Enlightening and delightful.

It began as a cascade of imagery, all without any sense of cohesion or order. A castle in the distance. Banners with indigo coloring. A quill. Books on a desk. A statue of an elven woman. A rainbow-colored bird. The book with the seven-pointed star in a pair of hands. My hands? No, but also yes.

Then, like the snapping of a ribbon, it is pulled taught and straight. Everything began to line up. Was there actually a ribbon in front of my eyes? A deep purple band? Perhaps for only a second, because what was in front of my eyes now was the statue at the top of a small flight of stairs overlooking a grand hall. The hall was framed on both sides by nine other statues of various shapes and likenesses. On the right-hand side of the chamber there was a spot for a tenth statue that was conspicuously vacant. All of the figures appeared to be dressed in mage-like garments save for a few.

“This way,” a voice said beside me. I turned briefly to see an old man with a long beard the color of rusted iron who was stooped over in severe old age. I wanted to peer at this stranger longer, but I was not in control of my moments. My face turned away and as he began to walk, I followed. My body felt strange. Not only was I lacking control of my movements or actions, something about it was different, it felt different.

I was shocked when my head turned down and took a quick glance at my feet as I walked. I was dressed in typical commoner clothing, but that wasn’t what struck me. The shape of the body was… wrong. It wasn’t mine. The feet were not slender and dainty, they were long and thick. There wasn’t even a hint of a bulge at my chest, just a broad torso. I was in a completely masculine body, not the feminine form that I had grown used to. I could even feel the tickle of a beard on my chin.

“Where are we going first?” I asked in a voice that was not mine. It was deeper but soft.

“First we need to get you a familiar, child,” the man replied as he suddenly vanished at the foot of the stairs and reappeared at the top in an audible but quiet pop. Though the sight and sound had been quite startling to me, my body didn’t seem the least bit surprised by it. The man continued as my lanky legs carried me up the steps, “A mage’s familiar is their link to the magical world. Knowing what your familiar is will help us to know what school of magic best fits you.”

“What are the schools?” My mouth asked.

“Abjuration, evocation, conjuration, divination, transmutation, enchantment, alchemy, necromancy, illusion, and malcantment,” the old man prattled off the list almost offhandedly. He put a meaningful pause before the last one, “Pray to the gods ye don’t end up with the last one, tis an unwelcome one.”

The brain of this lanky body didn’t seem to mind it, but I did. I knew this word, or at least knew of it. When I had first seen the book, my mind told me the seven-pointed star was a key part of maclantment magic, though I had no idea how I knew that. I desperately wanted to speak up and ask this old mage more about it, but the body I was currently inhabiting didn’t seem to share the curiosity. It just continued on walking behind him.

All the same, it seemed my time here was nearing an end. I felt myself slipping away from the sights and sounds of this strange lanky man, but control was not returning to me. Instead as the scenery around me melted away it revealed the forest I had woken up in. Once again, as in the dream I had before entering the Scarlet Tail, it was ablaze with that strange pale green flame. Standing amidst it was the woman who had called me Silus.

Her features were clearer than they had been in my dreams, she had long, pale blonde hair and eyes that glistened a deep green on the outside of the iris, but burned a pale green like the flames around her pupil. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on, and in that instant, I knew that the one she had been talking to was me after all. I couldn’t quite explain how I knew. In the same way that I knew that my current appearance fit my soul like a glove, the way this woman looked and sounded fit my heart in the same sort of way. I could feel a heaviness in my heart, the likes of which I hadn’t even known was there, lift when she smiled at me, and then sink again when tears touched her gorgeous fair cheeks.

“Your blood,” she said, “it knows. Trust your blood.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I replied, desperately.

“Your instincts. Your blood is molding them, follow them and we can be together. I may never appear this way to you again my dear Silus, but together we shall be. You will know when the time is right. I am closer than you think. And now that you know me, do not shy away from the embrace of others, I am a demon like them, and I am not envious. I want others to know the love I feel for you, as it is the greatest feeling I have ever known. Moreover, some of them need your help, do not be afraid to lend it to them.”

“Who are you?” I asked, but it was too late. The scene was sinking away from me into darkness.

I awoke, blinking my eyes confusedly, and immediately upon my emergence from the shadowy lands of dreams I ejaculated forcibly.

