I first saw the alien when I dropped in at the Gay Nineties club after a hard day at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. It was not too unusual to see aliens on T.V. these days: Earth had been discovered by the expanding interstellar civilization three years earlier, in 1993, but Minneapolis was still far enough off the main commercial routes to make an alien appearance in person a rare event.
Oh, I knew about the alien trade delegation in town, of course- how could I have missed it with all the publicity? Minnesota had been suffering chronically depressed conditions in its agricul- tural and mining industries for decades-the governor and the mayors of the state's two largest cities, along with leading members of the local business establishments were giving the forthcoming conference all the hoopla they could muster. It had even been a hot topic of conversation in my own grain futures firm, where I had worked since graduating from college four years ago. Still, I had hardly expected to get off work at ten in the evening and find one of the aliens in a gay bar!
I had long been interested in this particular species of alien because of its resemblance to a certain domestic animal I had a thing about. Unfortunately, the domestic animal was too small to do much with without doing it serious injury and its larger relatives were much too dangerous to fool around with.
The remote ancestors of the Ailourians had been an animal that almost exactly resembled the Earthly domestic cat in external appearance. The species had taken to the trees and become arbo- real hunters, developing digited hands, opposable thumbs and a prehensile tail to aid their pursuit of prey from branch to branch. Later, when a drying of the climate caused their forest habitat to shrink, they came down from the trees, increased in size and evolved in intelligence just as we Earth humans had.
Thus, what I saw on entering the bar was essentially a six-foot- six cat standing at the main bar, taking a swallow of his drink. There were some differences, of course. The forehead had moved forward as it had in humans to accommodate the larger brain and the paws had become hands with five fingers and a thumb. But there were few other changes, since the teeth and jaws had not shrunk as they have with humans. I could tell he was male from his body size and his age must have been equivalent to the late teens in humans, judging from the sleekness of his short black fur and the tautness of his powerful muscles. The jeweled medal- lion about his neck proclaimed him a member of the other world's noble class. I could not place the meaning of the gem-studded golden tiara encircling his brow, however. He was liberally adorned with numerous other expensive jewels, but the only item of clothing he wore was a gem studded cloth-of-gold loin cloth about his midsection. A jeweled cloth-of-gold cape lay on the bar stool next to him. He took another swallow of his drink as I moved towards him as if hypnotized. He drew in on a cigarette, expelling the smoke in an easy, relaxed stream through his nos- trils.
My cock had sprung to attention as soon as I saw him, thrusting urgently against the imprisoning fabric of my suit trousers, but I realized I had to feel him out carefully. I knew nothing about how his culture felt about gays and, while those claws on his hands and feet might look like human toenails and fingernails, I knew that they could extend out into three-inch long scimitars that could disembowel a man in less than a second. Those power- ful feline muscles alone could literally tear a human in two. And those long canine teeth in his mouth could sever my head from my body in a matter of seconds.
He would have to be equipped with such an array of natural arma- ment, I reflected, to dare go alone into the central city of one of Earth's urban areas wearing enough precious gems to equal the gross national product of many third-world countries! The rest of the sparse week-night crowd in the bar apparently sensed the potential danger too as they kept well away from him.
His tail stirred and his long white whiskers twitched as I came up to the bar beside him. His ears flattened back against his head. I lit a cigarette to cover my nervousness as I sat down on the next stool. Now that I was up close, I could see the answer to a question that had long bothered me and which I had never been able to make out from the brief T.V. appearances of members of this species. Humans have the largest genitalia in proportion to their body size of any animals on Earth and, from the long, columnar enormity that strained against his loin cloth, I had a feeling that whatever evolutionary forces had impelled this species on its road to intelligence had apparently produced the same result, crotchwise.
I took a final admiring sideglance at the contrast between my wavy blond hair and his black silky fur before I made my move. I had to look up as I spoke since he had six inches in height on me. "Did you pick this bar for any special reason?" I asked, trying to make my voice sound casual.
Two enormous, glowing green eyes speared me as he turned his head and I was momentarily lost in the twin pools of luminescent fire. I recovered my awareness in time to see his eyes flick downward to the bulge in my crotch. He leaned over towards me in a fluid, feline motion. "The same reason you're here," he purred in my ear, with an unusual accent.
