This story is an adaptation of an RP with suppas
Clouds blow in the wind. Sometimes the clouds are what blow the wind. And sometimes that wind travels all across the world and, like a butterfly flapping its wings, changes things on the other side of the planet . . .
But not usually things like cheap vacation getaways, so I’m gonna have to take a bit more hands-on approach to set up this date.
Sean wanders down a quiet street, hands in his pockets as he gazes at the cloudy sky. He’s felt so listless lately. He lives alone, which isn’t so bad until he wakes up in the middle of the night with the crushing feeling that there’s no one else there and the shadowy dread that there never will be. Sometimes it almost feels like a premonition, like he’ll never have someone in this town.
The town. It’s so boring and stale, the same old buildings and parks and people. He needs something fresh. Especially considering his job. It’s repetitive and soul-sucking work. Even if the town had anything to offer he wouldn’t have the energy, the motivation. It’s all he can do to make the slog to work in the morning and make the slog back home. He needs something to break the monotony. A vacation, somewhere exotic, someplace that can rejuvenate him.
The weird thing is, he hadn’t thought about this until recently. He shakes away that thought, because I’m the narrator and I say he needs a vacation.
His limp eyes follow a feather drifting before him. It lands in front of a window, and from there he sees a plaque advertising the building as a travel agency. In the window hangs a prominent sign:
“Perfect jungle getaway, only $200!”
Sean perks up at this and heads for the door until he looks back at the sign. Something is off about it—it lists dollars instead of pounds.
Wait, wait, FIG, I USED THE WRONG MONEY SYMBOL.
Sean shrugs it off, especially after a calculation on his phone tells him it’s cheaper than the two hundred made him think. It would be closer to £162—he’d be a total moron to refuse. That’s not a thought I put in his head, either.
He enters the agency and gets the details—two weeks at a hotel in the Indian jungle; not near any major cities or towns, but that’s okay: an expedition in a real jungle is just the change of pace he needs. The only catch is he has to leave almost immediately.
You know, besides all the other catches like no tour guide to show him the safe parts of the jungle. Also, that price point might not include return trip, the fine print is kind of unclear about that.
These things don’t really occur to him—he’s just happy to escape this dingy town, even if only for a couple weeks. As he heads home to pack he sends his boss an email, telling him how sick he suddenly got and how work is too much right now. Will he believe it? Does Sean care? Of those questions only one is important, and the answer is no.
Wow, it’s almost like he wants to break all ties with his old life.
The next day he gets on his plane to India, and it turns out another catch is the plane has about forty other stops on the way, and for some reason thirteen of them are in Russia? There’s also one that’s like, the middle of the United States for some reason? There’s two that Sean can’t even tell what country it is, and he stays on the plane for the duration of those.
But after all those stops he finally makes it to the airport in India. His luggage doesn’t, but he’s so tired from the plane ride he just requests it sent to his hotel when it arrives. A few hours shuttle ride later he reaches a hotel that looks half-infested by the jungle, and after taking one glance at his room he heads out.
And as I rummage through his luggage he enters the jungle, all alone . . . Dang, this is a nice hat.
What? It’s not like he’s going to need his luggage after this.
In the meantimewhile, deep in the jungle there stands a tree. It’s not particularly big or tall, but it does have some colorful and hefty tinsel hanging from it. Here sits Mira.
“Hey, Mira!” comes a voice through what, were it not the middle of the jungle, one might believe to be headphones over her ears. She adjusts what seems to be a microphone connected to them.
“I was starting to think you’d left me,” she says with a sigh.
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you. After all, you’re not gonna get anywhere without me.”
Mira groans. “Is he on his way yet?” She’s obviously impatient. I guess I did keep her waiting, sitting in that tree with her tail hanging all throughout. Yes, her tail, for she’s a lamia, the red and blue bands of her tail snaking among the tree. “Are you there?” she asks the microphone.
“Oh, sorry! I’m distracted keeping watch on everything up here. Yeah, he’s on his way.” Funny thing is, what she doesn’t know is that she doesn’t even need the headphones. I could communicate directly with her without them. She glares at the sky with her golden yellow eyes. “What?” Oh. Whoops. I got the chat windows mixed up. Uhh. Yeah.
