Chapter 16 Belly of the Beast
Xiaoyu
After the initial orgasm, I feel used, limp, bare.
I’m not sure what to think, how I should feel. Am I reacting correctly? The moment warrants some sort of ecstasy, but all I feel is exhaustion. Embarrassment. As he slumps down breathlessly next to me, I hold my legs close, hugging myself.
He drapes his arm over me, dragging me to his sweaty chest. He noses the side of my face, clearly still feeling the remnants of that personal rapture. My disappointment is unexpected. Almost uncalled for.
“You stare at me like you think I’m lacking.”
Is my face really that transparent? “I’m not gonna lie…”
His euphoria melts away, replaced by a frown. “You are not satisfied?”
“Not satisfied…I think I came, but…” I’m struggling to find the words to explain it to him without coming off ungrateful. God, gratitude. For fuck’s sake.
“But..?”
“It was…underwhelming..?” Maybe my expectations were too high. I want the earth to just swallow me whole as he blinks. “You were great, but it’s like you were…masturbating. Not pleasuring me.”
His hand covers his mouth in deep consternation. “Tonight, I learn I am not infallible.” He says slowly, wrapping his arms around me until I am coccooned. “This is a humbling moment. Thank you for telling me.”
It’s not my intention to humble him, I’m only telling the truth… But what good is it to hide and lie? To protect someone’s emotions? I realize within myself, too, that I lie to protect my skin. I traipse over the truth too much that it’s taking a toll on me.
“You better return the favor, too.” I mutter.
His hand snakes toward my thighs, and I know what he’s doing. I flick it away and say, “Not like that. I want you to tell me if I’m not…satisfactory.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You are more than satisfactory.”
“Maybe I’m lacking, too, and—”
“Oh, quiet, Xiaoyu. I am hurt that you think so low of yourself.”
My eyes feel like they’re on fire. The conversation has taken another turn. All the things I buried roll in their graves. I hate how those simple words evoke so much anguish from me. An unprompted question comes to mind. “Was I…a virgin?”
He stills, halting the pretense of breathing. “Does it matter?”
Something invisible is strangling, choking me. “It shouldn't, right?” But it does. I don’t want it to, but it does matter too much.
I wake up fearing the worst. My clothes tangled in the sheets, off me, a musk in the air all too familiar. Mother had told me it was nothing. That I’d just been having nightmares because I ate too much. I’d believed her. I want to believe her.
“That's why I can’t stand the dark. I’m blind, helpless, I don’t know who’s there with me.”
“Did you ever find out?”
I’m shaking, horrified at what I’d just admitted. Something’s wringing me, purging me of tears. I’m not a crier, but it’s been stewing for years. Decades. I only ever wished to be separate from my past, but it refuses to let me go. I can never get a clean break when it clings to me like a disease.
“I’ve always known. I’m just not allowed to say out loud.”
I want to scream so loud who it is, but my silence is both my aegis and weakness.
Being under scrutiny by Datu feels like being in the belly of the beast. I feel the need to lash out, defend myself, but when he leans in and presses his lips against my forehead, I freeze.
“He is dead.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “How do you know?”
He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “You forget, I am still a god, my sweet dreamer.” He strokes my cheek, following the tear tracks. “I know you know the answer to that question.”
“She always made me think I was crazy. That it was all in my head.”
“I want to hurt them, Xiaoyu.”
“We would only be adding to the weight. I don’t want trouble.”
“Misery loves company. She is miserable so she has to make you feel the same way.”
Yes. He’s right, but I don’t like talking about Mother with him. I feel like it takes away the happiness being so stuck here.
“I’m so sorry for ruining the moment.” My gaze drops.
“Look at me, Xiaoyu.” He demands. It’s hard to look him straight in the eyes, but I do. “Never apologize for saying what you feel to me. To anyone. No matter how much you bury the past, it will always come back to haunt you.”
There’s a burst of passion in his words. A connection to what I feel.
A finger touches his nose. “Very wise of you, Mr. Void.”
“I’ve lived too long not to be.”
My heart thrums a frenzied beat. “Will you live long enough to regret the things you have done?”
