Posted by hisdinner on April 04, 2004 at 18:39:00:
Chapter Three: Idun enters, and Loki leaves
Idun gathered apples in an orchard outside the hall of the gods. Without her apples, the gods themselves would age and die. When the elder god approached her, Idun offered him a golden apple. He sat beside the girlish goddess and refused the fruit she offered.
"Replace the apple in her lips with the one you hold, Idun," he said. He pointed down into the world of men.
Idun peered down into a darkened banquet hall and gasped.
Bonnie's head rested on a platter. A garland of wilting flowers surrounded her severed neck. Her blue eyes were dull under half-closed lids and her mouth held a red apple which seemed to have drawn its rich color from her lips, now palest pink. Her bones were strewn down the lengths of the abandoned tables. Wine pattered onto cold stone from discarded glasses, upended when the meat was gone.
Idun tilted her head and regarded the elder god. "As you wish," she said.
Idun crept to hall of the gods where Loki slept, besotted with wine, and stole his falcon skin. Robed in feathers now, Idun flew down to the treacherous world of men. The skies were clear. Even the night birds rested as she dove to earth, winds whistling through her stolen feathers. Idun reached the hall and settled onto the plank table near the silver platter and its ghastly ornament. Her great talons released the precious apple and it rolled to a stop against the platter's edge. Idun used her borrowed beak to dislodge the red fruit from Bonnie's mouth. Bonnie's mouth gaped open, a silent mourning wail. The falcon-goddess took up her golden apple and placed it firmly between Bonnie's lips. The falcon screeched and sent mice scuttling for shelter in the dark corners of the hall.
When the golden apple touched Bonnie's lips, the light changed. Thunder rolled, and a golden mist descended to obscure the poor girl's remains. The light rippled and a gentle susurration filled the air. Idun flew to the darkened rafters and watched. Waves of light and shimmery stuff formed curvy, sensual shapes out of the mists enshrouding the table and the ruined girl. Through the swirling shimmer, Idun could just make out a fantastic transformation. Bonnie, the gods' favorite pawn, was whole again. Now the platter made a pillow for her head, her slender neck rose from her slim frame, and her arms rested at her sides, palms up. Tiny clouds of golden mist lifted from her breasts and belly, and she lay there, exposed to the night and the gods above. Her body lay motionless; starlight made her glow.
"Why doesn't she breathe?" Idun shook herself out of the falcon's cloak and reached into her pocket for another apple. "One apple is enough for a god. Mortals may need more."
Idun leapt from the rafters, apple in hand. She would revive this lovely girl. Such skin, such hair! Idun marveled at the girl's beauty, once again unscarred, "Except that she has yet to draw a breath," the goddess murmured as she studied the lifeless girl.
Bonnie didn't move, not at all. Her body lay there, a perfection of sweet curves and planes. But her breasts did not rise for breath, her toes didn't wriggle, she did not arch and stretch and sigh. If not for her soft skin and hair, Bonnie might have been mistaken for an alabaster statue, waiting to adorn her own tomb.
Idun frowned, gazing up into the night sky. The elder god was patient, but she did not wish to try him longer. What he had commanded, she needed to accomplish for him, and soon. Darkening banks of clouds swept across the moon and lightening pierced the black depths of the heavens. Idun shivered and approached the girl. Best to try another apple now, than risk the elder's vengeance. Already she had Loki's wrath to flee. Loki would be furious with her, when he woke and discovered the theft of his falcon cloak. Idun did not want to contemplate her fate if those two male gods should turn against her. She hurried to the girl.
Bonnie's lips still held the golden apple. Idun brushed errant wisps of hair from Bonnie's face. She ran a finger down one soft cheek. "So beautiful," Idun whispered, as she gently removed the apple from Bonnie's lips. Bonnie's mouth parted, and Idun kissed her, soft, and long, and deep. She held Bonnie's head between her hands, then caressed her flanks and cupped one perfect breast. Bonnie's form remained motionless, so vulnerable. Idun took a breath and expelled it over Bonnie's silken skin. Tiny beads of moisture formed on Bonnie's breasts, but Bonnie's skin did not twitch, not even the slightest bit. Idun sighed, and caressed the girl, her hands seeking and exploring, parting her thighs, always checking for a stirring. Idun knew she must be quick, that this mortal should not be made to stay in some weird half-dead state. The elder god had commanded that Bonnie be returned to the living. But the dead girl transfixed her. Idun's hands could not resist Bonnie's soft compliance, her complete absence of resistance, her openness.
