Chapter 18 The Placid Island
Xiaoyu
“Ma, can I keep my lights on? I’m afraid of the monster that comes inside my room.”
Mother’s gaze slices toward me, disapproving. “You are grown up, Xiaoyu, you should not be believing these kinds of things.” She says firmly.
Grown up? I’m eight years old. Is eight a grown-up? “But it’s real! I’m not imagining it!”
“You have a really overactive imagination.” She dismisses me, and my throat feels tight. “It’s only in your head.”
“Why don’t you believe me?” I cry, my heart squeezing in my chest.
“You always see things that aren’t there, Xiaoyu.” She snarls, and I wince away. “Can you please stop?”
She’s doing it again. Mother is going to leave me with the monster again. She says I need to get used to it, that it’s not all the time I have somebody by my side. That I need to toughen up because I’m the eldest daughter. That I have to stop reading so much of that crap stepfather does.
When she leaves, she takes my capybara night light with her. I can’t close my eyes, I’m afraid someone might take my clothes off without my permission. I have to stay awake.
As I stare up at the ceiling, I tell myself I’ll be strong, but my empty stomach pushes me to rest my eyes. I hold my blanket tight up to my chin. I’m shivering, trembling, wondering what I did wrong for Mother not to believe the monster is real.
Footsteps come my way, my door opening. I see his shadow. The monster is an older, bigger man. He wears pajamas right now, but sometimes he wears a suit. Sometimes he’s shirtless with his thick gold chains. I only see him when the moon is full, his silhouette showing a big belly.
“Xiaoyu, what did you tell your mother?”
My breathing grows louder as something I recognize as fear takes over me. I don’t answer him. I don’t want to, but I also can’t move my mouth.
“You’ve upset her. Now she’s taking it out on me.” He chastises.
I want to scream and fight, IT’S NOT MY FAULT, IT’S NOT MY FAULT! But I know no one will hear me. No one will believe me. No one ever does.
He sinks into the bed next to me, his breath hot, rancid on my face. My eyes adjust to the dark, and his skin is thick with those same tattoos Mother hates so much.
I’m gritting my teeth together so I don’t make a sound. He sweeps his hands over my face, removing my blanket. I can’t move. Terror has me paralyzed. When he tugs my pajamas off, I keep my eyes on the ceiling, unblinking until my sight swims with tears.
I refuse to see anything, and as soon as the pain subsides, I curl into myself and let the tears fall. I cry myself to sleep almost every night as soon as the monster closes the door behind him.
When exhaustion finally embraces me, I dream of it for the first time. My friend, the hole. It blinks, its eyes the only light in the dark. I like it when it blinks, sometimes it changes the colors for me. When it shines, I hug it, so happy to not be alone.
It has no body, but does magic with what looks like its version of hands. It clothes me, and comforts me. It swathes me in kindness I have never felt anywhere else. The hole does not hurt me like the monster does.
Its glowing violet eyes are sad.
“What’s wrong, friend?”
The black thing that’s formed into a hand is placed over its chest, over its heart. Its voice doesn’t seem real. It's thunder rumbling in the sky.
“I have to go, my sweet dreamer.”
“Will you be back?”
It’s quiet as the eyes shadow over. “In the dark, you will never be alone. Whenever you close your eyes, I will be there. Now, sleep and forget.”
Datu
I have been keeping secrets.
I admit I’ve been very evasive my whole existence.
My existence, after all, is embodying nothingness.
The curtain behind the curtain where there is no wall but just emptiness.
One would think I am accustomed to it—feeling, being an utter void, but I am not.
The longer I feel nothing, the stronger my need is for… something. Anything.
Unlike my sister, Sateva, I do not have a physical form.
I constantly linger in her shadow when she’d controlled the island.
Her realm had always been so giving, selfless.
The allegorical, very human story of The Giving Tree.
She gave everything of her until she had nothing left—leaving me to pick up the pieces of her failed godhood.
The Void doesn’t have a form, it doesn’t have a face, a voice, but it has eyes and a mouth.
The Void can imitate whatever form it eats, but it can never become it.
I am strong because I take. I take and take and take to soothe a gut-wrenching desolation.