His long, raspy tongue flicked out then to lick my ear and I felt a shock of icy coldness run through my entire body, as if I had suddenly been flung into a bath of cold water. I went wild. My hands reached up to pull him against me and I lost myself in the feel of his fur and the musky odor of male cat scent. He re- sponded, continuing to lick my ears and face before his tongue flicked into my open mouth.
We rose and moved towards the bar entrance together by common unspoken consent. He was slightly drunk and I became strongly aware of the odor of alcohol on him mixed in with the male cat scent and the tobacco aroma on his fur. With the edges of my mind I was aware of the shocked glances from the other patrons in the place. "I hope I know what I've gotten myself into!" I thought. "I won't be able to stop him if he decides to spray the whole house, and I don't know how he'll get along with Alexander and Hephaestion."
We didn't go to my place, however, heading instead for the gleam- ing metallic saucer-shaped antigravity vehicle that he had parked in the lot next to the bar. A drunk staggered towards us, rais- ing a broken bottle in his hand threateningly. My new friend hissed and arched his back. I stepped forward intending to kick the drunk in the balls and disable him before my friend got us both involved in the first interplanetary murder case. The sight of the aliens unsheathed claws and gleaming white fangs penetrat- ed even the drunks alcohol-fogged brain, and before I could reach him, he staggered away in terror.
My new friend drew me into the circle of his arm as he operated the vehicle's controls with one hand. "What's your name?" I asked as we ascended swiftly into the air.
"Kontar," he answered, "Kontar isem Taurid."
"Mine's Brad Carson," I replied.
The antigravity vehicle continued rising, soaring in one smooth motion from the parking lot of the bar to the roof of the Amfac Hotel, less than four blocks away. Within a minute of leaving the parking lot, we were setting down in the heliport on the hotel's roof. We took the elevator down to one of the penthouse suites.
Our hands were all over each other as soon as we had entered the luxurious suite. He removed my suit coat and tie and undid the buttons of my shirt while I merely had to unfasten the clasp of his golden cape. He removed my shoes and undid my pants while I slid his loin cloth down over his legs. Our cocks sprang free to point at each other. It is a standard joke about porn writing that everyone has a twelve-inch cock, something very rare among humans. But here at last was the reality: his twelve incher dwarfed my own thick nine inches.
I shivered as his tongue licked my ear. We half-fell, half- pulled each other down on the wide expanse of the enormous water- bed. Then his rough cat tongue was flicking over my cock and balls. I twisted and cried out in my attempt to get away from a pleasure too intense to stand. He held me down while he rotated into a sixty-nine position over me, thrusting his own throbbing enormity down my throat while exquisite knives shot through my cock as he began tonguing it again, more gently this time.
I sucked on that cat cock for dear life while the ecstatic tor- ment shot through me from my crotch. Several times he stopped tonguing to lightly nick my meat with his teeth-not hard enough to cut the skin but strong enough to prick it-driving me even wilder.
I wanted to hold back, but the pleasure was too intense. I shot my ball load deep inside him at about the same time his own torrents of cat cum geysered forth into my throat. I lapped up every drop of his subtly-accented ball juice before I came up for air.
We clung together for several minutes and then he turned me over and without a word slid into me with that enormous cock. I began to get hard again as his feline hugeness penetrated every recess of my bowels. I soon felt his vigorous maleness spurting forth into me yet again.
I must admit I couldn't keep up with him. Some members of the Earthly cat family, lions for example have been known to mate every fifteen minutes for twenty-four hours when a sexual partner is available and Kontar was one of those members-and I was cer- tainly available. I must have come about six times before the evening was over- he came at least twice as often.
Dawn was breaking when we lay against each other, our passion spent. Every last drop of tension from my previous hectic day at the Grain Exchange had been drained out of me from our marathon sexual orgy of the night before. I lay on my stomach, warm and happy while Kontar licked me from head to toe with his tongue. "Will I see you again?" I asked my lover.
"Of course," Kontar answered. "It should be obvious from last night that I like you."
"Why don't you come to my place tonight?" I asked. "The accommo- dations aren't quite as luxurious as they are here but I have a good job and you might find them adequate."
"I can make it about six," he replied. "I have an important conference today but should be free by then."
He rolled over and lit one of the unusual-appearing cigarettes I had noticed earlier on the end table by his bed. He exhaled the smoke smoothly as he offered me one. "It's been tested and shown to be compatible with your metabolism. At least it's no more harmful than the native narcotic you Earthlings smoke."
