House of Dark Delights (9 page)

“Gloria Deo Domino Inferi,”
chanted the chief friar, his thrusts echoing the slow, measured cadence of the incantation as he glorified, praised, and thanked Lord Satan, his Infernal King and Almighty Emperor.

Dashwood uncoupled from Lili without spending and rebuttoned his robe. He strode solemnly to the opposite end of the table, bowing to Lili as he crossed in front of her, and removed the black cloth from the silver paten that sat atop the chalice. The little plate held a reddish, triangular biscuit made from angelica root, which the Hellfires waggishly referred to as “Holy Ghost Pye.” Lifting it in both hands toward the portrait of Lucifer, he beseeched his lord to accept the offering of their “host.”

Elic, in keeping with his role in the profane pageant, helped Lili to lie down on the mink-draped altar table so that she was stretched out faceup along its length. He peeled back the sheer muslin only as far as her throat, leaving her face veiled and the rest of her utterly, breathtakingly nude. Bathed in the sanguine haze that filled the little chapel, she could have been Aphrodite herself, rendered in Titian's supple, luminous brushstrokes. She was, indeed, the very embodiment of beauty and erotic desire.

Setting the wafer back on the paten, Dashwood lifted it from the chalice. Uncovered, the silver goblet's contents released the sweetly noxious aroma of brandy infused with what could only be sulphur. He raised it to the image of Satan while reciting a prayer of offering of the “chalice of fleshly lust.”

Setting the chalice on the altar, Dashwood held his arms out, palms down, and implored his “dark Lord and Sovereign” to arise, that his servants might kneel before him in adoration. Harry handed him the incense boat, opening the censer to be filled. Spooning up a few of the tarry little nuggets from the boat, Dashwood sprinkled them onto the hot coals, producing a thick, resinous smoke unlike anything Elic had ever smelled before. Not so Lili, whose eyes, even through the veil, widened with surprised recognition.

Holding the censer by its chain in his left hand, Dashwood encircled the chalice and wafer three times counterclockwise. He bowed, swung the censer thrice in the direction of the Satanic portrait, and bowed again.

Archie offered the dish of warm oil to Elic, who dampened the fingers of both hands and rubbed his palms together to slicken them. Lifting Lili's left arm, he oiled it with long, sleek strokes up to the wrist, then did the same to the right. Re-oiling his hands, he smoothed them down over Lili's shoulders and chest. He paused at the upper slopes of her breasts. They were round and ripe, in contrast to her slender limbs and exquisitely tiny waist.

Dashwood, meanwhile, set about censing the altar itself by walking slowly around it with the censer spewing smoke as it rocked back and forth. Passing behind Elic as he anointed the Bona Dea, the chief friar said,
“Dominus Inferus vobiscum.”

“Et cum tuo.”
Elic kneaded the lush mounds until they glistened. His fingers were so long that most breasts felt small when he cupped them, but these were a perfect handful—warm, full, and wonderfully soft.

Lili's eyes drifted shut on a sigh as he squeezed and stroked. Her tight little nipples grazed his palms, making his cock stir.

Oiling his hands yet again, Elic glided them over Lili's stomach and mons veneris, burrowing his fingers through her silken muff. Although it was not part of the protocol for this segment of the
missa niger,
he couldn't resist the urge to glide a finger lightly along the gaping slit. Her hips twitched; her breathing quickened.

Reluctantly, Elic moved on to Lili's legs, feeling the muscles beneath the supple flesh; she was strong for a woman. The gold anklet was an archaic, even primitive-looking piece of jewelry, burnished with age. Hanging from it was a deep blue, gold-rimmed disc that looked like lapis lazuli.

“Sursum corda,”
Dashwood said as he completed the first of three slow circumambulations of the altar.
Lift up your hearts, brothers.

“Habemus ad Dominum Inferum,”
responded Elic, along with the rest of the congregation.
We lift them up to the Infernal Lord.

Harry brought the ebony jewelry chest to Elic and raised its lid. Tucked into its velvet-lined interior were two pairs of gleaming gold circlets in the shape of snakes, one pair bracelet-sized, the other somewhat larger, each circlet dangling a short length of chain. Elic chose one of the smaller bands and slid it onto Lili's upper arm close to the elbow. Making sure the little chain was in front, he snugged the armlet in place by squeezing the soft gold until the snake's head was almost touching its tail. The chain terminated in a little clasp made to look like the talons of a bird of prey. Taking hold of Lili's right nipple, Elic affixed the clasp to it.

