Rin

 

 

 

Before I can make a run for it half a dozen humanoid men in masks surround me. They are yelling and hollering in a language I’ve never heard before, their large oil-slicked bodies riddled with strange tattoos and markings. The masks are terrifying—horns jut from the sides and they’re covered in some sort of strange reptilian scales. The masks make them look like men with the heads of lizards. The eyes of the lizard masks are made with glowing red jewels. They remind me of some of the hieroglyphics I saw in Egypt—the half-man, half crocodile depictions.

I’ve dropped to my knees, completely defenseless, praying that they don’t stab me with their long black-tipped spears. I’m so afraid I can’t even speak. My head is on a swivel as I look for an escape route, but it’s pointless. There’s nowhere left to go. Tears run down my cheeks as I look up from the ground with frightened, pleading eyes.

The next thing I know one of them reaches toward me, wrapping his huge muscular arm around my waist and tossing me over his shoulder. I struggle, kicking and thrashing, trying to make him drop me, but it’s no use. The man is too strong.

Branches smack me in the legs and ass as they carry me off through the jungle. They move fast, shooting through the brush like expert trackers. I yelp and scream, hoping my friends will hear me and come looking for me, but deep down I know there’s nothing they could do. Still I scream my lungs out, hoping for a miracle. Apparently I’m pissing them off, because a second later I feel a sharp prick against my thigh and the world goes completely black.

 

*

 

It’s nighttime when I finally come to. The stars flicker overhead like diamonds. The two great crescent moons glow brightly against the deep black of the night sky. I blink my eyes several times, feeling groggy from whatever it was they stuck me with. That was the second time I’ve blacked out in one evening, and I really hope it’s the last, because my brain can’t take much more of this.

I take a deep breath and tug at my arms, trying to lift myself off my back for a better view of my surroundings, but my arms and legs won’t budge. Am I paralyzed? Did those guys cut off my limbs and lay me out here to feast upon? I’m about to go into a full-blown panic attack, yanking and jerking at my arms and legs, but then I notice the carved stones in my peripheral.

They are shaped like the heads of dragons and decorate the perimeter of this platform I’m on. My eyes dart around some more and it dawns on me that I’m tied to a large stone slab on the top of a giant pyramid. And judging by the coolness of the stone against my backside, I’m completely naked.

The ropes around my wrists and ankles are not letting up, despite my struggling. I lift my chin to see what’s going on around me, and that’s when I notice a man standing between my legs. He looks just like the guys I saw earlier—lizard-beast mask and all—only he, like me, is completely naked. And unlike me, he is incredibly aroused.

For a while I try to reason with myself. This is just some sort of drug-induced hallucination. Or maybe it’s a dream. I’ve experienced a lot of trauma in the last few hours and this is my brain’s way of coping. It’s put me into some sort of Mayan-temple sacrifice dream-state due to stress, and any moment now I’ll snap out of it. I take several deep breaths, letting my heart rate slow and the trembling of my body dissipate. Okay, this seems to be working. Think happy thoughts, be in happy places.

I picture my childhood bedroom and my mom leaning over me, giving me a big kiss before tucking me in for the night. I imagine the day I graduated high school, and then the afternoon I got my acceptance letter to the university. I think about my first boyfriend and our first sexual experience together. Actually, scrap that memory. That was anything but calming. I’m going through the scenarios in my mind, but then I feel the man place his hands on the insides of my thighs and spread my legs apart. I’m wide open, baring my most intimate parts to this lizard-alien stranger.

So much for inner peace…

Behind us a crowd roars, and when I tilt my head back to see what’s going on, I nearly feint from shock. Not only am I splayed out on the top of some sort of Mayan-temple lookalike, but down the steps below us several hundred of these alien men have gathered. They are all watching me with eager eyes. The man between my legs holds up a pot and begins pouring oil onto my skin, rubbing it in to my thighs with his big hands. My heart nearly stops as I look down my chest and see his huge cock for the first time, rigid and pulsing with desire.

“No no no,” I try to explain. “That’s not a good idea. I’m actually taking penicillin for some pretty nasty stuff going on down there. Wouldn’t want to spread it.” I lie, trying anything to stop this from happening. “Unless this is some sort of exotic spa treatment, in which case I could use a little more privacy.” My voice is shaking but I’m a nervous talker and I can’t help myself. And right now, I’m definitely beyond nervous. Of course he has no idea what I’m saying and ignores me anyway.

A whole chorus of drums begins to beat around us, tribal and rhythmic. The sounds echo into the night like Zulu drums from the days of old. Another man in a mask, this one older and wearing more ornate clothing, walks up beside me. He starts chanting words as the crowds below dance to the rhythm of the drums. His voice is ominous, and whatever he’s saying, I get a sense it doesn’t have a happy ending for me. Everything around me—the flames of the torches, the rhythm of the drums, the chanting of this guy’s voice—is growing more intense with each passing second. I feel a pair of hands slide up the inside of my thighs again, moving toward my center.

The drums are really pounding now, matching the rhythm of my heart. I’ve almost given up, realizing there’s nothing I can do against such overwhelming odds. I turn my head to the sky, staring up at the crescent moons, hoping to just make it through this. Maybe they’ll let me go back to my friends once this ritual is finished. I begin to close my eyes, searching again for a happy place to go, when a large black shadow shoots across the crescent moons, completely blacking them out for a split second. It swoops by in a flash, zipping past a tall pillar lined with torches and disappearing behind the stone carvings surrounding the temple platform. I jerk my head side to side, trying to see what the hell it was.

It takes just a second for the drums to stop and the crowd to react. At first they are silent, but then there is shouting and screaming as people start running for cover. The man who was chanting is already gone, having run off as soon as the thing appeared in the sky. The man between my legs has backed away and picked up a sword. He looks up frantically, sword at the ready. The image of the creature flashes through my mind again: thick black wings, a long curving body. I can’t be sure, but I swear it looked down on me as it passed. Two red eyes that burn like suns. I swallow hard remembering that fierce, fiery glance. Whatever it was, I hope I’m not on this table as an offering.

An earth-shaking roar erupts from nearby. Behind me something big and heavy thuds down onto the roof of the temple. The entire structure trembles under its impact. I hear chunks of rock clattering as they break away. The naked man with the sword yells and then cuts the ropes from my hands and ankles, pulling me onto my feet. He spins me around and presses me into his naked body, his sword moving to my throat. His hardness presses into my back and I squirm against him, trying to break free of his monster grasp. As I’m spun around I see what has frightened off the natives, and I scream louder and harder that I’ve ever screamed before.

There again are the massive scaled wings. They flutter one last time before folding into a huge golden body. Claws and scales glitter in the torchlight like I’ve never seen before, exuding an almost mystical aura. Power and strength emanate from the bulging muscular contours of the beast’s giant serpentine body. I trace my gaze from its sharp talons to its spikey tail, from its glimmering fangs to the horns on its head. There again are those eyes, raging like forest fires, hypnotizing in their intensity.

I gasp.

A dragon.