I inhaled cautiously at first and tasted the unfamiliar spicy tanginess as it rolled over my palate. "You seem very young to be entrusted with the responsibility of a major trade conference," I remarked as I exhaled the smoke.
"Actually all the sons of the noble houses are expected to begin taking on such responsibilities around my age," he replied. "As a scion of the royal house this conference would normally be something I would have learned to handle several of your years ago. Arranging a trade deal for your state's meat and grain for our mining colony on Antares IV isn't that complicated. What I am really here for is to set up a trade in some of your native narcotics. Your tobacco, for instance," he said pointing to the pack of cigarettes lying next to my discarded clothing, "should prove to be quite in demand among our people. It's been shown to be no more harmful to us than it is to you and our medical tech- nology can forestall any damage it might do. Your marijuana and some of your stronger drugs should turn out to be the basis of a lucrative trade also. I'm afraid we'll have to ban the catnip you sometimes give your domestic cats among our people, however. It's been shown to set off a murderous killing frenzy in our species and would do even more damage than it does if the user weren't so uncoordinated and disoriented by its effects."
"A son of the royal house!" I exclaimed. "I realized you must be a member of your nobility from the medallion around your neck but I didn't dream you would turn out to be a prince!"
"You can tell by the tiara around my head," Kontar replied. "It is an insignia that only members of the ruling family are allowed to wear."
Since it was getting late, I showered, shaved, and had breakfast in Kontar's suite before going directly to my job. We nuzzled each other affectionately before we parted.
I had worried about how my two cats, Alexander and Hephaestion, would react when Kontar appeared, and when he arrived, it seemed for a while that my fears were justified. They arched their backs and hissed as soon as they laid eyes on him and then took refuge under the couch. But he held several tempting morsels for each of them just beyond their hiding place and meowed softly. They poked their heads out cautiously and began to nibble. Within ten minutes they were purring softly on his lap.
"I see now, Brad, that we were attracted to each other for simi- lar reasons: there is a small species much like your native monkeys that we keep for domestic pets on my home world. I've always liked them but they're too small to do anything with without hurting them. I didn't have a chance to do anything about my fantasies until I came to your world."
"How would your own people feel about your proclivities?" I asked. "I didn't know how your culture might feel about gays when I approached you last night."
"Our culture has no problem with it," he answered. "Of course, as a prince of the royal house, I am expected to produce sons of my own to carry on the royal line. But there is a lesbian prin- cess I know, a second cousin. We have agreed that we will marry when the time comes and that she will receive my sperm by artifi- cial insemination. No one will care what we do outside our marriage as long as the next generation of Taurids comes along."
Another fear was allayed after I had put dinner on the table. With those powerful teeth and jaws, he would have been able to gobble his food directly from the plate. But whatever cultural forces had operated during his people's long climb to civiliza- tion had apparently produced the custom of eating with utensils, or else he had been carefully trained in their use before being sent to negotiate with Earthlings. He manipulated the knives and forks and used his napkin as correctly as any member of Earth's social upper crust could have. "I wasn't sure your people would use knives and forks, since your jaws and teeth haven't shrunk like ours," I finally ventured.
"The custom of eating with utensils has been long established on Ailouros," he replied with a smile, "although our own eating utensils are somewhat different from yours. I was trained in the correct use of your own implements before I came here, of course."
After dinner, we took our liqueurs into the living room. Kontar lit a cigar as he sat down on the couch and handed one to me. "I'll stick to cigarettes," I said, motioning it away. "I tried one of those once during my early teens and was sick as a dog for a whole day."
"That's probably because you inhaled," he replied. "Also, your body wasn't used to tobacco then. I brought these because they're just right for a beginner. Don't inhale; just take it into your throat and taste the flavor."
I inhaled cautiously. "The flavor does have something to recom- mend it," I thought. I inhaled again when I felt no rumbles portending an impending volcanic explosion from my stomach and leaned back against Kontar's muscular arm. I took a sip of my cordial. I was conscious of the softly silken feeling of the fur on his arm against my neck and of the powerful feline muscles rippling beneath.
We told each other something more about ourselves while we re- laxed with our drinks and cigars. I told him about my struggles growing up in a poor family in Northeast Minneapolis and my fight to acquire an education. He told me more about his life as a royal prince. It seemed that he was not some distant collateral relative of the king but was actually fourth in line to the throne.