Mira chucks the headphones to the ground below. “I’m starting to regret this.”
No, no, I promise, it’ll turn out great! Just do your cool tail snake and eye zap, and I’ll be up here if you need air support.
“That’s what I’m starting to be afraid of.”
Well, bleah. Here he comes.
She shifts in the tree, looking for her meeting, but slowly. If she’s being honest with herself she should have given up on this scheme a while ago. If she’s being really honest with herself, she knows she won’t—curiosity, a chance, and her dwindling confidence keeps her there.
Finally she hears footsteps, and not the soft padding footsteps of a four-legged animal; no, this is the thudding of human footsteps. She peers down through the leaves and gives a small gasp. The human standing below her tree glances around with a smile on his soft, bearded face. Mira stares at his dark hair, mussy but short enough that it looks cute, and tall frame and broad shoulders under his shirt. His shirt and jeans make it hard to see all his muscles, but she can get rid of those soon enough. He doesn’t appear to be too lean, either—Mira espies plenty of soft spots to squeeze.
Now she’s glad she waited. This guy is way cuter than her previous meeting.
Hey, wait a minute.
She wastes no time emerging from the leaves to greet him. She only reveals her upper human appearance, her tail hidden among the leaves—no sense in scaring him off. Get to know him before playing the tail card.
Before Sean reaches that tree he walks through the jungle for a good hour, marveling at how massive the place is, not just in space but everything that grows there. The trees stand tall, the plants burst forth, and he even passes a valley with a river. Despite all the hiccups he’s glad he came. The jungle is such an amazing sight.
Eventually he realizes maybe he’s not so glad he never got a guide, though. In fact, as he stops to look around he’s not actually sure he can find his way out. With a forced laugh he says, “Is it too late to get a guide?”
“It’s never too late to get a guide, whether to where you came from or to someplace new.”
Sean stumbles backwards. He didn’t expect a response to what he meant as a rhetorical jesting question. He looks around for the source of the voice—it was smooth and friendly despite coming out of nowhere, although there was a hint of something alluring. He finally sees someone emerge from the leaves and he stares at the figure.
The first thing he notices is her yellow eyes—not something you usually see, or ever see. He shrugs it off as sunlight reflecting off green or amber eyes. It’s hard to tell—a hood of a deep clematis purple covers her head, obscuring most of her face in shadow, strands of hair flowing out. Her slender figure is concealed—though clearly visible—in a tunic that blends with the shadowy jungle leaves. She holds a small branch with one hand, but Sean can’t tell how she props herself forward in the tree. Maybe she’s laying on a branch up there. Something about this strange lady in a tree in the middle of the jungle seems off, like he’s not seeing the full picture.
Still, he’s not going to say no to help when he’s lost. “I hope you’re offering,” he says with a smile, “because I kind of need one. Would you be able to help me? I need to find a route back to my hotel.”
“Of course,” she says. “I’d be happy to help.” She lifts off her hood with her long hands, and Sean’s eyes widen. Her round, supple face is dark, as might be expected for the region. Her hair tumbles in scattered waves to her shoulders, green like the dark leaves of the jungle. His heart jumps when she smiles to him, but he doesn’t notice her eyes narrow as if she’s looking him over. He even forgets for a moment he’s hopelessly lost, which isn’t helped by a sweet, flowery aroma around her that makes him briefly feel bubbly.
She may be a strange lady, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t charmingly beautiful.
“My name’s Mira,” she says. “What’s yours?”
“Sean.” He covers his sudden nervousness with a laugh. He didn’t expect to meet anyone out here, let alone someone so lovely. Her warm smile is friendly and inviting—he’s certain he can trust her to lead him back to his hotel.
One thing nags at him, though. “Say, why are you up in that tree?”
Why am I up in this tree? Mira thinks. Wouldn’t he like to know. Well, he did just ask that, Mira. She grins, before her face falls as if concerned.