"Bonnie, Bonnie, why would any god wish you destroyed?" Idun petted and caressed the body of the motionless girl. Even as she spoke, she knew. A part of her longed to keep Bonnie this way, to keep this golden body to herself, to use its softness, to own this girl who could not resist, who could not turn away. Idun kissed Bonnie's breasts and belly, and relished every delicate sensation, her elusive flowery scent, her silken pelt. Idun knelt above Bonnie, and then lay atop her. Idun's body pressed warmth into Bonnie's cold one, Idun's tongue and fingers pressed and probed. The goddess reveled in the limp, still girl.
Thunder cracked and lightening split a nearby tree, startling Idun. Fire illuminated the two of them in smoky relief, one slender body arching, rocking above another whose body didn't move at all. Idun wept. "It's right they should punish me for this," she said, wrenching herself from between Bonnie's thighs, slipping down to stand beside the sweet, still girl. Idun sighed. She lifted the apple to her own mouth and bit it, then kissed Bonnie, pressing the piece of fruit inside her mouth. Juices ran wet and sweet onto Bonnie's full lips. Still, she didn't stir, or take one breath. Idun nearly despaired, bowing her head over the bitten apple in her hand. She stared at the fruit and then she smiled and kissed Bonnie's lips again.
"And now I'll put my seed inside you, sweet girl. Yes, I need to fill you in the only way I can," Idun whispered. "If I were a shape shifter as powerful as Loki, I would become a man."
Idun parted Bonnie's thighs once more, then she bit the apple and placed three seeds on her tongue. Idun's gentle fingers caressed Bonnie, opening the girl's soft petals, and then she thrust her tongue deep inside the lifeless girl. The goddess' seeds entered Bonnie's womb. Bonnie's body fluttered, Idun could feel it immediatley. Bonnie shuddered, and delicate spasms rippled against Idun's face. Idun stood and watched as Bonnie swallowed and choked, and sat up, gasping. Bonnie twisted on the table, disoriented, starved for air. She gulped in breath after sweet breath, her breasts jiggling as she filled her lungs. She touched her fingers to her cleft and then to her lips and tasted the sweetness there. She shook her head. Such befuddlement. She was safe, whole, and still tingling and warm from some sweet lover. But she'd been torn apart on this very table. Bonnie wrapped her arms around herself and rocked. Who had saved her? Where was that savior now? Bonnie placed a hand on her belly, and felt the warmth and fullness there. She smiled.
Tears and nectar streaked the goddess' face as she flew back to her orchard through the lessening storm. When Idun reached the darkened hall of the gods, she found Loki where she'd left him, sprawled out on the floor, a cask of wine tucked into the crook of his arm. Idun grinned. Undiscovered! She knelt and slipped the falcon-cloak into the satchel at Loki's side. "Nothing amiss here," she murmured, and began to rise. A rough hand closed like iron around her wrist. Idun shrank back from Loki's other hand as he slapped her face and twisted her up in a tight grip.
"Stupid apple-picker! You thought you'd fooled the Trickster himself?" Loki roared laughter, but his face bore no amusement. Idun heard the words she'd dreaded. Loki tossed his great head sideways, indicating the world below.
"Yes, I saw you. You stole from me. You usurped the gods' own apples and squandered them on a worthless girl. But the worst of all," Loki rumbled, shaking Idun in his powerful fists, "The worst of all is that you insulted me. How dare you think you could have got away with this?"
Loki tossed Idun to the ground and brandished his falcon's cloak. He shook it hard enough to let loose a rain of feathers. Idun blanched and lay at Loki's feet. She waited for her blows, for they were sure to come. No one angered Loki and did not pay. But the trickster had been distracted. A flash of gold caught his eye and he followed it. And there was Bonnie, exulting in the fine spring morning, standing in a brook, splashing water over her body and tossing her tangled hair to dry it in the sunlit air. Loki watched her as a slow smile crept across his face. Idun shuddered as he faced her once again. He spoke.
"Get back to your orchard. Tend your trees and say nothing to the old one," he growled. He turned and watched Bonnie as she padded into a soft meadow.
"I'll play out my revenge on her."
Idun's heart ached, but she scrambled out the door and into her shady grove.
Far below and well away from the feasting hall, Bonnie walked through tall meadow grass. It slithered and teased her legs, and it itched, but she had no shoes, and the road that wound through this meadow was rocky and it hurt her feet. For the tenth time in the last hour, Bonnie scanned the horizon for a sign of life, of human habitation. She thought she recognized the gigantic oak trees in the distance, but thought better of going there. Better to try a new direction than encounter another man who raised girls as meat, or encounter the butchers who devoured them!