He leaned over and licked my ear as we crushed out the remains of our cigars. I shivered and jerked as the cold fire shot through me once again. Kontar's licking my ear was turning out to be a sure way of driving me wild. I had once had a domestic cat lick my ear and it had sent the same electric shiver through me, but not as strongly as this! Kontar continued licking my ear while I writhed in his unbreakable grip. "Your dinner was wonderful," he purred in my ear as he unbuttoned my shirt. "But now the real fun begins. I don't think we'll have any problem entertaining each other for the rest of the evening, do you?"
My cock was twitching uncontrollably by the time he got my pants off. I shot into him as soon as his tongue rasped over it. He held me down while I struggled vainly to get away from a pleasure so powerful I couldn't stand it. I was weak and trembling by the time the final delicious spasm shot out of my balls. We contin- ued to make love through the night. Fortunately, my inability to come as often as he did did not matter since he loved to fuck and could go on for long periods of time before cumming. Eventually, he even let me take him in his tight, feline ass. The feel of his furry asshole around my cock was sublime.
Our affair was bound to attract notice, of course. The first to comment was the gay community- and there were people who disap- proved, even though Kontar and I were not hurting anyone, and those others took it upon themselves to express their disapprov- al. These were the same people who always dump on the sexual minorities within our community-people into S&M, drag queens, handballers, transsexuals, anyone who isn't as "respectable" in the eyes of straights as possible-and the only reason they don't make themselves really respectable to the straights and denounce just being gay is that they can't stop being gay themselves. The first phone call came one night during the second week of our relationship.
"Is this Brad Carson?" The voice asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"I've been watching how you're into alien bestiality with that cat and YOU'RE SICK!" he said, hanging up.
I blew up. What the snippy little queen didn't realize was that I made enough money to afford one of those phone attachments that display the number of whomever is calling you. I dialed him right back.
"Listen you gutless faggot," I said when he answered, "why don't you take your anger out on whoever made you so hostile instead of dumping on other gay people? Go home and beat up the bullies in your school yard or your parents if they abused you. Take up martial arts training if you aren't able to do it now."
"Fuck you," a snippy-sounding voice replied.
"You can say 'fuck you' for the rest of the evening," I snapped back, "and it won't change the fact that you're no better than a straight bigot who makes obscene phone calls to gays. If you ever wonder what motivates them to go out of their way to hurt someone who hasn't done anything to them, you only have to look at yourself. Well, if it takes fear of the straights to keep some of you faggot snips civil, I'm letting you know that I'm just as capable as a straight guy of giving you a busted lip if you mouth off to me." I hung up with a bang.
Of course the snip had to get revenge. With that kind of anger built up over years of being told by the society that he wasn't worth shit because he was gay, his only other choice was to direct it onto the straights but he didn't have the guts to do that. He contacted a straight reporter he knew on the local paper and the word also got back to a reporter for our local T.V. station, one who had already managed to get a gay judge thrown off the bench for a consensual relationship with a male hustler who was a bit less than two months short of being 18-even though sixteen is the age of consent in Minnesota.
Kontar and I were having dinner in a restaurant when the snippy bitch queen showed up with the T.V. reporter, a cameraman and the newspaper reporter in tow. Kontar knocked the reporter and the cameraman clear across the restaurant with one blow of his powerful hand pads. I was glad to see that he controlled himself that much. If he had used much more force, we would have had two dead men on our hands. I left the snippy queen writhing on the floor after I knocked the wind out of him and left the reporter with a broken jaw. I'd been waiting for the chance to do that for years.
For a while, it looked like the trade negotiations were going to be sunk by a major media blowup. Word reached the rest of the alien delegation and got back to Ailouros. I was present in his suite when his triple-great grandfather, the sovereign of all Ailouros and Emperor of the Ailourian Hegemony called. The hyperspatial waves carried Kontar and his grandfather's images across the light years, while the two hissed and yowled at each other in their harsh, meowing native language as I stood in full view of the holovisor camera. If Kontar was willing to stand up for me to his progenitor and sovereign, I sure as hell wasn't going to slink away, even if I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying.
At length, the dual cacophony of hisses, yowls and arched backs wound down and they concluded their conversation on a normal level. After switching off the apparatus, Kontar belted down a triple screwdriver before he pulled me down on the bed beside him. "Thontaur said everything would be all right if I could still pull off this trade deal," he told me. "I told him I could handle it."
He was right, the commercial establishment in this state really wanted that trade agreement and what the establishment in this state wants, it gets. The reporters were quashed and their stories killed. Oh, I know that the powers that be have a liber- al image in Minnesota but there is an iron hand beneath those velvet gloves.
