Masque Macabre

For earlier stories in this series, see "Bite of the Schlange" and "Siren Song Symphony"

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The black ship glided up the Italian coast and hove to in Laguna Venita. The Venetians were a strange and decadent lot; only they would sustain a tradition of a two-day annual festival "celebrating" the twelfth-century visitation of the Black Plague to their canal city with a series of public and private masked balls. For most of that time the Schlange had been in attendance, and this year would be no exception.

By the time the black ship was dropping anchor in the eleventh hour of the last day of the festival, most Venetians were satiated and had taken to their beds in a drunken and lust-drained stupor. At this same time, however, Vincenti, the young prince of the Lombary House of the Lancias was just arriving for his annual visit to the Serraglio Masque at the city state's most exclusive male brothel.

As the prince's golden gondola swept up to the canal portal of the moldering palazzo on the Calle del Forno in the city's San Polo district, the prince's two burly bodyguards, blond Nordic musclemen both of magnificent, foreboding proportions, clamored out of the vessel. One tied off the boat to one of several posts lining the brothel's dock, while the other pounded heavily on the heavy bronze door to the old palace. Both were dressed as eunuchs, although the prince could readily attest that both were in full possession of masterfully working equipment. They were only bowing to the spirit of he celebrations, as this was a masked ball, traditionally calling for a harem motif.

When the door had been opened and the identity of the visitor, the scion of an ancient noble family turned profitable carriage coach makers, had been established, the prince emerged from the low cabin of the sedan gondola. He stood tall, beautiful, patrician in the gondola before being handed up onto the dock by one of his bodyguards.

He held his head high, giving the impression he was looking down on everyone around him, including his two Nordic bodyguards, each of whom towered nearly a foot above him. His straight, Roman nose flared at the distasteful smells of the Venetian canal, and his eyes flashed, pale blue, incongruous against the jet-black, curly hair haloing his handsome face, itself a stark contrast to the alabaster skin tautly stretched over an admirable musculature of a well-worked body in its prime.

In contrast to the convention, and probably to flaunt it, Vincenti was dressed—or more precisely, undressed—as a Roman gladiator, in short Roman skirt, gold sandals, with golden-roped lacing winding around his well-turned calves, and gold snake armlets encircling his bulging biceps. At first appearance he also appeared to be wearing Roman chest armor, but these looks were deceiving. His chest hair, which flared down from under his nipples and met at the sternum to descend into the low-riding waistband of his Roman skirt, had been gilded and arranges in filigreed curls, augmented by body paint that simulated filigreed torso armor. His abs were cut so perfected that, painted as they were, he initially seemed to be armored. His simulated torso armor seemed also to have tassels at the nipples, which, in reality, were gold nipple rings with ruby inserts.

In keeping with the prince's exalted position, he was met at the door by the brothel's "madam," a tall, willowy Turk of yet-to-fade effeminate beauty, at one time the favorite of the house and now its administrator. The keeper of the brothel was dressed in diaphanous, transparent harem pants, a scarlet-red sash, and gold bangle jewelry in every conceivable place, from nose ring to toe rings. He had black straight hair that cascaded down to his waist. His face was painted to a point where he could be described more as beautiful than as handsome—or could be if his face could clearly be seen behind the veil he wore.

The madam and the prince conferred in low tones momentarily, and the madam snapped his fingers and two meaty men in harem garb who were standing beside double doors to the right of the entrance opened these portals wide and the prince and the madam stood on the threshold of a suddenly noisy chamber in full sexual celebration. A ball was going on to the tune of a small instrumental ensemble in which the mood was distinctly gay and a good many of the invited guests and "entertainers" were already well into balling.

The prince looked, scowled, raised his patrician nose toward the ceiling, and sniffed.

"No. None of these," he said. "Young, slight, but well-formed, black . . . and, most important, fresh."

The madam whispered to the prince, who snapped his fingers, and one of his bodyguards stepped forward with a purse.

Weighed down with a bit more gold, the madam smiled and turned the prince to the doors on the other side of the foyer, which he opened himself.

The prince's eyes lit up with more interest and after a few moments, he pointed, and a small, but perfectly formed, nubile and Nubian, youth of eighteen or nineteen, thick-lashed eyes downcast, and dressed in filmy, billowy harem pants that revealed perfectly rounded buttocks and a small cock pert little balls stepped forward into the foyer. Other than the harem pants, he was wearing only a blue velvet vest that barely closed on his nipples on either side and a gold necklace and gold anklets.

"And full equipment as usual," the prince commanded.

"Ah, yes. We must discuss that; that might be possible," the madam said in saucy, teasing tones.

The prince snapped his fingers again and the purse reappeared. The madam snapped his fingers then and a servant appeared, received instructions, left briefly, and reappeared with several lengths of scarlet roping, a black-leather hand whip, and two black-leather dildos, one quite thick, long, and with a decided curve.

The Nubian's eyes went large when he saw these, but he quickly looked down again and stifled a small sob.

The prince had taken this in and was well pleased. This indicated to him that the youth either was virginal as promised or was a very good actor, either of which would suit the prince's needs very well.

