuck….Things happen way to fast for me even to begin to process them. We’re slow… Very slow…. And we need incentives to work properly. Just meditating won’t do the trick.





“I am A. Bishop and this is Notre Dame.”





Gothic cathedrals are not really my thing. “Come again?”





“Confused my son? You have no reason to fear me.”





Fast transitions are annoying and have the tendency of irking the lector. People don’t just magically disappear and reappear hundreds of miles away in Modern France…. There’re some physic rules that prevent that from happening. When one blinks, he usually expects to find himself in the same place he was a second ago…. “Am I delirious?” The hallucinations I had hitherto usually involved one debauched, glassy eyed angel.





“You are within that place. Funny how multi-faceted a place can be, don’t you agree?”





A deaf conversation ensues. Don’t you just love those? “No, not really. You shouldn’t screw with their reality. Mortals find it precious.” Even though one might argue that using recreational drugs, kinda ruins the objective structural integrity of it.





“I am grateful for your kind words but I’m afraid that I’m not worthy of them. I’m just A. Bishop. You’ve come looking for guidance.” Eyes, the color of quicksilver, the sclera – a steel blue, accentuating his seashell like complexion, hair – a deep shade of burgundy with a couple of strands of dirty fallow. His appearance could translate itself in a cacophony of color.





All across his earlobes there were countless earrings: from captive bead rings to Helixes, Industrials and Rooks, down to Daith, Tragus, Snugs, Conches, Anti-Tragus… I got a headache only from counting them…. His voice was soft but not what you’d call human. His manner of articulation was otherworldly: ejectives, implosives, clicks; it did not match the words he was saying…. Like the rose window I’m staring at…. it doesn’t correspond to the reality of the papier-mâché. “Do you understand, now?” A voice cooling as the chilly dunes on a full moon night, enthralling and bewitching, spoke.





“I’m startin’…” He’s wearing a sleeveless, black cassock revealing a pattern of artistically crafted tattoos: Irezumi, made with unique ink known as Nara Black which turns blue-green under the skin. The arms are enveloped as a shroud by two paralleled Baku-s – the devours of dreams and nightmares, mythical chimeras with an elephant’s trunk, rhinoceros eyes, an ox tail, and tiger paws.

“What are you doing here? How did you….?”





“I like it here.” That voice again, assaulting me like shattered glass in a maelstrom. All I see is him; every ripple of his being transcends him and courses through my arteries, the way a drop of rain slides on a smooth surface. I’m hard. Now, we’re barely inches away, intending to commit a blasphemy.





“Why’s that?” My voice staggers as I reach to unfasten the soutane. Surprisingly it slips easily from his body like liquid silk. The speed with which he works is enough to mollify my boiling temper. I hear the shirt ripping but when my eyes glance after it, there’s nothing torn….My skin is hypersensitive with rapture, I want to swallow him whole but as a sanctimonious lover he relents. ‘Amen.’ His tattooed skin has a marble like quality to it… as if he’s shrouded in a delicate cloth. I can't stop studying him yet despite this, the extricate imagistic cannot be registered by my quivering mind.





The rhythm with which my synapses flicker bewilders my entire body therefore I barely notice when he gets down on me, unfastens my trousers and starts licking at my shaft…. Slowly, agonizingly slow. My hands petting his braided hair, urge me to do more… to grasp and clutch, to have him deep-throat me.





His grip on my hips is firm hindering me from making any unnecessary, reckless moves. He sucks and licks at my tip while my veins throb with need. The left hands shifts and he grabs the length at the base; little pressure is inflicted but it’s enough to make me buck and gasp. To say he’s skilled would be an understatement. Shivers run through my spine with the speed of a desecrating tidal wave….





My entire being is threaded within his merciless ministrations. He laps once more at the underside just so he could spread afterwards, what feel like thousands of chaste kisses. When this creature of countless nuances and essences, swallows me, tongue shifting along my shaft, I hear something sizzle and then a pop…. Saliva and precum slide down his chin. He licks his swollen lips and flashes his ivory teeth through a cryptic smile.





