Coils And Coitus

This short story was commissioned by Hack_Blowfist and written by Vanessa Foxe (breedorbebred)

* * * * * * * * * *

The lowest branches of the bushes gently shifted in the evening breeze, and I felt the tension ratcheting up in my body. I'd tracked this buck for most of a day, following his tracks until I knew which pool he drank from every day just before nightfall.

I was far outside of my normal hunting range, but times were tough and game was scarce. After two weeks of fruitless hunts, I turned west and spent days hiking deeper and deeper into these old woods in search of fresh tracks. I'd never even heard of anyone venturing so far from the small villages scattered throughout shallower woods, but I was desperate. A couple of good deer could last me through the whole winter, and I wasn't willing to come home empty-handed again.

My long-awaited quarry finally stepped out, directly into my line of sight. My nerves tightened even more when he lifted an antlered head to scent the air. I was safely concealed behind plush undergrowth, but one shift in the breeze would carry my scent to him and send him running. Then I'd have to start all over again.

The buck wasn't huge, not even big enough to have a doe following him. But he was an adult, with twin antlers ending in five points each-- those would make for great chew-toys for the sheepdogs on my mother's farm.

Apparently confident in his safety, the two-hundred pound deer started picking his way through the murky dusk light. I turned slowly, keeping him directly in front of me as he walked, and raised my bow with painful slowness. It probably looked like nothing more than a stick among branches to him, and he didn't seem bothered by the soft creak as I notched an arrow and drew the string back.

An amateur hunter might take the first shot that presented itself, but I wasn't in the mood to spend half a day following a wounded buck until he finally dropped. I aimed carefully for the space just behind his front leg, and waited for him to turn his broadside to me. A perfectly-placed arrow there would pierce his heart and drop him instantly, or at least take out one or both of his lungs so he couldn't run very far. A quick kill was easier for me, and it was kinder to the animal.

He finally gave me the angle I was looking for, turning fully perpendicular to me as he dipped his head down to the water's edge. I drew in a slow, deep breath as I pulled the string back to full draw and prepared to loose the shot.

Then, quicker than I could blink or react, a blur of motion erupted from my peripherals. It flew from directly behind the deer, following the trail he'd left. The buck whipped its head up at the sound of crashing branches, but hesitated for just an instant before leaping into the lake.

That moment of hesitation was all it took, and the attacker was on him even as I released my arrow.

It was hard to see exactly what happened. One moment, the lakeside was silent save for the occasional call from an early-rising nightbird. Then a long, sinuous form was on the buck, the force of its strike carrying both of the creatures forward to crash into the cattails that grew in the shallow water.

My arrow skimmed through the air where the buck's chest had been half a second before, landing instead in the back of his hind leg. A wasted shot, thanks to the attacking snake's interference.

And a snake is exactly what the newcomer was. I'd seen the telltale trails, the undulating lines in the thick soil and the scales left behind on wide tree limbs. Obviously, some very large snakes made their homes deep in these woods, but I'd been hoping I would manage to avoid them. Just my luck that one would show up exactly in time to poach my kill.

There was a massive splash of water as the deer went down, head over front legs like some bizarre parody of a somersault, and the serpent immediately pressed forward to wrap a coil around the poor creature's chest. The snake's hide was a shimmering golden green colour, marked with a pattern of overlapping black diamonds that shifted slightly as it tightened around its poor victim.

The deer struggled most of the way to his feet again for a moment, fighting desperately to break his captor's hold. He turned just enough to show me the other half of the attacker, and my jaw dropped.

I had been half-right about calling it a serpent, because she definitely had a long, serpentine tail. And I could tell she was definitely a "she", because her upper body was that of a human woman... and completely unclothed.

The deer tried in vain to shake her off, but the snakewoman's tail flicked around again to loop over his backside, cutting his range of motion to almost nothing. She grabbed onto the deer's antlers with two altogether very human-looking hands-- if you overlooked the scales and the claw-like fingers-- and strained against him to keep the sharp points away from her flesh as she crushed the life from him.