The prince having indicated his satisfaction, the madam turned and, with mincing and jangling steps, led the procession of prince, Nordic bodyguard one, Nubian youth, and Nordic bodyguard two up the grand staircase to a bedchamber two floors higher.

The bedchamber was opulently appointed in red and black silk and damask, with maroon-based oriental carpeting spread across the floor. A sturdy four-poster bed occupied the center of the room, and French windows were open to the canal side of the palazzo, beyond which there was just the hint of a lacy iron balcony.

The five men entered the room, and the prince stood languidly leaning against the frame of the window, watching the traffic on the canal below, an offshoot of the Grand Canal, while his Nordic bodyguards lay the Nubian on his back in the center of the bed and tied off his wrists and ankles at the four corner posts. The madam stood near the door, the Nubian's harem pants, vest, and sandals in his hand, watching one of his prime investments being prepared for downgrading in his stables. He sighed satisfactorily, though. The price had been very good, more than he had expected. He asked in soft tones if everything was satisfactory, if the prince needed anything else.

"What? Oh, no. That will be all. You may go. My men will stay at the door." The prince had almost missed hearing the madam. His attention had been arrested by a gondola, with six men wrapped tightly in black capes with hoods and a golden-haired gondolier, which had just turned into the canal from the Grand Canal. The gondolier looked inviting. The prince had considered ending the night with the young, comely red-headed gondolier who had poled them here—and had paid him to remain at the dock for the return journey. But the prince rather thought we preferred the blond in the gondola with the six hooded men.

But who knew where that gondola was going, he thought, with a little sigh of regret. He turned and waved his bodyguards in the hall. Soon they were standing straight on either side of the closed door into the chamber, trying to look like they weren't hearing and enjoying the sounds of whimpers and moans and groans and short cries from beyond the closed door.

In the canal below, the Schlange and his five assistants were arriving at the brothel's canal entrance. The Schlange looked up the facade of the old palazzo as they glided toward it, and his gaze was arrested by the figure of the prince leaning gracefully in the French window on the third floor. The Schlange instantly knew what he wanted this evening. And he knew that room. He had used it several times himself in recent centuries.

The madam heard the knocking at the door and slid open the eyehole to see who was there. His eyes grew large and he staggered back toward the back of the foyer. It had been years since that monster had chosen this brothel during the annual of the Masque Macabre, but the madam had remembered that visit all to well. He turned to run, but stumbled on the hem of his harem pants and fell beside the staircase.

Knocking was a mere formality. The Schlange had the key to the door.

The madam heard the key slide home in the door and it swung open, and the six figures were swarming into the foyer. Tossing aside their hooded clothes. Those five loathsome satyrs. Big, hairy, heavily muscled, swarthy, nasty looking, with cloven feet, pelted legs, horns, and snapping tails. But, worse than that there was the Schlange. Almost human form, but not quite. A man's physique, of magnificent god-like proportions. But his skin was greenish and scaly. His face was flat and handsome and ugly all at the same time—nostrils, but practically no nose. Uncloaked, the monster was naked, and between his heavily muscled legs was the thick rope of an appendage, an inhumanly long and thick cock, at the head of which a bulbous slitted mushroom cap. Out of the slit flicked a red, forked tongue.

As the madam struggled back up, gripping the posts in the staircase for leverage, he saw the monster's almost-lipless mouth opened and a red, forked tongue darted out—toward him.

The madam started running to the back of the foyer again, but slipped and disappeared around the side of a high, wooden cabinet against the wall opposite the side of the staircase.

The Schlange slowly moved through the foyer toward the back, as the five satyrs burst into the room where the Masque Macabre was under full steamy bacchanalia. The initial sounds from there were ones of conviviality and welcome of the new surprise, but these soon turned to gasps and groans and cries of mayhem and debauchery as the satyrs took their fill of forceful lust.

Meanwhile, the Schlange overshot the nook that the madam had snuggled into in his journey beyond the staircase, and the madam briefly had a notion that he might be able to break free and get out the front door before he was caught. But the Schlange had known where he was hiding all along. The monster turned and sent his unwinding cock appendage slithering into the nook.

The frightened madam was burbling and making little yipping sounds as the Nubian's harem pants, sandals, and vest got tossed out into the foyer, followed by the scarlet sash. The sound of gasping and ripping fabric, and the madam was being dragged out of the nook, a long snake-like cock appendage wrapped around his waist, the end tendril already sinking itself in the madam's well-used hole. Long strands of black hair and the gleam of gold rings on dragging fingers were the last to be seen of the brothel's manager as he was being dragged into the shadows at the other end of the foyer.

Soon all was quiet in the ballroom, except for exhausted murmurs and spent sobbing.

The madam had been vocal for a while too, as the Schlange's cock appendage dug deep inside his slack insides, stretching and filling him as he never had experienced before, and he weakly objected when the mouth tongue latched onto his cock cap and started sending its flicking tongue down his urethra channel into his ball sac, but he was no match for the Schlange and was soon being sucked dry of his male juices and having the Schlange's numbing venom being pumped deep inside his intestines.