I wander in dreams to taste, to experience some semblance of feeling.
If I had not begun those trips, I am certain I would have lost myself, my godhood, like Sateva.
It is in those trips I’d gained believers, planting the seed of hatred for their kind.
They mark their bodies to make sense of mine.
The problem with humans is they always need an image to worship.
It had festered through generations, my existence indistinct from physical things they had built in my name.
Idolatry, the worship of objects like it is a god. Me.
When it happened, I resorted to visiting the dreams of children. They are all so pure, so uncorrupted. Their laughter and joy is a balm to my reality. Despite my affection for them, I always leave knowing I will never see them again. I never intervene.
The only time I did was when I met Xiaoyu.
She had been a little girl, hungry and terrified.
I became…upset seeing a child treated the way she had been.
That night, the storm had been unforgiving.
It had rained continuously for several days and nights in Esoterra, my domain—the blood and bones I built.
The trees had leaked a nectar that emptied the mind.
The phrase "lost their mind" had never been so literal.
That same night, I had helped her forget before I ate her pathetic monster.
I had hoped she would heal, move forward.
When I followed the little shiver in my gut, I had not expected it to be my sweet dreamer.
But instead of being a child, she’d been a fully-grown woman.
Time truly is different in the Otherlands.
She’d taken a liking to plants—studying, watching, loving them grow while trapped in a sterile life surrounded by the unnatural. I had never shown myself, and I had not lingered long enough for her to notice. I have always thought her special, but now, she illuminates.
Constrictors coil in me. It is a bitter realization—knowing what she seeks is nothing I can provide. Sadly, it had been my hope, my longing to be what she wants that had pushed me to take the Terra form. To be something rather than…nothing.
It bothers me how much Xiaoyu—a human—can rattle my existence so deeply.
I also resent Sateva even more now that I finally understand why she’s here.
Xiaoyu isn’t here to heal me. Far from it.
“Datu?”
She’s bathed in moonlight, her skin aglow. Her cheeks are rosy, half-moon eyes reminding me the divine feminine does exist. It exists in her, quiet but torrential. She is just too shy to acknowledge it.
Unable to resist it, I curl myself around her, my mind in turmoil. I see my demise, and it is in her eyes.
“Let me feed you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
My cock unfurls for her, but I ignore it. “Are you sore?”
She smiles, the image of her like this immortalized in my mind. She has filled up from my feedings and her hair is longer now. She blows away the shorter hairs on her forehead.
“It’s a hairstyle. We call it bangs.”
“You can read my mind?” I ask wryly.
She shakes her head as I pick her up toward the shallow pool I created. “You’re silly. Isn’t your whole shtick in conversations telepathy?”
“That is true. I wish I could speak to you.”
Her eyebrows knit together as we dip into the warm water. “Why would you say that? You can talk to me.”
There’s a weight on my chest I do not like. It makes the pretense of breathing difficult. “I want you to hear me. Not just this voice in your head.”
She curls her arms around me, kissing me straight over my lips.
I pull her closer, not wanting it to end.
I always have to be extra careful with Xiaoyu.
My hand is large enough to wrap around her neck completely.
When we finally come up to breathe, she cups my face, saying, “It doesn’t matter how you talk to me. It’s always a joy to be with you.”
My heart is heavy as I press my forehead against hers, dreading what I am about to say.
“I think it’s time you do what you were here to do.”
I grieve as soon as the sweetness leaves her eyes. She’s startled now, fumbling as reality sets in.
“You’re right. God damn it.”
I release a breath and help her up the pool, drying ourselves.
To soothe an ache in my chest, I keep her close and carry her to my dais where the suction is hidden.
I am not certain if she knows how the machine works, but I have seen Sateva and the others prepare it for extraction thousands of times. I am familiar.
I pick up the tube with the strap that goes around my hip and—
“Holy shit, your cock’s out.” She gasps.
I look down, surprised she had not noticed it earlier on the bed. I had intentionally hidden it from her when we fucked so it didn’t unnerve her, but seeing the way she looks at it now, her terror is the least of my worries. She is…examining me with a fascination.
“Ah, yes.”
“Can I look?”
“Go ahead..?”