I could only assume that she was no more resistant to the damage a scared buck could inflict with his antlers, since her skin was completely devoid of scales from about the waist up, minus the smaller ones covering her hands up to about midway up each forearm.

Wait, did a snake have a waist? She probably didn't have hips, since she had no legs, but the thick width of her tailed lower half clearly narrowed a bit as it transitioned into a human woman's midsection. A very slim, toned midsection, at that.

Maybe I should have been more focused on questions like "What the hell is that?" and "Can I hide from her, or should I try running?", but all my focus was on that space where thick snake scales gave way to soft human skin in a lovely tan colour. She flexed her abdomen as she squeezed down with her coils, the muscles visibly tightening under her skin. Her arms swelled slightly under the stain as she twisted the deer's head until his neck was bared. Then she leaned her upper body backwards for a moment, the motion making her large breasts sway slightly on her chest.

And gods be praised, did she ever have a nice pair of breasts. Large, round, and perky, like two small melons jiggling lightly in the last light of the evening. And her face... she had the face of a beautiful woman, with plush lips and a strong chin. Wide, yellow eyes, slitted like a serpent's, gleamed in the dim light. Dark brown, shoulder-length hair was pulled back from her face with a thick braided cord, so it wouldn't get in the way as she opened her mouth wide. Wider. Wider.

A pair of long, wicked fangs folded out on internal hinges as she lunged face-first towards her prey's neck. She bit in deep, sharp teeth piercing the deer's thick hide and earning a strangled cry from her victim. She released his antlers to hold his neck instead, like a woman cradling her lover as she kissed behind his jaw.

Whatever venom the human-snake hybrid injected into the deer's bloodstream worked quickly, shooting through her quarry as his heart pounded in terror. He twitched and jerked, trying to kick his way free, but she only tightened her grip with both hands and serpentine tail.

The deer's motions slowed and grew weak as she squeezed the breath from him with the thickly-muscled coils wrapped around the animal's chest and middle. Finally, it stopped moving entirely, but she held on for a few minutes more, pulling more of her length around the poor buck. It was hard to tell from where I was crouched, but her tailed section must have been fifteen feet long from waist to tip, if not more.

As she shifted and relaxed her grip on the deer, I got another glimpse of her human half. Her upper body was probably four feet long... or perhaps "tall" would have been more accurate? If she'd been a human woman with that upper body and proportionally-sized legs, she would have easily been seven feet tall or more.

She released the dead animal entirely, pulling the first third of her tail around as she slithered forward. Her coils slowly unwound from the animal and piled under her, all without her upper body moving other than a slow sway from side-to-side. Once the last bit of her tail slid from the deer's side to and was sticking out from under her, she paused to inspect her kill. Her broad features bunched up in a frown as her slitted, snakelike eyes narrowed on the arrow protruding from the deer's hind leg.

Oh shit.

She lifted her head to survey her surroundings, looking for the source of the arrow.

The bush that had made invisible to a colour-blind deer apparently did nothing to hide me from the serpentine creature. She fixed her gaze directly on mine, and I felt muscles that had been tensed for a sprint suddenly freeze up.

Oh shit.

She glanced down at the arrow again, then ripped it out of the deers hindquarters in a lightning-quick movement. Then the snakewoman held the bloodied arrow out towards me, looking completely casual instead of displaying the aggression I'd been afraid of seeing. Her body language read "Was this yours? Do you want it back?" as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud.

I couldn't get a great read on her emotional state-- and frankly I was far too distracted by the way her full breasts swayed enticingly as she undulated slowly on the spot-- but she honestly looked more embarrassed than anything else.

"Um," I stammered as I stepped out of my hiding place. It's not like it was doing me any good, anyway. "Yes, thank you."

The serpentine woman held the arrow out a bit further in clear offer, and I approached cautiously. Part of me quailed at the idea of willingly walking closer to this monstrosity that had just killed an adult deer with nothing but the strength of her body, but what reason would she have to harm me? She already had a large carcass to eat, and a used arrow would be a pretty stupid piece of bait.