“Well . . .” She glances around as if making sure no one else is nearby. “Maybe I should have mentioned this before, but I didn’t want to alarm you. This is wolf territory. There could be wolves about.”
“W-Wolf territory?” Sean asks, shaking as if a wolf were already upon him. Mira sees his wide eyes and scents his extra sweat—he’s gripped in sudden fear.
A fear that’s ultimately unfounded. Mira knows full well this isn’t wolf territory—there isn’t a wolf for miles around. The only thing Sean has to fear around there is about to pull him closer. Mira looks up at the tree, though she keeps one eye on Sean.
“I don’t think there’s any around right now, but if one did come around a tree would be the safest place to be.”
Sean raises an arm and walks to the tree. “Let me up there! How did you get up there? I’m joining you!”
Mira bobs her head. “I’m a good climber.” Technically not a lie. “Although I get some help up from my pet.” Arguably: also not a lie.
“Pet?” Sean tilts his head. “What pet?”
Mira looks back and rubs her tail as if it were the head of a snake. “Why don’t you say hello to our guest down there, hmm?”
Sean jumps back from the tree as Mira lowers the end of her tail, red and blue bands with a pale yellow underside. She hangs it near the ground and gives him a little wave as if to say hello—or maybe grab hold—or maybe I know you’re there.
“Your pet is a snake?” he asks. He looks it up and down as if not sure it won’t lash out and grab him. “A-A huge snake, at that.”
Mira covers her face so Sean doesn’t see her smile and blush. She takes pride in her tail’s size, though she doubts he even considers he might be complimenting her.
I hope you’ll find it soft and velvety, too.
“He can pull you up the tree, if you like,” she says. She can tell he doesn’t trust her “pet”, but she grins—she has moves to play. “I promise he won’t hurt you one bit. He’s the most gentle animal you’ll find around.” She suddenly lifts her head as if noticing something in the distance—like, say, a wolf? “But quick, if need be.”
With her continued hints at the potentially imminent arrival of wolves he finally relents. He reaches out and softly holds the scaly tail with a warm hand. Mira clenches so as to not shudder from his touch.
She can tell he’s nervous about the tail, but she’ll dispel that worry soon enough. She loops her tail under his arms and over his textile shirt—such a stiff, dry feeling compared to his pliant skin. She grips loosely—she holds on well enough to lift him, but he could slip out if he wanted to. Soon Sean is hanging from the tail among the branches. He doesn’t hang close enough to any to reach and step on, though. He could slip out from the tail but he would fall to the ground far below—so he won’t.
“Comfy?” Mira asks with a laugh. She stands behind Sean, too far for him to see by turning his head, and her tail holds his body in place. “There is one thing I didn’t mention, but it’s hardly an issue, it’s nothing, I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it now.”
She knows full well why, of course, and in a moment Sean will know what wonder he’s really met. She wants to hug herself for her cleverness. A pet snake is preferable to wild wolves, but he might still worry about just how tame it is. So no matter what he might think about lamias, someone who looked part human and with whom he already had a pleasant chat with would be preferable. She already set herself up as the preferable option twice over. She has him dangling from her tail, and he’ll soon be even more lost in her eyes than he is in the jungle.
I am a good hunter.
Except her associate with the most-ciate, her eye in the sky, they led the dude there! She’d never have found him without my help. Probably this won’t help her cause at all and he’ll just be as suspicious and afraid of her as if she’d dropped in on him in full view. Quite frankly any success up to this point was all my doing or otherwise a coincidence. Hunter skills? Hah.
She tries to push these thoughts that I’m definitely not putting into her head away. She has a new friend to charm.
Well, fine. I’ll go see what Sean thinks about all this.
Sean gulps as he looks at the drop below. One wrong move and he could fall to his death. No matter how nervous he is he is not letting go. Fortunately (as strange as it is to think) neither is the snake, as the tail holds firm with a second loop around his chest. It’s like the snake can feel his heart beat thirty times faster than normal and decided to let him feel a little more secure.
Sure, it could just move him to a branch to stand on, but an extra coil is better than nothing.
He snaps out of staring at the ground far below when Mira remarks there’s something she didn’t mention. “What’s that?”