With the impending successful conclusion of the negotiations and Kontar's departure, the moment that both of us had avoided talk- ing about was fast approaching. Kontar was the first to bring it up, about a week before his departure, one night when he was at my house.
"Have you ever thought about coming back to Ailouros with me, Brad?" he asked.
I lit a cigar before I answered. "It just wouldn't work," I said. "I know we like each other." I hesitated before going on. "Maybe I should even say I love you. But I couldn't go to Ailou- ros as your pet human. I had to fight like hell to get off the streets of Northeast Minneapolis and get where I am now. I'm supporting myself and doing a damn good job of it. I won't change that-even for you."
Kontar drew me into the curve of his arm before he answered. "And I love you, human. You misunderstand my proposal. We want to employ you as our liaison with Earth in carrying out the trade agreement. You'll be well paid-extremely well paid since you will need to be very wealthy indeed to live in a manner befitting your position as the true beloved of the fourth in line to the throne of Ailouros!"
I shook my head, "It still won't work. I'll give up everything I have here, I'll be left with nothing if we should ever fall out. I still can't do it."
Kontar nibbled on my ear. I was acutely aware of his musky, male cat odor, mixed with the smell of cigar on his pelt. "You still misunderstand. You'll be working for a joint Ailourian- Earth consortium and your company has agreed as part of the trade deal to take you back if you ever want to return to Earth. You'll have to come back frequently in any event to properly oversee the expanding trade between our people. I regret that, but I knew you'd never consent to be a kept boy."
Kontar's tongue flicking down my throat cut off my joyful assent.
The following week was hectic, as I had to arrange for a caretak- er for my house and wind up my other affairs in that time. There was an expensive formal dinner to celebrate the agreement the night before we left. I caught a glimpse of the figure I cut in my tight-fitting dinner jacket in one of the mirrors as I circu- lated around the ballroom exchanging pleasantries with the guests. All the leading big-monied families were there, the governor, along with the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I had to bite my tongue when talking to some of them who had pre- sided over a six-year wave of arrests of gays in adult bookstores and parks, and who had done nothing about police brutality against gays.
My former boss was there too, of course, congratulating me on my success-quite a change for a man who had had to struggle to keep from denouncing me for being openly gay. The only reason he struggled was because he realized my value to the company.
The extravagant doings finally came to an end in the early morn- ing hours and Kontar and I wound up in his suite. We were sit- ting on the edge of the enormous bed when Kontar asked, "Have you got all your things packed for tomorrow?"
"Yes," I replied. "Everything that hasn't already been shipped up to the starship is right there in those bags over in the corner."
Kontar crushed out the last of his joint before he began to undo the button of my dinner jacket and I began to remove the ceremo- nial bronze armor he had worn to the party. "Good," he said as he licked my ear. "We won't have anything to distract us for the rest of the night."
Well, that all happened a hundred years ago. So you may ask how can I still appear to be a man of twenty-five? Simple. You should have figured it out when I mentioned the argument between Kontar and his triple great grandfather. The Ailourian anti- aging treatments were easily adapted to human physiology and I was the first to benefit.
Kontar is now the sovereign of all Ailouros and Emperor of the Ailourian Hegemony. The relatives who were ahead of him in line all died in the Saurian and Avoide wars. But Kontar proved to be a consummate military genius upon his ascent to the throne and those former enemy empires are now in their proper places. I don't have to worry about losing him to a similar death in bat- tle. Yes, we're still together. Oh, we've both had many others over the years, of course, Ailourian, human, and many other species. But we both agree that we are each the one being who will always be special to the other.
With the anti-aging treatments, I figure we've both got at least another two centuries of virile young studhood ahead of us!
I awoke and prepared myself, my assigned valet dressing me in the ceremonial armor for the High Mass that I was to attend. It was heavy, gleaming, powerful, expensive. I would not own any like it until after my first sacks as a Templar, and even then I would wear it rarely. I was girt with a weapon that favored me; clean of line, yet not bright of blade. A bright blade is soon to rust, and then must be cleaned; this scouring often harming the blade's integrity.
It was no ordinary High Mass, for this was the day that I became ordained as a Knight Templar. It was a full ceremony, and a long one; thankfully in the shade of a elaborate church with cool, vaulted ceilings. My thoughts ran back to my vigil the night before, lasting many hours, and what I felt as I stood guard over the seals of the nine grandmaster's of the Order.