Plus, if I was being fully honest with myself, I really wanted to get a closer look at her. I'd never seen a creature like her before: a hybrid of mammal and reptile, fused at the waist like a centaur or mermaid. Not to mention the fact that her human half was so damned sexy.

I took the arrow from her hand with deliberate slowness, trying to both avoid startling her, while also trying not to appear frightened or weak. It seemed like she was a predator, and the last thing I wanted to do was give her reason to think of me as prey.

She swept her other hand down and to the side to gesture at the slain deer while making an odd series of hisses and vowel sounds. Evidently she could speak, but I had no idea what the hell she was saying.

"The deer?" I asked, and she just stared at me blankly and tilted her head like a confused dog. "Something about the deer?"

Obviously she didn't speak my language, and my words meant nothing to her. She flapped her hand vaguely towards the dear and spoke in her weird hissing tongue again.

"It's your deer," I insisted. While she obviously couldn't understand what I was saying, I hoped that she might at least pick up on my general intention. "You killed it, and I'm not going to fight you for it. You go ahead and take the deer."

She frowned at me, a line on forehead briefly marring her beautiful face. She gestured at the deer with both hands, then mimicked a chopping motion down the middle of it before gripping at the air above it and pulling her hands apart, like she was physically tearing the deer in half. Then she pointed at the back end of the deer, and pointed at me.

"You want to split the deer?" She looked at me blankly, and I sighed in frustration. Figuring it was time to try a new tact, I stepped up beside the deer and repeated her chopping motion. I mimed splitting it in half by pressing my hands together, then opening them and spreading them apart with a sweeping gesture. One half would go, so I pointed at the front half of the deer and then at her. Finally, I pointed at the back half of the kill, then at myself.

The snakewoman's mouth suddenly split to show off the base of those deadly fangs. My heart lurched up into my throat as I staggered backwards, flinching back from the apparent threat, before realising that she was just smiling. She had obviously been pleased by my understanding of her meaning, but now she just looked amused at my overreaction.

"Right, okay." I pulled my cap off long enough to rub at the back of my head before pressing it back into place. "Splitting it sounds fair to me."

She bent over at the waist-- tail?-- and grabbed hold of the deer. This time I wasn't frightened by the sudden movement... but maybe that had to do with the way her breasts hung down in plain view as she bent over in front of me. Then, in a casual show of strength, she hefted the carcass up and slung it over her naked shoulder. The only sign that the action took any effort was the bunching of muscles from her arms to her abdomen. Then she gave me a beckoning wave that obviously meant "Come this way," before turning and slithering into the brush.

Curiosity and self-preservation warred in my head as I watched her go. There was no way that half a carcass was worth the danger of following an unknown monster to her lair. On the other hand, if she'd wanted to kill me, she could have done it as soon as I was in arm's reach. Based on her performance with the deer, she probably wouldn't have even broken a sweat doing it.

Somehow, that thought didn't do much to comfort me.

But I'd spent all day tracking that deer, and I didn't want to go home empty-handed. And how often do you get a chance to make contact with a rare or even undiscovered race?

Mind made up, I hurried to catch up to her, trailing a few feet back from the tip of her tail. The way she moved was bizarre to watch, and looked wholly inhuman. Her tailed section, which I now figured was probably closer to eighteen or twenty feet long, undulated and slithered in an "S" motion to propel her forward. All the while, her top portion stayed upright a few feet off from the ground. I had to forcefully stop myself from gazing at her back so I could focus on not tripping as I walked.

We didn't have far to go, which was a relief as I stumbled along almost blindly. I saw her lair from some distance off, the light from a fire spilling out through a fissure in a stone face. Once we were close enough, I could make out that the crack was actually the entrance to some deeper cave.

She carried the corpse to a thick tree growing near the entrance to her home, and pulled some ropes or vines down from a branch to tie around the deer's legs. She pulled on the other end of the ropes until the deer was hanging a ways off from the ground, then tied the ropes off. Then, in a fast motion, she sliced through flesh and tendons with her claws, separating a long section from the rest of the body. With another cheerful smile and an inviting wave, she turned and slithered into her home. The pleasantness of her expression was slightly marred by the spray of gore coating her hands and wrists.