Taking my hand, my body yields to the kinesthetic attack and follows his lead obediently. “Altar of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.” He whispers out of breath. We breach the area endowed with greater holiness, leaving behind the iconostasis. I still can’t begin to comprehend how easily the space bends within what Nisien discarded as a “wooden church”. We walk for what seems like a couple of minutes while as a matter of fact we’re stationary targets. He props me against the “communion table” but my legs give out and I end up, unnaturally eagle-spread on the velvet tapestry.





Before I can utter some meekly plead, my pants have been already, swiftly removed, leaving me stark naked and defenseless in face of God’s wraith and of His legion of angels armed with blades of fire. His chuckle breaks my reverie. His hands are on each side of my shoulders and fingers that seem to magically elongate, begin to beautifully frame my visage. Surely, as easily as he did that, he could also break my neck, but my consciousness has been already bribed into this obscene and unsanctified play.





The kiss is a careful swap of bodily fluids. I can still taste myself as our taste-buds click perfectly together. Our tongues skate within each crevice, in a flawless swapping motion… Kissing is like rowing a boat…. Reading my mind, he giggles and its echoes bounce around my mouth. It takes a great deal of training to get it just right, to manage walking on the wire, so to speak... Between domination and submission.





I open my eyes and blink repeatedly….then I push him easily away and gasp. His eyes were already opened….. sclera – a cigarette ash , irises – Payne’s grey as in a perfect match to those used in paintings: ultramarine and sienna combined together, resulting in what seemed to me like a liquid, incandescent mix… “You analyze too much, My Sire.” That voice, tranquil and acute at the same time, entrusting itself in my being, wrapping with the subtlety of crepuscular rays around my mind, my perception, myself.





“Mera, it’s Mera.” He pins me down with reinstated force and for the first time the articulation of his lips matches the sound:





“Tsk- tsk…. My Lord ought to be careful.” Perky nubs lapped and sucked, softly chewed, tantalizing tempted to want more… A needy whine ensues, one that makes me feel ashamed. The tattoo on his chest, only now do I notice it – a sign that he’s withdrawing. It’s a scene depicted by the last great master of Ukiyo-e, Yoshitoshi, where Iga no Tsubone confronts the tormented spirit of Sasaki no Kiyotaka. The ghost appears with the wings and claws of a tengu. “Don’t stare into its eyes.” He warns nonchalantly. “He is a harbinger of war. He will ensnare you into its clutches and he will never let you go.”





I stop watching altogether, being drawn once more into those refreshing pits. “Never ever tell your name to strangers, even though they’ve already introduced themselves.” He winks apologetically and utters softly, very…just barely: “Wait, I haven’t actually introduced myself, have I? I played with a pun. But I’ll entrust you with my name because deep down you’re so very docile. They call me Arlen as in Irish for “pledge” and I’m a Bishop. In the spirit of my name, I swear a pledge to you who have survived.”





“I don’t follow…” Fingers creped their way in my mouth, tapping enchantingly, they warn me to start sucking. They taste of sweet citrus as if my mouth has been already exposed to the Miracle Fruit. I give them a thorough lick, trying as much as I can to absorb that exquisite fragrance. My tongue flickers over their sides and in between, being mildly scratched my nails….. The blood spilled has lost its coppery feeling and now, it ascertains the flavor of… something sugary, unrecognizable to my taste-buds… “Enough…” He pants, sprawled over me, flexing his muscles and popping his knuckles as he withdraws the candy like fingers…





I’m as hard as ever and all I crave for, now, is to get the both of us, gratified. “Do you love him?” I can feel his arousal all over the words, yet he tries his best to refrain himself. Unfortunately, I’m too caught within this veil of rapture. I can’t sort my feelings…. Smart of him to wait….patiently like a hunter for the prey to easily fall under his ministrations….