My father was a mercenary, but became a Landed Knight through service. I, his third son, could inherit nothing but his wisdom and skill, both of which he imparted to me in all their worth. He was determined that I join the Knights Templar, for all the right reasons. They were powerful within the Church; they were rich, rich, rich; and they were perhaps the most elite force to exist. I trained pretty much for all my life to be worthy of them, and I was accepted as an Initiate, to serve for a minimum of three years to prove my worth, and in that time, I was squire to several knights.
My father had hinted at it, and so did those I serve. There was something especial about the Templars, something beyond esprit de corps, personal skill, and perfected field technique. I heard many stories of the power of God rushing through the Knights as a group, the stories of the feats of the grandmasters of the order and what they were capable of, but I only saw it once.
My master at that time, Andre Glaucon, had been a Knight for several years; he came into the order rich, and was known to rely on his armor more than truly necessary. He was masterful with the lance and the spear (he learned the spear coming from the outland regions) but poor with the sword, at which I was better than many Knights. I battered him about the field with the practice-sword, until it became obvious that I was training him, and not the other way around. Gradually, he built up a rage, a rage that intensified his skill instead of degrading it. Then, he exploded, and threw a blow so fast I blocked only by instinct, and still it clove my shield in twain. With a wooden sword, he did this!
My return blow knocked him a dozen feet, but just made him even more angry. He charged me, and I stepped aside, slamming him on the back, but he was without feeling. He spun, and his blow shattered my practice sword into flinders in my grasp. I threw him to the ground, pinning him, but his strength was demon- ic, and I could not hold him despite his poor leverage.
But just as I lost my grip, he calmed, and regained himself. The next day, I was assigned to another knight. Perhaps I had seen something of what makes the Templars the holy warriors of God. I would have to be careful not to fly into such a rage myself, lest the circumstances truly warrant the use of such power.
My mind flicked back to the ceremony. Strangely, I did not feel empowered by the High Mass. As I drank the wine and ate the wafer, rather, all power seemed drained from me, and I felt light, empty and powerless. I managed to walk to the Master for the rest of the ceremony, receiving my blow and my knighthood. I must have blacked out somewhere in the run to leap upon my steed, and I do not remember making the strike, but I did, and I rode forth from the town, clinging to my steed like a babe.
Once away from the Church's grounds, I felt centered upon my horse. It was a Liath Mactha, a grey of battle, and power flowed up through its beating hooves to me from the earth. I felt well again, and I rode to the castle of the Templars where I was first assigned, there being no immediate fighting. I arrived just after dinner to much cheering and fanfare, received a repast, and joyously took another heated bath. My last conscious thought, as I luxuriated in the huge bed and clean sheets that were now my right, was a delirious joy at the quality of the plumbing system of the castle.
I awoke when I realized that I was lying on stone, and not sheets. Sensing motion about me, I leapt up into a cloud of incense, and weaved about an empty-handed blow at me. Unbidden, my motions were swept into a rhythm of chantings and beatings of drums, and I hop-scotched over intricate chalk lines in the dimly lit, smoke-filled room. Lashing out with a foot I caught my assailant in the side, crashing him to the ground. He was up in an instant, and rushed me. I took a stance, and felt the power flow up from the earth into me, filling me strangely, rushing into every hollow drained by the High Mass. The fight became a dance, and my opponent could not touch me; every time I struck him, his power exploded out as if he were a powder puff, entering me. His steps grew weaker, and I drained him dry, leaving him lifeless upon the floor.
I felt an exaltation. I had, through skill, taken another's power, strength, and life for my own. I was the conqueror. I stepped into a larger circle, delirious with my new power, and confronted another man, wearing no clothes as I did but his face covered by a monkey's mask. His fighting was clever and power- ful, canny, but mine was tactical and graceful, control and skill. I left him unconscious and made his power my own as well. Next, I fought a man with the horns of a stag, in a larger cir- cle. He bounded and leapt, and attempted to take the fight to me, but I made myself the Hunter, and he, too fell before my onslaught, and I added his power to mine.
I grew aware of the hugeness of the chamber, and many men chanting outside in a language I did not know. Some wore robes, most wore only paint. I felt larger, larger than life, full of power, and stepped into the fourth circle. I saw that I was heading towards a huge dais, and the pentacles into which I stepped became more and more intricately detailed. Perhaps some part of me might have wanted to flee, but it was long subsumed by the huge power residing within me.