“I do not have regrets.” There it is again, his Tower of Babel. “A god is beyond regrets, no difficult choices. Only necessary decisions for the collective.”
“Right, like you aren’t selfish.” I sniffle.
“I never said I wasn’t.” His lips find my jaw, my neck. It chills me how cold they are. “I will be better, I promise.”
There’s an oddity in the moment. Almost cinematic as he teased his tongue.
Does Datu even know how to kiss? His mouth, teeth scrape harshly against my skin.
At closer inspection, Datu’s largest canine is jagged like he’d broken it.
It’s growing before my very eyes, pointing to a sharp tip uniform to the other one.
“It grows back right away.” He says against my skin. “You are entirely too inquisitive of my body. I feel like a subject, not a lover.”
I squeeze his arm, laughing. There must be some sort of mix-up in what he thinks we are, but I say nothing. “I’m sorry. I won’t pretend like your biology doesn’t fascinate me.”
He snatches my toga and forces me into them.
I’m not sure what’s happening, but he’s suddenly alert. His eyes sweep over the dark forest around us. The insects have quieted, very indicative of danger who’s not Datu.
There’s a snap, then rustling grass. Deep voices. Men. From the sounds of it, it’s Moriarty’s crew.
Datu’s eyes glow an ugly color that makes me shield my eyes. I reach for his arm to stop him from bolting, but my fingers slip through him like smoke. A scream rips from my throat as fumes of pitch-black limbs swathe and curl in the air like a violent storm.
The form looks solid, but it isn’t. It’s a thousand different pieces strung up in one chaotic bunch. It’s rankling yet fluid as it shoots straight into the forest, and I’m not driven by fear as I run after it. Him.
I just know what he’s going to do with those men.
“Datu!”
My soles cut through the spines that have grown from the ground. They roll like waves of teeth, black rotting gums. Deflated tubes of intestines flail, racing toward me. Only until they’ve skittered past me when the fear finally sets in. They aren’t there for me.
“Datu—” I gasp as I peer around the forest. The fruits have worn off, and I am blind again, alone, in the dark. My heart is on my throat, making it hard to breathe. My muscles are not frozen, but they might as well be at the way they shake.
All I hear are men screaming for their lives, and an intense roaring sound. To my left, there’s a bright orange glow. A blowtorch. Light.
My body functions once more, and I’m stumbling, feeling around frantically.
“Datu!” I yell through the whooshing of fire. My eyes water at how disgusting the air is here. As I stumble into a clearing, one thing is clear to me—there are two floating bodies. Tall, male, all writhing in pain as black smoke holds them up by their nostrils.
They move closer to the sharp rows of trees. I can’t fathom how it’s growing from below and above. The barks glow a sick violet light. Like the two men are nothing, they are tossed into the cave, comically loud sounds of crunching bones, ripping flesh takes over my senses.
I blink once. Twice. I’m on my fifth blink when it begins to make sense to me. The men were just eaten by something in the forest. Like what happened to the gecko.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m one of the good guys!” Another man yells. Only then do I notice there is someone left behind. He’s pulled up his sleeve, showing his tattooed arm.
I have to squint to see who it is. It’s not Ingar. The tattoos are an imitation of Datu’s, but it’s more…tangible. Not foreboding at all. It doesn’t make me sweat with dread looking at it.
The forest shudders, then a clamour of trees, woods ripping apart surrounds us. It’s a cry of rage from the beast that had just eaten the two men. Shockingly, the beast doesn’t eat the man who grins nervously.
“They were my offering to you, my lord. I hope that filled ya up good.”
My lord? Blood leaves my face as I recognize his voice.
“Heyah, toots, we’ve been looking all over for ya.”
“Captain Moriarty?” It did not even occur to me then that the captain was actually a real person. I thought he was just an AI voiceover meant to infuriate us.
“Howdy! We’ve come to collect the extraction for the day. We gotta ship it ASAP, ya know. Efficacy and shit.”
I rub my hands over my face, confused. “Excuse me?”
“Did you not jerk the chief off today?”
I look around me, and I don’t see Datu anywhere. Where is he?