“Like I said, it’s practically nothing,” she says. As she speaks the scaly tail slips from Sean’s grasp and slides over his shoulders, stroking his muscles. The tail turns him to face Mira—in all her visible lamia glory. “My ‘pet’ is actually me.”
Sean gasps and flinches back at this impossible snaky creature. He struggles in the grasp of her tail, every worry whirring in his mind. Will she attack him? Eat him? Is she feeling him up when she strokes his muscles? She does seem to leer at him. He needs to know what she’s after.
“Please don’t hurt me!” he whimpers as her tail holds his arms down. He kicks his legs, but he can’t reach her. Part human or not, he doesn’t know if she’s more human or snake—or some monstrous third manner. Wolves are one thing, but he did not come all the way to the jungle to be eaten by a lamia.
Wait, Sean, wolves are one thing, but a lamia . . . Okay, you know what, fine, whatever, fine.
Mira’s smile drops but she lifts it back up. “Now, now, I’m not going to hurt you.” She laughs and places her hands under her chin as she looks him over. “I wouldn’t want to hurt one hair on that handsome figure of yours.”
Sean slows his breathing to try and calm down. She doesn’t seem to be lying—she might have something other than pain or eating in mind. She could have done those already anyway. His gaze sweeps from her wavy green hair and dark face down her nimble figure in the tunic. Slender but toned—though nowhere near as muscular below her tunic where the sinewy tail emerges, also slender yet broader than his whole body. He follows the tail until it disappears in the leaves, flashes of red and blue and yellow scales sparkling throughout the tree. He tries to not think about how easily he would fit inside her wide body. (Too nervous to consider he would not fit through her upper end. It’s just not logically consistent, Sean!) He wanted a change of pace but not like this. His monotonous life would become even more so trapped inside a lamia.
Also, he’d die. He has to remember that.
The jungle slowly spins around Sean. He looks at her tail circling over him as she rotates him. She wraps her tail lower, ever thicker loops until her heavy coils encircle him from his shoulders to his waist, a single extra loop around the rough jeans over his knees. Her tail past the last loop slides under his bottom to act like a seat, but he pulls away from it—he doesn’t want to seem accepting of any part of this.
With a whimper he asks, “What are you going to do with me?”
Mira shrugs with an open smile. “Sometimes I just want a warm body to hold. Nothing more than that, don’t worry.” As she continues to rotate him the end of her scaly tail sneaks around the warm skin of his arms and chest. A lower coil thick as his waist slides under his shirt against his abdomen.
Sean groans at the squishing coils trapping him, unable to stop her sliding and rubbing over his torso. He tries to ignore how soft and affectionate her cool scales are—it’s still an invasion of privacy. Even so, better she go under his shirt than into his trousers.
Or pants, or slacks, or leg shirt! And then into his pockets where she’ll steal his wallet and spend all his money and rack up a big credit card debt, oh no!
“So what’s your story, Sean?” Mira leans forward and looks at Sean’s eyes—at least when he’s rotated towards her—as if interested in his answer. “You said you were at a hotel—are you a tourist out here?” She tilts her head and smirks wider. “Visiting the jungle with somebody?”
That gives Sean an idea—lie. “Yeah, I’m visiting with my friend,” he says, slightly louder than he intends. “He might start worrying about me if I’m not back soon, though. He might even come looking.” If he can convince her that he’s with someone then maybe she won’t want the potential hassle.
She doesn’t even blink, and as Sean is rotated away her smile deepens. He sighs. Maybe instead of seeing it as a hassle she’d just find it another opportunity.
“Well, I hope he gets a guide if he does,” Mira says. As Sean is rotated to face her again something looks different. Her golden yellow eyes have impossibly changed hue, one a deep blue like the sea and the other a fiery red, not unlike her scales. Before Sean realizes it the blue eye becomes red and the red eye becomes green like the dark jungle. Then green and blue, then back again, deeper and more intense than before—or anything else.