“Does it matter?” I grab his shoulders and slowly roll over our heated, debauched bodies…. I raise my eyes to look at the crucifix and both myself as well as the Lord, stare at each other, neither knowing what to do. His tip rubs against my thigh while he gently rocks, mimicking what he knows will follow en suite. By now, the lubricated fingers probe at his quivering portal, caressing it and surely enough, being granted access… I drool all over his chest as I stare at this body, at the intertwined snakes meandering through fields consisting of countless of Peonies, Cherry Blossoms, Lotuses, spread all over his legs down to his toes. Shuddering ripples of pleasure wreak his body as he hits that bundle of intoxicating electricity. Three fingers work assiduously to stretch the tight channel, the scissoring motions causing more and more shivers to course and be infused within me…. Precum slowly drips on his belly from both our tented members and as earlier, I’m desperate for a taste. He winks but raises a hand in defense. “It will matter…” The broken tone still maintains some scintillating notes while providing an answer to an already forgotten question.





Before impaling him on my overly stimulated shaft as a safe-measure, nonetheless, he slips a couple inches down the table, just so he could lick it once more, expert tongue circulating the sensitive foreskin, slowly, accepting the length of my cock, down his throat. Raised hands petting my abs, nails scraping just lightly at my chest, mouth swallowing my shaft once more just to bring me to the edge.





He winks and spreads his thighs more, I feel up the puckered hole and easily push the tip past the resisting muscle…. Not a wince crosses his face, not even a sharp intake of air… Though it appears to be impossible tight, the reality of the matter is that the chute relinquishes the pincer like grasp and after only a couple of thrusts, I’m in to the hilt.





As if to tempt me, to provoke me, to shamelessly dare me to do my worst, amidst lustful moans and indulgent groans, he states with impassive serenity: “He will feel betrayed.” Disregarding the statement, I withdraw almost completely, wait for a couple of maddening seconds at the edge and push with reinstated vigor all the way in. I grab his beautifully marred shoulder and urge forward my nails into the unyielding flesh…. Blood shivers down his back, blood coats my fingers. With the other hand, I take his member at the base, closing my palm around it and diligently begin to rub. Friction causes my fingers to sweat and for a flash I abstain myself from bringing any relief. Instead I take each forefinger in my mouth and gently suck them. His blood is quinine bitter therefore, involuntarily I spit and it drops carelessly down his face… Tainted as it is now, the visage obtains a more earthly distinction… The thing that lingers on my tongue, is ironically the fragrance of dew.





Around my lean waist, he wraps his legs, urging me to renew my thrusts. The climax is somehow within reach but it’s just too early for me, this interaction needs to be fully appreciated, memorized and carefully locked behind the charcoal door which has engraved in big, Venetian red letters, the words: “Chasm of memory”. He aids to my thrusts by meeting me half way, quivering thighs trying hard not to let go, trying to maintain the fast tempo I set…. Am I lost on the Battlefield of Flesh versus Mind? Dare I say, no…. since I meticulously register every little, insignificant detail that crosses my nervous endings.





I try to shove even further into him, to become one, to tie myself in a bloody promise. Deserting gentleness at his first cry of pain, I fiercely begin anew, to stab almost viciously into that tight, resisting, throbbing channel. I ram my shaft savagely and for the first time, my eyes catch a glimpse of a blank expression on his now, teary eyes… Liquid quicksilver runs down the side of his face, to the temples and into the auburn hair, getting in the pierced ears, burning the skin on its journey….





Images of Nisien and Virgil overlap across his..... My body is wrecked by tremors and all can do is start sobbing maddeningly..... Funny thing, my impression of the events doesn’t correspond with the reality: Him holding my arms, caressing my sweaty forehead, body align tightly against mine.... Looking at those rainbow eyes of his, I sense them nodding, in a peaceful manner, knowingly... Sloppily I kiss him, tracing the roof of his mouth while at the same time slowing down. Stopping altogether....