So Bonnie wandered on through soft spring grasses for miles that day, seeking shelter, seeking food. "Clothes would be a blessing, too," she giggled, brushing pollen from her skin. It would be dark soon, and she was getting chilled. She touched her stomach as it rumbled. It was apples she craved, and she beamed sweet delight as she rounded a low hill and found them, three gnarled apple trees on the outside edge of a small farm. Bonnie stood on her tiptoes and plucked three apples from the tree, then sank to the nearby bench to devour them. They were tart and sweet in turn, and she gobbled them up as she rested on the sunny bench. She glanced toward the distant farmhouse and thought she could see movement in the barn.
"I have to chance it." She picked her way up the road, wincing and hopping as her tender feet encountered sharp stones. Bonnie reached the farm just as a coach emerged from the barn. Four well-matched chestnut horses pulled the coach. Bonnie's eyes widened. This was not the coach of the cruel woman who'd delivered her to the feasting hall, no. Bonnie sighed relief and smiled. The coachman had reined in the horses and stared at her, his head cocked, grinning. From inside the coach came muffled voices and then laughter.
A man emerged from the side of the coach nearest Bonnie. She blushed, remembering her nakedness, and attempted to cover herself. He shook his head as he tossed her his traveling coat. "Lose your clothes, young lady?" he asked.
"I...they were taken from me, Sir," Bonnie replied, shrugging into the heavy jacket. It hung to her knees and wrapped around her with room to spare.
"Taken from you! I'll wager they took a bit more than that." The man addressed the remaining occupant of the coach.
A blond man stuck his head out the coach window and laughed along with the first. "James, you'd bet on anything," he said, springing from the coach and gesturing back inside. "Let's take this little lost lamb inside and out of the cold. It's nearly dark."
Bonnie held the jacket tightly around her. "Thank you, but I... I shouldn't. May I spend the night in your barn, and then be on my way? I could tend and milk your cows and earn my board, Sir? I know how to muck a stable. I'd be most grateful."
James listened with growing amusement on his face. A laugh threatened his features, and he held it back as Bonnie finished making her request. "You want a bed in the straw, then, girl? And not a stitch to wear? I'll tell you what, my naked angel. Come to supper with us, Douglas and me. He has a place in town. We'll find you clothes. We'll feed you well. Then, if you're still intent on making your own way, we'll return you to the stable. And no mucking stalls, little one. You'll earn your keep by telling us just how you arrived in such a state."
Bonnie looked up at James, He winked at her, and made her blush. He didn't' seem to want to eat her. He didn't seem to want to pen her up. Bonnie bit her lip and nodded. "Sir?"
"I'm James, and this is Douglas, girl. And you are?" Douglas climbed into the coach, then both men helped her inside.
"I'm Bonnie, and I think I used to live just down the road." Bonnie blushed as she realized just how addled she sounded, like some half-wit girl. "But things have been very strange for me, ever since that big storm. You know the one I mean?"
Bonnie had nestled in snug between the gentlemen on the only seat. She tried to keep her bare legs from touching the men's trousers, but both men were large, and their legs pressed into hers. Suspended opposite their bench was a large bird cage, shrouded in velvet. James rapped once on the top of the coach. They began moving forward.
"Storm? Can't say I remember an especially bad one. But I've been falconing in the north country," James said, nodding to the covered cage. "My bird."
Douglas turned to face them both, tucking an arm around Bonnie's shoulders. "So you were turned out by a storm? Lost everything? Even your clothes? That's hard to fathom." Douglas smirked as he exchanged a look with James.
Bonnie took a deep breath, intending to tell them everything. "The storm came just as I was leaving home to...to find ..well, something better. The storm? It..turned me around, somehow. I got lost. I met the strangest people."
James slapped his hands against his thighs in apparent high humor. Bonnie frowned, a little miffed that he thought her plight was so amusing. James asked, "What sort of strangeness, my bonnie girl?" He smiled at her, then grinned broadly at Douglas, who winked back at him.
Bonnie pouted, remembering her encounter with that herd of naked girls, grazing in a field. How could she describe girls who believe they're cows? No one would believe her! "There was a farmer who had -- He had girls in his pens, and he tried to keep me there, too!" The words rushed out of her, and Bonnie flushed and looked away from the two men, tried to hide her own confusion by staring at the bird cage as it swayed with the movement of the carriage.