When I had blinked away my confusion, I saw that I was lying in Melandra’s room, the soft whites and purples of her decorations hanging about in stylish ways. I was in her bed, and so was she. I sat up, much in the same way she had upon our first meeting, and saw the white-haired omen woman bobbing her head up and down along my length, dragging her lips along the shaft of my erect cock and drinking the cream that shot forth from it. She hungrily and happily drank it down, humming with pleasure, humming louder once she realized I had awoken.

I would allow this, her lips were soft, and after all the woman in my dreams had told me to allow such things in no uncertain terms.

“Mm!” when she had finished, she slid off my penis and smiled wide at me, “Awake at last?”

“Yeah. How long was I out?”

Melandra tapped her chin thoughtfully, “I won’t know until I see the clock in the common room, but my guess is eight hours. A full night’s sleep by your world’s standards. But if you count the time you were under hypnosis, it was probably an extra hour. Partway through you had fallen asleep on me.”

“Hypnosis, you hypnotized me?” I asked, bewildered.

“Aye,” she replied, “at your request. But that’s the trouble with falling asleep during, I can’t make sure you remember what happened so by default you just don’t. I used this.” She reached behind her and drew up a silver coin like the ones I had seen before, except this one had a deep purple ribbon threaded through its center hole, making it into a necklace

I blinked, I had a vague idea that I had asked her to put me under, but nothing concrete. I shrugged.

“In any case it seemed enlightening. You told me all you remembered from it. Fascinating stuff. I just let you sleep here, and when I woke up before you, I decided to enjoy myself for a bit. Hope you don’t mind.” She giggled and then slid a soft tongue along my shaft in a slow, deliberate crawl.

I didn’t mind, but wasn’t quite finished with my line of questioning, “So what are your thoughts on what I told you, then?”

She removed her tongue and instead used her hand to stroke it, slowly but intensely as she spoke, “Well, it’s been about a hundred years since I was bound to my mortal companion, so I don’t know if it helps, but my guess is that you were enrolled in some sort of magic academy. The lack of one of the statues make me think it might have been one in Faulka, but only if the missing monument was to the founder who practiced malcantment. Last I was aware, the royal family of Faulka didn’t like malcanters much.”

“Do you know what malcantment is?” I asked, “I feel like I know the word, but I have no idea what it means.”

“I should hope I do, it’s the sort of magic that bound me to a mortal.”

With that one sentence, it all clicked into place, “So it’s magic used to bind demons to mortals?”

“Aye, it’s also used to counteract that sort of magic, but that’s not its main purpose. You see, when a mortal binds a demon to their soul the mortal gains the powers of that demon, as well as their servitude.”

I nodded. So, the book I had was a tome on malcantment, if the symbol was anything to go by.

“I don’t know if there’s much more to glean from that vision than that,” Melandra said, “we’d need more memories to draw from. I don’t know if more hypnosis would do much good, but I did leave an **** trigger in your mind that would help you remember more. There’s not really any telling when it might apply though, since you fell asleep before I could give my own trigger. Now it might be anything. My recommendation to you is to wait for more visions. If they come around, come have a session with me and I’ll help work through it.” She smiled enchantingly like she had the previous day.

“Thank you, I appreciate all of this, really I do.”

“Don’t mention it, I get more than enough payment from this lovely thing. I might have been playing with it while you were under. Got you to cum five times.” She giggled as she squeezed the member harder.

“Well, glad you were enjoying yourself,” I said, but couldn’t help but let a little disappointment seep into the statement.

“You wanted to be conscious while you enjoyed my services,” Melandra concluded from my tone, and she was spot on. When I nodded, she giggled and said, “Sweetie, I’m one of your whores. Free service, remember? Say the word and I’ll more than make up for it until Ivy comes kicking down the door.”

I smiled, “You have yourself a deal. Why don’t you finish what you started when we first met?”

She grinned wide and leaned down, enveloping my stiffened member in her mouth slowly in an embrace that was almost maddeningly delightful. I watched in amazement as her mouth went lower and lower, sliding down until her lips were flush with my belly. She had taken me so far, and without so much as a gag or even a wince. I felt the muscles of her throat ripple around my hot cock in a quick and wonderful wave of pleasure. Then she slowly pulled herself back up, her heterochromatic eyes half-closed.