“Can you see now why it will hurt?” Sclera a Navajo White frames flawlessly irises the color of Periwinkle, attaining an almost soporific effect. Saliva soaked lips begin to whistle the chorus of a dirge and the magic infused within the melody line gets sucked by my needy mouth and swallowed. In this speck of time, I’m whole and thus I’m suffering tremendously.





“Any of this seems familiar to you?” Steely, glassy words sported from a half closed mouth, panting softly, blowing long tresses of hair, out of a by now, blushed face. Teeth nibbling at his lobe, lapping the collarbone, like a rabid dog; licking sweat that seems more like a dry Sauvignon than musky masculinity. My hips on his lean waist, my throbbing shaft encased in his portal…. Precum oozing on my belly…. Fingers gliding down the back of my scalp. If I wouldn’t know, I’d say that amidst my shallow thrusts, beckoned by libido to go harder, faster, those purring, cutsy, cotton candy like noises, were coming from me. “Even if someone else threw the first stone, you should be the one to apologize….”Said words meeked out, Arlen climaxed and in doing so, his back arched serendipitously against the strained table, tightening his quivering hole around my shaft.





“You really know how to bring the best out of people.” I gruffly state, trying to ease on my face a casual smirk yet failing lamentably. My torso’s slick with sweat, my lids are semi-closed, and my throat’s constricted in a deep inhale. My teased member begins to jerk, relishing in what seems to be a metaphysical orgasm.





Heart beat cooled down, Arlen begins laughing hysterically…. Well, I guess my thoughts themselves could act as stand-up comedians and completely ignore the “nice but hollow” flesh. My brain is completely short-wired, ergo it can’t quite artistically phrase the fact that I’m cumming in loads. After two or so thrusts, I’m spent. Delicately, trying not to jostle him too much, I pull out and crumble next to him, tainting the velvet cloth adorning the massive oak table.





Arlen’s all quiet now and if eyes weren’t staring directly at the last rays of sun filtered through the church’s rose, I’d say that the Sandman sprinkled some magic floo on the entire surface of his body. Yawning from the dark pits of my viscera, I vaguely distinguish the voice I’ve come to adore...





“You are the Patron? Those dolls pertain to you, don’t they?”





Petting tresses of hair of a texture unknown to me until now, I ask rhetorically… Following an epiphany, I have the tendency of looking for reassurance. I feel him, Arlen, internally sigh and notice how he repeatedly blinks in his battle against spoiled, jasper like tears: liquid for a sec, frosted around harlequin green sclera, on the next. I lower my fingers to softly rub at his eyes but he shies away, just far enough to be out of reach. “You shouldn’t be disrespectful. Chances come in all shapes and sizes…. You for that matter are the perfect example, My Lord, Son and Master.”