The fourth circle held the Giant, who looked down at me and grinned evilly. He threw a boulder at me, which I shattered with a slap, and then I raised him off the ground as Heracles did to Antaeus, and crushed the life out of him, redoubling my strength. In the fifth circle, I slew the Minotaur by taking each of his horns in a hand, and breaking open his skull. I was imbued with the powers of a demigod at least by this time, walking into the sixth circle, the one holding the dragon. The fight was hard, the flames of the dragon almost enough to make me falter, but then I realized that they were power too, and took them for my own, absorbing it into my shield while I made my heart's thrust with my blade. The dragon's blood fountained out, covering me, and by its power my skin was made invulnerable like that unto the skin of Achilleus.
I stepped triumphant into the final circle, the most intri- cately drawn. The chanting and drumming reached their peak and stayed, and the fog of incense cleared, allowing me to see who sat upon the dais, who sat upon the throne, who presided over the proceedings.
The ancient texts named him Baphomet; Satan Mekratrig's warrior-duke. My sword and shield were limp in my grasp as I looked up, as he was many hundreds of feet tall. His head was the head of an ibex, with the outward-spiralling horns, gazing inscrutably down upon me with the eyes of a beast. His shaggy chest was traced with scars delineating his prowess in battle, inflicted perhaps by a flaming sword. He stood, rising from his throne, on the legs of a goat, stepping into the seventh pentacle on cloven hooves. In his right hand he held a sword cold as ice, and his left stroked his impossibly huge phallus. As the warri- or-magus, he wielded the primal Wand, and his scent struck me a nigh-physical blow with the power of his maleness. I staggered, and could not bear the weight of my shield, letting it drop into the abysmal pit below my feet, lost.
His sword came down in a strike of stunning complexity. Each swath of ice threatening to leach my power I blocked, until finally the blades struck, and mine was shattered through no fault of mine own; the block was perfect but the sword insuffi- cient.
Baphomet's grin was terrible to behold.
He held out his hands, inviting the challenge. The power rushed back through me, and I accepted, locking my fingers with his, using all my strength in the age-old game. He towered above me, pushing down, but still I held, and pushed back. His strength doubled, and doubled again; still I held, and forced back. I became a statue, exerting all my strength while his doubled and pressed ever down against me. Then, his height became in relation to mine, and his cock curved up from his bestial crotch, engorged with blood, to my mouth. To break my stance would be to be crushed. The head of his phallus pressed hugely against my lips, rubbing and wettening them. With his strength ever doubling, I could not help but open my mouth to breath, allowing the cock entry. Shifts of his body and torso in attempts to dislodge my stance rubbed the head against my help- less, panting, licking tongue, overwhelming me with the power of his scent and taste.
His strength redoubled again, and I began to bend, my mouth now filled with his Wand. Still his strength increased, and I had to move. I twisted his arms in my grip unexpectedly, stepped in, felt his weight shift as I pulled him to throw over my hip, his right hoof scraping, unsteady,
And he pushed me laughably to the hard floor, spinning and pinning me on my back. Reorienting around the tip of his cock in my mouth, he thrust it home to the back of my throat and beyond. It slid, oiled, for an eternity until my face was embedded be- tween his hairy thighs and held tight there, only able to breathe the aroma of his heavy, full sacks. Though I could not see it, his tongue serpent-like struck between my legs and slid up be- tween my cheeks, forcing me open and greasing me with its slime.
Finally he released my throat, allowing me to breathe. My respite was only momentary, as he forced me to my hands and knees and mounted me like a beast. Time lost meaning as I became his concubine, his tongue wrapping about my neck as a collar, invad- ing my helpless mouth and throat, and reaching down to where his hands brutally held my cock and balls by virtue of which to pull me back and forth on his rod in a piston-like action. I was helpless as the object of his demonic lust, lost in sensation, able only to serve as I was subjugated by his true power.
I began to explode, unable to contain him as his power spurted forth into me, coating me for faster, more powerful thrusts and explosions. My every cell was inundated with his lust, heated to white-hot, until I could take it no more and lost consciousness.
I awoke the next day, and knew that now, I was truly a Templar. I felt the power of the demonseed filling me, and knew that I could release it at will, that I had the true power within me, and I was Baphomet's, now and forever.
-- "Do not TAUNT Happy Fun Ball."