“Not everyone can be as lucky as you to find someone who wants you safe.” These words seem to ring in Sean’s head—ring true. He tries to respond but as he stares at her pretty eyes—eyes that seem to glow with a brilliant shine that’s at once surprising, calming, draining, crushing, and above all alluring—the words vanish from his mind. Something tells him he shouldn’t look so intently—she could have any number of tricks up her hood—but another feeling tells him that doesn’t matter. The colors seem more real than anything else, like the world Sean knows is an illusion and what he sees now is the true reality, the only thing that matters. By connection Mira seems more real than the jungle around them.
Mira’s beautiful eyes have an amazing attraction that Sean can’t figure out, and he tunes out turning his head to watch as he rotates before her. His mouth falls open, and unknown to him his pupils shrink as if a bright light flashes in his eyes—which, in a way, one is.
All this in the span of mere seconds, for soon Sean is rotated away from Mira and his gaze turns to the thick jungle. The haze takes a moment to lift after seeing those beautiful . . .
What was I looking at? Whatever it was made him feel better than anything he ever experienced, a rush of excitement yet soothing as if he could forget all his cares.
When he’s rotated back to Mira her eyes are the same sunny yellow they’ve always been. He feels a little giddy and dumb and with a half-laugh asks, “Say, did something happen just now?” He can’t shake the feeling that he lost a few seconds of memory.
Mira smirks. She feels bouncy from the excitement of sinking his mind bit-by-bit into her spell. She turns away but never takes her eyes off him.
“Like what?” she asks.
You’re gonna drag this out, aren’t you?
Her smile freezes on her face. Hoping Sean’s head is muddled enough to not notice, she hisses in a whisper, “Are you still watching?”
Oh, hey, you don’t actually have to talk out loud for me to hear you.
What, she thinks, I just have to think it?
Yeah.
You can read my thoughts?
Look, don’t think-shout at me, if you don’t want me to then I won’t and then you’ll just have to talk out loud and let your little boy-toy hear you talking to nobody.
Look, just go away! I have him, I don’t need your help!
Oho, no, that’s not how this works, I’m hanging out for a while. Besides, you might still need me.
I don’t!
You might need me to remind you to pay attention to your new friend; he’s probably wondering why you seem to be spacing out suddenly.
Mira proceeds to think-scream some curses at me. I’m not going to repeat them here.
Well, that was rude. Maybe I shouldn’t help you.
Then leave!
But because I’m such a nice guy I’ll not only stay but, since you’re so easily distracted, I’ll tell you what Sean said in response to you.
Ugh. Fine. What did he say?
Well, he thinks you’re crazy.
After some more thought-cursing I tell her that Sean actually just asked if she was okay.
All the while Sean continues to be rotated—he’s glad he doesn’t get motion sickness. He does start to worry that Mira might actually be insane, arguing with voices in her head (which she is, technically!), but he notices his fear has dissipated. Perhaps the gap in his memory was Mira helping him get over his fear. He’s conflicted now between her seeming pleasant and possibly being crazy, so he asks her if she’s okay.
The next time he spins back to Mira her eyes again glow with mind-numbing colors, pulling away his focus to just the red-green-blue over and over.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” she says with a sweet voice and sweet smile almost as alluring as her eyes. That soothing yet exciting feeling fills Sean again like jewels sinking down thick syrup, and Mira’s words echo as if her voice is more real than the rest of the world, more real than his own thoughts. And though she’s just responding to his question, her words stick in his mind—everything is fine. Like before his mouth drops open and his pupils shrink.
Again Mira rotates him away and the jungle fades back into view. Everything’s normal again, her eyes unchanged.
“Why, are you feeling okay?” Mira asks with a small frown as if concerned for Sean’s well-being. Why, she’s not bad at all like he thought when he first discovered her tail. He smiles.
“I’m feeling pretty great, actually,” he says. He has that small memory gap again but it doesn’t matter, it’s fine. Everything is perfectly fine, it’s all so wonderful. All his fear, worry, reluctance over Mira evaporates. He wanted a change from the monotony, and this is certainly a nice change. Why did he ever think this was a bad thing?