When the Schlange mounted the staircase to the third floor, the five satyrs were already there. Four were occupied with the Nordic bodyguards, who had already been subdued and had fainted under the attentions of the satyrs. Two each were still double-fucking the bodyguards with their massive, curved cocks, one from the front and one from the rear, with the beefy prey collapsed between them, arms drooping at their sides and heads lolling off to one side.

At a signal from the Schlange, he and the fifth satyr burst into the bedchamber, where the prince had finished with his toys and had just mounted a semiconscious Nubian youth, who was gurgling and mumbling softly to himself.

Despite the shock of the vision of both the Schlange and the satyr, not to mention the inability of his Nordic bodyguards either to protect him or voice any sort of warning of attack, the prince's quick reflexes were impressive. He slurped out of the Nubian and bounded for the open French window.

The Schlange was quicker. He turned and his cock appendage shot out across the room and wound itself around the prince's waist. Vincenti had reached the window, though, and he was gripping the frame, keeping himself from being drawn to the monster.

The satyr had fallen on the bound and helpless Nubian, who was very much conscious again and crying out at and writhing as best he could against the thick, curved cock the satyr was thrusting inside his barely used channel. The satyr quickly jerked away the ropes binding the Nubian. He wanted to play; he wanted the Nubian to struggle against him. They tumbled off the far side of the bed, and the Nubian pulled himself up onto the bed on his belly, his little fists gripping the silk of the bed cover in big bunches. The face of a sneering satyr, long, pointed tongue gliding up the back of the Nubian appeared above him. Long strong arms flowed along the Nubian's arms and satyr fists closed over Nubian wrists. The Nubian's mouth opened in a silent, breathless scream, as the satyr's cock head found purchase at his channel opening again and thrust home. The Nubian shuddered and his little chest bounced up and down on the coverlet, as the satyr began the pumping rhythm of his fuck.

The Schlange just walked toward the window, sending coils of his cock appendage around the waist of Vincenti. When Vincenti felt the chest of the monster pushing at his shoulder blades, he arched his back and lifted his feet and dug them into the Schlange's thighs in one last effort to propel himself out of the window and into the canal three stories below. It was his one chance at escape.

But the Schlange's cock head had slithered up under the Roman skirt and found the prince's hole, and Vincenti's mind was now occupied with screaming in reaction to that long, thick cock working up inside him.

He was still struggling when the Schlange rested his chin on the prince's shoulder and sent his mouth tongue slithering down across Vincenti's gilt-painted torso. It ripped away the Roman skirt on its way into young patrician's pubic thatch.

Vincenti's last writhing struggles were in response to the flickering mouth tongue piercing into his urethra and digging down to his ball sac and summoning up all of the semen he had been building to pump into the Nubian virgin.

Soon the proud prince lost his grip on the window frame and let his arms daggle at his sides, and his legs collapsed and he was suspending in air in the frame of the window and held against the massive chest of the Schlange. He whimpered and moaned quietly as the Schlange hummed his pleasure at milking—repeatedly—prime, virile flesh at one end and ejaculating—again, repeatedly—venom progressively deeper at the other end.

The Schlange had chosen well. The madam had been has a convenient preliminary. He could tell the quality of his lovers in the effect of their rejuvenation power on him. This one was prime. He would take time with this one. Keeping them sedated with his venom but on the edge of their recovery powers. The prime specimen could be brought into production and milked a couple of times an hour for quite a long time if farmed properly. Prime stock this one.

The gondola had extra passengers on its trip back to the black ship. The Schlange was in the low cabin in the middle of a third extraction from a panting and murmuring prince of the House of Lancia while he watched a satyr toying with a gasping Nubian in the middle of the gondola, keeping the young man at the edge, continuing to plow him and working at timed, mutual ejaculations, but not letting him slip away.

At the front of the gondola, a satyr was on his back, the prince's gondolier stretched along his body, the satyr's thick cock curved up inside the red-haired gondolier's ass from behind, while another satyr was crouched over the gondolier's hips and stroking the Italian boatman's cock and the satyr was pushing his cock inside with that of the other satyr's. They had just started on this one, and he was still being very vocal and lively and letting them know they were having just the effect they wanted on him.

The gondolier of the gondola that had brought the Schlange and the satyrs from the black ship, the blond the prince had fancied, was bent over the top of the cabin, his chest bouncing up and down on the cabin roof, as the fourth satyr fucked him from the rear. He seemed to be rather enjoying the servicing. The fifth satyr was poling the gondola out toward the black ship. Half way out, he would exchange positions with the satyr topping the blond.

The night was late. The celebration of the Masque Macabre was winding down. And the citizens of Venice had long ago taken to their beds to recover and heard and saw nothing of what happened at the Serraglio that night.

While the Schlange was happily humming and harvesting from Vincenti, running his hands all over the young prince's body, coaxing him to quicken production, his eyes fell on the Nubian. Perhaps a snack for later if there was anything left. And perhaps it was time to visit Alexandria. It had been centuries. He was sure there were Egyptians there in their prime.