Getting up and picking the scattered layers of the cassock, he shudders and like a paint job done bad, the scenery develops a crust around the flanks, progressing rapidly towards the core, towards both of us. Turning back to look at me, he leans down, laying a kiss on my forehead. When I try to hold him, he pushes me away, throwing one more glance in my direction – making me nod and let him be. Abandoning the altar, he walks through the narrow aisles deserting this defiled place.











~~~





COGNITIVE DISSONANCE





Listen everybody! Listen to me!

Would youth last forever or white hair ever get black again?

What else can you do but have fun in such a brief life?

- by Kim Chun-Taik





I wake up to Nisien holding me. I’m profoundly embarrassed by this momentarily weakness and I try to disentangle myself. Needless to say: I fail miserably. He doesn’t budge if more he grasps even tighter, beginning to rock…. The recent transgression lingers on my closed lids, eyes moving erratically under the REM’s dominion. What can say…..? My cellular memory tells me that this experience wasn’t my first….. I’d probably whored myself with other occasions as well…. The realization however doesn’t fair well with the personality of what I came to know as being the Dealer.





“Slept well?” Truth be told, not really… Let it be known that the word “cheating” does not exist in my inbox and under “drawbacks” I don’t have listed “remorse”…. But no matter how my selling pitch goes, I’ll still end up on the wrong side of the railway.





“I heard you…. It was faint, but I heard you.” I lift my head to see the wooden shack we set foot this late afternoon. The magic bubble has burst and what used to be, it is no more…. My hand is whirled around pale grey tresses, fingers fumbling, fingers savoring that precise, distinct texture…..





“Had no doubt in my mind.” After the psychedelic experience with Arlen, Nisien’s voice seems stale, hoarse, as if disused. As if he hasn’t talked in a while… Or moved for that matter. His joints are stiff and when he unwraps his magnolia white hands, he winces.





“How long have I been out?”





“A couple of days. It took longer than expected since Arlen had doubts.” What’s a synonym for understatement? ‘Litotes?’ "Depends on how you take it…. Do you reckon I’m expressing an affirmative by the negative of the contrary?”





“Nisien… I…. How to phrase this? You’re awfully cheerful….”





“Now, that’s a litotes…” He softly laughs while tracing the contours of my face. Only now, do I realize how much I missed him. “I know and it’s okey… No need to bother…and no, I’m not playing the martyr….” You see, you can’t really have an argument with someone who’s not really keen on having an argument….





“Was Arlen an old acquaintance of yours?”





“You could say with known each other intimately. Maybe not as intimately as you two but close enough.” There’s a finality to those words, one that doesn’t leave a place for “buts” and “ifs”.





“Tell me once again why we’ve come here.”





“Jules said so.” And whatever Jules says, goes. Jules – the fonte, us - the players, Virgil – the beneficiary. Am I the only one noticing that I’m not complaining where I rightfully should? Common sense would require to demand some sort of explanation… Am I way too overconfident or have I entrusted Nisien with too much of my faith….?





“Well that clears it, now, ‘ey?”





“Nobles used to be slaves…. But they have Fallen from the graces of their Masters.” I’m having trouble choosing in which category should I put this one: “Trivia” or “Confessions”? The hand is petting. His whole being is warming my entrails. The place is frosted. He is hurt.





“I’m not hurt and this is not an avowal.”





“Yeah, that’s cuz you’re in denial.”





“I can’t feel anything, remember?”





“Sure, have it your way.”





“This is not a lovers’ quarrel and I resent the fact that the quality of the conversation has severely dropped since you woke up.”





“I’ve just whored myself for no particular reason and without even putting a fight…. Excuse me if I’m feeling cheesy at the moment…. I can’t remember a time when I’ve felt like myself.” In my not so enthusiastic, effusive tirade, I noticed a couple of lemon chiffon strands mingled in his hair…. I pulled myself up, stretched and all this while I tried to catch my breath.





“Wet dreams don’t count.” My needy angel is now an icy, cynical misanthrope… Either way you keep yourself at a distance: when you’re close, you dismiss me with a kiss, and when like this – you’re a character with gravitas, authority and power. You mask it all in that perfunctory smile of yours and fuck….you drive me crazy….“You sound like a cheerleader with a crush…” If it weren’t for the sweat freezing on my back and the windows frozen to the point of breaking, I’d take it personal. It’s something oozing but I can’t pinpoint it…. Jealousy? Nah…. Dare I wonder since when have your eyes gotten the shade of cornflower blue? “Arlen was grateful by the way.”





“Do Fallen Nobles get stricken by a case of PMS from time to time and I don’t know?” My knowledge about him distorts, the puzzle deconstructs, just to be recast once. His body getting raped but no soul inhabiting it…. Me watching those haunting eyes. Eyes casting their glance from another host…. “Nisien…”





“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Mera… Lets go home.”













~Extra Notes:







Cognitive Dissonance - the unpleasant state that may occur when an individual has inconsistencies between their attitudes or attitudes and behaviour. May occur in offenders concerning their morality and behaviour.



Miracle Fruit - The plant (Synsepalum dulcificum) produces berries that, when eaten, cause bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. Miraculin itself is not sweet, but the human tongue, once exposed to miraculin, perceives ordinarily sour foods, such as citrus, as sweet for up to an hour afterwards.