“I’m so glad to hear that,” Mira says. She moves closer, just enough to seem friendly without invading his personal space—not that she hasn’t already with her strong tail around him. But Sean doesn’t think that at all because everything is just so fine and wonderful—he likes her squeezing scales around him, now. She has such soft and tender, loving coils hugging him, massaging him. What could be better?
Mira’s tail shifts, loosening over his upper body, and Sean almost yearns for her tail tighter around him. This time when he spins by and his mind is dosed with another round of captivating hypnotic colors she’s saying, “But I can’t help but wonder if you might be a little too warm in that shirt, don’t you think?”
His mind drifts with those blissful rings of colors, shutting him off from the world and overwhelming him long enough for her words to sink into his mind. His eyes shrink to almost pinpoints now, the bursts of hypnosis accumulating in his head like a velvety slime.
As Sean is rotated from Mira her loosened tail lifts the shirt off him. His mind rises back to his usual senses—at least somewhat, as his eyes remain unfocused and his mouth hangs ajar—and he suddenly feels burning up. He didn’t realize how hot the jungle became, but fortunately Mira is there to pull his shirt off and cool him down. She hangs the shirt on a branch then squeezes her tail back around his chest and shoulders, massaging him as she rubs her cool scales against his warm skin. She sighs and smiles to him, moving nearer again, and he sighs in turn.
“How does that feel, sweetie, hmm?” she asks.
“Nice,” Sean says woozily, hardly even aware he’s saying it as the squishing tail distracts him into a stupor. All the concern and worry and fear from when he learned she was a lamia are a distant memory now. The coils he once felt an invasion of privacy he now willingly accepts as a sublime, enveloping hug he softly sinks into.
Like clockwork she spins him to her intoxicatingly pulsating eyes, the colors brighter and more intense than ever before—especially compared to the hazy jungle, which now looks so dark and dull it might as well be night. Now his pupils shrink to pinpoints—any smaller and they would disappear.
Mira’s engaging smile grows as she moves closer and says, “But you must still be so uncomfortable with those trousers on, aren’t you?”
With the captivating colors softening his mind her words soak in, more real to Sean than his own thoughts. When he’s rotated away his crumpled trousers feel so harsh and cramped. He wishes they’d slide off so Mira’s cool, scaly tail can rub the rest of his body. She wraps a few more coils around his legs and rhythmically squeezes, slackening the slacks until the outer garment falls to the jungle floor below. Now he wears nothing but underwear and a heavy cocoon of Mira’s coils squeezing and embracing his entire body, the lower loops as thick as his waist and rubbing tightly over his tense skin.
She leans close and grins at his drooping eyes and vague grin. He no longer minds that she has him completely at her mercy, nearly nude with her scales all over him. He can hardly recall his prior fear, can’t remember not being absorbed in and charmed by her.
Mira gently lays Sean back on a branch in her coils. No longer lifting him, she sighs. It took some stamina to hold him up that long, but it was too much fun watching him become a little more dazed with each turn.
She hangs over a higher branch above him and lies over her coils so she’s face-to-face with him. She props up her head with a hand.
“So how are you feeling now, cutie?”
“Good . . .” Sean says, still spaced out.
“Good,” says Mira.
After a moment Sean’s eyes focus again and he blinks out of his daze. Mira knows her spell will cling to his thoughts and keep him calm and accepting. For the moment she just lies watching him with a grin.
Sean’s eyes look around and with a sheepish smile he asks, “So how come we’ve never heard of your kind?”
Mira silently laughs. She didn’t expect him to suddenly ask a question, but she’s happy to oblige with an answer.
“Well, you aren’t from around here, are you?” she says with a wry smile. “Many of us tend to shy away from human settlements. I’m sure you could find a village that would tell you about us, but I’ve heard visitors tend to brush it off as myth or legend.”
She’s visited some of those villages herself. The residents typically responded with wariness or indifference. She didn’t mind the latter, and the former were won over with a friendly face, a calm attitude, and some good cooking.
The ones she never cared for were those who threw themselves at her. Always a suitor in every village with a declaration of love, but she turned every one of them down. She has no interest in someone who wants her with no goading on her part. She doesn’t pull those in, they push themselves in. She’s a hunter—she wants to take someone.