Douglas sat forward, reaching across Bonnie to tap James on the arm. "Kept naked girls in pens, she says! Now, that's a notion!" James chuckled, and Douglas touched Bonnie's forehead, and ran his hand over her head, petting her like a spaniel.
"Hm, she doesn't have any lumps, but it sounds as if Bonnie's been bonked on her pretty little head. She's not making sense. Or are you hiding something, sweetie? Did you sully your reputation, Bonnie? Did you play naughty games in the dark with boys? Did Daddy catch you in your brother's bed? Did Mama catch you sucking Daddy's cock? What ever you did, you can tell us, Bonnie. No more silliness now. Confess."
Bonnie felt them closing in on her as James talked. Monstrous, his insinuations. Bonnie shook her head as each one of his suggestions flew. They felt like blows, as if she were being slapped or spanked. And they were all foundless accusations! Bonnie blushed furiously and sputtered, "No!" What bothered her most was their hilarity. These men seemed to delight in her discomfiture. She turned first to Douglas, then to James and wailed, "No! None of that! Someone.... they tried to EAT me!"
The carriage pulled to a stop. Outside the horses snorted. They were home, and they knew it. They were restless to discharge their coachful of passengers and be watered and fed. Inside the coach, no one had spoken since Bonnie's outburst. Douglas and James had smiled, and patted her thighs, as if to soothe an agitated pet. Bonnie fumed inside and quivered for the chance to hop out of this coach and away from them. She'd find a disused stable somewhere, she'd sleep in straw tonight. And find work in the city, yes! the city, she was finally here! and buy clothes, and send back this wretched man's coat and never come near this place again and ---
A sharp clink of metal on metal startled her, and Bonnie gasped as James fastened a metal collar around her neck. It was rounded and heavy. From the collar hung a leash. Bonnie shrieked as James yanked the leash, pulled her from the coach and forced her to stumble up the walk to the door of a three story house. The evening breeze opened her borrowed coat and Bonnie shivered as she squawked and pleaded. James held the leash in one hand and pushed her forward. Douglas followed, some distance behind, carrying the bird cage.
Once inside, James stripped Bonnie of his coat and pulled her up the grand staircase and down a long, wide hall to the double doors at the end. Bonnie's feet stumbled in the plush carpets underfoot, and despite her furor and her terror at this new predicament, she marveled at the lovely furnishings. James pulled her past mahogany armoires and mirrors and beveled glass inset in lead-lined windows. He took her to the side of an enormous four-poster bed. She shivered still, and he watched her pant and try to catch her breath. Douglas hung the cage in a corner of the room and sat down by the fire, watching her, too.
Bonnie panted and felt her heart pounding hard as she steadied herself against the high bed. Was that it? "He wants to have me," Bonnie thought, "Why didn't he just ask!" She touched a hand to her collar and looked up at her captor.
"I promise I won't run. Please, take it off?"
James surprised her by nodding and using a fine thin key to unlock the iron collar. Standing close to her, he breathed in her scent and then he slowly sank to his knees, running his hands down her body, his strong grip flowing from her shoulders, to her flanks, to her thighs, finally ending at her ankles. Bonnie shuddered, but it did feel good. She was overwhelmed at the rapid changes in his behavior. He'd thrown her off-kilter and she hardly could think. But this? Look at him, smiling up at her, such a playful man, and how could he know that everything she'd said was true? He was really rather adorable, she thought. Kneeling there before her, like the perfect suitor. Bonnie melted. His hands felt so good. She smiled down at him.
"Thank you," she said.
"Not at all," said James. He groped on the floor by the bedpost, then struck something heavy and cold against Bonnie's slim ankle. It was a manacle attached to a heavy chain. James held her easily as he locked the heavy iron around her ankle. Bonnie tugged out a length of chain, and backed away. She found that she could not quite reach the window. The chain was fastened surely to the massive bedpost. And she was fastened to the chains. Douglas applauded from the couch, then stood and shook James' hand.
Douglas handed James an apple. "I believe this is what you said I owed you?"
Bonnie stood, mute and shaking, the heavy chain already making the iron chafe against her skin. She shook her head and whimpered, asking, "Why?"
James bit the apple and fetched his bird. "I've sold you," he said, holding up the apple as proof. "You're his slave now, serve him well. I'm off. I feel a thirst for apple wine tonight. And a certain orchard girl."