After adorning her left arm and nipple in the same manner, he raised both arms over her head, wrapping her hands around the shafts of the two iron candelabras just above their heavy bases. This position arched her back and pulled the chains taut, thrusting her breasts up high and tugging her nipples in a manner that Elic surmised, from her expression, to be more productive of pleasure than of pain.

Still circling the altar, Dashwood said,
“Gratias agamus Domino Inferno Deo Nostro”
as he swung his censer, adding to the cloud of darkly aromatic smoke hovering overhead.
Let us give thanks to the Infernal Lord our God.

“Dignum et justum est”
—
It is right and just to do so
—replied Elic as he withdrew one of the larger gold circlets from the casket. He slid it up Lili's right leg to the very top of her thigh and squeezed it in place with the chain once again positioned in front. At the end of the chain was another talon clasp. This he attached, very carefully, to her right outer labium.

A sort of drunken wooziness overtook Elic as he repeated this process on the left side, although he'd taken not a drop all evening. He saw himself as if from above, adorning this naked, faceless stranger with these obscene ornaments, and experienced a peculiar detachment, as if he were watching the actions of another man through the eyes of Satan in that ridiculous painting. Noticing Dashwood's glassy eyes as he handed the censer back to Harry, it occurred to Elic that the incense, or whatever it was, must have some sort of narcotic power.

Having completed his censing, Dashwood extended his arms and recited a paean to “Lord Satan, God of Power,” concluding it with
“Hosanna in profundis.”

A dozen voices echoed,
“Hosanna!”

Dashwood stood before the altar with his back to the congregation and unbuttoned his robe, prompting the congregants to do the same. Gazing reverentially at the portrait of Lucifer, his cock in one hand and his balls in the other, as if in offering, he exhorted his God Satan to gather his power and arise. The rest of the Hellfires followed suit, save for Elic, to whom Archie handed the aspergillum. The brass shaft felt heavy, hard, and cold; he chafed it with his hands to warm it.

“Credo in Satanas, qui laetificat juventutem mea.”
Dashwood stroked himself erect, as did those congregants who were not yet fully tumescent. “I believe in Satan, who enriches my youth. I worship Thee.” Bowing, he kissed the dark nest between Lili's thighs.

Elic, standing across the altar table from Dashwood, widened Lili's legs until her heels were at the very edges of the altar. This had the effect, because of the chains attached to the leg bands, of pulling her sex lips wide open, exposing the entrance of her damp little nick, against which Elic positioned the aspergillum. The instrument being more sizeable than that of the average man, and a good deal more rigid, he nudged it in slowly to allow her flesh to yield to the harsh intrusion. He heard a ragged little sigh issue from her throat, though perhaps it had come from him. In his befuddled state of mind, he couldn't be sure of anything—except his own white-hot arousal.

“In spiritu humilitatis suscipiamur a Te, Domine Satanas,”
chanted Dashwood as he rubbed himself faster, Archie beating the gong in time with his strokes.
“Et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi.” In a humble spirit may we be received by Thee, Lord Satan, and may the sacrifice we offer be pleasing in Thy sight.

Elic pressed the aspergillum deeper into Lili's weeping quim. Her hips rose and fell languorously, her breath fluttering the veil over her face. She let out a little growl of gratification as he buried the instrument fully inside her. He thrust it in rhythm with the gong while caressing the slippery folds of her sex, very lightly for now, and avoiding the clitoris lest she come off too soon. The Bona Dea was not to spend until the chief friar's initial discharge; Elic's instructions had been quite exacting on that point.

Harry fetched the cauldron of water, standing at the ready as Dashwood masturbated in earnest.

“Come, Lord of the Temple,” chorused the congregants, still displaying their privates, though most had ceased diddling themselves, no doubt in order to save their pent-up lust for the banquet. “Come, Lord of the World. Come from the Gates of Hell.”

“Behold Satan's bride,” Elic said as Lili writhed to his teasing touch, her expression rapturous through the veil. “The Infernal Lord is within her.”

The candelabras quivered in Lili's grasp, casting an odd, stuttering luminescence over her shuddering body. In Elic's intoxicated state, it seemed as if time itself were advancing in jerky little snippets instead of smoothly and seamlessly, as it ought to.