And now she will. Someone she’ll make fall for her on her own terms. In moments a warm, strapping guy previously terrified of her will willingly sink under her spell. She loves the hunt.
“Well, I can imagine,” Sean says, “it would be strange for them to encounter something they’ve never seen before.”
This doesn’t clue him in that it should be strange to him. He’s only been in her company for some half an hour—barring any gaps in his memory—and now he’s perfectly fine accepting her, perfectly fine covered in her encompassing coils he was so frightened of just a little while ago. They’re cool and safe, not at all like the wolf-infested ground below where any second he could be missing an arm.
He did wonder where his clothing went after he returned to the surface of consciousness, but thoughts in his head that were definitely his reminded him they were so uncomfortable he had to get rid of them. Mira’s soft coils are far more comfortable than those old clothes.
Still, he keeps returning to those missing memories. He just seemed to phase out of reality for a few moments. One minute fully dressed, the next practically stark naked. He can’t remember what happened but just thinking about it gives him a sensation like relaxing in a warm bath after a long day, only ten times stronger.
Mira brushes Sean’s fuzzy cheek with a hand. “Now, how would you like to see something really special and dazzling?”
“Sure, I’m game,” he says. He expects some sort of survival trick or something like the amazing card tricks back home.
Because cards are totally normally found out in the jungle.
“Excellent,” Mira says, sliding the end of her tail behind his head to prop him up, “then just lean back, relax, and look into my eyes.” The colors return in Mira’s eyes, pulsating rings of enticing red, ensnaring green, and soothing blue. They emerge from nowhere in the center of her eyes like glowing tunnels, and they give Sean tunnel vision as everything around Mira becomes blurry.
The radiant colors shine with an allure that’s almost magnetic, as if Sean’s eyes are a heavy metal and Mira’s magnetically charged. That strange feeling returns that the colors, and by proxy Mira, are more real than the jungle and anything Sean had ever known; strange but tempting, as if inviting him to follow and accept this true reality. The colors take over everything, making the only thing of permanence to him Mira and her stunning reds, greens, and blues.
This time it doesn’t stop. The gleaming colors stick to his mind and cloud it like a lulling slime. A rippling sensation fills his eyes as they mimic the flowing rings, and the jeweled red, green, and blue from Mira’s eyes flash at the edge of his vision as if the true, precious reality of the colors finally breaks through the ever-darker, ever-duller old fake world. The colors fill everywhere in his field of vision not already filled by her.
Despite his scrambled softening, his muddled melting, something in his subconscious screams for him to resist. Even as the hypnotic colors numb his thinking process something in him knows it will be the end if nothing breaks the connection between her rippling colors and his mirroring eyes. In his confused state he tries to ask what’s happening.
“M-Miiiraaaa . . .?” he says, but he can barely even say her name.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mira says, her deep smile widening. “Just relax and let the colors wash over you. It’s all you want now, and I’m all that matters.”
As the true reality of the colors encroach on Sean’s mind it becomes clear—far clearer than the hazy old world, for now Mira and her shimmering eyes are the only clear sight—that Mira is the most beautiful woman there ever was, her eyes sparkling and hair shining, her skin glowing and smile radiant. He should be—he would be—he is honored to have her attentions bestowed upon him.
His mouth falls open limply as his muscles relax in her squishing coils, his mind and body giving themselves up to her. As his muscles loosen Mira’s tighten, squeezing his body—almost as if her powerful tail has its own instincts, seeking out his warm flesh and gripping to expose as many scales to his skin as possible. It’s not so tight that it’s at risk of crushing him, but it does start to make his body sore.
Not that it’s a problem—her hypnotic spell has altered the synapses in his brain like a drug, numbing pain receptors and intensifying the pleasure centers.
Meanwhile I pretend to know what I’m talking about re neuroscience or whatever.
Something in the far end of Sean’s brain tells him he should be nervous—terrified that such a strong being seems about to squeeze the life out of him, but this thought is utterly smothered. All his attention is directed to her pulsating eyes stuffing his head full of warm bliss.