When she had pulled up at last, she gasped in a quick breath through her nostrils, no doubt pulling in my scent before lowering herself once more. I shifted my position and angled myself on the bed so that she could continue her amazing oral session while I reached out and grabbed one of her naked breasts in my hand. They were like clouds in my palm, confirming how soft I assumed them to be when we first met.

Meanwhile, she was moving very slowly and deliberately with her mouth. It wasn’t really in a teasing way, it was deeply satisfying and oddly relaxing, and it certainly wasn’t lacking for pleasure. I knew I wouldn’t last long like this, I needed to concentrate on something else before I exploded too fast.

“Climb on top of me,” I said, “I want to return the favor.”

She removed my cock from her lips extremely slowly before regarding me and smiling, “If that’s what you like.” Then she did as requested, climbing on top and swinging around so that her glistening soft pink pussy was in my face. I grinned at the sight of it, it was lovely. A delightful pink rose of flesh topped with a neatly trimmed tuft of hair the color of polished silver, though this tuft was currently below the sex at my current angle. Framing this delicious-looking flower was her ass-cheeks, which I greedily grabbed and found them to be almost as soft as her breasts.

I felt Melandra’s mouth wrap back around my rigid shaft, going all the way down to the base again. I took that as my cue to lift my head and lick the pink flesh between her legs. Her nectar tasted wonderful and I began to lap at it hungrily, doing by best to make my own movements deliberate. This wasn’t in an effort to make the experience more enjoyable, though that was certainly part of it, it was mostly to have something to focus on to distract me from my own need to climax building at my groin. Something told me it would be much more satisfying to hold onto it until the time was right.

Luckily, Melandra was unwittingly helping in this regard. Her pace was slow enough that my need to climax came in waves. When I reached the peak of such a wave, I simply concentrated harder on pleasuring my pleasurer. She had apparently given quite a few orgasms to me, I was determined to give her at least one of her own. I pressed my lips against hers and slid my tongue into her, exploring her slick fleshy walls with it. I could hear her give a soft moan around my cock as I did. Occasionally I would suckle on the little nub at the hood of the sex before returning to the tight cavern below it, tasting all it had to offer. I loved it, I felt like I could get drunk on its taste alone.

Finally, I felt like I could hold on no longer, and was almost saddened by this until I felt Melandra’s own kitty begin to twitch. She was getting ready to climax herself, so this was the perfect time. At last, I let the floodgates loose and began to shoot my long stream of cream into the silver-haired beauty’s mouth. In the meantime, I wrapped my laps around her clit again and this time just lightly bit down with my teeth. Not hard, but the gesture seemed to be appreciated because she began moaning wildly and loudly around my member, the sounds being muffled into hums instead. These satisfying sounds were only broken by the sounds of continuous gulping noises which were just as much music to my ears as the moans.

When we both released each other, she rolled off of me and then spun around to cuddle next to me. We were both panting.

“Now I know you did that out of some sense of obligation,” Melandra began looking up into my eyes with her own purple and magenta ones, “and I do appreciate it, but you ought to know something about demons, since you’re a human and probably don’t know better.”

I raised my eyebrows, turning my head slightly to look at her better.

“You are aware of the phenomenon that allows demons to have instinctual knowledge about whether another individual is attracted to them, and that this actually affects whether or not the reverse will be true, right?”

“Yes,” I replied, “Kori told me about it.”

“Well, it doesn’t just stop at our attraction to a person. In sex it means we get an extra boost of pleasure if our partner is enjoying themselves, most demons are able to ride that high all the way to a satisfying time. This is just a roundabout way of saying you don’t need to make sure your partner is getting something out of the encounter, they always will even if you’re the only one who gets the goods.

“Some demons don’t even need sexual contact to be satisfied. A lot of Vixi’s clients just partake in mutual masturbation and are perfectly satisfied with that.”

“That’s definitely good to know.” I nodded, taking in the information and stowing it away in one of my mental boxes.

After deciding it would be a smart idea to check the clock and to check in with Ivy, I left after thanking Melandra for her help and her services rendered. Once I found Ivy we discussed more about all the the things that happened the previous day, and she gave me my share of the earnings for the night. After that, I considered what to do next.