After only a second of hesitation, I hurried in after her. The doorway was taller than it was wide, and I had to turn my shoulders slightly to get in. It was probably a perfect width for a snake-lady to slither through.

Inside, the cave was... actually pretty homey. One side of the cave was dominated by a small pool of water, which was fed by a small stream of water that trickled out of a crack in the wall. A slight depression in the center of the space held a fire pit, where she was actively feeding logs into the small flame to coax it higher. There were a pair of crossed sticks on either side of the pit that held up a long spit, which she slid the meat onto before setting it over the fire. Above us, a fissure in the ceiling served as a natural chimney to keep the smoke from piling up. Had she lucked out in finding this place, or had she used tools to make some of those openings herself?

Most interesting was the furs beside the pool of water. There was a pile of them, maybe half a dozen, laid out one on top of the other, on top of a roughly circular frame of sticks and grass. As far as beds went, it actually looked pretty comfortable.

She spoke again and waved an arm to encompass the space. I didn't understand her words, but I got the idea that they translated roughly to "Welcome to my home".

"It's beautiful," I told her earnestly. She must have understood my meaning from the tone of my voice, since she flashed me another of those smiles.

With the meat set up to roast slowly, the snakewoman busied herself with washing her hands in the small pool of water. Then, to my surprise, she gathered water in her hands and washed her face, too. There was something striking about seeing such a human behaviour in something so clearly inhuman.

Apparently content with her grooming, she scooped up a small wooden bowl from nearby and held it against the wall to fill with the falling water. She took a long sip from the water bowl, then offered it to me.

I carefully kept from staring at her exposed tits as I took the bowl from her hands and took a sip.

"Damn, that's colder than the ninth circle of hell." The underground stream coming out through her wall must have been fed from a glacier somewhere far off, because the water was so cold it was nearly solid. Still, after a long day in the warm afternoon sun, the chilly water was incredibly refreshing. I took another long swallow before handing it back.

My hostess glanced at the meat and obviously came to the conclusion that we would be waiting a while, since she turned from it to undulate her way over to her bed of hides. As she settled onto a narrow pile of coils on the bedding, I had a moment of thankfulness that she seemed to be planning on leaving the meat to cook through before eating, and that she wasn't about to try and serve me half-raw venison.

She gave a sweeping gesture towards a nearby rocky outcropping that I hadn't particularly noticed. It would have been an awkward shape for someone as long as her, but to me it looked like a decent size and height to serve as a chair. I shucked off my leather coat and folded it into a makeshift cushion, then sat where she'd offered.

"So, how about that weather?" I offered the conversation starter jokingly, and laughed a bit when I saw the confused look on her face and that telltale head-tilt. It really was a cute gesture to see on a human face. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

She stared directly at me, those golden, slitted eyes boring into my skull for so long that I started to feel a bit uncomfortable, before finally speaking. She lifted a hand to her chest, placing it just above and right between her breasts, and hissed out a word that might have been "Castessia". Of course, her forked, snake-like tongue stretched the S sound into something more like "Cassstessssia".

Her hand was lithe and slender, but unmistakably strong. And those claws at the end of her long fingers guaranteed I wouldn't mistakenly think of her as delicate. I tried really hard to focus on her hand, not on the swells of her large breasts that started just a few inches beneath her wrist.

"Castessia," she repeated, tapping the center of her sternum for emphasis.

"Is that your name, or the name of your species?" The question was mostly for my own benefit, since she obviously couldn't understand my words.

Struck with inspiration, I snatched up a small twig from the pile of firewood near the cooking pit. The snakewoman watched with evident curiosity as I strode back to my seat next to her, and used the stick to scratch in the thin layer of sand covering the floor. I drew a simplistic stick figure of a human, then tapped it with the stick. "Human," I told her, before bringing the stick to point at my chest. "Jason."

I repeated the gesture and the words, and she grinned widely at me. I really hoped she was showing excitement, and not considering whether I would make a good appetizer before dinner.