His feelings about everything become lighter and accepting as thoughts vanish from his mind. Where he is, why and how he got there, all gone in favor of Mira. As he stares his heavy eyelids droop, the crushing power of Mira’s hypnotic spell weakening him until he’s so tired his eyes flutter shut. He forces them open, desirous to stare forever and soak in more of the colors, but his weary eyes fall again. He lets out a soft yawn.
“Getting sleepy?” Mira says. “Go ahead, drift away; you can still see the colors in your sleep. They’re everything that is, now.” She leans closer and softly croons, “Go to sleep, drift away. Sleep in my coils, dream of me.” The end of her tail squeezes his bearded face, puckering his lips. She moves in until their faces are all but touching. “Sleep . . . Sleep . . .”
She closes the gap and kisses him with a deep, encompassing embrace, and Sean gulps as her tail locks around his throat. Her eyes continue boring into his, but her tail tightens as if she’s paying more attention to the rapture of the kiss than she is not accidentally killing him. But there are no neurons left in his brain not so soaked in hypnotic power that any amount of pain can jolt him out of it; instead the squeezing scales magnify the ravishing bliss. It overcomes him; with a ping chiming in his head a broad smile stretches across his face and he stiffens in her coils. His eyes drift shut, fast asleep, no dreams but Mira and her swirling eyes of brilliant colors.
Mira holds the kiss on Sean, but seeing his eyes shut she ceases the colors in her own. It’s not until she ends the kiss several seconds (or maybe half a minute) later that she realizes she squeezed him rather tight and releases the pressure to where his body would remain comfortable. She shifts her coils so the scales rubbing him are cooler ones that haven’t been in contact with his skin. After moving to sit behind Sean’s head she smiles and combs a hand through his scattered hair.
She did it. She got someone to have and hold. Not somebody who sought her out, who just wanted her superficially with no charming on her part—no, she took someone and drew them to her through her own actions. She’s in control. She hunted him, tricked him, trapped him, and took him.
“WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIIIIEND!” comes a sudden shout that breaks the jungle silence. Fortunately for Mira even such a shout can’t bring Sean out of her spell, though it does nearly throw her out the tree. Unfortunately for her that shout comes from somebody she wished had already left.
Me!
A puff of smoke appears among the trees and when it clears there floats another puff of smoke, or rather a cloud. A laugh emanates from it as it zips and rolls about the trees until it settles near Mira, not much bigger than her head.
“I’m thinking about getting wings, do you think I should get wings? Maybe like, butterfly wings, make them pulsate alternating colors—you know what I mean! Oh, and I found this bow and arrow from somewhere.” Said bow and arrow emerged from the fluff, the arrow’s end like a sharp heart with rings of color. “Already skewered two rabbits and a tortoise with it. Love is fleeting, you know.”
Mira glares at the intruder, but I don’t care!
“It’s a good thing your boy toy is drown for the count, eh?” The Cloud seems to speak. “This’d be way more confusing than seeing a lamia. Good job on the whole thing though, very stylish, loved the rotation and the big finish was fantastic.”
Mira blinks—her face lights up but screwed in confusion. She didn’t expect any sort of praise from this gadfly.
“Oh, uh, thank you,” she says, “I think.”
“Yep, it almost made you look competent. Of course, you’d never have made it without me orchestrating it. He wouldn’t have even showed up, let alone made it to the tree, or been able to be snagged. In fact, you might say this is really a victory for me. Ha, ha, ha!”
Mira’s face falls. She looks at Sean and smiles but her eyes are downcast. “I guess so.” Yes, despite it all, she has to wonder if she really is the one who obtained her lover, if she really deserves this victory.
“Who knows!” The Cloud floated next to her. “But hey, lemme know if you ever need help catching somebody else after he inevitably escapes. Happy to help lead you again. But for now, I’m content, and I am outta here!” With that I shoot into the sky and out of this story! That’s it! That’s definitely the end! There’s definitely not a sequel to this!
Chapter 2, ironically
If you like this story, check out my Sponsus and consider donating! You can get weekly WIP updates and read more secret stories!
Duth Olec's Cuckoo Cosmos 