She leans down and examines my cock. “So your slit is actually a snap-trap. It opens when the cilia are released. What triggers the opening?”
“I believe it is the pollen.”
“What triggers it to close?”
I grin widely. “When you hit your breeding cycle, it will close upon you. Clasp you to me until you take all of me.”
Her nostrils flare and she laughs, the sound unhinged. “Way to tell rather than show.”
“Are you referencing something?”
“Nothing, I’m just fucking around. Sunny said—eerrgh, forget it.”
The most effective way for Xiaoyu to derail a conversation is to drop to her knees in front of me.
“Can I touch it?”
“You are here to learn how the Terra body functions. You need not ask.” My voice comes out rough.
Her breathing becomes excited as she prods the bulbous head with her index finger and thumb. Without warning, she squeezes it and is stunned as my cock jets out cum so easily. She jumps back as it lands on her cheek.
“Jesus,” She takes this time to be embarrassed now.
I discover another thing I want to do to her. “Come here and let me wipe it off you.” It’s a bait.
She does what I say, and when I do, I slip my thumb into her mouth, my gaze darkening at the satisfaction I feel. She’s obedient as she sucks my cum off me.
“What a good, sweet girl.” My jaw clenches, cock erect at the sight.
Narrowing her eyes, she inches away from my touch. “Alright, alright. If you keep doing that we will never be able to collect…stuff.”
“Cum. Seed.”
“Uh-huh.”
Unenthusiastically, I teach her how the machine works. It’s simple as long as the suction is around my cock. Typically, the suction goes inside my slit, but now that it’s out, we have to improvise.
“The suction can’t go around your…cock.” She chokes the last word.
I chuckle at this. Despite all the depravity I had subjected her to, she still has a hard time saying all the sexual words.
“Hold it in place for me.”
“Is that okay?”
“I’ll cum quicker if you’re close to me.”
Her face reddens as she adjusts the straps around me. As per my instruction, she replaces the metal canister on the machine. It will collect about exactly five liters until the next feeding. All while doing this, she’s been naked. When she bends over, my eyes linger on her swollen cunt.
I groan as the head of my cock presses harder into the ill-fitting tube.
“You okay?”
“I’ve been thinking filthy thoughts of you.” My voice is barely a rasp.
She looks down and curses, “Shit, I need to put some clothes on.”
“Don’t. This will make things so much more bearable.” I cannot believe I am pleading.
She snorts out a laugh and activates the machine. It makes a hissing noise, then it sucks. I flinch as she takes it from my hand, thoughtfully holding it for me as it takes.
An idea crosses my mind and a wide throne rises behind me.
I bite my lip and drag her with me until I’ve seated, as relaxed as I can get.
The head of my cock feels pinched, as she sits on my lap.
She holds the tube with both her hands when I grip her hips, adjusting her so her hot cunt presses into me.
“Keep your hands there and let me do the work.” I whisper.
The toothsome monsters do their work, caressing, licking her.
Rocking her back and forth, she arches her back, moaning into the air.
My teeth sink onto her shoulder, wanting to mark her.
I feel the warmth of my seed flowing out of my in abandon.
This Terra form likes her a lot, it wants to provide for her.
To give her sprouts, but the Void wants to rut her, twist her, break her, piece her back together.
Something has broken inside me, and I am uncertain if I like it. It makes me salivate, ache, thirst, hunger for her. It isn’t rational, it’s insanity to relish and die in.
I quicken her pace, sliding her over my cock until it is wet with both of us. I’m continuously coming as she digs her nails on my forearm, hands momentarily off the tube. I grind my teeth together as my lechery takes over.
The machine makes a sound, indicating that it has reached its capacity. I toss the tube to the side and slam her to the lounge I had been situated on. I do not give her time to react, and—like a desperate disciple—drop to my knees and lick her cunt to her asshole.
“Datu!” she gasps.
Thank the Void my arms are long enough to cover her mouth. She shouldn’t even protest when she is being worshipped like this. I used to have no sense of taste—but by god’s balls—Xiaoyu has changed that in me. Every part of her is a delicacy I want to explore.
My tongue penetrates her hole while I play with her pussy. She’s soaked and I’m basked in euphoria as she drips for me.
Damning myself never felt so good.