“I’m supposed to run interference in case you get too distracted by the pollen. Those stuff are strong as fuck. Gave me a hard-on for days when I took a whiff. Hooo-weee!”
A distressed wail makes the glowing leaves rattle.
“Sorry, my lord. Girl wandered too close to the sun. I’m taking her with me back to the chief in the extraction chamber—where she should have been the whole time.”
He is so fucking condescending, I want to slam my fist through his—
Before I can finish my thought, the ground underneath him splits open, and he falls in screaming bloody murder. His shrieks grow farther away, and then—whoosh—purple goo shoots straight across the sky away from our forest.
I’m so utterly confused as the chilling frisson cradles me. It’s not abrupt, violent. It’s a thin cloth gently fluttering to the wind, landing on me, swathing, tangling, strangling me.
“Datu? Where are you?” I’m starting to hyperventilate as I shout, “I can’t see!” My voice sounds like a shiver. “Don’t leave me here.”
Something twists around my ankles as tears run down my cheeks. I’m frozen in place, afraid to be eaten if I move an inch. From my blurry vision, those same black spines tangle around my legs, spiraling like I’m the most precious thing.
“My sweet dreamer,” The voice is a cacophony of lamenting cries. The tip of the spines curl, bending low to my forehead. In his ghostly existence, he’s contrite. “I will be your eyes in the dark.”
This monster doesn’t have eyes, but I know he sees me. Staring deeply into my eyes. Something sweeps against my cheeks. It’s the snarled litter of snakes, black reptilian appendages wiping the tears off me.
There’s calm in his chaos. Warmth in this damp, isolated place when he holds me like this. I’m starstruck as he leans closer to me, the blackness swallowing my face.
A coldness touches my parted lips, leaving me parched.
I can’t help myself, I sway into him until he grabs me from the ground, slamming his lips against mine.
My heart races, blood zipping through my body as I welcome him in my mouth.
My fingers twist around serpents, clinging on like my life depends on it.
His real voice is gut-wrenching, hurting to the bone. A cry against my lips, “Why do I taste you on my tongue?”
Then he’s back, and I know this is not kissing. This is devouring. If I don’t kiss him back, I fear he’ll rip my soul out.
Several hands slide my legs up to curl around him, slipping his wet tongue along mine. There’s a pounding in him that I feel on my chest. A heaviness wanting out between his thighs. He snarls as my back collides to the ground. The cloth I wear is torn from me as my eyes take in his magnificence.
Datu in his Terra form is comprehensible. Solid. I understand it for what it is, but as the Void? He’s fluid but tactile, easier to fathom his shape with my eyes closed.
He feels like sweat against my skin. Rain pitter-pattering over me with sporadic rhythm. He smells of petrichor, of hard-earned water, and I’m thirsty. So, so thirsty.
When he kisses me again, it’s with amorphous lips. I’m kissing nothing and everything, all at once. He’s laid on to me, into me, until my vision sharpens.
I see everything now—the withered grass, the tongue of leaves, the faces on the tree barks, the constellation, the sun on the other side of the world.
“Let me learn you.” The wind whispers into my ears.
Something sneaks into me, coiling up my legs.
I think I know where he’s going, but he doesn’t stop over my pussy.
He goes straight for my mouth, down my gullet, my belly.
There is no equating the keen euphoria I feel.
It blooms until a luster of veins covers my skin.
It glows as it beats until I realize I’m not inside my body anymore.
I’m looking at it from below me as thick black smoke shoves itself into me.
It’s a grotesque show, seeing my body being used like this but I’m not afraid.
I feel what he feels, and it’s not just carnal lust. It’s a hunger so strong that just had its first taste.
It’s an uncontrollable, irrevocable possession of my flesh.
I don’t know what he sees in me. Inside and out, there’s never been note-worthy about me.
“What you deem unworthy is beauty to me, my sweet dreamer.”
He is angry as he pounds himself deeper into me. My body flails, and I feel him like I’m there. His breath crackles in my ears. His grunts move the ground. Everything is quaking faster and faster like my heart.
When he roars his release, the world is completely still. I feel warmth in my mouth, down my throat, between my legs. There’s so much of it that I feel so heavy. Heavy enough to fall through the earth.