Archie beat the gong faster and faster in time with Dashwood's strokes as the chief friar beseeched Satan, in a voice grown hoarse, to accept his offering.
“Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae sed et cunctae familiae tuae, quaesumus, Domine Satanus, ut placatus occipias.”

Dashwood, his face blood-flushed, nodded to Harry, who positioned the cauldron to receive the impending oblation. Thus forewarned, Elic grazed the edge of Lili's clit with a slick fingertip, drawing a gasp of startled pleasure from her. She thrust her hips up in a wordless plea for release.
Not quite yet
. Elic gentled his touch, withholding that release as she writhed in an agony of need.

Gripping the edge of the altar table, his hand fisted in the fur, Dashwood gave himself a few firm strokes, then stilled. A low groan rose from his throat as he ejaculated into the chalice held by Harry.

Now.
Elic thrust the aspergillum faster as he massaged Lili's most sensitive flesh in a way that he knew, from long experience in pleasuring women, would bring her off instantly. She cried out, her back bowed, as she climaxed. What an exquisite sight she was, thrashing in sensual abandon. Elic's cock rose against his belly, hot and hard and aching; his balls felt as if they were stuffed to the bursting point with gunpowder. Were he to climb atop this table and take this woman right now, he'd go off like a howitzer the moment he entered her.

Panting, Dashwood squeezed out the final spurts into the chalice, straightened up, and rebuttoned his robe. Taking the chalice from Harry, he raised it to the portrait of Lucifer.
“Domine Satanas corda nostra mundet infusion, et sui roris intima aspersione foecundet.
May our hearts be cleansed by the in-pouring of our Lord Satan, and may He make them fruitful by sprinkling them with the dew of His grace.”

“Ave Satanas,”
Elic said as he drew the aspergillum out of the breathless, sated Lili, stroking her trembling hip as he did so.

“Hail Satan!” cried the Hellfires.

Elic handed the aspergillum to Dashwood, who dipped it into the chalice of water mixed with his spendings. Crossing to the back wall of the sanctuary, directly beneath the Satanic portrait, he shook the brass phallus twice onto the floor while blessing it, in the name of Satan, with the “seed of life.” He repeated this benediction at all four corners of the sanctuary and returned the aspergillum to the altar table.

Turning to the congregation, Dashwood said, “Let us pray.”

Together with the Hellfires, Elic recited,
“Pater Noster. Qui es in Inferis…” Our Father, who art in Hell…

At the conclusion of the heretical Lord's Prayer, Archie handed the chalice with the ladle in it to Dashwood, who bowed over it, saying,
“Hic est calyx carnis stimulous.”

Taking the chalice from Dashwood, Elic held it over his head. “Behold the chalice of voluptuous flesh which gives joy to our life.”

Archie then offered the paten to Dashwood, who lifted the little wafer.
“Hoc est corpus Inferno Deo Nostro.”
He touched the red-tinged wafer to each of Lili's nipples, then pushed it into her damp slit, saying, “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts that gave Thee suck.” Withdrawing the wafer, he held it aloft, saying, “Behold the body of our Lord Satan. Accept the body of Satan and the chalice of voluptuous flesh in the name of the Infernal Lord.”

The congregants, their hoods still low over their eyes, filed out of their bank of misericord chairs and approached the sanctuary in a single file procession. The first man, whom Elic recognized from his stature as Lord Bute, withdrew his cock as he ascended the altar steps. He bowed to Dashwood, who said,
“Corpus Satanus,”
as he touched the wafer to the tip of the semierect organ.

“Amen,” responded Bute, who came to stand opposite Elic at the altar table as the second man approached Dashwood. Lowering his hood, Bute bent to confer a ritual kiss upon Lili's quim, gliding his tongue along the pink flesh in a way that made her sigh with pleasure.

“Sanguis Satanas,”
said Elic as he ladled a bit of brandy from the chalice into the little hollow of Lili's navel. Bute lapped it up with evident relish, straightened, and said, “Amen.” Raising his hood, he stepped aside for the next communicant.

One by one, the Hellfires took their turns. Bringing up the rear was Lord Turek, who walked up to Dashwood holding a rigidly erect penis that was bowed, narrowing toward the tip rather like a Turkish dagger. After receiving the host, he lowered his hood and approached the altar table, eyeing Lili with icy rapaciousness.